#don’t ask why ivy doesn’t have arms it’s a long story basically she

[lushloooser]

it’s 2:41 in the morning, you’re working the register of a Gotham City bodega when you see these three mentally disturbed lesbians patiently waiting in line, WYD?

Commission of my depictions of the Sirens by @frijolbean!!! their art is so rad and they are so rad, and I’m not gonna be normal about this for like at least a month 🫨😵‍💫😭💝🤪🤪🤪

you can read about them here:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32299885

[inkandpen22]

Permanent Chaos (4/?)

Pairing: MGK x Female!Reader

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: mild swearing

Part Summary: While Y/N is out shopping with Cara, news breaks that ties her with MGK. 

Masterlist

Masterlist

Two days later...

Cara and I go out shopping and have lunch for a girl’s day. I have yet to talk about the other night with Sam. Cara hasn’t mentioned it and I have no plans to either. Cameras have followed us up and down Rodeo Drive. By this point, Cara and I are both used to it. Carrying my bags however, I doubt I look graceful for these videos their taking. Oh well, they have fifteen thousand more of me.

“CARA! EXCITED TO WALK IN THE CHANEL FASHION SHOW?”

Cara ignores the paparazzi and points out a dress in the window at Dolce and Gabbana. I request to go inside to try it on. I’m not sure where I’d wear it to, but that doesn’t really matter.

“Welcome ladies!” A woman in a black dress approaches. “Can I help you find anything in particular?”

I point over to the dress in the window, “could I see that in a size six please?”

She leaves us to go find the dress for me and we roam around a small section while she does. My phone rings and I see Nicole’s name pop up. My heart immediately begins to race. She doesn’t call me unless absolutely necessary, usually we text. I step away toward the corner to be discreet.

I answer the call hesitantly. “Nicole? What’s up?”

“I got a call from Stephanie,” she sounds agitated on the other end.

Stephanie is my publicist, she handles everything that Nicole can’t basically. They bicker a lot since they’re both so headstrong and constantly need control. It’s the classic good cop/bad cop scenario, yet I don’t know who’s who. These two cover every aspect of my career, God bless them.

“Oh no, sounds bad,” I grumble anxiously.

“Depends how you look at it,” she lightens her tone.

“What is it?” I press.

“Well…” she hesitates.

“Nicole!” I drag out her name.

“It’s all over social media, magazines and it will be on TMZ tonight,” she stammers. “I’m surprised you haven’t already heard if I’m being honest-”

“Nicole! What?” I rush her.

“An article about you and Colson Baker just dropped on some gossip sight,” she explains. “It says that you and Colson Baker are dating. Stephanie and I figured no one would believe it but it’s everywhere! They have videos and photos of you two leaving The Ivy plus talking by Sam’s car. If I didn’t know you, I would be convinced.”

My head hangs low as I rub my forehead, letting out a deep sigh. “Oh dear God.”

“We can handle it, don’t worry!” Nicole assures. “This story will be gone soon!”

“I need to go, talk to you later!” I hang up on Nicole right when the woman shows me the dress.

“I’ll take it” I attempt to hurry up the process.

Cara comes up next to me “don’t you think you should try it on first?”

“I’ll explain later but we need to go” I whisper to her and just like that, she’s hurry the woman along at the register.

I have the dress and exit the store in a rush. I must act cool, the paparazzi will take notice of my mood change.

“HOW’S COLSON, Y/N?”

“SEEING HIM TONIGHT?”

“HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN DATING?”

“HOW ARE GONNA HANDEL HIS FANS?”

“HAS HE MET THE FAMILY YET?”

“What’s going on?” Cara asks concerned.

“I’ll explain once we’re somewhere private,” I whisper so the cameras don’t pick up on it.

We speed walk to the car and I offer to drive since I made us cut the day short. Once we’re on the highway towards home Cara asks what the heck is going on.

“Why did they keep asking about Colson?”

I turn on the radio and Elvis Duran, along with his team, are discussing no other than me and Colson.

Danielle summarizes the article for the listeners. “The article says they’ve been dating for the past few months. They’re very happy but the relationship is still new. The pair has not yet met each other’s families but Colson is going on tour soon so maybe Y/N will join him and eventually meet the family. Throughout, there are tons of photos of the cute young couple leaving The Ivy Wednesday night. There’s even a link to a video showing them, what appears to be, having a deep conversation by Sam Merka’s car. If you watch the video, the two are clearly looking at each other very lovingly. I mean, he’s looking at her the way I look at a fresh pizza!”

The rest of the cast laughs and I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Actually, scratch that, I can believe it. I’m just pissed.

“If MGK and Y/N are officially an item, why did she leave with Sam Merka?” Elvis questions.

“I’m glad you asked! According to sources, they’ve been very close friends since the start of TSL. In fact, the duo have taken many vacations together along with their co-star Penelope Glass.”

Cara turns down the volume and looks to me with a steady expression. “Is it true?”

I narrow my gaze at her in bewilderment. “What? No! There’s no way in hell!”

“Okay, just checking,” she lets out a sigh of relief.

“Never ever!” I add and change the station.

Colson Baker is everything I despise in a person. I’ve never hated someone so fast as I’ve hated him. Us together as a couple is impossible. It’s completely irrational.

_________________________________________________________

Later in the afternoon, Stephanie sets up a meeting for us to meet with Colson and his publicist. I had to drag myself to her office. My Fridays aren’t well spent in an office building with enemies. In fact, my whole day could be tarnished by this incident. The meeting room we’re all ushered into is freezing and I’m still in my sundress from earlier. Cara and I were never able to get lunch so I’m starving on top of being cold. The photos of us play in a slideshow on the meeting room’s tv. An endless cycle of false advertisement is how I see the photos. The media is selling us as something completely far from the truth. On top of everything, I’m in a meeting with the one guy in all of Los Angeles I can’t stand. Death would be less painful than the current situation. I tune out the debate between Stephanie and Colson’s publicist. He told me his name but my brain is so numb from the temperature in here I can’t recall it.

“Y/N!” Stephanie calls my name and I search for her around the room until I find her in the doorway with Colson’s publicist.

“We’re going to go make a few phone calls. You two will stay here while we handle the press.” I nod “sounds good.”

I send her a weak smile to charm her out of an apology for zoning out. She huffs and escorts Colson’s guy to her office so they can talk on speaker privately. I stand up from my office chair and stroll over to the windows overlooking the courtyard. I watch the cars zoom by on the street and businessmen and women shuffle in and out of the Starbucks below.

“If it means anything, I’m sorry,” Colson says quietly behind me.

I nearly miss it, he speaks so quietly. I lean against the wall, crossing my arms as I face him.

“You’re sorry?” I shrug, not really seeing his blame. “Why? It’s not your doing.”

I return my gaze to the chaos below us. I watch as people with office jobs travel about. I wonder if they’ve heard of me? I wonder if they like me or think I’m a stuck up actress? I shouldn’t care what people think, but it’s easier said than done. When millions watch TSL every week, it’s hard to ignore the wondering.

“If I hadn’t walked you to the car none of this would be happening,” Colson reasons guiltily.

I shake my head, finding humor in the situation now. The paparazzi can make nothing into a months long romance. A brief conversation outside a restaurant and suddenly we’re meeting each other’s families.

“We were only walking to a car. How could either of us have predicted the amount of attention that would come of us walking?” I justify, not to ease his mind, but my own.

My flicker over to the tv, I examine the slideshow of us. Examining the photos I realize it wasn’t all in my head, the way in which Colson was gazing at me is a tad bit gawk-like. Images of us walking to the car while I’m answering the paparazzi’s questions depict Colson glancing at me with what seems to be such admiration. A picture of when Cara calls for Colson comes up and I’m stunned by how we look. Even I appear to be in awe of him in return. It’s evident Cara is speaking yet neither of us react. We were so caught up within on another.

“I have one question!” I blurt out suddenly with my arms crossed I walk back over to the table. Just one and then I wish to put all of today’s events to rest.” Colson perks up and hums for me to continue. I point over to the photos on the screen “why did you look at me the way you did?”

Turning his head, he reviews the photos blankly and I wait anxiously for some sort of reason. “I’m not looking at you in any particular way,” he disregards my accusations.

I chuckle, amused by his horrible way of lying. “Lies!”

He’s thrown off by my reaction and I storm over to the TV screen to point it out to him.

“It’s clear as day to the press, the public and now me included. You’re clearly lost in some kind of thought! You were there, so was I and our friends! Say all the lies you want but you’ll never convince anyone.”

His jaw clenches and he avoids my gaze. He leans back in his chair, staring out the windows. “Colson,” I sigh, slowly approaching the table. “Maybe the truth could help the lies disappear! If we’re honest then maybe the press will leave us alone!”

He shakes his head low, letting out a brief laugh. “I highly doubt that.”

I have a thousand questions but I’m aware none will go answered. He’s a lost cause. I’m in this alone I guess. Turning my back to him I return to my position by the window. Observing the worker bees swarming around the spaces below. The sound of Colson’s chair rolling back comes from behind me but I don’t even shift. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his figure in the reflection of the window beside me. My attention remains outside. He won’t give me the time of day so why should I treat him any better?

“You wanna know why I looked at you the way I did?” His presence hovers of me and he feels like a wall surrounding me.

“Please,” I mutter a subtle beg.

 “I... I had this imagine of you in my head, pre-judgements. You’re supposed to be America’s Sweetheart, Little Miss Perfect! You told me you had been working for this for years, had drive and trails.” He confesses. “You’re not what I expected... It caught me by surprise is all.” 

My eyebrows furrow close, “So you thought I was just some pretty face, goody-two-shoes, ditz? If it’s because my image, my past, you said so yourself it doesn’t matter!” 

“No, no, that’s not it!” he runs his hand through his hair nervously.

Narrowing my eyes, I press further. “Why then?”

The door swings open and I straighten up before forcing a warm smile to my face. I step back from Colson before the person ever appears in the doorframe. One of Stephanie employees informs us that we’re free to go. Steph doesn’t want to keep me here all day and since I’m allowed to go Colson’s publicist is releasing him. I clasp my hand together, walking over to fetch my purse.

“Thank you so much!” I gush. “Have a good day and please tell Stephanie “thank you!””

The young intern eats up my pleasant expressions. “You too Miss Voss! Will do!”

The young woman shuts the door behind her and I return to the state I was in. Expressionless, I gather my belongings and Colson does the same. Checking my phone for any missed emails or calls I can tell he’s staring me down.

“Does it ever get tiring?” His tone is light, but I can hear the ounce of mockery beneath the surface.

My attention is locked on my phone as text after text pops up from Penelope. She’s more likely than not has seen all the articles and Twitter posts. I should call her and explain.

“Y/N!” Colson shout pulls my from my thoughts.

“Huh? Does it ever get tiring?” I restate his question back to him. “What exactly are we talking about?”

I slide my purse over my shoulder while stepping over to the door, leaving Colson behind. That is until he follows me.

“Your whole act.” He forces a fake smile and tosses imaginary hair over his shoulder. “The “happy go-lucky goody goody All-American girl?””

I scoff, eyeing him up and down. “You’re ridiculous. It’s not an act.”

I swing open the meeting room door, eager to leave here. My heels clink against the white shiny tiles on my walk to the elevators. After hitting the down button, I call up Blake now that I have some time to kill. She’s my oldest friend, I’m sure she sees right through all of the tabloids and is only checking in.

“Calling your boyfriend?” Colson mutters over my shoulder and I quickly move away.

“Don’t have one,” I answer plainly, waiting for Penelope to pick up.

He smirks and props himself up against the wall beside the elevator doors. I side eye him, all he does is smile all the time and he calls me out for acting so happy all the time.

“Can’t you find anyone else to annoy?”

He grins proudly, “sure I could. None would as entertaining as you though.”

“Geez,” I mumble under my breath.

I pace outside the elevators as I wait for one to arrive and for Penelope to answer. Classic of her to text me non-stop but not to answer when I call her back. The elevator doors open and I step inside, ready to get out of here. I hit the ground floor and Colson strolls in lazily not rushed at all. He checks the button and doesn’t add any. The doors shut then silence sits flat in the small space with us. My phone buzzes continuously, I check the name at the top of the screen.

“Frickin’ frackin’!” I clench my teeth together in a growl.

Colson’s eyes widen at my sudden explosion. Closing my eyes, I exhale to calm myself then bring the phone up to my ear. Smiling helps to fake enjoyment when talking to someone on the phone. Sometimes I can fool myself into thinking I’m not miserable during discussions.

“Finn!” I greet. “What’s new?”

My southern accent surfaces. I flip the switch whenever I speak to my family or friends back in South Carolina. I can’t have them thinking I’m not the same Y/N from Charleston. Colson eyes me with his eyebrows raised, surprised by my sudden transition. He makes fun of me in a whisper for my fake enthusiastic voice. I wack him on the arm and it only encourages him more.

“Hi ya Y/N, uh so ya prolly already know butcha face is everywhere along with this MGK fella...” Finn’s voice falters at the end.

I sigh and press my forehead to the wall. Finn asks me if any of what he has read is true and I instantly deny.

My tone goes timid, “who all knows?”

“Just us, Odelle, Greyson and Myself,” he assures.

A sense of relief rushes over me. I turn back around and Colson sends me a sympathetic look, it shocks me. Going from mockery to sympathy from him has my entire mood shifting.

“What ‘bout Momma or Daddy?” I ask, keeping eye contact with Colson.

“Nah, at least I don’t think they do,” Finn guesses. “I’m not entirely sure. Greyson is sayin’ they don’t. He’s the only one that’s home at the moment.”

“Heavens to Betsy,” I exhale deeply, looking up to the heavens. “Let’s hope to the high heavens they don’t. Thank you Finn.”

I go to hang up but he says one last thing. Bringing my phone back up to my ear I reply. “Sorry, missed that.”

My brother becomes stern on the other side, “do you and this guy spend tons of time together?”

I shift uncomfortably, preparing myself for the older brother advice I already see coming. “From time to time but I promise, we’re just friends.”

There’s a pause on his end, an unbearable pause. “I trust you Y/N,” Finn finally speaks. “It’s him I don’t trust. He’s not the best sort of guy. Ya’ll aint right for one another.”

I hope Colson can’t hear any of what Finn is saying. To keep him from becoming suspicious, I keep my replies indifferent. “Sure thing. Uh, talk ya later Finn.”

“Bye, talk to you soon.”

We hang up and I slip my phone into my purse.

Colson leans back onto the railing next to me. “Who was that?”

“My older brother, kinda overbearing,” I laugh nervously then bite my lip. My accent begins to subside again.

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Colson remarks.

A faint smile appears across my lips thinking of my brothers. “I have two actually and an older sister. The order is Finn, Odelle, me then Greyson.”

Colson returns a kind and gentle smile. “That must’ve been nice to grow up with so many siblings.”

“It was.” I nod as memories flash across my mind. “Finn and Odelle were grouped together and so was me and Greyson since our age gaps are less.”

As we pass each level on the elevator there is a “ding.” Facing toward the doors again, I absentmindedly watch the numbers go down as we pass the levels. My mind wanders to the many memories I’ve made with my brothers and sister.

“Finn is about Sam’s age, so he likes to believe he’s almost a co-parent for me and Grey,” I describe with a pleased expression. “He’s the total opposite of Odelle.”

Colson genuinely shows interest, “how is she?”

“She’s a total wild card! We all joke that it’s every other kid. Finn and I are the rule followers. He was student body president, quarterback of the football team and still managed to graduate with honors. I’m nowhere near him on the perfect child spectrum but I’m supposed to be “America’s Sweetheart.” My parents eat that up. Then there’s Odelle, she’s the total opposite of Finn. My parents had to beg her to improve her grades so she could graduate. I remember being twelve, it was the middle of the night when I got up to get a drink. I went downstairs and saw her sneaking out of the backdoor. She made me promise not to tell our parents. I haven’t talked about it until today. There were days she’d fake being sick just to ditch school with her friends. By her senior year nothing had changed. She ended up graduating but my parents forced her to go to a college close to home so they could keep an eye on her. Her antics continued the entire time I was in high school. College for her was a playground. For some reason, I envied her. I still do. I suppose it’s because no one expects anything from her. She messes up, well, that’s Odelle for you. She causes trouble, just another day. For me, my parents have me up on a peddle stool. By the time I turned sixteen people out here started taking notice of me. When I reached seventeen the title of “America’s Sweetheart” popped up and from then on, I was longer a teenager. I had a role to play and an image to uphold. I could never make mistakes like Odelle. I have to be “perfect” constantly. Sometimes I feel like a doll, plastic. None of it is real.”

The bell rings for the floor. I comprehend the words escaping my mouth and snap back to reality. I revealed so much about myself while I was in that daze, private facts about myself that I’ve never spoken of before.

Straightening up and adjust my dress, I apologize. “I’m so sorry. I have no idea what came over me.” The doors slide open and I step out. “Good to see you Colson,” I rush out a farewell before speed walking towards the exit.

I mentally slap myself for all I confessed. If only Nicole found out, my head would be on a stick. My life, my background, every aspect of my being is supposed to be flawless. An All-American girl from South Carolina with a wholesome up brining is who I’m supposed to be. If word gets out that I’m not so perfect then… then I would be finished. My hand digs for my keys in my purse.

“Y/N! Wait up!” Colson jogs up next to me then steps in front of me, blocking my path.

“Colson, please....” I practically plead in a mutter, stepping around him.

He wraps his hand around my wrist, stopping me. “Let me buy you a drink!” 

Workers around us walk around in multiple directions like zombies. I wonder if they’re taking notice. Hesitant, I narrow my gaze at me. The reason we’re in this mess is because we were seen with one another.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I admit and release myself from his grip.

I only make it a few feet before he’s in front of me again.

“Fine, no to a drink! How about we go get some coffee? Or tea? If you prefer tea!”

His chest rises and falls rapidly, his desperation is evident. The reason behind is desperation is still unknown to me, along with the reason he looked at me the way he did last night. Who is this mysterious man who stands before me? So many questions I wish to ask but I can’t get passed his eyes. Puddles of crystal blue settle on a white canvas. Confused beyond belief, for a reason unbeknownst to me, I accept. Could be my curiosity is getting the best of me.

“Coffee it is,” I give in to his request.

He grins ear to ear and steps to the side so we can leave side by side. “Unless of course you prefer we get tea!” he suggests, sounding a tad nervous.

Honestly I like both drinks but I prefer coffee. He holds the door for me and the bright sunlight of California weather strikes me.

“Nah, I normally drink a cold brew with a shot of espresso,” I describe.

He winces and pretends to gag. “Ew! That sounds horrible!”

“It gives you a boost in the morning! Nice and strong!” I laugh.

“You’re nasty!” He waves his hands in disgust.

“Eh, you’ve called me worse,” I laugh, unfazed by his insult.

He chuckles, “you’re not wrong.”

Our laughing dies down a little as we stroll over to the Starbucks. I peer up at him with a side eye. When our eyes meet we begin laughing again uncontrollably.

___________________________________

Masterlist

Tags:  @canyoubuymetoast @bri-3530 @asil1652 @andstilltryingtofindmyself @nadia2021 @olafsidehoe @mgkobsessed @fairywriting101 @ferrell-cat @naylanae-0308 @tonystarkswife10 @alexsa56 @brocksbabyyy @stormrider505 @magnificenthumancopangel @sarcasticfangirlus @lilramencup95beech @missyviolet123 @skeleton-gxrl @glitterybearllamaflap @margaritaville20 @amoresixx @Thysagclub @hockeybabe87​ 

[sunflowergirl522]

Stuck in Westview

Pairing: Peter Maximoff x Reader

Request by Anon: Okay, okay, so I had an idea and idk you'll do it but it's worth a shot. Plant mutation reader x Peter where they both get stuck in Westview? I haven't really thought about it past that, so the rest is up to you!

A/n: The more I wrote this one the less I liked how it was turning out but I didn’t want to leave you hanging so I tried my best. I hope you like it.

Warnings: Language

Word Count: 2689

Masterlist

You didn’t remember much when the two of you first arrived in Westview. But you were with Peter and he seemed to know where he was going so you felt fine about it. You were ecstatic when the two of you walked up to the door and Wanda answered it. You’ve always wanted to meet Peter’s sister and now that you were, you felt like you were in a dream. Actually the whole time you’ve been in Westview has felt like a dream.

“You alright baby?” Peter’s voice breaks you out of whatever trance you were in and you look at him.

“Yeah, I’m good just lost in thought I guess, sorry.”

“You’re fine dear.” Wanda speaks as Peter wraps an arm around your shoulders and Vision comes down with a blanket and some pillows. “I uh, hope the couch will be fine for the two of you. The spare room still isn’t ready; we weren’t exactly expecting company.”

“The couch will be just fine Wanda.”

“Yeah sis, just gives us an excuse to be pressed against each other all night.” Wanda scoffs at Peter before bidding the two of you a goodnight.

“She’s nice.” You tell Peter as the two of you settle down to sleep.

“Yeah. I’m glad the two of you get along.” He yawns and kisses the top of your head as he pulls you into his chest.

In the morning you wake up well before Peter like normal. Though it was more the afternoon than the morning, you may always wake up before your boyfriend but you did end up adopting his poor sleep schedule. You lay next to him relishing in his warmth for a while before getting up and making your way into the kitchen for some cereal. Tommy comes down first and heads to the kitchen before Billy comes down dressed in a costume. 

“Halloween’s a magical holiday. All about family, friends, and the thrill of getting to be someone else for a day.” You think that he’s speaking to you at first but very quickly realize it’s like he’s talking to an imaginary audience. Your eyebrows scrunch together in confusion as you watch him from your spot on the couch at Peter's feet. You shake your head assuming it was just a kid thing and pick up your bowl to put it in the sink. “Where’s your costume Tommy?” 

“This is my costume. I’m the cool twin.”

“Then what does that make me?”

“Hmm, a dorkasaurus rex.” You hold in the chuckle that wants to escape as the joke seems to fly over Billy’s head as he tells his twin that it's not a real dinosaur. You high five Tommy when Billy leaves the kitchen with a smile before he follows his brother. The two of them bicker about Billy being scared of Peter not realizing that they’ve woken him up. 

“Blood is thicker than water! I show you!” You laugh as you watch Peter chase the kids around from the kitchen doorway. When Wanda comes down the stairs complaining about the noise you walk over to them and take your place next to Peter, who immediately wraps an arm around you bringing you closer to him. 

“I’m a Sokovian fortune teller.”

“Wow. That is so…lame.” You elbow him in the ribs when his statement causes Tommy to change his own from rad to lame. 

“I think you look great! If you didn’t have a husband I’d leave this doof and try getting with the better twin.” Wanda blushes slightly and laughs at your words. 

While Peter and Wanda talk about old Halloween’s you follow the twins to the couch to play video games with them. When Billy starts to talk to the invisible audience once more you look at him confused again before looking to see if Tommy noticed it too but he’s either too focused on the game or doesn’t see anything weird about it. Peter makes his way over eventually chuckling at something that happened. You give him your spot on the floor and sit behind him on the couch. 

“Hey babe you wanna go get 4 sodas from the fridge and we’ll teach these rugrats how to shotgun?” You just shrug and nod before getting up. “Get out of here, get out of here.” Peters trying to slap Tommy’s controller out of his hands to distract him as you juggle the four cans to the couch. You hand them out to the three boys before taking your spot again. Peter makes the holes in the bottom of their cans so they don’t hurt themselves trying and goes to do it for you just to find yours already done. “Alright when I give the signal you bring the hole to your mouth and open the can.” He makes sure they understand before exclaiming a ‘go’. Wanda and Vision soon start to fight and Billy once again speaks to the audience and Peter and you share a look after he scrunches his eyebrows up and looks to see if Tommy’s reacting. 

You must have zoned out after that though because the next thing you know Peters scaring Wanda at the door and Visions gone. When did they talk about shaving cream in water balloons you find yourself wondering as you overhear the conversation. It must’ve just happened when you were in your head again. 

“You don’t even have a costume.” Peter scoffs and then speeds off somewhere with Tommy to return in matching costumes that go with his power perfectly. “If I see any funny business, I am going to magic you into a pickled herring.” 

“Y/n I got you a costume too!” Peter speeds in front of you and drops a bag in your lap.

“What is it?”

“Just go put it on.” He pulls you to your feet and starts to push you towards the stairs. You can’t help but laugh after you get into the bathroom and open the bag up to find a Poison Ivy costume. Once you finish putting it on you notice part of an ivy plant still in the bag with a note from Peter reading ‘To make it more realistic ;)-P’. 

“Are you boys ready?” Wanda’s voice greets your ears as you make your way back downstairs.

“Yeah mom.” The twins speak at the same time and rush up to their mom who places her hands on their shoulders. 

“Pietro, you better not be bringing any shaving cream filled water balloons!” You don’t dwell long on the fact that Wanda’s been calling him Pietro, he’s already told you that when he and his mom moved to the states she had him start going by Peter. And now only his family really calls him Pietro even though they’ve gotten into the habit of using Peter instead.

“I’m not! See empty handed.” The sound of your laughter as Peter appeared in front of the family holding his hands out as proof drew all of their attention to you. “You look great babe. I dig the crown thing you’ve got going on.” You had decided to grow the ivy around your head and then around the rest of your body randomly from there.

“Thanks.” You blush a bit at the attention as you join the four of them in front of the door. 

“Woah aunt Y/n, who are you supposed to be?” Tommy asks as he takes in all the green.

“Have you guys really never seen a Batman show or read the comics? She’s Poison Ivy also known as Mother Nature, it fits Y/n a lot considering her power.”

“Her power?” Wanda asks as Billy asks you what it is.

“I can control plants.” You shrug it off because it’s not a big deal, there were plenty of cooler mutations than yours anyway (even if Peter would yell at you for thinking that).

“That’s so rad!” Peter high fives Tommy in agreement excited that his nephew likes it as much as he does.

“How did you get it?” Before you can tell Wanda that you were born with it, Peter gives her some bogus story that’s really similar to Poison Ivy's origin story. You’re confused because it doesn’t make sense for him to lie about it but you don’t have a chance to correct him before he’s taking your hand and pulling you out of the house to ‘get this party started’.

You watch smiling as Tommy and Billy race from house to house to see who can get the most candy and tune into what Wanda and Peter were talking about in time to hear him say she’s testing him. Why would she be testing him, for what?

“Hey, it’s cool. I know I look different.”

“Why do you...look different?” Look different? You turn to really study and look at Peter to try to see what she means. The only thing that’s different is that his hair is more blonde but that’s about it, it’s not some major change or anything. When the twins come back ready to keep moving down the street Peter brings you into a side hug and places a kiss on your temple before running with them to get more candy. Though you notice that Billy holds onto Tommy and Peter doesn’t even try to hold onto the backs of their necks. What happened to whiplash? 

As everything starts to feel off to you and you try to figure things out your head starts to feel hazy and it’s like your body goes on autopilot as you strike up conversation with Wanda. It’s like an out of body experience as you basically just watch the conversation happen without knowing what’s being said. You feel so lost and empty right in this moment and it only fades a little when Wanda starts to talk to someone else. You don’t fully snap back into it until Peter laces his hand in yours again.

“Pete,” you say to him when Wanda and the kids walk ahead of you, “I feel strange.”

“What kind of strange?” He places a hand on your forehead to check if you’re warm. “You don’t have a fever. Are you queasy? Do you wanna go back to the house?”

“No, it’s not that I feel sick. I just, I don’t know how to explain it. I feel like a prisoner in my own body.”

“I think I know what you mean. It happens very suddenly right? And then something snaps you out of it and you feel better?”

“Yeah that’s it.”

“Uncle P are you coming?” Tommy’s voice pulls the two of your attention to them and Peter plasters a smile on his face.

“Sure am little dude, just had to tell your aunt how hot she looks again!” He pulls you behind him as he catches up with his family. The five of you make your way to the town square scare as it starts to become night.

“It’s so lame that you’re making them return the candy.” Peter says after a moment of silence passes from when Wanda scolded the twins for stealing it in the first place.

“I can’t believe what a bad influence you are?” You start to think about her words, you know it’s been a while since they’ve seen eachother but surely this is what Peter acted like growing up. It’s definitely how he’s acted the whole time you knew him.

“It’s what you wanted isn’t it?”

“What happened to your accent?”

“What happened to yours?” You watch as they seem to have a mini showdown challenging the other. “Details are fuzzy, man. I got shot like a chump on the street for no reason at all and next thing I know I hear you callin me. I knew you needed me.” His words don’t sit well with you, they don’t sound right but something in the back of your head makes you trust them.

“Uncle P, guess what?” The twins run up and semi break the tension in the air with their excitement.

“They’ve got full size candy bars a few blocks up. Can we go Mom?” Tommy then speeds away and comes back with some of the bars in his hand. You and Peter look at eachother shocked and you can see the excitement on his face that his nephew has the same power as him.

“Right on, little dude! Chip off the old Maximoff block. You got super speed!”

“I do?”

“Yeah!” The two of them high five with big excited smiles on their faces and you stand back with an adoring one. Peter may be a bad influence but he’s really just so good with kids. When Tommy starts to speed around whooping in joy you step closer to Peter and wrap your arms around his stomach smiling up at him.

“If you’re gonna break the sound barrier at least take your brother with you.”

“Really?” 

“Yes really. And please just remember-”

“Don’t go past Ellis Avenue. We know mom.” After the twins run off and Wanda yells after them to be careful the three of you continue on your way to the town square where kids are running rampant and hay bales have been set up.

“This is so nice.” You say as you look around.

“Isn’t it?” Wanda responds and smiles over at you.

“Damn it, if Westview, New Jersey isn’t charming as hell.”

“I know that you guys must think that I’ve gone full soccer mom. But it really is nice right?” The three of you sit down on one of the hay bales in the center of town square. You smile and agree with her as Peter brings your legs over one of his and squeezes your thigh.

“I think mom and dad would’ve loved it.” You want to speak up and ask if Wanda knew about Erik but suddenly you couldn’t speak, it was like your lips were being forced closed. You started to feel that sense of being a prisoner again and as if he could sense your panic Peter squeezes your thigh again as he and Wanda talk about the kids in Westview. “I’m impressed seriously, it’s a big upgrade from giving people nightmares and shooting red wiggly woos out of your hand.” Leave it to Peter for being impressed when his family members do something people consider wrong. “I’m not some stranger, and I’m not your husband. You can talk to me, and Y/n too. She’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.”

“I don’t know how I did it. I only remember feeling completely alone. Empty. I just...endless nothingness.” She looks away and sniffles a bit before looking back over and gasping while covering her face.

“Are you okay?” You finally find your lips free in time to worry about Wanda and ask if she’s alright.

“I’m fine.”

“Uh huh.” Peter glances over at you as he hums not believing her.

“Mom!” The twins then rush over with Billy yelling for her over and over again.

“What is it Billy?” 

“I hear dad in my head. He’s in trouble. I don’t understand. What’s happening to me?”

“I think Billy might have powers too.” You whisper to Peter as the two of you get up and walk over to the trio. 

“Where is he? Where’s your dad?”

“Hey, don’t sweat it sis. It’s not like your dead husband can die twice.” Wanda’s quick to force him into the fake graveyard after he speaks.

“Oh my god!” You run over to Peter as Wanda’s attention goes back to her kids.

“God why did I say that?” Peter’s rubbing his head when you make it to him.

“Peter, Peter I think we should go.” You see Wanda getting ready to use her power again before looking back at Peter. “Now!” He grabs onto you and runs back to Wanda’s street. The hold that was in your mind is gone now and you can remember getting pulled into this city before not remembering anything. “Shit, Peter I don’t think we belong here.”

“I think you’re right baby. Let’s find a way out of here.”

Taglist: @amourtentiaa @simpforquicksilver @loveyou3000-mcu @quickparkers @buckysbeloved @elaineygrace @practicallylivesonline @stars-of-clarke​ @b3d0fr0s3s​

[archetypal-archivist]

Xisuma and Evil X- A Hero By Any Other Name

So. This happened. You ever get the urge to write 9000 words of Evil X and Xisuma as brothers that in a Super Hero AU where the government is corrupt and runs all the heroes into the ground in the name of “protecting the most people possible”? With lots of Evil X making poor choices to help out his exhausted hero of a brother? And then have that story end up taking over your life for about a week until you can get it all out? Yeah. Yeah, glad I finally finished this but gosh darn am I double glad that I can move on to other projects.

Also on AO3.

__________

A story in which there are two little boys, a pair of twins by the names of Evil X and Xisuma. Xisuma is good and kind and responsible, everything that his mother ever wanted and more. Evil X was the mistake, the additional child their parents didn't want nor could afford to have. Their parents had run the math, knew the risks, knew that if they penny-pinched enough, they could afford to have the child they always dreamed of. Evil X threw their maths into chaos, and if they wanted one son, they had to take both.

Evil X and Xisuma knew that Evil X was a mistake, that his presence was why their family could never afford to go to the movies, why they couldn't buy school lunches like all the other kids, why their parents were so stressed and tired and cruel. Still, Xisuma was glad that his brother existed, even if it made his parents' lives harder. He wondered if that made him a bad son.

In time, Evil X and Xisuma were left alone by everyone in their lives and until all they had are each other and the void that their parents left them with when they had to look them in the eye and tell them that they couldn't take care of them anymore. Even now Xisuma thinks that the void raised them better than their parents ever did, teaching him and his brother to lie through their teeth, be sneaky, be cruel.

In the orphanage and the many foster homes that followed, Evil X did his best to take care of his twin as a sort of penance for screwing up the life Xisuma could have led. In return, Xisuma lied and lied and lied to the matrons and the well-meaning children about anything and everything he needed to. They don't need anyone but each other. (Truth.) They are happy. He is everything that Evil X needs, Evil X doesn't want a family. Xisuma is enough. (Lie.)

(Gods, don't take his brother away.)

Xisuma grew up with lies on his tongue and smiles in his eyes, warping himself into the golden child, larger than life. Evil X grew up in the shadows with bruised knuckles, a bruised heart, and eventually, scars across his face from a fight gone bloody and wrong. He was protecting Xisuma, the scars were worth it- his brother accepts them with an odd little smile on his face and a shattering in his eyes. It is a moment that stays with them long after.

---

Eventually, foster homes turn into streets and dumpsters, and long nights spent under the covers together are turned into nights spent up in the branches of trees in the park. Xisuma makes friends with the pigeons while Evil X pretends not to like their feathered neighbors. They curl up the same though, bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces high in their bower. Made for each other, quietly shaping themselves around their twin so as to better protect them and shield them from the cold.

Evil X comes home to their tree with stolen sweaters and wilted flowers and popcorn kernels from behind the movie theater so that the birds don't starve. Xisuma meets him with tears of wonder in his eyes and fire dancing on his fingertips.

Xisuma has magic. Evil X tries not to be jealous. As it turns out, he has very little to be jealous of when it's revealed that there are many other people who have magic throughout the city- or rather, "superpowers." It's like something straight out of a comic book, if that comic book resembled something like Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" or the Transformers IDW continuity.

People start dying. A lot of people. Those with powers that make them look monstrous are feared, hated, and eventually outcast. Those with powers that are useful are drafted to fight wars and heal people for hours and hours with no rest in the hospitals. Xisuma sells himself to the city officials behind Evil X's back and in return, he and his brother get a cold glass and steel apartment and food enough that they will never starve again.

Evil X begins to build up muscle, fleshing out and growing tall and strong. He hates it, hates his body, because Xisuma never becomes more than whipcord strength and whispered words- down-turned eyes, up-turned lips. Reassurances that he's happy, really, truly. So obedient, his brother, the ideal filial son to the system that Evil X could never bring himself to be. They train the civilian out of his twin and mold him into a leader, a real proper superhero.

They don't give his brother lunch breaks. They need his power too badly, they say. There are people dying and they need his strength.

Gods, it makes him sick.

Xisuma's slight figure hides in his brother's shadow when they are at home, and Evil X does his best to wrap around him until the "monsters" of the world can't get him. Evil X lets Xisuma's flames dance across his fingertips and tickle his face, their gentle warmth driving out some of the chill in their big empty apartment. On truly special days, they go to the park to feed the birds. The higher ups don't like that, of course, insisting that Xisuma under Evil X's care is like using his spark for a kerosene lamp, contained, stifled, unable to help anyone in any way that matters.

The city wants a bonfire. Evil X growls and tells them no, but Xisuma just smiles and his eyes shatter a little more as he goes with them willingly, offering himself up as kindling. His superhero name is Matchstick of all things, and Evil X knows his brother well enough to know that he picked it out himself.

A nod to the fact that he is destroying himself? An inside joke and an apology in one, maybe. It breaks his heart too much to think on it.

---

With time, the rules and roles become a little clearer and the war begins to solidify. Basic rights for those with powers is still in the works, but Xisuma is able to start eating a little more. Evil X makes him protein shakes to take with him to work anyway.

The heroes are this: Matchstick, Reaper, Ivy-Over, Xenon, Spatter, Shank, Krypton, and Trigometric. Xisuma, Cleo, Gemini, Tango, Vintage Beef, Iskall, Impulse, Cubfan.

The villains are this: Armistice, Zyon, Ooze, Clockwork, Poultryman, Valkerie, and Lumesce. (Welsknight, Etho, Jevin, Mumbo, Grian, Stress, Pearl- but our hero doesn't know this yet.)

Evil X sits on their shared bed and holds his twin in his arms, listening to him talk about work with troubled eyes.

Reaper. Cruel, with a tongue like a knife and teeth even sharper. She eats her enemies whole and seems to enjoy the taste of blood. Somewhere in the dark of the building is a man named Joe who whispers comebacks and threats to her for her to use in her next fight. She has not seen him free or unshackled in three years. Around his neck is a metal collar, an irony too bitter for her to speak of often. Xisuma hopes they treat him well.

Ivy-Over, blinded by the glitter and shine of heroism, still firmly thinking the best of her political overlords. Naive. Carefully herded off the battlefields as soon as her fights are over so that she never sees the casualties her massive vines leave in their wake. Xisuma worries that one day the illusion will be broken and with it her mind. She seems like the kind of person who could regress to using entrails as a skipping rope if pushed far enough. Evil X does his best to reassure him, but the lies turn to mulch in his mouth.

Xenon and Krypton, a duo that never let the higher ups split them up or force them to fight alone. Together they share a record for the fewest recorded injuries, as well as a certain fierceness in their eyes as they volley explosive balls of shadow and light between them, bouncing them back and forth to build up velocity before letting them loose on their enemies. Still, the people whisper about how much more help they could do if they were simply separated, able to cover more places at once. At night, Xisuma hears them crying, bundled tight in each other's arms and mourning their missing third.

Shank, their sniper. Supreme accuracy, a consequence of his self-built bionic eye and his special laser rifle. The higher ups are murmuring about what he could do if more of him was bionic. What improvements could be made to his body? How many more lives could be saved? (How many more "monsters" could be put behind bars?)

Splatter, their brawler. A sip of blood and he hulks out, his strength becoming all the greater the more he drinks, so the higher ups give him all the blood he could stomach and more. They never tell him where it comes from, and he's too afraid to ask. (He was a butcher before this whole hero thing, he had explained to Xisuma once. He knows what animal blood tastes like. What they give him is definitely not animal blood- and sometimes, it makes him feel sick. He always was allergic to steroids.)

Trigometric, who bent reality into fractals, who seemed just a bit more broken than the rest. He actually liked his job, and that perhaps made him less of a hero and more of a monster. (Mr. Goodtimes was a head of government of some renown, famous for his power plays and his campaign that favored brutal action against those that the city condemned. Trigometric called him "Scar" with affection on his lips and that was perhaps scariest of all.)

It's terrifying hearing about his twin's coworkers and their varying flavors of unfortunate and unstable, even worse when he has to stay at home and watch the news to see if his brother has survived to see another day against the violent protests and the drug rings and mobs and super villains.

Because there are super villains. He even meets one.

---

The pigeons need feeding. Life or death, whether Xisuma is around to remind him or no, the pigeons need feeding so every Tuesday and Saturday Evil X goes to the park with a bag of bird seed. It just so happens that one sunshine-filled summer day there is someone there before him. Crouched close to a few pigeons, at first he thinks the figure is just dressed in a purple cloak, but when the figure stands up and stretches, the cloak separates to reveal a pair of brilliant purple wings. Poultryman.

Evil X has seen his brother come back from fights and he knows that while Poultryman is a figure of some renown, his battles rarely cause collateral damage- that's more the hallmark of his partner Clockwork. So when Poultryman turns to face him, trademark white mask over his eyes and an odd expression on his face, Evil X just glares and walks up to him to dump the bag of bird seed on the super villain's feet.

"For the birds," he says tersely before spinning on his heel, preparing to walk away. The sound of bright, cheerful laughter has him pausing and the sound of wings meeting the dirt has him turning around. Poultryman is on the ground, rolling around in the bird seed and laughing his head off, clutching his stomach and flapping his wings wildly, which only makes even more of a mess.

"Pffftt- hahaHAhAHaH! Oh gods, your face! If I couldn't tell you were so pissed off to see me I wouldv'e thought this was the greatest prank ever!" Oookay? Evil X crosses his arms, unimpressed and left with a sneaking suspicion he is being made fun of.

"And?" Poultryman lets out a last few wheezing gasps before smoothly rolling to his feet, mask askew and utterly covered in dirt, grass, and bird seed. The local pigeons have, surprisingly enough, not scattered just yet.

"And that was brilliant! Tell me, are you the one who's been feeding the birds around here? The pigeons have been dying to introduce me to their 'friend' and I've been eager to meet them ever since. Well, the word translates more to family but there's some non-pigeon implications mixed in there, so friend works a little better. I don't think my feathered friends have quite yet figured out how to buy their own bird seed. You don't look like a pigeon anyway."

"No. I am not a pigeon," Evil X sighs, shifting his feet but keeping his posture defensive. If he remembers right, Poultryman never did any real damage but he apparently came off to Xisuma as a little unhinged and he'd rather not test the super villain's good mood. "And yes, I feed the birds around here. Can I go?"

Poultryman tilts his head to the side, going abruptly silent and still, all emotion wiped from his body language, expression, and voice. "That depends. Would you like to make Matchstick's life a little easier? I have a deal for you."

---

It goes a little something like this.

Clockwork and Poultryman schedule a raid on a local food processing plant, hoping to take their newest shipment of tin. Matchstick and Splatter are in the area and are called in to help. It's a poor match up to begin with, with Splatter's strength not doing much against Clockwork's robotika and Matchstick- while able to keep up with Poultryman in the air, barely- can't seem to land a solid hit on the villain. It doesn't help that he seems to be limited in how hard he hits, too conscious of what his flames might do to Poultryman's vulnerable feathers and of just how high they are in the air. Clockwork, meanwhile, is free to pilfer what he and his partner please from the plant.

However, despite the lack of damage the super heroes are able to do, the villains do even less. To Evil X, that is all that matters.

In another part of the city, a group of civilians meet in an abandoned railway car, dry docked in a train yard with its rusted frame resting on several heavy blocks of wood. The door is chained shut, but that means little when the underneath has a hole cut into it and if one is determined enough, crawling inside is easy. There, they exchange moth-eaten blankets, half-broken appliances, tattered clothes, and the tools to fix them. Money. Documents.

Evil X brings food. The government promised food unending to him and his brother, he may as well take advantage of it.

A deceptively normal-looking man with glasses and a deactivated metal collar around his neck brings a stack of books in, most of them picture books for the children. Another man, this one with green skin and robotik prosthetics, brings a stack of battered but newly repaired mobile phones, gaze shifting around nervously, as if scared to be caught there. Evil X makes a quiet note of the men but moves on. Theirs is not a story he feels like tampering with today.

When Xisuma comes home to find Evil X laying face-down in bed, fast asleep, he just smiles and tucks himself in beside his twin. Today is the first day in a long time he had come out from a fight unscathed, and tomorrow he will share the good news with his brother. For now, he sleeps.

---

In time, Evil X becomes a staple of the Homeless Enforcing Principles, which quickly gets abbreviated to the rather unimaginative "HEP." He wonders in the back of his mind if a certain man in glasses had something to do with the name, but decides not to bother with that quickly enough. He has enough on his plate as is with his newly adopted duties.

You see, when you get a diverse enough body of people together from all echelons in the city, and then put them into a rather small space, they begin to do what every group of friendly strangers like to do on the train- start complaining. Sometimes it's about the new "neighborhood watch" starting trouble on the corner of 6th and Fruit, sometimes it's about the new increase in taxes their boss wants to implement, sometimes it's about the stock that slips through the gaps when the trucks come to restock the supermarket.

Between him and his twin, Evil X never really was the one for idle chit-chat, but he knew lies just as well as his brother did and public speaking was just lying with a pretty bow on top. Stock begins to get left off of inventory sheets and put into the hands of the needy. The "neighborhood watch" get pointed towards the parts of the city that actually need their help (conveniently drawing the attention of the local law enforcement, who can actually do something about the problem).

He begins to donate more and more food to the cause, waistline thinning in the process. He thinks he likes his figure better that way.

As Evil X puts more time into his new project, crime rates don't exactly go down, but the number of people arrested for stupid reasons certainly does. The other members of HEP begin to bring in their friends and family and the pool of resources and talents grows, expanding outside the walls of their train car and out into people's basements, gas station parking lots, metal trash bin bonfires in the park. Little pools of community, and for Evil X, wellsprings of information.

Clockwork and Poultryman are some of the first actual super villains to come to the meetings, this time under the names of Mumbo Jumbo and Grian, but they are not the last.

---

Armistice arrives hanging off of Lumesce's shoulder one night, his metal body forcing her to drag him along on the ground, shredded legs unable to hold his own weight. She cries steady tears of light, seemingly near-physically pained at being unable to further help him. Evil X watches quietly from the background as Grian looks up and over the bonfire from where he is tending the jagged gash in the unconscious Mumbo's leg.

"Wels. Pearl. Got you too, huh?" The carefully kept-up cheer is gone from the man's face as the duo settle down by the fire, sprawling out in a rough heap.

The woman, Pearl, nods wearily, pulling off her hood and wiping at her face, glowing tears staining her black jacket. "Yeah. Trigometric decided he wanted to come and 'play' for a bit, seems he finally caught on to the illegal clinic I was running down in Mr. TFC's basement. I was lucky enough to get an anonymous tip that he was coming, but Wels got caught in the crossfire for defending me." Grian nods back, eyes distant.

"Give Mumbo a hand with his leg, I'll go grab the last of our tin for Wels to eat so he can patch himself up. E-X?" Evil X straightens up at the winged man's attention. "Call up Keralis and see if you can't get some hew housing sorted for Mr. TFC. I doubt his house survived in the crossfire and you might as well fix it for him with my permission and funds rather than just sort it out behind my back and try to sell it to me as an 'investment' later."  With that parting remark Grian stands up stiffly and flies away, leaving Pearl to make her way over to his partner, healing tears already streaming down her face so that she can start to fix the wound.

On the other side of the fire, Wels reaches down and rubs at the sharp and twisted metal of the remnants of his left leg, expression lost and weary. "Things can't keep going like this, so many of us are running on fumes by this point. Something has to change." Expressionless, Evil X just turns away, pulls out his cellphone, and begins to make a few calls.

He carefully ignores the twisting of his heart in his chest.

The next day, Mr. TFC has a room in a decent hotel and Evil X sits on his perfectly white couch staring at his overly large TV, watching the news. Armistice and Poultryman are fighting against Matchstick and Ivy-Over, dashing in and landing a few hits before retreating to the shadows, then running up to repeat the process again. The fight ends with both sides retreating, the heroes to the hospital, the villains to skies with Poultryman straining to bear both Armistice's weight and the load of cash stolen cash in his arms.

Grian's going to pull a wing muscle again, Evil X just knows it.

Xisuma leaves the fight unscathed. Gemini isn't nearly so lucky.

---

The next super villain he meets is mostly on accident, a random encounter more than anything. Tired of lounging about all day, if you call making connections and surfing the internet doing fuck all, Evil X decides he hates himself a bit more than he usually does and decides to go job hunting. A quick internet search later and he finds himself standing outside an abandoned warehouse on the North docks. He and his brother never had much more than their birth certificates and social security numbers to their name, so shady suited him perfectly fine.

A man steps out from behind a corner dressed in a hospital mask, black pea-coat, and a sailor's breton cap as white as his hair. Evil X freezes, eyes going wide as the familiar-looking stranger goes bug-eyed to see him right back. Then the man shifts his weight to his back foot, crossing his arms and wincing playfully, very real trepidation lurking in his posture.

"Uh, you wouldn't happen to by Matchstick's brother, would you?" Evil X takes a careful step away from the man, who he now recognizes as Zyon from watching the news, one of Xisuma's more common foes. His own research proved that the fellow had ice powers to put an iceberg to shame, which was ironic considering that he was secretly the business mogul Etho, who ran a shipping company helpfully named "Titanic Inc." It was doubly ironic since "Zyon" was notorious for causing problems for "Etho," who then claimed the insurance payouts when the boats eventually sank.

That the boats that sank frequently carried weapons, junk food made with GMO ingredients, and weirdly enough, socks, was of little consequence to him, but he kept that amusing tidbit in his back pocket for later. (The sailors on board were... collateral. And a nonissue. Anyone who signed up on a ship run by "Titanic Inc." deserved what they got.)

(Their deaths were not his concern.)

"Yeah, that's me. And you're Zyon- or rather, Etho." Zyon chuckles nervously.

"Yep yep, that's me. And you're very firmly on the 'no touchie' list around here, so I'm just gonna gooo...." Zyon flinches as Evil X suddenly attaches himself to his wrist, expression steely.

"List?" It's more statement than question, but it has Zyon gulping back a frantic giggle anyway.

"Oh no, I'm not messing with that one. Let's just say you should take that up with your brother and leave it at that. Get too deep into that mess and someone's gonna end up regretting it- and I'm not that dumb, that's for sure!" With that parting remark, Evil X finds his feet frozen to the ground and Zyon running off, dropping the black pea-coat of Etho to reveal the icy blue Kevlar ninja suit of the super villain underneath.

Bemusedly Evil X watches Zyon vault up a stack of pipes onto a nearby roof, then off towards the city where he could better better disappear.

Hmm. Seems like he needs to step up his game.

---

He runs into Ooze at the supermarket. Apparently they both prefer the green grapes to the purple ones. The more you know.

---

It's his encounter with Valkerie that really sets things off.

Xisuma comes home one day, tears streaming down his face and his gloves covered in blood and dust. He crumples in a heap at Evil X's feet where he sits on the couch and drops his face into his twin's lap, trembling. His arms dangle at his sides, blood dripping from his fingers onto the sterile white carpeting.

"Four dead found in a park near here. All teenagers, just having fun. Just. Just fucking kids! She ruptured their ear drums and they bled out because they couldn't move to get to safety. Gods E-X, their eyes... They looked so scared..." Evil X stays quiet and runs his fingers through his brother's hair, heedless of the muck clinging to the ends. Xisuma shakes himself to bits in his hands. "They were just kids. We couldn't do even do anything but clean up the mess afterwards."

Xisuma pauses, hesitant, before choking out- "That could have been us. Had we still been on our own, that could have been us." Ah. So that's it.

"We're safe, you know. Whoever Valkerie is, she won't get us here."

"But we don't know that! What if you're out shopping and she's at the market, or if she gets on the news and her scream works through the TV? What then?! I can't-" The words die in his twin's throat and Evil X gulps back his own.

I can't lose you. It's a phrase that's crossed his own mind more than once.

"Okay. Okay. I'll stay home until she's caught, okay? Get delivery or something, I don't know. And I'll keep the TV off, the radio too. Shhh. Shhhhh. I'll be okay." Xisuma struggles closer, shoving his face into his brother's stomach and getting snot and tears all over the both of them. Evil X doesn't complain. It's a lie and they both know it, but they've lived lies before, are used to it. What's one more, in the face of that?

To be fair, Evil X gives it a few weeks before he makes his move, and he knows he'll be fine so really it's only half a lie anyway.

---

Feet crunch against gravel as Evil X approaches the woman kneeling in the center of the abandoned construction site, hands over her mouth, eyes scrunched, biting the flesh of her thumb to keep her sobs held in.

"Hello Ms. Valkerie. Grian's told me about you."

The woman whips around, eyes wide and bloodshot at his sudden appearance, before she shakily lowers her hands from her mouth to clutch at the fabric of her pink cardigan. "I'm- I'm not some monster, got it? I'm just Stress, j-just- I'm just me! I don't want to hurt anyone!" Her voice goes shrill and thin towards the end and Evil X hides his wince, although apparently not well enough because she immediately slaps a hand over her mouth again, eyes watering anew.

"Okay. It's okay, Stress. I'm here to help," he placates, lowering himself down to sit next to her in the dirt. Around them, rusted I-beams and concrete pillars rise, giving them some semblance of privacy. The full moon lurks overhead, casting them both in a silver glow. "You're life must be very hard, hm?"

Stress nods, expression wary.

"And retail is very- ha- stressful too, I imagine?" Here a little grin leaks out from behind her hand. "All those customers whining on and on about discounts. 'Oh, I have a gift receipt why can't I return this?' Like, lady, you opened this box. 'I'm gonna talk to your manager!' Lady, he's just gonna say the exact same thing."

A stifled giggle and a whispered "Worse! I work in the women's clothing department." Evil X gives a mock gasp, face going wide and shocked.

"So you don't just have to deal with fussy customers- you deal with fussy suburban soccer moms!" Stress tips forward with the force of her muffled laughter, tucking her damp face into the curve of his neck and putting her full weight on him. Hesitantly she clutches the tail of his shirt with her freehand, then a little tighter when he makes no move to shove her off. Evil X just wraps a gentle arm around her shoulders.

"Some of those customers must make you want to go home and just scream, huh." Her laughter tapers off, but she nods, quiet. "So you go somewhere empty and abandoned and scream your heart out so you don't kill someone." Another nod, a little hitch in Stress' breathing. "And you scream and scream, so glad to release some of your pent-up feelings, but oops. It turns out there are people there anyway. And your screaming just killed them. You've become a murderer and the police brands you accordingly."

The hand in his shirt tightens, tugging. "I- I didn't want to hurt them! I didn't want to hurt anyone! But- but it just happened and then I was running, and no one saw me so I had to just go to work the next day, a-and. And-"

"And now you're the wanted super villain Valkerie." His hand smoothes up and down her back as her breath hitches again, once, twice, and then wetness against his neck.

"Valkerie is such a stupid name, anyway. I'm not escorting anyone anywhere, let alone to Valhalla. I just scream and. And they're dead."

Evil X hums quietly. "You must be very tired."

"...Yes. Yes." The moon slips through the sky for a while and they drift with it, lost in thought. Evil X stares up at it, squinting against its light to try and figure out what time it is, if Xisuma is likely to be home yet. The gravel is harsh against his knees.

Then. "Things can't keep going like this. I'm so tired, all the time these days. It's just work, day in and day out, and all this stress." She pulls away then and Evil X watches as Stress scrubs at her face, expression going cold and determined. She stares him straight in the eyes, but something about her still seems lost, like she's gazing through him. "Something has to change or else someone is going to get themselves killed."

He tilts his eyes head, considering, thoughtful, with a well-hidden edge to his voice.

"I think I could help with that."

---

The morning news. Four calls placed, a frantic brother reassured, Stress is sitting a cafe on the corner of Elm and 5th. Her gut flutters with nerves but Evil X can see her expression is calm from her position in the background of the shot. The news anchor is a pretty blond-haired, blue-eyed young woman blathering on about how the cafe apparently is the oldest one in the city and some other historical nonsense. Out of shot of the camera, a desperate, dog-eared petty thief is running for his life down 6th street, the hulking figure of Spatter hot on his heels.

They round a corner, onto 5th. Past the cafe, the startled reporter, the public shrieking as their morning is disrupted. Stress nearly throws up as her heart launches itself into her throat but she's... There's a plan and she's going to stick to it.

So she stands up, small and in the background of the shot, but her bright pink jacket makes her stand out. She opens her mouth, expression going scared like a civilian's, and screams just as she had been told to. It's not for long, barely a second or two all told, but it's enough to have the people near her cringing away, blood trickling from their eyes and from where their fingernails dig into their skin in trying to cover their ears.

Spatter freezes in his tracks, pupils mere pinpricks as the sudden outpouring of blood triggers something deep and wild in him. The camera shakes, the frightened camera man ducking down to avoid notice but carefully recording what's about to happen, as if sensing that whatever happens next is about to be important.

The hero turns towards Stress, eyes wild, and although she's scared out of her mind, she stands her ground. Her voice barely even shakes as she speaks.

"S-stop. Stop running, can't you see you're scaring people? You nearly ran me over!" In the eyes of the camera Stress looks like a frightened civilian gone civil defender in pink, the morning light casting her in gold and the cafe's shadow creeping over Spatter's massive, muscled-out form to cast him in darkness and grey. The lack of harsh lighting makes it even more obvious when he starts sniffing the air, darting eyes pausing on all the bloodied hands and finally resting on the woman who caused the damage.

The world has insisted, long and loud, that he is a hero and with that comes certain ingrained responsibilities. Stress is Valkerie. Splatter fixes his gaze on her and with a snarl, he moves.

The camera catches it in perfect, awful clarity when his arm goes through her stomach and her blood starts pooling on the floor. Her expression is so betrayed.

From his place on his clean, white couch at home, Evil X turns the TV off.

---

Stress is buried with honors and all media depictions of Valkerie as a monster cease as the streets are made "safe" from the super villain. Instead, news programs and talk shows take up a new crusade, this one against the "heroes" that protected the city and the governing bodies that controlled their movements. Mr. Goodtimes has his name dragged through the mud, and each day his brother comes home with stories about how frazzled Trigometric is, Evil X has to hide his smile.

Seeming to pick up on the way things are turning, Clockwork disappears from the public eye while Poultryman steps up the showmanship, making more appearances in public spaces to egg government buildings and steal petty amounts of scrap metal from junk yards and factory scrap heaps. The heroes that give chase, usually Xenon and Krypton, end up causing more damage than they actually prevent.

Ivy-Over- shocked at the public outrage about the apartments left in shambles after her particularly brutal battle against Zyon- rather predictably ends up snapping, although not in any way Evil X expected.

She ends up going to the news and telling them everything. Public outrage rises anew.

There's a riot in town square and Matchstick and Reaper are sent in to stop it. Thirteen people die, kindly Mr. TFC one of them. Xisuma comes home, collapses into Evil X's arms, and cries.

Things have to change. And so they do.

---

Midnight and two figures meet on a roof top somewhere overlooking the domed silhouette of city hall. The first wears a set of armor shaded in green and grey, a purple visor over his eyes and an oxygen-filter over the lower half of his face. The second figure has wings, stretched wide to block out the light of the crescent moon above.

Matchstick. Poultryman.

Xisuma. Grian.

Matchstick tilts his head to the side, drawing himself up to his full height to loom over the far shorter villain. "The status quo is falling apart, Poultryman. Does the deal still hold?"

Poultryman rolls his head to make it clear he had just rolled his eyes, the purple insignia on his mask flashing to display his annoyance. "Yeah yeah, I've spread the word to the others and they're not as crazy as the news likes to make 'em out to be. No one has hurt your precious 'E-X,' nor do they have any plans to. Too much trouble to mess with beyond trying to keep him out of whatever crime scene we'll be making, and that's hard enough as is. Your brother has a habit of making himself hard to track and it's getting... troubling."

The hero's posture suddenly goes as stiff as his namesake, smoke starting to hiss from the vents carefully built into his suit. "Troubling?"

Violet wings flap once, twice, before pulling tight against Poultryman's back and not for the first time, Matchstick curses himself for never bothering to learn what his various wing positions mean. The villain in question just rolls his shoulders back and settles into a careful parade rest that gives nothing away, expression pensive.

"Xisuma..." Matchstick flinches back, the careful line between them wavering at the name. "What exactly do you about your brother?"

A hesitant head tilt and he taps his fingers along his leg, thinking back to when he had last spent more than a few fleeting hours with his twin at a time.

"He likes sweet foods, even if he pretends he doesn't. Has more money invested in Derp Coin than he probably should. Likes red and black but gets fussy if anyone calls him a goth. Never seems to sleep, or eat regular meals, but he never seems to forget anything either. Best brother I could ever ask for- he loves me, I know that for sure. All the important stuff. Why?"

A wisp of cloud drifts overhead, casting a brief shadow over the pair, and in the sudden darkness Matchstick could swear that Poultryman had pulled a frown. Then the moment passes and the villain is back to his usual inscrutable self, the only emotion in his body language being what he had put there intentionally. His wings remain tight to his back.

"Then I think you might be in for a bit of a surprise one day, Matchstick. Here's to hoping you can roll with the coming storm."

---

Evil X is beloved by the HEP network. Regardless of Grian's intention in putting him in contact with them- or even why the villain knew of the group to start with- his repeated contributions to their food stocks made him an opening among them and his ability to make and exploit connections made him their hero. If you were desperate, hungry, in need? Evil X could get you whatever you needed at the cost of a simple favor.

When it came to the price of a life, a favor is a small thing to ask indeed. Is it any wonder that they became so loyal to him? So when Evil X began asking questions about some of the city's more sensitive secrets and its shadier underbelly, it was only natural that they told him.

From the tall man with green skin, he learned the best places to dump things so that they disappeared. From a sleepy-looking fellow with a bandana, he learned the locations of the best drug dealers, and from those dealers he learned of their suppliers, their manufacturers, the places where heroes never walked. From the man with glasses, he learned about the back doors and hidden routes through the biggest, most important buildings, the places where they held people until they could make them disappear.

And with this information, Evil X's services expanded even further. Drugs for the addicts, as contaminant-free and trust-worthy as he could find them. Ways to make people appear and disappear in the eyes of the law (and the occasional abusive spouse). Alcohol, cigarettes- and most importantly, information.

Or rather, black mail. If you wanted to know something on someone, Evil X became the person to go to. Months of careful manipulation had spread his name and his reach through all levels of the city and people from all walks of life took advantage of her services, although usually all meetings were held over the phone and through a voice changer fashioned to look just like his twin's mask. The secrecy only increased his popularity, as people just love a good mystery and a grey-shaded crime boss made a lovely story indeed.

And soon, this caught the intention of another of the city's fabled figures- the mad scientist who lived deep in the underbelly of the city, a place where no light shone. The man, the myth, the legend... Void.

But then, myths never were all that accurate, especially with things like names.

---

Curly blond hair, brown cardigan, a ripped white lab coat. Calculating purple eyes and a wide, wide eerily white grin. Short and stocky with a complexion like a ripe peach, the blue light coming off the lights overhead casting hazy shadows over his form, everything about the good doctor is simultaneously creepy and a soft sort of handsome- he has to say, he's impressed. The mythical Zedaph lives up to the city's dark rumors of him and he says as much, which prompts that grin to grow all the wider.

"Ah, hello Weaver! Y'know, I kind of thought you'd be shorter. And down here a lot sooner, I almost could say I missed you~!" Evil X balks as the scientist steps forward and grips his chin to tilt his head down, purple eyes wandering over his scarred features.

"It's not like you make yourself easy to find- and that's not my name." Zedaph shakes his head, leaning his face up with just scant inches between them.

"Little spider, you might be pretty good at hearing things but you're awful at listening. If you have large enough ears, you'd find you're just about the most talked about thing in the underground these days-"

"Do spiders have ears...?"

"-so like it or not, your web is big enough that people have been spotting it in odd places, which means your twin will probably catch on soon. Which means..." Here Zedpah spins away to walk to the opposite wall, pressing a few buttons on his tablet which make the underground laboratory brighten considerably. Evil X tries not to feel bereft at the sudden loss of contact. "Your plans are gonna have to hit double time. And I love me a good speed potion!"

Speechless, Evil X just nods as the scientist opens a previously hidden door and pulls out a laptop case from inside, turning to present it to him with a fiercely proud expression on his face.

"Knock 'em dead darling. I can't wait to see you rock their world~!"

---

What does the end of an era look like? It's not a sudden collapse of civilization, people screaming and running through the streets. It's not the violent murder of the governmental leaders or riots against the past order. It's not as clear cut as all that. Nor is it so subtle that people look around one day and go huh, as the world around them had shifted beneath their feet without their notice. Indeed, there are many who saw the tide rising and were all too happy to watch the waters sweep in and away.

It goes like this.

The super villains go missing. First one week goes by with no wild scheme or dangerous incident, then two, then three. The higher ups are frantic with worry, running constant meetings and keeping the super heroes out on the streets for as long as they could without the heroes themselves rioting. It keeps Matchstick out of the way of Weaver, and at the moment, that's all the thought he can afford to spare his twin. It's for the best, really. The next step is important.

Across every government-issued computer in the city, an email is issued out. Personalized, first middle last name, parents' names, chidlrens' names. An alphabetical list of every law the person in question had broken in the last ten years, the number of witnesses who saw them do it, sometimes video footage or photo-copied documents if the crime was serious enough to warrant more concrete proof. What the punishments for those crimes would be. What could be done, if those punishments were waived for money or fame.

Nearly a thousand people get an email in the span of 24 hours. (Evil X never wants to write another email ever-fucking-again. None. Ever.) The heroes also receive an email detailing what laws were broken by denying them rights, food, decent living conditions and overtime pay, as well as the names of several lawyers who would work for them for free if the email was shown to them within three days time.

Every email is emblazoned with a web-like logo with a bright red "X" sitting in the middle like a bloody spider. Though some plucky tech people attempt to track the emails back to the sender, their every attempt is rebuffed by the impossible firewalls built into the computer the messages were sent from. As imagined, chaos in its most understated form ensues.

The city officials scramble to keep their sinking ship from falling apart and the little people kept cooped up in square offices and cell blocks come crawling out of the woodwork to jump ship. Some of the heroes, such as Xenon, Matchstick, and Shank try desperately to hold things together, but others like Reaper head for the nearest legal office and hole up with a team of vicious prosecutor attorneys. Meanwhile, the civilians go about their business, unaware of what is going on in the ivory towers far above their notice.

Xisuma comes home to fin their apartment empty, and although betrayal sits like a rock in his gut, his guts still squirm with desperate, aching fear. (No... please, no.)

The super villains make their reappearance with flair, setting the stage for the next act. Each one takes to a corner of the city, working in pairs to capture civilians and hold them hostage en mass, their efforts to wide spread for the remaining heroes to deal with in one go. From here, walking along a quiet street and watched by hundreds of frightened eyes- a captive audience- Weaver makes his debut as he makes his way to the city capital.

Tall, whip-thin enough to make his proportions lean more towards slenderman than super model, and dressed in red and black armor with a matching helmet and visor, Weaver cuts an imposing figure as he makes his way up the white marble steps of the capital building to where a nervous-looking reporter stands. She straightens up at his approach though and with a nod to her camera crew, she starts asking questions just in time for Poultryman to swoop in and land beside the newest super villain, expression stern but a clear presence of support.

In his hands a laptop is clutched.

---

The demands are simple in theory, but Xisuma feels his heart thunder in his throat at every point on the list.

The week would be split into three types of days. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays would proceed as normal and the heroes and villains could go at each other as they pleased. Fridays would be reserved for the villains to do as necessary without hero interference under the caveat that no blood would be spilled, and Sundays heroes could have the same. Tuesdays and Saturdays, no one would fight, a proper break for everyone.

The villains would keep to their side of the bargain, Weaver says darkly as he stares directly into camera, just so long as the heroes kept to theirs. And measures would be taken for anyone who chose not to comply. Xisuma's brain goes fuzzy with static as the super villain makes a few other demands, something about fair wages and from when to when each group could operate, but his gaze remains locked to where he can just barely make out his twin's face through his visor. The words filter through him, dismissed into a soft numbing blur.

The air suddenly feels chilled on his skin, fingers twitching in his lap, a rough, twisting feeling in his gut like the bottom of his stomach just dropped away. He feels trapped, unable to move from the couch, from the wrong side of the screen. Oh, he thinks hazily to himself, he's about to be sick. Hmm, ought to do- something. About all of- of this.

Gods... What did his brother do?

---

An era ends like this- Poultryman sweeps Weaver away in his arms and in his place, Evil X comes home. Xisuma watches his brother come through the door, eyes glued to his brother's face even as Evil X places his keys on the table by the door and takes off his shoes. There's a gentle realization bubbling up that this is the first time he's seen his brother's bare face with his own eyes, without the tint of a visor between them, in far too long. His twin's got paler as of late, making the eye bags and scars stand out all the more.

"You're home." The words hang in the air and Evil X sags at their weight, leaning against the door as if to prop himself up for the conversation to come. His arms hang behind his back, a laptop case dangling in his grip.

"You know this isn't home any more than the tree was."

"We- we were supposed to be safe here. This was where we were going to stay!" Xisuma is going red now, rising up from the couch in his anger, and Evil X watches him with the dredged-up calm of a man resigned to drowning. Good, anger he could handle.

"You thought this was where we would stay, got us a nice, normal apartment that looks like it's out of a fashion plate without asking me. You think I like staying in this pretty white bird cage that you bought by selling yourself to the most corrupt people around? This place isn't any safer for us than the tree was, and at least in the park we had company!"

"Says the one who fell into bed with the literal bad guy! At least here you weren't getting into fights every other week."

"No, now you're the one doing that!" They're shouting at each other. They never do that. An acrid taste fills Evil X's mouth and he gulps it back, along with a few words he just knows he would regret if he said them. A deep breath, a slow in and out. "Look, just. Don't be a hypocrite, okay?"

Xisuma pauses in his wind up for a proper tirade, eyes wary and wet. "What?"

"You aren't the only self sacrificing moron here."

"...Oh." Yeah. Oh.

Here Evil X takes another breath, resisting the urge to hold it, then extends his arm to show his twin the laptop case. "Hey."

Xisuma folds his arms behind his back, looking at his feet and then up again, shuffling back a step. "Yeah?"

"Got you a present. You always were the best of us, so. Here. It was the last part of the deal I kinda set up, a kind of fail-safe slash card to add to your deck. This laptop has evidence of my entire operation, every backroom deal, every piece of black mail, every person I've had killed or vanished or what have you. Everything I've been up to for the last however long. And... it's for you to read. It's not gonna be fun, but like, I trust you so it's okay. If you read this and really, honestly think I've crossed a line you can't forgive me for, you can turn this into the police and... I'll deal with whatever you choose to do with me. No loop holes, no take-backs."

Here Evil X leans his full weight against the door and lets his arm swing back down to his side, gaze sliding off to the side and a melancholy smile curling at his lips and pulling at his scars. "I trust you. I trust you. It... It'll be okay, yeah? Just make whatever choice you need to. Don't hesitate." He doesn't promise anything, keeps the words 'I'll be okay' from spilling into the air between them, but instead allows a careful submission to enter his posture, head bowed and figure loose and hanging.

It... might not be alright, but it will be right and that will have to be good enough. (It has to be.)

Xisuma chokes, a sob rising in his throat as his brave, strong brother gives up before his eyes. The air in his lungs freezes solid at the thought of having to choose whether or not his twin lives or dies, because that's what this is, he can't pretend that the city wouldn't execute him at the slightest chance, agreements be damned. His gaze tracks wildly from the laptop case to the top of his brother's head to the window, as if trying to see if anyone could be watching, could make the choice for him.

It's not fair. It's not fair, why him, why? He was so good, tried so hard- his heart is loud in his ears, breath rattling in and out in wheezing gasps- sobbing now, utterly sobbing. Evil X doesn't look up, doesn't try to comfort him. Won't even move, gods.

Fuck it.

Evil X startles, back banging against the door as Xisuma rushes forward and rips the case from his hands, only to chuck it into the far corner before throwing himself into his arms. On instinct Evil X catches him and holds him close just in time for Xisuma to bury his face in the crook of his neck and burst into messy, tearful sobs. They shake together and Evil X lets his head thump back gently against the door, eyes hazily gazing up at the ceiling.

"It's not- *hic*- it's not fair! I didn't want this!"

"I know. I know." He runs his hand over his twin's back, his taller form bowing forward to shelter his brother's smaller one. Somehow, even now it feels like Xisuma is the larger one between them, solid and warm in his arms.

"Why do I have to choose? I never wanted this! Why?! Why would you do this for me?"

"You're my brother. I love you." A gasping, wet sob against his neck and his twin lets out a moan like a dying cow, low and agonized. Evil X focuses on a soot mark on the white ceiling, tears stinging his eyes and running down his face to plop softly into his brother's hair.

"But why?!" Screaming. Gods, he can't-

"I love you. I love you." Rocking now, back and forth, gentle, just as he had when he had come home from beating up the men who had tried to lay stomp out his brother's heart, scarred and beaten and bloody. I love you, he had said then, and he repeats it now.

Later, much later, Xisuma will have to boot up the laptop and read through its contents. He will try to burn it, first, but Zedaph's work is more durable than most and Evil X will watch as his twin will dump his emotions into his flames, desperately trying to stoke them hotter and brighter. Later, a choice will have to be made.

But for now, Evil X will hold his brother, warm and safe, and let him cry.

[devilrising]

Fallen Draco, Pt. 20

This story is following a prompt set by @mymindsmadness

Summary: AU where Draco is a fallen angel, and the way he gets his wings back is by guiding Harry in defeating Voldemort, but it all goes wrong when Dracon starts fallin in love with Harry

Word Count (Part 20): 2,860

Word Count (Total): 63,535

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Mentions of abuse/torture (non-graphic), war preparations

***

1st May, 1998

It’s the first day of May, a Friday. The day before the second of May. The day before the Battle. I shake in my seat, worry overtaking every other thought. The book I was trying to lose myself in sits open, up against my chest—unread. Harry isn’t here; he’s gone to help Ron with preparing the troops. Hermione is out researching something that I don’t have clearance to know about, and I’m all alone in Grimmauld Place except for Mother. It’s terrifying. At the start of the year, I was still being held in the Manor. Still being tortured. Still being manipulated into helping two psychopaths win a war I wanted no part in. I shudder, not even trying to stop it. I’m scared. There’s no denying it. Tomorrow, I will be going into battle. I will be going up against my oppressor and my father. I might even have to be the one to kill them.

Gulping and trying to take deep breaths, I stand up from my armchair. The drawing room is warm and cozy, but it gives me no comfort today. I might be down to my last twenty four hours, and I’m wasting away in an empty house. I want Harry. I need to know that he’s okay. But I can’t. I can’t do anything to disturb him. Not now, not when we’re so close to the final battle. I’ll have to settle for Mother. She’s still in the house somewhere, and she will be able to distract me. Hopefully. It’s quite possible that nothing will help me feel anything other than panic, but it’s worth a try. I’d try anything to feel normal for even an hour.

I all but run from the drawing room, calling out for Mother. There’s no reply. Terror grips my heart like an icy fist. What if something’s happened again? My face pales at the sheer thought, and I rush through spells in my mind. I remember an altered Four-Point Charm, so that instead of pointing north my wand would point to a person or place of my choosing. Whipping my wand out of my sleeve, I whisper the incantation. If someone has broken in, silence is crucial. My wand vibrates in my hand and then twists slightly so the tip is turned down and to my right. The kitchen. Sighing in relief, I make my way down the stairs and into the basement kitchen.

“Draco dear!” Mother cries when she sees me. “How are you darling?”

I smile through my mess of emotions and pull her into a hug. “Not so good, Mother.”

Her face creases, her arms straightening to hold me out from her body. “How come, Draco? Surely you know everything will work out as it should.”

“No, Mother, I don’t. Because there is a very strong chance that I’ll di-” I pause, the words getting stuck in my throat. “That I’ll die, tomorrow.”

Mother shakes her head. “Don’t say that dear! Harry will work it out and he will win.”

I sigh. “I can’t be sure, Mother. Anything could go wrong, and Lucius and his Lord could win.”

Mother exhales through her nose before pulling me back to her. “I know,” she murmurs into my hairline. “I know that. I just- I don’t waynt to think about it until I have to.”

“You mean until it’s too late? You won’t be able to think about it if you’re dead.”

“Draco! Don’t speak like that!”

I worm myself out of her embrace. “I have to. If I think about it now, it won’t seem as bad if it comes true.”

Mother just stares at me, like I’m something from another dimension.

“What’s going on here?” Harry’s voice fills the room, echoing off the stone walls. Mother takes a step backwards, putting more distance between us.

“Just talking about trivial things. Nonsense, you know?” I don’t think Harry buys my excuse, but he walks up to me and slings his arms around my waist and buries his head in my hair.

“You know,” he says after a moment of intense silence. “I’ve been thinking about you, Narcissa.”

“Oh?” She raises an immaculate eyebrow into a neat arch. I wonder if Harry now knows where I learnt how to do it.

“Yes,” he hums into my head. He pulls away after planting a kiss there, keeping his arms around my waist but loosening his grip a bit. I miss the warm tightness. “I’m going to take you somewhere.”

Mother tilts her head to the side, trying to work out what Harry’s saying. “And where would that place be?”

Harry blanches. “I’m afraid I can’t say.”

“Then why would I go with you?”

“It’s for your protection.” Harry trails his hands from my stomach around to my back and removes them. I unconsciously shift backwards to be back in his embrace, but he nudges me forward. “All I can say is that it’s a safe house under many enchantments and wards. You would be absolutely safe there.”

“What if someone were to find it? Would I be at risk then?” Mother is still trying to work as much information from Harry as possible.

Harry sighs, knowing this game all too well. “It is possible, but trust me when I say that it is crawling with wards and that you can’t be tracked to it.”

“It’s under a Fidelius Charm, isn’t it?”

Harry scrubs a hand over his face. “Yes, it is.”

“And you’re Secret Keeper.”

It’s not a question. Harry nods.

“Very well, then. Just let me pack a bag.” She doesn’t wait for an answer, instead turning away and leaving the kitchen.

“That went well,” I say sarcastically as I turn to face Harry.

He shrugs. “It didn’t go badly. She’s still going to the safe house.”

“Where is the safe house?” I ask.

“I’m afraid I can’t say. The less people who know it’s location, the better.” His eyes look haunted, like he’s lost in memories or thoughts.

I swallow. “Probably a good idea.”

Harry nods absently before pulling me in to him. He wraps his arms strongly around my shoulders, not wanting to let go. He murmurs something into my hair again, but this time I don’t hear what it is. I don’t reply, just worm myself deeper into his embrace.

***

“So this is the place?”

Harry nods, answering Mother’s question—which was asked the second after landing from the Apparition—while simultaneously gesturing to an empty space between the trees. The safe house is in the middle of a forest, hidden deep inside. Apparently, it’s right ahead of us, but I can’t see anything at all in the clearing. The forest is dark and gloomy, but somehow still very beautiful. The air is crisp and clean, unpolluted from magic and Muggle gases as it is.

“I can’t see it,” I tell Harry as I walk up to his side.

He grins in return, seemingly delighted by my confusion. “That’s because it’s hidden, remember? It’s under a Fidelius Charm, so unless I explicitly tell you the address or show you, you can’t see it.” His emerald eyes light up in excitement, but beyond the surface there seems to be something else there. Something darker.

Mother pushes forward in front of us, walking steadily into the clearing. She pauses, before continuing all the way through the middle. When she hits the tree line, she turns around with her hands on her hips and addresses Harry.

“And you’re positive there’s a house here?”

Harry smirks. It looks very good on him. “One hundred percent sure.”

He gestures for Mother to come back, and she paces through the clearing again. Harry reaches a hand out for her’s, and she takes it after only a second’s hesitation. Instead of asking for mine, he simply wraps an arm around the front of my shoulders and holds me to his chest. He’s warm and comfortable, solid against my back.

“If I walk you across the edge of the charm, the house will come into view.” Harry squeezes me before releasing my shoulders. He grabs for my hand, and I clasp his fingers strongly. He takes a step forward, Mother and I following him.

His grip tightens around my hand, and he pulls me closer. I’m nearly pressed against his back, and my thoughts go blank for a second. We take another step forward, and the feel of complex magic whooshes over me. A house immediately comes into view, almost like turning a corner and having it appear all at once. It’s a little cottage, covered in ivy and built from wood. It could almost be called a cabin, but it isn’t made from logs, just sheets of wood. Mother gasps, eyes running over the cottage.

“That’s amazing…” She sounds stunned, like she’s never seen magic this strong. It’s probably true.

Harry rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed at the proclamation. “It’s all yours until the war is over.”

Mother chews the inside of her cheek. “What if someone somehow finds it and gets through? Should I set up other wards?”

“No need,” Harry reassures. “It’s absolutely coated in them already. Nothing will get through, it’s basically impenetrable.”

Mother nods. “Okay then.” She makes no move to walk any closer though, choosing to run her eyes over it and its surroundings. The forest is really quite pretty.

“Come on then.” Harry tugs at my arm and I fall into step next to him. Mother walks ahead of us, pacing up to the front door.

When Harry and I cross the landing, Mother makes to turn the handle. Harry blanches and rushes to stop her. Sheepish, he places his hand flat against the wood of the door. The outline of his skin starts glowing, and his hand sinks into the wood. There’s an audible click, and the door falls open. My mouth gapes open, and I force it shut. It’s very un-Malfoyish to stand with your mouth hanging open. Without another word, Harry gestures for Mother to enter. He pulls me along after him, and I give in to the random temptation to kiss the back of his neck. Harry’s breath catches in his throat, and I grin against his skin.

“If I leave the cottage, would I be able to get in again without your hand?”

Harry shakes his head. “No, and I don’t suggest you try it.”

Mother nods and looks around the building.

The cottage is quite small overall, but Mother shouldn’t need it for too long. That is, not if we win. If we lose… well that isn’t worth thinking about. The first room is a quaint living area. It’s in all neutral colours, with greys and soft browns. Mother looks thoughtful, and I know she’s going to try to change the colours of everything. Harry does too, but aside from the slight tick in his neck, he doesn’t show any sign of annoyance. It is a safe house after all, not a holiday house.

The rest of the cottage is similar, nothing special but very safe. It is filled with little traps and tricks, and Harry explains all of them and then writes down a list to give to Mother. Time passes quickly, and now I have to say goodbye to her. I might not ever see her again. I could die tomorrow. There’s so much I could tell her about, but I don’t. I just pull her into an embrace and tell her I love her. There’s no use spilling my guts to her when she could be dead tomorrow too. Feeling melancholy all over again, Harry and I leave the cottage. Harry predicts my falling apart accurately, and as soon as the door is closed he scoops me up. He whispers nonsense into my ear, and I push my face into the curve of his neck. My eyes close with the squeeze of Apparition.

***

“It’s kind of ironic, putting your mother into a safe house like this.”

“What do you mean?” I ask Harry as we set up the training grounds.

Harry sighs. “In the First War with Voldemort, my mother and father were put into a safe house, under the same charm too. They were only discovered since one of their friends betrayed them and sold them out to him. That’s why no one but me is the Secret Keeper, and why the door can only be opened by my hand.”

I pause. “That’s awful Harry.” To think his parents were given away like that…

Harry nods his head, hair falling into his eyes. “Yeah. In Third Year, when Sirius Black had escaped Azkaban and came looking for me, that’s when I learned the truth. Everyone thought Sirius had sold them out, but really it was Peter Pettigrew.” Harry sighs. “He was hiding as Ron’s rat.”

I feel my eyes widen. “That’s why I never saw it again!”

Harry’s eyebrows raise. “You knew about Ron’s rat?”

I blush, feeling my skin heat. “Well, with all the attention I paid you to torment you and them, I noticed quite a bit.” I feel bad. Like I’ve awoken a memory we haven’t really talked about. Sure, we know there’s history between us. But I bullied him and his friends for six years. I look out across the extended lawn, thinking about how it will look when we’ve finished setting up the equipment, and trying to force that train of thought out of my mind.

Harry’s hand moves to rest on my shoulder, fingers rubbing circles into my skin gently. “I probably paid more attention to you though. Besides, you’ve really changed since then. This time last year you were caught in a trap with no way out, and the year before you were just a git. You may have been nasty and arrogant for a while, but it wasn’t you. It was a shield.”

Tears swim to the surface of my eyes, and I blink to dispel them. “How is it you can read me so well? I didn’t say a word about that.”

“No,” Harry agrees. “But your eyes change colour slightly, and just then they were darker than usual, cloudier. That only happens when you’re deep in negative thoughts.”

Without another word, Harry squeezes my shoulder and gets back to work. Grimmauld Place is going to be used as a training ground tonight. Hundreds of people willing to fight will crowd in, and prepare for the battle tomorrow morning. Once dawn sets in, everyone will be given potions and charms for pain or tiredness, and then we’ll set off for the Ministry. To our likely deaths. Swallowing, I turn and lose myself in assembling equipment. That’s the worst part about this, really. Boxes and boxes of random training gear that all need to be put together. Harry knows how to do this better than I do, but it will still take us hours to set it all up. Groaning to myself, I plant a kiss on Harry’s lips and bend forward to begin unpacking again.

After hours have passed and sweat has soaked through my shirt, the extended grass is finally covered in equipment. Harry looks around grinning, excited to have helped in some way. He turns and finds me watching him, and walks over. Without a word, he wraps me in a hug and pulls me close. He presses his lips to my forehead, and I tilt my head to bring our lips together. Harry all but groans, tightening his hold around my neck. I bring my hands down around his waist, leaning down so our height difference isn’t as great. The kiss turns needy, desperate. He winds his fingers into my hair, and I clutch at his shirt. Our tongues slide against each other, and Harry draws mine into his mouth so he can suck on it. Moaning, I give myself over to his mouth.

It’s nice, indulging in this when we probably won’t make it out tomorrow. There shouldn’t be any room for regrets, for worries or fears. The world as we know it will end tomorrow, regardless of who wins. Everything will change. Even so, I don’t want to go any further just yet. I don’t pull away though, instead choosing to slowly bring the kiss away from a heavy snog and back to light kisses. Harry loosens his grip slightly, but his hands stay in my hair. Eventually, he gasps into my mouth and pulls away.

“That was amazing,” he grunts.

“Yeah.”

Silence fills the small gap between us as we stare at each other. Harry’s eyes are blown wide with lust, and my heart beats faster knowing it’s for me.

“Sorry,” I say. “That I don’t want to go any further right now.”

Harry instantly snaps to attention. “That is perfectly fine Draco. Relationships don’t have to be sex driven to still be nice.”

“But are you really okay with that?”

“Of course I am! We aren’t even eighteen yet Dray, there’s still plenty of time.”

I don’t say anything, and his face falls. We’re both thinking the same thing. We might not have any time left at all.

***

A/N: I can’t believe this fic has made it to 20 chapters. It’s wild to me. It also the same word count now as Conflicted (my first ever fanfic), and it’s not even finished yet. Wow. Sorry this chapter is kinda short, I just have a great plan for the next one and I can’t start it in this chapter. Anyway, have a good week! Xx

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@draconianhorntail @p3trovass @cowboy-simp @queeneyart @ohheavenlylord @h0pehauntedmyw0rld @unsolicted-chick-picks @itsclayclay @harrybpoetry @slash-slut @jianing2603 @magical-fairy-princess-stuff @give-me-the-queer @youmakeprettybeautiful @hello-i-am-moi @slytherclaw134689 @sinnysin-sin @lafilleetlechatnoir @absolutetrashcan @irrelevantdrarry @glo-up-goddess @birdy1032 @d-addict @pizzasandwich72 @madison-is-a-small-baby @joshoriande @sugarhoneyice-t @imaginemymemories @shipperofalltheships @uniiicornen @thewanderingnomadsworld @randominternetloser @levi7755 @atnightxidream @biyaaaaaaaaaa @just-some-bibliophile @pizzabitch @champagnemonarch

[ao3porcelainstorm]

poison ivy & stinging needles 27

On Ao3

Masterlist

Pairing: Sherlock/OFC

Rated: M

Warnings: eventual violence, torture, swears, adult themes (no explicit smut)

Chapter 26 - Chapter 28

Chapter 27 - Unwell

I might be okay, but I’m not fine at all.

(—)

A month after Sherlock’s death and Amelia found herself standing at the front of his grave with a single pink carnation dangling between her fingers. 

“It looks nice,” she commented to John, studying the newly erected grave marker. “Very... him, I guess.”

The friends stood in silence, staring down at the ground, each juggling their own complex emotions about the whole situation.

“I’ll let you-,” John cleared his throat and shoved his hands in his coat pockets, shuffling away to give her some privacy. 

Others had clearly come to pay their respects since the funeral. Notes of gratitude and blooming bouquets covered the sleek obsidian stone. 

“This one means ‘I’ll never forget you’,” she mumbled, feeling a little foolish talking to a rock. “I thought it was a little more appropriate than bringing a sprig of aloe to symbolize ‘grief’. Granted, I ended up digging through an old farmers almanac for reference since I left my books at Baker Street and well-.” 

 She stepped up to the grave and draped the carnation over the top. Stepping back to her spot, she tugged at the sleeves of her coat anxiously. 

“I dropped out of therapy,” she confessed quietly. “I think John knows, because he’s been asking about my appointments. She just kept bringing you up and I just couldn’t- it still really hurts, you know?” 

The stone didn’t reply, though a small sparrow did hop near the carnation and poke around its petals. 

“I swear I saw one of the nurses who was there the other day,” she continued, biting her bottom lip and staring up at a nearby tree to try and blink back some tears. “John swore it was just some lady from your homeless network, but she was wearing this bracelet that I swear-.”

“Maybe I should go back to therapy,” she muttered under her breath. “I just have this overwhelming feeling that this isn’t... it’s never this simple with you. It just doesn’t add up. I can’t talk to anyone about it because they think I’m this crazy grieving mess- which is true but- come on. We both know I’m right.”

The sparrow pooped on the stone and fluttered away.

“Right,” she nodded to herself, laughing at how ridiculous she felt venting to a grave. 

(—) 

Amelia found herself at the grave again the next day. 

It was raining, so she’d bundled herself in one of John’s old rain coats and huddled under an umbrella. She was alone this time, but brought another flower. 

“Purple hyacinth,” she held up the small flower to the stone. “It’s means ‘sorrow’. Pretty apt, don’t you think?” 

She moved to place it next to the carnation from the day before, but found the flower was missing. A quick glance confirmed the weather hadn’t knocked it astray, so she assumed it was snatched up by a bird or passing mourner. 

“Maybe they needed it more than you do,” she reasoned before telling him a funny story John had told her the day before. 

(—)

Amelia wanted to visit a third day in a row, but before she left for the graveyard, she wanted to pick up another flower at the small flower shop near the site. 

It was while she was debating between a violet and a blue salvia when she noticed a familiar face parting the graveyard. 

Replacing the flowers into their displays, she darted after the person. Against her best judgement, she called out and flagged her down, throwing on a smile when she greeted her. 

“Uh, hi,” she started, catching her breath. Amelia knew she needed to play this subtly. She thought back to the ways Sherlock had explained how to pull information out of people. “We’ve met before, haven’t we?” 

The woman blinked at her in confusion a few moments before her expression lit up with a brief recollection. 

“You’re Holmes’ lady,” she noted with a nod. Her expression immediately fell somber. “I was just paying my respects. You know, before he died, he helped land me a job over at the DVLA? Just said he owed me for all my help over the years.”

So John had been right, Amelia noted, giving the woman a once over. She must have been part of his homeless network. Though not that she was face to face with her, Amelia was even more convinced she was the same nurse she’d seen that day. 

Amelia continued idle chatter a moment, more formally introducing herself and inviting her to a late lunch at a diner up the street. 

Sarah, Amelia later learned, was quite clever. 

She’d shared a bit of her sad tale, of addiction and a string of abusive partners that landed her locked outside her flat one day with no where to go. 

“Holmes helped cover some basic living expenses,” she explained, sipping at a mug of tea. “He knew I’d made some connections in the streets and the work was easy to come by. Even once I’d found a flat, I helped him. Nothing easier than dressing in a mess and watching all day.”

“You said he helped you get a job at the driver’s licensing agency?” Amelia inquired casually. 

“He mentioned his brother could pull a few strings,” she shrugged. “I’d been trying to find more stable employment for a while now. Go back to school. That sort of thing and he offered to help.”

“Just out of the blue?” Amelia chuckled in disbelief. “That hardly sounds like him.”

Sarah laughed, her lips smiling in an unspoken agreement. 

“You know him best,” she hummed. “He needed a little help with a case. Just some eyes and ears. I found a few people I trusted and I had an interview the next week. Just a shame what happened, the poor man. I don’t believe a lick of it.”

“It’s a bit sad the jurors came clean after the fact,” Amelia agreed bitterly, the sweetened tea she’d sipped going sour in her mouth. “I’m glad I ran into you, Sarah, truly. I haven’t had the best time talking to anyone about this and well... thank you.”

Sarah seemed moved by the confession and took Amelia’s hand tenderly. 

“Oh it’s no problem, you seem like a sweet girl,” she sighed before reaching in her purse and pulling out a piece of paper and pen. “Text or call me anything. We can do lunch again or I’d be happy to visit the grave with you.” 

She scribbled down her details, passing the note to Amelia with another genuine smile. Before long after that, she had to leave, citing a meeting with a cable installer. 

“I lived under an overpass,” she stated, sighing. “Now I’m scheduling services like a real adult. It’s something, isn’t it?” 

“You never mentioned what Sherlock needed help with?” Amelia chuckled, helping her toward the exit and holding the door open. “Was it a recent case?” 

Sarah paused, hesitating slightly before that disarming smile flashed back on her features. 

“Kind of,” she answers cryptically. “Got to play a little dress up, which was a nice change of pace.”

“Huh,” Amelia shrugged. “Sounds like Sherlock. Be safe.”

They parted and Amelia fished the small paper out of her coat pocket to enter in Sarah’s information into her phone. She was almost confident her suspicions were right, though almost switched to definitely when she flipped the paper over and realized with was a business card. 

A business card with Inspector Greg Lestrade’s name and contact information printed on the other side. 

(—)

Later that night, Amelia brought the subject up to John who chalked it up to coincidence.

“But how could it be a coincidence? She had to have been there,” she insisted. “Maybe I mistook her clothes for scrubs. We both know Greg hands out his cards to witnesses in case they remember something.”

“You said she was homeless, right?” he asked tersely, glaring up from his newspaper. “Maybe she was offered some help? Or witnessed some other crime? Greg is a very busy man, his world doesn’t revolve around the great Sherlock Holmes.”

“You have to admit it’s weird,” she challenged. “I knew I recognized her face and sure enough, she said she’d been visiting Sherlock’s grave!”

John tensed and folded his paper under his arm, standing abruptly. 

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you, or why you’re so preoccupied with all of this, but it’s not like you’re going to find any answers,” he snapped at her, retreating toward his room. “It’s just going to lead to more hurt. Sherlock is gone, Amelia, it’s time we move forward with our lives.”

He closed the door to his bedroom on that note, leaving Amelia standing in the middle of the apartment with her mouth agape. 

He’d called her Amelia. 

John never called her Amelia.

She wasn’t sure what to do. Deep down, she knew John was hurting as much as she was, perhaps even more. They’d been as close as brothers, and she could imagine the betrayal he felt at his friends final decision. Maybe even guilt. 

She certainly felt it. Everyday she felt it. 

Moving toward the door to his room, she knocked lightly and listened for a response. 

When none came, she decided to just apologize and let him know she was going out for the night. 

“Don’t wait up,” she added with a mumble, grabbing her things and leaving the apartment. 

She wandered through the neighborhood a while, collecting her thoughts as nighttime began to fall over the city. London had such a unique air to it that varied so much from her home in New York. 

Her home. 

She supposed London was her home now, or at least Baker Street. Now she wants so sure. Amelia had put her home in a person, rather than a place, and now she felt unbearable lost. 

Hands stuffed in her pockets for warmth, her fingers touched Lestrade’s business card. She pulled it out and frowned at the office number listed. 

It wasn’t too late. Maybe he was still on duty?

But what could she ask him? That some random woman named Sarah was at the scene of Sherlock’s death? 

It was probably like John said, a big coincidence. It wasn’t like Sarah had shoved the detective off the rooftop. Amelia had seen enough to know he leapt of his own physical will- his emotional notwithstanding. 

The was no way Lestrade would even let her access the files either. Thatd be ridiculous. A total breach in protocol-

“Looks like a Sarah Patterson was interview the day of the suicide,” Lestrade bit into the sandwich Amelia had brought and plucked the file out from one of the boxes stacked next to his desk. 

Tossing it toward her, he focused on the meal, thanking her again for offering to pick something up on her way over.

“You’re just going to let me read this?” she asked, eyeing the folder suspiciously. 

“I think yoI forget I’m used to dealing with your dead boyfriend,” he replied bluntly, cringing when she frowned at his words. “Sorry. Still fresh. I know. I get short when I’m dealing with- it’s why my wife- just open the damn thing, get what you need and let me know if you’re going to do something stupid. Least I can do is make sure you don’t get yourself killed.”

Amelia snorted back a laugh in response, flipping through the file and skimming through the details. 

“It says you interviewed her,” she noted in surprise. “Do you remember what she looked like?” 

Lestrade huffed out a sigh, leaning back in his chair. 

“You’re aware I talk to a lot of people, every day,” he explained. “Just give me her ID number and I’ll pull her up in the system. I’m sure there’s a driver’s license on record with a picture.”

Amelia listed off the numbers in the corner of the file and after typing in the sequence, Greg turned his computer monitor around to show her the woman’s face. 

Sure enough, Sarah, the woman she’d met earlier, was staring back at her. 

Amelia looked back down at the file and noted the details. 

Sarah was apparently a nurse who’d witnessed the fall and responded immediately. She’d taken the pulse of the subject and was able to describe the state of the body with somewhat harrowing medical detail. 

“Get what you need?” he asked, turning the computer back toward him. 

“I think so,” she closed the folder and passed it back to him. “Any chance I can get a copy of that license?” 

“It’s on the printer on your way out,” he nodded toward the photocopier outside the office. 

“You’re a gem, Greg,” she smiled up at him appreciatively. 

“Let’s do dinner with everyone or something soon,” he called after her. “You look terrible and I know Molly misses you.”

“Right,” Amelia answered absently, snatching up the paper and typing the ID’s address into her phone. 

(—)

Amelia stirred to someone nudging her foot. 

“Dr. Brenner, this isn’t exactly the best neighborhood to take a nap in,” Mycroft’s voice stated dryly. 

Eyes snapping open, she jolted awake, disoriented from her dazed state. 

“What are you doing here?” she yawned, double checking her wallet was still safely tucked away in her coat. 

“I could ask you the same thing,” he replied, gesturing to a waiting car. “It’s nearly 4 in the morning.”

“I was waiting for a friend,” she lied, and Mycroft quirked a brow. “Why are you on this side of town?”

“Your phone’s GPS went offline,” he answered. “This was its last location.”

“Why are you tracking my phone?” she asked, trudging toward the car and sliding inside when he opened the door. 

“Because I had an inkling that you would go off and do something irrational like sleep on a bench in an unsafe area in the middle of the night,” he stated. “There is still an ongoing investigation into Moriaty’s holdings and you are a prime target now that my brother has... passed.”

“Aw-,” she hummed, leaning back into the comfortable interior and closing her eyes. “You’re like my guardian bureaucrat. Did you volunteer for the job? Or does someone in your office have a twisted sense of humor?”

“Would you believe me if I said both?”

“And here I thought you hated me.”

“Hates a strong word.”

“Dislike then.”

“I was under the impression that was how you regarded me.”

“I’m a little ambivalent given the fact you traded your brother’s life for some ill gotten victory on a maniac.”

“His death prevented thousands more down the line.”

“Thanks Spock, cool motive, still killed him.”

“Are you still living above the flower shop?” he asked, changing the subject.

“It’s not really a flower shop. Burnt down remember?” she replied, opening an eye to peek at him. She supposed if he was tracking her phone, he probably knew all about her and John’s move to the new flat. 

“Have you considered reopening? It might be a nice distraction from your internalized rage,” he suggested, crossing his arms.

“Is that your interpretation or John’s?” she challenged, opening her other eye and glaring at him.

“Mrs. Hudson’s,” he answered with the smallest smirk. Amelia could have smacked him for finding any sort of amusement from this, but god if the Holmes’ brothers didn’t share that identical grin. “She’s concerned. John hasn’t been answering my calls, but apparently he’s been sharing quite the stories with her.”

“Internalized rage is a bit of a stretch.”

“Grief is a complex emotion, we all handle it in different ways,” he continued. “I know my brother was… special to you.”

Amelia let out a dry laugh at his words. Special. As if Mycroft wasn’t well aware of the relationship between the two of them. As if he hadn’t found her shaking on the roof, meters aware from where the detective had leapt to his death. 

“And let me guess,” she saw they were approaching the street of her apartment. “You handle it by being a total jackass? Or is that just how you normally deal with the deaths of siblings?”

“In my position, you have to take the positives in even the most devastating of circumstances,” he murmured and Amelia caught him glance down at his lap. Was that a little emotion she spied? “I regret the loss, but he was my brother and I have to respect the decision he made to protect others. Certainly that hasn’t been lost on you?”

The car came to a stop at the curb and Amelia reached for the door, pausing as she considered his words.

“It wasn’t,” she answered. “But I firmly believe the world would have been a better place is he were still in it.”

“I think we can both agree on that.”

(---)

Chapter 28

[renaerys]

11. “You’re going to make it. Just stay awake.” (Butch/Buttercup)

{{Original posting unfortunately deleted. Reposted here.}}

February Fic Prompt #11 originally requested by Anon. Greens shenanigans and hella innuendo, just the way I like them.

xxx

Everybody knew that the best person to go on night patrol with was Boomer. The guy talked but not nearly as much as Bubbles, who could probably talk herself through an earthquake and never even notice. He wasn’t a micromanager like Blossom or a straight-up jerk like Brick. And he definitely was not even half as annoying as Butch could be.

“You ever wonder what the fuck is up with Monster Island?”

Butch sat next to Buttercup on the Millennium Tower, the tallest building in Townsville, with their feet dangling over the edge and the city lights at their feet. She narrowed her eyes at him. “No.”

He ignored her. “You know, ‘cause that place is what, three? Four square miles? And the monsters just keep coming.”

“What’s your point?” Buttercup said, not really caring. Her watch read a quarter past midnight. She should’ve been in bed an hour ago.

Butch suddenly leaned in close, and Buttercup leaned back away from him. He looked very serious, and that almost always meant he was about to say something mad dumb—

“Giant beast orgies.”

Buttercup groaned. It was going to be a long night.

“For real! They must be going at it 24/7 poppin’ out tentacle monsters and dino hybrids and flaming squirrels at the rate we fight ‘em. How does that even work? Like, are they all just fucking and it’s Baby Roulette to see what’s gonna come out?”

“Dude, gross. I don’t want to think about that shit.”

“Pssh, don’t lie.”

“I’m really not.”

“You’re not even a little bit curious about what kinda Stranger Things shit is going down right over the bay?” Butch pointed southwest toward Citiesville’s Golden Bay, where the aptly named Monster Island sat a few miles off the coast. “Like the Booger Monster we fought before the Reds fucked off to Snob College. How does that even work?”

He made a crude gesture with this fist and forefinger and then pantomimed picking his nose. Buttercup shoved him off the edge of the building.

“Cut it out, Butch. I said I don’t want to talk about that shit.” She grabbed the backpack he’d brought and pulled out a bag of chips. “Besides, there’s nothing to talk about. It’s just weird monster biology, end of story.”

Butch floated one hundred stories above the ground and grinned at her. “So you have wondered about it.”

“Clearly not as much as you, Horny Darwin.”

He threw back his head and laughed from his gut. Buttercup scowled and stuffed some chips in her mouth. The crunch helped her focus, but her eyes were drooping and her head felt a bit fuzzy.

“Hey, you okay?” Butch was no longer laughing as he hovered close and peered at Buttercup. “You look tired.”

Buttercup cast the chips aside. They weren’t really helping, and she wasn’t hungry, anyway. She ran a hand through her shoulder-length hair. “Yeah, I woke up at 4 a.m. today.”

“Why the hell would you wake up that early on a patrol night?”

“Because I wasn’t supposed to be patrolling tonight, you were.”

“Oh, right. I forgot.”

Not surprising. Butch tended to tune out shit that didn’t directly concern him, especially if it was coming from Blossom. She’d called Buttercup at four in the goddamned morning ranting about some giant hairball monster that had attacked Ivy University campus and how Brick had been so sleep deprived that they’d both nearly suffocated to death and she had to help him to bed and somehow all of this was now Buttercup’s problem because Blossom knew they were patrolling alone for only a few hours to get out of it but no one should be patrolling alone in case of giant hairballs attacking. Buttercup pointed out that the likelihood of another giant hairball attacking Townsville, which was clear across the country from Blossom and Brick’s college, was pretty low. Blossom told her to cut the attitude and make sure Butch didn’t patrol alone tonight. She did not have time to argue when she had to go convince the administration to change Brick’s finals schedule so he could actually get some sleep.

And since Boomer and Bubbles were currently out of town at a music festival until tomorrow, Buttercup had no choice but to be here tonight.

“Ugh, whatever. Did you bring any of those energy shots? I’m about to pass out,” Buttercup said.

Butch sat back down next to her and pulled his bag onto his lap. “You know that shit’s basically radioactive rat piss.”

“This from the guy who scarfed three bacon double cheeseburgers on the flight over here.”

He grinned wolfishly and flexed his bicep at her. “Hey, this hot bod doesn’t get by on yogurt and protein shakes alone. A man needs red meat.”

“A man needs less cholesterol in his diet if he wants to live past 40.”

“See, this is why it’d never work between us. Sorry doll, I gotta lead with my stomach.”

Buttercup snapped at that awful pet name he’d taken to calling her lately and swung around to punch him in the stomach. He caught her fist just as it made contact, absorbing the brunt of her force, and met her eyes. The son of a bitch was still grinning.

“Don’t fucking call me that,” she hissed. Her fist shook and sparked with green energy as she tried to finish her punch, but he held on.  

Halfway under her as she threw her weight behind her stalled punch, Butch’s smile relaxed into something softer but just as dangerous as he looked up at her through his messy bangs. “You kinda like it.”

Buttercup dug her knee into his thigh right over the femoral artery, and he shuddered. “Yeah, this is me liking it.”

She applied more pressure, and he gasped. His other hand grabbed her shoulder and threw her off him, but Buttercup rolled and landed on her hands and feet in a crouch. Butch matched her guerrilla stance and they faced off on top of the world with the stars at their backs and thunder in their veins.

“Still gonna pass out?” he asked.

“What?”

“You said you were about to pass out. Is this any better?”

Buttercup frowned. He’d provoked her on purpose to distract her from her sleepiness? That was almost…

He got up and stretched like a cat, and Buttercup couldn’t help but notice the subtle ridges of his abs when his dark shirt ran up for just a moment. Clearly he was excelling at that gym trainer job he’d been at full-time since they graduated high school.

Not that that mattered at all.

She got up and wiped her hands on her jeans. “A little, I guess. Still tired as shit though.”

Butch cracked his neck like he was getting ready to fight, but he wasn’t. For as long as she had known him, Buttercup had always been able to sense when he felt the urge, just as he could sense it in her. Primal, instinctual, not just a need but a desire to ruin and be ruined all for the manic joy of surviving it. She felt it less the older she got once her body stopped changing and growing, but every couple of months they would inevitably seek each other out for a row. Not even monsters could quite scratch that particular itch. If anything, they exacerbated it.

“Sweet. I got a few other ideas,” he said.

Buttercup crossed her arms. “You get ideas?”

“Ha ha, you bitch. I’m serious.”

She cracked a smile. “We’re on patrol.”

“Yeah, so let’s go patrol.”

“What’re you—”

He took off in a blaze of green, not flying but running down the side of the Millennium Tower, dodging balconies and flipping off the flagpole like some kind of insane Super gymnast. He didn’t lose momentum when he landed and took off running across the busy street toward the next building.

Buttercup was dashing after him before she could think twice about it, to hell with staying here by herself. She slid over the roofs of two cars crossing the street and leaped from balcony to balcony as she climbed the next building higher and higher. Butch had already made it to the top and paused to look back at her. His smiling challenge boiled her blood, and he took off sprinting again along the drain pipes. Buttercup flipped over the guard railing on the roof, sprinted to the other side, and leaped off the edge in a free fall.

The night wind whipped her loose hair, and she somersaulted to cushion her landing on the pedestrian sky bridge connecting this building to the next. Butch slid down the drain pipe and landed similarly a short ways ahead on the glass and metal bridge. They faced off, and she couldn’t help but grin fantastically at the sight of him winded and emanating green power, ready to run.

They didn’t speak, there was no need. He took off and she tore after him, each carving their own path leaping concrete chasms, rolling into their falls, and racing against gravity and mortality up the mirror-bright sides of skyscrapers. Buttercup cartwheeled through a narrow path between two huge AC generators and landed like a cat on the metal railing, where she spotted an enormous tower crane powered down for the night in the midst of a new construction project. It was tens of stories tall, and she wanted nothing more than to run up its mast.

Butch had the same idea and leaped like a monkey from the roof of the building next to hers and grabbed the jib. He hit it with the force of a Super, and the huge machinery whined and began to swing. Buttercup abandoned her original plan for one that would be a thousand times cooler. Moving fast, she raced along the thin railing and pedaled through her jump to get her across to the next building over. The crane groaned in protest as Butch sprinted along the length of the jib. She wouldn’t have much of a window.

With a running start, Buttercup scrambled up the wall of the roof access door and jumped high into the air just as the long, metal winch cord came swinging by. She grabbed it barely in the nick of time and went spinning.

Above, she searched for Butch and found that he wasn’t slowing his momentum even as he neared the end of the jib. Buttercup gave the winch cord a little extra boost of her power and went careening high into the air on an updraft just as Butch free-dived off the jib. The night air parted for her and the stars fell to meet her as she reached out, elated, and Butch reached back.

They joined hands at the wrists, and Buttercup moved with gravity and the momentum he’d brought with him before it could wrench her arm clean out of the socket. Together, they hurtled through the air, bounced off a radio tower pole, and landed in a two-man roll on a private rooftop golf course.

Butch was laughing when they came to a stop in a heap on the green, and Buttercup laughed with him. He had his arms around her as she hovered over him.

“That was,” he stammered, breathless.

“Amazing!” Buttercup said.

“Fucking incredible! Holy shit, when you ran for the winch cord—”

“I didn’t think I’d stick it for a second—”

“But you did and I swear I lost my goddamned mind—”

“You jumped! You fucking idiot, you’re lucky I was there to catch you.” Buttercup shoved him, but he only laughed again and held her waist tighter.

“Woman please, how could you ever resist the chance to catch this hot shit? I saw your face, you totally creamed yourself!”

“Fuck you, it was the moment and I wasn’t even looking at you!”

They could hardly breathe as they laughed, and gravity rolled them over. The grass was cool under Buttercup’s cheek, and above the stars were bright and close. Slowly, the moment subsided as they caught their breaths and watched each other through the gloom.

“I kinda knew you’d catch me,” Butch said.

Buttercup rolled her eyes. “I regret it already.”

“Sure you do.”

He was smiling, but there was no mocking or malice behind it. Strangely enough, Buttercup thought it suited him.

She pulled away before she could finish that dangerous train of thought, and he let her without making a big deal out of it. They sat up side by side and looked out over the city and the ocean beyond. Monster Island was dark, but the detection barrier surrounding it glowed a subtle blue in the starlight and city lights.

“Five and a half hours until sunrise,” Butch said, checking his watch.

Buttercup groaned. “That’s so long from now.”

He nudged her shoulder with his. “You’re gonna make it. Just stay awake.”

“Wow, genius plan.” She nudged him back.

“Hey, I got plenty more ideas where Super Parkour came from. Just say the word.”

Buttercup allowed herself a smile in the darkness. Butch could drive her crazy, but over the years she’d gotten used to his self-indulgent vulgarity. Sometimes she didn’t mind. Sometimes it was just kind of nice. Familiar. A pull she couldn’t explain or describe, except that she knew he felt it too, and he always knew exactly what she needed.

“In a few minutes,” Buttercup said, her eyes drooping a bit as sleep crept up on her little by little.

She could feel his warmth through her sleeve and his, close enough to touch, close enough.

“Yeah,” he said, and turned his gaze skyward. “Just a few more minutes.”

They had all night, after all.

[raeofgayshine]

Charlie and Julius

For the anon who asked about Charlie and Julius:

This definitely got a lot longer than I intended, but I had a lot to say about them. So most of it will be under the read more. I do want to just put a few trigger warnings though. Nothing too in-depth, but there are mentions of: suicidal thoughts, character death (but not Charlie and Julius), a car crash, transphobia, and some less than great parenting (I think that’s everything, but if you need me to tag for anything else lmk). 

And if you would like to know more about them, you can check out the tags for them, I’ve mentioned them a few times here and posts that remind me of them. Or feel free to send me questions because I love to talk about these two.They are best boys.

So Charlie Austin and Julius Dauer

- The two of them have been best friends since childhood. I kind of go back and forth on what age/how they met (As I've used them in several stories), but officially the pair met when they were 4, in pre-k. And they became best friends almost instantly. A friendship that was only solidified by the fact they lived down the street from each other, which meant frequent playdates, and as they got older, the two of them constantly visiting each other’s houses (Although they did tend to spend more time at Charlie's house as Julius's parents were always... busy)

- Ever since they were young the two always had a knack for getting into trouble, with Charlie usually spearheading the way and Julius all too happily following behind him. 

- I honestly think of them almost akin to Phineas and Ferb in some regard. They definitely didn't get up to quite the scale of things those two did, mostly because they were scientists first and builders second. But like they were regularly creating explosions by age 8 and almost always challenging the laws of physics 

- (When they're 15 they may or may not have created a slightly unstable device that uh, destroyed a large part of a (thankfully deserted) island. But at other times couldn't create an explosion that even like, knocked over a fence. It was... unpredictable. But they worked out the kinks eventually)

- In high school, their experiments earn them the title of "Mad Scientists", with many people citing that Charlie is often the "mad" part of the duo because of his general recklessness. But it's just Julius is far quieter about his ideas really.

But uh, we'll get to high school in a moment. Let's back up slightly, back to childhood. 

- They got up to a lot of antics beyond their science experiments. 

- I mentioned that Julius's parents weren't around much? It's a bit more complicated than that. I don't want to get into too many details because that will make this a very long post, but basically, Julius's parents did not get along hardly at all. They had vastly different parenting styles, but honestly they also just really did not like each other. His mom mentioned once they had only got married because she had gotten pregnant with Julius. 

- Julius's mom traveled a lot. For work (and other things). She was hardly ever at the house, hardly spent time with Julius, but she did spoil him constantly in lavish gifts and would take his side in arguments only to piss off his dad. She always put on this show about loving him but also didn't know shit about him. 

- Julius's dad on the other hand... Well, let's just say he never made any time to spoil his son. He hardly made time to pay attention at all, it seemed to Julius, except to tell him that he could "do better" and not so subtly encourage him to hang out with someone better than Charlie. His dad had a lot of high expectations for Julius, from a young age Julius was placed in piano, ballet, as well as classes for several other instruments (violin, cello, guitar. As he gets older Julius also learns how to play other instruments to varying degrees, but the only one he sticks with is the ukulele). 

- Charlie had a habit of trying to cause trouble during Julius's lessons to scare off his various teachers, because he always thought it was too much pressure to place on a kid to do so much, and succeeds with most of them besides Julius's piano teacher. This is a big part of why Mr. Dauer does not like Charlie. He thinks he's a bad influence on Julius.

- It's not to say that Mr. Dauer doesn't care about Julius, it's just... he really wants Julius to be successful and get into an Ivy League school and have a good future. And he doesn't ever really understand he's pushing too much. He thinks because Julius is very smart and all of that, he can handle the pressure. 

- But he does care. When Julius comes out as trans (at 16/17), and his mom reacts extremely badly, Mr. Dauer does take Julius's side. Even though he doesn't really believe Julius is trans and straight-up says he thinks it's a side effect of having so many guy friends, you know he is willing to let Julius continue going to the same school and ride out this "phase" because he had been doing a lot better since starting high school (At an all-boys school, although he was originally meant to go to the sister school) and as long as he kept his grades up, Mr. Dauer didn't really care. 

- (And he does come around eventually to accepting Julius, but that takes quite a few years and it happens slowly over a long time). 

- And you know, Mr. Dauer was the one who raised Julius after his parents split up. When Juls was 11, they got a divorce and his mom left without even caring to fight for him. Sent occasional gifts afterward but Julius hardly saw her except for a week over the summer and sometimes around the holidays, if his dad pushed for his mom to take him.

- On the other hand, Charlie had a very very close relationship with his parents. And in many regards his parents kind of adopted Julius a bit as a second kid. They were the polar opposite of Julius's family. Not perfect, but pretty fucking close

- Charlie and Julius were nearly inseparable growing up, as I mentioned. They were together all of the time, never saw one without the other close behind. 

- Well, never saw them apart until they were 11. That's when Julius's parents got announced to him they were getting a divorce, and with very little warning Julius's dad informed him that they were moving. 

- And Charlie was on vacation at the time. They never got a chance to say goodbye. 

- Well, not fully. See, Julius wasn't stupid. He had heard his parents talking about getting a divorce, the pair fighting late into the night for over a week. 

- Before Charlie left on vacation, Julius did a bit of goodbye. See, Charlie and Julius's favorite movie as kids was Winnie-The-Pooh, they were very attached to the characters. They even called each other Robin (Julius) and Bear (Charlie). So before Charlie left, Julius as sappy as he was, he just asked Charlie not to forget him. ("And Bear? Promise you won't forget me? Ever?" "Oh I won't Robin, I promise." "Not even when I'm 100?" "How old shall I be then?" "99. Silly old bear.")

- The next few years were hard for the two of them. You know, they were best friends, and without each other, both of them felt lost. Julius really struggled in school to keep up with the pressure put on him by his dad, without Charlie there to balance him out, it got really hard. And he never really made any new friends, he was too busy just trying to cling the fuck on, and not let other people notice just how much he was struggling. Because he didn't want to disappoint his dad. 

- Things were... harder for Charlie in the end. He had other friends, kids on his soccer team, he was always outgoing and stuff, but never any as close as Julius. He probably would have been okay though but

- When Charlie was  12, his parents were killed in a car accident on the way to his soccer game. And Charlie walked away with a few cuts and bruises and a broken arm.

- Charlie wouldn't admit it, but for years he blamed himself for the death of his parents. It... took a few months for the guilt to hit him. For a while, he tries to push away the pain, the grief, the guilt. To the outside world, he seems to cope with it all remarkably well. 

- He moves in with his aunt, uncle, and cousin. He throws himself into school and into sports (Baseball, he couldn't do soccer anymore, not after...) and into student government, keeps himself busy all the time

- It's not enough. Of course, it's not enough. I mean, it's enough certainly to convince everyone else that he's doing okay. Charlie has always been really good about hiding his emotions from everyone who wasn't Julius (who was the only person Charlie ever let himself be vulnerable around). So no one seems to notice that Charlie has become suicidal. Living starts to be really hard for Charlie, and there's a point where the only thing that keeps him alive is that he doesn't want his aunt and uncle to have to find his body. He knows it's a problem, that he should tell someone, but he's too scared of how they'll react. And he doesn't really feel like he's worth being saved anyways. ("And the ghost of survivors guilt can be so kind") 

- Besides, Charlie knows he just has to make it until he gets to high school. Knows that he'll be attending the private boarding school his dad and uncle both did come 9th grade. It's states away. If he could just make it there... well at least his family wouldn't have to find him. 

- Of course, that plan all goes straight out the window when Charlie arrives and finds that his roommate is none other than Julius. And god knows Charlie definitely couldn't hurt Julius like that either. 

- And Julius needed him. All it takes is one look for Charlie to see all the cracks in his best friend, the pressure from his dad combined with a newer fear of being outed to his parents, of being trans in general (because that was still new for Julius. He had only found the word less than a year ago. And the school was safe but... he was so scared. And he hadn't had anyone to talk to about it).

- So maybe it takes a little bit for Julius to really notice the cracks in Charlie as well. Charlie was, after all, the better of the pair of putting on a brave face. In fact, even as kids Julius had called Charlie his courage, and this hadn't changed. Julius breaks down the first time that they meet again, and Charlie becomes pretty much determined to... stay strong for Julius. ("This is not what I intended. I always swore to you I'd never fall apart. You always thought that I was stronger.")

- Charlie really is Julius's courage though. He makes it easier for Julius to breathe again. For the first time in years, with Charlie by his side, Julius feels like he can do anything. 

- And eventually, when his world no longer feels now like it's falling apart, and Julius feels like there isn't the weight of the world on his shoulders, he starts to notice that Charlie isn't as okay as he says he is. And Julius is hesitant to bring it up at first, because he didn't want to push Charlie away, wanted to give him space to open up on his own terms. 

- But when it becomes clear he isn't going to, and Julius is so so worried, eventually... he confronts Charlie. And it takes hours and hours of wearing Charlie down before he breaks and finally admits everything he had been keeping in. Admits all of the guilt and self-hatred he had been holding. 

- For the first time in their friendship, it becomes Julius's turn to be Charlie's courage. He's scared, he's so fucking scared hearing the things that come out of his best friend’s mouth, but he is determined not to let Charlie know that. Because Charlie needed him now to be strong.

- After getting Charlie to open up, the next hurdle for Julius becomes convincing Charlie that he needs to get help. Charlie is terrified to tell his Aunt and Uncle because he doesn’t want to upset them. He doesn’t know how they’ll react. 

- But with Julius as his courage, Charlie tells them. Right before Christmas break, Charlie admits that he needs help to his Aunt and Uncle. They’re shocked and upset and blame themselves for not seeing that Charlie was struggling, but they promise to get him help. 

- They discuss, over break, they discuss Charlie not going back to school. They think that he needs time off and he needs to be at home to recover. Charlie argues with them constantly to let him go back. That he could see a therapist near the school and he had Julius to watch out for him

- They don’t relent until almost two weeks after the second half of the year had started. There were conditions and a lot of concerns, but everyone could see that Julius was important for Charlie to be able to heal.

- And it’s not like things get better overnight. Both Charlie and Julius continue to struggle, to have their bad days. But unlike before, now they have each other. And together they could do just about anything.

- As I said before, they become known as the Mad Scientists. They reign terror in the science labs, cause explosions and set off the fire alarm so regularly that the whole school just kind of stops noticing it. Most students avoid the science wing outside of class, and for those who wind up in a science class with them well... it’s certainly never a boring time. 

- Much like as kids the two of them are hardly ever apart, so much so that their friends frequently call them Chalius just because it was quicker. And everyone pretty much knew that if you told Charlie something, Julius was bound to know it as well and vice versa. 

- A lot of people assume that the two of them are dating. Or if not dating then they assume that they are just oblivious idiots, who are both in love with each other and just won’t admit it. 

- It’s because of the way they act. The fact that they’re always attached at the hip, hold each other hands nearly all the time. Always sit one pressed against the other, arms and legs touching, and oftentimes you would find the two of them just curled together. Charlie would easily plop into Julius’s lap to stay close, and Julius loves to lay with his head in Charlie’s lap so that Charlie could play with his hair. They hugged each other tightly, Julius always resting his chin on Charlie’s head protectively. They called each other by their nicknames and acted so soft and sweet sometimes their friends teased they were going to get cavities just watching them. 

- And of course, Charlie and Julius love each other, but what they had wasn’t a romantic relationship. The closest they can come to finding something to call it is Queerplatonic Relationship, but for the most part, they insist that they are just Charlie and Julius. Nothing more and nothing less. They can’t explain it. But it’s theirs. And they’re so so happy with it.

- (They only ever tell their friends about them being something akin to QPPs. They don’t really mind other people making assumptions, as long as those they care about understand and accept them. The rest of the world didn’t matter).

- They have a handful of ways in which they calm each other down, provide comfort, or even just provide a distraction from each other’s thoughts. Charlie very frequently plays with Julius's hair (which he keeps about shoulder length, he likes to have it long and he loves Charlie playing with it) which helps them both relax. Julius will "play the piano" on Charlie's arm as a way to help keep Charlie grounded, depending on what Charlie needs sometimes Julius attempts to have Charlie guess which piece he is playing, other times he simply just "plays" whatever piece comes to mind and occasionally will sing along. Julius will also play the real piano for Charlie if it is available, although he plays the ukulele when he's trying to keep himself distracted. And Charlie will sing to Julius if they're alone. "Their song" is Somewhere Only We Know, but sometimes Charlie will sing other things, including Return To Pooh Corner as another favorite. 

- Once they're reunited, the two of them even start spending the summers together. Charlie's family on his aunt's side runs a successful hotel chain and the two of them often spend the summer at one of those hotels in a tourist town beach. 

- They're actually kind of local legends at the hotel. Julius in particular is known for his karaoke skills. Despite years of training Julius does tend to be very anxious about performing in general. Except when it comes to karaoke.  He's performed a wide array of songs, some with Charlie and some on his own. My personal favorite of the ones I've thought of is That Don't Impress Me Much, which also happens to be the first karaoke performance his other friends get to see.

- Charlie can’t drive. In fact, he doesn’t even really like to be in cars ever since his parents died, it makes him anxious because he’s worried about another car crash happening. But it helps to have someone there to hold his hand, provide a distraction. He gets nervous when his friends and family are in cars too, always makes them text him when they arrive so he knows that they’re safe. But he refuses to drive. Period. He never wants to be in the position where he’s in charge of someone else’s life like that. 

- Technically speaking, there is a no pet/animal policy in the dorms. But Charlie and Julius tend to ignore that. Not for their own pets, but... They rescue lab animals. From the nearby college, other high schools. They find about animals being used for experiments and they take them in. Usually only temporarily, until a permanent home can be found for them. They work with a local group of college students who have been trying to protest this type of research for years and a local rescue. Sometimes they get non-lab animals, usually snakes or rats, animals other people wouldn’t take.

- (Their friends only learn about this operation in Charlie and Julius’s Junior year, when they have to recruit them to find a missing snake).

- The entire school kind of loves Charlie and Julius, because they will cause chaos if asked. Like slip them a note and $5 and they’ll set off the fire alarm right when you’re supposed to be having a test. A little more, a please, a good story, maybe they’ll even shut the school down for the day. And they get away with it because nobody thinks they’re doing it on purpose. They set the alarms off so often on accident, that no one would even consider that they were doing it on purpose.

- Charlie starts to play soccer again, in his sophomore year. It’s really hard at first, he almost quits after the first practice because it reminds him of his parents and it hurts. But Julius convinces him to stick it out, because Charlie loved soccer and Juls knew he missed playing. It gets easier with every practice, and in the end, Charlie is happy to be back on a team again but isn’t ever quite the same as before.

- Julius is the resident worrywart of their larger friend group. Their friends tease it’s because Charlie is the exact opposite, reckless, the type of person who acts first and thinks later.

- Julius is trans, aro? he thinks? And ace 

- Charlie is pan

- They have matching tattoos, Winnie-The-Pooh themed, although I’m still figuring out what exactly they look like. 

- Charlie has tattoos for his parents, although again I don’t fully know what those look like yet

- Julius’s birthday is September 2nd, and his name in their friend group chat is PianoMan

- Charlie’s birthday is July 25th and his name in their friend group chat is Exploding Charlie 

[surroundedbypearls]

Is it possible to catch the sea? I couldn’t say for certain. - But the waves and waves of green and the spray of dragons’ teeth... They call me to the shore.

Genre: YA, Low/Contemporary Fantasy, Romance POV: 3rd person limited Themes/Features: LGBTQ+ themes, forbidden love, propaganda, self-discovery, family, power Content Warnings:  Violence (not much else at the moment, ‘tis in planning) Status: Planning

Synopsis: Serving the Dragon King as one of his own is the highest honour, and what Adam always knew he would become before he ever had the choice. He always knew dragons’ magic was of fire, and of sun. Chimeras’ magic was of storms, and of poison. Unfortunately, the chimera who plays the piano at every banquet and walks the beach at twilight is the only one who’s ever made him feel.

And when a new recruit drowns under Adam’s watch, suddenly, he has more important things to worry about than wooing a boy who doesn’t know his name.

Characters:

Adam Fletcher

Shay Griffith

Caleb Xie

Sara Donovan

Olena Tarver

Ivy Prince

When I tell you this has been a long time coming...

Ok so Adam and Shay were created way back when I was a wee 15 year old and their story was quite different. So was Shay, actually, but Adam’s always been the same. He’s basically my first born son, heir to my throne of cat hair and anxiety. These two and their friends (and enemies) have been through a bit together; this is the fourth version of their story and the one I’ve finally settled on. There’s a lot of work to do with it still but I’m excited to get more into it! I’ll have character intros coming soon.

There’s a wee first draft excerpt beneath the cut, I don’t have a taglist for this yet but let me know if you’d like to be added!

The pier brought back strange memories; a haze of some event, some “it” that had occurred when Adam was smaller, weaker, and full of dreams. The “it” itself; now, that was what he could not remember. 

No matter how he focused, the pier reminded him of something, but all he could see were teeth and a quirked eyebrow, and hear the distant sound of a child’s laughter. Was it his own, or another’s? Did they forget too? Did they watch the pier like he did in the hopes that one day, the memory might return to him?

In any case, that distant half-memory could haunt him anywhere. It wasn’t what brought him to the pier. 

The sun had almost set, and the lingering twilight was enough to see the beach where they played. Shay’s arms were thin but strong as he lifted his little sister and spun her around, white sand flying from her bare feet. They had the same blond hair, the same freckled skin. He didn’t know if her eyes were the same shade of green; he’d only ever seen her at a distance. 

He could ask about her name, or her age, if he ever found the courage to make conversation. It was nerve-wracking enough just to sit and pretend he enjoyed watching the waves and the pier and remembering what he could not remember. Those things were fine. His Pa told him to watch the sea, to search it for solutions, for peace, for trouble. And he did. But even so, that wasn’t why he came to the beach at twilight. If there were any answers out beneath the waves, they failed to catch his eye.

Shay looked up then, placing his little sister back on the sand, letting her wander and pick at the rounded pebbles that framed the peninsula. Adam’s hands clenched together as his eyes darted beyond Shay, out to the dark ocean behind him. Somewhere out there was Blackrock, though the lights were only faint. Still, he stared at them.

The child laughed and he couldn’t help but look again. Shay took his sister’s hand, eyes still on Adam. She swung her little net of pebbles in her hand, Shay smiled a glittering smile, and the two walked away across the beach.

[ladyramora]

Together again

Shadowbringers spoilers.

Submitted by: @lolzwaitwhat

Ramora and Y'shtola walked deeper into Rak'tika Greatwood,  following a path of bright blue flowers that glowed in the shadows of the trees towards Yx'Maja, the taller of the duo scanning the area while the shorter stroked at the medallion that was to help them gain safe passage, her eyes searching for a people who had cut off all contact to the outside world centuries ago.

Thancred, Minfillia and Urianger hung farther back, their eyes searching through the wood as well, although as to what they were keeping their eyes open for, Ramora could only guess.

Since coming to this world, she had found that the one who had brought her here hadn’t realized they had pulled another warrior of light through and had no idea where she was. He knew where everyone else had popped up, as he had many people looking out for them as well as letting the Scions here know if one of their friends had slipped into the world as well and could look for them, but he had no idea where Lolz was. 

She and the others had been searching for her while killing the light wardens that plagued these lands, but had not seen her anywhere. Y'shtola assured her that those who entered this part of the forest without permission or proof that they were trustworthy were often killed on sight, so it would be highly unlikely that Lolz would have stayed, even if this had been where she had arrived, but Ramora had a feeling deep in her gut that the last of her lost companions was close as they continued forward.

Suddenly they heard arrows and she and the nimble Miqo'te leapt backwards to avoid them, the heavy heads landing with powerful thuds into the ground where they had just been.

“‘twould seem we have found them.” Y'shtola purred, pleased that they had found the group they had been looking for, her head held high to look up at three armed vii wearing a sort of uniform armor. The one in the middle held a bow, most likely the one who had given them their warm welcome, the one on her right had a staff and the one on her left welded a spear.

“You tresspass on sacred grounds.” The one in the middle said, her tone powerful with a hint of an accent that made Ramora perk up a bit, a bit enamored as the vii ordered them to “Begone!” As she unleashed a volley of arrows into the air.

Ramora didn’t even have the time to be impressed with her ability to shoot so many arrows at once when she felt her stomach tense at the sight of so many arrows falling towards them and quickly grabbed at her weapon.

Only to watch as something pink flew towards the arrows from behind them and knocked them away before standing, revealing a female with a short stature, pink hair and a lack of bunny ears stand between their group and the vii, wearing the same armor as the bunny girls in the tree, a fan in each hand and no staff to be seen.

“Is-is that?” Thancred began.

“Lolz?” Ramora murmured, stiff with shock.

The figured turned and then gave them a sweet smile, “You’re fucking late again, Rammy."Lolz told her.

"TRAITOR!” The one with the spear bellowed at their savior, “THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY US AFTER WE TOOK YOU IN AS OUR SISTER?!”

“Well, to be fair.” Lolz said as she lowered her stance, “These guys became like family to me before you guys did.”

the one with the spear let out a roar before leaping to the ground before charging at them.

“Wait, we did not come to-!” Y'shtola began, only for the Vii to knock her off of her feet and for Lolz to began to fight her one on one, fans verses spear.

“I never thought I’d see the day that Lolz fights with anything other than magic!” Thancred laughed as he used his sword to stop more incoming arrows from striking him or Minfillia.

“Indeed.” Urianger agreed, his tone light and somewhat amused, “If I recall, you have often said that in a battle, you prefer magic over might.”

“that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to fight without magic!” she blurted, somewhat annoyed at their shock as she fought, “I just like magic better!”

Y'shtola looked up at the two other Vii still standing in the tree, “Please, we mean you no harm!” And then held up the medallion to them.

The vii with the spear stop mid strike and stared at it in awe as Y'shtola told them that they were allied with the kingdom of Ronka and that they carried the seal of the emperor.

The vii on the ground began dashing around her squinting at it at all angles.

“For the love of-” Lolz groaned, “Just ask her if you can take a closer look already!" 

The vii stiffened at the command before sheepishly motioning to the medallion, Y'shtola handed it to her and she began doing a proper inspection.

Ramora finally managed to take a few steps towards her no longer lost friend, "You’re-you’re okay…”

“It appears to be GENUINE!” The spear one cried happily.

Ramora heard muffled voices from above as she took another step closer, her eyes watering as she did so.

“Are you okay?” she asked, “Because Your eyes are all shiny and it’s not the happy 'I’m gonna ride tonight’ kinda shiny…” Ramora pulled her tiny friend into a big, tight hug before she could say anymore and started to cry.

Lolz looked towards the others, who seemed to mirror her shock before she sighed and rubbed her back, “Glad you guys are okay too-” she then paused and looked to the others, “Wait a bloody second here, aren’t you three supposed to be out for the count?!” she cried, her free hand moving to point at the three who, last she saw, had been souless husks in rooms back at their base.

But before anyone could answer, the archer of the trio called out, “We acknowledge your seal, but we must be certain of it’s authenticity! Follow the azure flowers to our village, there we will judge if you are friend or foe.” She then seemed to narrow her eyes on the non-vii wearing their armor, “That goes for you too, Lolz.”

“That’s fair.” She complied, “Need me to pick up any extra food for tonight on the way back?”

The archer let out a huff, “You seem confident that your deeds will be forgiven. Or are you trying to bribe us?”

“Confident.” She replied, “Vii aren’t the kind who can be swayed with bribes.”

The archer gave her a small smile before motioning for the other two to join her and then they left. The group waited a beat before Ramora finally let go of her friend and wiped at her face as she regained her composure.

“And how, dare I ask, do you know what kind of people the Vii are?” Y'shtola asked.

“Oh, the village elder back home is a Viera, she used to babysit me all the time when I was little. I used to make her all sorts of little accessories and stuff and she’d teach me about Viera culture and how to fight with fans and basic self defense.” Lolz explained, then rubbed at her shoulder, “She’s also the reason I prefer magic to might, harder to get your ass handed to you when you’re sending blasts of magic at your enemy from a distance.”

“Couldn’t an archer attack from a distance as well?” Minfilla asked her.

“Arrows and bullets can be sent back to the source if you know how to do it.” she mumbled, then motioned towards the path of glowing flowers, “come on, the village isn’t too far and I helped the little ones hunt for a bit this morning, so there should be plenty to eat when we get there, even if we don’t see anything on the way.”

“I must say, you must have quite a diverse culture on this island of yours.” Y'shtola chuckled.

“That’s a nice way of putting it.” She replied, making them chuckle.

Ramora watched in rapt attention as the last friend she’d lost led the way to the vii village, the words their group spoke seeming to be lost to the sounds of the forest and the glow of the flowers, her heart feeling light (no pun intended)

She would probably bombard Lolz with questions later and had no doubt she had questions of her own, but for now, it was just nice having all her friends back.

Lolz note: Yay! Rammy has all her friends back now! 

I kinda felt bad about how I made Ramora cry in alone and when I learned she had abandonment issues… so yeah, I kept trying to think of how I could have them reunite. Then while I was playing the main story of Shadowbringers I was watching the scene where we meet the vii, I was like, hmmm, yeah, Lolz would have the kind of luck where she’d get stuck with the antisocial bunny girls who try to kill anyone who ends up in their forest without any armor or weapons… or clothes for that matter.

Also, I headcanon that Lolz had no idea she was in an entirely different world until Y'shtola explains it to her.

Why is that? Well, she woke up naked and without her bag or weapons and figured the possessed Zenos stole all her stuff and stripped her and left her in some far off place to either die or to keep her busy enough to pull a Thancred so he could do as he pleased without her interfering and upseting Ramora in the process. When she saw Vii running around, she knew she was far away from where she had been, although not much else than that, and threw a shit fit about how she was going to fucking kill the next Ascian she saw for this, but she had no idea she was in the First and not the Source since Vii and Viera have such similar cultures. And as for the Lighteaters, she just figured they were just dangerous and unfortunately common place monsters in the area as her old Viera babysitter never told her about the local monsters she dealt with growing up.

Also, Lolz has another shit fit after finding out she’s been in another world this whole time and is pissed that she couldn’t have come into this world with at least some clothes. “I HAD TO MAKE CLOTHES OUT OF DEER SKIN AND POISON IVY! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG A POISON IVY RASH LASTS, RAMMY?!”

“I’m honestly more curious where you got the rash.”

“NONE OF YOUR BLOODY BUSINESS!!”

You don’t have to post this one, I just wanted to give you a follow up story that has a happy ending after making Ramora cry in Alone. sorry if it’s not as good as the last one but I really wanted to share this with you. 

[ehstarwar]

a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves (3/8)

He would be just gentle enough that nothing hurt, but firm enough that she felt it. Every touch, every stroke; he would make her feel it all, make her delirious with it.

Yes, letting herself fantasize about Ben is all too easy.

-

Rey tries not to think about what's making her so frustrated and irritable. Ben knows exactly why. Also, Leia meddles.

-

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 4K

Read on AO3

Notes: our space babies are back at it again with their BIE. (Big Idiot Energy). enjoy

 (´∀｀)

Chapter 3: this tiger-footed rage

-

It’s as easy as breathing, Rey thinks. Imagining him, large and imposing, all hard plains and thick muscle, nudged between her thighs. All around her. Consuming her. She imagine what his hands would feel like. Would the trace her, lightly and teasingly, or ding into her skin and mar her for all the world to see. And his legs; strong enough to hold her up, to carry her around without so much as a strain. 

He would be just gentle enough that nothing hurt, but firm enough that she felt it. Every touch, every stroke; he would make her feel it all, make her delirious with it. 

Yes, letting herself fantasize about Ben is all too easy. Made even easier by her fingers currently pushing into her sopping wet cunt. 

It should be embarrassing, how many times over the last few days that Rey has gotten off to imagining Ben. She’d had to stop herself from going into the employee bathroom and shoving a hand between her thighs the day he scented her; the smell of an omega that just came would outweigh the scent of an alpha and she’d be in an even worse situation. Rey had dutifully waited until after work, after the inspection, after she took two trains back home, before collapsing in a heap on her bed and getting herself off to Bens’ scent within two minutes.

And that was only the start of the evening. 

Rey had refused to shower that night, trying to keep a hold of every molecule of scent Ben had given her, but come morning, she had to wash herself. She totally didn’t cry in the shower, rubbing one out to the last remanence of Ben washing down her drain. The wetness coming down her face was only from the shower. 

She though that when his scent was no longer clinging to her person that she may finally get some relief from the near constant arousal, but it only made it worse. Now, the comforting scent of a big, virile alpha wasn’t consuming her, it made her desperate. 

Which is the state Rey was in right now; hand pushing in and out of her, wanting to find a release that is never quite satisfying enough. 

Twenty minutes of trying to get herself off before the evening was proving frustrating instead of relieving, causing Rey to scream into her pillow before removing her hand from her cunt and getting into the shower. She definitely did not sneak a smell at her overalls from the other day, just to see if there was anything left. 

Rose was hurrying around the apartment when Rey walked out of the bathroom, still unsatisfied and a little more than irritable. 

“What the hell, Rose?” Nearly every kitchen cabinet was opened, and a small pile of different kitchen items were being shoved into reusable plastic bags. 

“Finn wants to bake a pie for tonight, but like, has nothing that he needs if he wants to make a pie,” Rose explains, stuffing multiple pans that were decidedly unnecessary to make a pie. 

“Is he making a pie for a small third world county?” Rey huffs. Rose stills, a box of graham crackers falling to the counter below her.

“Are you feeling okay?” Rose asks, giving Rey a once-over.

“Yes… why?”

“You sounded a little upset that we’re making pie. Pie, Rey. You once said you’d give your left tit just to eat pie every day.”

Rey bristles, feeling much more defensive than a statement like this should make her.

“Its just… You’re taking quite a bit of stuff from our kitchen to make this. What if we don’t get it all back?” This only makes Roses’ gaze harden.

“It’s for Finn. We basically share everything with him. And I know for a fact that you two shared a toothbrush for four months in college because neither of you could be bothered to buy a new one. What’s going on?”

Rey is still wrapped up in a towel, dripping onto the linoleum floor. Her fist is clenched, holding her towel so tight to her person that she knows there will be red marks on her skin. She tries to figure out why she’s feeling this way, why she cares at all. Rey doesn’t get territorial like this, ever, especially with Finn. She’s just as curious as Rose is to figure out why she’s acting like this, but is too proud to concede. 

“Nothing is going on. I don’t care if you take that stuff to Finn’s, just… make sure we get it back. That’s the only strainer that I’ve ever liked and I just want to make sure its near if I need it. Rose has her eyes narrowed at Rey, and looks like she wants to prod further, but Rey doesn’t give her the opportunity.

“I’ll see you at Luke’s!” She shouts over her shoulder on her way back to her room.

-

The commute to Luke’s isn’t too bad. Rey has to take two trains and walk four blocks to get there, but his part of town isn’t too bad. Rey’s side is a different story, but that’s a worry for later tonight. Her irritability hasn’t completely worn off when she leaves her apartment, but she figures some fresh air will do her good. 

Or, it would be good if she could actually enjoy it. Problem is, she’s itchy. 

Not in the ‘I’m covered in poison ivy’ or ‘I have a bad case of the chicken pox’ way, but in the ‘my skin feels too tight and I’m ready to peel it off my body’ kind of way. It doesn’t help that her glands are throbbing. Any brush of material over them sends a shiver down her spine, but it’s too cold and impolite to go out in public naked with pulsing, red glands. 

It’s the suppressants working their way out of her system, probably. In her limited research on what to expect when detoxing, Rey discovered gland discomfort was fairly common, but it usually happened within a few days of stopping. It’d been a few weeks for her. But it was probably nothing.

Probably. 

All this discomfort was unpleasant, to say the least, but it was at least distracting Rey from the worrying-session she would be having about seeing Ben tonight. Rey had texted him when she’d gotten home the other night. A quick ‘hi i’m alive. thanks for today. see you around.’ before promptly blocking his number so that she wouldn’t be tempted to call him and ask him to fuck her nine ways to Sunday. 

Maybe it was too far, but Rey was still a little jaded from the experience and didn’t trust herself to fuck it up even further. Best to just forget the whole thing ever happened and move on with their respective lives and try very hard to think of literally anything else but Ben when she masturbates. Totally fine. 

It’s a good plan… well, it’s at least a plan. And one that seems to be totally fine and likely to work, until she opens the door to Luke’s townhouse. 

On their normal trivia night, it’s just her small group of friends playing trivia games being moderated by Luke who seems to know the answer to every question. Theres a few drinks, some snacks, and maybe a joint or two.

There is not the entirety of the Organa-Solo-Skywalker clan and a buffet table that looks like something out of a Thanksgiving issue of Better Homes & Garden. 

This will not be their normal trivia night, Rey realizes with a deep sigh.

“Oh Rey! You came! I’m so happy to see you!” Senator Organa grasps Rey in a bear hug before she can even make it entirely through the threshold. Rey is shocked, but leans into the hug once she realizes what’s happening. 

“Senator, it’s been so long.” The older woman tuts while pulling back, arms still holding onto Rey’s shoulder. 

“Oh please, Rey, what will it take for you to call me Leia instead of stuffy ‘Senator Organa’?” She asks. 

“It’s… what’s proper?” Rey raises her shoulders in a shrug.

“My wife? Proper? Ha!” Han shouts, over-exaggeratedly slapping his knee. “That’s a good one, kid.” Rey smiles sheepishly as the Senator slaps her husband’s chest. From the corner of her eye, she sees a seated figure, with perfect posture and even more perfect clothes.

“Grandma Padmé!” Rey says, before moving between them to hug her. Grandam Padmé opens her arms wide as Rey leans down to hug her. Even in old age, she feels strong beneath Rey’s body. It’s comforting in a way that Rey isn’t used to, but loves all the same. When she pulls back, Padmé cups her cheek with a thin hand. 

“My goodness, Rey, you look lovelier every time I see you,” She says, making Rey grin even harder. 

“Thank you. How is Naboo?” She asks.

“Well, I think it’s beautiful this time of year, but I think it’s beautiful there any time of year, really,” She laughs. “You’ll have to come visit me this winter. Maybe you can drag my wayward grandson along with you.” Padmé gestures her head to the corner, where Ben is standing.

When Rey sees him, leaning on the bookshelf, shoulders hunched like he’s trying to make himself smaller, she has the urge to run to him and shove her face into his broad chest. While Rey could never forget just how big Ben is, it’s still shocking every time she sees him.

“Rey doesn’t like the cold, Grandma.” God. His voice.  

Rey wants to say that she would literally follow Ben to the ends of the galaxy if he asked her to follow, so going to his grandmothers estate wouldn’t be an imposition whatsoever. But that’s not conducive to the situation they’re in, so Rey goes for something a little more vague. 

“I’d love to come and visit you, someday, hopefully,” Rey says, turning back to Padmé.

“Very soon, hopefully,” Rey doesn’t miss the glint in Padmé’s eyes, “Not many years left in these old bones.”

“Geez, Mom,” Luke says, walking to the living room from the kitchen, “Don’t talk like that. Hey, Rey, will you help me with the sink; it’s all leaky again.” Luke was a brilliant man, with many wonderful qualities, but his ability to break a house like it was a china plate was unprecedented. 

“Of course, do you have a wrench-” “She’s a guest here. She shouldn’t be put to work.” Bens’ voice is practically a growl and Rey can feel the displeasure radiating off of him. The rest of his family stays silent, all looking towards a glowering Ben. His glare is firmly set on Luke, and she thinks she might see literal fire coming out of his eyes.

“It’s really no problem, it’s an easy fix. Won’t take very long at all.” Rey tries to cut the tension, but Ben doesn’t seem eased by this. “It’s really no problem, Ben,” She says to him. Only then does he look at her, mouth still pressed in a thin line. 

“Why don’t you go get her the wrench, Ben. I think Luke’s got one in the cellar. We can look together.” Senator Organa is not at all who Rey thinks is going to step up to the plate, but she does it anyways. Ben mumbles a few terse ‘fines’ before following his mother down the hallway. 

Ben looks at Rey the whole way.

-

“How do you know where a wrench is in Luke’s house?” Ben asks his mother as they go down the stairs.

“I don’t,” She calls back. Ben stops at the bottom step, giving his mother a confused look.

“Then why did you-”

“I figured you’d need a minute. I mean, I’m mated and all that but geez, Rey’s scent was strong. I’m honestly surprised you’re even able to stand upright with that walking around. The betas can probably smell her from-“”

“Mom, can we please… not do this right now?” Ben pleads, letting his face drop into his hands. 

“That was a pretty big display of ‘alpha prowess’ you showed back there. I don’t think we can not do this and make it through the rest of the night.”

“You didn’t tell me what you’re doing here tonight. Maybe we should discuss that first.” Leia shrugs.

“Mom wanted to see you, and I know you all have trivia every other Wednesday, so I figured we’d drop by.”

“Uh-huh. And the catered meal that you managed to have delivered two whole hours before anyone showed up; that was easy to get on short notice?” They’re in a glaring match now, both too stubborn to back down.

“I work quickly, Ben. Clearly unlike you, who can’t even tell a girl how he feels after years. Do you honestly think this is healthy? For you? For your friendship? You can’t go all alpha on people every time they suggest your omega goes to a different room.”

“She’s not my omega.” Each word feels like ash coming from his mouth. 

“And who’s fault is that? Luke and his leaky sink?” For such a short woman, Leia is able to show a disturbing amount of confidence and control, something Ben has yet to master. It makes the words even harder to hear sometimes, like right now. Ben winces before running a hand through his already disheveled hair. 

“I’m working on it. It’s just… difficult.”

Leia softens at this, and seems to remember that she’s fighting her son and not another political enemy. She walks towards him, brushing the hair out of his eyes. 

“I know it is, honey. But I promise you, you’ll feel better once you tell her how you feel, no matter the outcome.” Leia’s voice is soft and gentle, and Ben is reminded of being a teenager and his mother comforting him when he was too scared to ask a girl to prom.

“I don’t know that that’s true,” he chuckles humorlessly.

-

By the time Ben and Leia rejoin the group upstairs, Rey has already fixed the sink with her bare hands (because of course she’s stronger than any measly tool) and is currently stuffing her face with pigs in a blanket. Ben wishes that he didn't find the pastry puff crumbs already lining her shirt so stinking cute. 

“I just don’t see how you can go from making a pie to making beanie weenies,” She says, mouth half full. When she realizes that Leia is in the room with her, she snaps her jaw just and brushes off the crumbs. “Do you want some?” Rey extends the plate towards them, even though Ben knows that she will be more than able to eat the whole thing herself.

“No, we’re good,” Ben says before Leia can speak and take one away from Rey. They lock eyes for a moment, and Ben gets caught up in the flecks of gold around her irises. It’s better that they’re around other people right now, because if they were alone Ben wouldn’t trust himself not to cross over to her and hold her face so he can get a better look at them. 

Leia elbows his stomach and mutters ‘get a grip.’

-

“What is Scotts?”

Buzzer.

“Poe.”

“What is Tudor?”

“Yes. Pick a category.”

“Ugh, 1990’s for 600.”

“A 1990-91 war in the Middle East was fought in Iraq and this oil-rich nation.”

“Iran?”

Luke gave a pointed stare at Rose.

“… What is Iran?”

Buzzer.

This had been much the same interaction for the last hour. Everyone participating, even Grandma Padmé. The questions were hard, which wasn’t wholly unusual for Luke, but it made Ben struggle that much more to actually pay attention. Ben easily dominated the board most trivia nights, but his heart wasn’t in it tonight.

No, tonight, Bens’ heart was in an entirely different place all together.

Said place was picking at her fingernails, not even bothering to pick up the handheld device. Rey was just behind him in winnings, but it seemed that even the second champion was struggling to keep up. 

Ben knew that he wasn’t being inconspicuous like this; staring at Rey so hard that he’s surprised his eyes still worked. His whole body was inclined towards her, not the center podium everyone else was facing. Ben could swivel around, actually use he device handed out earlier and answer the damn question everyone seemed to be avoiding, but he just didn’t have it in him. Not when Rey was there, barely six feet away from him, smelling like that. 

Like cinnamon rolls and clean linen and sunshine and sex and daisies and babies and home and-

Oh shit.

Heat. Ben realized. Rey was going into heat and she was sitting six feet away from him. In a house with many other people. People who would not appreciate a Sasquatch jumping across the living room couch to sweep Rey into his arms and take her to the guest room and fuck her very loudly for a whole week. 

This whole charade got that much harder to endure. 

Ben doesn’t realize he’s standing until he feels the gaze of everyone on him, looking confused as to his dramatic rise.

“I’m… going to the bathroom,” Ben announces to the group, before stalking off towards the kitchen. Ben made route to the furthers part of the townhouse, where Luke’s master bedroom was and very spacious master bath. Ben honestly didn’t care if he was waling into a room filled with creepy porcelain dolls, he just needed to get away for a minute and try not to think about Rey.

Rey. 

Who he had scented exactly 76 hours ago. 

Who he had jerked off to probably more times than that in the following days.

Who he was probably in love with.

Who he wanted to marry and mate and fill with his pups and build a house for and live happily ever after with. 

Rey, who was going into heat. 

Ben defiantly didn’t need to be thinking about that. 

He stood at the vanity, knuckles white against the marble countertop as he stared at himself. If it weren’t for his distinguishable ears, that stuck out despite his best attempts at covering them with his hair, Ben wouldn’t have recognized himself. 

His eyes were bloodshot. Skin flushed. Lips bitten so roughly the were swollen. In short, a mess.

A light tap on the door, brought him out of his self-deprecation as he dropped his head and sighed. 

“Ben?” He hears Rey ask. Ben resist the urge to punch the mirror or the countertop, knowing that it could only end with him being more battered. When he didn’t respond, Rey spoke again. “Can I come in.”

No, he should say. No, get as far away from me as humanly possible because there is no way I can control myself around you without restraints of some sort. 

After another minute of silence, Rey opens the door. Ben looks back up into the mirror, seeing Rey over his shoulder.

 “Are you alright?” She asks, voice quiet. It breaks his heart a little to hear her so timid. 

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” Her voice is a little more sure this time. Ben quickly turns around to face Rey. It is a horrible time for him to be made acutely aware of just how small she is compared to him. But he is aware of it, all the same. 

When Ben opens his mouth to speak, he’s met with a thick cloud of pheromones entering his body. It’s like getting body slammed by a sumo wrestler without knowing what the fuck is going on.

“You’re not fine. Please, tell me what’s going on, Ben.” The whine he emits when she says his name is involuntary and embarrassing, but Ben can’t think about that right now.

“You’re going into heat.” He says it through clenched teeth, eyes clamped shut.

“What?” She asks in disbelief. “I’m not going into heat. I’d know if I was going into heat.”

“Rey,” Her name feels heavy in his mouth, “You are going into heat. You don’t know how you smell.” Ben dares to open his eyes to look at her. Reys’ face goes from confusion to sadness and it makes Ben ache. 

“Oh… I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how bad I smelled.”

Bens’ jaw drops.

“What?” She asks, seeing his expression.

“You think you smell bad?” Ben sees a flash of anger across her features.

“Well, I’m sorry for however awful I smell! I can’t tell, ya know. You could’ve been a little nicer about it, instead of running off because you couldn’t stand the smell of me!”

Ben is frozen in shock for a minute before Rey turns to leave, but snaps out of it when she reaches the door. 

“Rey.” She stills, hand on the doorknob. “You don’t smell bad. You very much do not smell bad. Rey, I’ve never met anyone who smelled as amazing as you. It’s like.. like the most delicious smell I’ve ever encountered. Like warmth and love and babies and home and… I can’t handle it well. You smell so fucking good, Rey. Letting you go that day was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life, and if you asked me to do that again, I honestly think I would loose my mind. If I can smell you and be as close to you as I was then without being able to keep you next to me, I wouldn’t survive. You don’t smell bad, Rey. You smell like everything I’ve ever loved.”

Her back is still turned to Ben, but she’s made no movement. Ben wants to spin her around and force her to say something, just so he can know what she’s thinking, but that turns out to be unnecessary. When she finally does turn around, there are tears just staring to spill over the corners of her eyes and her lips are quivering.

“You think I smell like home?” Her voice is shaky with emotion, and Ben can’t hold back anymore. Not when he sees his omega like this.

Ben closes the distance between them, enveloping Rey with his body. One hand goes to cradle the back of her head while the other snakes its way around her waist. He tucks his head into her neck, making him squat down. He feels Rey’s knees give out, and he guides her down to the floor, gently, resting between his legs. Her hands are tightly wrapped around his torso, holding not him just as he holds onto her.

“Yes, Rey. So good, it hurts,” he whispers into her ear. She holds onto his chest, quietly crying against him. His hindbrain is going awol trying to figure out how best to comfort her while his realistic brain was trying to figure out how far she would be okay with him going. He figures kisses to her hair won’t be a stretch, so he peppers kisses along her hairline, holding her head between his hands.

They stay like that for god knows how long, until his butt aches from he hard tile on the floor. Not that he would dare tell Rey that. He’s sit his bony ass on concrete for days if it meant being next to her. When the sniffling subsides and Rey uses his shirt to dry her eyes, she looks up at him.

Ben wishes he could map the constellation of freckles across her nose with his tongue. He barely refrains from doing so.

“I’m sorry… I don’t know what’s wrong with me. My emotions are all over the place.”

“It’s the heat,” Ben reminds her.

“How do you know, though? I didn’t even know, and normally I’m pretty good about guessing that kind of thing.”

“Have you ever had a heat while not on suppressants?” He asks her. Her silence is all the answer he needs. “That’s probably why.”

Her head drops agains his chest, groaning against the fabric coated in her snot. Ben rubs his hands along her back, trying to soothe her. When his hand gets a little too high and gently brushes against the edge of her gland, a tremor runs through her body. They both still at that.

“Ben,” He feels her say against his chest. When she looks up at him, her eyes are glassy but determined. He wants to tell her he loves her. “Lets get out of here.”

Ben can only manage to nod. 

-

come say hi on twitter!

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

Nothing Good Happens After Midnight: Fifteen

Bruce cuddled the teething baby he’d been handed and cuddled him gently. A year ago, he’d be panicking right now. But As he watched you supervise the kids who were old enough to help decorate for the solstice, he smiled. He’d come a long way since then. Since the morning when he’d let two little girls paint his nails and had needed a nap just after breakfast. He felt comfortable, even if he wasn’t exactly sure who's baby he was. 

Babies in this family were community property. Everyone cuddled, fed, and changed. Everyone taught. Even Bruce. He’d taught more math and science classes than he could count. Especially for older kids. It was cute, watching them learn. Another quiet little joy he felt, watching them get it. You turned and looked to where he was standing, smiling tenderly.

He was a cutie pie. Handsome and gentle and smart. And he was good with babies. You quietly kissed your ovaries good bye as he grabbed a cloth from the diaper bag and wiped away slobber gently. He patted and cuddled gently. His hands had only really been comfortable with experiments and pens. Now he was almost completely domesticated, you reflected with a smile. Poor man. Tony would never let him live this down if he were here. Luckily, it was Thor he’d been on the mission with and Thor that he’d brought to the party, hoping to shake him out of his post break up melancholy. 

After all, you had lots of Cousins who were more than willing to flirt with him and boost his ego. There were so many new babies and more babies coming all the time it seems, not that you mind not being a part of things yet exactly. Like with most things, the more pressure anyone puts on you to do something, the less likely you are to actually do it. And the Cousins closest to you in age, the ones with two and three kids already are the worst about it. Claire especially, you reflect to yourself. Right now, even as you taught her oldest two kids. Basics they should already know. Things Claire is responsible for teaching them. Things everyone should be teaching their own kids, regardless of whether or not they get powers. Magic in this family is as much faith as it is theory. For them not to know these things already is a disservice. They’re not going to be ready to start training when they should. You hug them and cuddle them as you pull them in to show them things. How to use colors. How to use herbs. How to protect yourself. You can hear Claire flirting with Thor and it grates but it’s satisfying that he doesn’t seem too into it. He’s guarded. So you tune her out to focus on the kids in your lap. Sweet kids. They just need a little more attention. 

Lea comes and stands next to Claire, watching you teach. She tutted softly. Like most of her witches that had lost their teacher. Their parent. And had to be taught by the community, you were dedicated to helping teach the other kids. Claire seemed to think that if you were teaching her kids right now, that would mean that she didn’t have to teach them. Lea sighed. Claire had always been lazy. Even in training. Even now. She used her powers frivolously and it irked Lea. “Claire,” she said calmly, “Please go collect your children. It’s not Y/N’s job to be teaching right now.” Claire didn’t turn away from Thor, she shrugged, “We all had to teach her. It’s her turn to teach now.” Lea took a deep breath, “Her mother was dead. You are alive,” she said still trying to stay calm, “Be thankful you can teach them. Be thankful they have you to learn from. And go to teach them.” Thor stayed quiet, as thankful as he was that this woman had stopped batting her eyelashes at him, it was awkward. Watching her being told to go care for her children. “Y/N might be your lap dog,” Claire started but an icy stare from Lea killed the rest of the words in her throat. It forced Claire’s retreat. Forced her to march her kids to a classroom. “Thank you,” Thor said clearing his throat. Lea nodded and smiled a little, “You’re welcome,” she said, “And welcome to The Sanctuary.” Thor smiled, “It’s beautiful here,” he said, “I’m thankful that Lady Y/N and Dr. Banner extended an invitation... My mother is a witch, this place. It reminds me a little of home.” Lea smiled, “I’m glad you can find some comfort here.” She patted his shoulder and moved along, overseeing preparations for the party. She saw someone take the baby Bruce had been holding as you walked that way. They teased you mercilessly about everything. If it wasn’t your lack or relationship, it was your virginity, and now that it wasn’t that they teased you about babies. Somethings didn’t change. 

You saved the world on a semi-regular basis but that would never be as important to some of them as having babies. Though, Lea, if she was any judge of anything, was willing to bet babies weren’t that far away for you and Bruce. When he’d shown up last night, you’d bolted into his arms, wrapping your legs around his waist and kissing him so hard your lips had been swollen. The good doctor hadn’t been strong enough to hold you that way long but... it had been long enough. That much mutual passion and adoration, that much love, would all have to go somewhere. And for the two of you, it would mean a family of your own. A beautiful family, in Lea’s opinion.

Bruce pulled you into a hug and kissed you softly, “Hey,” he murmured, tilting your chin up. It bothered him that you deflected questions about starting a family. Sometimes he wondered if you ever wanted a family with him. Even if private. Even when he asked you tended to deflect questions. And, turning 41 soon had his biological clock ticking. Loudly. It didn’t help that coming home with you meant kids being everywhere. He loved them but. He wanted kids of his own and he wanted them with you. “Hey,” you answer, kissing his jaw, “Come take a walk with me?” Bruce nodded, lacing his fingers through yours. The air outside was crisp and the first snow crunched under his feet. You didn’t have a coat but then, it wasn’t too cold and Bruce was more than willing to keep you close. Your hoodie, skinny jeans, and boots were probably sufficient. For a while, until you were away from everyone, you stayed quiet. “Bruce,” you say looking up at him, “I think we need to talk.” He nods, “About what, baby?” he asks softly, guardedly. “This isn’t a break up talk,” you say softly, “I just... I think. I think we need to talk about kids.”

Bruce stops, involuntarily and pulls you to him, “Baby,” he murmurs, “You don’t have to have a baby with me just because I want one now.” You shake your head, cradling his face in your hands, “Stop being self-sacrificing for a minute and listen to me.” Bruce nods, wrapping his arms around you. Your eyes are darkening and he can tell you’re bracing for something painful. “I want kids, Bruce. I’ve wanted kids since I was 16 years old. About as long as I’ve wanted exactly what I have right now.” You toy with the hair at the nape of his neck affectionately and he kisses your head. “All I ever wanted was this. I wanted love and I have it. Now all I need is the four kids and a pretty little house with Ivy on the fence... But what happens if I get taken again? What happens if I have to leave them all behind the way my mom left me?” Tears well up and Bruce realizes two things. You knew. And had known for a while what really happened to you. And you’d been suffering quietly with it for a while. “That’s not going to happen,” he soothes, “The big guy and I won’t let it.” He wipes tears away hugs you tight, rocking you gently. “It’s my favorite job, remember? The Hulk won’t let anyone take you away from us.” You start crying in earnest and he kisses your head, “You’re not your mom,” he murmurs, “You’re not going to be alone... Do you think for one minute that Nat would let them have you? Or Lea? Or Any of us? You’re an Avenger. A national goddamn treasure,” he smiles a little, “It’ll be fine. And I’m so sorry I didn’t realize you were suffering... I was so distracted thinking about those next steps... I didn’t realize.” He swallowed hard, “I’m also sorry I didn’t tell you when Lea told me.”

You shake your head, “I... Well. I mean. I’ve known. For years,” you murmur. “But. I didn’t want Lea to know. I wanted her  to think I didn’t.” Bruce frowned, “Why?” he asked. “Because sometimes... when she thinks about what happened. When I used to ask about that day...” you shake your head, “Lea’s been alive. A long time. She’s seen a lot. She used to tell me about it in training. While other kids got snowballs and mud to break their concentration, I got rocks and ice... She drove me mercilessly and told me horror stories. But never about that day. She needs me not to know.” Bruce nodded and kissed your head. “Do you feel better?” he asked softly.

“Yeah,” you answer, smiling a little. “Good,” he said, tilting your chin up to kiss you slowly, basking in the feel of your melting against his chest. “Four kids, huh?” he teased, stroking your back. You blush scarlet but nod, smiling a little. “I’d like that,” he said, kissing your nose. He smiles, “So,” he said, swatting your backside to make you giggle, “How do we get there, hm?” You bite your lip and glance up at him, “What do you mean, Bruce?” 

“I mean,” he said, “How do you want to do this, baby? Are you ready to try now? Do you want to be married first?” You smile a little, “We aren’t already married?” Bruce grinned, it may not be official but, as far as he was concerned, you were his wife. “We’re married,” he said fondly, “I think we have been since we first made love... I think I was ready to have a baby with you long before then though,” he admitted. You blush and he swats your backside again fondly. “Well,” you say, taking a deep breath, “I don’t know if I’ll ever really be ready but... At the very least. We can stop trying to keep it from happening.” Bruce felt like he was about to cry and he buried his face in your neck, hugging you tightly and breathing in the smell of you. Herbs and apples and home. He wanted to lay you on the nearest bed and put a baby into you that second. But he knew he’d have to wait. At least until tonight, alone together in your room on the narrow twin bed. For now, he was willing to wait. Overjoyed that you wanted to try. That you wanted him to be the one you had your four babies and a pretty house with. When you kissed him and wiped his tears away he smiled, “You’re sure? You’re really sure? You’re not just going to do this because I’m having a midlife crisis?” he was only partly teasing. His biological clock was stupidly loud. You laugh, nodding as you kiss him, licking gently into his mouth. “Of course I’m sure,” you murmur, “Who else could I ever want to do this with?” He beamed and started walking again, “Can I get you some hot chocolate?” he asked, “Your face is cold?” You grin, “I won’t say no to that,” you answer. 

Tags:  @lancsnerd​ @stevieang​ @golddaggers​ @blameitonthecauseway​ @qxeen-of-hearts​ @process-pending​ @xmarveled​ @beautybyfire, @etherealwaifgoddess

[foreverwayward]

“Wayward Hearts” Season 3 Chapter 7: A Very Supernatural Christmas

Summary: After the Devil’s Gate had been opened that fateful night in the graveyard, the hunters are forced to face a new war. Countless demons now run rampant, hungry for blood and power. It’ll take everything the three have to survive when darkness once again knocks on their door. But, with only a year before Dean’s deal comes due, Sam and Riley will stop at nothing to save him; to save their family.

Masterlist

Word Count: 10,866 (yup. this one got long)

Content Warning: language and violence

DISCLAIMER: any words or phrases in bold in the story are not my own and are credited to the writers of Supernatural.

**GIFS ARE NOT MY OWN**

The weather in Ypsilanti, Michigan would never have anyone believe it was late December. There was no chill in the air, no snow on the ground. 

A little girl with blonde hair stood motionless and sad at the window as Riley and Dean spoke with her mother on the front porch. The woman had almost identical hair to her daughter and her face was worn and tired. Her husband had disappeared without a trace only days before Christmas. The family had their home fully decorated for the season. Poinsettias, a large nutcracker, wreaths, and lights lined the porch. 

Through the open door, the hunters could see a large tree in the foyer of the home that twinkled as though everything was as it should be.

Posing as FBI agents, Riley and Dean questioned the mother to find out all they could about the missing man.

“So, what exactly happened, Mrs. Walsh?” Riley asked.

“Um, my daughter and I were in our beds. Mike was downstairs decorating the tree. I heard a thump on the roof and then I--I heard Mike scream.” The worried wife stared down at the ground in disbelief as tears welled in her eyes. “And now I’m talking to the FBI.”

Taking notes of the interview, Dean still took part in the questioning. “And you didn't see any of it?”

“No, he was--he was just gone. The doors were locked and my parents are the only ones with a key to the house, but they live in Florida.”

Riley could feel the woman’s agonizing concern and lost herself in her sad eyes as her empathic abilities sucked her in.

Dean scanned around the porch once more. “And no sign of forced entry?”

“That’s right.”

With his hands in his slacks, Sam walked out of the house and half-smiled at the victim’s wife. “Thanks for letting me have a look around, Mrs. Walsh. I think we, uh--got just about everything we need. We’re all set.”

“We’ll be in touch,” Dean added. After noticing Riley, he cleared his throat to snap her out of her trance-like state. 

Immediately, it was as if she was grounded back into her body and Riley tried to compose herself. The three turned to walk down the steps with a quick nod to Mrs. Walsh.

“Agents…” the woman called out and the hunters stopped to turn back toward her. “The police said my husband might have been kidnapped. But, if that’s true, why haven’t the kidnappers called? Or--or demanded a ransom? It’s three days ‘til Christmas. What am I supposed to tell our daughter?”

Still reeling from her connection to Mrs. Walsh, Riley bit her lip trying to control her emotions. “We’re so sorry.” Moving on with the Winchesters, they all resumed their walk to the car as the woman turned to go back inside. Riley sighed heavily before saying, “Sam, please tell me you found something.”

“Stocking, mistletoe...this...” Sam replied as he pulled something out of his pocket to give to Dean.

It was a human tooth. “A tooth? Where was this?” Dean examined it more closely as Riley released her hair from its bun trying not to let it all get the best of her.

“In the chimney.”

“Chimney? No way a man fits up a chimney. It’s too narrow.”

Riley took a deep breath as a horrible thought crossed her mind and she shared it with the boys. “Not in one piece at least.”

“Alright, so, if dad went up the chimney--”

“We need to find out what dragged him up there,” Sam said finishing his brother’s sentence.

------

In their motel room, Sam sat at his computer researching while Riley pinned their printed pictures, lore, local history and more up on the walls. The wallpaper was a dark beige with ivy plants covering it, so she was happy to cover some of it up.

Dean walked into the room carrying a brown paper bag. “So, was I right? Is it the serial-killing chimney sweep?”

“Oh, yeah,” Riley replied sarcastically. “We’re looking for Dick Van Dyke.”

As he put down the bag, Dean looked back at her in confusion. “Who?”

Sam smiled at his question and tried to help him. “...Mary Poppins?”

“Who’s that?”

Riley and Sam shared a look of humor before the Winchester chuckled. “Oh come on--never mind,” he said giving up on the pointless conversation with a wave of his hand.

“Sam, remind me to make this guy watch a Disney movie at some point,” Riley teased as she pinned up pictures of what looked like different types of demons.

Ignoring their encounter, Dean went back on topic as he went to greet Riley with a quick kiss. “Well, it turns out that Walsh is the second guy in town grabbed out of his house this month.”

“Another guy got pulled up his chimney?”

“Don’t know. Witnesses said they heard a thump on the roof.” Dean took off his jacket and shrugged before Sam and Riley gestured the same in response. “So, what the hell do you think we're dealing with?”

“Actually, Rye and I have an idea.”

“Yeah?”

Finally finishing her task, Riley joined Sam at the table and smirked at Dean. “You’re gonna think it’s crazy.”

“What could you possibly say that sounds crazy to me?”

Sam and Riley both chuckled before the Winchester smiled up at his brother. “Um...evil Santa.”

Dean paused and then nodded in agreeance. “Yeah, that’s crazy.”

“Yeah…I mean, I’m just saying that there’s some version of the anti-Claus in every culture.” Sam pointed to some of their findings on the table and Dean took them to get a closer look. “You got Belsnickel, Krampus, Black Peter. Whatever you want to call it, there’s all sorts of lore.”

“Saying what?”

“Well,” Riley started as she looked down at her notes. “Some of it says that back in the day, Santa had a brother--that he went dark-side though and he also shows up around Christmas time. But, this guy didn’t bring you goodies, he punished you for being on the naughty list basically.”

“By hauling their ass up chimneys?”

“That’s just some of it, but yeah.”

“So, this is your theory, huh? Santa’s shady brother? I mean, Santa doesn’t have a brother. There is no Santa.”

Sam scoffed before replying, “yeah, I know. You’re the one who told me that in the first place, remember?” He looked at Dean who glanced down almost looking like he felt guilty. “Yeah, you know what, we could be wrong. I mean,” Sam sighed as he shut his laptop. “We gotta be wrong.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” When his partners looked at him quizzically, Dean grabbed some papers with his own findings. “I did a little digging. Turns out both victims visited the same place before they got snatched.”

“Where?”

------

A beat-up sign reading, ‘Welcome to Santa’s Village’ hung over the entryway of a large lot. Inside, Christmas music played as employees wandered around in cheesy costumes of elves, reindeer, and snowmen. Cheap lights hung from a red building labeled, ‘Elves Station’ and evergreen trees were being sold toward the back. 

Children were running around playing as  if the cheap lot was a magical Winter Wonderland.

The three walked in and they all glanced in different directions before Dean said, “You know, all this Christmas talk? I think we should have one.”

“Have one what?” Sam asked.

“A Christmas.”

With a surprised look, Riley replied, “really? I mean, we haven’t done one before.”

“No, thanks,” the younger brother scoffed through a chuckle.

“No, we’ll get a tree, a little Boston market, just like when we were little, Sammy. But, this time…” Dean said with a smile before putting an arm around Riley, “it’ll be the three of us.”

“Dean, those weren’t exactly Hallmark memories for me, you know.”

“What are you talking about? We had some great Christmases.”

Sam’s face fell as he grew slightly more serious. “Whose childhood are you talking about?”

All of a sudden, Riley felt Sam’s energy change. There was a sadness in him that felt old and like it had always been ingrained in him. She tried to focus on him, hoping she could understand.

Stopping mid-walk, Dean turned to his little brother. “Oh, come on, Sam.”

“No! Just…no.”

Dean looked surprised and somewhat shocked as he turned with Riley to keep going. “Alright, ya fuckin’ Grinch.”

As they both walked away, Sam stood still. His attention went to a small, almost cartoon-like, reindeer statue and he looked uncomfortable. 

Riley glanced over her shoulder to watch her brother with curiosity.

------

Broken Bow, Nebraska

Christmas Eve, 1991

On a thick television set, in a worn motel room, reindeers pulled Santa’s sleigh across the sky. It was the movie ‘A Year Without Santa Clause’. 

The walls were cracked, left uncared for for years with filthy carpet to match. It smelt of mothballs and the takeout the boys had gotten since John left.

An eight-year-old Sam sat on the floor in front of the set, wrapping a gift in newspaper. Dean, no more than twelve-years-old, stood looking out the front window watching the snow fall.

The older brother noticed Sam and turned to ask, “what is that?”

“A present for Dad.”

Dean scoffed. “Yeah, right. Where’d you get the money? Steal it?”

“No. Uncle Bobby gave it to me to give to him--said it was real special.” As Sam continued to wrap his gift, Dean sat next to him on the couch and began to read a magazine. The little Winchester looked up with a face of worry. “Dad’s gonna be here, right? It’s Christmas.”

“He knows and he’ll be here. Promise.”

“Where is he anyway?” As young children do, Sam had so many questions. And with John gone, the only one to answer them was his big brother, Dean.

Dean hated when Sam got curious about their lives. Not because he found it annoying as much as he was running out of lies to tell him. “On business.”  

“What kind of business?”

“You know that,” Dean replied with a worried look as he fumbled through the car magazine in his hands. “He sells stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Stuff.”

“Nobody ever tells me anything,” Sam said sadly.

Rolling his eyes, Dean stood with a huff and walked back towards his bed. “Then quit asking.”

The bed was covered in garbage and food-wrappers and Dean shoved it off to make room for himself. He sat down and continued to browse the publication.

Sam kneeled on the couch to lean on the back of it and looked at his brother. “Is Dad a spy?”

“Mm-hmm,” Dean snarked. “He’s James Bond.”

“Why do we move around so much?”

It was around that time that Dean was beginning to get frustrated with the barrage of questions. “’Cause everywhere we go, they get sick of your face.”

“I’m old enough, Dean. You can tell me the truth.”

Dean looked up to meet Sam’s gaze. ”You don’t wanna know the truth. Believe me.”

“Is that why we never talk about…Mom?” Sam asked meekly.

Dean immediately tossed the magazine away in anger and stood up before yelling. “Shut up! Don’t you ever talk about Mom, ever!” Grabbing his jacket, he went for the door.

Little Sam was scared to be alone and cried out, “wait, where are you going?”

“Out.” Slamming the door behind him, Dean disappeared into the snowy night.  

Sam sat in silence with a look of brokenness in his eyes, Alone and confused, the young Winchester peered back at the holiday special on TV. He wondered if there would ever be a year that he could have a real Christmas like the other kids; one where he felt the magic of the holidays and not the loneliness of a dusty motel room.

-----

The memory had taken Sam back to a time he had long wished to forget. His childhood was painful, and it made him resentful of the holidays. Maybe, had John been around, things would have been different. Or maybe the drinking would have only made it worse. In the end, Sam realized it didn’t matter which way things had gone; he and Dean would always end up right where they were.

Dean had already looked around with Riley and they had made it back to where they had left Sam. “You’d think with the ten fuckin’ bucks it costs to get into this place, Santa could scrounge up a little snow.”

“Wait,” Riley interjected. “We spent thirty bucks to get into the saddest North Pole ever? What a ripoff.”

Sam pulled himself from his memories without hearing either of them. “What?”

Those feelings Riley was picking up on earlier were still there if not stronger. Her brother was hurting and she knew it, but there was no way he’d tell Dean. So, Riley reached out for Sam to whisper into his thoughts. “What’s going on, Sam? You okay?”

As he heard her voice in his mind, his eyes went for hers. “Yeah...I’m good.” His tone was sad and flat, only she decided not to push with Dean around.

“So, what are we looking for, again?” Dean asked, not knowing of their private conversation.

“Um…” Sam looked around the lot and tried to forget it all. “Lore says that the anti-Claus will walk with a limp and smell like sweets.”

“Great. So, we’re looking for a pimp Santa. Why the sweets?”

Riley gave Dean a knowing look. “Well, if you smell like candy, the kids will come flocking, ya know?”

“That’s creepy.” Dean’s comment brought out a chuckle from his partners. “How does this thing know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice?”

“No clue.”

The family had continued on only to see a man wearing a Santa costume sitting outside a small barn. It was poorly decorated to appear as if it belonged in the North Pole with nearly no children in line to meet Santa. 

Sitting on a red chair, was ‘Santa’. His voice was gruff and he didn’t even wear the beard properly as it hung beneath his chin. 

There was nothing about him that didn’t make the hunters feel uncomfortable and their faces showed it. Sam, Riley, and Dean watched as a little boy sat on Santa’s lap.

“You been a good boy this year? ‘Cause Santa’s got a special gift for you,” the man cackled creepily, causing the boy’s mom to grab his arm and pull him away from the disgusting Santa.

Riley scrunched her face feeling the discomfort in the air. “Ugh. Please don’t tell me that Pervy Santa isn’t our guy.”

An adorable young woman with brunette hair and dressed as an elf went to the hunters with a smile on her face. “Welcome to Santa’s court. Can I escort your child to Santa?”

“Uh…” Sam uttered awkwardly.

“No. No. Uh--but actually my brother here…” Dean smiled as he put his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “...it's been a lifelong dream of his.”

Riley could suddenly hear the girl’s thoughts and they made her chortle through her nose. 

“What is wrong with this freak?” Finally speaking out loud, the elf turned to Sam with an uneasy look. “Uh--sorry. No kids over...uh--twelve.”

“No, he’s just kidding,” Sam tried to fix what his brother had done only to make it worse. “We only came here to watch.”

The elf looked at Dean who just shook his head and she hurried away. “Ew.”

Sam groaned to himself before he yelled out to her as she walked away. “I--I didn’t mean that we came here to wa--we--” He glared at Dean who was laughing. “Thanks a lot, Dean. Thanks for that.”

“Really, Sam…” Riley teased. “They’re children.” 

Dean high-fived her at her joke and Sam just rolled his eyes. 

When she looked back up at the Santa, he was leaving his chair, walking with a bad limp. “Uh--you guys seeing this?” 

The man slowly passed the hunters, their eyes never leaving him.

“A lot of people walk with limps, right?” Sam shrugged.

“Tell me you didn’t smell that. That was candy, man.”

Wafting the smell away from her face, Riley shook her head with a look of disgust. “Ugh. More like cherry schnapps...or Ripple.”

Dean chuckled as he replied, “well, you might be right. But we willing to take that chance?”

------

That night, inside the Impala, Riley and the Winchesters sat in front of a trailer near the woods. There was a small string of colored Christmas lights lining the roof with a fir tree directly next to the old car parked out front.

Leaning on the driver’s door, Dean yawned through his words. “What time is it?”

“Same as the last time you asked. Here…” Sam reached from the backseat to hand Dean a thermos. “Caffeinate.”

Dean took the canister from him and tried to pour coffee into his cup. The thermos was completely empty and the older brother groaned. “Wonderful.”

As she too yawned, Riley had been staring at the man’s house. Without looking away she asked, “kinda reminds you of the van you were told to stay away from as a kid, huh?”

Both of the Winchesters laughed before silence fell over the car. 

Dean smiled and scoffed as he shifted to face Sam. “Hey, Sam. Why are you the boy that hates Christmas?”

“Dean…” Sam groaned under his breath.

“I mean, I admit it. You know, we had a few bumpy holidays when we were kids…”

“Bumpy?”

“That was then. We’ll do it right this year.”

“Look, Dean. If you want to have Christmas, knock yourself out. Just don’t involve me.”

Dean looked at his brother in disbelief before he glanced over to Riley. “Fine. Guess it’ll just me and Rye making the cranberry molds.”

Unsure of why Dean had been so adamant about having Christmas, Riley could only half smile at his offer.

As they returned to watching the house, the filthy Santa from earlier stood in his window. Still in his red cap, but in a dirty and stained white tank top, he looked outside before closing his curtains.

“What’s up with Saint Nicotine?” Dean asked.

The sound of a woman shouting came from inside the trailer and the three jumped out of the car. Running toward the house, they drew their guns and readied themselves at the door.

Sam let out a breathy chuckle making Dean turn to him. “What?”

“Nothing,” the young Winchester answered. “It’s just that, uh--well, you know, Mr. Gung Ho Christmas might have to blow away Santa.”

Dean gave his brother an annoyed look while Riley tried to hide the smirk crawling up her face. 

Quickly opening the door, they all went inside but stopped in their tracks as they looked around. Santa was sitting on the couch, holding a giant bong and a bottle of whiskey. He stood and the hunters quickly hid their guns.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” the Santa slurred in his drunken stupor.

Their eyes all went to the old TV set that was playing a cheap Christmas porno. 

“Why don’t you mistle my toe? Roast my chestnut--egg my nog…”

Trying to control their urge to laugh, Sam just shrugged at the man without an answer to his question. 

Riley suddenly had an idea and began to sing. “Silent night, holy night…” She nudged the boys who began to sing terribly along. Neither knew the words and were completely tone deaf.

“All is well…all is dry. Round and round…” Sam and Dean tried to sing along and stumbled as they failed to match Riley’s lyrics. “...the table.”

Though they sounded like a train wreck, Santa sat down to watch them and grinned with amusement. 

Riley’s hands both reached for the brothers’ jackets as she tugged them towards the door with a smile on her face. She kept singing as Sam and Dean stumbled out with her.

------

After another man had been taken from his home, the hunters had gone to the new victim’s house. It too was fully decorated and full of the Christmas spirit aside from the crying wife. Sam, Dean, and Riley were dressed in their suits as they interviewed the woman.

“So, that’s how your son described the attack?” Dean questioned. “Santa took daddy up the chimney?”

The woman had curly dirty-blonde hair with a large bruise over her right eye. “That’s what he says, yes.”

“And where were you?”

“I was asleep and all of a sudden…” she sniffled and her eyes were cast down as they darted back and forth at the memory. “I was being dragged out of bed, screaming.”

Trying not to get sucked into the emotions of yet another grieving wife, Riley focused on her breathing as she had trouble getting her question out. “Mrs.--Mrs. Caldwell, did, uh--did you happen to see your attacker?”

She shook her head and folded her arms. “It was dark and he hit me. He knocked me out.”

Riley swallowed hard, still fighting her empathic abilities. “I’m so sorry.”

“Mrs. Caldwell,” Sam started as he looked above her. “Where--where did you get that wreath above the fireplace?”

Dean and Riley turned to where he had pointed as did Mrs. Caldwell who stood dumbfounded.

“Excuse me?”

The others stared at Sam waiting for an answer but the Winchester just smiled and shrugged, feeling embarrassed. “Just curious, you know.”

After the interview had finished, the three walked through the overly decorated front yard of the home. There were twig shaped reindeer, lit up trees, and angels that glowed.

“Wreaths, huh?” Dean’s eyebrow hooked as he glanced to Sam. “Sure you didn’t want to ask her about her shoes? I saw some nice handbags in the foyer.”

Sam scoffed. “We’ve seen that wreath before, Dean.”

They had reached Baby when Riley stopped and turned to Sam. “You’re right.”

“He is?” Dean asked in surprise.

“Yeah. We saw the exact one at the Walshes’.”

Dean nodded, faking his knowledge of their findings. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. I was just testing you guys.”

------

Riley was at the small kitchenette sink of their motel room making a pot of coffee while Dean went over more lore at the coffee table. Sam walked around the room with his phone to his ear as he wrapped up his call with Bobby.

“Yeah, alright. Well, keep looking, would you? Thanks, Bobby.” Sam hung up with a sigh and went back to the table to sit in front of his laptop. “Well…we’re not dealing with the anti-Claus.”

“Really?” Riley asked as she brought Sam a fresh cup of coffee.

“Thanks,” he said with a smile. “But, uh--yeah. Bobby says we’re fucking morons.” Sam chuckled and the others smirked knowing that was typical Bobby. “He also said that it was probably meadowsweet in those wreaths.”

“Wow. Amazing,” Dean answered flatly and sarcastically. “What the fuck is meadowsweet?”

“It’s pretty rare and it’s probably the most powerful plant in pagan lore.”

Dean tilted his head up to kiss Riley as she gave him his mug. “So, pagan lore?”

“Yeah. See, they used meadowsweet for human sacrifice. It was kind of like a...chum for their gods. Gods were drawn to it and they’d stop by and snack on whatever was the nearest human.”

As Riley sat next to Dean, she blew to cool her hot beverage. “But with Christmas wreaths? Why?”

“It's not as crazy as it sounds. I mean, pretty much every Christmas tradition is pagan.”

“Christmas is Jesus’s birthday,” Dean rebutted.

With her boots kicked off, Riley sat crisscrossed as she sipped her coffee. She made a sound of disagreement through her drink. “Actually, Jesus was probably born during the fall. The winter solstice festival was co-opted by the Catholics and rebranded as ‘Christmas’. And it’s kind of the whole shebang--the Yule log, the tree, even the fat man’s red suit--all leftovers from pagan worship.”

Sam nodded with an impressed look and Dean appeared slightly taken back. “Sometimes I forget how fuckin’ smart you are. But, come on, what are you gonna tell me next? Easter bunny’s Jewish?” Riley smiled as Dean scooted closer to put his hand on her thigh. “So, Sam, you think we’re gonna dealing with a pagan god?”

“Yeah,” Sam replied. “Probably Hold Nickar, god of the winter solstice.”

“And all these Martha Stewart wannabes, buying these fancy wreaths…”

“Yeah, it’s pretty much like putting a neon sign on your front door saying ‘come kill us’.”

Still sipping at her drink, Riley’s brow hooked. “Damn. Not even your Christmas décor is safe.”

The younger brother scrolled through the webpage and scoffed a laugh under his breath. “Huh. When you sacrifice to Hold Nickar, guess what he gives you in return?”

“Lap dances, hopefully,” Dean joked as Riley smiled with a soft chuckle.

“Mild weather.”

Dean looked out the window saying, “like no snow in the middle of December in the middle of Michigan.”

“For instance.”

“Okay, so the question is how to the hell do we kill it?”

“Don’t know. Bobby’s working on that right now. We got to figure out where they’re selling those wreaths.”

Sitting up to look at Sam, Riley asked, “wait, do we think someone’s selling these on purpose? Basically feeding this thing?”

With a heavy exhale Sam shrugged. “Let’s find out.”

------

The bell above the door jingled as Sam, Riley, and Dean walked into a small Christmas shop. ‘Deck the Halls’ was playing and the entire store was covered from wall to wall in decorations. It smelt of wood and cinnamon with hints of pine.

An older gentleman in glasses and white hair stood behind a glass counter. “Can I help you, kids?”

“Uh--hope so,” Dean answered with a grin. “Uh--we were playing Jenga over at the Walshes’ the other night, and, uh--well,” the older brother gestured to Sam. “He hasn’t shut up since about this Christmas wreath, and…” Looking at Sam, he shot him a teasing look. “I don’t know, you tell him.”

Sam’s annoyance with his brother was hard to contain as he replied, “...sure.” He cleared his throat and turned to the shopkeeper before giving him a tight-lipped smile. “...it was yummy.”

“I sell a lot of wreaths, guys.” The man looked at the three while curious and unsure.

“Right, right, but--but you see, this one would have been really special. It had, uh, it had, uh--green leaves, um...white buds on it. It might have been made of, uh…meadowsweet?”

The shopkeeper sighed. “Well, aren’t you a fussy one?”

Sam looked frustrated and embarrassed but Riley and Dean tried to control their laughter before Dean told the shopkeeper, “oh, he is…” 

As he laughed, Sam’s eyes sat on his brother with frustration.

“Anyway, I know the one you’re talking about. I’m all out.”

Realizing that Dean was going to make the trip mostly about giving Sam a hard time, Riley butted in. “Isn’t meadowsweet pretty rare? I mean, it’s gotta be expensive. What made you want to make wreaths out of it?”

“Well, I didn't make them.”

“Oh, uh--who did?”

“Madge Carrigan--a local lady. She said the wreaths were so special, she gave them to me for free.”

“Wait...she didn’t charge you for them?”

“Nope.”

Riley looked at the man with skepticism. “So...you gave them away?”

“Hell no,” the shopkeeper scoffed. “It’s Christmas. People pay a butt-load for this crap.”

With a smile and a nod, Dean added, “that’s the spirit.”

------

Dean flicked on the light of their room as the three walked back inside. “How much do you think a meadowsweet wreath would cost?”

“A couple hundred dollars, at least,” Sam answered.

The family all took off their jackets to put them on the couch before going to sit on their beds. 

Riley leaned down and began to unlace her boots. “This lady is just handing out expensive wreaths like that? I mean, definitely sounds suspicious.”

With another happy memory hitting Dean, he smiled and turned to Sam. “Remember that wreath Dad brought home that one year?”

Sam’s brow scrunched not understanding Dean’s joy in the recollection. “You mean the one he stole from, like--a liquor store?”

“Yeah,” he beamed with a smile from ear to ear. “It was a bunch of empty beer cans. That thing was great. I bet if I looked around hard enough, I could probably find one just like it.”

Sighing to himself, Sam shook. “Alright. Dude…what’s going on with you?”

“What?”

“I mean, since when are you Bing Crosby all of a sudden? Why do you want Christmas so bad?”

Riley scooted back to rest against the headboard with her knees bent. “You gonna tell us why you’ve been so against it, Sam? I’ve been feeling it ever since we got on this case. Did things just kinda suck during the holidays when you were a kid?”

“No, that has nothing to do with it.”

Digging even further, Dean questioned, “then what?

“I--I mean, I--I just...I don’t get it. You haven’t talked about Christmas in years.”

Dean paused before shrugging. “Well, yeah. This is my last year.”

Silence fell over the room as Sam and Riley’s hearts sank at the realization. 

Riley wondered how she could have not remembered that Dean wouldn’t be around for any more of their Christmases It was then that Riley knew how deeply in denial she was over his time being nearly up. She could feel the tears forming and she cleared her throat before practically jumping off the bed. “I’m gonna go take a shower.” 

Before Dean could say anything, Riley hurried off to the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Quickly, she turned on the shower and began to cry. The hunter leaned against the wall before sliding down to the floor. She put her hand over her mouth to stifle her cries and began to sob. 

That Christmas would just serve as a reminder that the memories they had already made, would be all they would ever get.

Sam and Dean sat in the quiet, not sure what to say. 

That’s when Sam looked up to Dean as he tried to hide the pain he was in. “I know it’s your last, Dean. That’s why I can’t do it.”

“What do you mean?”

The young hunter’s eyes grew red and welled. “I mean I can’t just sit around, drinking eggnog, pretending everything’s okay when I know next Christmas you’ll be dead.” Dean only nodded at what Sam had said. “To be honest, I don’t know if Riley can either. Dean, I--I just can’t.”

Realizing the sadness in Sam’s voice, Dean nodded once again and dropped the subject. With no words left to say, Sam and Dean sat on their beds with their heads hung; Christmas lights twinkling through the window.  

------

Christmas Eve 1991

Sam sat on the couch reading a comic book as the snow outside the window continued to fall. He turned to the sound of the door opening as Dean walked inside with a bag of groceries.

“Thought you went out.”

“Yeah, to get you dinner.” Dean tossed his little brother a bag of food. “Don’t forget your vegetables,” he added with a smile as he threw him a bag of Funyuns. Dean took off his jacket and sat down on his bed before opening a soda can.

Determined to be done with the secrets, Sam sat across from Dean. “I know why you keep a gun under your pillow.”

Dean lifted his pillow to make sure his little brother hadn’t taken his pistol to see it unmoved. “No, you don’t. Stay out of my stuff.”

“And I know why we lay salt down everywhere we go.”

“No, you don’t.” Though Dean sounded angry, it was worry. Sam couldn’t know the truth yet, he wasn’t ready to know. “Shut up.”

Sam turned around and grabbed something from underneath his bed. It was a leather book and the Winchester tossed it onto the nightstand between their beds. It was John’s journal.

Standing up, almost in shock that Sam had the book, Dean  stared down at his brother. “Where’d you get that? That’s Dad’s! He’s gonna kick your ass for reading that.”

The littlest Winchester met his brother’s gaze without fear. “Are monsters real?”

“What? You’re crazy.”

“Tell me.”

Dean bit his lip in uncertainty and hesitation. He glanced down at the book and then back to Sam. “I swear, if you ever tell Dad I told you any of this, I will end you.”

“Promise.”

As the older brother sat back down, he sighed and rubbed his thighs nervously. “Well, the first thing you have to know is we have the coolest dad in the world. He’s a superhero.”

“He is?” A small smile grew on Sam’s face.

“Yeah. Monsters are real--Dad fights them. He’s fighting them right now.”

“But Dad said the monsters under my bed weren’t real.”

Dean half-laughed at the thought. “That’s ’cause he had already checked under there. But, yeah, they’re real. Almost everything’s real.”

With the innocent eyes of an eight-year-old boy, Sam asked, “...is Santa real?”

Smiling and shaking his head, Dean replied, “no.”

There was a pause as Sam grew sad and his head fell. It was at that moment that Sam’s innocence was gone. Though he didn’t know it, in listening to his brother that night, Sam’s life changed forever. “If monsters are real, then they could get us. They could get me.”

“Dad’s not gonna let them get you.”

“But what if they get him?”

“They aren’t gonna get Dad. Dad’s, like...the best.”

“...I read in Dad’s book that they got Mom.”

Dean exhaled sharply not sure what to say. “It’s complicated, Sam.”

His little brother’s voice broke as his fear and anxiety grew. “If they got Mom, they can get Dad. And if they get Dad, they can get us.”

“It’s not like that.” Dean got up to sit next to Sam on his bed, trying to comfort him as best he could. “Okay? Dad’s fine. We’re fine. Trust me.” Still seeing the fear in his little brother’s eyes, Dean put a hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Sam whispered as he looked away to hide the tears growing in his eyes.  

“Hey, Dad’s gonna be here for Christmas. Just like he always is.”

With his lip trembling, Sam refused to face his brother. ashamed of his tears. “I just want to go to sleep, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” Dean’s voice was soft with guilt. He had dreaded the day that he would have to ruin Sam’s childhood and it weighed heavily on him. 

Sam laid down on the bed and cried quietly to himself but Dean never left his side. “It’ll all be better when you wake up.” 

Trying to be quiet, Sam began to sob. 

“You’ll see, Sam. ...promise.”

------

Cheery Christmas music played on the outside of a large white house with decorations everywhere. A lit up snowman, a sleigh, poinsettias, lights, and bells filled the yard and porch. 

As the hunters got out of the Impala, they walked up the concrete path to the brick entrance.

“This is where Mrs. Wreath lives, huh? Can’t you just feel the evil pagan vibe?” Dean snarked before using the brass knocker on the door. With every click, jingle bells clanked from the strip of bells hanging from the handle.

A woman most likely in her late 60’s opened the door with a cheerful grin on her face. “Yes?” She was in an old fashioned pink dress with a white cardigan and matching pearls. Her hair was curled and set, pinned from her face.  

“Hi,” Riley began with a smile. “We were hoping you were the Madge Carrigan that made all those beautiful meadowsweet wreaths.”

“Why, yes I am.” Madge’s voice was sweet and full of high spirits.

“Oh, great! We actually were all admiring one of your wreaths at the Sylar’s place the other day.”

As Riley continued to sweet talk Mrs. Carrigan, Dean tried to peer into the home. 

Inside looked like the Santa himself lived there. There were countless collectibles, adornments of holly, a large gingerbread house on the table, and garland up the staircase. The strong smell of evergreen and freshly baked cookies wafted out the door.

“You were? Well, isn't that meadowsweet just the finest-smelling thing you ever smelled?”

Sam nodded in agreeance. “It is, it sure is. But, the problem is, is that all you wreaths had sold out before we got the chance to buy one.”

“Oh, fudge!”

“You wouldn’t have another one that we could buy from you, would you?” Dean asked.

“Oh, no, I’m afraid those were the only ones I had for this season.”

Riley glanced up at the boys with a look of disappointment. “Oh, darn it,” she feigned.

Mr. Carrigan came down the staircase in a cardigan with an old-fashioned pipe. He stood by his wife and smiled. The two of them looked far too picture-esque as if they had just time traveled from the 1950’s.

“What's going on, honey?” The man’s voice was just as upbeat and cheery as Madge’s.

She turned to him, her smile never falling. “Well, just some nice kids asking about my wreaths, dear.”

“Oh, the wreaths are fine. Fine wreaths. Oh, care for some peanut brittle?” Mr. Carrigan held out a small red tin filled with sweet treats.

As Dean reached out to take some, Riley slapped Dean’s hand away. “Thank you so much, but we’re okay.”

-------

Dean and Riley’s knives worked to sharpen wooden stakes as they sat on the beds. Five other wooden stakes sat at their feet and on the beds beside them. 

In front of his laptop, Sam kept researching until he clapped his hands in a moment of excitement at what he found.

“I knew it! Something was way off with those two.”

“I’m assuming that means you found something.” Riley dusted the wood shavings off her pants and onto the carpet below.

“The Carrigans lived in Seattle, last year, where two abductions took place right around Christmas. They moved here in January. All that Christmas shit in their house--that wasn’t boughs of holly. It was vervain and mint.”

She nodded. “Oof. That screams Pagan.”

“Really?” Dean asked. “‘Cause to me it sounds like the beginning of a well-seasoned recipe.”

“I gotta tell you guys, I wasn’t picking up on anything from them. Literally, nothing. That doesn’t usually happen unless we’re talking about something that isn’t human.”

“So, what, Ozzie and Harriet are keeping a pagan god hidden underneath their plastic-covered couch?”

“I don’t know. All I know is we gotta check them out.” Closing his laptop, Sam got up to inspect one of the stakes. “So, what about Bobby? He’s sure evergreen stakes will kill this thing, right?

Blowing off the dust from her last wooden creation, Riley looked at the sharp end of the stake. “Yup. Time to put down Mr. and Mrs. Christmas with a Christmas tree. Huh,” she paused. “That’s a weird sentence.”

------

Outside the Carrigan house once again, that night, the family stood on the front porch as Dean picked the lock. Riley and Sam kept the lookout and took stakes out of the older brother’s bag as ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ played into the quiet neighborhood from the porch’s speakers.

Once inside, the hunters quietly moved through the house and into the family room. The Carrigan’s large tree sat in front of their main window;=, its lights lit as if waiting for Santa.

Dean pointed to the couch and whispered, “see? Plastic.” He shook his head disapprovingly and the others gave a judgmental look as well as they touched it. 

Riley could hear Dean’s thought as Sam walked a little ahead. “Jesus. Can you imagine having sex on this couch?”

Trying not to giggle, Riley replied, “oh, yeah. Think of how much your ass would stick to that thing.”

There were times where Riley being in Dean’s head still took him by surprise. He turned in her direction with a shake of his head as he mouthed, ‘no thank you’.

In the hall, Sam tried to keep his heavy boots quiet. He was surrounded by ornaments and snow globes as he walked into the kitchen. Plates filled with cookies, cakes, and other sweets lined the table.

To his right, Sam saw a door that led out of the kitchen and most likely into the basement. He clicked on his flashlight to point it at the lock to look more closely. It was open. 

“Guys…” he whispered.

Slowly, the hunters headed down the stairs, all with their flashlights shining in front of them. As Dean pointed his directly forward, he saw bones covered in blood sitting in a large bowl. Riley and the brothers looked around and realized the entire basement looked like a butchery room rather than a storage space. Blood, bones, and what looked like metal devices to inflict torture were strewn about the floor and countertops. 

A pair of bloody Santa boots and the matching bag, smelt of death as they sat on a box in the corner.

Sam had stumbled upon what looked like an electric wood saw with pieces of cut bone left behind. He scrunched his face in disgust with a groan before moving on. 

Nearby, Riley found a bag hanging from a hook on the wall. It was bloody and her curiosity drew her in. As she reached out to touch it, she gasped as the bag began to move with muffled cries. Someone was inside struggling to get free.

Riley jumped at the movement and sensed someone behind her. There was Madge. The woman grabbed Riley’s neck and lifted her off the ground. Softly yelping in surprise, Riley clutched at the hand around her throat.

“Riley!” Sam and Dean shouted in unison hearing her cry as they charged in her direction.

Pushing Riley up against a wall, Madge slammed Riley’s head hard into the brick, letting her drop to the ground. The evil woman slinked back into the shadows just as the brothers rushed around the large basement. 

Their lights lit up the way ahead of them, showing Riley lying on the ground and not moving.

Before Sam and Dean could reach her, Mr. Carrigan grabbed Sam’s arm and knocked his head against the wall. 

Dean turned at the sound, “Sam!” 

At that same moment, a large 2x4 was swung at Dean’s head by Mrs. Carrigan. 

With all the hunters down on the ground, the couple smiled.

------

The pagan’s kitchen was lit with candles next to several mortar bowls, knives, and hardware tools. Both Sam and Dean were tied to chairs back to back.

Once finally fully alert, but unable to see his siblings, Sam softly called, “Dean...Rye? You okay?”

Dean groaned as he pulled his head up. “I think so. Where’s Riley?”

“Over here…” Riley replied. 

The two looked over toward the sound of her voice to see her to a chair as well that sat firmly against the wall.

“You alright, sweetheart?”

“Aside from the pounding headache, yeah.” Her eyes squinted as she looked over to them.

Sam sighed. “So, I guess we’re dealing with Mr. and Mrs. God. Nice to know.”

Dressed in colorful Christmas-themed sweaters, the Carrigans walked into the kitchen practically beaming seeing the hunters awake.

“Speaking of the Yuletide douchebags…”

“Ooh, and here we thought you three lazybones were gonna sleep straight through all the fun stuff.” Madge giggled as she scurried across the floor to get things from the shelf.

Overly sarcastic no matter what the situation, Dean replied, “and miss all this? Nah, we’re partiers”.

“Isn’t he a kick in the pants, honey?” Mr. Carrigan stared down at them as he took a puff from his pipe. “You’re hunters, is what you are.”

“And you’re pagan gods. So, why don't we just call it even, and go our separate ways?”

Mr. Carrigan laughed. “What, so you can bring more hunters and kill us? I don’t think so.”

Frustrated as he pulled against his restraints, Sam tried to look over his shoulder to leer at the couple. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you went snacking on humans, now, huh?”

“Oh now, don’t get all wet.”

Madge unfolded dinner napkins and began placing them in the hunters’ laps. “Oh, why, we used to take over a hundred tributes a year and that’s a fact. Now, what do we take? What, two? Three?”

“Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew here make five.”

“Now, that’s not so bad, is it?”

Riley was still slightly spinning from the blow to the head but managed to keep her usual level of snark. “Wow, well we were just all wrong about you, weren’t we? I mean--you guys are practically Ward and June Cleaver.”

“You, little miss…” Mr. Carrigan said pointing his pipe at the blue-eyed hunter. “You better show us a little respect.”

“Or what? You’ll eat me?”

The husband laughed heartily as he looked back at Riley. “Well, you know, the missus and I have always felt it best to use men for the rituals. That’s just how it’s always been. But you…” Mr. Carrigan walked closer to Riley who had anger in her eyes. “We figured we might make an exception. Because you’re not completely human are you? No, you’re something special--something… what’s the word I’m looking for, dear?” he asked his wife.

Madge grinned as she continued to set up. “Well, she’s practically a rare delicacy isn’t she?”

“A delicacy. Spot on, dear.” Turning back to Riley, he still practically twinkled with joy. “And I’m betting what you would add to the mix would be just top notch, don’t you agree, honey?” He asked to his wife.

“Oh, absolutely. Might give it the extra kick we’ve needed to help us have it like we did in the good old days. We’re such sticklers for rituals though and have to do this right. And you know what kicks off the whole party?”

“Let me guess…” Dean said jumping in. “Meadowsweet.” Madge ran around the kitchen island with a squeal of excitement in response. “Oh shucks, you’re all out of wreaths. I guess we’ll just have to cancel the sacrifice, huh?”

“Oh, don’t be such a gloomy Gus.” She held three horseshoe-shaped wreaths and hung them all around their captives’ necks. “There. Ohh…don’t they just look darling?”

“Good enough to eat.” Mr. Carrigan smacked his lips as he whipped out a knife. “Alrighty-roo. Step number two.” Carrying a bowl and the blade, he walked to Sam. The man held the bowl under the Winchester’s arm and prepared to cut him with the knife.

Dean fought with all his strength to turn to his little brother, but to no avail. “Sammy?! Sammy?!”

“D-Don’t!” Sam’s demand almost sounded like a plea before it slowly turned to a scream as Mr. Carrigan tore into his flesh.

Both Riley and Dean shouted over each other with anger at Sam’s pain. 

“Leave him alone, you son of a bitch! I swear to god, I’ll kill you!”

“This might pinch a bit, dear.” Mrs. Carrigan had gone to Riley and the hunter bore her eyes into the god.

“You hurt her and I’ll fucking rip you apart,” Dean growled. 

Riley’s teeth gritted together through her scream and she squeezed her eyes shut as the blade cut into her forearm. Only a second later, another cry ripped from her throat as Mrs. Carrigan cut her other arm as well. 

Dean’s rage boiled inside him and his chair only slightly moved at the force he fought against it with. His family was being tortured and it was driving him to the brink of insanity. 

It was then Dean’s turn to have the blade cut into him and he too released a shout of pain. “You fucking bitch!”

“Oh, my goodness me! Somebody owes a couple of nickels to the swear jar. Oh, do you know what I say when I feel like swearing? ‘Fudge’.”

Panting, Dean snarked, “I’ll try and remember that!” As she smiled at him, the woman brought the knife back down to his other side. “You fudging touch me again and I’ll fudging kill you!”

“Very good!” she exclaimed, cutting into the hunter once more as he groaned in pain.

Mr. Carrigan picked up a pair of pliers and walked back to Sam. “You kids have no idea how lucky you are. There was a time when kids came from miles around, just to be sitting where you are.”

With panic in his voice, Sam’s chest rose and fell rapidly. “What do you think you’re doing with those? No. No. Don’t.” 

The man took the pliers to Sam’s index finger and began to pull the nail off as Sam screamed.

In a state of distress, Riley couldn’t block her empathic abilities and began to wail along with him. It felt as though her own fingernail was being torn from her body. 

The two gods turned to each other with astonishment and then back at her with Sam’s nail pinched in the pliers.

“Oh, my goodness, me…” Mrs. Carrigan exclaimed. “Darling, I think we’ve found ourselves an empath.”

After putting the nail into the bowl that was drenched in the hunters’ blood, he put down the pliers and clapped with excitement. “Well, hotdog! It’s officially a party!” Mr. Carrigan tapped his head ridiculously remembering something. “Sweet Peter on a popsicle stick…I forgot the tooth.”

Sam, Riley, and Dean were all panting hard trying to overcome their pain. 

“Merry Christmas, guys,” Dean uttered as the others groaned.

With the pliers in his hand once again, Carrigan grabbed Dean’s chin. “Open wide… and say, ‘aah’.” Just as he put the tool into Dean’s mouth, the doorbell rang.

“Somebody gonna get that?” Dean asked, his voice muffled with the pliers still in his mouth. “You should get that.”

Mr. Carrigan rolled his eyes and motioned for his wife. “Come on.”

As soon as the couple was out of the room, Dean looked over to Riley. “We gotta get out of here. I don’t wanna be this year’s Christmas turkey.”

“Yeah,” Riley agreed out of breath. “Can we kill them now, please?”

“Oh, yeah…” Sam muttered.

------

Mr. and Mrs. Carrigan came back into the kitchen with smiles on their faces. “Now, where were we?” Madge giggled.

Riley and the Winchesters were no longer in their chairs. The gods saw one of the doors close with a slam and they turned around to see the other door close as well. 

Sam and Riley were standing against one as they tried to keep it shut and Dean did the same on his end. 

The Carrigans pounded on the door, again and again, fighting the hunters attempt to lock them in.

Dean pulled a large drawer to hold his door closed and ran to help his partners. As soon as Dean was against the banging door, Riley let go and ran across the room only to shove the Christmas tree to the ground. The ornaments crashed on the hardwood and shattered as her hands went into the branches.

“Damn, Rye!” Sam yelled. “I know they were gonna eat us, but what did the tree do?”

She grunted as she yanked a branch off. “Stakes are in the basement. Luckily, we got some fresh evergreen right here.”

Dean grinned and shook his head. “You’re fucking brilliant, you know that?”

Riley nodded playfully as Dean looked to a large cabinet. “Sam! Help me get this.” 

The brothers moved the cabinet in front of the tree and rushed to grab branches from the tree. They stripped them of their needles and prepared to fight.

It went silent as they approached the kitchen door. Suddenly, Mr. Carrigan tackled Dean to the ground and began punching him again and again. 

Sam shouted, “Dean!” as he ran to his aid and fought to get the man off his brother.

A sound came from behind Riley and she turned to see Madge smiling back at her. “You little thing.” Her face distorted momentarily and swung violently in almost a blur. “I loved that tree.”

As Riley went to raise her stake, Madge hit her and the hunter crashed into the couch and onto the floor. She grabbed branches at her side as the god walked towards her and hit her as hard as she could. 

Riley fought to keep the woman at arm's length as the Winchesters overpowered Mr. Carrigan. Sam pinned him to the ground as Dean shoved the stake into his chest.

Madge screamed as she watched her husband and froze in shock, giving Riley the perfect opportunity to stab her with her own stake. The hunter scrunched her face and grunted as she pushed the stake further in before Madge fell to the ground, dead.

The three struggled to catch their breaths as they looked at each other. 

“Merry Christmas,” Sam said through ragged breath. 

------

Christmas Eve 1991

All was quiet as the children of the world waited for Santa. The snow continued to fall over the motel housing the lonely Winchester boys as Sam slept soundly in his bed.

Dean went to his side and shook his brother to wake him. “Sam, wake up!” 

Just as Sam’s eyes began to open, he turned towards Dean who had a smile on his face. 

“Dad was here. Look what he brought.” 

His gaze turned around to see a little Christmas tree, decorated with a few large and colorful lights. A few small presents sat beneath the small piece of chopped evergreen.

“Dad was here?”  Sam asked groggily.

“Yeah. Look at this. We made a killing.”

Yawning, Sam mumbled, “why didn't he try to wake me up?”

Dean thought quickly on his feet with a playful scoff. “He tried to, like a thousand times.”

“He did?”

“Yeah. Did I tell you he would give us Christmas, or what? Go on, dive in.”

Sam leaped from his bed and hurried over to the Christmas tree. He found two presents wrapped with themed wrapping paper; one even was adorned with a shiny green bow. 

Sitting on the couch, he began to unwrap his first gift.

Dean sat on the arm of the couch and watched his little brother with excitement. “What is it?”

Baffled, Sam held up a pink box. “Sapphire Barbie?”

The older brother chuckled. “Dad probably thinks you’re a girl.”

“Shut up!” Sam tossed the Barbie to the ground.

“Open that one.”

As the youngest Winchester opened his second gift, he found a sparkling cheerleading stick. 

John had broken his promise, again. 

Sam held it in his hands sadly before looking to Dean. “Dad never showed, did he?”

“Yeah, he did, I swear.”

“Dean…where’d you get all this stuff?”

Realizing he couldn’t lie anymore, Dean’s eye cast down with a sigh. “Nice house up the block. I swear I didn’t know they were chick presents.” Dean watched his sad brother with a heavy heart, desperate to bring him comfort. “Look, I’m sure Dad would have been here if he could.”

“If he’s alive.”

“Don’t say that. Of course, he’s alive. He’s Dad.”

It was then that Sam noticed the heavy burden on Dean’s shoulders; that his big brother worried just as much as Sam did. Grabbing the present he had wrapped in newspaper earlier that night, he held it out to Dean. “Here, take this.”

“No. No, that’s for Dad.”

“Dad lied to me. I want you to have it.” Sam continued to hold out the gift to Dean with a small curl on his lip.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Trying to hide his moment of excitement, Dean finally took the gift and began to tear into it. Inside, was a necklace. It was a black cord that had an amulet hanging in from it. The piece was a metallic gold color and depicted the head of a humanoid being with horns and tribal adornment. 

Dean couldn’t remember the last time he smiled so genuinely as he held the amulet in his hand. “Thank you, Sam. I--I love it.” He proudly put the necklace on over his head and the boys sat in silence with an unspoken love between them. 

Even if they were alone on Christmas, as long as they had each other, that would always be enough.

------

There wasn’t a day that had passed since that Christmas Eve, almost sixteen years before, that Dean hadn’t worn that necklace. It was practically a part of who he was. 

Dean walked into their motel room and grinned with surprise. Riley and Sam had decorated the room with a small Christmas tree and a ‘Merry Christmas’ sign. Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ played as Riley smiled in his direction, putting on the final ornament. Sam looked at his brother lovingly as Dean took it all in.

With amazement and joy in his eyes, Dean asked, “what’s all this?”

Riley stood next to Sam and shrugged playfully. “Looks like Christmas to me.”

Dean’s eyes met his brothers with a smirk. “What made you change your mind?”

Handing his big brother a glass of eggnog, Sam ignored his question. “Here, uh--try the eggnog. Let me know if it needs some more kick.”

With only a single sip, Dean coughed, looking surprised at the taste. “No, we’re good,” he practically wheezed through his cough.

“Good. Well, uh--have a seat. Let’s do…Christmas stuff, or whatever.”

Dean nodded happily as he took off his jacket. “Alright, first things first.” As Sam and Riley sat on the brown, worn couch, Dean pulled up a chair. He took out four packages wrapped in brown paper from a plastic bag and held them out to his family. “Merry Christmas, guys.”

The two smiled as they took them and Riley peered up at him. “Where’d you even go?”

“Someplace special,” Dean replied. The two looked at him waiting for a better answer. “The gas mart down the street.” His brother and girlfriend laughed at his response. “Open them up.”

Both Sam and his sister reached under the couch for four more packages, each all wrapped in newspaper. The two swapped gifts between them and Sam kissed Riley’s temple before they gave Dean his.

With surprise and excitement, Dean asked, “really?” before taking his gifts.  

Sam opened his first gift and laughed as he held up two porn magazines. “Skin mags!” Dean nodded, satisfied with Sam’s reaction as his brother opened his next gift. “And…shaving cream.”

“You like?”

“Yeah,” Sam smiled from ear to ear. “Yeah.” Opening his next two from Riley, Sam found a bag of trail mix and a small bottle of lotion. “Lotion?” he asked with an uncertain smile.

Riley chuckled. “Well, it was supposed to be a joke, but now it goes perfectly with your new porn, brother!”

Dean threw his head back in laughter, practically grabbing his stomach. 

Giving her a teasing middle finger, Sam smiled and feigned, “haha, very funny. But I’m about to bust into this trail mix as soon as we’re done. Thanks, sis.”

The Winchesters turned to Riley showing it was her turn to open hers and she giggled unwrapping her gifts. She laughed as she found two of her favorite chocolate candy bars, a bottle of gas station-brand scented soap, and a pair of fluffy blue socks. “Oh, boys...you spoil me,” she beamed. “Thank you, guys.”

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” Dean said as Riley went to him to give him a kiss. He opened his arms allowing her to sit on his lap and he wrapped himself around her as he opened his. Sheer joy covered his face as he found a bottle of motor oi, and a candy bar. “Look at this. Fuel for me and fuel for my baby. These are awesome. Thanks.” Dean’s face looked like it was probably beginning to ache with a smile that couldn’t stop. 

Opening his next gifts, he found a pair of sunglasses and a Christmas bow. “Uh--Rye, I think the bow goes on the gifts, sweetheart.”

“That is very true.” Riley took the bow, removed its sticker, and slapped it on her chest, right above her breasts. “Merry Christmas, babe.”

Dean laughed as his face buried into her neck, holding her close. Riley squealed and his fingers pinched her chin before he kissed her, smiling against her lips. “Best gifts ever.” He picked up his eggnog and grinned as he held it out, “Merry Christmas, guys.”

Sam and Riley held their plastic glasses out as well and they toasted them together. 

“Merry Christmas,” they all said.

The room fell quiet as spirits briefly fell. They all knew that Christmas would be the last they would spend together. 

Riley was consumed by the Winchester’s heavy hearts and she exhaled hard trying to shut it out. If that was going to be their last Christmas, they were going to do it right. She got up and rushed to her bag before she ran back with a camera. The brothers groaned with a laugh as she sat on the couch and motioned for them. 

“Yeah, yeah. Stop complaining and smile for our Christmas card,” she joked. 

Dean wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close as Sam reluctantly scooted to her side. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for Sam and Dean to smile along with her before the flash went off. 

As they pulled apart, Dean took the camera from her. When she looked at him, he pulled her in for a kiss as he reached his arm far out to take a picture. Their lips were curled with contentment as he triggered the camera.

Sam opened his mouth to speak as the couple pulled apart and Dean looked to his brother with worry over what he would say. 

“Hey, Dean, y–-” Sam looked sad as he fumbled for his words. He hesitated and then sighed before meeting his brother’s eyes. “Do you feel like watching the game?”

Dean smiled in relief. “Absolutely.”

“Alright.”

Standing up, Sam reached over to turn on the old TV set. The three sat on the couch together as they watched the winter football game. The brothers smirked at each other and Dean pulled Riley to his chest as he drank his eggnog.

In the silence, all that was left was the whistle of the referee and the voice of the announcer. 

As Dean kissed the top of Riley’s head, he inhaled her scent and laced his fingers with hers.

Their night was perfect, and whatever would happen tomorrow, would be tomorrow. All that mattered was being with Sam and Riley. That night was all Dean needed to find the strength to keep going. He knew that all he would ever need was his family. 

So, for the first time in eight months, Dean relaxed and felt contentment run through him. If there was a heaven, Dean was sure that it was what he had at that moment. And if Hell was what awaited him, that memory would be enough to keep his spirit alive.

Outside, snow began to gently fall to the ground. With all right once again on that Michigan night, there would be a white Christmas. It fluttered softly onto the Impala as lights twinkled in the shine of her hood. 

And through the window, sat the three hunters, lost in what would become one of their favorite memories.

------

S3 Chapter 8: Dream a Little Dream of Me

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[theycallhim-thewintersoldier]

anyway I fixed the ending of that movie, or at least the one half of it.

Pepper didn’t like the wreath of flowers. They were too lively, too bright. Ivy might have looked nicer. Tony would have suggested laurels and she’d have shaken her head at him.

If he was there to suggest them. 

She can’t image he cares much where he is.

It was strange after so long, with some of her relatives and Happy being their only guests to suddenly have a full house of all these people she used to know, used to be friends with. In better days she and Maria would get coffee at five, or six in the morning on their way to their respective jobs but it was New York City and they were never the only ones there.

Sometimes, rarely, and uannounced, Natasha would join them.

Natasha Romanov  who went from competition who speaks Latin to ally to friend in less time than it took her to learn most newcomer’s names. Natasha who smiled when she found out that she was moving to New York with Tony.

Sometimes she misses that anonymous constant buzz and chaos of the city but the quiet is better for Morgan, and she feels far safer, and she feels far more confidant in Morgan’s safety too and that’s the most important thing. 

Morgan....

Everyone looked at her with so much pity that it almost made her angry. Pepper’s own grief was acknowledged by the guests--

by the mourners. 

by the family.

--but no one really knew what to say to Morgan, what to do with her. She couldn’t help but think of Barton’s children and how they’re coping. They had been so lucky to avoid anything like this and Pepper wants to talk to Laura about how...how did she approach this the first time a pet died, a grandparent took sick, how do you tell a child that someone is never coming back?

Her daughter wasn’t even crying, just standing there quiet and still and thoughtful like any of the adults. 

it broke her heart.

The lilies of the wreath at least looked nice against the burden they were to float out with, the black and the blue and the silver, even if they wouldn’t have fit the--

It wasn’t up to her. She hates funerals. She’s been to too many of them, but none thank God had been recent and she debated for so long about letting Morgan come today until she decided to ask her

“If you don’t want to come, or if you want to leave at any point, let me know.” 

If she told Morgan she couldn’t come then she would have regretted it for the rest of her life. No funeral would ever be easy but Pepper hadn’t been to one until she was twenty five and it wrecked her for weeks. 

They’re lucky, they can afford the best child therapists in the country for Morgan if she needs it, and it’s Pepper’s opinion that every kid could probably benefit from a visit or two. 

And she knows it she’s a Cinderella story, even if she hates to think of it like that becuase she did work her way up to being Tony’s assistant and she earned the CEO role and has full confidence--as does the board--that even if Tony had been utterly indifferent to her she would have still earned it. 

She’s not sure if she’s holding Morgan’s hand for her sake or her own, but when her daughter’s grip loosens she lets go without squeezing it. It would be unfair to take any kind of support from her when she’s only just old enough to understand what’s going on. 

None of this is made easier by the fact that she can see Clint and Laura crying; Rodgers--she never did get to first name basis with him, always wary of his presence becuase it never meant anything good

I don’t want him in my house...-- she can’t work out in her mind if Tony would be alright with that or not. Oh, she knows he’d say “it’s your house, you’re in charge,” but still...

Rodgers was crying too. Stone-faced like the soldier he still was in his head but fresh and half-dry tear trails went down his face. Maria must have noticed too becuase Pepper caught her trying to make eye contact with her, but Rhodey passed between their sightline and almost startled her.

“How are you holding up?”

“All things considered? We’re functioning,” she smiled for him. It almost felt honest.

“I can’t believe he’s not here. It’s not...” he doesn’t have to explain to Stark’s wife why it doesn’t seem right. Pepper wasn’t part of the team but she was part of the family. 

“I know.”

They stand aside and watch as the Bartons finally lead their kids away from the dock. Lyla was crying softly into a tissue. Little Nat looked like he was about to throw up. Rodgers’ friend, the one that Pepper absolutely was not going to let into Tony’s home (if he’s here or not, technically her house or not, absolutely not), was cringing as if trying to keep from full-on sobbing.

Pepper had offered the team help on finding any whereabouts of Natasha’s family. Of course the team, but it didn’t feel like enough. Now watching Laura put Natasha’s necklace on Lyla, Pepper can’t believe she didn’t think of it before: aside from the team, Natasha had her own family even if she wasn’t related to them by blood. 

When they walked past them on the way up to the house, Morgan reached out to hug Lyla, and then Nat. Pepper had managed to keep from crying so far, but she can’t hold it back now. Over the heads of the mourners she could see the wreath now sinking into the water, Natasha’s stinger cuffs and SHEILD badge falling to rest. Originally her necklace was there too, the one Lyla had chosen, the arrow to remind Tasha of them as if she could have forgotten. ‘To point you home’ was what Laura told Pepper was Lyla’s reasoning on the arrow symbol. That, and Lyla’s parents were both ace archers. Lyla had taken the necklace off the wreath and clutched it with a yelp just as she was about to set it in the water.

“Have they told you anything yet?”

“They’re going to amputate his right arm most likely, but they’re more worried about keeping him stable.”

“He’s stable?” Rhodey asked with genuine joy.

“As of eight hours ago; and...just barely. Dr. Pym and recommended the team; they’re the best biomedical--”

“Yeah that’s what Dr. Strange said.”

“Is that really his name?”

“Apparently, according to the spider-boy. Have you seen him yet?”

“They didn’t want non-family in the room,”

“Come on, before....you know, the two of you basically adopted the kid.”

Pepper grins a little.

“I said Peter was our son and May was my sister.”

“They bought it?”

“They were patching up multiple, actual, outer space aliens. They were trying to keep a man’s heart beating that could already not beat on it’s own. I didn’t think they were about to run background checks on us."

“Has Tony said anything yet?”

“Mumbling a little this morning, I told him if he was trying to crack a joke then save his energy; but I don’t think he was coherent at all.”

“Jokes are good. Is Morgan...?”

“Doing better than I thought,” she sniffles slightly, pulls herself together even if the tears don’t stop falling “She said that if they take his arm, he won’t be able to pick her up anymore. She doesn’t really...Nat hasn’t sunken in yet, but she’s shaken up, scared.”

“And you?”

“I don’t--I feel guilty. All this grief and I’m just---happy we’re okay.”

Rhodey’s quiet for a moment. He’s been to enough funerals of servicemen and enough funerals of friends and family to understand what she means.

“We’re down one level headed member here. Without Nat, it’s just us now acting as the voice of reason for these idiots.”

“Rhodey...”

“I shouldn’t be joking around,”

“There are aliens. Actual aliens. A god. And the royal family of Wakanda. In my backyard with me right now. Nothing...i don’t know what joking sounds like anymore.”

“Don’t forget the talking raccoon.”

“I am actively trying to forget the talking raccoon.”

[thoughts-for-tom]

Always (Tom Holland x Reader)

pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

summary: Y/n is a senior, and she's the top of her class. She's always been busy because of school work and doesn't have enough time for Tom, her boyfriend. Y/n also received an invitation from Ivy League College which is her dream school, and it required her to stay there for a year, which means leaving Tom behind. How will Tom handle the situation? Will Tom fall out of love?

warning: sexual content, slight swearing, unprotected sex, FLUFF SMUT

word count: 1.8k!

It's been a busy week for y/n. She's been doing school works every day because all of their subject teachers basically just dropped all their assignments including individuals works and group works. Y/n rolled her eyes as she saw her partners Dylan and Layla using their mobile phones instead of helping her out with their project. It was a project for their English subject, they need to write a summary of their chosen stories. This is why y/n hates group project because her partners tend to depend on her just because she's the top student of the class.

She stopped on what she's doing when her phone vibrated. She smiled upon seeing who texted her, its Tom.

From: Thomas ♥

hey baby, where are you? I miss you, can we meet?

She always liked Tom's real name even though Tom hates it, that's why she named it on her contacts. Y/n pursed her lips, she wasn't sure what to reply. She still has a lot of things to do and she might have to turned down Tom. She glanced again on her phone when it vibrated again.

From: Thomas ♥

please :(

And that's all it takes to convince y/n to ditch her project making session with her useless partners. She stood up and walked towards Dylan and Layla. Dylan is busy playing video games while Layla is busy stalking some guy on instagram.

Y/n sighs. "I'm going. You two better finish the project or I'll tell Mrs. Williams you haven't contributed and she would mark the two of you zero on this project." She said as she stormed out from the library. She knew that sounded like a threat but serves them right.

Tom is sitting inside a coffee shop near their school. It's been a week since he had seen y/n, they have always been texting each other but that's it. Tom missed her so much, he missed hugging, kissing, and holding her hands. Tom felt his phone vibrate and he can't help but to smile as the excitement rushed into him.

From: Baby

I'm on my way.

Few minutes later Tom heard the door open and he quickly goes to y/n and hug her. They went to their table and Tom can't stop smiling and staring at his girlfriend. Y/n noticed Tom is smiling ear to ear and she laughed.

"Stop smiling like that." Y/n chuckled.

"I can't help it! I'm so happy you're here." Tom said and reached for y/n hands resting on the table.

Y/n gave a peck on Tom’s lips and giggled, “What did I do to deserve an amazing person like you?”

Y/n and Tom spent the whole afternoon talking inside the coffee shop. Every time y/n is with Tom, everything just feels right. It is as if the world seemed to come to a stop and the moment paused for y/n and Tom’s eyes to lock.

“Oh, by the way,” Y/n held Tom’s hand across the table and gripped it tight.  “I received an invitation from an Ivy League school.”

Tom’s faced brightened up with what y/n mentioned, “I am happy for you! It’s your dream school, isn’t it?”

Y/n’s face began to frown and slightly lets go of Tom’s hand, “But it required me to stay there for the whole school year.”

Tom didn't know what to feel. Does that mean they're going to be apart from each other? Tom think he won't be able to handle that.

"Does that mean you're going to leave me?" Tom said, in his low voice, almost like a whisper.

"Tom. I--" Y/n stopped. She doesn't know what to say either.

"We can still text each other. We can still communicate online." She said to lighten up Tom's mood, but she knows that won't work. Tom looked at y/n, he loves her and he always wants what's the best for her.

"I'm sorry." Tom said. Y/n didn't expect that. Why would he say sorry?

"Tom, you don't have to apologize. What are you sorr--" y/n was cut off by Tom.

"I'm sorry for feeling this way. I know you want this so bad and I wanted you to be happy but I just can't help it." Tom said, and he can feel his eyes getting watery. Tom's always the cry baby in their relationship, whenever he and y/n have an argument, or when they're watching a drama movie on netflix, Tom always cry.

"I understand you Tom, I do. Please, don't cry. You know I hate seeing you cry." Y/n said as she wiped the tears  starting to fall down to his cheeks.

Tom smiled at her. When it was getting dark, they decided to go to Tom's place and watch some movies like they always do. Tom's parents were not around so they can freely do whatever they want, but Tom is not thinking some nasty things. He just wants some quality time with y/n, and maybe some cuddling and kissing.

"You can go ahead upstairs. I'm just gonna cook some food for us." Tom said and kissed y/n on her lips, just a peck. Y/n smile and walked upstairs. It's been a month since she's been here. She missed the scent of Tom's room and suddenly flashbacks of their first sex came rushing into her mind. This is where she lost her virginity, and she was glad it was Tom. It's been a month since she and Tom had sex, and she's being honest with herself, she's definitely craving for Tom's touch. She blushed at the thought, but brushed it away. She turned on Tom's laptop and connected it to the tv.

She picked Everything, Everything because she has a huge crush on Nick Robinson and just right when the movie is about to start Tom walked into his room with nachos, popcorns, sandwiches, and juice. They positioned themselves on the bed with y/n head laying on Tom's chest and Tom's hand wrapped around her shoulders. Y/n rest her hand on Tom's chest while playfully moving it like she was playing the piano. It made a ticklish sensation and Tom can't help but to giggle.

"Nick Robinson is hot." She said when she saw Nick's character on the movie. Tom hummed as a disapproval.

"Hotter than me?" Tom asked.

"Shut up." Y/n chuckles and leaned toward Tom's face.

"Of course, you're hotter." she whispers and gave Tom a kiss. Gentle but long.

When they pull apart from each other, Tom smirked. "You made a mistake doing that." He said, and with that he kissed her. This time it was hard but passionate. It's like they've been wanting this for a long time and they're so hungry for each other.

Tom positioned himself on top of y/n while kissing her, not wanting to break it. Y/n moans as she felt Tom hands roam around her body, caressing gently. Tom kisses went down to her neck and collarbones leaving a mark before capturing her mouth for a kiss.

Y/n moans that me Tom to gain more access into her mouth, and it's been only a matter of second when they find their tongues touching each other. Y/n hands roams around Tom's upper body as her hands find its way to the hem of Tom's shirt. She grabbed it and pull it, Tom groaned and help y/n take off his shirt. Tom is back on kissing y/n while his hands grab y/n's shirt and literally ripped it apart. Y/n moaned as she heard some of the buttons from her shirt fell on the floor. Y/n didn't even noticed that Tom already unclasped her bra and throw it on the floor. Tom stopped while looking at y/n body.

"Beautiful." he said goes down and started nibbling and sucking y/n breasts. Y/n arched her back at the sensation Tom was giving her.

Tom kisses went down into her stomach. Tom quickly unzip her jeans as she felt the eagerness of y/n to touch her down there. Tom smirked and happily obliged, he throw y/n jeans and undies on the floor. Tom kissed her again while his hand caressing y/n breast and the other playfully rubbing her cherry.

"Please." y/n begged as she moved her hips. She moaned when Tom started to insert his fingers and thrusting them into her. When Tom felt her wetness he removed his fingers and unzip his pant and throw them on the floor together with his underwear. Y/n watch Tom's huge member sprung upon removing his pants. The next she knew she is holding it with her hands and started jerking it off. Tom moaned as he felt the pleasure rushed into him.

It was a matter of time when Tom felt y/n mouth on the tip of his member. That's when Tom lost it, he moaned and watch as y/n sucking his manhood. The warmth and the way his manhood touched the tip of y/n is sensational, but Tom doesn't want to cum yet, so he positioned himself on top of y/n again and started kissing her. Y/n felt the tip of his manhood touching her entrance, and she moaned in Tom's lips when she felt him inside her.

Tom started to move slowly and deep and when he felt y/n had adjusted he started to thrust fast, hard, and deep. He felt y/n hands on his back while he buried his face on y/n neck.

"Fuck. I'm gonna--" y/n moaned as she felt the familiar sensation. Tom continued to thrust inside her after her orgasm. Y/n moaned as Tom keeps hitting her spot.

"Shit. I'm coming." Tom said, but he realized he wasn't wearing a condom so he had no choice but to cum outside. Tom pulls out his member and release it on y/n stomach.

Y/n moaned at the sight. Tom quickly grabs his shirt on the floor and wiped his release on y/n stomach. He kissed her and positioned himself beside her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't wear a condom. I didn't see this coming." Tom said and chuckled.

"I wasn't expecting this to happen either." Y/n said, still panting.

"I'm gonna miss you." Tom said, and kissed her.

"So bad."

"I'll miss you too." Y/n said, and this time it was her turn to cry. Tom quickly wiped her tears.

"I'll visit you every holidays." Tom said.

"No need, I'll make sure I'll be home every holidays" Y/n said.

"I love you." Tom smiled.

"I love you too, Thomas. Always." Y/n said and wrapped her arms around Tom. Hoping that this would not be the last time.

~~

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[janelevy]

Crush - Penny/Fem!MC

You can also read this on AO3!

**This takes place in 6th year, so now that everyone’s aged up a bit things get scandalous. In plainer words, this fic contains a lot of kissing. As in MC kissing Penny. Making out with Penny. A lot. What’s not to love?

You hadn't been particularly inclined to attend the party, but at the last minute a certain somebody helped convince you.

You were in herbology class, trimming away at the ivy, packing all your pent-up emotions into each hearty snip of the garden shears. Class had started roughly ten minutes prior, but only then did Penny come running in, panting heavily.

You glanced up and nearly dropped the shears on your foot. Yet seeing Penny's face stirred up more pain than being stabbed in the foot ever could. Her eyes were red and watery, nose dripping as she wiped at it carelessly with her sleeve. As you got closer to her, you noticed streaky paths left behind on her cheeks by tears, and fresh ones were welling up at her eyelids, threatening to fall.

"Pen?" you said, stepping over to her. It didn't take long for your heart to start beating quickly; that was the natural "Penny Effect," as you called it. Anytime she was nearby or made contact with you, you basically melted into a helpless puddle. For example, one time in third year she coughed on you accidentally and you'd almost fainted.

"Oh. (Name)," she sniffed. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. "He did it. Seb really broke up with me."

Your jaw dropped. "What? When?"

"Just now. That's why I'm late to class, I- I was crying my eyes out in the loo." She rubbed her bloodshot eyes and created a smudgy cloud of mascara around her eyes like a mask. "But it's not just that he broke up with me, it's how he did it."

You stared at her dumbly, like a puppy waiting to be fed more treats— or in this case, more information. "How?"

"I found him snogging another girl in an empty classroom. I heard whispers, and… and it sounded like him, then I opened the door and it was him. H- he was with that girl Elizabeth. What does she have that I don't?" Penny broke into heavier sobs, and a few other students glanced over in interest. Sprout was too busy helping somebody at the other end of the greenhouse to notice, however.

You rubbed your friend's back and sighed. You had known it would only be a matter of time before that wanker Sebastian cheated on Penny. He was a player, a cocky pureblood redhead who always had the latest in brooms and fashion. You knew as soon as they started dating a few months ago that it wouldn't last. In all honesty, you were surprised they did last as long as they had. And everyone had known Seb was eyeing that Elizabeth girl— also a Hufflepuff, but in the year above you.

"You are way better than her," you assured Penny. It was kind of half-hearted; you're not the best at reassuring others. Sure, you've been convincing enough in the past, but actually comforting your friends is a whole other story. When you say words of comfort, they feel empty. And when you spoke to Penny then, it felt empty and pointless. You were speaking the truth— Penny was a million times prettier and smarter than that skanky brunette— but you knew it would take more than that to make her feel better.

"I just want to hex that bitch and see how she likes feeling like her chest was ripped open!" Penny snarled, clenching her fists.

"Hey, hey," you said. "Pen, she's not worth wasting your anger on. Neither of them are worth it."

She relaxed slightly. "As much as I don't want to admit it, you are right, (Name). I need to get it off my mind. How…" She paused, seeming to think for a moment, then brightened remarkably. "Aha! (Name), you have to come to the party with me tonight."

Instantly you deflated. "I'm, uh… not exactly a party person." Unlike her, you highly prefer staying in and reading with Rowan rather than dressing up and socializing into the early hours of the morning.

But Penny fixed those puppy eyes on you, and that's when you knew it was hopeless. Missing the party for your own selfish reasons would only make you feel worse about this situation.

So that's how you end up in a dress and awkwardly walking up one of Hogwarts' many staircases in heels. You curse under your breath as you trip for the hundredth time. The stumble nearly sends you crashing into the ancient stone steps, but you manage to right yourself on the railing. This reminds you of the time Rowan and Penny convinced you to go ice-skating with them, only these cursed shoes are that clumsiness multiplied by a thousand.

You're alone because Rowan had helped you get ready, but in usual Rowan fashion, they hadn't been interested in actually going themself. You promised to meet Penny, Tonks, and everyone else there. Now you wish you had an arm to lean on, though, because these stairs are simply impossible.

By some miracle, you scale them after some fifteen minutes of struggle and huffing and puffing. It's not difficult finding the spare room the party is being held in; the portrait concealing the entrance contains a young man who is holding a glass of firewhisky and wearing a ridiculous hat. He sways side to side and hums to himself as you approach.

You clear your throat, and at last he notices you. He opens an eye and asks, "Passwooooord?"

"Butterscotch toad," you tell him, and briefly wonder if Tulip had something to do with the password, considering her adoration for toads.

He nods, and the portrait swings open like a door, inviting you in. You climb through and right away you get an exact idea of just what kind of party this is. On the surface, it looks like what it's called: a Christmas party for sixth-years only. There's merry decorations, tinsel and strings of lights everywhere. But its innocence has been brutally torn away, replaced by a bunch of sixteen-year-olds stumbling around, drunker than the man in the portrait. Several couples are snogging in darker corners or right in the open, and nobody seems to care about it. Fancy, dressy outfits that were put together with care an hour ago are now disheveled and stained.

"Shit," you mutter. This is not the kind of thing you wanted to get into. But you're here for Penny. Her happiness is what's most important right now, not yours. So you grudgingly take a seat and lazily scan your eyes over the crowd, only kind of searching for her. She said she'd find you, after all, so—

That's when your eyes land on her. In less than half a second, all of your doubts vanish. This is a different Penny than the one you saw earlier in herbology— and only now do you realize you've never seen Penny in party mode. You only see her in her most modest form: neat Hufflepuff robes, hair plaited, appearance spotless. You can't believe you have known this girl for six years. You can't believe you have waited six years to see this version of her.

She smiles brightly and heads over to you. You don't bother to conceal the fact you're eyeing her up. She's wearing a tight-fitting blue gown adorned with sequins. The garment hugs the curves you'd never noticed she had. It's also low-cut, offering a decent view of her chest. You swallow shakily as your eyes continue moving up. Her face is all done up with fresh makeup and zero sign of the day's tears. Thick lashes, shimmery eyeshadow, dark pink lipstick. The most notable difference is her hair. You've never seen her hair without at least one braid woven into it. But now it's all let down, tumbling past her shoulders like blonde waterfalls. Plentiful, shiny waves of hair softer than the softest blanket— you know, you've touched it before. At last she reaches you. "Hey, (Name)! You finally made it."

Your nerves are so electric, you can practically feel them buzzing just underneath your skin. "Y- yep. I'm here," you stutter. Your mind is blank except for one thought repeating itself again and again, prodding your brain: Penny is hot. Penny is very hot. Penny is a very attractive person who is standing a few centimeters away from me. You hope you're not sweating excessively. Desperately, you hope not.

"What do you think?" she asks, gesturing around you both. "Aren't parties great? I like them because this is where everyone can let loose and have fun. I think we really deserve this, don't you?"

It takes a second to recognize that you've been asked a question. "Um, yeah," you say lamely.

"Come on, there's some people I want you to meet," Penny chirps as she grabs your hand. You grit your teeth the second you touch her. You know your hand must be sweaty as hell, but if she notices she doesn't say anything of it.

She introduces you to some of her Hufflepuff friends who you always noticed from afar all these years, but never actually talked to. There's Michael, who is clearly staring at Penny's chest the entire time she's talking to him. Gabriel is kind, but too tipsy to really have a decent conversation with. Marilia is sweet, but seems a little flustered when the two of you walk up to her. The entire time Penny drags you around from person to person, you're trying to ignore your lightheadedness.

Eventually you two find Ben, Tonks, Tulip, and Charlie. Ben and Charlie look very dashing in button down shirts. Tulip is in a sleek black skirt and white top, while Tonks is in her usual clothes, because of course she is. You envy her as you shift uncomfortably in your heels— there's definitely going to be blisters on your feet when the night is over.

"Well, well. (Name)'s actually tall for once," Tulip says.

You're too dizzy to bite back with a humorous response. You blink a few times. Your head is spinning, actually. Your brain is wobbling and your skull is tilting back and forth in your head like a see-saw. You look down at the drink in your hand. The frothy liquid is a swirling, dangerous whirlpool. What kind of dark magic is in that stuff?

A couple more hours pass by as you hang with your friends. Gradually the shy giggles turn into obnoxious guffaws. You and Penny sit on a sofa and you start out with a little space between you. Then that turns into her leaning a bit on your arm, then her head is resting on your shoulder. There's one point where you're laughing at something Tonks or Charlie just said, and you incline your head to look at the weight pressing into your side, and Penny's laughing too, you can feel her shaking sides tickle your ribs, and then her gaze flits upward and you're both looking at each other, and with that something falls into place. Your heart freezes and your brain, currently in quite the disastrous state, quits functioning. You wander into the lagoon in her blue eyes and after tonight, you realize vaguely, there's no wandering back out of that lagoon.

You and Penny excuse yourselves from the group. The room the party is being held in is connected to a few other smaller rooms, with short hallways in between. A layout that would be basic to any sober person is like a maze to you both. You kick off your heels and scamper close behind her, your bare feet skimming over the creaky wooden floor.

She gets her hands on a door knob and when it opens, you two fall through into a dark, narrow corridor. It seems empty and deserted. For just a second the air is filled with heavy breathing, but then fingers dig into your shoulders and you're slammed against the wall. She's just a hair taller than you without heels on, so she bends down slightly to rest her cheek on your chest. Her breath comes out in hot puffs, grazing your skin with the sweetest feeling that makes your heart slam against your ribcage. She stays in that position until both of you have caught your breath. Then she lifts her head so you're nose to nose.

"Your heart's like a jackhammer," she whispers. Jackhammer? You try to place a definition for that word, but you can't so you figure it must be a muggle object. Way to show her half-blood heritage.

You can't find the courage to reply. You're still stunned that you're here in this dark hall with Penny Haywood leaning into you— her breasts like a warm cushion between your bodies and her endless hair going astray and teasing your goose bump-covered skin.

As your eyes adjust to the dark, you can see that she's still studying you with a great intensity. She speaks again, and the tang of alcohol stings your nostrils.

"I've never done much with a girl before," she says. "I… I mean, little pecks and kisses here and there, but never—"

You wrap one hand around the back of her head, relishing the sleek coolness of her hair as you bring your lips to meet hers. You initiated the kiss, but it's her who leans into it hungrily, her entire body now pinning you to the stone wall. You soon learn how vocal she is; her moans travel up her throat, into your own mouth, and reverberate around your skull. It makes your knees wobble and the pure ecstasy fueling your brain explodes like an array of fireworks.

It's truly the most extraordinary thing you've done. Six years at Hogwarts— the Cursed Vaults, your interminable feud with Merula, your missing brother— all of it disappears in an instant. It's like you have cast the Obliviate charm on yourself, and preserved only these heart-thudding seconds of your life. You're snogging Penny Haywood after years of one-sided pining and watching her heart get stomped on by jerky boys who didn't appreciate what they had. You're snogging Penny Haywood, and it's the best thing.

Your relationship becomes an accidental secret. You know you wouldn't care if others found out, but neither of you speak about it aloud, so it just stays under wraps.

In fact, in front of others you and Penny are as painfully platonic as ever. But there are times, when Rowan is focused on their book or Tulip's head is turned the other way, where she'll let her hand brush yours as she reaches forward to get something. It's the most innocent action, and it almost exasperates you that she acts like you're a couple of awkward first-years.

Then, however, there are other instances where you and her are anything but a couple of awkward first-years. You'll be walking down the hall by yourself, heading to lunch, when an arm darts out of an empty classroom and drags you in. The door slams shut, a silencing charm is cast, and then she's on you like a hungry predator, sucking on the sensitive skin of your neck and reducing you to a wobbly mess. There are the times when you'll pounce as well, jogging down a deserted corridor with her and barely escaping Filch's ever-watchful eye. You might end up in a bathroom, falling into a stall together as the door bangs loudly against the wall, but you pull it shut with your heel and strain one hand back to slide the lock in place before you return your hand to her hair, unraveling the perfect braids as she lets your tongue explore her mouth, and after the make out session you leave with an aftertaste of the caramel sweets she had eaten earlier.

The first time you two are caught, it's luckily not in the act— it's afterward, in the girls' toilet on the third floor that is almost always empty. You're catching your breath, leaning against the cool marble wall, as she fixes her hair in front of the mirror.

The door groans open, and both of you jump. You turn to see who it is; Penny's face has turned three shades paler, so you know it must not be good. And sure enough, there's Merula Snyde, her eyes flicking back and forth from one disheveled girl to the other. "The hell happened here?" she asks, but from the glint in her gaze you know she knows.

"I'm just fixing my hair, Merula," Penny responds, your enemy's name coming out in a soft exhale that makes your heart thrum. Then she glances over at you, her gaze hard. "And so is (Name)."

"Fixing my…? Oh yes, I'm fixing my hair, too." It's useless, but you step up to the mirror neighboring Penny's and start frantically smoothing down the flyaway hairs.

Merula nods. "Right, right. Just fixing your hair. In the snogging restroom."

Your arms stiffen. Penny tenses next to you. Merula's smirking reflection stands just behind you.

"Everybody knows the empty restroom on the third floor corridor is for snogging. It's been the snogging restroom for ages, I mean— you've seriously never heard about it? I'm sure the Potters went here, I'm sure your parents went here, too, (Last name)."

"Shut your trap," you growl. "Tell me, Merula, if this is the snogging restroom, then why have you come here alone?"

Penny stifles a giggle behind her fingers as Merula smolders.

"Whatever," she snaps. "I suggest you find a spell good enough to cover up Haywood's lip color that's smeared all around your mouth, (Last name). And Haywood, if everyone sees those hickeys on your neck, then your pathetic little rebound will be even more obvious than when I reveal it to the whole school." With that, she stalks out.

You're trembling with fury by the time she's gone, but Penny doesn't seem bothered at all. She finishes taming her hair back into the braids, then faces you and shrugs. "It's Merula. You know she never does what she says she's going to do." She plants a final kiss on your cheek, then takes her exit.

As usual, Merula isn't true to her word. An uneventful month passes by, and sure enough nobody else still knows. You suppose you have enough dirt on the coward to keep her trap shut.

The second time you and Penny are caught, it is in the act. You two had sneaked into your dormitory, which is blissfully empty (you'd tried her dorm first, but Tonks had looked very confused when you and her bustled in, then immediately turned back around and left). First thing you do after entering is push her against a wall then lift her up in your arms so her thighs are squeezing your torso. Let's just say Quidditch practice has given you sudden bursts of extra strength. Now her head's above yours, and she stretches her neck down to collide her lips with yours. You both manage to dislodge a curtain, scare off a pet cat, and knock over a stack of books before falling as one onto your bed. The mattress bounces like your nerves. Your mouth is kiss-swollen and tingling, the "Penny Effect" taking control of you more than ever before.

It's when your hands are up her shirt and she's whimpering in pleasure into your neck that another unsuspecting soul walks in.

Poor, poor Rowan. They'd strolled into the dormitory expecting to have it all to themself for a nice, quiet reading session. That illusion is immediately destroyed when they see a peculiar sight on your bed: two girls tangled together in a fierce display of passion. Their eyes dart down to the robes crumpled on the floor— yours on one side, and yellow Hufflepuff ones on the other. They look back up and the long, silky blonde hair is unmistakable.

"For Merlin's sake!" Rowan shouts. You and Penny spring apart in alarm. "Couldn't you have found a more private place to do that?"

You nibble your sore lip. "I, um… it was private for a while." Rowan glares at you. "Un… until now," you add sheepishly.

Penny looks guilty as ever and won't remove her gaze from her lap. You're both in your underclothes, the farthest layer you two have ever reached thus far. So, you figure, it could've been worse.

"Unbelievable! How long have you two been doing this?"

"A few months," you tell them quietly.

Rowan perches themself on the edge of their bed, shaking their head in dismay. "Two of my best friends… you lot are my two best friends, and you decide to keep a secret this big from me?"

You open your mouth to explain, but Penny cuts in. "We wanted to keep it to ourselves," she says, raising her head and staring at Rowan solemnly. Her flat tone clashes with the apologetic expression on her face.

"Why?" Rowan demands.

You're too busy trying to figure out why Penny said that answer, so she covers for you again. "We're not really sure what this is, exactly, so… we just kept it a sworn secret."

Your muscles go limp, and you collapse against your pillow. Penny senses the movement and twists around, but when she tries to connect your gazes you refuse.

Rowan stands up with their arms crossed. "I'm just… I'm just going to leave. I need to think." They storm out with a huff and disappear back down the staircase.

"… fuck," Penny groans, falling onto her back as her silken hair spreads out like a fan.

"So… this is supposed to be a secret? Something forbidden you don't want anyone to know about?"

She flips onto her stomach, her brow furrowed. "What are you talking about, (Name)?"

"You'd be embarrassed if everyone knew, wouldn't you? It's like Merula said. I'm just your rebound, or your experiment, or— or whatever you want to call it. You just want to see what 'it' is like with a girl. Well guess what, Pen, you can't just kiss me silly, have sex with me, then move on to the next bloke!" While the harsh accusations roll off your tongue, something stabs at your gut. You curl yourself into a tighter ball as you speak, and you watch her confused expression shatter into a million irreparable shards.

You remember the first time you noticed how beautiful she is— it was back in third or fourth year, and you were playing gobstones with her in the courtyard, then she threw back her head and laughed, and it was the kind of laugh that made sunshine beam inside you, warming you to your core, and you just knew from then on. Even from the first moment she'd walked up to you in first year and remarked on how brave you were for dueling Merula— you'd noted how simply pretty she was, the kind of girl who you could pass on the street and do a double take at. The kind who could stick in your mind for a while even after only seeing her face once. And now you sit here on your bed, watching as she shatters in front of you, and the knife you've stabbed into your own gut twists.

Her voice is at an ominously low level when she finally speaks. "First of all, (Name), you implying that I'm a heartless slut really hurts my feelings. I never thought you could say something that bloody careless." She sits up and glowers at you. "And for your information, if you were my rebound, I would've let you go months ago. Do you think I kiss you all the time because I'm lonely and feeling sorry for myself?" Tears start to drip down her face. "No! I… I kiss you because I like it a lot, I… I enjoy it a lot. This has nothing to do with you being the same gender as me, it has to do with me liking you, goddamn it! And… and we never went out of our way to mention this to anyone, so I assumed it should be a secret. And even if we weren't secretive about it, I mean— I mean, I would be scared if everyone knew be— because… oh, (Name), it's 1990, progress should be made, but there are still so many who would judge us." She hops off the bed and snatches up her robes, slipping them back on and throwing the hood over her messy hair.

You tremble violently and hug your knees to your chest. She throws one more scowl at you, and it's like the one last dagger needed to finally kill you. "(Name), I do like you for real. Not just as a friend. Maybe… maybe even I love you. I don't know. But I don't deserve this." She whips around and you can hear her deafening, angry footsteps fading down the staircase.

You cave in on yourself and cry silently until you drift to sleep.

In your slumber, you have a nightmare. It's similar to Penny's situation with that arsehole Seb back in December. You hear something behind a closed door. You open it, and find Penny kissing someone who is way better looking than you, but they don't possess even half of Penny's beauty. The blonde turns to you with a devilish grin and cackles. "Just so you know, (Name), this is what a rebound looks like," she tells you before reattaching her face to the other person's.

You wake up drenched in sweat and feeling sour as ever. Your stomach rumbles, a swirling storm of sickness roiling within. You stay in bed all day and skip classes.

The following day, Rowan finally speaks to you again. "(Name)," they whisper, nudging you awake.

You roll over and look up at them in surprise. "I'm sorry," you say immediately. Your throat is parched. You can't remember the last time you had even one drop of water.

"It's alright," they reply, "though after thinking it over, it did occur to me that it really wasn't ever any of my business." Rowan hesitates, then carefully goes on. "Um… listen, I made up with Penny already"— you cringe just hearing her name— "and I was talking with her at breakfast this morning. She seemed very upset about whatever it was you said to her."

You rub your face and massage your aching temples. "I basically called her a slut."

"Oh," Rowan winces.

"And I, uh, I claimed she was just using me."

Rowan grits their teeth. "I would say it's safe to assume she has good reason to be upset, then, but—"

"No, yeah, you're right. Fuck." You unfold yourself from the depressed ball you had been tucked into for the past couple days. Your arms shoot up and you stretch your back luxuriously, waiting until your spine cracks in that satisfying way. "Alright. Let me get dressed and I'll talk to her in div."

You show up at divination class sooner than you would like. Gulping, you shuffle deeper into the room until your eyes land on your usual place in between Charlie and Penny.

Charlie grins broadly and welcomes you back. Penny, on a completely different page from you and him, is intently focused on her homework for charms. Her quill scribbles furiously over the page and her forehead is all crinkled up like tissue paper; both indicate her intense determination to ignore you.

You drop down into the seat next to her and awkwardly drum your fingers on the desk. "Well," you begin.

"Save it," she snaps.

You startle at her abruptness. "Pens—" you try again.

"Don't want to hear it."

Your heart drops and you settle back against your seat, utterly at a loss. Trelawney starts her lecture, slinking around in that strange way she does, but you're so far deep into your imagination that paying attention is out of the question. In your peripheral, you see Penny lifting her head ever so slightly, her eyes dully resting on the professor.

You think back to your fight, how her face was beet red, makeup ruined by tears and snot. Your mind then shifts to thinking about kissing her. You know that you'll never not like kissing Penny Haywood. Penny bloody Haywood. Ah, hell, what is wrong with me? You think about the first second you met her, you think about those late nights in the potions classroom brewing non-Snape-approved substances, you think about her sitting behind you by the fireplace weaving a million braids into your hair, you think about the werewolf, the secret only you know, the secret she made herself forget, you think about the Christmas party, you think about her tongue twirling in rhythm with yours, you think about the alcohol, the sweat, the tears, the most amazing feeling that bursts in your stomach when you lay in bed next to her and smell coconut in her hair from the shampoo she uses.

You spend the whole class thinking about what you've lost. When it's over you want to dig a hole, throw yourself into it, pull crushing dirt over yourself, and never see light again.

"Were you listening at all, (Name)?" Charlie teases as the class files out.

"Eh, divination is a waste of time anyway," you mutter. You spot Penny walking briskly two or three paces ahead of you. You excuse yourself and catch up to her.

"Penny, you don't have to say anything, but just listen to me, please. I didn't mean to—"

You feel an iron grip close on your upper arm. With a murderous growl, she yanks you into an empty side hall. She flings her arms into a crossed position over her midsection. "No," she hisses. "You listen to me. You had no right to attack me like you did. No right!" Already she's crying again, but this time she lets the tears drip undisturbed, leaving black mascara trails. "Everything was swell, then you turned on me out of nowhere! I'm sorry I wanted to keep us a secret, (Name). I'm sorry if I offended you. If you want me to scream it to the heavens, I will. I just… I just don't understand what went wrong."

You feel something heavy filling your eyes and blurring your vision. Your chest heaves and you let out a breath. "Penny, I'm the one who should be apologizing. I- I think I just felt… insecure. I didn't… I couldn't imagine why you would want to be with me. I'm way out of your league. You could've had someone like Bill, or— or…" You trail off. "I… just. I'm sorry, Pen. It was out of line, those things I said to you. You didn't deserve that. If… if we could restart where we left off, before I ruined everything, then maybe…"

The words die on your tongue again. Your mouth goes dry as your eyes slowly move up to lock with hers. "It's okay, love." She smiles and steps forward, tucking stray hairs behind your ear. Her smooth hand slips under your chin and she guides your lips to meet hers. It's the gentlest kiss you two have shared. Joy fizzes in every ounce of your blood, from your fingertips to your toes.

"I love you," you say as you separate. The words slip out of your mouth. You hadn't meant for them to come out, but Penny grins.

She takes your hand and chuckles in that light, airy laugh of hers. Like clouds you could float on forever. You know, you know you'll never be free from Penny Haywood's delightful curse. "I know," she says, and with that she pulls you back into the stream of students walking to class.