#golden white ledger stone

[justinrodgers]

Dining Room in San Francisco Inspiration for a large transitional kitchen/dining room combo remodel with gray walls

[luminouslumity]

Another year, another season, another post going into Chinese mythology (mostly in how it pertains to Journey to the West).

LI JING (李靖) is someone I've actually already discussed a bit here in terms of his and Nezha's backstories, but for JttW specifically, he's sent by the Jade Emperor to subdue Sun Wukong, and of course things don't go well in his favor. Later, he attempts to help Sun Wukong in apprehending the One-Horned Rhinoceros King and later shows up to arrest the Bull Demon King, and again after Tang Sanzang is kidnapped by the GOLDEN-NOSED WHITE-HAIRED RODENT-SPIRIT (金鼻白毛老鼠精), otherwise known as LADY EARTH FLOW (地涌夫人).

The SIXIANG (四象), or Four Signs, include ZHUQUE (朱雀), XUANWU (玄武), BAIHU (白虎), and QINGLONG (青龍) are the guardians of the four cardinal directions (South for the Vermillion Bird/Zhuque, North for the Black Tortoise/Xuanwu, West for the White Tiger/Baihu, and East for the Azure Dragon/Qinglong). In JttW, they are referenced towards the end in a poem:

One Real Body dropped to the dusty plain

Fuses with Four Signs to tend the self again.

In Five Phases terms forms are dead and void;

The fiends' vain names one should all avoid.

Great Bodhi's the right Candana fruition;

Appointments crown this rise from perdition.

Gracious light of scriptures now worldwide dilates,

As five sages live within Advaya's gates.

Much like the dragon family he'd married into, the NINE-HEADED BEAST (九頭蟲) is a thief, having collaborated with his father-in-law, the Wansheng Dragon King (萬聖龍王), into stealing a Buddhist relic—known as a Śarīra—from Jisai's Golden Ray Monastery. Erlang Shen's dog bites one of his heads off, but he manages to escape otherwise.

Like in many other religions, NÜWA (女媧) is said to have molded humans from clay, having initially creating what would become the nobility by hand before resorting to mass production for the rest. One day, when the heavens began to crumble—its cause depending on the source—she gathered five colored stones to patch up the sky, while a tortoise's legs would be used as pillars for support.

The Underworld in Chinese mythology is said to be divided into several hells and overseen by YANWANG (閻王) alongside nine other kings: QINGUANGWANG (秦广王), CHUJIANGWANG (楚江王), SONGDIWANG (宋帝王), WUGUANWANG (五官王), BIANCHENGWANG (卞城王), TAISHANWANG (泰山王), PINGDENGWANG (平等王), DUSHIWANG (都市王), and ZHUANLUNWANG (转轮王). Most infamously, Sun Wukong erased his name and that of every monkey he knew from the Ledger of Life and Death and to prevent them from dying.

[larkaen]

—❝ you taught me the courage of stars before you left ❞

His love was light incarnate, and the realms shroud in darkness with the shatter of sleeping stars and the golden blood of sun-flesh the day everything soft and pure bled in the temple of murder. This was the yarn that bound pages would spin with the ink of scholars: the death of two with a single wound.

brief gore descriptions, death, dark urge tav (no use of the name), gender neutral!

They had never understood desire until Astarions touch fell upon ruined flesh. They burned hot as if hellfire, no remedy to kiss the lick of flames and craving for sweet ruby rivers gliding smooth down their gullet. Their belly, the very core of their damned soul quenched with the hands of light: of pale skin and carmine gaze.

Have me, the cursed one cries within themselves, devour me whole as though I weep with god-nector, poisoned ambrosia. Take me whole, as I am. Please, I beg of you, love my darkness as though it is holy.

They hunger for the pull and stretch of taut tendons, the split of flesh and tongue lapping sweet juices as Astarion buries himself deep within their ribs. Held ever close to their heart. The everlasting cure to the hunger of father’s bloodlust. It was almost comical; the darkest of urges quenched with the mere existence of one with a dripping ledger.

Visceral, howling, beastly, was their love. Ever willing to welcome a torn jugular if it meant their love would be left with a full belly. They did not know the path of undying devotion in a light such as this. Horrid and bloody, it was. It was their way of life.

Yet, they were the one to cleanse the blood from snowy curls and hold trembling shoulders over the bath rim on the eve of Cazadors death. From their lips left comfort and everything sweet and pure. From Astarions very existence, came the birth of new beginnings. The death of wretched and everything horrid.

They wonder now, basked in putrid death as their sacred life-blood flowed and lapped at stone, if they had done it right. If they loved truly, purely. If Astarion was loved as he deserved. He deserved light incarnate.

His lips speak frantic now. Words fall on deafened ears. They wish to reach, tuck unfurled white lock back behind pointed ear. They bleed, and they wish for him to feed and regain the strength seeping through small cuts and gash. They wish for one moment more, a single one, to look upon salvation.

But fate, its ever lasting cruelty, had other plans.

Perhaps in another life, I'll have done it right. I will love the way one should, I will cherish the very chance of being within your orbit. Oh, my love, how very sorry I am.

Within the temple of murder, comes a shattering bellow of agony. Strands of white fall upon their chest, Astarions fingers claw at the very base of his skull. Rocks on his knees, screams a roar of a broken man. Blood smears upon pallid skin and seeps between armor crevices upon the desperate cradle of his love's limp bod.

His love was light incarnate, and the realms shroud in darkness with the shatter of sleeping stars and the golden blood of sun-flesh the day everything soft and pure bled in the temple of murder. This was the yarn that bound pages would spin with the ink of scholars: the death of two with a single wound.

The world became silent in the wake of the flood. Except, it was not so, but it was him. The earthen soil did not quake with the roar of rushing water, but that of a man who plummets to the very depths of his true living hell.

[wri0thesley]

cw: reader is referred to as a 'handmaiden', wears skirts and furs. corruption kink, age gap, fantasising, dub-con (power dynamics).

Pierro sometimes feels his age.

It's no surprise, considering how much weighs on him as the Director of the Fatui; the plans, the secrets, the Harbingers below him with their strange temperaments and their own secret goals. The Tsaritsa and her ultimate trust in him - the past that he bears like a cross, that stoops his shoulders and weighs heavy upon him in a nation destroyed and left for dead with almost no survivors but him to tell their story. All of these are things a lesser man would surely buckle beneath - but Pierro stands strong, a figurehead, his voice stern and his visage commanding and his voice low and booming when he gives his orders.

He is a man with no weakness; a general of the Tsaritsa's army, her right hand man, a commander and a strategiser and a Captain and Director all in one package. He has to be these things; weakness would set him in sore stead. He has to be perfect. He has to stay perfect.

You slip the door open and Pierro feels all of the tension drain out of him the moment he lays eyes upon your lovely face.

Perhaps he ought to admit to himself; he is a man with one weakness.

"My Lord Director?" You say to him, inclining your head, your curtsey graceful as the white chiffon beneath your stainless white furs brushes the stone parquet of his office. "Her ladyship says you wished for my presence?"

There you are. Pierro wants to sigh. Wants to pull you into his embrace immediately and take that pleasurable solace he has spent so long denying himself. It has, in the past, been enough to use you as a thought to while away the loneliness of his bed and his station. The Tsaritsa appointed you of all of her handmaidens to speak to the Fatui Director on small matters that she did not need concern herself with; you are the one the other handmaidens send with small requests for budgeting and other such matters. He thinks it is a punishment - you seem sometimes to be the only handmaiden whose work is anything other than ceremonial - but he cannot bring himself to be angry about it when it means he gets to come into contact with you so much more.

You look lovely in the glow from the fireplace; your pure white skirts and your purer white furs taking on a cast that is almost golden. Your lashes long against your pretty doe eyes, your expression utterly guileless, the expensive fabric not doing enough to hide the tempting shape of your body. Your skin soft and unmarked, your figure a conglomeration of lines and curved that Pierro has mapped a thousand times in wet dreams.

"Yes," he says, pretending to be business minded. "You have brought me the ledgers?"

He doesn't need them, in truth - he has duplicate copies in the drawer of his desk. But without this little task, he would have gone without seeing you tonight, and that thought scrapes unpleasantly at his sides. He needs to drink you in; needs this moment to himself in order to fantasise and get through another day.

In his mind, he imagines stripping you of those spotless garments. He imagines slowly peeling the furs from your body until your bared skin shivered under his calloused fingertips. He imagines the chiffon falling to the ground - imagines your body, pure and untouched and virginial, bared beneath his hungry gaze. There is something so terribly erotic about the concept of you - so much younger than him, so much purer than him, so holy and devout - giving yourself up to a man hundreds of years your senior who is quite aware of his own blasphemy.

He imagines learning the shape of your body with palms that are responsible for slaughter; imagines the gentle shivers that would rack you as he learnt the most intimate parts of you. As fingers quested into hollows never before explored. The heavy weight of your breasts, never before appreciated and never once cupped by hands other than your own--

The thought of you in your bed at night, letting your fingers explore your own body in secret, has his cock hardening rapidly in his trousers, pressing stiff and needy against the placket, throbbing. He wonders about your teeth biting into your plump bottom lip, the sweet kiss of your sex tight around one of your own fingers (so much daintier than his own). He imagines how much he, then, would stretch you out.

These are thoughts that plague him in his own bed, every time he sees you, every time he thinks about you. The way you would shake, trembling and lovely like a newborn fawn, if he were to slip his hand between your thighs. How you would whimper out soft little tearful apologies for your own forwardness and lust.

How much smaller you would be than him beneath him on his bed, if he laid you out like a saint for worship and then made you a sinner instead.

"Little cat," he says, his voice soft and ensnaring - for you are like a pedigree cat, carefully chosen, untouched and primped and pretty and chosen for your good breeding and pretty manners, "come closer, won't you?" You smile at him, as blithe and obliging as ever. "The fire is raging. Won't you shed your furs?"

[sourcherryandsprinkles]

Who else watched the Golden Globes tonight? I didn't take notes, so here's what I remember

Those tasteless Barbie jokes were not it...who put this man on stage? + Selena's reaction!!

And the Taylor one!! The side eye she gave him as she took a sip of her wine

By the way, her

!! I love her in that shade of green. Now: does it give Rep vibes or Debut vibes? Very important and difficult question

I haven't watched Oppenheimer (will at some point when it's available streaming), but I've only heard good things. Good for them!

Robert Downey Jr winning!

Jeremy Allen White is finally getting recognition. Loved him since Shameless (that buzzcut was not it though...)

Christopher Nolan mentioning Heath Ledger *cries*

Billie Eilish had to win for the song in a motion picture

Sad Taylor didn't win, but happy for Barbie (loved the movie!)

I can't wait to see Poor Things. I love Emma Stone <3

[tilesbay3]

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You can furnish your indoor and outdoor floorings and walls with our golden white stone tiles. If you need any design related assistance, you can seek suggestions and ideas from us.

[mariesdeluluworld]

𝙈𝙚𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙞𝙖 |𝘿𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙤 𝙈𝙖𝙡𝙛𝙤𝙮 𝙭 𝙈𝙖𝙡𝙚 𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧|

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐢𝐯𝐞: 𝐆𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐬

Y/n couldn't think or speak. The magic of Diagon Alley overwhelmed him as he stared at the shops. Once the archway appeared Hagrid led him and his brother through before the archway shrunk instantly back into a solid wall. Y/n turned his head away from the now solid wall, letting his eyes wander all over the Alley. The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. Cauldrons—All Sizes—Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver—Self-Stirring—Collapsible, said a sign hanging over them.

"Yeah, you'll be needin' one," said Hagrid, noticing Y/n and Harry staring at the nearest shop, "but we gotta get yer money first."

Y/n and Harry wished they had about eight more eyes. He and Harry turned their heads in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping.

A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, "Dragon liver, sixteen Sickles an ounce, they're mad. . . ."

A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium—Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of about Harry's and Y/n's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it.

"Look," the boys heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand—fastest ever—"

There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Y/n had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon . . .

"Gringotts," said Hagrid. They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was—

"Yeah, that's a goblin," said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry and Y/n. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Y/n noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:

Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there.

"Like I said, yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it," said Hagrid as Y/n studied the text, a lump forming in his throat. "Uh-huh,"

A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these. Hagrid, Harry, and Y/n made for the counter.

"Morning," said Hagrid to a free goblin. "We've come ter take some money outta Mr. Harry and Y/n Potter's safe."

"You have his key, sir?"

"Got it here somewhere," said Hagrid, and he started emptying his pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog biscuits over the goblin's book of numbers. The goblin wrinkled his nose. Harry and Y/n watched the goblin on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals.

"Got it," said Hagrid at last, holding up a tiny golden key.

The goblin looked at it closely.

"That seems to be in order."

"An' I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore," said Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest. "It's about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen."

The goblin read the letter carefully.

"Very well," he said, handing it back to Hagrid, "I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!"

Griphook was yet another goblin. Once Hagrid had crammed all the dog biscuits back inside his pockets, he, Harry, and Y/n followed Griphook toward one of the doors leading off the hall.

"What's the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?" Harry asked suspiciously. "Can't tell yeh that," said Hagrid mysteriously. "Very secret. Hogwarts business. Dumbledore's trusted me. More'n my job's worth ter tell yeh that."

Griphook held the door open for them. Y/n, who had expected more marble, was surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks toward them. They climbed in—Hagrid with some difficulty—and were off.

At first, they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. "Blimey," muttered Y/n. Blimey is right, thought Harry as he tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left, but it was impossible. The rattling cart seemed to know its own way because Griphook wasn't steering.

Harry's and Y/n's eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but Harry kept them wide open, while Y/n squeezed his eyes tight, disliking the cold air whipping around his face and hair.

Once, Harry thought he saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late—they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.

"I never know," Harry called to Hagrid over the noise of the cart, "what's the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?"

"Stalagmite's got an 'm' in it," said Hagrid. "An' don' ask me questions just now, I think I'm gonna be sick."

He did look very green, and when the cart stopped at last beside a small door in the passage wall, Hagrid got out and had to lean against the wall to stop his knees from trembling.

Harry turned his head to Y/n and elbowed him in the ribs. "Oh!" his eyes popped open. "Bloody Hell, Harry," he muttered angrily as he rubbed his bruised ribs. Harry rolled his eyes and climbed out of the cart with Y/n behind him muttering about Harry's bony elbows as if he didn't have bony elbows as well.

Griphook unlocked the door. The door creaked open, drawing Y/n's attention as a lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, both Harry and Y/n gasped simultaneously. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.

"Are-are those . . .?" he couldn't get the words out properly, shock took over his body as his eyes traveled from each mountain and heap of the magical currency.

"All yours," confirmed Hagrid, a giant smile on his face.

All his. And Harry's. It was bloody incredible. The Dursleys couldn't have known about this or they'd have had it from them faster than blinking. How often had they complained how much Harry and Y/n cost them to keep? And all the time there had been a small fortune belonging to them, buried deep under London.

"Well? Come on then!" Y/n dragged his brother closer to the vault as he scooped up some of the money as Hagrid gave them a velvet pouch with a wand embroidered on it. "How does this work? The currency I mean," said Y/n as he picked up a gold coin.

"Well, that one there is a Galleons," he explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough." Harry and Y/n nodded as they scooped a pile of the coins into the bag. "Right, that should be enough fer a couple o' terms, we'll keep the rest safe for yeh." mused Hagrid as Y/n pulled the leather strings of the bag, closing it.

Hagrid turned to Griphook. "Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?" Y/n had to agree with Hagrid, he did not enjoy the ride down here in that blasted cart. "One speed only," said Griphook with a sneer. Y/n never glared harder in his life.

The three of them climbed back into the cart, Y/n scowling at the goblin as the cart started moving. It gained speed quickly and Harry felt the adrenaline pumping in his veins. They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became colder and colder as they hurtled around tight corners. They went rattling over an underground ravine, and Harry leaned over the side to try to see what was down at the dark bottom, but Hagrid groaned and pulled him back by the scruff of his neck. "What yeh think you're doin'??!" he shouted over the wind. "I just wanted to have a look―"

"Are you MAD?!" shrieked Y/n as he stared at his twin in shock. "You could've fallen over! You could've DIED!? What were you thinking?!" Harry looked at his twin, then to Hagrid, both shared looks of shock, anger and worry. For some strange reason, their reactions―especially Hagrid's―made him happy, content, and brought him to tears. No one, besides Y/n, had ever cared for Harry as did Hagrid at this moment. He was a complete stranger to this giant, yet he gazed at Harry like he was his own.

Vault seven hundred and thirteen had no keyhole. This confused Harry as much as it did Y/n. How was Hagrid supposed to retrieve something within this vault if it had no key hole? Griphook answered the question before they asked.

"Stand back," said Griphook importantly. He stroked the door gently with one of his long fingers and it simply melted away. "Woah!" whispered Y/n, awe shimmering in his eyes.

Griphook smirked. "If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there,"

"How often do you check to see if anyone's inside?" Harry asked.

"About once every ten years," said Griphook with a rather nasty grin. Y/n shared a look with his brother and visibly gulped in fear. Note to self, he thought, never mess with goblins.

"Something really extraordinary has to be inside this top security vault," whispered Harry. Y/n nodded in agreement. As the vault door opened, both he and Harry leaned forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous jewels at the very least . . . nothing. There was nothing in there. It was empty.

Y/n sighed aloud and rolled his shoulders. "Well, that was a waste of a trip now was it?" Before Harry or Hagrid could retort back to him, he noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor. Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Both Harry and Y/n longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask.

"Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don't talk to me on the way back, it's best if I keep me mouth shut," said Hagrid, which drew a smile from Y/n. One wild cart ride later, they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts. Neither Harry nor Y/n knew where to run first now that they had a bag full of money. They didn't have to know how many Galleons there were to a pound to know that he was holding more money than they'd had in their whole life—more money than even Dudley had ever had.

"Wish Dudley could see us now," smirked Y/n. "Thirty-six??! That's two less than last year, Mummy!! Ohh poor me, I only have thirty-six presents for my birthday!! Waahh!" Harry laughed at Y/n's impression of their cousin, tears streamed down his face while Hagrid looked at them, confused.

"Inside joke Hagrid," explained Y/n. Hagrid nodded. "Ohh, always wanted ter be in one," he said. "Anyway, might as well get yer uniform," Hagrid nodded his head towards a shop called: Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, Harry,Y/n, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts." He did still look a bit sick, so Harry and Y/n said their goodbyes to Hagrid and wished him well before entering Madam Malkin's shop.

[frangipanidownunder]

Still with me, Scully?: fic

A bad case, a snowstorm, a grumpy Scully, a sorry Mulder in a one-bed tropefest story for your entertainment.

The outside looks promising enough. The neon light blinks Vacancy. A low-slung roof over a festively decorated door, wreath shimmering with silver tinsel and tiny jewel lights twinkling. He chances a look over his shoulder. She’s round-shouldered, down-in-the-mouth, pale like the frost just starting to crackle over the motel windows.

“Still with me Scully?”

She stuffs her hands deep into her pockets and he imagines those fine fingers squeezing the life out of him, her cold eyes glinting as he gasps her name, an apology and a declaration of love all wrapped up one final exhalation. It’s been a bad case. Really bad. Silent treatment for the hours lost on the road. Face turned to the grimy roadside all the way; surely, she has a cricked neck and yet another excuse to beat him up, down and sideways.

The door creaks open and the smell of pine, sawdust and years of lost souls hits him. “Looks all right,” he says, mustering some cheer that isn’t exactly Christmassy but definitely holds a note of the hopefulness that comes at this time of year. The end of something, the beginning of something. A chance to reset. She doesn’t respond, merely checks out the tree in the corner with its bright decorations. He follows her gaze and his eyes rest on a golden bauble in the shape of a teardrop. Of course.

The clerk flumps open a dusty ledger and peruses the listing, umming and ahing ostentatiously. Any minute she’ll explode; he can see the blast brooding in her flaring nostrils and her half-rolled lips. The eyebrow is shooting up and up. Ladies and gentlemen, we have lift off.

“Only one room left,” the clerk declares. “It’s out round back.” He turns and unhooks a loop of keys and gives them to Mulder. “You and the missus’ll be nice and cosy, though. There’s a bucket of firewood in each room. Matches are on the sideboard. TV don’t work but I’m sure you’ve got other ways to keep yourselves occupied. Storm’s coming.”

Yes, it is, Mulder thinks as the keys feel like stone in his hand. He turns to face his partner and swallows. “Um. You still with me, Scully?”

The teardrop on the Christmas tree wobbles and falls to the floor as she lets the door slam behind her.

The room is…cosy. But not in the rich timber panelling, mellow lighting, roaring fireplace, fleecy quilted bed linen and luxurious drapes at the windows kind of way. More the six foot by six foot, dingy broom cupboard way. A single, square window the size of a postage stamp is opaque with dust not frost. The curtains hang limply from a bent pelmet. The sideboard is more like a child’s school desk. He guesses the tv hasn’t worked since colour came in. The fireplace is the only saving grace. Mulder gets to work straightaway, striking each flimsy match from the small book as a penance prayer. Finally, the penultimate redhead catches and he protects the small orange flame of hope with his cupped hands.

“I’m so sorry this happened,” he says to her. She’s on the bed. Or in it, perhaps, because it’s folded up around her making her look like a young orphan fresh off the train at Miss O’Leary’s Home for Young Innocents. She grunts at him and sighs forever.

The fire take hold and he lets himself smile at the small victory. “Ta-da,” he declares with jazz hands that he hopes are conciliatory, but from the raised eyebrow and averted gaze are probably more fuel for her inner fire. How can one be simultaneously icy and fiery? Scully is the enigma of all enigmas.

“I’ll take the…” he looks around for another item of furniture. There is none. “Floor?”

She tuts and rolls the small opal earring around in her right lobe. It catches the reflection of the fire and an amber glow emerges from the pearlescent surround. It’s Scully in an earring, he muses. “It’s okay, Mulder. We’re grown-ups.” She offers him a curt smile, one that says, ‘well at least one of us is’.

“I promise not to play footsie,” he says as the fire licks and spits. “If you promise not to drool on me.”

Between her fingers, she’s made a knot of the coverlet. She drops it, straightens it out and slides him a smile, somewhere between a white flag and a red flag. He can’t quite work out which it is, but the room is warming up and maybe she’s thawing a little too.

The fire burns out some time during the small hours. His feet and the small of his back are exposed and his brain is unhelpfully supplying all the dumb things he’s ever done during their partnership. It’s quite the extensive playlist. He can’t move, because he’ll wake her. But he does lift his head to see her nested in the pillow, face like an angel, a russet halo framing her forehead. The delicacy of her snoring is somewhat comforting, the salve for the burn his mind is meting out.

There’s a weighty silence around them. The profound quiet of a snowfall. Through the slit in the curtain he thinks he can see the rising accumulation on the window sill. The blind face of the tv screen is visible in the strange light. He stares at it like he might on one of his usual insomniac nights. What’s the difference between a blank screen and a movie he’s seen a hundred times? The mind-stultifying effect is what he’s seeking.

She shifts. Turns to him and the tip of her nose brushes his. She blows out a slightly acidic breath and it warms him more than she’d consider medically possible. But Dr Scully doesn’t know everything. They’re both as uneducated when it comes to affairs of the heart. True affairs of the heart, not the hormone or power fuelled relationships they’ve both endured in the past. He loves her. She loves him. It’s as clear as the pure snow that’s undoubtedly settling outside. But it’s easier to plough through life without acknowledging the build-up, without gritting the paths to make their way through safer. No, they’ll be wading through knee-high snow for a while to come.

His sigh is louder than he anticipated and her eyes flicker open. “Sorry, Scully,” he whispers and she twitches her nose, wets her lips. She wriggles her hands between her legs and her knees boop his groin. Now it’s her turn to apologise. Although it’s debatable who’s more embarrassed. “Do you want me to start the fire again?”

“Wazzatime?”

“Too early for coffee, too late for coffee. Want coffee?”

She nods and he gets up, starts the fire first time and fumbles for the kettle and supplies. She’s found an extra pair of woolly socks and slips them on. Her crumpled appearance makes him almost fold in half. She’s a glorious sight to behold. His eyes take her in and he finds his breath again. He realises in that moment he would dearly sell his soul to the devil to wake up with her every morning and make her coffee. He hands her a cup and crawls next to her, so their feet are both flat to the flames, thighs pressed together.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, and his heart lights up.

“It’s snowing.”

“Figures.”

“Think you could bear another night here?”

She dips her mouth to the coffee. “Seems to me there won’t be much of a choice if the car’s stuck.” She takes another sip. “Everything is working against us, here.”

“Seems that way. Can’t win a trick.”

“But you do make a good fire, Mulder. So consider that a win.”

He does. He considers it the win of the century. Up there with the Knicks smashing the 76ers in 94.

“So you’re still with me, Scully?”

She rubs his ankle with her fuzzy socks and he lifts his foot so that hers slips under his. “Always,” she whispers and the coffee suddenly tastes like a promise of something better to come.

[abluescarfonwaston]

Lettenhove Au

Part 1   Part 2

Oh how unreasonable.

“Dear did you finish those logging reports?” His mother stepped into the office. Head buried in a logistics report.

“Just did. Here.” He offered them to her but her eyes were stuck behind him.

On Geralt.

“You must be my son’s new bodyguard.” He watched Geralt hesitantly nod out of the corner of his eye. “I hadn’t expected you to be quite so…”

“Old?” He suggested for her. “You won’t offend him by being direct. He does have- oh what?- Half a century or so on you. It’s only fair.”

Her brow pinched. Her fingers rubbed together nervously as she glanced back to him. “Julian I know numbers aren’t your forte but he can’t be-“

They knew exactly the moment the gold in his eyes registered.

A tiny back step. Half a sharp inhale.

“A Witcher?” She looked at him. Hand covering her agape mouth. “How? How did you-“

He readied himself to explain when her eyes widened. “The white wolf.”

They both tensed as she rounded the desk to him.

She cupped his face in her hands. You are the man who kept him from me. You are the bastard he abandoned me for. He braced for her to say. As so many of the women in his life had.

“Thank you.” Her tears freezing Geralt more effectively than any spell he’d ever seen. “For protecting him all those years. Thank you.” Geralt eyes stayed locked on her. Trapped by her thin hands. “For bringing him home.”

He was halfway out of his chair he’d realized. He eased back down into it. Who he’d worried for he wasn’t sure.

How unreasonably in love I am with everything you do.

“Julian!” His mother burst into the room. Letter in hand. “The Countess responded!”

Geralt looked up from his sword sharpening, hands stilling. Ciri shrunk behind him, further into the couch they’d settled into that night. It was honestly a relief for the too familiar noise to halt. It made the space behind his eyes hot. It’s steady rhythmic sound as horrible as it had once been calming.

They’d been moved into the servant’s quarters attached to his room in case someone came for him in the night.

He stood and seized her by the waist. Picking her up and spinning her, as he knew she wished he would for she was very excited, her dress billowing around her. The way Father had when he’d courted her all those years ago. She’d admitted to him once she missed it. It was one of the few things she missed about him.

What do you need? He’d asked. He knew how to play his role diligently.

“As I promised she would!” He smiled brightly for her. It was as fake as the rings that had dyed his fingers green years ago. But she didn’t know that.

“A Countess Julek! I’ve no idea how you managed this!” She was well above their class. But she’d loved him once. With a title she might love him again.

“What did I say?” He gently put her down and swept her into a waltz. It’s been so long since I’ve gotten to waltz. She told him.

“Trust me.” There were tears in her eyes. A brightness to her he couldn’t remember ever seeing.

He spun her. “I said I would take care of things.” Dipped her gently to the familiar tune in his head. It sounded flat even though he knew it was in tune. “Didn’t I?”

“You did!” Her steps faltered as she pulled him into a tight hug. It might have been bone crushing a decade or two ago. “Thank you for coming home.”

“Of course.” Geralt and Ciri watch him tuck her into his shoulder. He whispered above her grey hair. “I had nowhere else to be.”

I’ll spend my days so close to you cos if I’m standing here maybe.

“You’re getting married.” Geralt stated as the door closed behind her.

“That is the plan yes.”

“You’ll be miserable.”

And how, he thought, is that any different from how I am now?

Everyone will think I’m alright.

Court was easy. Simple.

Deadly. Dangerous.

It was just about saying the right thing. Listening. Not giving away too much.

“There are some rumors going around about you Julian.” She fluttered her eyes distractingly. Let her sleeve slip down just so. He’d seen it before. Hell he’d done it before.

That didn’t mean it didn’t work on him.

Or. It used to.

“About what happened to you after you disappeared.” She leaned in making a point to show off her assets.

The color of her dress was brilliant. Vibrant. His collar was buttoned all the way up. It didn’t actually make it hard to breathe but it still felt like it. He recognized the dye they must have used. It seemed less. Less everything.

Course the courts in Kerack hardly compared to the ones he’d played at so it was likely just. Less.

It had nothing to do with how dull the world seemed these days.

“I went to Oxenfurt. I hardly disappeared.” He flashed her a smile. Winked as he said, “And I’d be happy to show you what I learned.”

She giggled.

“What did you study?” Interjected her handler. Forcing distance between them with practiced ease.

He’d never been grateful for the restraints of court. How a hand touch outside of dancing was as scandalous as a long passionate kiss elsewhere.

He was grateful for it now.

“A variety of things. Geography was my favorite.” The textbook was big enough to hide a demijohn behind. “And I took to teaching for a few years.”

Her eyes glittered. “Did you ever see any of the places you learned about?” Whatever information she’d been told to gather forgotten to the wonder of the world beyond their logging forest and rocky coasts.

Or maybe this was what she wanted. The machinations of a country this small didn’t have to be terribly inspired.

“A few.” He granted. The back of his throat tensed. I went to the edge of the world and back before my eighteenth year. He didn’t say. “Any place in particular you were hoping to hear about?” He raised his glass for a drink.

“Are the blue mountains really blue?”

His cup paused at his lips. Golden eyes rested heavily on him from across the feast.

Posada sat at the feet of its range. Stretched up to Kaer Morhen and beyond.

“Yes.” He tried to cover for the stilted pause. Gave too much away he knew by the devilish look in her eye. “In the evening light the whole range turns the most beautiful blue I’ve ever seen.”

“What does Kaer Morhen look like?” He’d asked. Because he’d never seen it.

Would never see it.

“Big stone keep.”

“Oh come on! We both know you can do better than that!” He’d protested. “I want to know what its like!” Tell me what your home is like. He begged.

“What do you think of Lettenhove?” He asked as the carriage rattled down the road to their accommodations. His Mother had retired hours ago. What do you think about my birthplace? My unwilling home? My soon to be grave?

Geralt opened an eye. Considering him. Just like everyone at the party had. Just like everyone always did. Judging without seeing. He maintained his posture as the snow fell outside the window. He had a role to play.

“Seafood’s decent.”

Laughter bubbled in his throat. High and hysterical.

He swallowed it down.

“I suppose it is.” He told the falling snow. He did not think of the Blue Mountains covered in snow and the big stone keep he would never see buried within it.

I’ve seen enough he says. I know exactly what I want.

“Jaskier!”

There were hands on his shoulder and a knife to his throat and it was all pointless but he was still scared.

He was still scared.

There was gold and white filling his vision as his chest fought for air. He couldn’t breathe and he was going to die and gods.

Gods he was going to die.

And he was okay with it.

“Jaskier?” His face was wet as he sobbed. I was going to die and he was okay with that and that was the scariest part. Someone was moving him. Arranging his limbs and tucking him into the crook of their neck. “It was just a dream Jaskier.”

The dream slipped from his mind but the hollow in his chest didn’t. The violently terrible acceptance of his fate didn’t slip away.

Let’s run away. To the coast, to the blue mountains, to the end of the world. To Skellige even. I’d brave sea sickness for you. Let’s run away Geralt.

Think of your people ordered the ghost of his old man.

Life’s one blessing. Said the man cradling him in his arms.

Stay. Begged his Mother.

He curled into the embrace of the man who’d served as his home for two long decades. For half his life. The half of his life that had a home for.

Geralt was only here because there was no better option. Because a fool promised him a place to stay long ago and that fool wouldn’t break a promise. Not a promise to him.

Did you ever care for me at all? Or am I to you, as I am to everyone, a burden you’re too kind to put down?

No. Because Geralt had put him down. Now he was simply too desperate to step away.

“This is your fate Julian.” Rumbled the voice of his Father.

“I’ll find a better fate then.” He’d screamed back. “I’ll make a better one.”

He had.

“I want to go home.” He quietly admitted into the crook of Geralt’s neck. To the stars over the path and the grinding of a whetstone on silver or steel. To the crackle of a fire and pages filled with ink by its dying embers.

To raunchy laughter and shared bedrolls. Desperate dashes from terrible towns and angry cuckholds. To grumpy Witchers dunked in bathtubs, yanking knots from disgustingly tangled hair and quiet gifts of lute strings made from griffin guts slipping into his case while he slept.

“We’ll be back at the estate tomorrow.” Came the wretched assurance.

He sobbed. “I know.”

You couldn’t run away from fate. Not really.

It’s this life that we’d created, inundated with the fated thought of you

“Geralt said you used to play.” Ciri admitted to the bookshelves she’d been dusting. “He said you played wonderfully.”

“Did he?” He blankly responded. He could feel Geralt frowning at him.

You should have cheekily grinned at me. He could hear Geralt correcting. You should be making fun of me for liking your music but never admitting it to you. Then I could comment on how i didn’t want to feed your overgrown ego.

He checked the ledgers math on the abacus. Then did it again because numbers had never been his forte.

“He said,” She hesitated. Turned ever so slightly to watch him. “You were at my mother’s betrothal.”

Jaskier was. I wasn’t. An angry part of him snapped.

He took in the tight tension of her shoulders. The pointed dedication to a meaningless task.

I see you little swallow. I see you. “I was.” He glanced at the door. If someone overheard. He could avoid this if-

“Everyone’s asleep.” Geralt told him.

“Then,” He stood, weighted heavy by a story he had no desire to tell. “I suppose I owe you a story.” He smiled and offered his hand to her. “Since Geralt never tells it right.”

She took it and he pulled her into the ballad. Into the start of her tale.

Into the beginning of their stories end.

And if you asked me to, if you asked me I would lose it all, Like petals in a storm

He lifted her sleeping form from the couch, carrying her to bed.

“Thank you.” Geralt muttered from the doorway as he tucked her in.

He was so tired.

He nodded. Turned from the room.

Geralt caught him at the doorway. “Thank you.” He repeated.

He took in Geralt’s face as he stared at her. As he listened to her slow steady breathing. Sleeping comfortably and warm.

Ask to stay. He begged the hand holding his bicep. Ask me to come with you.

Tell me you want me. He plead. That what you said was a lie.

But he didn’t. Because he was looking at Ciri. At the best thing he’d ever done for Geralt.

At the little girl who was the end of the story they’d shared.

“You love her.” He told him. “Which I say only because I don’t think you know.” Geralt’s face hardened as it always did when faced with an uncomfortable truth about himself. “But you love her Geralt.”

If this was his fate then at least he’d done that.

He couldn’t save his people and he’d broken every relationship he’d ever made and he was going to die in a manor he hated all alone.

But at least he’d done this. At least he’d given Geralt Ciri.

At least he’d given the love of his life the love of his.

cos darling I was born to press my head between your shoulder blades

[drcrushers]

name: in the midst of winter status: unfinished hades/persephone, angst/hurt/comfort i wrote this a while ago, and i don’t have immediate plans to finish it but thought y’all might like to read it! featuring hades in his favorite two moods: ‘i love my wife’ & ‘i will kill everyone in this room and then myself’.

Hadestown was a symphony, a loud and endless orchestra of assembly lines and pickaxes. It had lessened - slightly - and there were now voices that joined in, singing songs he couldn't recognize. The poet's doing. They were remembering, not just mindlessly working and toiling away. Trying, Hades had promised. So he was. And organizing the city into something more functional and less tyrannical had been the first step of it. The wall would come next, and so on. Dismantling everything pain-stakingly brick by single brick. Things would be better. Could be better. He just had to keep the constant mindset that his wife would come home. No more doubt - granted, his not-so-new union leader kept reminding him, as needed.

He'd hoped to have a decent amount of progress done on it to show Persephone when she returned; two less than harsh winters had gone by and the world was easing back into rhythm one season at a time. 

He exchanged letters with his wife while she was up top, and they were learning how to work again. They'd started sharing a bed again, those soft touches and warm looks from their early years returning now that they were both trying. The world tried with them. Things were better. The symphony had changed. 

But as Hades sat in his office pouring over ledgers, something about the symphony beyond the shutters was off. He couldn’t place how or why, but something set his teeth on edge and wormed beneath his skin like an itch unscratched. 

A shrill whistle in the distance.

The train was running too fast.

Since the building of the thing it had run a steady pace along the tracks, ferrying souls from one life into the next. There was never any true rush; the dead weren't going anywhere, after all. The great machine chugged and hissed and belched clouds of steam, but it had always run it's average pace and the world had continued to spin as it always did. Even when things had been out of rhythm the train had been a constant - even if Hades had the tendencies to commandeer it to his use far too early at the end of the summer. 

The whistle called again, the earth shook, and the train was still going too fast. A great concern that prompted Hades to leave his office and set out for the platform to see it's arrival, eager to see just what the hell was so damned important that the machine was straining under the speed at which it hurtled toward the underworld. Not that they had ever had an issue of derailment, it seemed pointless to strain the machine; if the engine broke, it meant repairs which meant labor, time, and money. He was going to have a few words with Charon when he stepped off the thing. 

The transport pulled to a halt at the platform with a great hiss of steam and smoke and noise. Hades frowned, brows drawing together in the middle of his forehead. There was only one car attached to the train, which did not bode well. The only time Charon hauled one train was when Persephone went up top or came down below, and it was the middle of (an albeit very long) summer. Something wasn't right. Something heavy and sick settled into the pit of his belly like a great stone. Voices echoed in over the din of the underworld, three of them, singing harmonies he couldn't quite hear. Gritting his teeth, he shoved them out of his mind. Damned Fates. 

The heavy rock in his stomach settled further when he saw who had stepped off the train onto the platform. 

"Hermes.” 

It wasn’t so much as the man himself as it was his appearance. In all the time Hades had known his nephew, Hermes had nary a hair out of place. He put great care into his appearance for numerous reasons (most of which Hades never cared to know). Usually all slick and silver and sporting his usual, leisurely smile. The Hermes standing before him now, however, was anything but. He was missing his suit jacket, which was alarming at best - but he could see stains at the cuffs that were a deep, purplish-red and a rather terrifyingly large spot of gold at his breast. His hands were clenched at his sides, white-knuckled and the usual rosy pallor to Hermes’ face was completely gone.

“I’ll explain on the train.” Hermes said quietly, his voice lacking it’s usual melody and tone. He felt his chest tighten, and he knew without a second of a doubt that whatever had brought Hermes barreling into his realm had to do with Persephone. He knew. 

He only hoped that the golden ichor staining Hermes’ shirt did not belong to his wife. 

There was work to be done, contracts to be signed, ledgers to check - but Hades put every notion of them out of his mind and climbed onto the train. Hermes followed and he was barely in the door before the great engine lurched and was off again, cranking up to full speed before either of them could find proper footing. A rock had settled deep in his gut, heavy and weighted and almost painful. 

“I knew you’d have a fit if I sent a note.” Now that he could see him closer, Hades could see the dark circles under his eyes, the set to his brow and muscle jumping in his jaw. He looked frazzled, to say the least, which did not settle the uneasy storm brewing in Hades’ gut. 

“Our girl - “ Hermes pressed his lips tightly together, moving toward the bar cart that had once been Persephone’s favorite. “Ain’t good; wouldn’t have come here otherwise.”

“Tell me what happened.” Hades could feel his voice rather than hear it; his blood already seemed to pound in his ears, roaring louder than the engine in the train. His chest tightened again, watching with a furrowed brow as Hermes poured himself a drink and gestured to the bottle, trying to offer him one as well. He jerked his head. “Tell me what happened to my wife.”

“You gotta promise to keep a level head -”

“I’m going to level your head off your shoulders in a damned minute.” Hades warned lowly, his voice more gravel than anything. His chest rumbled when he spoke, a dangerous sign of impending anger and rage and anything else he could drag up from the depths. While Hades knew his marriage was strained still, Persephone was his world. Without hesitation he’d throw the whole lot of his underworld into the pits of Tartarus if it meant keeping her. He was not an overly emotional man - until it came to her. Yes, he was a disaster at showing affection as of late. Yes, they hadn’t exactly been eye to eye. Things were tense, struggling, but that melody - it had returned at the hands of a poet with a voice of the gods themselves. 

A promise to try again would mean nothing if Persephone was lost to him. 

Dead gods did not frequent the underworld. 

If she was dead, truly, he would feel it. Wouldn’t it? They’d been married far too long, he’d grown accustomed to her presence, her essence in his life. If it suddenly disappeared - even from the world above - he knows he’d feel it. Right?

Damn, he felt sick and Hermes hadn’t even said anything - which was alarming enough. 

“She’s in rough shape. She put up one hell of a fight; sure you can guess this blood ain’t exactly mine. The idiots thought she’d come with ‘em willingly and they were more than wrong. She ain’t been conscious long enough to get a full story, but we’ve got the ones responsible. She tried to make me promise not to come and get ya, uncle.”

“Someone attacked her?” 

“Not at first, but it turned into that. Tried to kidnap her. Or see if she’d go off with ‘em. Two mortal men, morons that they are. She resisted, o’ course. They made to steal her and drugged her drink to do it. Tried to carry her off and tie her up - reckon they didn’t do much of a job doin’ it cause our girl wasn’t havin’ it. Knives drawn to try and force her to do - well, what mortal men usually do, and that only pissed her off more. She was out of it, but - well, I expect it wasn’t too pretty, given how those two turned out lookin’.” Hermes drained his glass, and poured another. Hades was fighting the sickening slime that felt as if it’d settled in his gut. Persephone, attacked. By mortals. Assaulted. Worse. 

And he hadn’t been there to protect her. Keep her safe, as he’d promised the first day they met in the garden. He’s broken a lot of those promises and paid the price for it - but keeping her safe had been one of the last few he’d kept. Now it was shattered. By two mortals. 

He didn’t want to comment on Hermes’ remark about her not wanting him to find out. To be there. His heart did an uncomfortable flip in his chest. Why wouldn’t she want him there? Persephone was his life. Everything, wrapped in the beauty of the sun and stars themselves. Why would he not come to her side if she was injured? Not to mention unleash the fires of Tartarus itself in punishment to the two responsible for it? Anger slithered through the guilt and boiled beneath his skin hotly. No one disrespected his Queen. Even if they’d been on uneven ground, he and Persephone were trying again. That had been the promise. Had she reconsidered by not wanting him at her side? Would she turn him away? Gods - the more he dwelled on it, the more the anger and guilt fought for control. Hermes had gone silent to sip at his drink and study Hades, the gaze he could feel on him even after he turned away from his nephew. 

Couldn’t the damn train go any faster?

He felt the shift between realms, the invisible barrier that separated the underworld from the mortal realm. It made the hair on his arm stand on end, rippling up to the nape of his neck. Uncomfortably. He didn’t like being in the mortal realm for work or for other purposes - he’d made that clear in his time one way or the other. Most of all to his wife, which was a thought that didn’t sit well with him either. He couldn’t be assed to go up and visit her, even when she asked. Too much work, he’d cited. Can’t get away. 

Wasn’t much of a realm if it couldn’t run itself for a day without him, she’d replied. Even if they’d been trying again after the saga of the poet and the songbird, it didn’t mean things were perfect. He wanted to build a better home for her to come back to in the winter. To surprise her - which is why he’d been so set on working. It was harder to disassemble a city and a wall than it was to build it. But what use was the damn place if Persephone couldn’t come home at all? Attacked. His wife had been attacked.

In all their years together, he’d never had such a feeling. Persephone had never been in danger during their marriage. How could a god be in danger with their power, their wisdom? 

Hades had faced the idea of losing his wife through divorce, but at least she’d be alive. Well. Perhaps happy, unshackled from him. He’d never faced the idea of her death. It was impossible. She couldn’t die. She was the goddess of life, vibrant and beautiful and thriving in any environment. 

Except, she could die. Anything living could. Wither like a flower under the worst frosts. 

He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. Hermes didn’t speak, leaving him to his terrible, twisting thoughts edged on by the harmonizing voices in his ear. With the sickness in his gut came a great and awful anger, rolling like some of his brother’s tsunamis through his boiling blood. Heat rose to his skin, fingers curling into his palms against his face and digging in until he couldn’t feel the sting of his own nails anymore. The white-hot rage burned brighter than any sun ever thought of. The fires of Tartarus itself resided in his chest, and would not be quelled. 

Death would be too good for the mortals who had dared to touch his wife. Persephone was his by law and by right and by every-other-fucking-rule in the universe. Not some tiger to be taught and tamed. No, they would face fates worse than death by the time he got his hands on them.

The voices in his ear only seemed to encourage the sudden fury and ire.

They had hurt his wife. By the time he finished with the mortals, they would only wish Hades had hurt them in return. No one could or would take Persephone from him not now and not again --

And Hades stopped, thoughts stuttering for a moment. 

Persephone did not belong to him. She was fierce all her own, not a bird to be caged. He had learned that - albeit begrudgingly. Capable of defending herself and any under her wing. And it was true, she was not a trophy to be displayed or a tiger to be caught and tamed, most especially by him. That, in essence, had been his downfall. Thinking Persephone belonged to him and belonged to the realm. 

She chose to love him. To give up her life, at first. Would she be happy if Demeter had simply let go? Let her be happy as a permanent resident of the underworld, the dread queen for eternity? Hades wanted her to be - more than anything. Persephone brought life to the underworld in a natural way he could not. And when he tried, it looked artificial and wrong and unnatural; her voice sings out loudest above the trio of old women, harsh and critical of the world he thought he’d build for her. Coax her down from her home in the sky to roost below. Make her happy.

That’s all he wanted in the end. Persephone, happy. With him. That he would be enough for her.

How stupid he’d been in thinking that bullshit. He was enough, she’d told him so. Promised it. And he’d doubted her. Not trusted her.

Hades thought he might grovel at her feet when he saw her next, but it only dragged his mind back to the present situation at hand. The guilt returned, the fury swallowing him whole. The inside of the train was cast in a dark, shaded red through his vision. 

“Uncle, you’re gonna burn a hole in that seat and cuss me when you realise it.” Hermes’ voice drew him into some fraction of reality. Hades looked down; he’d grabbed a hold of the bench cushion beneath him and the fabric was smoking vaguely beneath his palms. He released his hold with a low growl, standing swiftly in favor of pacing the aisle down the middle of the train car. Contemplating how he could so easily rip the mortal realm apart just because he could, in retribution for the sins of two morons. Raze the land and strip it all back until the earth was raw and cracked and bleeding rivers of magma. 

Sometimes, Hades wondered if he was so different from his father after all.

Of course he wouldn’t destroy Gaia, Hades was better than that. So he liked to think. Fire and brimstone and all that be damned. He would if Persephone asked him to, though. He knew he’d do just about anything she asked. Try to. Assuming what she wanted had been the mistake, too. What if he’d done something so foolish? If he were his father, it wouldn’t take a second thought to level everything and rebuild it to his liking because he thought Persephone would like it. 

The train finally began to slow and Hades felt the knot in his gut tighten again. He had wanted to see her sooner rather than later, but not like this. Anything but like this. 

It was strange, the platform being devoid of life.

The weather was strange; a dense fog had settled near the ground, but he could tell by the way it crunched beneath his feet that a snap frost had settled in, crisping the grass and flora in a way he was only used to seeing done when Demeter threw her usual seasonal tantrum. The sky itself was overcast, dark and stormy as if it might open up and pour on them at any moment. And yet, beneath it all, the world was still steadfastly green and alive. The oxymoron wasn’t lost on him as he made quick work of the path between the platform and where he knew Demeter’s place to be - for his wife would be there, without a doubt. Hermes said nothing of his quick steps, just followed half a step behind with those lips pressed into a thin line. 

Trees were in bloom, but not for long; flowers almost frozen in time among the frost and fog. The world was in a deep unbalance and it made his pace quicken.

Surely if Persephone had - if she had died, he’d know. Surely.

As Demeter’s house came into view through the hazy air, he could only imagine the state of the garden behind the place. He didn’t want to consider it, or the implications. Would Persephone have to stay up top longer to recover? To make sure the mortals didn’t starve? Would she demand it? Hades wasn’t sure he’d be able to give it to her - frankly he wasn’t keen on letting her out of his sight as soon as he set his sights on her again. To know she was certainly safe at all times; she would understand. 

(Except, deep down, he knew she absolutely wouldn’t).

The porch steps didn’t even have time to creak beneath his weight as he took them two at a time. Ignoring the rust color smear of blood on the railing. The door opened before he could touch it and for the first time in a while, Hades was met with the face of his sister.

Time had changed Demeter much as it had him. She hadn’t gone full white just yet, but she’d soon be a beautiful, silvery gray. The eyes of their mother, her lips set into a thin line, and wrinkles in her brow that weren’t just an expression, but set permanently there from repeated motion. She was a head shorter than him, close to his wife’s height. He recalled her looking slightly more put together at their last face-to-face interaction compared to the dressing robe she had belted at her waist now, feet bare beneath.

“You can’t -”

“You tell me I can’t be here and we’ll have a problem.” He rumbled, cutting across her before she could finish. A mistake, the way her eyes darkened.

“You can’t see her yet you damned fool. Let me get a word in edge-wise next time and you can save that glare for someone who deserves it.” Demeter replied sharply, but stepped aside to grant him and Hermes entrance. She didn’t look pleased to do it, frankly, and Hades couldn’t blame her - though he couldn’t tell if the expression on her face was due to his appearance, or the attack on her daughter. Both, perhaps. Hades didn’t care one way or the other. His intentions were clear, and he made for the stairs the second his eyes briefly adjusted to the dim light of the interior. 

“What the hell did I just say?” Demeter hissed, grabbing his sleeve sharply to stop him. “She’s in enough pain without you addin’ to it right now. She’s restin’, and doesn’t need your stubborn fool of a self bargin’ in.”

“That’s my wife.”

“And that’s my daughter. Don’t pull the relative card, ‘cause I guarantee I can match you tit for tat, brother.” Demeter said, voice sharp. An edge to it he hadn’t heard or noticed before. There was a darkness under her eyes that told him she hadn’t rested in some time. “Bad enough you been sendin’ her up here winter after winter late and her nearly in tears. I don’t know what the hell y’all are doin’ down there to hurt her --.”

“I promised to wait for her.” Hades rumbled, cutting his sister off - again, a mistake, but she didn’t immediately try and rebute. “And I did. And I will. But like hell I’m standin’ down here while she’s up there hurt. I’m gonna see her, and then I’m gonna come down here and we’re gonna talk about the ones responsible.” The last was said far more darkly - a promise, not a threat. Hades shot a look to Hermes, who had stood by silently. “And if you’re that worried ‘bout our marriage, I’m sure the old gossip here can fill ya in if he ain’t already ‘bout what’s changed. Not that it’s your business anyway.”

Demeter made a noise that wasn’t quite a word, but had lessened her grip enough on Hades’ sleeve for him to jerk free. 

“I’m the one who told Hermes to come get you and you’re makin’ me regret it real bad, Hades.” Demeter gathered herself enough to speak again, voice low. Not unlike Persephone’s when she was furious with him. That did give him pause, however - to know Demeter had sent for him. Not exactly something she was known for.

“I appreciate the thought.” He ground out. He’d deal with her likely wrath later, but it wasn’t something high on his priority list even if she’d done the decent thing and made Hermes come for him. For now, Hades had one goal in mind and that was seeing his wife, ensuring she was safe and would recover. He’d been facing his sister’s wrath for centuries, and it would be no different to him now. “If she’s asleep, I won’t wake her. I just need to see her.”

I need to see she’s alive and safe with my own two eyes.

Demeter didn’t stop him this time when Hades ascended the stairs. They creaked beneath his steps too, not unlike the porch ones. The entire house was worn and old and well lived in, a far cry opposite of his home below. Before Persephone, the place had been desolate and cold and just to his tastes. After their marriage she’d attempted to breathe life into the place, make it more lived in - but it was difficult to keep houseplants alive and remember to dust when Hades had so much work on his shoulders. Realms did not run themselves. Eventually she’d stopped trying, around the time the drinking had started. He’d eventually had to hire on a few shades as household staff just to keep the place tidy so he didn’t have to hear Persephone loudly complaining when she returned home. 

He shoved those thoughts from his mind.

Past. In the past. All of it had to stay in the past. They were moving forward. Winter promises to be made true in the spring. Hardest thing he’d ever fucking done, waiting for that six month mark to get there and he was still up top early anyway. That, and trying to figure out how to rip everything he’d built in the past decades. Hadestown couldn’t run the way it was, that much had been made clear. But he’d also learned a lesson - as much as he wanted to surprise his wife with something as big as factories or mines being closed down, he knew it would be far wiser to wait for her return. To build the realm into something together, a place to be something than everlasting hell for any and all. 

Future thoughts. For a future when Persephone would return home, perfectly alive and well.

The door to her room was cracked, first on the left. He remembered which one because there was a great tree outside her window she used to climb down in the middle of the night to sneak away and meet him for a midnight tryst those first summers apart. For a moment, Hades felt nervous. Anxious. Afraid. For no real reason, in truth, except that he feared what might be on the other side. 

He shoved that down too, and carefully slipped into the room.

Things had not changed in Persephone’s room. So he thought; he’d never actually been inside. Like the rest of the house it was well lived in, with a worn, wooden wardrobe instead of a closet where the drawers were a bit crooked and likely didn’t open easy anymore. A mirror hung above another dresser was littered with scrap of makeup, some small bits of jewelry that he only vaguely recognized, and several small plants that were so lush they were nearly spilling out of their pots. He could imagine the sun streaming in through the windows but with the strange haze outside that day, beyond the glass was simply gray. The paint on the window ledges was peeling a bit, the white chips similar but not quite the same as the wall color. Eclectic, but cozy. 

In the midst of it all beneath a patterned quilt on the bed, lay his wife. 

As Demeter had said, she was sleeping. Fitfully, given the small furrow to her brow. Her hair was plastered across the pillow and he could see soft flecks of gold within the ringlets - ichor, transferred from whatever wounds hiding beneath that quilt. Her face had lost some color to it, which made the purplish bruise at her temple stand out even more. Her hands were on top of the quilt and he could see the bandages that covered a good portion of her hands, wrists, and arms - knife wounds, if he had to guess without peeling back the bandages. Her lip was busted too, angry and red. The more Hades took in of her, the more fury that built into his gut like a bonfire roaring to reach the sky. 

He rested a hand against the bedpost, gripping it tightly to keep himself grounded. There was something entirely unsettling about seeing her like this, to know he had failed in protecting her. Sure she’d been hurt before - small things, nothing serious except the times they’d lost their children before they’d been more than a flicker of life. Even then she had not looked nearly so . . . so . . - Hades felt his chest tighten fiercely. Painfully. Not quite in a panic, but not quite relief. 

Gods.

Mindful of his steps, Hades carefully moved to the side of the bed. Persephone didn’t stir. Not that he wanted her to - she needed rest. But he couldn’t help himself to reach out and brush the back of his fingers across her cheek, desperate to feel her warmth for himself. She looked too much like a corpse without the color to her face and the rise and fall of her chest hidden by the quilt. His heart leapt into his throat when her head turned a fraction, her lids twitching before he was graced with the sight of those dark honeyed eyes. Galaxies resides in those eyes, endless and infinite and beautiful. He’d told her as much before, but not often enough. 

“You’re early.” She whispers as her eyes seemed to adjust to take in his appearance. There was a strange cloud to her voice, a slight haze to her expression that reminded him of the fog outside. Then he remembered what Hermes had said - her drink had been drugged. “I missed ya.” He murmured lowly. She blinked slowly a few times and shifted slightly; he didn’t miss the way she grimaced when she tried to grab the blanket with her wrapped hands. Hades silently moved to help her, adjusting her cover in what he hoped was the way she wanted. All his words seemed to have died in his throat, heavy and sticky and unsaid. 

“You didn’t have to come.” She broke the quiet silence again. “I told ‘em -.”

“I know you told ‘em, and I’m here anyway.” Hades shuffled for a moment, uncertain. Like a damned fool. He’d come all this way and he felt like a nuisance more than anything. She hadn’t wanted to see him. Hadn’t wanted him to know. Hadn’t -

“I’m glad you did.”

Hades swallowed thickly, and nodded once - business like. Then he thought better of it and sat down on the very edge of the bed. Not quite crowding her space, but close enough he could reach out and gentle cradle one of her bandaged hands in his own. He was careful, mindful that it felt like he was holding a piece of glass. Persephone never was a fragile soul, but something about the bandages made him hesitant. Worried he’d hurt her. He’d done enough of that, as of late. 

“I didn’t want you to worry.” Persephone continued, cheek pressed against her pillow to look at him. Her fingers twitched in his own, and he brought them to rest in his lap. “Knew I’d find out sooner or later. Would rather be here. Make sure you’re okay.” Hades replied, brushing his thumb gentle over the roughened edges of the bandages at her hand. As a goddess it wouldn’t take long for her to heal, but seeing the injuries - well, it set his teeth on edge. Even if her wounds would only sustain a few hours, it was enough to remind him how very easily he could lose her. Something that did not sit well with him, not at all. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Wasn’t asleep.” She supplied with a sigh heavier than most. “Just tired.”

“Then you oughta be restin’.”

“Suppose you’ve come to take me home to do that.”

Hades, who had been studying her hand in his lap with quiet contentment, lifted his head to meet her gaze. It was a bit clearer now, not crowded by a haze of sleep and whatever drug. His lips pressed into a thin line. He could easily say yes, and scoop her up to carry her back down below without another word. Who could stop him? Demeter, Hermes? Persephone? None of them. He’d feel better having her down below to keep an eye on, to ensure there wouldn’t be lingering effects or a second attempt by some other moron mortals who stepped out of line - shades couldn’t hurt Persephone the way their mortal counterparts could.

“No.” He said simply. “I made my promise. I’ll keep it. I just . . . I needed to see ya, after Hermes told me. I wanted . . . wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Her brows furrowed for a moment as if she didn’t understand. 

“You came to visit?”

“Reckon so.” He murmured. “Should’ve done it sooner. Didn’t know if you wanted me to or not though. Wish I had - could’ve been here to protect you.”

“Don’t you start that self-blamin’ bull, Hades.” Persephone warned in a tone stronger than what he thought her currently capable of. “Ain’t your fault.”

“I promised -”

“And you kept your promise.” She huffed. “You can’t expect me not to get scraped up. I defended myself. You ain’t gotta hover over me and protect me at any given second.”

“No, but I want to. You’re . . . you’re my wife. I’m meant to keep you safe. Happy. Reckon I’ve fucked that up enough that I wanted to keep what promises I could.”

Persephone’s lips twitched. 

“You really ain’t gonna take me back now?”

“I promised to wait. I will. Long . . . long as you come home when you do.”

Persephone’s expression softened.

“Don’t I always?” He felt her fingers tighten briefly in his own, a small flex that meant the world. He gently lifted her bandaged fingers to his lips to press several small kisses to them, lips lingering against her skin. 

“I thought I’d lost you.” He whispered into the silence that had settled again, adjusting into a more comfortable position on the edge of the bed. Persephone shifted too, offering more room that he dare not yet take. Some part of him still assumed she’d come to any sort of sense and kick him out - but that wasn’t what they were doing. They were trying. Supposed to be. 

“Can’t get rid of me that easy, husband.” Persephone gave the slightest flicker of a smile that made the rock in his chest melt. Seeing that smile meant she was okay, in his mind. She’d be just fine. Of course if he lingered for a while to make sure of it  - well, that was neither here nor there. 

“Good.”

“Now you gonna get in this bed with me?”

Hades blinked. Persephone shuffled around, wincing, but continued until she had left a decent amount of space open on the bed (which, was impressive given the size of the bed). She looked expectant, and it took Hades a moment to understand her intent. 

“I - d’you really want that?”

“Do it before I change my mind. I’ve had a bad damn day.”

Hades hesitated, but didn’t disobey. Shifting awkwardly, he moved to lay in the space she had offered. It was a tighter squeeze, but Persephone didn’t seem bothered. Instead, she rolled onto her side and pressed herself against his chest before he could even adjust. It had been some time since they’d shared a bed, much less been close as this. Yet, it seemed there had been no time at all that had passed in that time. Hades allowed himself the freedom of wrapping an arm gingerly around his wife - and she did not protest. 

“I missed you.” She murmured, voice muffled against his chest. “You’re still on my shitlist, but I’ve missed you.”

Hades chuckled faintly, and pressed a kiss to her hair. 

“Wouldn’t expect anythin’ less, lover.”

“Stay, then? I know you’re gonna go and have your meltdown at the two idiots but - stay for a while, here?”

[lifblogs]

celnene

9414 words

destiel, fae!castiel, high fantasy!au

written as a prompt request awhile ago

The baby was crying. The beautiful, blond-haired baby with green eyes was crying, and both parents had left him there in the cabin alone. Their intentions hadn’t been evil, seeing as the mother had gone to hunt for food, and the father had gone to the market to sell furs in exchange for something to eat other than meat. Castiel understood why they hadn’t brought the baby along. Even the trek to the market could be dangerous. Castiel had been there before, wearing a glamour so as to hide from the humans. He found that he enjoyed watching them, even though these people would kill him if they knew who, and what, he was. They’d see his sharp canines, and his pointed ears, his perfect skin, and ethereal glow, and they’d shoot and stab him full of iron.

Usually, most of them weren’t violent to other humans, not as severely as some had been during the wars centuries ago. There were a number, however, who belied that simple fact. Bandits were on the roads, ready to take advantage of helpless townsfolk. A few ex-soldiers wandered, taking their anger out at being dismissed from the army on the people there, and bullying them for money.

So no, a baby wouldn’t have been able to be brought along, despite the sure amount of kindness he would find.

As for friends? Castiel was sure the two parents of this baby didn’t have any that could watch their six-month old. He knew because, well, for some reason he had had his eye fixed upon them for years. He just felt… drawn to them, particularly when the mother had become pregnant.

Once they’d had the baby, they’d taken extra precautions, making weapons of iron. Some were still in the house, but if they didn’t touch Castiel, he would be fine. Would the parents return in time to make an attempt at ending his life? No, the chances of that were slim. Even now he could smell the scents of the parents fading, and they hadn’t renewed. They were getting farther away.

That baby boy was still crying. At six months old he was able to eat mashed food, and he was becoming a little less helpless. Still, he was a baby, and for now, he was all alone in the world.

Castiel came down from his perch on the tree, jumping easily to the ground fifteen feet below and landing on his feet, strong bones and legs easily taking the impact.

As he walked towards the cabin, idly flicking out his power behind him to brush the snow and obscure his tracks, he raised his hand, and he pushed, letting his power pulse outwards. The latch unhooked, the door swinging open slightly. Cold air rushed in ahead of him, and a flurry of snow swept across the mat inside the door. Not wanting the baby to get too cold, Castiel hurried in, taking care to close the door behind him.

The baby didn’t seem hungry when he swept a discerning hand that glowed gold over his body. He was fine. However, he was… lonely.

Castiel, feeling warmth in his chest, picked up the baby, and started bouncing him. For some reason he started telling him about the wars, telling him of the dark fae the humans had helped battle off, and then, in a stroke of mistrust, had turned on the fae that had helped them. The battles had killed more humans than fae, and Castiel, acting as a highlord beneath the reign of his father, the highprince, had been able to convince them to turn away. He left out the gory details, of course, but he told the story of how their peoples had separated, and how some fae still cared about the humans. Too many years had passed for the humans to remember what had happened, and those who weren’t royal or wealthy could barely read. Even then, most humans saw the word Fae and turned away from it, even if that word was on a history book.

Despite their ignorance, Castiel found them interesting. But not as interesting as the baby boy he was bouncing on his knee. The baby, whose name he’d caught a few months ago—Dean—was now gurgling instead of crying. He looked up at Castiel with the greenest of eyes. One of his little hands fisted in Castiel’s silvery-white cloak.

“Yes, it’s all right, Dean,” he told him. “It’s all right. You’re safe.”

Castiel stayed with Dean till he heard the parents arriving home.

They didn’t even know he had been there.

✥

Castiel had work to do as a highprince. In his opinion, it was boring work. Most of it was politics between the different courts in the realm in an attempt to postpone another war. Along with that, there were ledgers to keep a decent account of, new guards to choose for his retinue, overseeing commerce—which, to his dismay, included strong drinks that were so punctuated with alcohol they could easily double as cleaning fluid. The alcohol hadn’t made its way to the nobles of his court, but he was aware of its circulation through the slums in the lower depths of his city.

Castiel’s city was Taivakel, built atop a towering mountain. His palace resided at the top; a thing of marble, and gold, and diamond. The city then grew out in a circle all around the mountain, many of the buildings made of smoothened white stone. Different sections of the mountain had been carefully segregated. Though, in the past century, Castiel had had the walls separating them knocked down. He did not want his people to be divided. In part because he cared about them, but he also knew that a divided people could plant animosity among his citizens, and dangerous things could happen. Rebellion—though that hadn’t happened since his father was highprince—civil wars, higher criminal activity.

With this new system, the different quarters had begun to merge with each other, and Castiel quite enjoyed it. The reports he received from his lords and advisors relayed that the people did as well.

Castiel’s people were all fae. The lesser ones, without powers, had been pushed to the bottom of the mountain. They lived in small, wooden shacks and crowded apartments. They had created a black market centuries ago as an attempt to get by. Another highprince, one of whom he was acquainted with—Corvalend, the highprince of Aardess—tried to curtail his worries about the lesser folk. He claimed that they were lesser for a reason, reminding him of the fact that they lacked magic.

Still, Castiel was trying to help; setting up donations, attempting to send builders to fix up the homes, lowering the taxes, and sharing goods. Some for free, some at a lower price. Despite his attempts, he had received quite a bit of backlash from the non-magic folk in his city. They claimed they did not want the help of a highprince who surely looked down upon them, and they insisted that they did not need his help. They had been self-sufficient for four centuries now, and claimed that their ways of life could not be changed. Still, he tried. He desperately tried, caring about all his people.

Then, of course, there were the religious zealots of Dawn’s Children. Dawn was supposedly a representative of the dawn of a new age, in which humans and fae would live together. To most, it was blasphemy. Castiel was not very religious, but he welcomed the idea of merging with the humans. However, sharing that would make him very unpopular with his people. 

Dawn’s Children took in all kinds. They preached in thick robes, collected followers, kept their heads unshaven. To appease them, Castiel had appointed their high priestess as one of his advisors.

Many of Dawn’s Children were tame, gentle, but problems quickly arose whenever they wandered into human territory. Which they did quite frequently.

They wished to mate with them, seeing as they had found ways for two beings of the same sex to mate and create life. In the city, that secret was guarded carefully. However, the work of Dawn’s Children never seemed to come to fruition. Many of the members who delved into the human kingdoms did not return. During their first foray, Castiel’s father had sent a battalion of troops after them, even requesting that Castiel lead them. He had declined, and without his leadership, only half the troops had returned. His father blamed him, as Castiel did himself.

Quite frequently he found himself venturing into the human realm in secret, as he had a few years ago when drawn to that baby. His only creed was to explore, observe, and not interact. Yet, he felt pulled to the child, and often walked through doorways of light to the human realm. He would do this at night, while tasking one of his lords or trusted advisors to watch over the city in his stead. Perhaps the time for another visit was drawing near.

✥

The day had been grueling. Highprince Castiel had undertaken a building project in the lower quarter. Though his identity had remained hidden till an hour or two into his work, he was eventually found out, and vitriol was flung his way. Still, Castiel worked, whether these fae wanted him to or not. This was his duty. To serve, protect, lead. If he could not do what he would ask of someone else, then in his eyes he would have failed as a highprince.

Castiel let out a deep sigh as he now settled down into the hot water filled nearly to the brim in his deep-set, marble tub. There was a ledge to sit on when one did not want to be fully submerged.

The ledge was where he rested for now, sore from his day’s work. Eventually, he soaped up his body, washing away the sweat, and grime that had collected on him. After dunking into the water to rinse away the soap, servants toweled him dry. They attempted to dress him in his night clothes, and Castiel dismissed them, a fluffy towel wrapped about his hips.

He perused his wardrobe, opting for dark clothing. He donned a black silk tunic with a deep v cut down the center, and silvery embroidery on the cuffs, black leather pants, paired with fur-lined boots, a vest for partial warmth, and a cloak.

Fall had come, and he did not want to get cold on his travels.

Castiel waved his hand, widening a doorway of golden light. He stepped into it.

✥

Dean was playing in the forest. It was evening, the sky that dull gray before the sun lowered beyond the horizon and surrendered the world to starry night.

Dean was seven years of age now, and he was receiving some schooling. His little brother was three years of age. Dean couldn’t wait to take him out in the woods to play with him. All his brother Sam seemed to be able to do for now was play with the wooden toys their father had carved for Dean some years ago.

Sometimes, against his mother’s will, Dean traveled into town. Whilst there he came to know that his patched together clothing, originally taken from his father’s trunk after his death, was a sign of poverty. With one parent, they were not very well off.

Now, he played in the woods; he had found a giant stick, and was whacking a tree with it. He moved into different stances, ones he had come up with in his head, and had convinced himself that the soldiers used.

Light broke through the twilit sky, and Dean gripped his stick hard, heart pounding. What was that?

Then he saw a tall shadow through that golden glow, and Dean ran to hide behind a thick ash tree he had taken to climbing a year ago.

Poking his head around, he saw the shadow step out of the light and materialize into a man. He was dressed in black, his tan skin inhumanly smooth, dark hair immaculate, and—

Dean hid behind the tree again, gasping, breathing hard.

The man was fae!

Dean had seen the pointed ears. Did he have fangs too?

The fae male stepped so lightly that Dean hadn’t even heard him approach, and—

He rounded the tree Dean was hidden behind. At his discovery, Dean’s instincts told him to drop his stick, to run. Yet, there was something deeper inside of him. An excitement, a thrill of some sort. Dean ran at the fae male and cried out, swearing, “Get back! Get back! You don’t belong here, you damned Inenuan rubbish!” as he beat at his legs and lower abdomen with his stick.

Eventually, he tired, and when he stepped away, panting, shaking fingers scraped from bark, still holding onto his stick, he looked up into the face that observed him. He saw blue eyes, a strong jaw, nearly too-pink lips, and eyes as blue as the Clear Lake a few miles away. Mary and Dean had made the trek before; Mary with Sam bundled up against her chest. Dean was reminded of those waters when he looked into those eyes. Blue, cold, perhaps even empty.

No, emptiness was not what lay there. Just something different, something he could not recognize. After all, he was fae.

The fae male reached out, and took Dean’s stick. Dean trembled.

“You know,” he said in a low, gravelly voice, sharp teeth flashing as he examined the stick, “if you stripped this of bark, whittled it down, and sharpened the edge, it would be a more effective weapon.” 

He handed it back to Dean, and Dean just stared, mouth dry. He licked his lips. 

“Your form was off as well,” he commented. Then Dean was sure his heart had stopped because that thing, that being, was touching him. The touch was not harsh, nor anywhere inappropriate; simply meant for moving his limbs around. Yet he had dropped his stick in shock. “Here,” the male said, “you want to keep your feet shoulder width apart, and lower yourself slightly as if you were sitting up on a high stool. There, good. Feet must be straight, pointing forward, bringing power and balance into your legs.”

Dean still couldn’t breathe. A fae was touching him! Talking to him! When would the killing blow come? Would he steal him away, cook him up before eating him for dinner? Would he enslave him, perhaps keep him as a pet? Or would he put him on the front lines of his army to be used as a distraction to lessen the deaths of the real soldiers? No matter the course of action, he was sure he would die.

“All right. Yes. Now put your arms up.” He now grabbed hold of his arms, and Dean took in a sharp breath. Though, the touch was gentle, perhaps even kind. No, impossible. This creature did not know kindness. “You want to keep one held up, angled slightly away from your body. This one you use to block blows. It protects you, and from this position you can easily lift it to protect your face, or lower it to protect your abdomen. The other arm should be lower, pulled back slightly. You can alternate which hands you use if we’re talking hand-to-hand combat—here make a fist—keeping you from tiring on one side too quickly, and giving you the advantage of coming at your enemy from both sides. And you see here?” He lightly patted Dean’s elbow, and Dean realized he had not left the position he’d been placed in, too terrified to move. “With this arm farther back, when you reach out to punch someone, it gathers momentum, but only if you keep your elbow and wrist straight.” The male backed up slightly, taking his hands off him. “Here, try it. Punch me.”

“Wh-what?” Dean questioned, voice small in the otherwise empty forest.

“Hit me,” the fae male commanded. 

That voice was commanding. It was the voice of a leader, the voice of one with power. Dean found he could not resist. He stepped out with one foot, and drove a punch into the fae male’s gut. The satisfying sound of a fist hitting the center of a body met Dean’s ears. To his dismay, the male had not moved even an inch.

Dean faltered.

The fae crouched down, getting on his level. “It’s all right, Dean,” he told him. “I am stronger than you, able to withstand much more, but with practice, you will be able to protect yourself.”

“H-h-how do you kn-know my name?” Dean asked, struggling to get the words out.

“That story is long,” he said. “But perhaps in a decade or two, I will tell it to you.”

A gate of golden light opened, and Dean shielded his suddenly-watering eyes against it, blinking something fierce.

“Farewell, Dean,” the fae male said, and then he made to walk into the light. Before disappearing into it he turned, saying as if in afterthought, “By the way, my name is Castiel.” 

Castiel stepped into the light, which receded behind him. Dean was alone in the darkened woods.

✥

Sam coughed, blood coming up on his lips. Dean just held his hand, bowing his head. Sam was unconscious, but still he said to him, voice rough, throat aching with emotion, “Come on, Sammy. Hold on for me. You’ll be okay.”

Mary was out trying to get herbs for him, and she was desperate, saying she would not lose another one of her boys. After their father had died, she had attempted to be a good mother, but had no longer possessed the will. The spark had gone out, and Dean had tried to light it once more. He’d given everything for her, for Sam. It hadn’t been enough.

Somehow, with Sam being sick, she seemed to have that spark again, that fight. She was going to be there for him.

Dean searched their little cabin for a cloth. He found one resting over the edge of the washbasin—which was empty. He groaned, knowing they needed more water.

Dean put the cloth over his shoulder, took the washbasin, and went outside into the cold with it. He forwent putting on a cloak. He wouldn’t be out there for long. He went to the spigot located in the back of their cabin. The metal was cold as he worked it up and down to get the water from the cistern. It seemed to burn his hand.

Doesn’t matter.

Water splashed over his hands. Dean couldn’t do this gently. He was breathing hard, sweat on his forehead despite the cold.

Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam

Praise Ilvasar, that even this little bit of water would help.

Doubtful.

Dean went back in out of the cold, put the washbasin down near Sam, and then soaked the cloth. Water dripped in little pitter-patters as he wrung it out. He used it to clean the blood off of Sam, and then put the clean part of it on his blazing hot forehead.

Sam’s breaths rattled in his chest.

Dean stayed kneeling by the bed, and put his head down against Sam, one hand resting across his brother’s stomach. He knew that with his arm like this, he was supposed to be able to feel Sam breathing. The abdomen seemed to hold deep breaths. Sam couldn’t breathe deeply enough for them to reach lower.

His brother whimpered, and when Dean moved his head higher, he could feel Sam’s too-slow heartbeat. His breaths rattled, and squeaked. A tear fell from one of Dean’s eyes, rolling down his cheek to land on Sam’s cotton tunic.

Dean held on to his shoulder, fingers kneading, trying to soothe.

“Sammy…” he murmured.

The door banged open, and in an instant, Dean—though exhausted—rose and settled into a stance he’d somehow learned but possessed no memory of being taught. He relaxed, heaving out a breath at the revelation that it was just his mother.

Their eyes met, and unspoken, horrid words passed between them.

Dean collapsed to his knees, reaching out for Sam’s hand.

His mother came to hold his hand, and despite the trials of their past, he allowed the touch.

“What must we do?” Dean murmured.

“There’s nothing.”

Dean pulled his hand away. A part of him wished to argue, wished to fall into the habits he’d developed years ago. Instead, he went into his room, and donned the jacket and cloak he’d left resting on his bed. He grabbed his leather gloves by the door, and pulled his hood up, ready to set out.

His mother grabbed him.

“You can’t go,” she said to him, pleading.

Dean found his words were lost to him, that he could not speak. Instead of soothing his mother, or confiding in her with his plan, he shrugged free of her grip, and walked out into the cold evening.

Dean wandered for quite some time, searching for any roots that could have survived in all the snow. There were rumors of magic in the land, so surely there would be some.

His search proved fruitless. Dean had wandered at least two miles from the cabin, the sun now beginning to set. The sky was painted in red, bleeding into the gray darkness.

Cold, shivering, Dean knelt in the snow, holding himself upright against the thick base of a tree. His hands were frigid despite the gloves protecting his skin. The ice bit at his nose, his lips, and the wind made a good many attempts to tear his hood off.

He held onto it with his free hand, breaths suddenly coming hard and fast.

The now-familiar ache in his throat built up, and in pain-filled moments his vision began to blur, the world fading away from him.

There was nothing he could do. Nothing at all.

Sam was surely meant for the grave.

With that thought pounding inside his head, he rose, and walked, even as he lost all track of time, all understanding of his body. Dark had settled upon the world when he came to, when his tears dried. Stars blinked out above the bare trees.

Ilvasar, please.

No. Hope for his brother was not something Ilvasar could grant him, if Ilvasar even truly existed. Religion had always seemed rather weak and feeble to Dean. Were gods and powerful spirits truly watching over them? Or were the human superstitions all for naught?

However, Dean had begun to burn prayers for the gods some months ago, searching for anything that could help Sam.

Ilvasar was a common god to be used as a curse. However, he would not help here. He didn’t have the powers, did not know how. So he looked up, and he prayed to Neia, the goddess of all things natural in the world. The legends told of her proclivity for healing. Perhaps…

Dean attempted to reach her, to believe.

Please, my brother is dying. Neia. I beg of you.

Sam will die.

Sam will die.

Please…

Sam will die. He will perish and be taken to the afterlife, perhaps even into a realm of darkness.

Neia…

A tortured scream left Dean, and he climbed to his feet. He kicked at the snow, and then drew his arm back in a fist. When he punched the tree, the bark tore at the leather glove of his right hand. His knuckles throbbed. Yet, he wished to take his anger out on the tree once more.

Fist raised, about to deliver another blow, the realization that he should put his anger and fear into use came upon him. What would screaming and crying in the dark and cold accomplish? Such a manifestation of emotions would never help.

Hand throbbing, ice cold reaching through the tear in his glove, and radiating against him to numb his face, he birthed an idea.

Was the idea a terrible, and possibly perilous one?

Yes.

No other options had presented themselves.

Beginning to hunger, his stomach growling from missing dinner, Dean looked up at the stars, determining his position.

Good. He had already unintentionally been traveling in the correct direction. All he must do was continue north in a straight line.

He walked, keeping his cloak wrapped securely about himself, raising his feet up high so as to not get stuck in the snow. His breaths were harsh in his chest, his thighs beginning to ache. Still, onward he went.

Dean was not sure how he was aware of crossing the Border. Perhaps it was the slight tingle that had traveled down his spine. Or perhaps it was the way the very air seemed different, more… pure.

Now what must he do?

Dean knew not.

He walked. Hopeless.

Cold and exhaustion gripped him, and he gave in, lying beneath the low bough of a fir.

✥

The tugging in Castiel’s gut alerted him to Dean’s presence. He had crossed the Border. But why? Why did Castiel then sense a dark dread, and exhaustion?

These feelings had awoken him, and he did not bother to dress—only grabbing his cloak, and shoving his feet into some boots—before fixing himself on Dean’s location. Light opened up in his chambers, a tear in the physical plane of this world. He stepped through it.

Where he was transported to was a forest a few miles from the Border. Dean had been traveling north, yet he would have never reached Castiel’s territory that way—if that had truly been his goal.

He slept beneath a tree, his face pale against the light of Castiel’s portal, his lips blue. His hair, which had darkened to brown with age, had been swept away from his face.

With his chest aching despite his immortality, Castiel rushed to him, and cradled his head in one hand, hoisting him up into his lap. He wrapped an arm around him, and found Dean was limp. Lifeless.

Not even daring to hope, he put two fingers to Dean’s neck, feeling for life, for blood flowing through him.

Yes!

There it was.

Faint.

Castiel could not bring beings back from the dead, but he could heal. It was an ability he’d acquired from his father.

Those two fingers traveled to Dean’s frozen lips, almost pressing into his mouth. Closing his eyes, he reached into the well of power inside of him, reached into that strong, viperous glow and warmth. Light played against Castiel’s eyelids. In mere moments, Dean’s breath warmed his fingers.

Pleased that Dean would not die at this moment, Castiel hoisted him up, carrying him over his shoulder, and he took him through the portal.

✥

Softness caressed Dean, enveloping him. He was sunken into something plush, furs layered above him. Despite this, the outward comfort could not penetrate the aches in his body.

Eyelids heavy, feeling as though he could barely open them, Dean breathed deep, attempting to fall back into sweet, blanketing sleep.

Fear suddenly spiked through him, and he tried to sit up. He hardly succeeded, holding himself up with a shaking arm, his other arm across his aching ribs.

Hands were on him now, and Dean tried to push them off, rip them away from him.

He found he could not do so. There was an iron strength in those hands.

As Dean took in the room, the white, gold, and silver coloring of it, his head became a place rife with fear.

He had passed through the Border.

These were not the chambers of a human. There was something distinctly inhuman about them. Perhaps it was the delicate, arching designs, the natural lines to everything that put the rough angles of humanity’s creations to shame. Silver and gold arced and swirled through the white of the room, creating a beautiful, unfathomable pattern.

Dean dared to look up into the face near his. Dared to confront the truth that he had been captured by a fae, and one who was surely male, the size of his hands giving him away.

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean started, gaze traveling over that strong jaw, those pink lips, the nearly sharp cheekbones, and the big, beautiful eyes. The fae’s skin was tan, hair dark and ruffled. It did not serve to hide his pointed ears.

Did he have sharp fangs?

Why did it matter? This fae knew his name.

This fae had captured him.

Dean was plunged into the stomach-churning sensation of vulnerability, and then a new realization came upon him. He looked down to assess the truth. Of course. He was naked.

“How do you know my name, and what did you do to me!” Dean growled, shocked by the strength in his voice.

The fae male just pushed him down into the bed, Dean struggling all the while. He then set himself on the bed beside Dean, pulling the furs up against his chest, covering him once more.

“You were dying,” his captor told him.

Fear pumped through Dean’s blood.

Yet, those eyes, that face, was so beautiful. Strength lay beneath his night clothes. A deeper part of Dean that tended to crave someone’s touch, was very pleased with this situation. However, it was not the one ruling his mind.

“The cold had gotten to you,” he explained. “You were blue, frost-bitten. Your bodily functions had slowed. Death had been upon you, so close that I feared I hadn’t reached you in time.”

Dean glared, and this strong, stupid, self-absorbed, repgunant being—

No, Dean, he chastised himself. You require his help. For Sam.

He saved you.

He can save your brother.

—the fae male removed his hands, leaving Dean propped up on plush pillows.

“You still haven’t answered how you know my name,” Dean said.

The fae frowned, tilting his head in a way that seemed to signal confusion.

“You truly don’t know?” he questioned.

“Know what?”

The male reached two fingers out towards him, and Dean attempted to shy away.

Useless. Those warm fingers rested against his forehead with a gentle touch.

Dean was carried away. Away from the bed, the elaborate and lavish chambers that were so hauntingly beautiful. Away from the palace he now understood he was in. Away from time, from the present. He went back, and back…

Till he was just a little boy standing in a forest, shaking with fear as he raised a stick, preparing to fight the fae before him. He was all dark hair, and bright eyes, so tall, so large.

The fae spoke, positioned his body, taught him. Dean recognized the stance he was directed through, a stance that had helped him when he had enlisted in the army. The army had not brought much good, seeing as any attempts to fight across the Border had killed troops in droves, yet Dean had learned to fight. With his fists, with knives, a sword, a staff, a spear. Before he’d become a deserter upon hearing of Sam’s illness, he’d been training with the axe, and even with a bow.

Had… Had this being truly helped him with this?

Why couldn’t Dean—

As the fae male turned to leave through a gate of golden light, he turned back, a slight smile turning up his lips. By the way, my name is Castiel.

Dean was rushed back through time, through the world, as if a rope had suddenly been pulled taut, the strength of some ethereal creature reeling him back in. Dean strained against it, head pounding.

A voice rang through the travels of his mind: Don’t fight it. It’s all right.

Implicit trust was born in Dean, and he breathed deeply.

His mind returned to its natural place inside him. His vision was blurred, but in seconds, it righted itself.

“Castiel,” Dean breathed.

Castiel’s smile in response to his words was gentle, warm. It was not what he had expected of a fae.

“So where am I?” Dean asked, attempting to sit up once more. He shied away from Castiel’s hands, though the strength in them had begun to stoke a fire deep in him. “I saw this is a palace. Are you… Are you a royal of some sort?”

“I’m a highprince of the kingdom of Taivakel,” Castiel informed. “We are on top of a mountain, and you are leagues from the Border.”

“All right. Why am I naked?”

“I had to warm you. Your clothes were wet and cold.”

Dean saw the sense in that, but still, he was slightly uncomfortable. Perhaps not in a way he should’ve been. Staring at Castiel, his gut began to throb.

He attempted to banish the treacherous thoughts from his head. He smothered them under prolonged pain, and the coming of grief.

Words spilled from his mouth, tone aching with the very love he held for his brother, “Castiel, you have to help me. My brother Sam is dying of sickness. I crossed the Border to find someone to save him, to…” He swallowed roughly, and forged on, “To make a deal.”

A sultry darkness flickered in Castiel’s eyes, and the grin on his face transformed into something feral.

Dean’s mouth went dry, and he tried to swallow, but found his throat was just as parched.

“Cas—” he began to ask before the dryness of his throat deadened his words.

“Yes, we can make a deal. But you cannot back out of it. Whatever we come to, you must follow through accordingly. Betraying me, attempting to break the deal, it will result in your untimely death.”

Dean found the strength to speak. He asked, his voice rough, gravelly, “You can save him?”

“Yes, I can save him.” Castiel pulled away from him, getting off the bed. He began to pace, a hand to his chin. “But what do I desire?”

Dean wanted to hide in the furs, pretend he was no longer there despite the deadly allure of Castiel.

“Oh, yes. Yes, of course.”

Castiel turned to Dean, eyes bright, and Dean gulped, holding the furs to himself, kicking himself away as Castiel crawled over him on the bed. He held himself up with his hands and knees, and Dean’s breaths were shallow as he stared up at this being, as he felt the pressure where their bodies touched. Dean imagined he could hear his heartbeat. How was that possible? All fae had hearts of stone, surely. It was why they could not die.

Those eyes seemed to penetrate him, and Dean’s body began to betray him, heat building up in between his legs.

Oh, Ilvasar. Neia. Jhana. No. Spirits, help me.

Castiel lowered his face to his, their lips nearly touching, nose brushing against his own. Everything in Dean begged and pleaded for he himself to reach up, to press their lips together. To discover whether the stone was in his entire body, if the dreaded evil could truly live in him.

Castiel breathed deep, and Dean shifted, hand lowering to hide his growing arousal.

“I will heal your brother for you, Dean Winchester. In return, I ask only for your firstborn.”

That was it?

Dean had expected to bleed for him, to become enslaved, to be at the mercy of this fae.

For the moment, sacrificing his firstborn did not seem like an evil act. He did not have a child, and surely wouldn’t for years. Dean was not the kind of man who gave women a reason to stay and settle down with him—his recently broken engagement was testament to that. As for his other tastes… They could not produce children.

He’d heard rumors however that when a human and a fae... became close in that way, that despite being the same sex, they could create a child… somehow. Perhaps it was just rumor, but still, Dean found himself asking, wanting to hold up his end of the bargain as studiously as possible, “When will we begin?”

Castiel pulled back slightly. “I beg pardon?”

“Creating a child,” Dean added, cheeks reddening, gaze traveling away from those penetrating eyes. They then found the thickness of his body, and his own body continued to betray him. “I… I heard that… a human man, and a fae male can…”

Castiel sat back, and sidled off of Dean. He rested back on his heels. “Ah, so you’ve been preached to by Dawn’s Children.”

Dean nodded.

“They pander lies, they meddle where they should not, but that is one truth they properly acknowledge. However, my people and I try to keep it close to us.”

“Why?” Dean found himself asking.

“It is thought of as blasphemous for our races to mix.”

Dean wished to nod in agreement, but he was still frozen, naked under the pile of furs.

“However,” Castiel went on, a sensual haze darkening his eyes, “I find your presence quite persuasive. I am not averse to the idea of making you mine.”

Highprince Castiel grinned.

✥

Castiel had the strong urge to dress Dean up as he saw fit, to parade this human around as his own. He was. He would be. The idea of creating life with Dean Winchester coaxed a thrill in him that he could barely contain. Was it because of the taboo acts that would take place? The betrayal of a stifling culture? The touch of someone forbidden? No matter, he wished to let out the thrill, the rush. To let it out in luxurious ways that this human wouldn’t even be capable of comprehending.

Yet, Dean ordered him around. He ordered Castiel to get him clothes, to leave him alone as he dressed. Made him heal his aches, get him food and refreshment. Now, he came out of Castiel’s room, and crossed his arms as he stood across from him.

Dean was dressed in fine leathers and furs of mostly black. Castiel resisted licking his bottom lip when he looked at him.

“First things first, you are going to hold up your end of the bargain. I’m not quite sure how much time my brother has left, but when I went in search of something, anything, to help him he was… He must not have long.

Dean lowered his head slightly at those words, blinking fiercely.

Perhaps Castiel should have feigned ignorance and pretended he hadn’t seen that look, but he went to Dean, and held him by his shoulders in what he hoped was a reassuring grip. Dean was an inch taller than him, it would seem, but that didn’t mean that Castiel couldn’t do as he wished.

He lowered himself slightly, head tilted upward, so he could meet Dean’s tearful gaze.

“I will save him,” Castiel promised.

✥

Memories rekindled themselves in Dean’s mind when Castiel seemed to create a glowing tear in reality. He had been hesitant to step through it, so the highprince had grabbed him by his upper arm, and hauled him through with him.

Dean found that he did not possess the will to object. With Castiel’s strong hand on him, Dean felt as if he had just started living, as if his previous life was in dull colors and darker shades.

He worried. Yes, he worried. He had given himself to this fae highprince, and he had done so with hardly a thought.

Yet, Dean would do it all over again. He would have given up more if he had to, he would have become a very slave to the highprince who had saved him if that was what was required.

For now, it seemed as if Castiel was content to fulfill his end of the bargain.

The light had taken them to Dean’s family’s cabin, which now seemed too small and drab, even after only seeing a few rooms in the palace of Taivakel. His life, a human life, could not compare to the very being holding onto him so tightly. The heat his touch brought to life in Dean’s stomach was something he had never felt before. Even with all the girls he had been with in the village, and the few boys, Castiel was already unlike any other. Dean’s betrothal to Lisa now seemed far and in the past, despite it only being broken off a fortnight ago. She didn’t matter. Only Sammy mattered. Only… Dare he say it?

No, he could not.

He would not.

Dean was better than that.

If you are, then why did you offer yourself up to him so willingly? Are you that desperate for someone to fill the void?

Dean tried to push that thought down, but it festered inside of him. His black, fur-lined cloak billowed in the winter wind whispering through the trees, as did Castiel’s.

What he was wearing was still astonishing. He knew his clothes had not been anything special, and at times were very close to falling apart, but now, he felt regal. How was it that he felt such a thing from clothes he did not belong in? These were the clothes of a fae, not of a man. Clothes of royalty.

Dean was no such thing.

Castiel took his hand—which was protected with a black leather glove, just like Dean’s—and hurried over to the cabin with him. No light could be found inside despite the growing dark.

Dark?

Had it not been day when he’d awoken?

Yes, but he had assumed it was morning, not taking time to look at the positioning of the sun.

He swallowed roughly. Oh, Ilvasar, he’d been away a whole day.

Where was his mother?

Was Sam…?

Was he…?

Dean shrugged himself free of Castiel’s grip, and rushed towards his home. He flung the door open, barely daring to see what awaited him.

Darkness shrouded the common area where Sam’s bed had been set up so it would be easier to keep an eye on him. His mother would have had a fire going, or at least have some candles lit. She wasn’t here.

“Sam?” he called out, voice shaking.

He knew his brother couldn’t answer, yet it felt better to speak than to stand there silently.

A hand clasped down on his shoulder, and he jumped. He turned to look at Castiel.

“Do not tarry, Dean. Your brother still lives, but is approaching the veil.”

Paying closer attention to sound, he heard his brother’s harsh breathing. He rushed in, tripped on a stool, cursed, and then stumbled to Sam’s side. As Castiel entered, a golden glow was lit upon his hand, brighter than any lantern. For a moment, Dean had to shield his eyes.

Dean held his brother’s hand, and brushed his sweat-dampened hair back from his face. He was in different night clothes, and he looked as if he’d been bathed. So his mother had been here. Where was she now? Why was she gone?

Perhaps it didn’t matter.

“I’m here now, Sammy. It’ll be all right. I’m going to look after you.”

Still on his knees, Dean turned, and he swallowed roughly as he looked up at Highprince Castiel, as he took in the ethereal features that would never be touched with age, the pointed ears, the dark hair, those sensuous lips hiding sharp canines, the beautiful blue eyes that had seen countless lifetimes of men wax and wane.

“Please, help him.”

Castiel bowed his head in deference, startling Dean. “As you wish,” he told him.

Before long, Castiel was kneeling beside Dean, and he had one of his glowing palms pressed against Sam’s chest. The glow intensified, and Sam’s breathing seemed to falter, his body arching up into that large hand.

Dean gripped Castiel’s arm.

“Stop it. What are you doing to him? What’s happening?”

Castiel just gripped Dean by his hair, and pulled him off of him.

“Quiet. I’m healing him.”

Castiel closed his eyes, and his lips were parted as he focused. His breaths came heavy, and Dean could just see those fangs poking out.

A darkness seemed to flow up into Castiel’s hand, nearly blotting out the light. It twisted up his arm, where it penetrated him. He groaned, and then his body slumped; he let out a protracted sigh. Sam’s body relaxed, and his breaths sounded even for the first time in two months.

Oh, praise Jhana! He was alright!

Smiling, tears dripping from his eyes, Dean held Sam.

Suddenly, Castiel and his light were gone, and Sam’s eyes opened. Before Dean could wonder about the whereabouts of the highprince, Sam met his gaze.

“Dean?”

“I’m here, Sammy. I took care of you. You’re all better.”

“How?”

Dean leaned down, placing a kiss upon his brother’s brow. “The answer matters not. You’re all right now. You’re healed.”

“Where’s Mother?” Sam asked, now sitting up on his own, searching the cabin.

Castiel chose that time to make his reappearance. Light shot out from his hands, making both Dean and Sam flinch, and in moments, the cold fireplace was a beacon of roaring warmth.

Sam kicked himself backwards on the bed.

“D-Dean? Who is that?”

Dean was given no chance to answer. Instead, Castiel informed them, “Your mother will be along shortly.”

“And you…” Sam began to ask, then swallowed roughly. His wide eyes traveled between Dean and Castiel. Then, his face softened, but not into an expression of admiration or content. There was sadness there. “And you made a deal with him,” Sam finished.

“Yes, I did, Sammy.”

Sam ripped his hand from Dean’s.

“How could you?”

“You were dying!”

“What did he ask of you in return? To be his pet? His whore?”

“Sammy, I’m alright.”

Castiel came over, Sam flinching back. “Your brother has offered up his firstborn. He intends to have me collect shortly.”

Sam’s brows furrowed together. “How? Dean’s not—”

“No, he’s not. It appears he would like to do this with me. I shall be helping him.”

Disgust painted his brother’s features, tension coiling in his limbs.

“How?”

“The details are not of import,” Castiel answered. “What you need to know is that your brother came into this willingly, and that he will be all right. I swear to you, Sam, I will not harm him, and I vow to keep him safe.”

“How do I know I can trust you?” Sam accused.

Castiel started pulling the glove on his right hand off. With the leather off, Dean saw a large ring on his fourth finger he hadn’t taken note of before. The gem set in the silver metal was darkened and smooth. Castiel worked the ring off his finger, and held it out for Sam to take. Hesitantly, Sam held his hand out, and Castiel dropped the ring into his anxiously waiting palm.

“Here,” he told him. “This ring is connected to another that I have in my palace. Rub your thumb over it whenever you wish to see how your brother fares.”

“What if you hide the other ring?” Sam asked. “What if this one is not real? What if you will pretend that Dean is safe?”

“I like you, boy,” Castiel commented. “You certainly think of all the loopholes.” Sam just gave him a grim look in return. Dean went back to holding his hand, and his brother let him. “How about, one week out of every month, I let you, and perhaps your mother, come stay with me to see how Dean fares?”

Despite having been unconscious and bogged down with sickness for so long, Sam’s mind seemed just as sharp as ever.

“And what do you want in return?”

Castiel brushed a hand across Dean’s cheek, his stomach fluttering at his touch.

“I will get to keep Dean.”

“What? No!”

“It’s all in the price of saving you,” Dean told him. “I think it an honorable deed. Please, let me do this. I will be safe. Besides, it was about time I moved out of the cabin anyway. I’m a little too old to be living with my family. Perhaps it’s time to make my own way.”

“You won’t be able to!”

“Sam.”

“Tied to him, you won’t—”

Dean took hold of Sam’s face, looking deep into his hazel eyes.

“I will. I wanted this. I did this for you. You’re”—Dean choked on the next words he wished to speak, and his vision blurred, a tear rolling down his cheek—“...damned Inenua! You’re alive.”

“Dean, you know you should not speak of that place.”

“What?” he asked with a shrug. “You know it’s not real.”

The silence of Castiel beside him was deafening.

Dean looked up at him, and Castiel just winced.

He swallowed roughly. “Ah, well. Wonderful. I suppose I always liked fire anyway.”

“Hush now,” Castiel commanded.

Dean had opened his mouth to say something else, but now he found he had no choice but to obey. The sheer power in Castiel’s tone was something that he was sure no being could ignore.

“All right, Sammy, I have to go,” Dean said when words came to him once more.

“You’ll leave me? Just like—just like Dad?”

“You know it’s not like that. Besides, you’re old enough to be out on your own. We’ll see each other often. Please, live your life. Don’t waste away in my shadow.”

Sam nodded, having difficulty looking at Dean. Then, he drew him into a bone-crushing hug. Dean held him with just as much strength.

“Bitch,” Dean quietly called him, as was their proper way of saying goodbye to each other.

Sam laughed against him. “Twit.”

Long seconds passed before Dean was able to pull himself from Sam’s grip.

“Bye, Sammy.”

“See you soon, Dean. What of Mother?”

He waved his hand absently. “Ah, she’ll be fine. As will you.”

He turned to the highprince who still held onto him, the highprince who might actually possess a real heart. “I suppose it’s time you took me back to the palace.”

A golden tear opened in the room already flooded with light and warmth. Dean blinked his eyes against it.

“Wait,” Sam began, standing and taking his first steps from the bed in months. “Your ring,” he offered to Castiel.

Castiel smiled at him, and it was a smile that Dean hadn’t ever expected from a fae. What he saw there was…

Kindness.

He barely noticed anything else besides the light Castiel had the ability to create.

“Keep it.”

Once through the tear in reality, they were back in Castiel’s chambers.

Immediately, the highprince shoved Dean against a wall. Perhaps being fearful would have been the reasonable reaction, but Dean had never been known for being reasonable. His breaths left him as wanting groans, and he fought against Castiel for only a moment, testing his strength.

Yes, Castiel was far superior.

Dean swallowed roughly, and asked, voice already a low gravel, “Not going to show me off to the lords and ladies first?”

As an answer, Castiel growled, and pulled Dean’s head back. Throat exposed, Dean barely dared to breathe. The highprince began to lavish his neck with gentle kisses, a press of lips against skin that was soon becoming more insistent. When he began to suck over his pulse point, it was as if a string of pleasure had been drawn taut throughout his body, and someone had just yanked on it, making it shudder with wanton desire. He moaned, finding himself weak, needy, at this fae’s mercy.

Castiel held Dean’s arms above his head, so he had nowhere to go when he felt Castiel’s fangs at his neck.

Again, his reaction was far from reasonable. In fact, his body was beginning to ache with arousal.

“Do it,” Dean begged.

Castiel tilted his head up, stroking a thumb along the column of Dean’s throat. Pleasure trailed through him.

“Hmm, if you wish for it that badly, then no, I will not give you what you desire.”

“Then what—“

Castiel pressed his lips to Dean’s, and Dean kissed back. The world faded away into a realm of white light. Castiel remained pressed up against him, yet his lips were traveling lower as he began to undress him.

Dean felt weightless, and yet, the white all around him did not falter.

Breathless, Dean asked, “Are we in Celnene?” Celnene was one of the afterlives, the one Dean wished to pass into after death took him.

Castiel grinned, a dark, seductive laugh leaving him as he straightened.

“We’re in your mind.”

Dean pulled back, furrowing his brow as he frowned at him in confusion.

“I… I don’t understand.”

Castiel let Dean step away, yet he took the space apart as an opportunity to begin undressing. First he unpinned his cloak. It fell away, as if it had never existed. In fact, when Dean looked down he found no true source of stability. What were they standing on?

Overwhelmed, dizzy, he began to feel like he was falling, and would never stop.

Dean suddenly found himself in Castiel’s strong arms, and he panted as he looked at him.

“It sure would be nice if my mind at least knew how to create a floor.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got you, Dean.”

A bright flash of pain seared from his throat down to his collarbone. It greatly stirred his fading arousal. Then, of all things, he felt a body pressing against him, hardness fervently grinding in between his legs, finding Dean’s own—

Yet, Castiel was only holding him in here.

“Castiel?” Dean asked.

The highprince swiped a thumb across Dean’s cheekbone. “I am about to show you the proper way to make love. Making love is not just an act of the body, it is one of the mind, and we fae can embody that. In fact, that is how I am going to put a child in you.”

Dean groaned at those words.

Castiel ground against him in the physical realm, and in the realm of Dean’s mind they were suddenly… ONE. Gold flared through Dean, caressing his very insides. The sensations seemed to shatter him, burning him all over. When he opened his mouth to scream, pleasure took hold of him there. It went into his mouth, into his throat. Dean breathed in the very essence of Castiel, and he learned in every part of his being that Castiel’s heart pumped blood like any living being. A whole world burst behind his eyelids, and Dean never wanted this fae male to leave him. Dean himself would surely never leave him.

He was in Celnene.

This was more than just something he had agreed to to save his brother. This was what he wanted.

Great Ilvasar, and Neia, and Jhana above, this was what he was sure he had always wanted, whether he’d known it or not.

Castiel claimed him, and in turn, Dean claimed Castiel.

Somehow, when the act was over, Dean could feel a part of Castiel’s consciousness in him, mixing with his own. He was lying down, groaning, tired and aching all over. Castiel was up against him, bare skin nearly burning everywhere they touched.

“So that’s how—” Dean began to ask.

Castiel kissed the back of his head. “Yes, which is one of the reasons we tend to not interact with humans. The child you will birth for me will be more powerful than even myself.”

Dean twisted his head back to look at him, the soft furs of the bed caressing his skin as he did so. When had they gotten to the bed?

“Then why? Why agree to this?”

“You agreed first.”

Dean grinned at him. “Trying to win against you is folly, I assume?”

“I think you would find trying to do so a most unfortunate plight. Now, sleep.”

At his words, the tiredness and exhaustion Dean had been feeling since the completion of their coupling simmered to the surface.

“Sleep,” Castiel murmured, holding Dean close. He kissed the back of his head once more, and began to caress him, touch gentle against his chest. “Sleep.”

Dean began to let that comforting darkness take him, knowing in his heart that his brother was saved, and that he was where he was supposed to be. Not only in Taivakel, or in this realm. With Castiel. His own little slice of Celnene.

With memories of meeting Castiel in his childhood dragging him down to sleep, warmth enveloped him. So this was where Dean’s life had been leading him.

Now, all he could do was wait, and birth his firstborn—the babe that would become Castiel’s.

In sealing this bargain, even Dean had become Castiel’s.

What Castiel didn’t know yet, was that Dean was going to make him his. A fae highprince all to himself.

Once more, Castiel murmured, voice soft in his ear, “Sleep.”

[queerbutstillhere-writes]

Fantasy(Medieval) AU

The day Kon had been knighted had been probably the proudest moment of his life. Sure, the long ass prayer hadn’t exactly been the highlight of his evening, but he’d gone from a squire, being called boy or just Conner, to Sir Kent and honestly that was pretty cool, even if he now got mixed up with Clark a lot. It didn’t help that they looked nearly identical, Kon was just younger.

He couldn’t wait for the day Jon was also a knight. Having three Sir Kent’s would be so worth it, just to watch Clark twitch.

He had two blissful weeks of being freshly knighted, running around, partying and causing havoc, while also following the knight code, and then he had been contacted. By the King, no less. He had been summoned to the royal castle - which was admittedly, only in the next town over - to receive a royal assignment. He didn’t know what the hell it was going to be, but it must’ve been important. Why he, a brand new knight, and just 18 at that, was chosen, he had no idea, except for maybe his relation to Clark.

So he had packed up his things, said goodbye to his family for the foreseeable future, and saddled up his horse, heading up to the castle, Krypto trotting or running alongside him as they rode. It was stupid hot, and of course he had to chose to set out in the middle of the afternoon. Between the hot sun beating down on him and the fact that he had worn his armor - don’t ask him why - he was a sweaty mess by the time he reached Gotham Castle.

He wasn’t given any time to wait, just had his horse snatched from him by a stable boy and then was led deep into the castle, to what appeared to be an office waiting room. He was deposited by the servant girl, who he may have been flirting with, inside the waiting room in front of a desk with a middle aged, grumpy looking man.

“Who are you?” He grumbled, barely glancing up from where he was scratching away at a ledger.

“Sir Conner Kent, I have summons from the king.”

Conner held out the envelope. The man glanced at it, the broken seal on the back and then up at Conner. He grunted, pointing at a chair with his quill.

“Go sit down, I’ll let him know you’re here.”

Conner turned and sat down in one of the two wooden chairs against the wall, letting his bag thump to the floor beside him. The old man gave him a grumpy look, writing for another moment before putting down his quill and standing, slipping through the doors. Conner tapped his fingers on his knees as he waited, looking out the open window, out into the castle courtyard.

Gotham Castle was a huge, beautiful, but intimidating structure. She was built out of fairly dark stone, and stood at an impressive height, but judging from how high all the ceilings seemed to be, there likely wasn’t that many floors inside the castle itself. There were, of course, the towers, which stood several floors taller than the main structure, with their high peaked roofs and rippling flags. There were huge courtyards and gardens in the middle of everything, and turn out pastures for the horses, still within the castle walls. Just down the hill from the huge castle was Gotham proper, the sprawling city in better shape now, under King Bruce’s rule, then it had ever been before in history.

“Sir Kent, he’s waiting.”

Kon hopped up and started to grab his bag.

"You can leave that there," the attendant said, waving his hand to dismiss Kon's current course of action. "And the dog will have to stay."

He dropped the bag, ordered Krypto to stay, and headed to the door, his thumbs in his sword belt, armor clinking uncomfortably as he walked. He paused at the door and let the attendant step in and announce him.

"Your royal highness, Sir Conner Kent."

Conner stepped the rest of the way into the office and looked around, noting it to be an alarmingly cluttered space. The windows were open, allowing a soft breeze in. The office was crammed with book shelves, cushioned benches, a dining table that was stacked with papers and scrolls. There was a rather large fireplace against one wall, the mantel overflowing with paintings and knickknacks and other assorted items.

At the large wooden desk, which was shoved back towards one corner also covered in papers and books, was an older gentleman, his black hair streaked with white, and his beard nearing more grey than black. He was wearing an off gray linen shirt, the sleeves pushed up past his elbows, and black breeches. A golden crown had been plopped down onto his desk, and he glanced up, dark blue eyes meeting Kon's, and a tired smile slid onto his features.

Sitting on one of the cushioned benches, curled up against the armrest was a younger man, reading from a book. Kon noted a permanent ink stain on his right hand between his middle and ring fingers. His hair was longer than the older man's, nearly down to his shoulders, and was currently half pulled back, so it was out of his eyes at least. He was wearing a red shirt, black pants, and brown riding boots.

"Sir Kent," the older man said, standing, and Kon knew this to be King Bruce Wayne.

"Your majesty."

Conner immediately bowed, keeping in his low bow for a few seconds.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you." Bruce stepped around the desk and held out his hand. "I swear Clark talks about you almost as much as he talks about Jon."

"I think that's impossible, your majesty. I swear he never shuts up about that kid."

Bruce just grinned, moving to lean against the desk once they had shaken hands.

"Sir Kent, my son, Tim."

Conner turned to the Prince behind him and bowed again. He knew quite a bit about the royal family, due to his attachment to Clark, but he'd never met them. Timothy Drake-Wayne was Bruce's second youngest, and apparently a dashing young man. The prince smiled tiredly and waved, before looking back at his book. Conner turned back to Bruce.

"Well, I suppose we should get to business." Bruce walked around the desk again and sat down. "I called you out here because I have a bit of a job, that I feel like you'll be perfect for."

"What is it, your majesty? I'm happy to serve."

Bruce smiled lightly. "I figured as much. I need you to act as a protection detail for young Tim there."

Conner glanced behind him again, and caught Tim looking at him. The Prince quickly looked away again.

"Of course, your majesty. . . Might I ask what I'm protecting him from?"

"Let's call it an old family enemy, of his parents, and of myself, has decided to specifically target Tim after he refused an offer of an alliance with this man. He's tried multiple assassinations, and almost been successful more times than I'm comfortable with. The normal castle guards aren't trained for this, and as much as I appreciate our knights, they're not quite as spry as they once were."

"Of course. What will all my duties be?"

They spent the next five minutes going over every single aspect of Conner's new job, and by the end of it, he was a knight in the employment of the Royal Family.

He was shown a set of rooms by a servant, got to freshen up, and then headed to diner with the Wayne's.

......

After a week of tailing Prince Timothy Drake-Wayne around, Kon had gotten settled with the Wayne's. But mostly Tim. He was a fairly quiet guy, not because he didn't have anything to say or was too shy to say it, but because he spent most of his time observing his surroundings. Originally it had creeped Kon out, because Tim had spent most of his free time watching Kon, but now he almost appreciated it, having watched Tim work as an advisor to Bruce, and having witnessed him helping quite a few village people just because he had observed a situation and been able to stop it.

When he wasn't doing this mildly creepy observation thing, Tim was generally reading or writing. He had this huge book that he was about two-thirds through, and nearly always had it in hand. He was wildly creative, and while Kon had only had the pleasure of hearing a few of his writings, he was pretty damn good at it.

One thing he had not been expecting, was Tim's servant boy. This little ginger teenager, who ended up actually being Tim's age, was almost always with Tim. He was a little ball of energy and chaos and happiness. He was like sunshine, and Kon found himself being eager to spend time with him whenever possible, laughing and grinning with him. The boy, Bart Allen, was a whole head shorter than Kon, he had wild, auburn hair, that was more poof then not, and hazel eyes that were so light they looked golden.

For the first week, Kon had spent nights in his own set of rooms, attended to by some of the castle maids. And then on his ninth night there, there was an attack. Kon had just been leaving Tim's rooms for the night, when he heard a crash from the room behind him, and then shouting. He spun on his heel and sprinted back to Tim’s room, bursting through the door, which luckily was not locked yet, and found Tim pinned to the floor, a dark figure over the top of him, holding a knife. Kon had easily fought off that attacker, but the incident had led them to their current situation, which was Kon, moving all his bags to Tim’s room.

The room itself was fairly big, as big as Lois and Clark’s downstairs, but it was separated into two parts by a dividing wall, Tim’s bed hidden away behind the wall, the door to the privy tucked away, out of view unless you were really looking for it. Most of the room was filled with bookshelves, and there was a table that mostly served as a writing desk. There was a small, connected servants quarters, that was Bart’s strangely neat living space, though he seemed to spend a lot of his freetime hanging out with Tim, for whatever reason. But Kon, since he was Tim’s protection detail, had a bed set up in the corner of the main room, opposite Tim’s, though most of his things were being stored in the servants quarters, or at least, he assumed that’s why Bart had snatched them away unceremoniously the second he had set them down.

Tim didn’t seem bothered by this new development, just vaguely waved his hand around the room and said “Make yourself at home” and then returned to his book. So Kon did, set up a nice little miniature living space around his bed with what supplies he had, and settled in. Krypto had quite happily made himself at home on Kon's bed as well.

“Sir Kent.”

Kon jolted slightly, looking up from the sock he had been attempting to mend.

“Uh, Yes?”

“Why don’t you let me do that,” Bart offered, holding out his hand.

Kon hesitated. He wasn’t useless, Lois taught him how to mend his own things, and he was perfectly capable of doing so. Granted, he wasn’t the best at it, his big hands made it a little less neat then Lois could sew, but he got by. But this cute servant boy was holding out his hands expectantly, so Kon shrugged and passed it over. Bart plopped down beside him on the bed, tucked his feet up under his legs, and started sewing away, fingers practically flying over the hole in the sock, fixing it faster then Kon could have ever done. He looked up and found Tim fully invested in a book.

“So, how long have you been a servant for him?” Kon asked softly, turning to face Bart a little better.

“Oh, the past three or four years? I don’t remember really.”

“Wow. How old were you when you started?”

“Uh. . . Thirteen.”

“That’s a while.”

Bart looked up and smiled, then looked back down at the sock. But Kon, Kon was absolutely floored by that gorgeous smile. Bart gave it away so freely, to everyone, but this specific smile had felt . . . special. Which was odd, considering the reason for it. Krypto looked up from the floor and whined.

“There you go!” Bart quickly tied off the string and cut it, holding the mended sock out to Kon. “In the future, just bring me anything that needs repaired, and I’ll fix it right up!”

“Thank you!”

Bart flashed that blinding, beautiful smile at him again.

“Of course!” He hopped up and twirled to Tim. “I’m gonna go get lunch!”

“Okay, Bart,” The Prince replied without looking up.

“Any special requests?”

“I’m not terribly hungry.”

“Okaay dokeeey! Sir Kent?”

“For you to just call me Kon?” Kon asked, with a bit of a flirtier smile then he had intended. . . . or, well, maybe he had intended it.

Bart blinked at him, then grinned sheepishly. “Okay. Kon it is.”

Bart slipped on a pair of shoes and then disappeared out the door.

“He’s quite the bundle of energy.”

Tim looked up from his book finally, just looking at Kon for a moment before responding. “He’s a good person. And a very loyal friend. I’m lucky to have him.”

“You two do seem awful close.”

“I’ve known him since we were little, so I should hope so.”

“How’d he end up as your servant then?”

“His Uncle, Barry, is one of Bruce’s servants, so he sometimes ended up tagging along for whatever reason, and we became friends that way. He needed a job for personal reasons, and I happily offered."

“That’s kind of you.”

Tim tilted his head. “What did you want me to do? Let him go panhandling or working in the fields?”

“No. I’m just saying, not many nobility I’ve met would do something like that for someone like him.”

“What is that supposed to mean, Sir Kent?” Tim’s voice was clipped and defensive, and he had fully set his book down.

“. . . I think that came across wrong. I’m meaning. . . not many nobility would help a peasant like that.”

Tim’s eyes narrowed, and then he shrugged. “Maybe not. But I’m not most nobility, am I?”

“No. In many ways.”

They went silent, and Kon had this distinct feeling that he may have edged a little further onto Tim’s bad side.

That evening, when Tim was at dinner with his family - a safe time in which Kon didn’t have to be around him - he found himself in Tim’s rooms with Bart, who was humming to himself as he picked up, organizing books and papers, refilling Tim’s inkpot, changing linens, those types of things. And then they just started chatting, about anything and everything. Kon found out that Bart had lived with these two elderly farmers named Jay and Joan Garrick for most of his childhood, sometimes living with his uncle, Barry Allen, as his parents had both died when he was little. His trips to the castle with Barry, was indeed how he befriended Tim, and they were actually really close. Kon actually ended up finding out more about Tim through Bart, then he ever did from Tim himself.

By the time Tim returned from dinner, Bart had plopped himself down on Kon’s bed, his knees touching Kon’s thigh as they chatted animatedly.

“Good to know you two get along, this certainly won’t cause troubles for me,” Tim said, with a tired, but fond smile.

“Aww, Timmmm, we’re just getting to know each other a little better,” Bart said, looking up at him and grinning.

Tim walked over and plopped down on the bed, leaning forwards so he was leaning against Bart’s back, causing the smaller teen to groan and lean into Kon, who just chuckled and held them both up.

“I’m exhausted. Damian was being a little shit again and Dick wouldn’t shut up,” Tim groaned, moving so his head was on Bart’s shoulder, and he could look up at Kon as well.

“Aw, I’m sorry. I thought he was doing better?”

“He was. And then he saw Talia this weekend and it’s like someones stuck nails in his ass.”

Bart giggled, reaching around to wrap Tim’s arms around his stomach, rocking them slightly.

“Hmm, sometimes I wonder why your dad lets him go visit her.”

“Because she’s not with Ra’s anymore, that’s why. And because he’s still weak as hell for her.”

Bart was grinning at Tim, and Tim had his eyes closed as he laid against Bart’s back, practically plastered against him. They looked comfortable and natural like that. They looked . . . happy. Then something clicked for Kon.

“Wait. Ra’s? Like the maniac who’s trying to kill you?”

Tim looked up, frowning. Bart also frowned, but down at his lap.

“Yeah. . .”

“And . . . who’s this Talia lady?”

“Damian’s mom.”

Kon scowled. Something here wasn’t adding up. Tim sighed and closed his eyes once more, putting his head against Bart’s.

“Damian is Ra’s grandson. Bruce and Talia fell in love long ago, and I don’t think I need to give you the Talk , but not long after they split, Damian was born. We- Bruce only got custody of him a few years back. And I know what you’re thinking, but Damian is a good kid, and he doesn’t like Ra’s. He hates his grandfather.”

Kon just looked at Bart, who shrugged faintly, causing Tim’s head to shift. Kon stayed silent, digesting this information. It was certainly a lot to take in.

“You wanna go to bed early then?” Bart asked quietly, finally breaking the awkward silence.

“No, I want to go for a ride. Do you want to come with me?” Tim answered softly.

“Of course!” Bart exclaimed, grinning.

Tim opened his eyes and looked up at Kon again. “I’d ask, but it seems you don’t have a choice whether you come or not.”

Kon chuckled, pushing Bart off of him so he could stand. “It does appear that way, doesn’t it?”

After three weeks of tailing Tim and, consequently, Bart around, Kon had settled into their way of life quite easily. They had a pretty steady pattern to their days, and soon Kon had figured out times when he was needed and when he could go do things like train or nap or have a little bit of personal time. There were still the occasional attempts on Tim, though usually they were fairly random and small, and there hadn’t been any direct attacks in his living quarters since the first one after Kon arrived. But he wasn’t relaxing his guard yet, not until they were sure Tim was safe. Not that Tim couldn’t defend himself, Kon had seen him training with his older brother, Richard, but he had been hired for a job and intended to fulfill it.

After three more weeks of tailing Tim, Kon had become pretty certain of one thing. And that one thing was that he was pretty sure Tim and Bart were romantically involved with each other, dating, whatever the word for it was. It was pretty obvious, in Kon’s opinion. Hell, a lot of nights, they slept in the same bed together. They walked around holding hands and leaning on each other and grinning at each other, and just acting cute and coupley. And he was totally fine with this.

So fine with it.

He wasn’t sad about it all.

Except he was.

Because he may have fallen for Bart a bit. And Tim was really pretty and Kon also really liked him. And he was screwed because of this. Because they were probably dating each other, and Kon was just the bodyguard, third wheeling his way through life.

An interesting fact, Kon had learned over the past few weeks, was that Tim got nightmares, pretty frequently. And somehow, Bart had like this sixth sense about when Tim was having these nightmares, and would just appear at his bed and wake him up out of it, and then they would lie there, Bart softly singing until Tim drifted back to sleep. That was another thing about Bart. He sang and played the lute. And he was amazing at it. Kon could sit there and listen to him sing for hours. Bart the Bard, Tim called him occasionally, and Bart would just giggle and give him a lovesick smile and continue on playing.

Kon wasn’t going to say anything to either of them, after all, he’d either get over it, or be dismissed from his guard duties eventually, so why was it worth bringing up? It wasn’t. He was fine leaving it be. After all, it wasn’t the first time he’d fallen for someone he couldn’t have, but he was mature enough to know to not pursue someone.

But one day, he was sitting in Tim’s room with Bart and Krypto while Tim was off with his family. Bart was tuning his lute, humming softly as he worked, and Kon had been reading, but had given up after a while, to just stare vaguely in Bart’s direction, listening to the plucking as he made sure it was in proper tune.

“What’s got your head in the clouds, oh brave Knight?”

“Huh? Oh.” Kon fully focused on the bard, and found him leaning on his lute slightly, grinning at him. “Nothing. Lost in thought?”

Bart chuckled. “What were you thinking about?”

Quick! Come up with a lie!

“Home, I guess. Wasn’t really thinking about anything in particular.”

A soft hum came from Bart, and he walked over, sitting next to Kon, Krypto immediately stretched his big white head over Kon’s lap to receive pets.

“Got anyone special back home, Sir Kent?”

“Dating wise? No. . . My little brothers are back home though.”

“Oh? Are you the oldest?”

“Kind of? It’s a weird situation.”

“Trust me, if anyone understands that, it’s me,” Bart said with a smile.

Kon chuckled. “What about you? Got anyone special?” he asked, lightly nudging Bart.

“Oh. . .Uh, No.”

Kon raised an eyebrow. “Really, I thought you and. . .” He gestured vaguely around the room.

“Tim?” Bart asked, eyes going huge. “No. Nonono, we’re not- . . . no it’s not like that.”

“Huh. . . interesting, you guys just kind of act like you’re together.”

“No, I mean, it’s not that I wouldn’t-” Bart stopped and sighed. “It’s complicated.”

Kon frowned softly and put a hand on Bart’s knee. “It’s okay, I’ve been there.”

Bart looked up at him with a scowl. “I don’t need your pity, Kon.”

“It’s not- No, I didn’t mean it like that.”

Bart just shrugged and looked down at his lute. Kon let silence hang for a bit. Should he? I mean, his obstacle had just been removed, why not shoot his shot?

“Do you wanna go out for dinner or drinks or something tonight, while Tim is with his family?”

Bart stopped playing, and sat there for a moment before looking up at Kon, blinking. Then he grinned.

“Sir Kent, are you asking me out on a date?”

Conner smiled and shrugged. “And what if I am?”

“Well then, I might just have to say yes. But only if it’s a date.”

“Well it’s a good thing it was a date, then, isn’t it.”

Bart giggled. “We’ll have to make sure Tim really is going to be eating with his family, but probably yes.”

Kon grinned. “Fantastic.”

That evening, once they were excused by Tim, they got dressed and headed down into Gotham proper, chatting and laughing the whole way down. They found an inn that was serving some good stew for dinner and wasn’t terribly full, and spent a little bit of time there, just enjoying themselves. And when they got back to the castle, with time still to spare, Kon whisked Bart away to the gardens, finding a little secluded spot so they could sit down in private. They just talked for a while longer, Bart sitting on the back of their bench so he could play with Kon’s hair. And then he leaned down and kissed Kon.

Kon didn’t hesitate to push up against him, hand on his knee to help support himself, due to the slightly awkward angle.

"There they are, Timothy."

"You two having fun?"

Bart yanked away from Kon and tumbled backwards, right off of the bench. Kon yelped and dove after him, but only managed to snag his ankles, unable to prevent him from falling into the bush behind them. He looked up to find Tim and his youngest brother, Damian, standing nearby with a couple of guards. Damian looked annoyed, but Tim had this mildly amused, mostly closed off look.

"Uh, hi," Kon said, then turned back to Bart, reaching down and grabbing him by the arms, hauling him back up over the back of the bench.

Bart tumbled into Kon, giggling, even as his face turned bright red. They quickly picked leaves off of him, and then Bart sat up, looking at Tim.

"You startled me."

"I noticed."

Bart hopped up, brushing a few more leaves off.

"Are you okay?" Kon asked, standing as well, eyeing Bart.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Didn't hit your head?"

"Nope!"

"Now that you have your . . . " Damian trailed off, giving them a look of contempt. "Whatever. I'll be going."

Damian spun on his heel and walked away, followed by the guards. Tim just looked at them, shook his head and turned to walk away. Bart scurried after him, and Kon? Kon just sighed softly and followed, feeling a little annoyed that they had been interrupted.

But it was fine. At least now he knew how Bart felt.

......

After another two weeks, Kon was finding himself with another issue. See he had been dating Bart this whole time, and was quite happy with it. He and Bart got along amazingly, and Bart was . . . hot damn. Bart was something else. Kon could spend hours kissing him without complaint. Well, he actually couldn’t, because they both had jobs to do, and Bart wasn’t comfortable with kissing around Tim, which was understandable. And frankly, neither was Kon.

Because he was still crushing on Tim, even though he was pretty much dating Bart.

So yeah. He had a problem. Because he wasn’t about cheating on Bart, but at the same time. . . Tim. Tim was gorgeous and kind and smart. He and Kon had become fairly good friends, over the time he had spent as his bodyguard, and it was nice, because they could now just sit and chat or be together in comfortable silence, unlike in the past, when they would sit there in awkward silence, trying to figure out what to say to the other. And Kon wasn’t dumb, he could see Tim eyeing him, watching him, zoning out while staring at him. But he knew Tim would also never try anything as long as he was with Bart. Tim was too loyal for that.

“Bart.”

“Hmm?”

Kon rolled onto his back, looking over at Bart, who was in the middle of folding laundry. It was one of those odd days that Kon got off, as Tim was completely surrounded by his family and their various bodyguards.

“I need to tell you something,” Kon said with a sigh.

He decided it was best if he was just honest with Bart. Then at least Bart could keep him accountable or something. . . . Hopefully he wouldn’t be too upset.

“What’s up?”

“Would you come sit down?”

Kon pushed up into a sitting position, and Bart set down the pair of trousers he had just folded, turning and walking over, sitting on Kon’s lap, arm around his shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” Bart asked, tilting his head, looking concerned.

“I . . . Don’t want to hurt you, but I think you should know?”

Bart pulled back some, his scowl becoming even more concerned.

“I think . . . I think I have feelings for Tim,” Kon said softly, then rushed to continue. “But I don’t intend to do anything about it! I like you! I like being with yo-”

“Wait,” Bart said, holding up a hand, effectively silencing Kon.

Kon blinked at him, feeling worry rising in him in the form of bile in his throat. Bart was silent for a moment, then he started grinning.

“Kon. Kon. Conner!”

“Uh, What?”

“Do you realize what this means!?”

“Uh? No?”

“I’ve had a crush on Tim since I was like, eight! And I’m almost completely sure that Tim has had a crush on me for nearly that long, and that he has one on you now!!!”

“Bart-”

“I can work with this!” Bart exclaimed cheerfully and jumped up.

“Bart, what are you planning?!” Kon exclaimed, feeling more panicked now.

“I’m gonna ask him if he wants to date both of us!”

Bart had already returned to folding clothes, and Kon was left there, staring at Bart’s ass.

“Wait, you’re going to what? ”

“I mean, if you’re okay with it, I suppose? Sorry I should have asked first. . .”

“No it’s-” Kon hesitated, taking a moment to think about it.

He wasn’t . . . Not okay with it? But it was a strange concept to him. . . dating two people at once. A lot of people would consider that to be cheating. Hell, normally Kon would even consider that cheating, but. . .

“Wait so. . . all three of us? Dating each other?” Like I’m dating you and him, and you're dating him and me, and he’s dating you and I?”

“Yeah!”

“And that’s not . . . cheating?”

“Nope, it’s just like dating normally, but this time there’s two people you’re dating, instead of just one.” Bart stopped folding and looked back at Kon. “It’s not a terribly popular thing, and I know why. . . but, it can be the best thing on the planet.”

Kon didn’t respond, so Bart returned to his folding. And they sat there in silence for ten minutes until Bart finished folding and climbed into Kon’s lap so they could start kissing.

“I think . . . If you wanna ask him,” Kon said, after pulling back a bit. “Then ask him. But please don’t make him uncomfortable.”

Bart just grinned and immediately leaned in to kiss him again. “I’ll ask him, privately, later.”

Kon could tell the moment Bart had asked. He had been bathing, and when he got back, they were yelling at each other. Bart and Tim never yelled at each other. . . Okay well it was mostly Tim yelling, and Bart was trying to reason with him. It was clearly not going well, and the moment Kon closed the door, Tim whirled on him.

“And you!” Tim all but thundered. “How could you put him up to this!? Is this some kind of joke to you!? Does your relationship with him really mean that little!?”

“Uhhh,” Kon wisely said, and looked from Tim to Bart. Bart just sighed and shrugged.

“I can’t believe the both of you! I was fine with you two dating! I was willing to live with that, but now this?! Am I a joke to you!?”

Tim was putting on boots as he ranted.

“I’m guessing that’s a no, then?”

“Of course it’s a fucking no!! Gods!” Tim snatched up a cloak and then stormed out the door.

Kon looked at Bart, slowly moving to set down his dirty clothes. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah I’m. . . he’s never yelled like that before.”

“I’m gonna go after him, he can’t be wandering around alone. Are you going to be okay here?”

Bart nodded numbly. Kon quickly strapped on his sword and then walked over to Bart, gently grabbing his chin and tilting his head up.

“It’ll be okay,” he said softly, kissed him, and then hurried out the door.

He found Tim twenty minutes later, sulking in the library. Tim looked up from the books he was glaring murder at and saw Kon, and his face immediately hardened further.

“What do you want?”

“To do my job? I’m supposed to make sure you don’t die, remember?”

Tim just scoffed. He glared at him for a moment, then looked away, sighing. Kon stood nearby, hands on his sword belt, waiting for a good moment to talk.

“Bart didn’t mean to upset you that bad. And he’s pretty shook up that you yelled at him.”

Tim sighed again, shoulders falling a bit. “I know. I shouldn’t have. . . But it was just-”

“Startling?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I understand. I was pretty taken off guard too.”

Tim leaned against the bookshelf and looked up at him.

“It just won’t work, Conner, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t . . . You don’t need to apologize to me for this. I understand, and honestly didn’t expect it to go well. But. . . “

“Yeah, I’ll talk to him later.”

Tim went silent, and Kon let him, looking around the library. It was fairly empty, except for the old librarian, and Kon was perfectly okay with this. They stayed in there for twenty minutes before Tim decided to leave, slowly walking around the castle, Kon just trailing him lightly.

“Can I ask why you’re so against it?” Kon asked randomly, after a while of walking.

“I just. . . With me being a prince. . . the whole view on homosexuality. I know it’s not . . . bad, but it’s not great either, and this? A relationship between three people? It's unheard of, and for royalty to get involved in one. . . “ Tim just shook his head.

Kon was silent for a bit. “Did you know Bruce and Hal are totally sleeping together?”

“I beg your pardon!?”

“Bruce and his one guard, Hal Jordan, awesome dude, by the way. But they're totally sleeping together.”

Tim slammed on the breaks and turned back to Kon, crossing his arms. “And why do you say this?”

“Because I’m friends with one of Dick’s guards, Kyle, and he told me that Hal mentioned it to him.”

Tim just blinked at him. “Wow okay. Information I didn’t need to know today.”

“Do you wanna know about Dick?”

“Of course.”

“He’s totally sleeping with Wally.”

Tim scoffed. “Everyone knows that, Conner, that’s old news, get with the times.”

“I’m just saying. . . Nearly everyone in your family seems to be into guys. It’s not like any of them are gonna judge you for anything,” Conner said with a shrug, returning to tailing Tim as they started walking again.

Tim didn’t respond, just led Kon back to his room. When they got inside, they found Bart missing.

“He’s probably just finishing a chore,” Kon said softly, shrugging and tugging off his sword and boots, collapsing in bed. Then he looked around. “Wait, Krypto is gone. He probably took him out to pee.”

“Yeah. . . You’re probably right,” Tim said, after having stuck his head in Bart’s room. He walked back and sat on his bed, grabbing at a book and settling in to read.

Bart returned a few minutes later, Krypto on his heels, and glanced between the two, looking a little nervous. He just disappeared into the servants quarters. Tim gave a heavy sigh and stood, following him in. Kon just smiled to himself and waited patiently.

After Bart and Tim had a little talk, things settled, mostly back to normal within the next day or so. There was still some awkwardness, and Bart seemed very timid with showing affection to Kon around Tim, but it was manageable, and they were all still pretty friendly.

Kon assumed the topic had just been dropped, and wasn’t planning to ever bring it up again.

But he wasn’t the one who brought it up, so it was fine.

In fact, Tim was.

There had been an attempt, the other night. It had been peaceful for a long time, and then when they had been out riding, someone had attempted to shoot Tim off his horse. The arrow had barely missed his head and grazed his ear instead, and the second Kon realized what had happened, he had yanked Tim to the ground and covered him with his own body. Tim had been fairly shook up about it, and hadn’t been sleeping well because of it.

But tonight, he woke up screaming, and both Kon and Bart rushed to his bed, Bart immediately throwing himself under the covers to pull Tim in tight, quietly shushing him and trying to calm him. Kon awkwardly sat on the edge of the bed, watching them in the dim moonlight.

“It’s okay, Tim, you’re okay. You’re safe,” Bart reassured, humming his words softly.

Tim let out a shaky sob and buried his face into Bart’s chest, body shaking slightly as he took ragged breaths. Bart looked up at Kon and pointedly looked down at Tim, signalling him to come closer. So Kon did, pushing back the blankets enough that he could slip under them, and then scooted over until he could pull both Tim and Bart against him. Tim tensed for a moment, then relaxed back into him, hips pressing into Kon’s thighs.

It took a bit for Tim’s crying to stop enough that he could talk, and even then he barely pulled his face away from Bart, desperately hugging the ginger.

“What’s wrong, Tim?” Bart asked softly, eyebrows knit together in concern.

“I dreamt. . . “ Tim took another deep, shaky breath, then rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “I dreamt that Ra’s got a hold of you two, that he was using you against me. . . that he was going to kill you, and then me.”

Bart looked at Kon over Tim, reaching up to lightly push his long black hair back out of his face.

“He’s not going to get you, Tim. Not while I’m still here,” Kon reassured, instinctively putting an arm over Tim’s stomach. Tim grabbed onto it tightly, like it was a lifeline.

“You don’t know that,” Tim breathed out, looking up at him.

“Yes I do. I’m here to protect you, and that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to protect you, even if it means I lose my own life.”

“But why?” Tim asked. “Why would you do that for me?”

“Because I care about you,” Kon answered without hesitating.

Tim blinked up at him, and then suddenly he was surging up, pressing his lips to Kon’s. Kon made a muffled noise of surprise, eyes going wide for a second before they slid close and he lightly pressed back into the kiss, arm tightening over Tim’s stomach. He felt a hand squeeze his forearm and pulled back, looking up at Bart, who was grinning slightly.

“Tim-” Kon breathed out, looking down at him.

“I thought-” Tim squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “I thought I could get over both of you. I thought I would be fine. . . “

He looked over at Bart next, just looking at him quietly for a moment. Bart grinned back.

“But, damn was I wrong.”

Kon watched him lightly kiss Bart, pulling away from Kon as he pushed a little harder into Bart.

“So this means-” Bart immediately asked, once they had pulled away.

“Yes, I want to try it.”

Bart made a little squeal noise of excitement and grinned at Kon. Kon smiled down, then looked at Tim, who still looked a little shook up.

“Hey. . . Tim, you know I meant what I said, right? I’m here to protect you. You’re safe with me. With us.”

Tim just nodded vaguely, looking at Bart. “Will you sing me a song?”

“Of course!”

Tim settled back against Kon’s chest, while Bart sat up so he could properly sing to them, some soft love song that had Kon drifting off, arm wrapped protectively around Tim. He dozed off to Bart soft singing, and Tim’s gentle breaths. He vaguely remembered Bart slipping underneath one of his arms as well, but then he was out of it, waking up the next morning to just Tim in bed, and Bart already up and working. And Kon couldn’t help but grin to himself as he tucked Tim up against his chest.

This was good.

@core-disaster-week-2020

[yamisnuffles]

So It Was Arranged

Part 8 of Too Much of a Good Thing

Aziraphale falls in battle and must get back to Crowley.

Read on Ao3

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1066

Aziraphale wondered if humans would ever get tired of fighting. He certainly had, back when humans had only been a sparkle in divine eyes. He vividly remembered thinking, at the very least, the fight with the Fallen would be the last. The Fallen had been dealt with, only the faithful remained in Heaven, and that was that. Even having lived through that, when he was assigned to guard Eden, he hadn’t suspected there would be trouble. It was a fresh start. She had done so much work to make a world for the humans, he couldn’t imagine She would let anything happen to them let alone that Heaven would want fighting.

“What’s this have to do with anything?”

Aziraphale stumbled. He really wasn’t feeling well at all. Too much fighting for too long. He couldn’t quite remember when he’d last stopped. He had stopped at some point, hadn’t he? He was almost certain.

“Aziraphale!”

Aziraphale shook his head. He was hearing things. He would have to add that to the list of problems, along with some sort of problem with his vision and difficulty concentrating.

“Aziraphale, hey, talk to me. Come on.”

There were hands on his shoulders. Aziraphale stared at them until he realized that hands were attached to arms, which were, generally speaking, usually attached to people. His gaze wandered vaguely from delicate hands to bony wrist, on to wiry arms, pointed shoulders, long neck, and finally a face.

“Oh, Crowley. Hello. What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here, are you? Yes. Yes, I definitely remember that much.” Aziraphale’s eyes travelled beyond that beloved face, with its startling golden eyes and crooked nose, to something bright and white and nearly blinding. “You have your wings out? Why have you got your wings out.”

“Why have I— I’m getting you out of here, that’s why.”

“I’m supposed to be here, though. I don’t think I should go anywhere.” Aziraphale’s legs felt shaky and his stomach turned at the prospect of flying. Yes, a quick nap seemed just the ticket. “I think I’d rather stay here and lay down for a moment, my dear.”

His legs gave out but rather than meet with the ground, he found himself in Crowley’s arms. What beloved arms. Thin but willow strong like all of Crowley, so much less likely to snap than Aziraphale.

“No, no, no. Keep your eyes open. Do not close them. Don’t you dare.”

Aziraphale reached out. Crowley’s eyes seemed strange. Watery. He collected a drop on his gloved finger and blinked at it. “Are you… crying? Why are you crying?”

“Because you’re dying, you big idiot. So focus and stay here while I heal you. Fuck, you’ve lost so much blood. It will take me time so stay with me.”

Crowley’s words seemed like they should be angry but they sounded so sad. Aziraphale didn’t understand it. It was only a nap. That wasn’t anything to worry about. Crowley slept all the time. Really, he was being unreasonable.

“Just a small nap,” he mumbled, “and I’ll be right as rain, dearest. So please don’t cry.”

“Don’t. Don’t leave me here. Please. I can’t follow you there.”

Crowley’s voice cracked and something in Aziraphale cracked with it but he could no longer keep his eyes open no matter how he tried. There was a light, bright and warm and irresistible. He needn’t even move toward it. It was the ensnaring drag of the tide and he was far too tired to struggle against the pull. He was going home. He was released from his body with a sigh that he hoped sounded something like good-bye or, perhaps, I’m sorry.

Aziraphale returned to consciousness in a place that was about as far as anyone could get from the mess of blood and bodies he’d left behind. Mud and clouds and the stench of war had been replaced by sterile, dazzling white in all directions. The heat of his gambeson and chainmail were gone. An overwhelming sense of peace had overtaken any physical discomfort because there was nothing physical left about him. 

Free of his wounded corporation, he could remember it all. He remembered losing his footing in the muck when he’d tried to avoid being struck in the head. The heavy clubbed end of a mace had hit him before he could bring up his shield to block it. Five millennia on Earth and with the experience of fighting against the damned and yet all it had taken was one misstep and one foolish clump of metal to bring it all to an end. His life had already been forfeit before Crowley had found him.

“Oh, Crowley.”

Aziraphale wrung his hands and found it didn’t quite have the same soothing effect without his corporation. He could feel the ghost of hot tears on his face. He reached up to touch them but there was nothing there. They’d been left back on Earth, along with the skin they’d fallen upon and the muscle, fat, blood, and bone beneath. They’d been left with Crowley.

He needed to get back, which meant he needed a new corporation. He knew that there was someone in charge of such things but he’d been assigned his original one so long ago that he didn’t rightly remember who. He was quite certain everything had looked different then. He was in some sort of small reception room with a sign that said, “Welcome Back” on the wall. He supposed that should have been some sort of comfort to him. He was back in Heaven. It should have felt like home. Only, his home had a growing collection of books and a garden out back. It smelled of fresh baked bread, aging paper, and apple blossoms, not some vaguely ambrosial nothing. Most importantly, his home had the only angel not currently welcome here.

Aziraphale exited into a hallway full of identical doors. He wondered if the rooms behind them all hosted the newly discorporated. He hoped that meant there was a smooth reincorporation process set up. He needed to get back as soon as he could. He couldn’t very well do his job like this. Surely they would understand that.

He hurried down the hall until it let out into a large round room with a desk in the middle. A very bored looking angel was seated behind a thick ledger.

Aziraphale cleared his throat and the angel looked up at him. “Yes. Hello.” He gave a small wave and then tucked his hand behind his back when the gesture wasn’t returned. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me where to go to get a new body.”

The angel opened her mouth to respond but she was interrupted by a pop. A letter materialized on top of the ledger. Aziraphale waited as patiently as he could while she slowly unfurled the scroll and read its contents.

“Principality Aziraphale, you are expected up top immediately.”

Aziraphale shrank under the implications. “Up… up top?” he asked, pointing up. “The very top?”

The angel rolled her eyes at him. “No one goes all the way up. Not these days. You know that.”

“Y-yes. Of course. So, ah…”

“Archangel level, Principality.”

“Right.” It was a less daunting prospect than being summoned to speak directly with Her but standing before the Archangels always made something in his stomach twist, even when he didn’t rightly have a stomach to speak of. “I’ll be right on that. About my body, though…”

“Immediately, Principality.”

“Right.” Aziraphale’s shoulders slumped. He looked around but none of the doors were marked. “Excuse me, but it’s been a while. I just go—” The angel sighed and pointed to her right. Aziraphale offered a smile. “Thank you. I’ll be off then.”

The angel had already returned to filling in her ledger so Aziraphale hurried toward the indicated door. Beyond it was a spiral stone staircase that seemed to travel both up and down into eternity. He knew, logically, that he wouldn’t tire without his body to burden him but he felt exhausted simply looking at it.

By the time he got to the correct level he’d managed to forget who was waiting for him at the other end of it all. Uriel, Michael, and Gabriel were standing next to the tall, arched windows that looked out at the kingdoms of the world. They were busy talking amongst themselves and didn’t seem to have even noticed Aziraphale. As much as he wanted to get on to the business of getting his body back, he really wasn’t in a rush to draw attention to himself. Instead he shuffled up to one of the windows.

He hadn’t looked down on Earth from Heaven since the early days of creation. He recalled marvelling at how he could see every corner of that small blue planet at once, if he wanted, from the deep, dark home of the leviathan to lush nascent Eden. Now he felt as though he couldn’t see anything at all. All of humanity was reduced to a vague impression of their movements. They were nothing more than religion, expansion, progress, and regress. Looking at things this way, Aziraphale could almost see the broad strokes of the Great Plan but he couldn’t see the individual lives that would drive that plan to its inevitable conclusion. Perhaps if he focused in on one amongst the many, he could see. If he thought of scarlet ringlets and golden eyes, of long, lithe limbs and sharp angles…

“There you Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale yelped. Gabriel was standing right next to him, with the others not far behind. “Hello, Gabriel. And, ah, Michael and Uriel.” He had to remind himself that he’d been asked to come here. There was no reason to feel like he’d been caught sneaking where he didn’t belong. “You— you wanted to see me?”

“Well done in the battle,” Michael said. “You were able to advance things as planned.”

“Tough luck getting discorporated though. Taken down by humans. Oof. That’s got to be embarrassing,” Gabriel added.

“There was mud,” Aziraphale quickly explained. “And that armor gets so hot. I had sweat in my eye.”

Gabriel slapped Aziraphale on the back and gave him his most tooth filled smile. “You’ll get ‘em next time, I’m sure, buddy. We’re not judging you for it, are we, Uriel?”

“No,” Uriel replied while somehow making that solitary syllable sound very much like a yes.

Aziraphale glanced between all three faces. He was never sure where he was supposed to look in situations such as these.  “About— about next time. I was hoping I might get back. Only, I’ll need a body. Soon, preferably.”

Gabriel’s lavender eyes widened. “Go back? Why would you want to do that? You’ve put in your work. No one is expecting you to continue mucking about down there. That’s why I called you up here, to go over your next assignment.”

“S-stay here?” Cold dread washed over Aziraphale. “I couldn’t possibly. I have to go back. You know, to see things through properly. I wouldn’t want to see a job half done, after all.”

Uriel’s mouth actually twitched into the start of a bland smile. “An admirable attitude.”

Michael nodded. “Indeed.”

Gabriel scratched the back of his neck. “Well, alright then. If you’re really sure.”

“Quite.” Aziraphale wished he could tell what they were thinking. No matter their expressions, he always felt he was doing or saying the wrong thing. A smile never seemed exactly like a smile on the face of an Archangel. “That is, if it’s alright with all of you.”

“Sure thing,” Gabriel replied but before relief could take hold he added, “but getting you back down there isn’t exactly on the top of the list. You understand. And besides, you have your millennial report to get in still and the proper body requisition forms to fill out.”

Aziraphale forced a brave face to cover the slump of his shoulders. “Yes. Of course. I’ll get right on that.”

The Archangels had already gone back to talking amongst themselves and Aziraphale wondered why it had even been necessary to drag him up here in the first place. His impulse was still to bid them well before he went but he bit his tongue instead. Probably they would think he was bothering them and maybe they would be right, so he left without another word.

Matters did not improve from there. The angels down in the corporation department couldn’t give him a timeframe for when he might expect to get a new body and they didn’t see the rush. Worse, Aziraphale found it difficult to keep track of time in Heaven. Every moment seemed in itself an eternity and yet he also worried it was rushing by. He worried that while he was wading through paperwork, months were slipping by on Earth. He had to hope that, no matter the case, Crowley knew he hadn’t been abandoned.

He had no idea how long it took to slog through his report on the last millennium. What he did know is that he still didn’t have a body to call his own when it was over nor did he have any idea what to do with himself while he waited. He was a Principality. What was he supposed to do without humans about? Well, live ones, at any rate.

He missed the world. He missed the people and places. He longed for his favorite meals and new things to read. More than anything, he desperately, wrenchingly missed Crowley. Even when they’d been parted on Earth, it had never felt like this. There had always been a sense of him. All Aziraphale had needed to do was reach out and he could feel Crowley out there. And now, nothing. The gulf between them was too wide. Aziraphale felt the loss more keenly than the loss of his body. It was as though a piece of his very essence had been carved away.

That was how he found himself in the largely defunct department for the development and creation of celestial bodies. There had to be someone still working there because the office still existed but Aziraphale didn’t see any sign of anyone. There were drafting tables and desks spread throughout but most of them were barren. One desk had the nameplate Reuel on it and a note that said they were off to keep an eye on a potentially troublesome blackhole. Another, in a far corner, bore a familiar name, if one he hadn’t heard since the Beginning.

Aziraphale approached it as though afraid he might startle it if he walked in too direct a line. He picked up the nameplate and ran his thumb over the indented forms of an orphaned name. He put it back where it had been, careful that it was exactly as it had been, and took a seat. “I probably shouldn’t.” The desk drawers didn’t answer. Aziraphale reached out, pulled his hand back, and reached out again. “Well, I’m sure a quick look wouldn’t hurt anything. It’s not as though I’ll be interrupting his work and I certainly don’t have anything better to do with myself at the moment.”

Despite its long abandonment, Crowley’s desk was the picture of organization. Everything had a label, everything had a place. There were files for completed projects as well as rejected proposals and abandoned drafts. Every star, nebula, planet, and meteor he’d helped craft was carefully catalogued with a hand rendered picture and note from Crowley. Aziraphale wished he had a body to contain the way it made him feel to see Crowley’s literal signature on the stars. As it was, it was too expansive. He worried he might lose himself completely if he dwelled on it for too long.

He wanted to see them all the way that Crowley had. He remembered endless nights spent under an even more endless canopy of stars. They’d promised to go together to see them up close, as soon as Crowley was able. He could go on his own now. It would be as simple as walking out the door. From this department, he could go directly to any star system or heavenly body he so desired. But he didn’t want to, not without Crowley. Heaven would surely relent someday and they could fly to the stars together.

Aziraphale felt a pang where his heart would be if he currently had one. Coming here had not been the balm he’d hoped. He took one last wistful look through a stack of delicately rendered nebulae and filed them back where he’d found them. As he did, his hand bumped the back of the drawer.

“What’s this?”

He pulled the drawer out as far as it would go and palmed at the back panel, which had given a hollow knock when he’d bumped it. The panel gave way. A good quarter of the drawer had been hidden and inside that secret compartment, was a box. It appeared to be made of the same malleable substance that made much of Heaven’s current architecture. In the right angelic hands, it could be formed to whatever was needed, be it stone or glass or, in this case, a box without a seam.

Aziraphale could open it. He felt sure of that much. He felt less sure of whether he should open it. When he held it close he got the same sunshine warm feeling of being near Crowley. He would keep it with him and bask in that feeling until he could hand it over to Crowley when they were reunited. Which they would be. He had to focus on that and be patient.

He patiently went to interdepartmental meetings and patiently did the paperwork that inevitably followed. He patiently explained that, no, he wasn’t interested in any supposed improvements to his corporation and then filled out even more forms. He patiently sat through a lecture on ingesting gross matter. He patiently sat through another lecture when he tried to find a work in the archives that he discovered was stored in Hell. He patiently continued on until finally- finally- the day came when he was issued his corporation and sent back to Earth.

Then Aziraphale decided he had been patient long enough. The moment he set foot on mortal soil once more, he unfurled his wings and set off home. He was beyond the point of caring if it would earn him a reprimand, should a human see him. He tried not to think about how the landscape below had changed in his absence. No matter how much time had passed, he knew Crowley would be out there waiting.

At last, there it was, their little cottage by the coast, still protected by enough wards to keep unnoticed by warring humans and so the same as ever. Within were his books and his bed. There was the smell of apple blossoms that carried on the wind despite the season. And there, wrist deep in dirt was Crowley working the garden. His head was bowed but he looked up when Aziraphale’s wings obscured the sun.

“Aziraphale.” Crowley’s eyes widened to the shape and nearly the size of two disbelieving moons. “Are you here? Are you really here?”

“I—”

Try as he might, Aziraphale couldn’t get the words out. He worried there was something wrong with his new corporation. It looked the same from the outside and had felt the same from the inside but suddenly his heart was beating far too fast and he couldn’t seem to get enough to air in his lungs. He couldn’t keep his wings sorted. He fell out of the air and right into Crowley’s arms.

“Woah, hey, I’ve got you.” Crowley let out a choked sob and pulled him in for a fierce embrace. “You really are here. Fuck, I thought— you know how many times I dreamed this? I couldn’t get any sleep because it hurt too much to see you and have you not be— to know that you really were— But you’re here. Really here.”

He was. He was there with Crowley. He was back home. Warmth blossomed in Aziraphale’s chest and quickly spread throughout his body, settling his upstart organs as it did. Everything felt right again wrapped in Crowley’s arms. He tucked his wings away so he could be encircled by them completely. 

Physical touch after so long without it was overwhelming. He felt altogether too warm and wanted, freshly aware of breath on the skin of his neck, of Crowley’s scent in his nostrils, and muscles that wanted both to squeeze tight and to let go completely. It seemed like he could very well shake apart but everywhere he trembled, there were Crowley’s hands rubbing delicate, soothing circles. Heaven was… well, Heaven, of course. It couldn’t compare. He wouldn’t dare try. But this was another sort of paradise all its own.

A startlingly pitched whine escaped his throat when Crowley finally took a step back. “Are you alright?” Crowley kept a grip on Aziraphale’s shoulders, as if afraid he would crumple if left to stand on his own. “You haven’t stopped shaking this whole time and you still haven’t said anything.”

He looked so worried and Aziraphale hadn’t a clue how to respond. This was all too much and yet not nearly enough, not by a mile. He looked deep into those beloved eyes. Those were perhaps what he’d missed most of all. Not because they were beautiful, though they certainly were at that, but because of the way they looked back at him. They were so full of bald, unflinching adoration. Even when they bickered, those eyes were never cold. They never held scorn or ridicule. Not for him. He could trust in Crowley because of what he saw in those eyes.

“Your hair is so short.”

Crowly blinked owlishly at him and then bent double with laughter. He had to wipe away tears before he could speak. “Over a decade away and that’s the first thing you say to me?”

“Oh dear, has it been so long? It’s difficult to keep track up there.”

“Twelve years, six months, and three days. Or something like that. You know, who’s been counting?”

“Oh.” That number stretched out before Aziraphale like an uncrossable void. It was nothing in the grand scheme of things but to miss so much time over paperwork and trudging bureaucracy? “I’m so sorry.”

His knees gave way and he was forced to use Crowley as support. Crowley walked them both toward the low stone wall that encircled the garden. He propped Aziraphale up against it and then perched on top. Sitting there brought his face down the few inches needed for them to look directly eye to eye. He hooked one long finger under Aziraphale’s chin.

“Nothing to apologize for. I know you’d have been back sooner if you could. Why do you think I slithered right around all that red tape when I wanted to come down here?”

He forced a light tone but Aziraphale could still hear the hurt underneath. He felt it himself. There would be no getting back those years. He could only hope that it had been worth it. He’d never received a full explanation for why he’d needed to be in battle in the first place. It was all in the service of the Great Plan. He had to trust that or he would despair.

He took the hand at his chin and pressed his cheek into the palm. His skin still tingled at the newness of touch. “Well, at any rate, I’m profoundly pleased to be back.”

Crowley let out a small puff of laughter. “And I’m profoundly pleased to have you.” He tugged at the short, messily shorn ends of his hair. “You hate the hair though, don’t you? I can grow it back now, if you want.”

Aziraphale shook his head. He reached up and buried his fingers in loose scarlet waves. It only took a moment to run his hands from scalp to tip. “I certainly don’t hate it and I certainly don’t want you to feel you need to change it for me. I’m sorry I said anything about it. I was just surprised. I’ve never seen it so short.”

Crowley’s eyes fell closed. “Well, good you like it because I may never grow it back out if you keep playing with it like that.”

The way Crowley’s whole body was leaning into the touch, Aziraphale wasn’t especially inclined to stop. “What have you been up to this whole time?”

“You know. Things. Might have stirred up a bit of trouble but thought you might not be happy about that so then I did other things. A fair bit of embroidery. Tried to get better at baking. My bread’s not as good as yours but it’s edible at least.”

“You’ve started eating more, then?”

“Eh, more yeah, but doesn’t mean much. Figured I’d do it in your place a bit.  Not sure if I’ll keep it up now you’re back.” Crowley turned his head enough that he was able to catch one of Aziraphale’s wrists with a kiss. “What about you? Do anything interesting up there?”

Aziraphale swallowed a groan before it could escape. He was used to much more but whether it was the time apart or the new corporation, that one light press of lips to skin jumped like a lightning bolt through his arm and right up to his heart. “Nothing— nothing much,” he replied a bit breathlessly. “Oh! I do have something for you. Something of yours.”

“Something… of mine?”

“Yes. I hope you don’t mind that I took it but it’s not like you can. And, well, let me just fetch it.” He dug into the pocket sewn into the inner lining of his cloak and tried to ignore the way his cheeks burned under Crowley’s intense gaze. “Ah, there it is.”

He held out the white box and Crowley took it with trembling hands. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

“I thought it best to let you show me instead of speculating. That is, if you want to show me. It was hidden and I didn’t try to find it but I understand if it’s private.”

“No it’s… it’s fine. You might wanna stand back, though.”

Aziraphale took a step back. “Good?”

“Erm, might want to be further back.”

That seemed ominous. Aziraphale was only just realizing if Crowley had hidden it, it could be some sort of contraband. He hoped it wasn’t anything that would cause either of them trouble. He supposed it was too late, in any case. A vivid blue light bisected the box as the glyph that closed it was undone. The box was eaten by the light and when Aziraphale’s eyes adjusted to the brightness of it, he saw there was a mound of fine, shining powder collected in Crowley’s cupped hands.

“Is that—?”

Crowley’s face was split by an impish, delighted grin. “Yep. Now this is the part you’re going to want to stand back for.”

Those golden eyes which already so reminded Aziraphale of the sun started to truly glow. The powder formed a swirling miasma in the air between Crowley’s outstretched palms. Aziraphale needed to squint out from behind a shielding arm and even then his eyes watered at the brilliance of the light. His heart forgot to beat as, through sheer force of will, Crowley formed a twin pair of stars. They were but an infinitesimal fraction of the true thing, not considerably larger than the pinpricks visible in the night sky, but they were unmistakable for what they were. Despite appearances, there was the distinct impression that they were far larger, that Crowley, too, was larger than his mortal frame should rightly allow. His wings formed a field of stars behind him as they pressed urgently against the fabric of this plane, fighting to come through.

Aziraphale gasped. The sound was enough to shake Crowley from the sort of trance he’d fallen into. “Don’t get too attached to them,” he said, a foreign, rumbling undercurrent to his voice. “I’ve got a plan for these.”

The stars spiralled around each other, closer and closer, until at last they clashed and burst into a miniature supernova. Crowley’s fingers danced around it like he was playing an instrument Aziraphale couldn’t see. Something brilliant was pulled free just before Crowley clapped his hands together.

He smiled sheepishly up at Aziraphale. “You can come back over.”

“Was that stardust? I didn’t think there was any left since, well—” Aziraphale made an expansive gesture.

“‘Let there be light’?” Crowley offered. “Probably isn’t any left, now. It’s not needed to make the new ones. They sorta do that on their own. But I kept a bit. Little souvenir from Rigil Kentaurus and Toliman, which was one of my favorite projects. Probably why Proxima Centauri ended up a little undersized. Oh well. No one else ever noticed.”

There was a buzzing in Aziraphale’s brain in the approximate location where cogent thought usually occurred. “All this time and you used it up now?”

Crowley shrugged with his hands still held tightly together. “Sort of spur of the moment. Wanted to make you something.”

Aziraphale leaned forward and kissed the bent tip of Crowley’s nose. “It was absolutely stunning.”

“Heh, well, I lucked out and had one of the flashier jobs. But that’s not what that was about.” Crowley unfurled his fingers and produced a small golden snake. No, a ring shaped like a snake coiled in on itself. “While you were gone I got to thinking. About you. About being apart. About how we could maybe be together even when— not that I expect you to get killed again or something. Could be me. Or neither of us. Not really what it’s about. And you don’t have to, if you don’t want. Could just be a ring. You don’t even have to wear it. But if you want to...”

Crowley held out the ring. It nearly fell from his fingers with as much as they were shaking. Aziraphale looked at it. Looked at Crowley. He filtered the words through his brain but it felt very much like his brain had gone supernova itself.

“Are you— is this—” Aziraphale tried to take a few steadying breaths but they were immediately transformed into a rather embarrassing bout of tittering. He bit his lip to make it stop. “Crowley, are you asking me to marry you?”

“It’s nothing. A human thing. Do angels even get married? Can they? Whatever. It’s stupid. If you could forget I—”

Aziraphale shut Crowley up with a crushing kiss. If that wasn’t a clear enough answer, he took the ring and held up his hand so that Crowley could see it when he slipped it onto his finger. “I would love to. There isn’t a single thing that I would enjoy more. I only wish…” He took his old ring from his pinky finger and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s not as special but perhaps—”

Crowley snatched the ring and slipped it onto his finger. “S’yours. Can’t think of anything more special.”

“Well then, that’s that.”

“That. Is. That.”

Aziraphale felt like he could fly without even bringing his wings out. What a day. What a glorious, impossible, ineffable day. He realized his face hurt because he was smiling so hard and he was more than happy to let it hurt with the way that smile was reflected back at him on Crowley’s face.

“Should we… see a priest? Or… or something?”

“Nah. Even if they say they’re talking for Her, not like any of them really has authority over us.”

“A fair point. I feel we should do something, all the same.”

He thought about who would possibly have the authority to do such a thing. It was unprecedented, so far as Aziraphale knew. An image drifted through his mind of Gabriel officiating and he felt a tad queasy even imagining it.

“Why not just us?”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. “The two of us? Marrying ourselves?”

“Sure. Why not? Never been done before so there’s not really anyone to say we can’t. Or if there is, they haven’t thought to say anything about it so that’s on them. So what do you say? Me. You. Something brand new. Our own sort of… Arrangement.”

Aziraphale hummed thoughtfully. “Yes.” When he said it, he felt sure. It seemed a surer choice than any he’d made thus far in his long existence. “Yes,” he repeated.

“Well then… alright. I, uh… If you’ll take me?”

“I said I would and I do. And you?”

“Yes. Yeah. Course I do.”

They clasped hands as the fabric of the world rippled at the shared words of binding divine command.

“Then, shall we seal it with a kiss?”

The words were barely out of Aziraphale’s mouth when Crowley obliged him. It was a brand new body and so, in a way, a whole new first kiss. Unlike that one in Rome, the stars weren’t above but wrapped around their fingers. For that moment while their lips locked together, all of creation obligingly rewrote itself. Heart fell into sync with heart and lungs drew twin breaths. As gold forged from the clash of stars, they were two bound as one and one they would remain, no matter what the future held.

[aion-rsa]

Did The Dark Knight Really Influence the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

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In 2008, there were two seismic events in the superhero movie genre so close together that you’d be forgiven for thinking they signaled the same thing. Over the span of a few months, Marvel Studios launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) via Iron Man, and director Christopher Nolan changed the perception of how seriously to take these movies with The Dark Knight. Both are credited as watershed moments for how audiences and (more importantly) the industry approached such stories; and The Dark Knight is specifically singled out as the gold standard by which all other masked crimefighter films are measured.

However, was Nolan’s haunting vision—one in which a lone avenger is the last, best hope for a major American city on the verge of collapse—really that influential on its genre? The Dark Knight certainly had a monumental impact on the culture, then and now. You saw it when Heath Ledger’s searing interpretation of the Joker made him only the second actor to win a posthumous Oscar, as well as when the film’s exclusion from the Best Picture race changed the way the Academy Awards handled its top prize. And just last year, The Dark Knight became only the second superhero movie inducted into the National Film Registry.

Yet when a friend watching last week’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier premiere told me Marvel was returning to the “realistic” approach of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and by extension The Dark Knight, I couldn’t help but disagree. The new Disney+ series may have a slightly more grounded aesthetic than the last time we saw these characters (back when they were fighting space aliens over magic stones in Avengers: Endgame), but the medium-blending existence of the series belies the idea that Marvel took anything significant from the insular and self-contained Dark Knight Trilogy.

The Dark Knight vs. Iron Man

It’s interesting to look back at just those 2008 films since at face value they bore minor similarities. They both were focused on fantastically wealthy billionaires using their fortunes to fight wrongdoing on a potentially global scale; each movie was directed by filmmakers with indie cred thanks to Nolan helming Memento (2000) and Jon Favreau writing and starring in Swingers (1996); and each starred unexpected casting choices with Ledger as the Joker and Robert Downey Jr. jumpstarting a career comeback as Tony Stark.

But their goals and approaches were worlds apart. The obvious thing to note, besides The Dark Knight being a sequel to Batman Begins (2005) and Iron Man being an origin movie, is that Iron Man had an slyly hilarious sensibility, and The Dark Knight fancied itself an allegory about post-9/11 America. The former’s success was engineered in large part by Downey’s gift for comedic improvisation and freestyle. Indeed, co-star Jeff Bridges said in 2009 that he, Downey, and Favreau were essentially improvising their scenes from scratch every day during primitive rehearsals. “They had no script, man,” Bridges lightly complained with his Dude diction.

By contrast, The Dark Knight appears at a glance to be an exercise in self-seriousness and lofty ambition. Every scene, written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan Nolan, appears like a chess move, and each character a pawn or knight who’s been positioned to put contemporary audiences in a state of pure anxiety with War on Terror imagery and dialogue. Of course this clocklike presentation is itself another Nolan illusion, as smaller players like Michael Jai White, who portrayed gangster Gambol in the movie, have been quite candid about. As with almost every film, there is still a level of fluidity and workshopping on Nolan’s set.

Ultimately, the bigger difference between the Nolan and eventual Marvel approach is what each is hoping to accomplish with the film they’re currently making. More than just offering a “realistic” vision of Batman, The Dark Knight attempted to tell a sweeping crime drama epic that would stand alone, separate from its status as a Batman Begins sequel. Rather than being “the next chapter,” The Dark Knight was meant to be a cinematic distillation of Batman and Joker’s primal appeals writ large. With this approach, the film also broke away from the superhero movie template Batman Begins followed three years earlier, and which nearly all superhero films still walk through the paces of.

In essence, The Dark Knight showed that superhero movies could be dark and mature, yes, but they can also be subversive, unexpected, and genuinely surprising. Nolan’s previous superhero movie, as good as it is, followed the beats set down by Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie nearly 30 years earlier. They’re the same beats trod by Iron Man and pretty much every other superhero origin movie, including a large bulk of Marvel Studios’ output. The Dark Knight, by contrast, reached for a cinematic vernacular separate from its specific genre. The movie’s not subtle about it either. The opening scene of Nolan’s epic wears its homages to Michael Mann’s Heat on its sleeves, and the story’s structure has more to do with Jaws than Jor-El.

The approach shook audiences in 2008 after they’d come to expect a certain type of movie from masked do-gooders. In The Dark Knight, superhero conventions could be subverted or obliterated when love interest Rachel Dawes is brutally killed off mid-sentence, or stalwart Batman is forced to claim a pyrrhic victory over the villain by entering into a criminal conspiracy and cover-up with the cops. The thrill of novelty was as breathtaking as the movie’s allegorical elements about a society on edge.

And even with The Dark Knight’s open-ended finale, it stood as a singular cinematic experience, complete with then-groundbreaking emphasis on IMAX photography. Nolan was so adamant about making this as self-contained an experience as possible that he jettisoned his co-story creator David Goyer’s idea of setting up Harvey Dent’s fall from grace for a third movie. Dent’s fate, as that of everyone else’s, would be tied strictly to the events of the movie you’re now watching.

“We Have a Hulk”

In Iron Man, and then more forcefully in Iron Man 2 (2010) and the rest of its “Phase One” era, Marvel Studios demonstrated a wholly different set of priorities. Similar to how Batman Begins paved the way for Nolan to do what he really wanted with that material, Iron Man 2 came to encapsulate Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige’s grander designs for the type of movies he was making. Where The Dark Knight was singular, unconventional, and two steps closer to our world than its comic book origins, Iron Man 2 was episodic, entirely crafted around audience expectations for a sequel, and even more like a comic book world than our own.

In other words, the first Iron Man gently submerged audiences into the fantasy by beginning with contemporary images of Tony Stark in a Middle Eastern desert; Iron Man 2 then made sweeping strides in defining what that MCU fantasy is as quickly as possible: Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) is introduced solely to establish the superspy who will be vital to The Avengers two years down the road, and the central narrative about Tony Stark fighting an old rival is put on pause to reintroduce the character Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) as a supporting, and superfluous, side character. The post-credit scene even arbitrarily introduces literal magic with a glowing hammer that has absolutely nothing to do with the story you just watched. Still, it’s a hell of a teaser for Thor which was due in theaters a year later.

With the release of Iron Man 2, Marvel Studios’ emphasis became diametrically opposed to the driving concept behind The Dark Knight Trilogy. Rather than each film being an insulated, standalone cinematic experience like the Hollywood epics of old, Marvel’s movies would be interconnected episodes in an ongoing narrative saga that spanned multiple franchises and countless sequels. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Unlike Nolan after The Dark Knight, Feige and his stable of writers always know where the next movie (or five) is going, and have a better idea of what the overall vision is than any single director working within this system. Ironically, this returns power to the studio and producer as the seeming authorial voice of each movie. Like in the Golden Age of Hollywood, directors are more often hired hands than influential auteurs.

However, this means the aspects Nolan really valued on The Dark Knight beyond a gritty “realism”—elements like spontaneity, subversion, and a distancing from superhero tropes—became antithetical to the type of movies produced by the MCU. For at least the first decade of its existence, the Marvel Cinematic Universe flourished by creating a formula and house style that is as predictable for audiences as the contents in a Big Mac.

When you go to a Marvel movie, you more or less you’ll get: an ironic, self-deprecating tone, a story that often revolves around a CG MacGuffin that must be taken from the villain, and a narrative in which disparate heroic characters come together after some amusing, disagreeable banter. In fact, more than Iron Man, it was Joss Whedon’s The Avengers (2012) which refined the Marvel formula into what it is today.

There are of course exceptions to this rule. Black Panther became the first Marvel movie since Iron Man to arguably tackle themes significant to the real world, in this case specifically the legacy of African diaspora. It also became the first superhero film nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture as a result; James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies might follow the narrative formula of most MCU movies, but they’re embedded with a cheeky and idiosyncratic personality that is distinctly Gunn’s; and in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Captain America: Civil War (2016), directors Joe and Anthony Russo, as well as screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, attempted to inject a little bit of that “realistic” aesthetic from The Dark Knight. But only to a point.

Particularly in the 2014 effort, there was a push by the Russos to rely on in-camera special effects and cultivate what they often described in the press as a “1970s spy thriller” style. Ostensibly, the hope may have been to make The Winter Soldier as much a spy thriller as The Dark Knight was a crime epic. In this vein, there were even attempts to graft onto the story very timely concerns about the overreach of a government surveillance state, which had only grown in the decade since the U.S. PATRIOT Act was passed, despite a change in White House administrations. However, all of these ambitions had an invisible ceiling hovering above them.

Despite having overtones about the danger of reactionary if well-intentioned government leaders, like the kind personified by Robert Redford’s SHIELD director in the movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier couldn’t become too focused on the espionage elements or too far removed from the Marvel house style. The story still needed to interconnect with other Marvel films, hence Redford’s character turning out to be a secret HYDRA double agent, and it still needed to give audiences what they expected from a Marvel movie. Thus how this “1970s spy thriller” ends in a giant CGI battle with citywide destruction as Captain America inserts MacGuffins into machines that will blow up HYDRA’s latest weapon for world domination.

It’s easy to wonder if the movie was developed a little longer, and didn’t have to play by a certain set of rules and expectations, that instead of backpedaling into comic book motivations, Redford’s character would’ve been a well-intentioned patriot amassing power “to keep us safe,” and in the process destabilized the institutions he claimed to revere.

Read more

Movies

What Did Batman Do Between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises?

By David Crow

TV

WandaVision: The Unanswered Questions From the Marvel Series

By Gavin Jasper

A Universe Without End

The Marvel method breeds a heavy need for familiarity and comfortable predictability, as opposed to disorientation and discomfort. Yet both methods are valid. While Nolan achieved near universal praise for The Dark Knight, his attempt to replicate it with the even more ambitious The Dark Knight Rises—an unabashed David Lean-inspired epic that took more from A Tale of Two Cities and Doctor Zhivago than DC Comics—left fans divided. It also was a narrative dead end for the corporate/fanbase need of an ongoing franchise. Nolan instead reached a final, artistic, and emphatic period for his cinematic interpretation of Batman mythology. By comparison, Marvel Studios has created a new cinematic vernacular that only ever uses dashes, semicolons, and commas. There is always more to tell.

Nolan reflected on these changing circumstances for superhero movies in 2017 when he said, “That’s a privilege and a luxury that filmmakers aren’t afforded anymore. I think it was the last time that anyone was able to say to a studio, ‘I might do another one, but it will be four years.’ There’s too much pressure on release schedules to let people do that now, but creatively it’s a huge advantage.”

This lines up with what Jeff Bridges said about the evolution of the Marvel method way back in ’09 after the first Iron Man: “You would think with a $200 million movie you’d have the shit together, but it was just the opposite. And the reason for that is because they get ahead of themselves. They have a release date before the script [and they think], ‘Oh, we’ll have the script before that time,’ and they don’t have their shit together.”

Bridges’ unhappiness with the new process notwithstanding, Marvel was rewriting the playbook about how these types of movies were made. Nolan’s approach of one at a time and years-long development processes created three distinctly different and relatively standalone Batman movies. But Marvel has shifted the idea of not just what a franchise can be, but also what cinematic storytelling means.

Instead of three movies, their rules and structures have generated dozens of well-received and adored entertainments, that when combined can produce experiences as unique as Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019): two movies that were more like a two-part season finale on TV than individual stories. And the latter became the highest grossing film of all time.

The success of this approach is further underlined when one considers competitors that tried to emulate both Marvel and Nolan’s approaches, relying on a lone auteur to build a shared cinematic universe—while also arguably taking the wrong lessons from the “dark” in The Dark Knight title. In the case of the DC Extended Universe, that approach collapsed on itself after three movies, leaving the interconnected “shared” part of its universe in tatters, and fans and studio hands alike divided on how to proceed with the franchise.The Marvel Cinematic Universe took a narrower road than that of The Dark Knight. But it turned out to be a lot smoother and much, much longer.

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[goddessblessed]

In Triumph’s Shadow

Azure Moon, Ch. 19: The Golden Deer’s Plea

@pegasuslance​​

     Blue and white banners fly proudly over the royal castle.  Massive mechanical monstrosities lie toppled and motionless in the streets, the carnage they wrought easier to clear away than the beasts themselves.  The roar of the crowd basking in our victory over the imperial lapdogs and the triumphant return of the lost prince, now rightful king still rings in my ears.  The battle was hard fought, but our prize was well worth the effort.  The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus is free once more, the Savior King now rallying his forces to aid the Leicester Alliance against the Adrestian Empire’s siege.

     At the very least, that is how we’ve chosen to present the course of events to the public.  The reality is not so glamorous.  Organizing an army takes considerable time and effort and as our chief tactician, the majority of that burden falls to me.  The stacks of ledgers and scrolls that lie strewn about the office I’ve claimed for myself is such that I am beginning to lose track of battalions.  It’s unacceptable.  When working in warfare, every unit unaccounted for, every variable overlooked, every mistake made is another life lost.  We have lost so many already and killed dozens more in the process of our quest.  Just the thought of how many must fall to my sword sours my stomach.  Were our roles reversed and I was forced to endure the hell Dimitri has these five long years, could I ever have been restored as he has?  Would I even desire to be?

     It’s only when I feel my nails draw blood from my palm that I unclench my fist.  With a short flash of holy light, the damage is undone.  I pull my gauntlets back on shortly thereafter, not wanting to repeat my mistake.  Clearly, I have been cooped up in this room for too long.  Some fresh air will do me good.

     Exiting the ancient fortress of stone, the clear blue sky overhead makes the return of our patrolling aerial units perfectly visible.  Their falcon knight leader dismounts her pegasus steed beaming with pride as she addresses her subordinates, the sunlight practically shimmering in her golden locks.  She appears so radiant in this moment that I nearly forget the severe impropriety of entertaining such thoughts for a former student.  Shaking myself from my introspection, I descend into the courtyard to greet one of my most stalwart allies.

     I offer her a shallow nod in acknowledgement, my features apparently too stubborn in their stoicism to work up a smile at the moment.   “Good day, Miss Galatea.  I trust we have neither gloom nor our enemies to fear from the skies today.  Any news to report?”

[notbecauseofvictories]

Tar-Miriel

The cruelest insult Mairon dealt her was to wear those finely-wrought gold bangles at his wrists. A vicious parody, she thought, of the shackles he once bore there---even if he insisted they were a symbol. “Of my continued obeisance to our king, of course,” he said. And then he smiled, showing his teeth that were just slightly too white, too sharp. (All about Tar-Mairon was thus: too-long fingers, too-dark eyes, every movement of his hands strange, his stride scuttling as a spider’s.)

“How very silly of me to think otherwise,” Míriel answered. Her ladies like a colorful bulwark around her, and Mairon so pale in the grey light of that morning, she had been briefly powerful---a king’s daughter, a king’s wife, addressing an errant counselor. “I would have assumed the shackles themselves symbol enough of that.”

Mairon bowed as she swept past him, and away.

Later, she would uncurl her hand to find blood there, where her nails had dug into the softness of her palm.

.

“But what about---” one of her younger and less discreet ladies asked, when she related this story. The girl was quickly hushed, told not to bother the queen with that. She apologized for asking, and went back to her letters with a blush high in her cheeks.

Míriel reached across the space between them and took the girl’s wrist in her hand. “Do not be ashamed,” she said, forcing warmth, a kindness into her voice. “You have no reason to know. But how the---my king spends his time, and in whose company he spends it, is not my concern. In that arena, at least, I cannot be insulted by him more than I already have.”

The girl nodded, and Míriel smiled, went back to the palace ledgers. She pretended not to notice her other ladies exchanging meaningful glances over her head.

Mairon was welcome to Ar-Pharazôn the Golden, every part of him and every waking moment in his company; she would have happily and freely given him, had Mairon only asked. The truth was: in this way, Míriel was almost grateful. Let Mairon have the brutish man who dragged her, sobbing and begging for mercy, still dressed in her funerary robes, before the priest. He was welcome to the grunting, sweating flesh of that man who forced his way between Míriel’s thighs after, and then called them wedded. Every night that creature spent in Mairon’s bed, with whatever strange, too-ecstatic delights it offered, was another night he did not spend in Míriel’s. To this, Mairon was more than welcome.

Still. However, thoroughly Míriel renounced all right to Pharazôn’s bed, she had not renounced Númenor or its crown. She still had her pride. And there was no means of looking upon Mairon, with his gold bangles, and not seeing a prisoner who had ceased to be humbled by that state; who had flattered and usurped until even the king who captured him could not remember his sins. She was not alone in thinking this was dangerous---no, not even if her foul husband insisted she was a madwoman and a liar.

(Then, the quieter thought that followed: the injustice. That between them, Mairon was the one who got to call himself ‘hostage’ and wear golden bangles at his wrists to remind all of Númenor he did not will this. Míriel had nothing to show she was not willing, except that once she had been dragged, screaming, to the summit of Meneltarma.)

.

Sometimes, she caught Mairon studying her with those too-dark eyes. She heeded him not.

.

“What is it you come for, Tar-Mairon?” she asked. She was looking eastward, across the Sundering Sea to where they say Middle Earth lay, just there, beyond the horizon. She wondered what it was like there, where the world was still green and bloody and new. (Míriel’s ancestress, Ancalimë, frightened her, but she too sometimes thought about being so uncompromising, proud, and great---to not have needed or wanted or had a man beside her. To not have had to think of any place but this.)

“I think, my queen, that you are full of grief,” Mairon said, and Míriel laughed.

“You could say as much. But that does not explain why you are here, counselor. Nor why you have sought me out, which is not your custom.”

“I would beg your wisdom.”

“My wisdom?”Míriel asked, blinking in surprise.

Mairon was a pale, ugly thing, especially so close; like something grown crookedly, in the dark. Míriel did not know how so many found him fair, not when every part of of him was put together just slightly wrong, making her unsettled just by studying him. He turned down eyes in a parody of humility, and even that looked like unnatural-white moths, laid on his cheeks. “Yes, my Queen. For I have been troubled of late by a dream I cannot explain or interpret, and would ask you for your counsel in this matter.”

She wondered what he meant, truly. There was always something with Mairon. “Then speak, and we shall see what guidance I might provide.”

“This is my dream,” Mairon said, leaning his elbows on the parapet. Even in the weak grey light, the bangles gleamed. “In my dream, I am standing here, on the parapet. I am angry, and I lift my arms and cry to the Valar to begin again. To try once more. And they hear my prayer, and they come and wash the whole of Númenor clean, in a great wave that overtakes even the crest of the holy mountain.”

“And you?” Míriel asked.

“I drown,” Mairon said. His eyes were still very dark, and she thought she could see the lie in them, flickering behind the darkness like a silver fish. “So do you. You die.”

That, Míriel thought, was not a lie at all.

“And all ofNúmenor is washed away,”Míriel murmured. She tried to imagine it and failed---every trader, every sailor, every weaver and seamstress and minister and fourth cousin; every stone hut, every sheep and shepherd and mother and worker, her very own self included, all drowned beneath the Sundering Sea. Any poetry that hadn’t been sent to the colonies would die, any songs that hadn’t been sung would be gone. Númenor, just some place to sink under the waves in all the ineffable mystery of things, would be largely forgotten.

“What do you think of my dream?” Mairon asked, and Míriel---

They said Middle Earth lay just beyond the horizon, past the Sundering Sea. Míriel couldn’t see it, not from here. (Mairon’s pale shoulder was close to hers, and he smelled sweetly bitter, like burnt sugar. But that hadn’t been the question, had it?)

“Dreams are just dreams,” Míriel, Fourth Ruling Queen ofNúmenor by right, said, already turning away and beckoning for her ladies to follow. "Let it wash away into the sea, for all I care.”