#happy nine years and three months since immortality aired

[hollygl125]

[x]

[viking-raider]

The Immortal Sky - Epilogue

Summary: You and Henry start a life together, after so much that’s happened.

Pairing: Henry Cavill/You

Word Count: 3,048

Rating: G - Dystopian!AU, Futuristic!AU, Language, Mild Angst, Suggestive Language, Cotton Candy Goodness, Fluff and a Super Happy Ending!

Inspiration: I’ve always wanted to write a futuristic fic!

Author’s Note: Thank you all for the support and love on this story, it was a blast to write. Thanks to the amazing @wondersofdreaming​ as always <3

It had been three months since the events had happened in Bristol, and both you and Henry had healed well and started building a life together as boyfriend and girlfriend.

Henry's family fully, completely and lovingly embraced you into their family, treating you as one of their very own; uncaring that you were born in the lower Sectors of London. They included you in everything from social parties and events to family gatherings. You were surprised, when you went to his family home for the first time, because unlike you and your family, Henry and his family were raise in an actual house in Sector Two's posh neighborhood, where nearly every member of the Royal and Cleric Council lived, with their families; his brothers and their families also lived in houses of their own, in the neighborhood.

The Cavill's had lived in this neighborhood for several generations, his father's side of the family had always been members of the Cleric Council and his mother's family had always been members of the Royal Council; but Henry was the first Cavill and Dalgliesh to not be either a Beta, Alpha or High Royal or Cleric, in nearly nine generations.

“Why don't you live here too, Henry?” You had asked, the first time Henry had taken you to his parent's house, for dinner, two weeks after getting out of the hospital. “Can you not, since you're a High Marshal?”

“Oh no, I can live here, if I'd like too, being the son of a Cleric and Royal.” Henry replied, as he pulled into his parents’ driveway. “But, I choose to live in the flat, in Central Sector Two. I didn't need a big house, since it was just Kal and I. Even with it being the three of us, there's still no need for one.” He explained, then got out of the car to move around and open your door.

Henry's family had even invited your parents and little brother to their family functions.

They had been slack jawed, while they sat in the back seat of Henry's car, you and Henry having gone to pick them up and take them to the Christmas party you all had been invited too. They watched as each Sector got brighter and brighter, until they finally got to see the sun, for the first time, as it started to sink below the horizon. Henry glanced at them through the rear-view mirror and smiled, remembering the same look of surprise and awe on your face as you saw the same view for the first time, over a year before. He looked at you and smiled even brighter as you looked at him, having looked back at them and saw their reactions to it as well.

Their awestruck continued as you entered the Cavill family's posh neighborhood, seeing all the fancy and large three-story houses, the lush green grass of the front lawns and the expensive cars in their driveways. Parking, you all got out of the car and headed inside, greeted by Henry's parents in the foyer.

“Merry Christmas.” Marianne smiled, hugging you and Henry. “Welcome and Merry Christmas.” She said to your parents and little brother, as you and Henry greeted his father.

“Thank you and Merry Christmas, My Lady.” Your mother replied and smiled back, nervously bowing her head to Marianne.

“Please, call me Marianne.” She replied, smiling sweetly. “This is my husband, Colin.” She said, introducing him.

“Pleasure.” Colin greeted them, smiling warmly.

“I'm Tasha. This is my husband, Tristan.” Your mother answered, motioning to your father. “And this is our youngest son, Christophe.” She said, resting her hand on his shoulder.

“Your house is ginormous!” Christophe replied, his mouth hanging open.

Marianne and Colin chuckled, warmed. “Please, come in and make yourselves at home.” She said, motioning into the living room, where most of the group was congregating. “The other kids are playing in the backyard, if you want to join them, Christophe.” She offered your brother, then showed him the way out to the backyard.

“You want something to drink?” Henry asked you as you moved into the living room with everyone else.

“Yes, that would be fantastic.” You nodded, smiling up at him.

“All right.” Henry smiled back, kissing you softly, before going into the kitchen.

“Is it time yet?” Simon asked, coming into the kitchen with his little brother, to also grab himself and his wife something to drink.

“Soon.” Henry replied, pouring you a glass of chilled white wine. “I need the perfect moment.” He said, pouring himself a glass, then handed the bottle to Simon.

“Just don't chicken out.” Simon teased him, grinning.

“Chicken out of what?” Marianne asked, coming into the kitchen.

“The right moment.” Henry replied, feeling his face burn, and took a deep gulp of the chilled wine, trying to cool his face off and fortify his nerves.

“You'll find it, Henry.” She told him, rubbing his broad back, trying to be encouraging and supportive of her son. “Don't rush it.”

“I won't.” Henry sighed, picking up the two wine glasses. “I want it to be perfect.”

Henry took the glasses into the living room, finding you sitting on the couch and took a seat beside you, holding out one of the glasses. You smiled at him, taking the glass and kissed him on the cheek, before taking a sip of it. Henry wrapped an arm around you, sipped his wine and got caught up in the flow of the conversation that was going on with everybody.

“They're all so nice.” Your mother said as the two of you went into the kitchen for more wine.

“They really are.” You replied, smiling as you heard Henry's laugh carry into the kitchen. “They're incredibly loving and supportive, especially towards Henry and I.” You told her, then sighed.

Henry's mother had been right, people did find out about you being a Slummer, and it had happened sooner than both of you had thought it would.

A month after returning to London from Bristol, you and Henry were at a Cleric Fundraiser, which was held every year to raise money to donate to one of the lower Sectors, so they could use it as they saw fit; usually to help buy supplies for the Sector's Hospital. When a woman approached you, while Henry went to find the Fundraiser Manager, so he could donate money to the event.

“So, your High Marshal Cavill's new girl.” She said, lifting a sculpted brow at you.

“I am.” You replied, frowning at her, in her glittering and almost skin tight dress. “Who are you?”

“I'm Natasha, Beta Cleric Shaw's wife.” She told you, still giving you a mean and judgmental expression. “Henry and I dated, a while back.” She added, tossing her straight black hair over her shoulder with a swish of her head. “We were serious, for a moment, before I left him.” She said, an evil smugness glinting in her gray eyes.

“I never thought Henry would stoop so low, as to date a Slummer.” She said, her upper lip curling with distaste.

“H-how do you know that?” You asked, gulping and feeling your hands tremble.

“My husband was on the Council panel, when you testified against Oron Anderson.” Natasha replied, resting a hand on her hip. “He told me all about you being from Sector Twenty-Eight and how long you spent in that trafficker's warehouse in Thirty-One; before Henry bought you.”

“How's it feel to be his bought and paid for play thing?” She asked, looking you over.

“I'm not.” You replied, your voice barely audible.

“You can think that and Henry can tell you that, but we-” She motioned around the room, the gold and diamond bangles rattling on her thin wrist. “All know the truth.” She told you, tipping her nose up at you, then walked away.

Your breath hitched in your throat as hot tears prickled at the corners of your eyes, before turning your back to her and rushed out of the room. Henry had been halfway back, just missing Natasha walking away from you, when he saw the look of anguish on your face and rush out of the room. Scanning the room, trying to see what had caused it, Henry rushed after you. You took your heels off as you got out the front doors of the venue and ran into the manicured garden to the side of it. Henry finally caught up with you, finding you gulping down deep mouthfuls of cold night air by a massive fountain.

“Hey.” He whispered, resting his hand on your goosebump and chilled skin. “What's wrong?” He asked, shrugging out of his blazer and draping it over your shaking shoulders, before hugging you against his chest, your tears spilling over onto his dark gray dress shirt.

“What happened? Tell me.”

“They know.” You sobbed, clinging onto him and getting makeup all over his shirt.

“Who knows what, babe?” He asked, cupping your head in his hands and pulled your face away from his chest.

“They know what I am.” You cried, your bottom lip puffy and trembling.

Henry blinked at you for a moment, before his brain connected to what you meant and his eyes widened.

“Yeah.” You gasped and sighed. “They know I'm just a fucking sl-”

“Don't.” He snapped, shaking his head at you.

“I am, Henry.” You hissed back at him, becoming angry. “I'm a Slummer and they know it.” You huffed, trying to pull away from him.

Henry bit his lip, biting back his own frustrated anger. “Who told you this?” He demanded, keeping a hold on you.

“Your ex.”

Henry's shoulders slumped and he squeezed his eyes shut. “Natasha.” He growled between clenched teeth.

“Yes, her.” You nodded, folding your arms inside his blazer. “Told me how the two of you dated, before she left you, and that everyone knew that I was a Slummer, because her husband told her about me testifying at Twist's trial.”

“How the hell does she know you testified at Twist's trial.” Henry frowned, taken aback.

“Her husband is, apparently, Beta Cleric Shaw.”

“So, she did end up with a Cleric after all.” Henry sighed, shaking his head.

“What?” You snapped at him.

“The reason Natasha broke up with me, was because I wouldn't leave the Marshal Council to become either a Cleric or a Royal. She wanted that posh and expensive life that they have. But, I wouldn't do it, I love being a High Marshal. So, she left me, and apparently got what she wanted in the end.” He sighed, rubbing his face.

“But, I don't care about that. What I care about is her trying to hurt you.”

“She did a damn good job.” You whispered, staring down at your bare toes. “Called me, your bought and paid for plaything.”

“Look at me.” He whispered, touching his fingertips underneath your chin and lifted your head, until your wet eyes met his. “You're not my 'bought and paid for' plaything. We both know that, sweetheart. She's just a salty and unhappy woman, that only gets her happiness out of watching others suffer, and other people might know about you being from the lower Sectors, but she's only one crazy enough to say anything about it to your, my, or any of my family's face or within earshot of us either.” He told you, gently swiping his thumbs beneath your eyes, wiping away your tears.

“As for her husband speaking about the trial, when he's not allowed to speak to anyone about it outside of the Councils, and she's nowhere near a position on them, he's going to be in a load of trouble, when I bring it up to my mum.”

“I don't want him to get into trouble because his wife is apparently a bitch.” You told him, grasping his wrists.

“I know you don't, love.” Henry smiled at you. “But, if he's talking to his wife about them, then he's more than likely talking to others he's not supposed to, and that's a breach and violation of his position. The Councils have to be told about it.” He explained to you.

“What, will you not tell me things, if I were your wife?” You asked him, trying to tease him.

“I'm a High Marshal, my job is less top secret and involved than a Cleric or Royal.” Henry replied, chuckling. “I don't know how interested you'd be in me talking about homicide cases, they tend to be a bit graphic.”

“I wouldn't mind. Especially, if you needed to get something off your chest, if one is really bothering you.” You confessed, biting your lip as you looked up at him, recalling all the nightmares you had soothed him through.

“I'll keep that in mind.” Henry smiled, kissing you. “You want to go back in?” He asked you, looking back at the building. “Or we could ditch it, go back home and have a movie night.”

You pressed your lips together, thinking about it. Part of you wanted to go back in and face Natasha's no doubt judgmental glares the rest of the night, showing her that you weren't going to be intimidated by her and what she thought, but if you were honest, now that you were calm, you didn't actually care what she thought.

“I like the idea of movie night.” You said, looking back up at Henry.

“So do I.” Henry agreed. “I'm dying for a pair of sweats.”

“You are?” You laughed, looking at yourself in the tight gown and your bare, but screaming, feet.

“I wouldn't mind helping you out of that.” Henry chuckled, grinning and winking at you.

You grinned up at him and had a feeling that the impromptu movie night wouldn't last long, if the expression on Henry's face was anything to go off of.

“What is it, honey?” Your mother asked, seeing that far off look in your eyes.

“Nothing.” You laughed, shaking it off.

The back door came flying open and several of the kids came running in from outside, yelling and screaming as they went to their respective parents.

“Christophe, what's the matter?” Your mother asked him, frowning.

“Come look! Come look!” He said, grabbing his mother's hand and dragging her out the back door.

You frowned after them and looked to Henry as he and everyone from the living room filed through the kitchen and out the back door. “What's going on, Babe?” You asked him, as he took your hand and guided you outside with them.

“It's snowing, Nugget.” He grinned at you, excited for you to see it.

You let Henry lead you outside, gasping as you stepped out onto the back deck and into the heavy flurry of thick white flakes. Henry smiled, moving to stand behind you, wrapping his arms around you and hugging you back against him, kissing the back of your hair and resting his chin on top of your head, gently swaying as you both watched the snow fly. You were memorized by it, even with how cold it was, tilting your head back and smiling up at Henry, who smiled back at you, kissing your forehead.

“I'll be right back, I have to grab something.” He said, letting go of you and going back inside.

“This is amazing.” Christophe said, and stuck his tongue out like Henry's nieces and nephews, catching the flakes on it.

You smirked at him, tilting your own head back a bit and did the same, giggling as the snowflakes melted on your tongue and oblivious of Henry coming up behind you.

“Babe?” He called out, getting your attention.

You turned around to face him, but had to drop your eyes down slightly, as he knelt before you in the gathering snow on the wood deck. “Henry?” You answered, blinked down at his, confused.

“Oh god.” You heard someone gasp.

“I know,” Henry started, looking incredibly worried and nervous. “we've been through a whole lot since we met, a year and a half a go, but for all that, I wouldn't have wanted to endure any of that, without you.” He explained, fidgeting and fumbling for something in his back pocket. “I love you. I want to be with you and spend the rest of my life with you, only you.”

“So, I want to ask you something.”

“Okay.” You grinned, feeling how warm your cheeks were getting and the flurry of butterflies flying around your stomach, like the snowflakes in the air around you.

“Will you marry me?” He asked, in a rush, his nerves getting the better of him, as he opened the box and revealed a beautiful diamond ring.

A huge smile pulled across your face and giggled nervously, you were speechless for a minute, completely stunned and surprised by Henry proposing to you, then finally managed to answer.

“Yes.” You nodded, giddy. “Yes!” You laughed.

“Oh thank god.” Henry laughed back, relieved, then slipped the ring onto your finger, standing up and wrapping his arms around you, kissing you deeply.

Everyone clapped and cheered, happy for the both of you.

Five months later, you and Henry walked down the aisle and married, in a private ceremony, attended only by friends and family, the people that mattered to the both of you, and it was two years after that, that you two of you moved into a house in his family's neighborhood and welcomed your first child, a boy, that you both mutually agreed on, and named, Michail. If it wasn't for your brother, in so many ways, neither you or Henry would have met and fallen in love.

Your life was perfect now and even though you had lost your brother, neither you or Henry would change it for anything.

-- END --

[anonniemousefics]

The Nine Terrifying Moons | Masterlist

Based on the response to this post. :) Oh, yes, we’re doing the thing.

Cross-posted to AO3.

Fandom: The Folk of the Air | Jude + Cardan

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten

Chapter One: The First

I am trying to keep my hands from shaking while I’m holding the test strip. There’s one pink line, and I’m waiting to see if there will be two. I think I already know the answer, but I’m holding my breath like it’ll make time go faster anyway.

If I ever imagined this moment, which I don’t remember ever doing, but if I did, I would have imagined it like the commercials that would run in the background when my mom would watch tv while she cooked dinner. If those were to be believed, I was supposed to be in an all-white, pristine, upper-middle-class bathroom, gasping with tears of joy while I hid my pearly white smile behind trembling fingers. My partner would be hugging me from behind, elated and definitely not about to make any crude jokes about the virulence of his sperm.

None of this is happening.

I am in a Target bathroom stall, surrounded by Target-red walls. Cardan, my husband and the High King of Elfhame, is on the other side of the red walls, trying to distract himself with the automatic paper towel dispensers. He’s waving his hand in front of it every couple of seconds; I can hear it each time the motor dispenses paper. I wonder how long of a trail he’s created at this point, but it’s the least of my worries.

“Cardan, you’re wasting paper,” I tell him anyway. He does it again once more; I can practically feel his petulant glare through the wall.

“How long is this meant to take?” he asks.

“It’s only been thirty seconds,” I tell him. “It takes two minutes.”

“I will die of old age by then,” Cardan mutters to himself, which I know he finds funny, because he’s immortal, and he waves his hand by the paper towel dispenser again.

I think I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.

Cardan had not been keen on this particular trip to Target, which is saying a lot, because he’s usually so fond of it. He had wanted to cut our trip to the mortal world short, head back to Elfhame and its royal healers and midwives and have me submit to their inquiries and tests, as all queens and lovers of the High Kings of Elfhame have before me.

But I just needed a minute to think. I needed to process this, with Cardan alone, and face the impossibly difficult questions we’ve been avoiding since this became a question. And if this is true, if I really am with child, with Cardan’s child, I don’t want the first people to know to be a bunch of faerie midwives. I want to tell Vivi and Heather. I want Taryn to know first. And I am filled with loathing when I think about how protected and insulated I’m about to become when the healers and midwives know. How the people will cease to see me as their High Queen and rather as the incubator for their Prince.

I want to eat an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s. This is all happening so fast.

I glance back at the test strip. Stand and flush the toilet. Step out of the red walls.

Cardan’s raised his dark eyebrows, his hand arrested halfway to the paper towel dispenser again.

“Well?” He looks guarded, unsure of how he’s supposed to be reacting. I hand him the test and step up to the sink, turning on the water to wash my hands. I can see him in the mirror behind me, in his tight pants and boots, The Ramones T-shirt he’s borrowed from Vivi. He’s turning the test over and over in his hands, like he can’t tell which way is up. Same, honestly. My head feels like it’s detached from my body.

“It’s yes,” is the only dumb thing I manage to mutter as I soap up my fingers. Just like the commercials.

“How can you tell?” Cardan’s only looking more confused.

“The two lines.” I turn off the water and tear off part of Cardan’s paper towel train. “The two pink lines mean yes.”

Cardan looks up at me. His chest is hitching in shallow breaths.

“We should be celebrating,” he says, but it comes out like he’s trying to convince himself. So he tries again, squaring up his shoulders with a bit more enthusiasm. “We should be celebrating.”

“Mhmm,” I try to agree with a tight nod. I think I’m going to be sick. Again. Cardan searches my face, his gold-rimmed eyes flitting over the lip I’m worrying away at.

“You do not appear to be particularly celebratory,” he points out, but, then, neither does he. His cheekbones are tingeing red.

“It happened so fast, don’t you think?” My voice sounds almost breathless. It feels like a relief to point out, and that relief is contagious. Cardan’s shoulders sag a little bit as he lets out a breath.

“Lightning fast,” he agrees. He’s white-knuckling the pregnancy test.

“Careful -- I peed on that,” I point out, and, as if I’ve instead told him it’s on fire, Cardan hurls it into the trash with a disgusted huff.

I think for a moment about fishing it back out again, the only bit of evidence that I have that what’s going on inside of me is real. That the legacy we wished first wished for together in the dark, in each other’s arms, not even a month ago, is happening now and fast and there’s no going back. The time for second-guessing was over.

But a disconcerting combination of nausea and hunger hit me in the gut all at once, and I’m reminded that I have plenty of evidence and I’m only going to get more. If I really want to, I’ll just pee on another stick later.

“I need Starbucks,” I spout at the same moment Cardan sighs, “I need a drink.” And we share a quick smile.

At there’s still this. This has not changed.

And I should be enjoying that as we leave the bathroom and Cardan lifts the glamour he’d left at the door to give us some privacy. The “Out of Order” sign vanishes. But instead, I’m thinking of everything that is going to change. Of everything that ought to change, immediately, if at all possible.

I find myself unconsciously reaching for Cardan’s hand, and when I grab his palm and entwine our fingers, he’s squeezing mine back, hard. He knows. The worries and arguments past are resurfacing in his mind, too, and, for a moment, he wordlessly anchors himself to me.

We’re walking past customer service, following the alluring scent trail of coffee and baked goods, as I began to look at the other moms shopping. Their cute messy buns and their athleisure, pushing expensive strollers while their kids gnaw on the season’s latest teethers. And I’m struck, once again, by how much I don’t know.

Really, what are we doing here? Of all the people in all the realms, I think we are the last two people who ought to be becoming parents.

For one, I am an unrepentant murderer. Raised by an unrepentant murderer. Who murdered my own mother in front of me. This is not a person who ought to be cradling newborns.

And Cardan? The twice-cursed High King of Elfhame? Raised by house cats, beaten nightly by his own brother. Simultaneously spoiled and neglected. Is such a person even capable of cradling newborns?

And we’re about to be parents. I need to be reading more, I think. I need to have a plan. We never made a plan. We hadn’t had time to make a plan.

I pause a moment near the checkout lines, pulling Cardan to a stop beside me.

“I’m going to buy a few things first,” I decide in that moment. “Vitamins. Maybe some parenting books.”

“I don’t see the point,” Cardan retorts, straight-faced. “We have plenty of house cats.”

I narrow my eyes up at him as he smirks.

“That joke will be hilarious in a few weeks,” he tells me. “Just you wait.”

“I really doubt it,” I frown, and he’s still smirking when he drops my hand, stepping in front of me.

“My darling Jude,” he cups my face in his hands, and for a moment, his face is all I’m seeing. His expression is soft and tender across his beautiful features, and if our child is even half as good as looking, I am going to struggle to not let it have its way in all things. Or I’m going to want to strangle it. Some days, it’s a coin toss.

“You are the most fearsome and glorious creature I have ever had the privilege to behold,” Cardan is telling me. I’m struck once again by the marvel that he can’t lie and what he is saying must be true. In our five years of marriage, it is still sometimes hard to believe.

“And you will be the most fearsome and glorious mother,” he goes on. “I could not conjure up a more perfect mother for my offspring if I tried.”

“I think that says more about your lack of imagination than anything else,” I quip, but my cheeks are smiling in his hands regardless. He smirks back and quickly kisses me on the lips, once, twice.

“I am happy at this news,” he reassures me, as if he has sensed this whole time how overcome I am.

“I am, too,” I say, and I mean it. Truly. I’m a mixing bowl of emotions. My gaze drifts toward the store. “But we do need parenting books…”

Cardan kisses me quick one last time before releasing my face.

“I will procure your coffee,” he says, taking a step back, and it’s impossible not to look him over, his long, lean body in tight, black pants and worn t-shirt, his messy, black curls around the points of his ears. I have modern science to thank for keeping my womb empty these last five years. Chastity certainly had nothing to do with it.

“And Cardan?” I call after him. He turns. “A cake pop, too?” I ask, already in the clutches of a craving.

He looks intrigued.

“Is that what it sounds like?” he asks.

“Ball of cake on a stick,” I explain, kind of gesturing with my hands as if it will help. Cardan nods, determined.

“Then we will be needing several,” he declares before heading off toward the smell of coffee.

I shoulder the bag I borrowed from Heather and then stuff my hands into the pockets of the yellow sundress I’m wearing, one of a few mortal things of my own I keep at Vivi and Heather’s for visits. I’m on my way to the books section when I start to slow down near a display of newborn onesies.

It isn’t as though I never wanted to be a mother. I supposed there would come a day when I would have acquired all the knowledge one needed to be a mother, and then I would, I don’t know, award myself a medal or a pin and be declared Ready.

Taryn hadn’t been Ready. She would be the first to admit that. Not that I don’t love my niece with my entire heart. But Taryn’s daughter was a handful. Little Eva had been colicky and prone to getting her days and nights confused. For that entire first year, every time we saw Taryn, it seemed she faded a little more: the bags under her eyes greying, her auburn hair growing longer and frayed, everything but her breasts shrinking in size. Of course, it wasn’t permanent. Eva learned to sleep eventually, and to walk and eat and use a toilet, and, now that she was a robust and energetic five-year-old, Taryn was more like herself than she’d been in years.

Still. That first year, though.

Time and time again, Cardan and I would exchange glances while Eva squealed and squalled. It was always a silent No, thank you, please passing between us. We’re just fine without, thank you. Between the battle for the crown and undoing a curse, we’d had quite enough excitement, and so I eagerly welcomed Vivi regularly smuggling me little moon-shaped packets of pink pills from the mortal world. I took them each morning, like clockwork, with relish – it meant I could enjoy my freedom, our freedom as long as I wanted.

I’m not sure what happened in me. One day, I was calling it freedom. The next, it felt like an empty vessel.

We’d gone to visit Taryn and Eva at their estate for a summer solstice brunch. Vivi and Heather had come, and The Ghost was there, too, swapping stories and laughing with Vivi. I’d stepped out onto the terrace to call in Eva for food when I’d spotted Cardan. He was helping Eva climb up a tree, holding her hand while she balanced on a branch. Her wild fox hair was blowing in the late morning breeze that carried her giggle up to the house. Then she leapt at him with a delighted squeal, and he caught her and spun her around so that she squealed some more. And that look of sheer joy on his face when she did. His unguarded laugh echoed up through the grassy hills. I felt my heart crack open.

No, thank you, please suddenly felt very unadvised.

“What have I done to deserve such a face?” Cardan asked me, leaving a lingering kiss close to my ear. I guess I was looking a little amorous when he and Eva came inside. Little Eva was trotting off to the kitchens as I wound my fingers against the buttons of Cardan’s doublet, keeping him close for a moment longer.

“You looked happy,” I said as his hands slid around my waist. I looked up into his dark eyes, warm only for me, and saw he was smiling. “You looked like you liked doing fatherly things.”

He pulled me a little closer, a little tighter.

“I think I did,” he admitted, perhaps hardly believing it himself.

And then it happened. The unspoken shift, the change in the air. It seemed to crackle in the space between our gaze, and it took a fair bit of restraint to not pull him into the nearest coat closet and tear off his clothes. Taryn was calling us anyway. The servants had set the table, and no one would be seated until we had taken our chairs, even in this little family arrangement. Taryn was set on Eva learning courtly manners by example.

Courtly manners. By example. Taryn had the best intentions for Eva, but the phrases make me snort even now while I peruse baby clothes in Target. What example did we set in Faerie? One of murder and deceit and betrayal and lewd behavior.

The same day that I’d watched Cardan play with Eva, he abruptly ended dinner in the palace’s great hall to hoist me into his arms and carry me out, away from every one’s gaze, away from even the guards.

“What has gotten into you?” I kicked my feet and pounded at his shoulders – not particularly hard. Look, I’m not going to pretend this isn’t a game now. I could cause damage if I wanted to. I don’t.

Cardan set me on my feet, only to seize my waist in one arm. We stumbled into an alcove in the wall as his head dipped to my neck, his other hand catching us against the wall. Delighted shivers danced down my arms as his lips brushed the spot below my ear, and I couldn’t hold back a gasp.

“You couldn’t lie to me now even if you wanted to, wife,” Cardan murmured, kissing my ear. He wasn’t wrong. I ran my hands up his deep blue velvet doublet to his shoulders, and bent into his embrace. His hands began to roam my waist, my hips, pulling at my skirts.

“I’ll tell you whatever you like if you’ll keep doing this,” I whispered back, flushing. When he pulled back from my throat, there was a wicked, sneaking smile on his reddening lips.

“You don’t despise the thought of bearing my children,” he said, like it’s a revelation. I blinked. Had he been thinking about our previous exchange all day?

“I despise the thought of bearing any children,” I clarified. “It’s not some honor unique to you.”

Cardan gasped as if he was wounded.

“You could not have cut me deeper,” he teased, as I wound my fingers into the soft hair at the nape of his neck. “I thought I was special.”

“You are,” I said, tugging at his hair. “Because if I’m to bear any children at all, I would like them to be yours.”  

The smile that spread over his face then was far from wicked. Cardan was flushed and delighted in a way few got to see, and his arms squeezed around me, lifting me to him as he crushed his lips to mine.

“Cardan,” I laughed against his fevered kisses, my cheeks hurting. “I didn’t mean right this second.”

His lips were swollen when he pulled back, the pupils of his gold-rimmed eyes blown wide.

“Then practice with me,” he said, his breathing ragged. “Like swordplay. You’re always saying I’m rubbish at practicing.”

“You really are,” I gasped against his mouth.

In the last five years, I’ve grown no better at resisting the pull of his desire. If anything, I’m only worse. I couldn’t think straight there in his arms. I wanted to drown in his contagious idealism. I wanted to be set aflame by his soft lips and his body against mine.

With my arms thrown over his shoulders, his lips slid against mine, over and over, our hearts pounding in time together. And then he lifted me off my toes so that he could push us both through our bedchamber door.

A shoe slipped from my foot, and he stumbled over it, kicked it to the side, without releasing my waist. Only when the back of my legs pressed against the bedframe did he pull back from my mouth, breathless. And then he pushed me back onto the bed.

I stretched out on the lush duvet, my whole body thrumming as my heart battered my ribcage. But when I looked up at his face there at the foot of the bed, his expression had darkened in the candlelight.

“What is it?” I pushed myself up to my elbows. “Why are you stopping?”

Cardan suddenly looked as if he was at war with himself. Even though his chest still heaved, he inched to the bed and stepped back again, his dark brows furrowing together.

“Cardan…?” I sat up, alarmed at his hesitation.

“Do you think I would be any good at it?” he blurted out. “At being a father,” he clarified, and winced as if he already knew and hated the answer.

I slid to the edge of the bed and reached for his belt. Pulled him closer.

“You are as equipped for the task as I am,” I said, looking up at him with what I hoped was a provocative smile. He slid his long fingers into my hair, and I needed him closer. “If you’re terrible at it, then I will probably be worse.”

I meant it in jest. He’d always liked this side of me before, my dark, warped cruelty. But this time, his fingers tightened suddenly in my hair.

“Shit.” The word slid out of him like it was being dragged. His hands dropped from my hair, and he stepped back to look at me. He drew in a sharp breath.

“You think I would be a terrible father,” he said, which was hardly fair. That wasn’t what I said at all. I sighed hard, ruing the direction this was going – further from the bed.

“I think neither one of us knows what a good father looks like,” I said. Cardan only gave a painful chuckle.

“We are both quite familiar with terrible fathers,” he said. “I think you, of anyone, would be able to recognize a terrible father when you saw one.”

“And that is the last time you will compare yourself to Madoc,” I said, in horror. “If that is the standard for terrible fathers, then you’re angelic.”

But Cardan gave me a look of slit-eyed skepticism, so I stood from the bed and stepped to him.

“And, really, what does it matter right now?” I asked, lowly, holding a hand to his face. He leaned against it. I was almost ready to start begging. “I am not falling pregnant tonight. We have time to learn these things, if we want to learn them at all.” I lifted onto my tip toes, brushing my lips to the hollow of his cheek.

“Just come to bed,” I whispered there, and I saw his eyes fall shut, his dark lashes against his sharp cheekbones, as he turned to meet the slant of my lips.

“I want to be good at it,” he murmured against my mouth, as I dragged him toward the bed.

“Then you will be,” I insisted just before he cradled the back of my neck, sinking into our kiss as we tipped toward the mattress.

We have time. It’s an easy lie to tell when you’re in Faerie. Time stretches on, limitless and unending. There shouldbe time, endless amounts of time, to learn all you need to know – about anything. There should be time to become the person you’d always wanted to be.

I had had two months since that first conversation. Even less time since the others. In Faerie, that’s hardly a lunch hour.

I am reeling. I’m in Target with a red basket full of prenatal vitamins and snacks and pregnancy books, and I am absolutely reeling.

After I check out, I find Cardan sitting on the curb with a Starbucks bag that’s the size of a large gift bag and two venti Frappuccinos. The one he’s nursing is strawberry-pink and looks full of cream.

“They didn’t have wine,” he tells me, handing me mine. It’s drizzled in caramel, and I’m not sure it’s what I would have ordinarily chosen, but right now, it smells perfect.

“Probably for the best,” I say, and hazard a glance at his expression. It’s dark and troubled again as he squints against the sunlight. His legs are drawn up, and he’s resting his elbows on his knees, like he’s hunched under a weight. Reality’s given him a hard jolt since he kissed me in front of the newborn onesies.

I take a long sip of the Frappuccino through the green straw.

“Cardan, if you don’t want to do this--” I start, and his head jerks up.

“I have always wanted this,” he snaps, looking defensive, and then he’s looking at his boots again.

“Okay.” I sit back, extending my legs.

How do I do this? I have no blueprint for this. Floundering, there’s only one rope I know to pull, the one that’s always saved us: honesty.

So, I go on.

“I’m terrified, too,” I say. I spread the yellow fabric of my sundress over my knees. “If that’s any consolation. I think I’ll be happy eventually, but right now, I’m completely freaking out. I can hardly form a coherent thought. How many cake pops did you get?” I cock my head at the large Starbucks bag.

Cardan shifts it in my direction.

“All of them,” he says, glumly.

I raise my eyebrows as I peer in the bag. Oak will be excited, at least.

“I hate myself for being so terrified of a thing I desperately want.” I look up at Cardan’s confession to see his face twisted in loathing, and my heart twists right along with it. I know this pain, the agony of fearing what you love.

I could lie to him; I probably should. I should tell him right now that I know without a shadow of a doubt he will be a perfect father, that he’s beyond everything that had been done to him, that none of it had ever touched me either. But I don’t lie to him anymore.

Instead, I hand him a cake pop.

“That strikes me as a waste of energy,” I say, and nudge him with a coy smile. “There are so many other things you could hate yourself for.”

He gives me a wicked smirk and, instead of taking the cake pop I’ve offered, he seizes my other wrist and takes a large bite out of the one I’d claimed for myself. Feigning exasperation, I stab at him with the leftover stick.

“Does this not strike you as problematic?” he asks a moment later, his cheek still full of cake.

“Yes.” I reply with a stoic nod. “The fact that you just ate a pregnant lady’s cake pop is both striking andproblematic.”

“I mean this repartee you and I enjoy.” He wipes at a bit of icing at the corner of his mouth with his thumb. “A child ought to know his father loves his mother and vice versa, should he not? I would think that sort of thing helps.”

I feel the heartbreak behind his words as if it were my own. In his mind, he’s now on an endless search for every moment in his childhood that went wrong, every little action he ought to do the opposite of. I know. My mind’s been doing it, too.

I scoot a little closer, nearing his warmth, so that I can lean against him. He rests his head on top of mine.

“But you’re my nemesis,” I say, softly.

“Jude,” he says it like he’s scolding. “Not in front of the children.”

“Do not say ‘children’.” I jab him again as he presses his lips to the top of my head. “Your wishes are too powerful, and there is room in here for only one.”

Cardan’s slipped an arm around me, and I tilt my head back to look at him. The corner of his mouth is tugging upwards, slyly.

“Tell me I’m too powerful again,” he murmurs as he kisses my cheek.

“Later,” I promise, and I reach for another cake pop.

There will be time for all that later.

It’s a lie I get used to telling.

------------------------------------

Tags. Let me know if you’d like to be added to the tag list.: @yellowavocadopit

[dkiddsposts]

Life Narrative

This is how a body dies: the body first conserves the heart, lungs and brain so it starts to spare the things that aren’t important. The first is the blood to your hands and feet and other extremities. Then the kidneys shut down. You lose your appetite and your blood pressure drops. Your heart rate increases and the body temperatures drop.

I didn’t understand how close I was to death until I learned this. The surgeons said I had about twelve more hours before I lost my leg completely or lost my life.

In middle April of 2021 I woke up on a Monday morning at 5:25AM for weight training. It’s normal, as a collegiate swimmer, for my body to hurt. For my muscles to feel strained, pulled and fatigued. So when I moved my right leg and felt a pain almost like a pulled groin I didn’t think much of it. I skipped out on anything during weights that might irritate or strain it more and thought nothing less.

Tuesday morning I went to work. My back always hurts after standing for a long time. I have a habit of choosing fashion over comfort and instead of wearing the shoes I specifically bought to stand on for eight hours I went for my Air Forces that morning. About three hours of making coffee later I could barely stand. My leg hurt every time I took a step and my back felt like it was killing me. After four hours of making coffee I passed out and had a friend pick me up from work.

I’ve always been a healthy person. I’ve been swimming for eleven years and am always raved over by doctors because of my low resting heart rate and rarely ever getting sick. My mental health was a different story; I’ve been seeing psychologists and psychoanalysts since I was seven years old. My freshman year had not been easy on me and to cope I turned to bad and old habits. I was ultimately very unhappy with my life and what was supposed to be a year of growth. To add a serious illness felt like the last straw but I chalked it up to a bad groin strain and stress sickness.

By Thursday I called my mom. I couldn’t keep any food down, was seriously dehydrated, had to switch between getting in a scalding hot shower and sitting face first in front of a fan because my body temperature was fluctuating so much and I could barely walk without crying. She picked me up and took me to urgent care where they could tell there was some type of infection in my groin but didn’t have the technology to tell what. Next stop was the ER where they gave me antibiotics and told me it was cellulitis, an infection of the skin.

Feeling a little better because of the mild pain killer I slept for about two hours before waking up freezing cold. I hopped in the shower to warm up and immediately threw up. At this point I couldn’t keep even water down which meant I for sure couldn’t keep antibiotics down. My groin had swollen to the size of a baseball and I thought this is what dying must feel like.

We went back to the emergency room the next morning and they admitted me just to monitor and give me IV antibiotics. The next week is a haze but I could feel it getting worse. I was on enough pain meds to supply a pharmacy just to get through a couple hours of sleep. I remember how they weighed me at some point and I had gained thirty pounds because my kidneys were failing and I wasn’t releasing any of the liquid in the three IV drips I was constantly connected to. I remember them doing an ultra sound on my now softball sized and blistered groin and how my sister had to leave the room to throw up because I couldn’t control the sounds I was making from the pain of a plastic tool being pushed into my leg. I remember my dad telling me that the best dream he ever had was under anesthesia about fly fishing and he hoped I had a dream that made me happy right before they took me into surgery.

The plan was to make three small incisions in my swollen leg to see what was wrong but they ended up taking a plate sized chunk of tissue out of my leg all the way down to the muscle. What they found was necrotizing fasciitis commonly known as flesh eating bacteria. I was lucky because twelve more hours and I would have been flown to Denver if the infection was in my muscle or blood stream. I narrowly avoided a life without a right leg or possibly death.

I spent another week in the hospital before they sent me home. Three weeks later and I had a skin graft done. Five weeks after that, I was cleared for all physical activity. The recovery was fairly easy and I’m blessed with what was the best case scenario. But I wanted to get back as soon as I could to the life I had been living.

You’d think that you would be scared of death and change your life after being so close to dying but in my head I was immortal and nothing could touch me. I went back to drinking too much and choosing unhealthy coping mechanisms. They say it takes six to nine months to work through trauma at the minimum but I’ve barely started scratching the surface.

This story doesn’t really have an ending. Physically I’m healthy and back to normal but I’m faced with a decision I have to make. Do I start focusing on what’s important and turn my life around and take this as a fresh start or do I continue what I’ve always done with my life? This seems like an easy decision but you’d be surprised how hard it is for me to take action and take care of myself. My sister once told me how scary it was that I almost died and still had no regard for taking care of my health or well being.

I have no plan of action. I’m stuck in purgatory between two decisions not really doing anything for or against myself. For now, purgatory is better than hell.

[robronfic]

Could you make a post of all the Big Bang fics so far please?

round one / 2017:

sure as the world keeps the moon in the sky by @aarobron 

“thank you,” aaron whispers, and his words sound as thick as the air he’s pushing them into. “i had a great night, honestly. just… thank you.” then he’s leaning up on his tiptoes; stretching, body lean and long and sharp, and robert risks settling a hand onto his waist. it shocks aaron for moment, but then he just grins: some great, dazzling, blinding smile that robert has to close his eyes against, and before he knows it, there are lips on his cheek. they settle, for one moment, two, three, and he’s holding his breath, fingers tightening around the curve of aaron’s hip. or, an au where aaron and robert are neighbours - neighbours in love. 30k.

rumours by @beautifulhigh 

robert is a vivinus, or a “div” if you’re feeling particularly cruel. people who are functionally immortal: they can die through severe accidents or illnesses, or something immediate. people with the ability to heal, to understand a person better than they know themselves, and who are rumoured to love so deeply that they will literally love you forever.

robert hasn’t told anyone who he is, only telling aaron after the car crash and their engagement, giving him the choice about whether he wants to live his life with a man who won’t ever grow old, who isn’t anything close to normal and secure. not all the rumours are good ones though, and for every high there’s a low. 105k. 

maneuver one into place by @robertjacobsugdens

robert helped lawrence build a legitimate business empire from the ashes of his criminal enterprises. that is, until robert made one tiny, irrelevant mistake and the Whites kicked him to the curb. planning his revenge, robert went in the only place where he could assemble a team to get back what was rightfully his. he wasn’t expecting old feelings and wounds to resurface quite so strongly. especially not when it came to his master thief, aaron dingle. 57k.

love never fails by @nooneelsecomesclose17

it’s 1914, the war looming. aaron is the new chauffeur at home farm, and robert is newly returned from london after years away. aaron wants a new start, with liv, while robert wants to reconnect with his family. bad memories haunt them both making their relationship a challenge. with the war comes tragedy and then aaron goes missing. 70k.

we’ll meet again by @littlelooneyluna

in the year of 1939, war strikes and leaves best friends turned almost lovers aaron dingle and robert sugden in a state of shock, despite their resistance against the ever present reality of war it soon becomes apparent that there is no escape and it doesn't take long for their world to be ripped away from them as they continuously fight to keep close despite the lengths taken to keep them apart for good. 81k.

fool’s gold by @strongboyfriends

he knew, in the back of his mind, that it was their connection that was sending sparks rushing through him, numbing every sense until all he knew was aaron, but the realist in him – the one that grew up never believing that fate could bring two strangers together and bond them. Tte one that believed it could never happen to someone you knew, that it was meant for those with more poetic souls that lived life as if love was all there was – believed he would have felt this way about aaron regardless.

or, aaron and robert don’t exactly have the meet-cute worth writing home about, but fate has other ideas in mind. 38k. 

the country squire by @misswhimsy

after katie’s death, robert handed himself into the police and has spent the last two years in prison for manslaughter. aaron has moved on with his life, dealing with the death of his father and reconnecting with his little sister, attending counselling to help him cope with the things he’s not willing or able to share with his family. luckily it has provided him with an interesting new way to manage his feelings and he has discovered a talent and passion for writing that he never expected. now, robert is out of prison, alone and unsure of his future; will he ever be able to find the happiness that aaron has already found? 22k.

separation never suited us by @wellyfullofale

robert’s been away from emmerdale for almost a year, but vic has persuaded him to return for his 40th birthday party. he hasn’t seen or spoken to his husband since he left the village after convincing himself that aaron had moved on following an argument that they were both too stubborn to move past. he returns with hope that aaron might still love him the same way that he still loves aaron, but when he finds his husband is seeing someone new, is all hope now lost after a year apart? or will they find that, actually, a kind of love like theirs isn’t ever over? 33k. 

find someone (like you) by @kayceecruz

robert sugden walks into emmerdale after nine years bringing with him little of the boy who left. aaron dingle's life has been stuck in the same place for years. they meet and everything changes... 25k. 

a tail of two worlds by @geena-rae

aaron’s an immortal being, trapped in the sea for thousands of years now by himself. he’s been lonely for so long, his only solace watching the humans who walk along on the land. then he meets a sea witch who makes him an offer, she’ll turn him human for one month and if he finds love in that month she’ll keep him human, if not, aaron has to give her his immortality. 20k. 

front page news by @realityisonlythebeginning

robert sugden is a small time reporter aching for a proper job in the world of crime reporting. he thinks he's found it when a young man named aaron dingle is wrongfully jailed for something he didn't do. what he finds however is so much more. 22k.

the insubstantial shadow by @sapphicsugden

“the terms.” robert stares ahead, at the darkness currently shrouding hell from his view. 

“i keep walking,” robert starts, unable to focus on anything but the thud of his heart in his chest. it’s like you’re talking about a contract, he thinks. this is just a deal that you need to fucking win. except the stakes - and the payoff - were so much more than robert could handle. “i keep walking until i get to the lake where there’ll be a boat waiting to take me back."

hades nods, leaning casually against a pillar. “i don’t look back,” robert continues, words sticking in his throat. “he’ll be behind me, following me out of hell, but the instant i look back, he’ll vanish and he’ll-“ ae trails off, unable to make himself say it.

“he’ll be mine,” hades supplies. “his life for your inability to put his needs above your own.” 15k. 

midnight in paris by @capseycartwright

the end of a relationship is supposed to be the hardest part, but the last night aaron sees robert, it’s the first promise of a happy ending he gets from the other man. a year, to sort their problems, and they’ll meet back in paris, and give their love the chance it deserves, after the whirlwind of a year they'd spent together, in paris, falling more in love than either of them had been before.

what could possibly go wrong in a year? 34k. 

forged in fire by @escapingreality51

on his way to work one morning, a runner catches robert's eye. he starts seeing the man around everywhere, growing more intrigued with each sighting and almost interaction. when he finally meets him properly in the elevator of his building, a spark ignites and the two embark on an intense relationship, but when robert is reminded of a past trauma he gets scared. will Robert be able to let go of his past or will he be consumed by it? 31k.

asking the moon to stay by @josephtate

all his life prince robert had known that one day he would have to follow in his father's footsteps and become king of emmerdale. what he never expected was that he would have a secret love affair with the court's mechanic aaron dingle. 32k. 

all in by @godamnarmsrace

when robert and aaron meet there's an instant attraction, no doubt about it, but nothing can happen, it just wouldn't be appropriate. robert feels for the lad, who's been on the streets and struggling to take care of his young sister, so he does the decent thing and opens his home to him – gives him a break. feelings grow, aaron wants robert, in more ways than one, in every way really, but robert is fighting it, he fears becoming one of the monsters he hunts. it’s only when things get dangerous, pursuing gordon has some scary consequences, he begins to realise that you really only get one life; aaron and liv are his. 31k. 

---

round two / 2018:

cause we’re lovers, and that is a fact by @prettyboysugden

the 1980's- a time of music, love and pride. robert and aaron have to hide their relationship, but will something tear them apart? 17k.

and might had fallen to sands and fire by @matan4il

aaron is a hebrew gladiator whose daily routine of training and fighting is changed by the arrival of a unit of roman soldiers. 44k.

the fundamental things apply by @nooneelsecomesclose17

after losing jackson over a year ago, liv is worried about her brother and wants him to find a new boyfriend. that’s how aaron ends up on local radio on christmas eve. robert’s a successful reporter with his local paper, and he’s getting married. he’s on his way to meet his fiance’s family for christmas when he hears a voice on the radio. 

can his destiny really be someone he’s never met? can he be the one to catch aaron’s attention and get him to meet in london on valentine’s day? 26k. 

among the many by @littlelooneyluna

1984 au: robert finds aaron in a dystopian world where love is forbidden. 63k. 

from the moment we touched by @snarfettelove

needing to let off some steam after a stressful day at work, robert (a ruthless businessman) picks up a prostitute on his way back to his penthouse apartment. but one night with aaron isn’t enough and robert’s got a hell of a week coming up; he offers aaron the opportunity of a lifetime - stay (and get paid) for the whole week. aaron can’t resist, and robert’s pretty fit after all, so he agrees to the deal. they just aren’t supposed to let feelings get in the way of their ‘arrangement’. 42k. 

is it too late? by @robron-til-the-end

aaron never found robert at the scrapyard, the day after seb was born. he never talked robert into staying. robert left the village that day, and ten years later is the first time he's returned to emmerdale, and the first time he's bumped into aaron since it all went wrong so spectacularly.can he and aaron make it work the second time around? or has too much time passed to ever make it work? 18k. 

we’ll always have the moon. by @notforonesecond

while working through his deployment for the british army, aaron dingle unsuspectingly meets the love of his life at a bar one night in the form of robert sugden.

navigating through war, love, heartbreak, and tears they build their relationship, communicating through handwritten letters. but after they've built a life and a family together, is aaron willing to sacrifice it all for his country? 87k.

ticket to anywhere by @strongboyfriends

sixteen years old is dull in ways that movies and television never want to admit, and every minute felt like a countdown until he could escape. but life didn’t work like that. at least, not for robert. aaron couldn’t possibly be the one to change that. could he? 43k. 

cartography through silence by @sapphicsugden

“it’s called aphasia,” the doctor tells them, clinical and detached.

aaron wants to punch her in the mouth. robert’s keeping a death grip on aaron’s hand, nails digging into the skin of aaron’s palm. it’s grounding, a familiar pain that aaron will carry for eternity if it helps robert. “what does that mean?” 11k.

so at ease in the midnight sky by @aarobron

aaron finds the dingle's travelling circus at 16, just after he runs away from gordon, and spends his days helping out with odd jobs. what he doesn't expect to find is a best friend in the shape of vic's older brother, robert. they grow closer, as a double act on the trapeze and as friends, but he keeps his feelings quiet until gordon shows up and flips everything they know upside down. 58k. 

and that’s just the way it is by reformedcharacter

after meeting on the phones at work, robert and aaron quickly grow closer. being two hundred miles away from each other won’t stop them from falling in love. now, all there is left to do is meet. 28k.

… or does he? by @eloquentmydear

when lawrence tries to seduce robert in the hotel, robert’s phone doesn’t start ringing. he battles with himself over a long-denied desire for lawrence, the pain of losing the last man he loved, and his broken self-esteem. 15k. 

two night stand by @robertisbisexual

aaron’s been single for months and, after a bad night out, is convinced by his friends that a no strings one night stand is exactly what he needs. only casual sex is a lot harder than aaron remembers - especially when your date is a prick - and when forces conspire against him aaron finds himself trapped with robert a second night. 26k. 

escaping the past by @kripkegirl

robert returns to the village, looking to rebuild bridges and to finally put his past behind him. 26k. 

white blank page by @rustandruin

aaron’s a semi-closeted music journalist for a regional newspaper. robert is the newly hired out-and-proud sex and relationship columnist he hates. but when they’re forced to work together, aaron realises that irritation quickly turns into attraction. can he overcome his past and find the strength to choose his future? 125k. 

exile by @escapingreality51

aaron is a member of cain’s crew on the akadia transport ship when cain agrees to transport a different type of cargo than usual - a prisoner. robert sugden, the most notorious scientist-turned-murderer in the solar system arrives on the ship in manacles, and aaron dingle has to spend eight and a half months guarding robert sugden in a cell while they transport him from earth to his trial on mars. somewhere along the way aaron starts to discover that the man in manacles may not be as evil as he has been made out to be. 25k.

sweet dreams (are made of this) by @kayceecruz

after a tragic accident, robert’s left in a coma. while his loved ones fight to keep him alive, robert sinks into a world of dreams. when he wakes up, he is confused about what life is real and all he wants is to have his husband by his side. 24k.

[empressfiend]

'Cause You Colour Me Clear (Malec Oneshot)

Read on Ao3. (FiendMaz)

Beta: @beyondthehunt

With a frown, Alec pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of a worn pocket and smoothed it out; the handwriting on it a tad faded. “‘I’ll be out until I’m needed.’ At first, I was so lost because I couldn’t understand. I always need you so why weren’t you there?"

It took a total of eighty-nine times of having Alexander run out on him to go back to duty and resume working because a call came or some issue arose or the Clave set up a meeting without warning before Magnus got fed up; hurt and betrayal welcoming him into their open and familiar arms.

The last time happened on an unimportant night – which couldn’t be said for some of the other times – and whilst they were doing the most mundane thing of playing cards. But it had been a peaceful time that was filled with their carefree chuckles and lingering touches until the dreaded sound of Alexander’s phone rang and ruined everything.

He could still remember how he had valiantly tried not to glare as he calmly asked his Shadowhunter whether Lydia or the other Lightwood children could manage handling the Inquisitor’s requests without him. But, like all other times, it was like talking to a wall that refused to budge, stubbornly staying in place for no reason at all other than because it was built to be there. So he had waved Alexander an airy goodbye with ice in his eyes and heart before he swiftly packed his bags and portalled himself over to Switzerland.

A note had been left on his side of the bed at his departure that simply stated that he’d be out until he was needed since he wasn’t desperate enough to use the word ‘wanted’ or sway his Nephilim’s way of doing things. As with everything and everyone, he firmly believed in letting people and things do as they do until they themselves began to do otherwise on their own accord.

After all, what use would it be to tell Alexander to follow his example of ensuring he cleared time in the morning and the night in order to be there when his Shadowhunter was? It would only lead to his Nephilim sputtering some childhood-ingrained reason or worse, make Alexander do as he wished not because his Shadowhunter wanted to but because he did.

And so, to spare himself of the heartache and to distance himself from that which was hurting him, he had gone on vacation – temporarily. Everyone would be dealing with Catarina Loss or Tessa Gray when they called upon the High Warlock of Brooklyn for the foreseeable future. Not that he intended to stay away for more than a year as, unlike with Camille, time was a precious thing with his Alexander and that was half the reason he was so terribly touchy about being left behind – time.

The other half… well, he’d rather not poke at it.

 ‘Cause you colour me clear,

Now what are you, what are you waiting for?

 Alec trudged up to the front door and swung it open for him to enter. It slammed shut behind him as he deposited his mucky boots to the side and his weapons to the designated table. The loft was as it was the past few weeks: empty, no life breathing in it and no shine. It was all rather depressing. He held in a pained sigh and went over to slump down on the couch, feet up on the coffee table and head laid on the couch’s back.

Time ticked on slowly marked by every tinny sound the clock on the kitchen counter made and Brooklyn trundled along noisily down below, somehow muted by the magic still encasing the loft. Alec wondered how sad it was to be wishing he was an inanimate object just so he could feel his love’s presence. “I did something.” He mumbled to the red ceiling. “What did I do?”

He slinked up to a stand with Shadowhunter grace and stared at the calendar he had bought a week after Magnus had left. The black solid squares glared back at him, letting him know exactly how many days and nights it’s been since he had last seen Magnus. He could always text or call or fire message… somehow, he didn’t want to so his phone stayed unused but always, always close by.

He wondered if he was simply being stubborn about not contacting his boyfriend or if that was the whole reason Magnus had yet to come back home. But then the parting note that he had burned into his mind from numerous reading would always come back. Needed. What did that mean? Didn’t Alec always need Magnus so why isn’t he here?

Alec closed his eyes tiredly then crossed the room to fill another day of the calendar in black. He would always circle around the same thoughts, same questions. They never changed. He went back to the couch and sat down heavily to stare at the portrait above the fireplace Magnus had built for the winter and that just stayed there afterwards.

They looked happy and they had been. Their faces had been cold, red-nosed as well in Alec’s case, their clothes lightly dusted with snow and their bodies shivering but their smiles were wide and their eyes crinkled, hands clutched together.

He smiled at the picture and a deep longing ached in the depths of his heart. When was the last time they went out like that? He honestly couldn’t remember. A burning sensation pricked his eyes at the thought and he clutched at his hair angrily. How could he not remember? How could –

But the problem had been staring at him right from the beginning – even longer.

Alec had been neglecting Magnus after the war’s problems died down and he had been able to go back to his usual life. He had been so nostalgic for it, so ready to jump back to the good old days without the repression and burdens of his parents suppressing him as if he were Atlas. He had been a right fool and not just for days or weeks but for literal months that can’t ever be taken back and a period of time he knew he would mourn all the way to the deathbed of his short mortal life.

And there was another thing for him to consider – immortality. A topic he hadn’t bothered to think upon as he was so caught up in the whirlwind of taking back his former life. So swept up that he let everything else fall by the wayside when Magnus was so much more important than his younger self’s wish of being truly free to reign over the Institute with his siblings like the times of old. 

Especially more silly when he considered that even his siblings weren’t doing their jobs all that much anymore unlike before because they had real, tangible, fairy tale-like love lives – something he had more solidly and more realistically first. Something he had desired for so long and so much and something, no, someone he had taken for granted.

Magnus.

“I’m sorry,” Alec told the empty loft forlornly. “I’m sorry, my love.”

 The drops illuminate and evaporate into a neon lake.

 It had been a total of one month, three weeks, five days and 10 hours since Magnus had last seen his Brooklyn loft and his beloved Nephilim. The days flitted by as they did every time Alexander would be out for a whole morning, day, and night on missions and whatnot – like waterfall; quick, gushing and painful under strong currents. Every day that passed chipped away at the painstakingly well-built bond he and Alexander had fortified since they met and it made his heart ache at the keen loss of every sizeable chunk that crumbled away.

He had never envisioned that they would end up like this when they had been so strong for so long yet here they were anyway. It must be unavoidable for him to find obstacles and road blocks in his relationships no matter how many hurdles he jumps through or how hard he loves. But this was Alec and they were strong; all they must do is get past this together. He shouldn’t have gone it alone like old times. Sometimes he forgets he isn’t so lonely anymore. But he can’t take all the blame because being alone so much was what caused him to leave and for this situation to happen.

Like he said – inevitable.

Magnus shook his head and forced himself to focus on his beautiful, calm surroundings. He breathed in the crisp, fresh air and took a bite of his dark chocolate and butter croissant. It was heavenly and the taste melted sweetly on his tongue. He had bought about a dozen minis and was halfway through when he realised it didn’t matter how many he bought as he may never tire of it. The pomegranate juice he had bought to complete his breakfast was also divine and just as addictive.

Dimly, he wondered if Alexander was sick of it as he never failed to send some his Nephilim’s way like he did with everything he got for himself here. It kept him somewhat content to know that his Shadowhunter was eating well even though he was far away from Brooklyn. And though he was hurt that Alexander hadn’t contacted him at all, he was also grateful that his wishes to be alone for the moment was being respected.

He took another bite of his croissant then reached for his juice and was about to drink from it when he was knocked aside by a rude, towering man. He bristled angrily and checked himself over briefly for any stain on his clothing, relieved when there wasn’t any, and turned right around to glare the mortal to death.

Except…

“Magnus!”

Magnus stifled a long-suffering sigh and turned away from his Shadowhunter to examine the lovely contents of his drink colouring the white gravel by his feet. Such a pity. He gingerly grabbed the cup off of the floor and stepped aside to throw it in the trash a few ways away from the fountain he had been hanging by; the scuffing sound trailing after him made him aware of Alexander following him.

Why now? – But then, when?

“Magnus,”

Now’s as good as any.

He bit into his croissant again, this time with a bit more force than necessary, before he turned around to face his Nephilim. His eyes frosted over slightly even as he catalogued all the changes in his Shadowhunter from the short time they had been apart. A slight scruff was now growing around Alexander’s young face, plump lips once always soft and moist now chapped and dry, tired eyes weighed down by dark ovals underneath, and overall posture more slumped than was acceptable for the Clave’s rigorous training.

“Magnus, I… I don’t know how much right I have to ask this but, was it so necessary for you to come here without returning every now and then?”

Magnus tilted his head and folded the paper bag of minis he held in order to keep the air out. “I returned home, Alexander, to wait for you multiple times. I stayed longer in the mornings until you left countless more times. Whenever I could, I would be at the loft for you.” He tucked his long-grown hair behind his ear and played with his cuff-earring. “I would eventually have gone back once I’ve refreshed my soul.”

“How long would that have been?” Alexander whispered, looking lost.

“As long as it would take for me to recuperate.”

Alexander slumped like a puppet that had its’ strings cut loose. “You couldn’t tell me all that before leaving?”

“I had too many answers to give.” Magnus stated solemnly. “Few I would say out loud, fewer I would think of saying to you, and none I would have chosen to say.” He twisted one of the rings in his hand and looked more carefully at those hazel eyes he had missed dearly and adored much. “Leaving the way I did was the cleanest and least painful way for the both of us. I know it caused pain either way but to choose the lesser of the evils was my way of doing something I felt I inevitably had to do.”

He sighed regrettably at the forlorn features of his love and signalled for his Nephilim to follow him. He weaved through the streets of Geneva with ease and familiarity, brushing past mundanes and Downworlders alike until he reached a deserted area beside what he always guessed to be an abandoned train station or open concert hall. His fingers reached out beside him to link with Alexander’s before he pushed onwards to the semi-circle platform overlooking the lake.

There was never much people here. He never understood why since it was so breathtakingly beautiful but he was always grateful for the peace and privacy. He was happier still to be sharing this place that had become quite special to him with Alexander even amidst the yawning stretch of distance between them. “Sit and let’s talk.” He moved to sit first, facing the water, and swung his legs over the safety of the ground to hover above a short plunge into ice liquid.

  Alec sat down next to his boyfriend in the same way. “Did you spend most of your time here?” He gestured to their surroundings. It was a nice, quiet spot and it made a pang of sadness bubble in his chest because he could easily imagine him and Magnus spending romantic evenings here had they come to Switzerland together. But that was why he was here, to figure things out so they could be a stronger couple.

“Yes…” Magnus was nodding slowly, contemplatively. “It’s a good place to think.”

“What have you been thinking?” Alec questioned, curious and fearful at the same time because he knew it must be about him, them, and though he wanted to know, he was scared for what he may hear, unsure if he had grown enough to handle this sort of situation with delicate care.

Magnus hummed. “Many things. I’ve been thinking about Shadowhunters and Downworlders, choices and decisions, immortality and mortality –,”

“Sounds like everything.”

“– what to eat for the day.”

Alec snorted and a smile broke across his face which he knew was the purpose. He offered up his hand, palm up, and waited until he felt his warlock’s hand curl around his. “When did we stop doing this, Magnus? When did we stop talking to each other?”

“I don’t know.” Magnus replied, painfully honest.

“Talk to me, please.” Alec pleaded openly. His heart had been wide open for his boyfriend since the day he walked away from the altar and the burdens of his parents. “Let’s figure this out like we promised we would – together.”

Magnus was silent for a while. The minutes ticked by slowly, torturously, to the point that Alec began to lose hope and started to panic on what he should say next. But then, like old times, his boyfriend saved him from the worry. “When Valentine was still alive and the war loomed over us, we never had problems about our jobs separating us. Ultimately, we had the same goal and at the end of the day, I knew we were both working hard to save the future. Our future.”

There was another pause of silence but this time Alec spoke up, “and now?”

“I’m not entirely sure how to answer that, Alexander.”

Alec mulled over that for a while. There was a time he would keep pushing but that time had gone and he had grown much since. “Tell me what you’re thinking. Say it however you want. Trust me to understand.”

“I do trust you, Alexander. More than you will ever know.” Magnus sighed. “I knew you were a Shadowhunter when we started but with the war gone from our front doorstep, I wondered why you didn’t come home for me. Why you insisted on dangerous missions and thrilling demon nest finds. I wondered why we weren’t cherishing the very future we fought so hard to protect. I wonder what your love is for me and what exactly we are now and if anything at all has changed. I wonder many things, Alexander, including how far I’m willing to love you completely.”

It was Alec’s turn to be quiet.

He looked down and the guilt that simmered in his belly since the night he realised he’d been neglecting his love ached stronger than ever. With a frown, he pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of a worn pocket and smoothed it out; the handwriting on it a tad faded. “‘I’ll be out until I’m needed.’ At first, I was so lost because I couldn’t understand. I always need you so why weren’t you there? And then when I finally realised what you meant by that, I started wondering about those same things you did. Why didn’t I spend more time with you? How could I not even remember the last time we went out together? So many questions and all the answers I had made me feel like a fool.”

  Alexander straightened up and rolled his shoulders back, eyes showing off his determination like it always did before.

It was a sight Magnus sorely missed.

"If you had asked, I would have come home, Magnus. At whatever time you wanted." Alexander let out a breath but was clearly not finished. "But that's not the point. Is it?"

"No." Magnus confirmed softly.

"I love you, Magnus. I returned to my Shadowhunter duties months ago, chasing a dream I had since I was young: to lead the Institute without any shackles or burden weighing me down." Alexander rubbed his palms together almost restlessly. "But I've had a while to be a Shadowhunter again and I realised, belatedly, that all I really want is to chase after my other dream, the dream I thought to be impossible until I met you.”

Magnus drew in a deep breath as sharp, earnest eyes turned their full-force at him and he felt, not for the first time, completely vulnerable under his Nephilim’s gaze.

“Magnus, I’ve been a Shadowhunter my whole life. I was raised as one and I’ve known nothing else. I lived with the grim belief that I’d die a Shadowhunter without finding love. It has always been an impossible dream of mine to be able to love freely with everyone knowing just who I am. But it’s not impossible anymore.

“I love you, Magnus.” Alexander repeated, eyes glittering with emotion. “And while I’ll always be a Shadowhunter and love my job as the Co-Head of the Institute, I want and value a life with you more. What I finally realised was that all I really want is to spend my days with you."

“Alexander, you…” Magnus trailed off, caught in a rare moment of not knowing what to say with his heart beating impossibly fast from the sweet words of his Nephilim. “But…”

“I’m not going to give up being a Shadowhunter completely.” Alexander suddenly said, a knowing spark to his hazel eyes . “Perhaps someday I will. When I'm ready. For now, I will limit myself to paperwork and the rare occasions when my expertise and experience is needed – which won't be much."

Magnus let a long breath and then shook his head at the last line said to him. "You undervalue yourself far too much. You're extremely valuable - to all races."

“I know…” Alexander assured lightly. “I'll continue to handle Shadowhunter-Downworlder relations with you and the usual share of paperwork but all else, Lydia can handle. Her thirst to be out on the field has only increased with the absence of war. I do think she misses all the action after being a paper pusher for the Clave so long.”

"I'm fairly sure you and I both know she was far more than a paper pusher but – alright. If that's what you’ve decided then so it shall be.” Magnus paused for a bit then continued with a cheeky, “I sure hope your vacation days are included in this dream of yours.”

"They are.” Alexander promised with an amused smile. "Will you come home with me, love?"

“Hm.” Magnus hesitated.

Alexander's face fell. "Is there something else?" He worried.

"Yes... You see, my pomegranate juice wasted on the ground when a handsome man rudely bumped into me from behind."

"What?" Alexander looked positively outraged. "I'll buy you as much pomegranate juice and croissant as you want to make up for that man's behaviour. How rude!"

Another pause of many in their conversation and then Magnus cracked with a snort. And suddenly, they were both laughing and somehow had migrated over to each other, arms clutched together tightly.

Alexander resurfaced first with big gulps of air. "I love you." He said before he turned solemn. "I missed you. So much. So much at times I forgot to breath. Don't leave me again. I refuse to live without you by my side."

"Oh darling," Magnus looked ready to swoon. "What a sweet talker you've become in the span of a month."

"A month and so."

Magnus waved that away. "Semantics." He shook his bag of minis in the air. "I want my breakfast."

"You -," Alec stopped then shook his head. "Lead the way, Monsieur. I'm paying for this date."

"Date?" Magnus asked curiously as he led them both to the lovely stall he'd bought his juice from.

"Yes." Alec smiled widely. "It's been a while."

Magnus smiled along, a tad nostalgic. "It has."

 Find me in the backyard

 In the dark

[littlelonghairedoutlawllho]

Okay this really *is* the last Wraiths-verse thing for a while.

A glimpse into how everyone’s lives turned out after the war.

________________________________

Anja marries within four months of the end of the war. No sooner was the Armistice in place and Konstin recovering from his pneumonia, than Valentin De Courcy went to Raoul to ask his permission. And Raoul looked at this young man sitting in the chair across from him, and hid his smile in his glass of cognac. It felt like only yesterday that he was the same eager young man hoping to marry Christine, but of course circumstances were vastly different and it was another seventeen years before he got there. He sipped his brandy, set the glass down and took De Courcy’s hand.

“I would be honored for you to marry my daughter.”

It was a frosty morning in early March, dry and clear but cold, when Anja De Chagny became Anja De Courcy, and as the bride kissed the groom, Konstin stood there in the first pew, Émile’s hand steadying on his arm, and pretended that there were not tears in his eyes to see his baby sister all grown up.

Barely nine months later, there are tears in everyone’s eyes as they wait for the first cry of a new baby. Raoul smokes a cigar in the parlour with the air of one whose been through all this before, and thinks of Nadir once upon a time on a night like this. Val sits trembling in his chair, wishing he could be as calm as Raoul, and listens to the halting pacing of Konstin in the other room, the cursing when he trips over something, and the soft voice that belongs to Émile soothing him.

Their hearts stall, and Konstin hobbles back in, Émile right behind him, when the door clicks open, and Christine smiles at them all.

“It’s a girl,” she says, and Val half-rises from his chair.

“And Anja?”

“Tired, but well.”

And in a laugh of delight, Val almost knocks Konstin off his feet with a hug. Raoul and Christine’s eyes meet, and they share a smile that whispers of happiness and memories.

And so little Freyja De Courcy, with a head of fair hair, becomes the first of a new generation. And when Konstin holds his tiny goddaughter close, he thinks of the war that brought her parents together, and hopes that she never has to know something so terrible.

*

When Guillaume marries Isabel, two years later, Freyja has been joined by a little brother, Victor. Guillaume is fighting a smile, looking at his two baby cousins, and thinking that in eight months they’ll be joined by one of his, though he’s kept Isabel’s confidence and hasn’t breathed a word to anyone yet, not even to his mother. But he has more than enough practice at keeping secrets. He’s safeguarded the secret of what Konstin and Antoine are to each other for longer than he cares to remember.

Isabel herself was a secret for the best part of a year. He met her in the days after the war ended. She was a nurse in the hospital where some of his men were, and when he visited them his eye was caught by this pretty little dark-haired thing, but he feigned indifference and it was only at the end of his visit, assured that everything was as well as it could be, that he asked her if she wished to join him for a drink.

And she almost refused him. But there was something about him, something about how he stood, about how is greatcoat was wrapped around him, about how the stern cut of his features softened when he spoke quietly to the wounded, and softened in a different way when he smiled at her, that made her say yes.

When, on the eve of his return to Paris, he learned that she had been a ballet dancer before everything, he almost proposed then and there. But Guillaume has never been one to do anything in haste, and that is one of the reasons she loves him.

So when, in December 1921, they marry, it is something they are wholly ready for. And Isabel does not miss the grin that twitches at Guillaume’s lips, but she does take great pleasure in kissing it off his face.

*

It is June 1926 when Marguerite De Chagny becomes Marguerite Martin. She has slept better in the month since she made the trip to Edouard’s grave than in the whole of the eight years and eight months before it. There was a time she thought she’d never recover, when she was sure he’d haunt her until her dying day, but while the pain still lingers, still catches her off-guard every now and then with sudden sharpness, it has dulled with time, grown faded, and sometimes she is not certain it even happened at all. Sometimes it feels as if the whole time she was in that hospital was a terrible recurring dream that she used to have once. And while she still sometimes dreams of it, still sometimes wakes convinced it is Amélie’s hand on her shoulder to tell her of a convoy of ambulances, it is only the memory of Edouard, now, that truly remains from all that happened.

Antoine came to her late last night. She was thinking of André, thinking of how, for all either of them can remember, he might have passed through her care after he was gassed, after he earned the scars he tries so hard to hide, after he lost most of his sight. In another world, she might have fallen in love with him then, when his wounds were fresh, when his lungs were still filled with fluid, and it was such a strange thought, that it might have been a slip of fate that she met Edouard first and not André, and she was just starting to feel unsettled over it when there was the soft knock on her bedroom door, and Antoine stepped in.

“Konstin ordered me out of the house,” he said, smiling at her, and she knew it was only partly a lie. “He convinced himself that there was something not quite right in your first dance, so he’s doing some re-working. Apparently my comments that it’s all in his head were most unwelcome.”

She stifled a laugh as she sat up, and he closed the door behind him. “Did he throw the bow at you again?”

Antoine’s smile faltered. “It just missed my head. Then I told him his aim was very poor.”

“You’re such a critic.”

“It’s what I do best.”

The bed dipped as he settled on the edge of it, and lay his hand over hers. And for a long time they sat in silence, the soft ticking of the clock the only thing other than their breathing.

“Edouard would be very happy for you,” he whispered eventually, and her breath caught in her throat. “I only—I met him a few times, a good few times, when I was going to see Konstin. We never really spoke, but there was something about him. I liked him even though I didn’t really know him.” He stops, and leans closer to her, his voice soft, softer even than at Edouard’s grave, softer, perhaps, than any time in the last nine years, when he murmurs, “There were a lot of things that I didn’t used to believe in before the war, but I think—and I wouldn’t be surprised, that maybe he—maybe he is the one who sent André into your life.”

Her throat was too tight to speak, her thoughts too frozen, and her lips were numb as she whispered, “Do you think?”

Antoine squeezed her fingers. “If Konstin’s father could lead me across No Man’s Land, I think—I think we have no idea the power the dead may hold over us. And the things they might do for us.”

She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t help the tears that came, her disconcerting thoughts from earlier and the ache in her chest all conspiring with Antoine’s words, and he rocked her gently, as if she were a child, whispering to her that he was sorry if he upset her, sorry if he said too much, but she shook her head and told him that it wasn’t that, it wasn’t that at all.

And now she walks down the aisle, towards André waiting at the altar, and Raoul is on her arm because her father is too frail, and just before she reaches the top, just before she reaches her fiancé, she swallows and thinks of a man she loved once, who she loves still though she lost him so long ago, and thanks him for being a part of her life, and for all that he’s done for her.

*

When, eventually, Émile marries, it is October 1928. Katerina is a former chorus girl, and his choice of bride only causes a mild stir outside the family. The De Chagnys, after all, were always known for being involved with people that would otherwise be considered beneath their station, and there are more than enough rumours around his elder half-brother and the romantic entanglements of other members of the family that anything he might ever do is already overshadowed.

It is not that Émile is unaware of the things that people say about him and his family. It is more that he has elected not to care. If something is not illegal, then why should it concern anyone? He cannot bring himself to care about people frowning on the choices of him and those he cares about when those very same people frowned on his father marrying his mother once upon a time, and thus have frowned on him for his very existence his whole life.

It is why, when it comes to the wedding photo for his side of the family, he insists on it including his whole family, and not simply his brother and sister and parents.

The photographer grumbles over it, but Émile holds his chin high and eyes him in the defiant way Philippe taught him once upon a time, and the man has no choice but to go ahead.

And so it is that three generations of the family are immortalized in a photograph that is copied and shared across six houses. In the centre Émile is standing beside Katerina, and his smile is proud and a touch devil-may-care. In front of him Christine sits beside Anja, the folds of whose dress are artfully arranged to hide her growing belly, hiding the third child that is yet a secret from the world. Marguerite is beside her, two blonde toddlers on her knee, her war-scarred husband’s hand on her shoulder. Unknown to her, André had leaned in and asked Val to guide him to look in the right place for the camera. His eyes have been troubling him more than usual, so he’s wearing dark glasses to ease the irritation, and they become him wonderfully but they are anything but a help to his vision. Val is more than happy to help him, and he can’t help smiling to think of all the dear people that have come into his life because of Anja.

Philippe is sitting at Christine’s other side, the best part of the way to ninety years old, both hands firmly holding his cane, Sorelli sitting a little closer to him than the conventions of a married couple in a photo would generally allow, and beside her is Isabel, a third baby in her arms and Guillaume looking more than a little proud of himself standing behind her.

Raoul stands tall beside Émile, and though he is well in his sixties he is just as distinguished as ever, his hand on Christine’s shoulder. And beside him is Konstin, just as gaunt as he has ever been but his eyes are bright with Antoine at his side (and Antoine’s hand in his, discreetly out of view of the camera).

And sitting on the floor, looking for all the world like royalty, are Freyja and Victor, and Guillaume’s elder two, Jean and August. They know nothing of all that their parents went through, their aunts and uncles and cousins, but a time will come when they will, when they will know all that and a whole lot more, and looking at the photo framed over the fireplace, Christine only hopes that they will not learn such things for a good long time yet.

But this is her family, and whatever trials lie ahead matter not now. Not when she has them.

And it is thanks to Erik, really. All thanks to Erik. If Erik had not trained her voice, then Raoul might not have noticed her all those years ago, might not have remembered her. And if it were not for Erik she would not have Konstin, would not have had Nadir and Darius by her side. Everything she has she owes to Erik, and she closes her eyes, and sighs, and knows that somewhere out there he is watching over her still, like he always has. Like he always will.

[insomniasix]

Niflheim Sleep Experiment

Previously on Final Fantasy XV Halloween Special (With @nemo-ne-impune-lacessit , @chocobabyporcelain and yours truly ^^) 

Blacksmith of Solheim |  Monochrome Ward |  The Smiling Man. | Who Stands Behind You? | O Light

A/N: This will get weirder the more you read xD  

Based on a Creppypasta legend.

Warnings: Blood, Suffering, Cannibalism, Experiments, Violence, Creepy shit, and a lot of triggers | Words: 2103

On the second year of Darkness, when the Prince of light was away, Ardyn Izunia –Niflheim’s chancellor, the Immortal Accursed, along with his evil mastermind of a friend, Verstael Besithia, kept five of their favorite ‘pets-clones’ awake for fifteen days using an experimental gas based stimulant, extracted by the Scourge running through the Chancellor’s veins.

They were kept in a sealed environment to carefully monitor their oxygen intake so the gas didn’t turn them into daemons, since that was the Scourge’s original use.

This was after Prompto Argentum and Aranea Highwind escaped Besithia’s claws, so there were no cameras; the team only had microphones and five inch thick glass – porthole sized windows.

The chamber was stocked with books, running water and a toilet; along with enough dried food to last all five for over a month –but no bedding.

The test subjects were exact copies of the Chancellor’s mortal enemy’s company.

Noctis Lucis Caelum, the One True King himself.

His Best friend, Prompto Argentum.

His Advisor, Ignis Scientia.

His Shield, Gladiolus Amicitia.

And his Glaive, Six Ulric.

Their fears, memories and behaviors implanted in their copied brains by the help of technology, as well as magic.

…

Everything was fine the first five days. The subjects hardly complained, having been promised –falsely – that they would be freed if they submitted to the test; to not sleep for thirty days.

Their conversations and activities were monitored and it was noted that they continued to talk about all the happy times in their lives.

Thoughts and memories of the actual people whose faces they wore.

The tone of their conversations took on a darker aspect after the fourth day. Having been all out of happy thoughts; the death, pain and misery had being their only source of sanity.

After the fifth day, they started to complain about the circumstances and demonstrate severe paranoia.

They stopped talking to each other and began whispering to the microphones. Oddly, they all seemed to think they could win Ardyn’s trust by turning in their comrades.

At first, Izunia and Besithia agreed this was an effect of the Scourge itself, the first step on crushing one’s soul.

After nine days, Prompto started screaming! He run around the chamber repeatedly, yelling at the top of his lungs for five hours straight. Approximately ten minutes after the fifth hour, he was only able to let out but a few squeaks and whimpers after he’d torn out his vocal cords.

“It is astonishing, how the others do not seem to mind his screaming.” Master Besithia had noted, scratching his long white beard.

The rest of the subjects continued their whispering until Six started to scream as Gladiolus and Ignis took the books apart, page by page and calmly pasted them over the glass windows, using some of their chewed food.

The screaming immediately stopped.

As did the whispering in the microphones.

After three more days passed, Izunia ordered the microphones be checked, in order to make sure they were still working, since he thought it was impossible for no sound to be heard at all.

“I cannot comprehend your trail of thought, Chancellor.” Besithia had commented “The oxygen consumption indicates they are all alive.”

“What worries me, dear old friend, is that the oxygen levels are those of five people under exercise.” Izunia thought out loud as an answer “And yet, there’s not a single heavy breath to be heard.”

“Let us wait then,” the scientist waved him off “the day is still young.”

…

On the morning of the fourteenth day, the two heads of the researching team used the intercom inside the chamber –something they had agreed on being their last resort –in order to provoke a response from the clones.

“We are opening the chamber to test the microphones,” captain Drautos’ voice was heard, being as stern and heavy as always “step away from the door and lay on your stomachs. Complaisance will earn one of you your immediate freedom.”

To everyone’s surprise, they heard a single phrase in a calm female whisper “We no longer want to be freed.”

Everything went silent after that.

Ardyn, unable to provoke any other sign of response decided “The doors will be opened at midnight tomorrow.”

…

The fifteenth day.

The chamber was flushed of the Scourge gas and filled with fresh air; voices from the microphones began to object immediately.

Three of them started begging and pleading for the gas to be turned back on, lest they fall asleep.

The chamber was opened and Drautos, along with a small part of his team, moved in to retrieve the clones.

They began to scream louder than ever, and so did the soldiers when they saw what was inside.

Four of the five subjects were still alive –although, none could really call them ‘alive’ seeing the state they were in.

The food rations past day five had not been so much as touched.

There were chunks of tattooed flesh, as well as parts of the dead subject’s thighs and chest stuffed into the drain, in the center of the chamber, blocking it and allowing four inches of water to accumulate on the floor.

Not even the Accursed himself, could determine how much of the liquid was blood.

All four ‘surviving’ clones also had huge portions of muscle, skin and organs torn away from their bodies.

The destruction of flesh and exposed bone on their fingertips indicated that the wounds were not inflicted by teeth, like Besithia originally suggested, but by hand –and not all of them were self-inflicted.

It quickly became apparent that the subjects had been eating their own flesh, which they had ripped off over the course of days.

To everyone’s surprise, the test subjects put up a fierce fight in the process of being removed from the chamber.

One of the Niflheim soldiers died from having his throat ripped out, another was gravely injured by having an artery in his leg severed by one of the clone’s teeth.

In the struggle, the Ignis clone had his spleen ruptured and he bled out almost immediately. The medical researchers attempted to sedate him but it proved impossible.

Ignis was injected with more than ten times the human dose of a stone derivative and still fought like a cornered animal, breaking one of the doctor’s arm and ribs.

His heart was monitored, seemingly beating for a full two minutes after he’d bled out to the point where there was more air in it than blood.

He kept repeating the word “More” over and over, weaker every time, until he finally fell silent.

…

The surviving three tests, Noctis, Prompto and Six, were heavily restrained and moved to a medical facility.

Noctis and Six continuously begging for the Scourge gas, demanding to be kept awake.

The most injured of the three, Noctis, was taken to the only surgical operating room the facility had.

In the process of preparing him to have his organs placed back into their original place, it was found that he was effectively immune to the Stone potion they had given him.

He fought furiously against his restraints when the Sleep potion was brought out to put him under.

He managed to tear most of the way through his leather straps on one wrist –even though the cold steel of a two-hundred-pound MT soldier was holding it down as well.

It took a little more than a normal dose of Sleep to put him under, and the second his eyelids fluttered and closed, his heart stopped!

Ardyn demanded for him to be brought back and the researchers did everything in their power to comply.

Once his eyes darted open, the doctors began their procedure.

…

The second survivor had been the first of the five to start screaming.

Prompto.

With his vocal cords destroyed, he was unable to beg or object to surgery; he only reacted by shaking his head violently in disapproval when the Sleep potion was brought near him.

He shook his head ‘yes’ when Besithia suggested they try the surgery with him fully awake, and did not react for the entire six hour procedure.

One terrified nurse assisting the surgery, stated that she had seen the patient’s mouth curl into a smile several times, whenever his eyes met hers.

When the surgery ended, Prompto looked at the surgeon and began to wheeze loudly, attempting to talk while struggling. Assuming this must be something of drastic importance, Besithia ordered for a pad and a pen to be brought to the young clone so he could write his message.

It was simple “Keep cutting.”

…

Six and Noctis –after been brought back –were given the same surgery, both without anesthetic as well.

Although, they had to be injected with an experimented form of the Stone potion for the duration of the operation. The surgeon found it impossible to perform the operation while the two laughed continuously.

Once paralyzed, the subjects could only follow the attending researchers –as well as Ardyn –with their eyes.

The potion cleared their system in an abnormally short period of time and they were soon trying to escape their bonds.

The moment they could speak, they started asking for the gas as Ardyn asked them why they had injured themselves and why they wanted to be given the Scourge gas again.

Only one response was given as the two answered in unison “I must remain awake!”

…

After a while of a terrifying stare battle with the female subject, Besithia had decided “The subjects will be returned to the room and given the gas.” He ordered in everyone’s relief; a feeling soon to be betrayed.

…

In preparation for being sealed in the chamber again, the clones were connected to a heart and brain monitor each.

To everyone’s surprise, all three had stopped struggling the moment it was let slip that they were going back on the Scourge.

It was obvious that at this point all three were putting up a great struggle to stay awake. Six was humming loudly and continuously, tied to one of the chairs; Prompto was straining his legs against the leather bonds to the bed with all his might, left, right then left again, something to focus on; and Noctis was trying to keep his head off the pillow under it and blinking rapidly.

Having been the first to be wired, Besithia and Drautos were monitoring his brain waves while Ardyn monitored the other two.

Noctis’ brain waves were normal most of the time, but sometimes flat lined unexpectedly. It looked as if he was repeatedly suffering brain death, before returning to normal.

As the two focused on the paper scrolling out of the brainwave monitor only one nurse saw his eyes slip shut at the same moment his head hit the pillow. His brainwaves immediately changed to that of deep sleep, then flat lined for the last time as his heart simultaneously stopped.

Watching him, Six started screaming to be sealed in now!

Her brainwaves showed the same flat lines as Noctis’.

Captain Drautos gave the order to seal the chamber with both subjects inside, as well as three of his soldiers. Ravus Nox Fleuret, having heard his name among the three, immediately drew his gun and shot the captain point blank between the eyes, then turned the gun to Prompto and blew his brains out as well.

He pointed his gun on Six as Ardyn made his way to stand next to him, watching as Six stared up at the two with a small smirk under her widened eyes.

“I won’t be locked in here with these things!” The young silver haired solder screamed at the woman chained in the chair in front of him “What, in Leviathan’s name, are you?” he demanded to know.

Six smiled staring up at the Chancellor, instead of the one asking the question.

“Have you forgotten so easily?” she asked “We are you. We are the madness that lurks within you,” she looked around before staring back at the Accursed “all of you. Begging to be free at every moment in your deepest animal mind. We are what you hide from in your beds every night. We are what you sedate into silence and paralysis when you go to the nocturnal haven, where we cannot tread.”

Ardyn Izunia paused, getting the gun off of Ravus’ trembling hand and aiming at Six’s heart before firing.

The monitor flat lined as she weakly chocked out the words.

“So… nearly… free…”

“Bring on the next five.” Ardyn ordered as they all stared as Six let out her last breath.

Tagging: @asonataspassions @mzargentum @fieryfantasy @odangoatama@valkyrieofardyn @mp938368 @thedragontamerying @leafwrington@alicemoonwonderland @nykamito @theyearofdiamonddogs @mandakatt@stunninglyignis @ladye11e @lady-asuka @expectogladiolus @insomniacapples@frostca11 @chimeracuddles

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/technology/entertainment/jackson-nicks-enter-hall-with-encouragement-for-women/

Jackson, Nicks enter hall with encouragement for women

Stevie Nicks, who became the first woman inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Janet Jackson, the latest member of the Jackson clan to enter the hall, called for other women to join them in music immortality on a night they were honored with five all-male British bands.

Jackson issued her challenge just before leaving the stage of Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” she said, “in 2020, induct more women.”

Neither Jackson or Nicks were around at the end of the evening when another Brit, Ian Hunter, led an all-star jam at the end to “All the Young Dudes.” The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs was the only woman onstage.

During the five-hour ceremony, Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music thanked multiple bass players and album cover designers, the Cure’s Robert Smith proudly wore his mascara and red lipstick a month shy of his 60th birthday and two of Radiohead’s five members showed up for trophies.

During Def Leppard’s induction, Rick Allen was moved to tears by the audience’s standing ovation when singer Joe Elliott recalled the drummer’s perseverance following a 1985 accident that cost him an arm.

Jackson followed her brothers Michael and the Jackson 5 as inductees. She said she wanted to go to college and become a lawyer growing up, but her late father Joe had other ideas for her.

“As the youngest in my family, I was determined to make it on my own,” she said. “I was determined to stand on my own two feet. But never in a million years did I expect to follow in their footsteps.”

She encouraged Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, producers of her breakthrough “Control” album and most of her vast catalog, to stand in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center for recognition, as well as booster Questlove. She thanked Dick Clark of “American Bandstand” and Don Cornelius of “Soul Train,” along with her choreographers including Paula Abdul.

There was some potential for awkward vibes Friday, since the event was being filmed to air on HBO on April 27. HBO angered the Jackson family this winter for showing the documentary “Leaving Neverland,” about two men who alleged Michael Jackson abused them when they were boys. Jackson never mentioned Michael specifically in her remarks but thanked her brothers, and he was shown on screen with the rest of the family.

Jackson was inducted by an enthusiastic Janelle Monae, whose black hat and black leather recalled some of her hero’s past stage looks. She said Jackson had been her phone’s screen-saver for years as a reminder to be focused and fearless in how she approached art.

Nicks was the night’s first induction. She is already a member of the hall as a member of Fleetwood Mac, but only the first woman to join 22 men — including all four Beatles members — to have been honored twice by the rock hall for the different stages of their career.

Nicks offered women a blueprint for success, telling them her trepidation in first recording a solo album while a member of Fleetwood Mac and encouraging others to match her feat.

“I know there is somebody out there who will be able to do it,” she said, promising to talk often of how she built her solo career. “What I am doing is opening up the door for other women.”

During her four-song set, she brought onstage a cape she bought in 1983 to prove to her “very frugal” late mother that it was still in good shape, and worth its $3,000 price tag. Don Henley joined her to sing “Leather and Lace,” while Harry Styles filled in for the late Tom Petty on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.”

David Byrne inducted Radiohead, noting he was flattered the band named itself after one of his songs. He said their album “Kid A” was the one that really hooked him, and he was impressed Radiohead could be experimental in both their music and how they conduct business.

“They’re creative and smart in both areas, which was kind of a rare combination for artists, not just now but anytime,” he said.

With only drummer Philip Selway and guitarist Ed O’Brien on hand, Radiohead didn’t perform; there was a question of whether any of them would show up given the group’s past ambivalence about the hall. But both men spoke highly of the honor.

“This is such a beautifully surreal evening for us,” said O’Brien. “It’s a big (expletive) deal and it feels like it. … I wish the others could be here because they would be feeling it.”

The Cure’s Smith has been a constant in a band of shifting personnel, and he stood onstage for induction Friday with 11 past and current members. Despite their goth look, the Cure has a legacy of pop hits, and performed three of them at Barclays, “I Will Always Love You,” ”Just Like Heaven” and “Boys Don’t Cry.”

Visibly nervous, Smith called his induction a “very nice surprise” and shyly acknowledged the crowd’s cheers.

“It’s been a fantastic thing, it really has,” he said. “We love you, too.”

His inductee, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, recalled ridiculing the rock hall in past years because he couldn’t believe the Cure wasn’t in. When he got the call that the band was in, he said “I was never so happy eating my words as I was that day.”

Def Leppard sold tons of records, back when musicians used to do that, with a heavy metal sound sheened to pop perfection on songs like “Photograph” and “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” They performed them in a set that climaxed the annual ceremony.

Singer Joe Elliott stressed the band’s working-class roots, thanking his parents and recalling how his father gave them 150 pounds to make their first recording in 1978.

Besides Allen’s accident, the band survived the 1991 death of guitarist Steve Clark. Elliott said there always seemed to be a looming sense of tragedy around the corner for the band, but “we wouldn’t let it in.”

“If alcoholism, car crashes and cancer couldn’t kill us, the ’90s had no (expletive) chance,” said Elliott, referring to his band mates as the closest thing to brothers that an only child could have.

Roxy Music, led by the stylish Ferry, performed a five-song set that included hits “Love is the Drug,” ”More Than This” and “Avalon.” (Brian Eno didn’t show for the event).

Simon LeBon and John Taylor of Duran Duran inducted them, with Taylor saying that hearing Roxy Music in concert at age 14 showed him what he wanted to do with his life.

“Without Roxy Music, there really would be no Duran Duran,” he said.

The soft-spoken Ferry thanked everyone from a succession of bass players to album cover designers. “We’d like to thank everyone for this unexpected honor,” he said.

The Zombies, from rock ‘n’ roll’s original British invasion, were the veterans of the night. They made it despite being passed over in the past, but were gracious in their thanks of the rock hall. They performed hits “Time of the Season,” ”Tell Her No” and “She’s Not There.”

Zombies lead singer Rod Argent noted that the group had been eligible for the hall for 30 years but the honor had eluded them.

“To have finally passed the winning post this time — fantastic!”

[readingfordummies]

Witches of East End - Chapter Seven

A New Boy

Motherhood had robbed Joanna of her figure, of that she was sure. No matter how much she dieted (and she had tried them all: the Atkins and the Zone, the low-cal and the low-carb, the cabbage and the cookie, the Jenny and the Watchers, the South Beach and the Sugar Busters, the tea and juice cleanses, the endless hours spent exercising - first the running and then the spinning - the step classes and the yoga and the Pilates), she never could get rid of those dreaded last ten pounds, that tire around her belly. Her daughters nagged her on her obsession, telling her she looked good for her age. And what age would that be exactly? Six thousand years?

It was understood that women of a certain age no longer cared about their looks, but it was a lie. Vanity did not die of old age, especially in beautiful women, and oh, she had been beautiful once - so beautiful that she had married the most fearsome god of all. But it was too late to think of what had been. Her husband had abandoned her, along with her good looks, a long time ago. Oh, in the right light she was attractive, she supposed, she was still "handsome," but who wanted to be called handsome when one was once beautiful?

The problem, as she saw it, was that right when she would finally get her figure back, bam, she would find herself pregnant again, and the whole cycle of gaining and losing would start up once more. The children had to be reborn whenever they got themselves into trouble and had to leave the world, or else had been pushed out of it by accident (a car crash, maybe; Freya had once died in a hotel fire) or out of evil (like the crisis that had took their lives in the seventeenth century), and Joanna would begin to feel the symptoms. It usually happened after she hadn't heard from her girls in a century or two. First, her gray hair would turn blond again. She would be amazed at her changed appearance, the loss of wrinkles, the fat in her cheeks, strong hands that did not ache from arthritis. Then it would happen: the vomiting, the nausea, the exhaustion. And she would realize: goddamnit, she was pregnant!

Nine months later she would have a fat, crying baby to care for and love. This time the girls were reborn just a few years apart, so that in the current lifetime they had grown up like proper sisters again, arguing over toys, annoying each other on long car rides. Life had been a happy dullness of preschool and swimming and gymnastics and endless birthday parties along with the occasional accidental magical outburst: Ingrid's griffin causing havoc with the flower beds; and having to keep Freya from cursing mean girls she did not like.

It was easy enough to fool the neighbors; the restriction did not prohibit Joanna from using her great power to keep their immortality hidden. It wouldn't do to have people wonder why the "widow" Beauchamp suddenly looked half her age and was pregnant to boot. Magic was useful in that matter at least.

No matter what, though, no matter how long it had been, with every hopeful pregnancy she never got her boy back. Never. Of course she understood it was useless to hope that she would. That had been made clear to her during the sentencing after the bridge between the worlds had collapsed. Joanna knew he was still alive, but no witchcraft could help him now. He was out of her reach.

One would think after so many lifetimes the pain would dull a little, but it never did. If anything, every passing year just made it ache that much more. She missed him more than ever and thought about him every day. That was the problem with motherhood: not only did it make you fat and put anxiety lines in your forehead, but the love you felt - that intense, all-consuming love for one's child - was like owning the sharpest and most exquisite knife. It stabbed her right in the heart. Her boy was alive somewhere but he might as well be dead to her, since she would never get him back. They had taken that away from her. It was the worst kind of sentence a mother could suffer, which was why it had been given.

Her beautiful boy, her happiest child: his smile was the sun, his light lit up the whole entire world. It was true what they said about mothers and sons: it was a special bond. It was also true what they said: one loved one's children the same amount, but sometimes you liked one child more than another. She had been mourning his loss for so long, and the girls were a great comfort. Still, it had never been the same. But now she had this wonderful new boy: this Tyler Alvarez, of the quirky flapping hands and the naughty smile, who would not embrace her yet would head-butt her if he wanted a kiss on the top of his head. He did not heal the hole in her heart, but he did fill a gap that had been empty for a very long time. Joanna took to the boy immediately. He called her Abuela, or "Lala" for short, and she called him Checkers. She wasn't sure where that came from, something with his cheeks maybe. She was constantly pinching them. She loved her daughters, but they did not need her anymore. They were grown-ups with their own problems. Tyler was another story.

Right now they were making a pie. Motherhood might have robbed her of her figure, but to be honest Joanna had been something of an collaborator in that matter. Aside from constantly renovating the house, her other weakness was baking. The kitchen always smelled like melted butter, filling the air with its rich, creamy, caramel smell. Joanna was teaching Tyler how to make a nectarine and blackberry pie. The fruit had been picked from the family orchard, the nectarines bursting with sweetness and the blackberries tart and tangy.

Tyler held the measuring spoon. "How much sugar?" he asked, his fingers hovering above the bag of sugar on the counter. She had given him the task of sweetening the syrup.

"More, darling, more," Joanna urged as she pounded and rolled the dough that would form the crust.

After Tyler had added what looked like two cups of sugar into the mix, she cut into a long black vanilla bean and scraped the contents, adding it to the filling. Once the pie was ready to bake, Tyler helped her place it into the oven, an old Aga stove that she had purchased during a previous renovation.

"Now what?" he asked, his face smeared with fruit stains and his hair white with flour.

"Now we wait," Joanna smiled.

Yesterday they had made brownies, the day before cupcakes, the day before that a moist and chewy nut roll. It was an orgy of baking, more so than usual, and Ingrid and Freya had begged the sugary tidal wave to stop. They might be immortal but their bodies were not immune to the havoc wreaked by a steady diet of baked goods.

Joanna had told them they would just have to deal with it the way everyone else did, with discipline and restriction. Just because she made these delicious treats did not mean they had to eat them. She wasn't shoving brownies and cake into their mouths, now, was she? Besides, Tyler loved baking, and she was enjoying herself too much to stop. She was finding it was great fun acting like someone's mother without the weight of responsibility. All she had to do was nurture and feed while someone else would do the disciplining and the time-outs.

"We'll need ice cream to eat with the pie," Joanna said, removing a carton from the freezer. "Extra scoops?"

Tyler nodded energetically and she ruffled his hair. There was something about little boys. Boys in general adored their mothers. Girls were tricky. She knew the girls loved her, but she also understood that deep down, they blamed her for their father's absence. They didn't understand her, and sometimes she didn't understand how to talk to them. Everything she said was taken as criticism, as judgment. Over the years she had learned she should never comment on anything.

So did she say anything when Ingrid moved back home and, instead of taking that position at the university, chose to work as a clerk at the local library? No! Did she ever mention her disappointment that her brilliant daughter with the doctorate had steamed paper for the last several years? Not a word! Did she say anything when Freya opened that bar in New York without a proper liquor license? Nope! Did she ever suggest that Freya might want to dress a little less provocatively? Never! Or that perhaps she was rushing into marriage? Of course, Freya and Bran were meant to be together; just one look at their happy faces told her everything a mother needed to know. But even if she did not approve, Joanna knew better than to get into it with her daughters. Because just one "Perhaps we have had enough cookies?" (After all, the girls had eaten three each already!) and there was that face. The one that said Mother knows least.

Or else she would be shut out as she had been that morning. Did they think she did not notice? She was jealous sometimes, of the bond the sisters had between them, just as she had been jealous a long time ago of the easy relationship they had had with their father. Daughters. They could cut you with a look.

She knew Tyler would never look at her that way. Tyler adored her and the feeling was mutual. Joanna now paid for him to attend a fancy children's year-round preschool, and while his parents shared the morning drop-off it was Joanna who picked him up every afternoon with a snack or a treat in hand. After school they would go to the beach, where Tyler would spend the rest of the afternoon chasing birds and collecting seashells while Joanna watched him.

There hadn't been anything odd since the three dead birds a week ago, and Joanna was starting to relax. Maybe that nagging worry in the back of her mind was just a by-product of their history. Perhaps she was just seeing signs where there weren't any. Life in North Hampton never changed; she herself had seen to that when she first moved into town.

Oh dear, the pie had burned. She had forgotten to set the timer and now it was black and smoking. If she had been Freya, this would never have happened, but her magic was of a different sort. Tyler's face crumpled, threatening an avalanche of tears. Lala had promised that there would be pie and ice cream.

"I'm so sorry, darling," Joanna sighed.

"Pie," Tyler said stubbornly. "Pie."

"We'll just have to make another one . . ."

"Pie."

Joanna put her hands on her hips. She had overheard her daughters talking that morning. Something about how Freya had made a love potion - of the three of them, Freya had always been the bravest due to her natural impulsiveness. But if nothing had happened to Freya, then . . . well . . . wouldn't it stand to reason that she could do the same? It would just be a simple flick of the wrist, one little incantation and all would be right with Tyler's world. It wouldn't use up that much energy, after all, and truly, the oracle had been silent for many years; who knew if the restriction even applied to something so small? . . . Joanna's hands began to shake. She wanted to do this. She would do this. It was just a pie, after all, she told herself. It was just part of the baking process. Bake pie. Burn pie. Restore pie.

"Don't tell anyone," she whispered. Recovery and renewal was her brand of witchcraft. She covered the burned pie with a dish towel, whispered a few words, and when she removed it, the crust was golden brown and perfect.

Tyler's eyes widened and he began to bounce on his heels. "You're a witch!" he said with glee.

"Shhh!" Joanna's eyes danced but she looked around in fear. No one had called her that for centuries. It brought back too many memories, not all of them good.

"Are you? Are you a witch?"

Joanna laughed. "What if I am?"

For a moment the little boy looked frightened and moved away from her, probably thinking of witches in fairy tales, ugly hags who shoved children into ovens and baked them into pies.

Joanna wrapped him in her arms and for once he let her hold him, let her soothe him with a kiss on the nape of his neck. The little boy smelled like baby lotion and sugar. "No, my darling. Never. You have nothing to fear from me."

[kcte-bishop]

Vicious Re-read update:

I’ve been slowly making my way through the book again when I’ve had the time, which has ended up being a couple of chapters every few days - not as speedy as I was hoping, but I’ve had other things that I’ve needed to do as well. I’m pausing this for now until we break for easter, since I think I’ve already got a lot of really useful information from what I’ve read so far anyway!

I’ve gone through and used sticky tabs to mark all the interesting bits of Information that I’ve found regarding the four characters. I’ve typed up some of the things I’ve found already, up to page 56, which I’ll put under a read more - one, because it’s long, and two, because I don’t want any angry messages from people saying that i’ve spoiled things!

Victor:

He might have stopped humming, but the sensation never did, keeping on with a faint electrical buzz that only he could hear and feel and read. A buzz that told him when someone was near.

Victors hair was a pale blond. When the sunlight hit him, it didn’t bring out any colours, but only accentuated the lack of colour, making him look more like an old-fashioned photo than a flesh and blood human.

After finding a few smaller texts on adrenal glands and human impulse, he checked out, careful to keep his fingertips – permanently stained from his art projects – hidden in his pockets…

And then he smiled, which she noticed he seemed to do a lot before he lied

“Did you know,” said Victor, skimming a book from the prison library on anatomy (he thought it particularly foolish to endow inmates with a detailed sense of the positions of vital organs, but there you go), “that when you take away a persons fear of pain, you take away their fear of death? You make them, in their own eyes, immortal. Which of course they’re not, but what’s the saying? We are all immortal until proven otherwise?”

Everything about him was light – his skin, his hair, his eyes, his hands as they danced through the air above her skin, touching her only when absolutely necessary.

“Let me look at that.” He reached out, letting his fingers graze her jacket. The air around his hand crackled the way it always did, and the girl let out a barely audible breath of relief.

Eli:

His rich brown hair caught the too bright sun, bringing out reds and even threads of gold.

Victor had been none too happy to find the lanky, brown-haired boy standing in the doorway of his dorm a month into sophomore year.

But what fascinated Victor the most was the fact that something about Eli was decidedly wrong. He was like one of those pictures full of small errors, the kind you could only pick out by searching the image from every angle, and even then, a dew always slipped by. On the surface, Eli seemed perfectly normal, but now and then Victor would catch a crack, a sideways glance, and moment when his roommate’s face and his words, his look and his meaning, would not line up. Those fleeting slices fascinated Victor. It was like watching two people, one hiding in the others skin. And their skin was always too dry, on the verge of cracking and showing the colour of the thing beneath.

It was as if Eliot Cardale had found God. Even better, as if he had found God and wanted to keep it a secret but couldn’t. It shone through his skin like light

Serena:

There was the Serena from before the lake. The Serena who’d knelt on the floor in front of her the day she left for college – they both knew she was abandoning Sydney to the toxic, empty house – and who used her thumb to wipe tears away from Sydney’s cheek, saying over and over, I’m not gone, I’m not gone.

And then there was the Serena form after the lake. The one whose eyes were cold and whose eyes were hollow, and who made things happen with only words. The one who lured Sydney into a field with a body, cooing at her to show her trick, and then looking sad when she did. The one who turned her back when her boyfriend raised his gun.

Sydney:

She kept her arms crossed tightly over her chest, one gloved thumb rubbing the spot on her upper arm where she’d been shot. It was becoming a tic

Sydney’s arms were beginning to ache from lifting the shovel, but for the first time in a year, she wasn’t cold. Her cheeks burned, and she was sweating through her coat, and she felt alive.

Her watery blue eyes stared at him, unblinking.

The figure looked up at him then, and the wet hood of the coat fell back onto a pair of narrow shoulders. Water blue eyes, fierce behind smudged black liner, stared up at him from a young face. Victor knew pain too well to be fooled by the defiant look, the set jaw around which wet blond hair curled and stuck. She couldn’t be more than twelve, thirteen maybe.

“Well, Sydney. You have a bullet in your arm, your pulse is several beats too slow for someone your age, and your temperature feels about five degrees too low.”

Quotes:

All Eli had to do was smile. All Victor had to do was lie. Both proved frighteningly effective.

Eli’s smile didn’t falter. “An argument for the theoretical feasibility of the existence of ExtraOrdinary people, deriving from laws of biology, chemistry and psychology.”

Victor was out. Victor was free. And Victor was coming for Eli – Just as he’d said he would. He sunk the shovel into the cold earth with a satisfying thud.

“Everything starts with belief.” Countered Eli. “With faith.”

But Victor didn’t want to run whilst Eli was busy trying to fly.

“And it’s a thesis.” Eli went on. “I’m trying to find a scientific explanation for the EO phenomena. It’s not like I’m actually trying to make one.” Victors mouth twitched, and then it twisted into a smile. “Why not?”

“You asked if I ever wanted to believe in something. I do. I want to believe in this. I want to believe that there’s more.” Victor sloshed a touch of Whiskey over the edge of his glass. “That we could be more. Hell, we could be heroes.” “We could be dead.” Said Eli. “That’s a risk everyone takes by living.”

The moments that define lives aren’t always obvious. They don’t always scream LEDGE, and nine times out of ten there’s no rope to duck under, no line to cross, no blood pact, no official letter on fancy paper. They aren’t always protracted, heaving with meaning. But between one sip and the next, Victor made the biggest mistake of his life, and it was made of nothing more than one line. Three small words. “I’ll go first.”

“The two looked like ghosts as they wove through the graveyard, both blond and fair enough to pass for siblings, or perhaps father and daughter.”