#he seemed happy that someone was interested in his ink! and sailing

[mycological-mariner]

Beautiful thing happened today: the guy doing headshots had these brilliant nautical tattoos and I, a known ship nerd, pointed them out and said I thought they were brilliant. And he launched into how for 12 years he worked on a tall ship at one point as the captain. He got all excited telling me about it and asked if I was working on any ships. I said no, but I’d love to, have wanted to ever since I was a kid; he asks if I know so-and-so, to call him and even just being a passenger will get you credit with skippers. And at this point I’m grinning and laughing and I really want to talk more about sailing and historical stuff with this guy. He goes “Right tilt your head this way, you wanna look warm and approachable yet tough for any skippers!” Probably the best headshots I’ll ever get, those smiles were sincere. Then he recommended me his favourite book - its 700 pages and it’s 300 years of historical fiction called “We, The Drowned” which I’m checking out asap because it sounds brilliant

[valiantly-onward]

The Serpentine War Ch. 11

Happy New Year all! Here’s to a brilliant year of Ninjago ahead. I’m extremely stoked (and worried) for season 14

Chapter 11: Reckonings

Garmadon dreamt of snakes and shadows.

They stalked him. Shadows on all sides, snakes at his feet. Over and over, one emerged from the murk. A tiny garden snake, green, frills around its head, haunting intelligence in its eyes. Hunger.

This was no common garden snake, no matter what his young mind had supposed. Purple venom dripped from its fangs. Even in the dream, Garmadon rubbed his arm where twin scars bespoke his encounter with this beast.

The shadows darkened. You cannot have me, he told the serpent. Never.

But they both knew it was a lie. Sooner or later, the darkness would take him.

Garmadon thought of Misako. He thought of Wu. Oh, his poor, naive brother. But naive wasn’t the right word. Nor was pure - despite their predispositions to creation and destruction, Wu had just as many skeletons in his closet as Garmadon did. No, it was inherent morals. Protect others, save the innocents, do what is right. That was Wu.

For Garmadon, it was more selfish than that. Him and his own. Once, “his own” had encompassed all of Ninjago. But it was getting smaller. Much smaller.

And it was this snake’s fault.

He picked up the fallen katana, the one Wu had thrown over the wall. The one Wu had been too afraid to recover. Garmadon brought the blade down on the snake’s neck. As it hit, the little creature evaporated into shadows.

Garmadon opened his eyes.

It was the afternoon. That much he could tell, from the reddening light on his window screen. Chen had taken the liberty of letting Garmadon destroy his nine-hundred-year-old sleep schedule. After all, Garmadon was a lord now. He could do whatever he wanted.

Garmadon sat up, rubbing his head, as if he could run off the dreams, the blackness. Some days he felt empowered. Some days he felt smothered. Today, it was like it could go either way.

Eager to forget, he dressed and left his room. He strode down the open deck outside. Immediately, he took note of how the servants were avoiding the other side of the house. Chen’s side.

Interesting. Garmadon started that way.

Someone was throwing things.

Garmadon slid open the door to Chen’s public room, and an ink well sailed at his head. He dodged it, and the second that followed. Garmadon stepped behind the door and watched Chen thunder about the room. Garmadon had never seen him so angry.

Clouse was there too. Garmadon didn’t understand why Chen still kept him around. Garmadon had won. Why did Chen need this slimeball?

“Master,” Clouse said evenly. “This is only a setback.”

“Setback?” Chen shrieked. He rounded on Clouse, getting right in his face. “They’ve struck a truce! The Anacondrai explicitly defied me to fraternize with their enemies!”

“It’s conditional on who will fight, my lord.”

“Conditional on who will fight!” Chen sneered. “None of them will. Not while Goody-goody Wu is on the case.”

“They could be persuaded.” There was a gleam in Clouse’s eyes.

Chen paused. He eyed Clouse for a moment. “Your skills. You are up to the task?”

“I am, my lord.”

Something in Chen’s expression eased. Just like that, he returned to the suave lord, the constantly-in-control. Everything was as it should be. The only proof that it wasn’t was the ink trickling between the courtyard stones.

“Well, then,” Chen said. He leaned on his main table. “You will press them, Clouse. And you will not deliver the final blow until I say so. We must make sure that when the fighting begins again, this time it will not end. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

Suddenly, Clouse stiffened. He spun, finding Garmadon watching at the edge of the doorway. Chen saw him too. A smile crossed his lips.

“Ah, Lord Garmadon.” Chen walked to the door and clapped Garmadon’s shoulder, guiding him inside. He looked at Clouse. “You may go, Clouse. Remember what I said. Press them.”

Clouse bowed and left. Chen sat Garmadon down at his map table. Garmadon’s gaze immediately consumed the maps - the markings, the positioning of forces, Chen’s notes in the margins. He memorized all of it.

Chen leaned on the back of his own chair. “How is lordship treating you, Garmadon?”

“Very well, sir.” So Wu had made camp in the Echo Canyons. Nice. Good tactical position.

Chen, unsurprisingly, followed Garmadon’s interest. After a moment of silence, he said, “I believe it’s time to advance to your next phase of training, Garmadon. A little project Clouse and I have been working on.”

Garmadon looked up. “I thought I was superior to Clouse.”

“Oh, you are.” Chen sat down. His dark eyes glittered as he surveyed the maps. “Clouse is good at following orders. But you, Garmadon, are good at giving them. Are you not?”

Wu would call this ego. Garmadon nodded. “So who do you want me to give orders to?”

“No one yet,” Chen replied. His finger tapped against the desk. “But in time. For now, I’ll simply tell you what we’ve been working on. I think you’re ready.”

But Garmadon already knew. The maps. The plans. The greedy look in Chen’s eyes.

“This is about the war,” Garmadon decided. “You’re siding with the snakes.”

Chen smiled. “I am. How does that make you feel, Garmadon?”

Garmadon wasn’t sure. He knew how he should feel about it, but that wasn’t the same as the truth. He leaned forward on the table. “What do you have to gain? You already have an estate, servants, even a following from the surrounding villages. The people here worship you.”

At this, Chen sneered. “You of all people know that you can never have enough. It’s raw hunger, Garmadon. Don’t you feel it, gnawing away inside of you?”

The snake. The Devourer. Oh, Garmadon knew this feeling well. But he couldn’t make it go away. Chen had a choice. “Sir. You have peace.”

Chen waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, peace is so boring.” He leaned greedily over the maps. “But conflict and turmoil is so unpredictable and exciting.”

“But - Master Chen.” Garmadon didn’t know why he felt so defensive. But then, why shouldn’t he? This was Ninjago. This was Wu. He thought about what he’d heard Chen and Clouse talking about before, about the stop to the fighting. “Even the Anacondrai are making concessions. There could be a truce, there could be -”

Chen interrupted him with an angry outburst. His cold gaze turned knife-sharp. “Never trust a snake, Lord Garmadon! Remember that.”

Garmadon looked down at his lap, burying his anger deep.

What appeared on his face must’ve looked different, because Chen said, “Oh, don’t look so sad. I’ve intercepted something that will make you feel better.”

Garmadon glanced up. Chen was reaching into a pack beside the table. His hand emerged waving a white envelope. There was a triumph on his face as he continued, “A love letter. Apparently, your pathetic little brother feels the same about that girl you admire.”

Garmadon’s gut wrenched. “Misako?” Wu loved Misako?

Chen slid the envelope across the table. Part of Garmadon knew this was a coordinated distraction from the topic of war, designed to coax him closer to Chen’s side, but that didn’t stop him from picking up the letter and unfolding it.

“His words are so heartfelt,” Chen said from far away. “They could sway how she feels about - one - of you.”

Dearest Misako, if we do not meet again, there is something I wish to tell you…

Garmadon scanned the lines. He recognized Wu in it. Too much of Wu, too deep. This - this was a betrayal.

“I didn’t write this,” Garmadon murmured. He closed his eyes. “I shouldn’t be reading it!”

“Didn’t you?” There was a scrape as Chen pushed his ink and quill across the table. “It could be your name on it. Certainly you feel the same.”

Garmadon opened his eyes. He stared at Chen with some measure of disbelief. Did he really expect Garmadon to cheat his little brother like this? It wasn’t right, it was -

It was Misako. This was Misako on the line. Garmadon knew her well enough to know that if she read this, if she knew Wu’s true feelings, she would fall for him. It wouldn’t matter if Garmadon felt the same way. Her heart was already drawn to Wu more than to him. This would seal it.

Something dark and jealous reared up inside his chest. Snake or no, Garmadon couldn’t lose Misako.

Part of him screaming from the inside, he dipped the quill in black ink, scratched out Wu’s small signature, and signed the letter himself.

~~~

Two weeks passed before Clouse returned.

Usually, Garmadon blessed the days Clouse was gone. But now, he was starting to realize Clouse’s little field trips had to do with the war. He was never absent for more than a few days. The longer he was gone, the more time Garmadon had to consider what he might be doing to Wu.

But no. Chen was never that blatant. He wouldn’t assassinate Wu, especially while Garmadon was so close. Even Chen knew there was nowhere he could hide if he ordered Wu killed.

So it became a dance. Garmadon was invited to Chen’s small war councils, with a few selective men and women he didn’t recognize. Garmadon went, but he sat silently through each one. A few times, he saw disapproval in Chen’s eyes. Of course Chen knew Garmadon was studying each map with strategy in mind. He knew Garmadon was taking account of numbers against numbers, the strengths and weaknesses of each side. Wu had only twelve warriors, some of them brand new, and several unpracticed as an alliance. The Serpentine, on the other hand, had every advantage. With the brilliant General Arcturus leading, the Masters would lose. No questions asked.

Except they hadn’t yet.

No. They had Wu. And if Garmadon opened his mouth, the Serpentine would have him. Brothers on opposite sides. A never-ending war. That was what Chen wanted.

Garmadon awaited Chen’s first threat. It came after one of these brief war councils in which they spoke about secretly guiding Serpentine platoons behind the Mountain of A Million Steps. Garmadon didn’t know what Clouse was doing out there, but the Serpentine seemed to be convinced that the humans would strike first. All it would take was one misinformed town, one rogue villager.

Chen took Garmadon aside while the other lords were leaving. “Lord Garmadon,” he said silkily. “I hope you were listening.”

“I was.”

“Then you know our intelligence tells us that soon, the war will begin anew.” Chen leered, just for a moment. “I would hate for you to find yourself on the wrong side.”

Garmadon faced him, gaze-to-gaze. “What is the wrong side, Master Chen?”

“The weak side, obviously.” Pale fingers gripped Garmadon’s shoulder. “What is it to be? Tell me.” He guided Garmadon to the table again and gestured to it. “Where shall we defend when the wretched human traitors revile their new overlords?”

Garmadon didn’t answer.

Chen yawned. “Bored, Garmadon. I tire of maybes. Where shall I tell the Anacondrai to defend?”

Power. That was what Garmadon wanted. Needed. Craved. He leaned forward and tapped a section of the map. “The round side of the hills. The Masters infest these hills, but not this part. Keep some Serpentine on the ground, as bait, and place some above. Those villagers won’t know what hit them.”

Garmadon turned his head to find Chen nodding, smiling. He patted Garmadon’s shoulder and left the room.

Garmadon couldn’t sleep that night. It wasn’t just the dreams. He had betrayed Wu twice in just as many weeks.

The darkness leapt. Who cares? Wu deserves to get destroyed once in a while.

That thought weighed on Garmadon the next day, and the next, until Clouse appeared again in the sweltering morning courtyard.

He walked in while Garmadon was working on scythe drills. They stopped just long enough to glower at each other before Clouse vanished into Chen’s meeting room.

Garmadon kept pushing himself through the heat. Sweat rolled down his neck. He spun the scythe through the air.

Chen’s door slid open. “Garmadon,” his voice called.

Garmadon snapped the scythe to his side. He handed it off to a passing servant and entered the room.

It was just as hot inside, if not more so. When Garmadon walked in, Clouse stood at Chen’s shoulder, looking as if he were trying to swallow something horribly sour. Chen, however, appeared calm, nevertheless hungry. Like the snake from Garmadon’s dream.

Garmadon sat without invitation. “Master Chen?”

“You asked who you would be giving orders to,” Chen said. He smiled. “Clouse has organized everything. The Anacondrai would welcome you as an advisor in the field of battle.”

The time had come.

Oddly, Garmadon could only think how fast this was. Chen was getting greedy and greed was making him sloppy in his manipulation. If Garmadon were in his place, he would’ve taken the time until this “choice” was no longer a choice.

“The Serpentine won’t fight alongside a human,” he replied. “They’ve made that clear in the past.”

Chen’s finger stroked one of the table maps. “One would think they wouldn’t side with a human. Yet here we are. They accept my help, and so they would be forced to accept you. So.”

“So,” Garmadon repeated.

He entertained what that would be like. He would go out to the Serpentine, encamp with them. He would advise their leader in that area - most likely one of the Anacondrai generals, or the Venomari General Acidicus. If they listened to him, the war would turn. Garmadon would use his powers to fight for the snakes. Likely, Wu’s Alliance would be crushed. And for the first time, the ancient Serpentine would rule Ninjago. Garmadon, under Chen, would find power, prestige, control. One day, he might even overthrow Chen.

“No,” he said.

The part of him that remembered what it meant to be a brother and a friend forced the words out. Garmadon pushed his chair away from the table. “This, I will not do for you, Chen.”

Chen wore no expression. Clouse, on the other hand, stood behind him, looking triumphant. Garmadon tried not to let that boil in his blood.

“So you will go to help you brother, then.” Chen said finally.

Garmadon hesitated. That wasn’t what he’d been thinking, but now he realized that of course that was the next move. Wu needed his help. So he would go.

He rose from his chair. “Yes.”

Chen nodded, seeming unsurprised. “Well, I’m under no illusion that I can stop you. And as I’d like to keep my estate in one piece, I suggest you leave. Now.”

There was a threat in his voice. Or else, it said. As of this moment, Garmadon had crossed a line.

Garmadon stormed out. He blustered about his own room, gathering his things. He wouldn’t need supplies - already his mind was planning the journey from here to the Western Sea of Sand, which would take a few hours at most. Then he could begin. He could begin to fight the beast inside himself, fight it, for Misako.

Somehow, he made it to the courtyard entrance. Chen was waiting there, auburn head burning under the sun. He clasped his hands behind his back as Garmadon approached. Despite his veiled words earlier, Chen smiled amiably now.

“You always have a place here,” he said. “Remember that.”

The thing that had been slipping inside Garmadon lately lost its footing. All tact and courtesy vanished. “Why would I want a place here?”

Chen’s expression didn’t change. “I know your true nature, Garmadon. Do not lie to yourself.”

“Good-bye, Master Chen.” Garmadon jogged down the steps and started off on the dusty road.

“Think on it, Garmadon,” Chen called from behind. “You will never find what you most desire.”

Garmadon stopped in the path, turning his head to the side, one cheek facing the old estate. “Maybe not,” he said, barely loud enough to be heard. “But at least I’ll be able to sleep.”

He took another step forward, and another, until each felt lighter than the last.

~~~

Wu dragged a weary hand across his face as he and Haru studied the distant Serpentine camp.

Their short-lived truce was coming to an end. Perhaps Arcturus was right. Humans and Serpentine had never worked together. Maybe peace was a lost dream, lost before it had begun.

“This is a problem,” the Master of Ice observed.

Indeed. When it became clear that the Serpentine would not brave the Echo Canyons, Wu had moved the entirety of the Alliance here, just shy of Lorin’s town. Then these Serpentine appeared overnight in the unoccupied hills. And there were hundreds of them.

Wu passed his staff to his other hand. “Standing here watching won’t serve us much. Come, Haru. We will deal with this in the morning.”

“What if they attack?”

“They won’t,” Wu replied, sliding down the rock up which they’d climbed. Arcturus wouldn’t break their agreement. But so many Serpentine so close…

Wu created a simple, pulsing golden light to guide their way back under the darkening sky. Soon, the lights of the camp came into view. Wu frowned; no sentry stood on the ridge.

“Haru,” he said. “Where -”

“Master Wu!”

There was the sentry. But he was approaching them from the camp, not from the ridge.

Sam Pale slowed to a stop. “Master Wu, we’ve have an intruder in the camp.”

Wu motioned for him to lead on. “Were you not able to stop them?”

“I tried! I didn’t even see him until Asher sounded the alarm.” Sam shook himself all over. “Ugh. Like a ghost, he was.”

Wu didn’t appreciate the comparison - he’d had one too many run-ins with ghosts. It only made him all the more anxious.

They reached the circle of tents. Sam Pale directed them straight to the command tent, then took off for the ridge again. Likely, he felt guilty about allowing a “ghost” to sneak in under his nose. He would not let it happen again.

Wu exchanged a nod with Haru, and the old Master of Ice silently understood the admission to wait outside. Wu strode purposefully into the tent.

He froze.

The young Masters of Time stood guard over the intruder, who sat cross-legged on the ground. Dark-haired. Constantly, obviously, and annoyingly satisfied with himself. A black gi. A face so like Wu’s own.

“Garmadon,” Wu said, incredulous. His soul grinned. “You said you weren’t coming.”

Garmadon gave his familiar, ever-crooked smile. “We have done everything together, Wu. Let us do this together too.”

@greenygreenland

[countessmorgasson]

Ink

Sickeningly fluffy Asra x MC! MC’s eager to show off their tattoos 🥺

Gender Neutral MC

(Based on Asra’s route, minor spoilers)

Your first solo journey was such a success. 

It was your first time outside of Vesuvia, really, aside from your visit to Nopal with Asra. 

But after all that had happened, with the truth behind your missing memory, you were stronger and happier than ever. Gone were the days of anxieties within the crowd. You now welcome the occasional whispers and looks you receive on the street. After all, at least you knew why they were whispering.

But people didn’t question any of that throughout your journeys. Your reputation preceded you, as well as Asra’s, and the only gossip revolving around you related to your skill.

There were so many sights to see, experiences to be made... you knew you weren’t done. There were nights to share under the stars, seas to sail, people to heal. The possibilities were endless.

And yet, Vesuvia called to you, like a mother welcoming her children home.

Maybe it was Asra that drew you back to the city- to the shop. You were nearly bursting at the seams with anticipation and excitement. The stories you could tell...

And of course, the gift you were given on a particularly daring night during your journey. Your first tattoo.  You couldn’t wait to see the look on Asra’s face when he saw.

Up until only weeks ago you had no idea they even existed- aside from tribal markings. As you ventured throughout other cities, villages and tribes, you discovered the artistic value of tattoos, and the personal relationships people have developed with the ink on their skin. A tattoo here, a small one there... another over here...

You’d be the only person in Vesuvia to have one when you returned.

Well, not just one.

Six.

You may have gotten carried away... but they were beautiful. And each one meant something special to you- each one a reminder of your lone travels. There was something so comforting about being able to preserve memories on your skin... so permanent... you could never forget again...

-

“M/c!”

The shop door flew open as soon as you approached it. You weren’t surprised to know that Asra was expecting you.

You could feel each other a mile away. 

Right now, your hearts are beating like crazy- rapidly, and somehow still in sync.  Your bodies are completely aligned as you hold one another. Your breathing, heartbeats... even the way your blood flows through your veins. Somehow it feels like... like you’re two halves of a whole.

“You came just in time. I just made tea.” Asra’s voice slides down your back like a shiver. You’ve missed the sound of his voice... so much. You only respond by holding tighter. 

“I missed you.” Your voice sounds strained, on the verge of breaking, but... you’re just so happy. You didn’t realize how much you needed his touch until now.

Of course the two of you communicated while you were away. In dreams, through the occasional river stream or mirror... but it didn’t compare to the physical thing. 

Solitude had its perks, but there was nothing like this.

“Tell me everything,” Asra takes both of your hands as he leads you completely into the shop. He brings your palms to his lips- but soon you notice a familiar squeeze around your waist.

“Friend!”

“Faust!”  Another dear friend you’ve missed during your travels.  The three of you share another moment to yourselves, just relishing each other’s full, physical presence.  Now you were home.

“I don’t know where to start,” you admit. 

“Let me look at you. Were you safe? Did you get into any trouble?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Asra breaks into a hearty laugh at your response, and your chest nearly caves in. He pulls out a chair for you, and the two of you share rice pudding and tea as you fill him in on every little thing you’ve seen while you were away. 

He listens intently, his eyes widening in interest as you chat away. In the back of your head, you’re wondering if he can see any of your new markings. You didn’t think much about covering up when you decided to wear a tunic today. You hope you didn’t ruin the surprise. 

“...And there’s one more thing.” you start. Asra raises an eyebrow at the sound of your voice. You sound so excited- or maybe nervous. Are you nervous to show him..? Well, of course you were.

“What is it, my love?”

“Have you ever seen a tattoo?”

Asra shakes his head, furrowing his brows in confusion. 

“What is that?”

“They’re... markings on your skin- made of ink. I’ve only ever heard of people in tribes wearing them, but it seems that more and more common villagers have started wearing them for creative purposes. They’re beautiful- and permanent. They become one with your body.” You place your hand on top of his, feeling his pulse connect with yours. “And I got some for myself.”

Asra’s eyes widen again- and he begins to smile excitedly. 

“M/c! Can I see?”

You pause for a moment, but eagerly stand out of your chair. 

A blush spreads across Asra’s face when you remove your tunic. His eyes flicker between your bare skin and your eyes. Even after everything, through caring for you all this life and being your lover, your best friend, the most important person in your life... You still made him flustered.

“Look. Up here.” 

Asra stands up to admire your left arm. The look on his face is all you’ve been waiting for. He’s incredulous, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. And then... recognition.

“M/c, is this... Faust?”

You nod eagerly, relieved he could tell.  It’s true. The serpent on your arm was meant to be a tribute to your beloved reptile friend. At the sound of her name, Faust curls around Asra’s shoulders to get a look.

“Me!”

Asra laughs again, curiously placing a hand on your arm.

“May I?”

“Of course.”

With a gentle touch, his finger drags along the inked skin. He’s still in a state of pure disbelief. The look in his eye resembles that of a child’s, someone in pure joy and wonder. 

“Do you feel it?”

“No. It’s just... skin. But Asra, look- I have more.”

He’s more and more surprised with each discovery. You patiently guide him through each new addition: the sun on the nape of your neck, the simple lines behind your ears, and a band around your right arm.

He loved each one. He couldn’t help but place his fingers on each marking, tracing them along absentmindedly, whispering about how beautiful they were... how beautiful you were.  This reaction was everything you were hoping for and more.

“There’s one more you should see.” Your voice settles into a low whisper, and for a moment you look into Asra’s eyes before you proceed. You cup his cheek, his skin warm from his blush. You lean in and press a kiss to the corner of his lips before you stand back and remove your second layer of clothing- revealing your bare chest. 

Gleaming purple eyes shyly roam your body, but they freeze. 

Right above your heart, a single word is tattooed: a name.

Asra.

“M/c...”

“This is the most important one.” You step forward and take his face back in your hands again. 

This was it. Your first tattoo. The first mark you laid upon your skin.

You could go on about your thought process when you decided to get it done. How it was a reminder of what he sacrificed for you, how his heart was the reason yours could even beat once more. What it meant to preserve his name on your skin and how no matter what happened, you would always bear his memory...

Yes, those all seemed like important things to tell him, but you found yourself at a loss for words. He seemed to know everything you wanted to say.

Asra’s hand extends slowly, as if you were an unfamiliar animal waiting to be approached. 

Shaky fingers trace his name over your heart.

You clasp his hand, pressing it tightly to your skin. He shuts his eyes and breathes in deeply, obviously overwhelmed. Everything he’s feeling flows through you, and in a state of pure emotion, you tear up as well.

Can he feel it? The love you’re projecting out to him? How badly you suddenly want to bring him into your arms and whisper in his ear every reason why you love him- how you’ve loved him since before you can remember?

It just felt right to stay quiet.  For now.

After all, what more could you say? Your heart’s already said it all, quite literally.

[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

Ace of Spades

So happy to finally be posting this Six of Crows multichapter fic for the Grishaverse Big Bang! Thank you so much to @corpsecro​ for the beautiful cover art! See end for author’s notes.

Summary: Two years since the events of Crooked Kingdom, the Crows are back and better than ever (or barely holding themselves together) in a swashbuckling hunt across oceans that leads them to legendary catacombs, a secret society, creatures of myth and whimsy, and- if everything goes as planned- a long lost treasure.

POV: Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa, Jesper Fahey, Wylan Van Eck, The Lilia (OC)

Chapter 1- Whiskey in a Teacup 

Seventeen months. It’d been seventeen months since Kaz Brekker watched The Wraith set sail.

He’d watched her go. Stood on the docks as the sun painted the horizon a brilliant smear of papaya, then a blush of lilac and rose, to a bruised star-speckled blue. He’d watched that far-off, distant thing that was once a ship and so much more, as it faded to a small smudge in the crease between sea and sky.

Then he’d taken the long way back to the Slat.

After that, it was business as usual. There was work to be done. In seventeen months he’d built an empire in this wretched, glorious town. Though, it had really been more like eight.

The other nine months he’d spent spending—he was positively swimming in kruge. Half the time he didn’t know what to do with all of it. There was no way to spend that kind of money responsibly.

“So spend it irresponsibly,” Jesper had suggested. “You’re the newly crowned King of the Barrel. These are your days of golden enthronement.”

And it had been fun for a while—being the big gang boss of the Barrel, owner of nearly every successful gambling den in Ketterdam, raking in the kruge every night and never worrying because there would always be more.

Kaz couldn’t help but notice that lately, however, most of his time was consumed by the golden contents of a bottle—and that conceivably, the closest thing he had to a golden throne these days was the aureate tub he now slumped in.

Alas, all newness went stale eventually. As it happened, Kaz Brekker was bored out of his mind. 

And his bath was going cold.

With a toe, he spun one of the faucet nozzles. A steady stream of hot water flowed into the tub with a hiss. He sank back, submerging his shoulders under the water’s rosy surface.

He was the kind of bored that made shooting himself in the kneecap seem appealing, if only for the purpose of forcing something interesting out of what had become a very mundane procession of days. The kind of bored that even baths and bubbles and teacups full of whiskey could not fix.

Kaz swirled the finger of amber liquid at the bottom of his cup. It sloshed up onto the porcelain sides and he thought about how much the colour resembled her eyes in a shaft of sunlight.

Then he shook his head. Ludicrous. Categorically asinine.

Here he was, Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, Bastard of the Barrel made Barrel Boss, a veritable King of Ketterdam; and he was sketching metaphors in his head for the colour of a girl’s eyes. A girl who was long gone, and indefinitely so.

Be all this as it may, he was also neck-deep in drink and pastel bubbles, so perhaps that was about right.

Not just any girl, he reminded himself, taking another sip of his drink.

She’d assured him she’d come back. And though he knew she would in due course, he had insisted she take all the time she needed to right what had been so very wrong for such a long time.

“Make them fear your name so much they daren’t even whisper it,” he’d told her before she left. “Make them pay, Inej.”

From what he’d heard, she’d lived up to that. Surpassed it, even. Slaughterer of Slavers, they called her. Vengeance of the Sea. What he would have paid to watch her burn their ships to ashes.

Kaz smiled at his teacup.

He looked to the night sky through the wavy glass of the window beside him, raised his makeshift glass to the distorted moon perched on the city skyline, and knocked back the remainder of his drink.

It was funny. He swore he felt the whisper of her presence on the wind with that burning swig. He loosed a chuckle. He was either imagining things or he was much drunker than he thought he was.

For Kaz had not felt the familiar rise of gooseflesh on the back of his neck—usually the first indicator of his Wraith’s presence—in a long while. And as he was most certain he’d be the first to hear of a particular ship making port in the harbour, he doubted it was anything but the ghost of a memory.

Yet, the tingle skittering across his scalp, the keen alertness pricking his senses to life, continued to be the most real thing in that tub.

Definitely drunk, Kaz thought and poured himself another knuckle of whiskey.

The bottle on the service cart next to the bath was old—one he’d been saving for a special occasion. He supposed tonight was just as special as any. In fact, the past four nights had been. He’d made his way through half the bottle, toasting the moon and the stars and whatever else lay around the bathroom as he sat in the tub every evening. They were all the same these days, either way.

“What shall we toast to?” Kaz mumbled to the cloud of pink bubbles eddying near his chest. He swirled the whiskey in his teacup. 

Perhaps he should toast the pistol lying next to the half-empty bottle. It was the only promise of excitement in the room. 

The breeze felt nice. A cool lick of air over the slowly heating bath—

Kaz looked up. Air from where? 

He was sure he’d shut the windows in the adjoining bedroom. Suddenly, his stupor washed away like water down the drain. He glanced at the pistol again, debating whether to get out of the tub and investigate or if he could risk waiting for his assailant in the warm cocoon of water. 

“I’d say to the pursuit of kruge,” a silky voice murmured from behind him. “But it looks like you’ve already got that covered.”

His heart stopped. He didn’t know whether he’d pass out or vomit, but either one might be likely considering the haze of whiskey he struggled to clear from his mind.

He turned to face the source of that familiar voice.

There, perched on the edge of the granite sink top like she’d been there all this time, was someone he hadn’t seen in seventeen months. Kaz couldn’t help the slow smile that crept across his face. 

“Hello, Inej,” he drawled.

“Hello, Kaz,” she said. 

He could have sworn the whole world shimmered when she smiled at him, though he wasn’t entirely certain she was truly here. He could have very well fallen asleep in the bathtub, and he would be none the wiser. Yes, this was all likely a drunken fever dream. His dreams did tend to torment him sometimes.

Nonetheless, he raised a brow and said, “Fancy meeting you here. In my bathroom. While I’m… bathing.”

If she blushed, Kaz could not see it in the golden glow of the bathroom lights. Perhaps the long months of travel and hard battle on the high seas had hardened her to such taunting that would have before made her cheeks stain red like a handful of pomegranate seeds.

In fact, he’d be shocked if she’d come back without a single jagged edge, though he couldn’t tell if that was the reason she held his gaze now, or the fact that he hadn’t delivered the line as smoothly as he would’ve liked. He couldn’t muster up enough wherewithal to care at the moment. Bubbles were really quite fascinating.

The corner of her mouth tilted up. “You were taking too long.”

“I like to soak.”

“I can see that.” Laughter gleamed in her eyes. Those eyes. And suddenly he did not care if this was a cruel figment of his imagination. He’d gladly play along.

Inej eyed the water. “Bubbles?” she asked with a bemused expression.

Kaz shrugged. “One of the more exciting facets of my life these days.”

“Things slow at the Crow Club then?”

“Slow at the Crow Club, slow with the Dregs.” He dipped his index finger in the mass of bubbles and came out with a small dollop which he blew into the air. They floated down like tiny, iridescent snowflakes. “Turns out, when everyone fears crossing you, nothing interesting ever happens.”

“One would think you’d be happy about that,” she said.

Kaz merely hummed noncommittally. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “One would think.”

“You’re not, though.”

He gave her a long look. “Would you be?”

“I’d be happy if I never had to worry,” she said, then knitted her brows. “Is the water pink?”

He smiled lazily. “Courtesy of Jesper. He took up a hobby.”

“Making bath products?”

Kaz nodded. “Soaps, bath fizzers, liquid bubbles, that sort of thing. The Dregs of the Bath, he called it. A business venture. It… did not end well.”

The corners of Inej’s mouth curled, eyes glittering mirthful delight—as if every possible consequence of Jesper and a hoard of perfumes and dyes reeled before her eyes in a resplendent carousel of disastrous hilarity.

This made Kaz very dizzy. Which was ridiculous, of course. It was her carousel. He sat up straighter and decided to stare very hard at a spot on the mirror beside her head.

“What happened?” Inej asked, and Kaz realised he had not offered her an explanation to his ominous statement.

The Dregs of the Bath had actually been a fairly successful business venture for a time. Jesper was good at dreaming up fantastical innovations and scent combinations so wondrous, it surprised Kaz for how much he didn’t mind them. For all of about three weeks, his friend had certainly given even the more established toiletry retailers of Ketterdam a run for their money.

The side effects of production, however…

Kaz remembered the way Jesper had shown up to the Crow Club for nearly a month sporting dark splotches of dye up to his elbows. He’d thought it amusing at first.

Half of the Dregs were covered head to toe in ink anyway, and Kaz didn’t enforce a dress code. Frankly, he didn’t care what any of the Dregs looked like as long as they did their jobs. That is, until the patrons had started whispering something about a plague.

Then, of course, Kaz had immediately grabbed Jesper by the back of his suspenders and hauled him to the nearest sink in the kitchens.

“It won’t come off,” Jesper had groused, scrubbing furiously at his forearms.

“Then I would recommend gloves,” he’d said dryly to his friend. “They make for quite the statement piece. I can loan you a pair.”

Once the dye had all but faded, there was still the matter of the smell, which wasn’t exactly bad so much as it was a little overwhelming. The problem with making your own scented bath products, it seemed, was that the aromas clung to every perceivable surface, and spread like an autumn breeze through a dale.

This was fine when Jesper had only been making one inoffensive citrus-scented bar soap. He’d smelled like a fruit basket for days, and made the entire club give off the impression that it was immaculately clean when Kaz knew it was surely not.

But one innocent fragrance had quickly become a cloud of five, and then an assault of ten.

Soon, every dweller from the Financial District to the Barrel had learned that if you could smell the aromas of the Van Eck manor (which had more than once been mistaken for a perfumery by tourists in those sundry weeks), it was already too late. You, too, would be wrapped in the cloying fragrance cocoon of a fruit basket inside a florist inside a bakery inside a tannery in the heart of a very dense forest.

Kaz had not mentioned it to Jesper, however; and one day, the smell had simply vanished. Jesper, in turn, had not mentioned anything to Kaz. They’d been seeing less and less of each other lately.

He supposed that was just how things went. Jesper had Wylan, and Wylan made his friend very happy. He couldn’t complain about that.

Besides, Kaz had… well, he had lots and lots of baths. And whiskey. And more kruge than he could ever possibly need. And…

A breeze floated in through the open window in the bedroom.

Kaz looked at Inej. There was a small part of him that still doubted her really being here. But then, the draft blew a lock of her crow dark hair loose from its braid—and when it fluttered a caress against her cheek, Kaz knew.

He might be skilled at plotting impossible schemes, but his imagination was not so creative and vivid as this. Especially not half-seas over.

Inej still sat on the countertop, reclined against the mirror, feet dangling over the edge. She eyed him in amusement. Probably mild concern, too, though he couldn’t focus through the steam and his whiskey muddled mind enough to tell.

“He got bored,” Kaz finally said with a shrug. “Moved on to something else. Made his own ale for a while. Regardless, there’s a closet full of bath fizzers of every smell and colour at the Van Eck manor, should you desire spicing up your bath experience.”

Inej laughed. That laugh. And Kaz’s eyes went wide and sober for five whole seconds before the glaze of alcohol and warm water slipped back over his senses.

He leaned back in the tub again. A wave of water sloshed over the side, hitting the tile floor with a splash.

“I think I’ll stick to regular baths for the time being,” she said.

At that, Kaz could think of no response. So he said nothing, but hummed and sank down further into the water.

“Why are you here, Wraith?” he asked when a moment had passed.

Inej’s eyes glinted something mischievous. “I have a proposal.”

♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎

AN: Thanks so much for reading, everyone! And a massive thank you to The Serrated Spades, the team of creators, editors, and beta readers who’ve been working with me these past few months to create something really special for @grishaversebigbang​ !! 

Check out @6crowgang​ ‘s GORGEOUS comic strip for this chapter!

Thanks so much again to @corpsecro​ for this absolute masterpiece of cover art! (GUYS. It moves!!!)

Get a sneak peek of heist planning (ft. an OC of mine) in this beautiful piece by @fishmaid​ !

This swashbuckling mood board by @ravenclawsandbeak​ sets the vibe just right!

More chapters to come soon- if you’d like to be tagged in future chapters, just shoot me a message/ask 🖤💫

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[ayankun]

coffee shop au bitches (working title)

here, have this rough draft of the first half of part 1.  consider it proof of concept.  (the concept is Destiel Coffee Shop AU, but actually good) (”good;” YMMV)

9.3k words; Cas is human like everyone else so to compensate I made him socially anxious af; there’s a brief unpleasantness wherein someone in customer service gets harassed so watch out for that I guess; Cas is also carrying a lot of baggage (literally and metaphorically) and it’s vague for now but a little wearisome so GLHF I promise when it’s done-done they all get the kind of happy endings they deserved from the show

The town of Lebanon, Kansas sprang up without warning, its tree-lined streets shockingly claustrophobic after the three hours of patchwork browns and greens streaming by the smudgy window, the rolling plains uninterrupted to the very ends of the earth until the blank blue September sky finally picked up where the horizon left off.

Castiel felt his eyes strain, forced to reel in his thousand-yard stare, as he squinted at the blur of tidy little houses perched along Lebanon's brief outskirts.  He blinked away from the window and pushed himself to his feet, sidling carefully into the aisle to pull his duffle down from the overhead rack.  In short order, the bus turned onto the tidy little Americana main street and rolled up to a tidy little bus stop, and, reaching back into his seat to retrieve his briefcase, he squinted out at this, too.  

The screech of well-worn brakes, the brace against the final lurch of inertia, the hiss and clack of the doors at the front and back folding open; with no more pomp and circumstance than that, Castiel's journey reached its end.  Clutching the handle of his briefcase and slinging the straps of his duffle over one shoulder, he edged down the aisle and nodded his thanks to the driver on his way down the steps.  Finally, Castiel planted his sensible shoes on the cracked sidewalk, looked carefully up and down the stretch of unremarkable, middle-of-nowhere civilization, and wondered what the hell he thought he was doing here.

The bus shrieked and rumbled back into the non-existent late afternoon traffic, a thick gout of black exhaust signaling its farewell, leaving Castiel behind before he had a chance to change his mind.  He watched its departure absently for half a moment, road-weary and numb.  Then he hiked his duffle a little more snug against his back, turned around, and began an unhurried stroll the shady two and a half blocks back to the motel on the south side of town.

---

"Been expecting you," the woman behind the counter said the second Castiel pulled open the glass door to the motel office.

He paused, looked over his shoulder, saw no one among the growing shadows of the motel's empty parking lot, no one except a trucker hopping out of his cab parked at the gas 'n sip on the opposite corner.  Castiel watched him jog across the street towards the Biggerson's, the lights of its enormous, highway-facing sign flickering on in welcome, and turned back to shoulder his way inside.  "I did reserve a room over the phone," Castiel said, approaching the counter, "And I was told that a few . . . personal items would be held for me at the front desk?"

The woman, Billie, according to her name tag, responded with a nod, less in answer to his question and more in the way one does when one is not surprised by what they've just heard.  She pulled the keyboard to the old desktop computer closer to herself with one hand, and held the other out, palm up, to Castiel.  "ID and credit card."

Setting his briefcase down on the floor, Castiel dug inside his overcoat's interior pocket for his wallet.  By rote he thumbed out the military ID to give her, but at the last second his heart gave a sharp little twist and he drew it back.  Her lips twitched, nonplussed, but she waited patiently until he handed her his driver's licence instead.  She studied the picture on it for a second, mouthed the name, and carefully considered the face on the photo compared to the face on the man in front of her.  He shifted his feet nervously, thinking he should have just given her the first one, if only to avoid looking any more disreputable than he already did.  

Evidently their hangdog looks matched to her satisfaction, though, and she snapped the plastic down onto the counter, shifted her attention to the computer to check him in.

"Room's yours for the week," she read off the screen as he retrieved his licence and put the credit card down in its place.  She slid it over to herself without looking, only glancing down to read the numbers, obsidian black fingernails clacking proficiently over the ten-key peripheral plugged into the side of the keyboard.  "Checkout's at eleven on the 25th."

When she slid the card back over to him, Castiel palmed it off the counter, put it back into the wallet behind his IDs (driver's license on top), tucked the wallet back into his overcoat.  "Um.  I'm not exactly sure yet -- I may need to extend my stay."  Absently, he wondered why he sounded like he was apologizing for it.

Billie looked up from the computer screen at him, neutral.  "Whatever you need.  We can do you by the week, month, whatever.  Got your card on file, so you just let me know when I should stop charging it."

Castiel tried a smile he didn't feel, thinking as he did so that he probably shouldn't have bothered with one, what with how it seemed to crumple his face in unnatural ways.  "I will let you know, thank you."

She pulled a blank key card from a drawer and ran it through the machine to code it for his room.  "Here you go," she said, slapping it onto the counter with another plasticky snap, "Room 401."

"Thank you," he said again, taking the key card and putting it into his coat's front pocket. She held up a hand to keep him from running straight off to the room, a slightly unnecessary gesture, since he had no intention to do so.  Not without the banker's box that she was now pulling out from under the counter.

It was sealed with tamper-evident tape, noticeably intact as she spun it 180 degrees so he could also see his name and a brief description of the contents inked with a tidy hand in the space provided on the lid.  Billie pushed the box toward him and then tapped a nail over one of the items on the contents list.  "She's parked out front."

Castiel peered down at the item she had indicated.  "Keys," it said, rather cryptically, in that unfamiliar, efficient script.  He nodded.  "Thank you."

He bent to pick up the handle of his briefcase, letting the duffle fall farther across his back as he did so in order to free up space under his arm for the banker's box.  It worked, albeit inelegantly, and he felt a little foolish as he fumbled the box off the counter and turned to go.  He felt even worse when Billie said to his back:  "I'm sorry for your loss."

No part of him wanted to say "thank you" again, so he just paused long enough to indicate that he had heard her, and then went out through the glass door and back into the shadowed parking lot without saying a damn thing.

---

Room 401 opened into a concise sort of entryway that pointed him toward a small kitchenette lit primarily by the glare of the Biggerson's sign falling in through the window.  The space featured a round table with peeling laminate, two plastic-and-stainless-steel chairs, a sink and a microwave and a loudly humming fridge.  It was downright lavish compared to the accommodations Castiel had shifted between for the better part of his life.

The banker's box went onto the table, to be ignored until the time came Castiel felt ready to pry inside.

He shrugged his duffle off onto the end of the bed, the briefcase going onto the floor at its foot.  Successfully offloaded, Castiel turned and sat beside the duffle with his hands in his lap, looking at the boxy little TV set sitting on top of a banged up little dresser; at the dusty looking armchair shoved back in the corner to his right, under a dusty looking lamp; at the dim alcove immediately to the right of the TV, keeping discreet the bathroom sink and mirror and the door to the toilet and shower.

He didn't know what to do now.

Twisting to look at the digital clock on the bedside table, he marked the time with no real interest.  Just after 6:30.  Not enough daylight left to try and find his way around town, too early to sleep.  Not that he really felt compelled to do either of those things.  Not that he felt compelled to do anything.

But he had to do something, though, didn't he?  He had to keep moving forward, in whatever small way he could manage.  He had to.

With a long sigh that seemed almost to empty him completely, Castiel got to his feet.  He pulled his overcoat off, went to the alcove closet to hang it up, stopped at the sink to splash some water on his face.  He took a moment to appreciate his appearance -- mournful and aggressively unkempt after two solid days on the road -- before stepping out of the alcove to retrieve the briefcase.  He opened it on the bed and slipped the laptop out, digging around for the charger, and brought both to the dresser, setting the laptop to one side and plugging it into the outlet he found by tracing the TV's power cord.

He stood there, hunched a little over the open laptop, waiting for it to wake from its hibernating state.  He could check his email, at least, or scroll through the news he'd missed while in the air and in taxis and in the air again and in buses that sailed too quickly through isolated islands of 4G signal that lit up only a single bar before going dark again.

His desktop loaded, the wallpaper a heavily-filtered photo he'd pulled from who-knew-where:  just an expanse of faded teal, adorned only by a single, old-fashioned kite, bold and bright with primary colors, pinned there on the sky by an unseen breeze for all eternity.  He had set it a long time ago and never changed it; the image was a small comfort, though for what reason, he couldn't tell.  It wasn't his memory.

The fleeting sense of well-being provided by the tranquil wallpaper faded as quickly as it had come.  The only Wi-Fi network in range was named "Big D's iPhone" and it was locked.  Castiel refreshed the network scan a few times, hoping to see something that looked like it was related to the motel, but nothing else appeared.  He fished his phone out of his pocket for a second opinion, but it, too, displayed just the one fishy looking hotspot and very little 4G, even though he swung it around like an idiot, dowsing the room for a signal, watching the littlest bar wink at him no matter which out-of-the-way corner he took it to.

He even found himself squeezing between the table and the window, pushing the curtain aside as if the radio waves were having trouble making it through the few millimeters of dusty fabric.  He knew better, but it couldn't hurt.  In the Biggerson's lot, catty corner to the motel, a sleek black muscle car came to life with an animal growl, and he watched it prowl out onto the street and streak out towards the highway, taking Big D's iPhone with it.

---

It wasn't Billie manning the motel office when Castiel made his way back inside.  He didn't know why this should surprise him, but the fact that his expectations had been subverted in such a minor way somehow made him stutter his step as he entered.

The woman lounging in the office chair with her boots on the counter didn't wear a nametag.  She did look up from her magazine -- Knives Illustrated -- but only for a second, just a cool, cursory glance to let him know that she knew he was there and also that she wasn't too bothered by it.

"Howdy there, Clarence," she drawled.

Castiel didn't look over his shoulder, this time, but he did falter to a premature stop halfway to the counter, searching the vast middle distance as he tried to quickly figure out if he had enough information to parse the greeting.  He didn't.

"My name is Castiel," he informed her cautiously, eyes lifting to meet hers over the cover of her magazine.

She turned a page.  "Knew it was something hokey like that."

"Yes, well . . . hello," he said, brow furrowing.  She turned another page and he pulled his hand down over his rough five o'clock shadow, a token from his time on the road.  He probably should have cleaned up before leaving the room, but here he was.  He stepped forward, "Excuse me--"

"You're excused," she sing-songed at him.  The magazine dropped just enough to reveal her razor-sharp grin; it was not too dissimilar to the image on the front cover.

"--I was wondering if you knew where I might find a decent Wi-Fi signal in town."  He arrived at the counter as he was speaking, and placed both his hands palms down on its surface.  When she didn't stop looking at him, he picked his hands back up and dropped them to his sides.

She went back to the magazine.  "Depends.  Business or pleasure?"

"Alright," Castiel said, defeated, hands clenching irritably at nothing, "I apologize for having bothered you.  Enjoy your evening."

He turned his back on her, and wasn't going to stop even when he heard the magazine slap closed and her boots clump to the floor, but still that's exactly what he ended up doing as she called, "Hold up, C."

It was the impromptu nickname more than anything, since hearing it inspired him to send a pinched look of consternation back in her direction, where she was now leaning towards him with her forearms planted on the counter, her straight dark hair falling over one shoulder.  "I was only having a little fun," she told him once she was sure she had secured his attention, "We don't get fresh meat like you too often around these parts, and a girl's got needs.  How could I resist?"

"That is a very forward way to speak to a customer," Castiel intoned, the dip of his head turning judgemental.  He'd seen looks like that before; his skin crawled when they were for him.  His hands balled up and flapped open again, trying to shake it off.  "Good night."

"Best bet's the Roadhouse," she told him just as he reached out to push open the door.  Again, he paused, against his better judgement, and she took that as her cue to continue, "Just head on up Main Street, you can't miss it.  If you hit the prairie, you've gone too far."

Castiel ducked his head, hiding the twitch of a small, rueful smile at the joke that slipped its way in at the last second.  "Thanks," he said, more to the half-opened door than to anyone else.

"You watch yourself out there, fresh meat," she hollered a parting warning as the door swung shut behind him, "The freaks come out at night."

---

Castiel walked back to his room to get his overcoat, taking in the rosy hues of twilight that striated the western sky dead ahead of him, chewing over the likelihood that the insouciant woman meant what she'd said.  He couldn't imagine that a small town like this would be terribly dangerous after dark, but, then again --

Stopping at the door to 401, he carefully prodded his better judgement into at least considering taking the car -- he looked at it from the corner of his eye, trying not to dwell too long on the idea that its previous owner would have left indelible personal traces behind -- and, sure enough, he wasn't ready to go digging.  Not in the box, and certainly not in the car.

Castiel gently shook out the fist he had made, swept his eyes over the brilliance of the western sky, and decided he was in the right kind of mood for a walk.

He unlocked his door, entered the room to grab his overcoat, stuffed the laptop back into the briefcase, exited again, pointed himself towards Main Street without giving the car another thought.

---

Turned out she was right about one thing, the Roadhouse was impossible to miss.

From the way the neon sign lit up the rustic wood siding of the cowboy-chic exterior, he half worried the establishment was a bar of some sort.  The windows were dark, the shades drawn down against the setting sun, so he only could only make a guess based on what the exterior looked like.  Hesitating on the sidewalk under a street lamp, Castiel squinted up at it and waged a minor civil war with himself as to whether it would be worth it to go in and find out.

He slowly turned around on the spot, in his little pool of light, casting up and down the nearly deserted street for some kind of sign that would help him choose one way or the other.  Small town Kansas didn't seem to have much going for it, in the way of nightlife; from what he could tell, the storefronts looked exclusively like the little mom-and-pops one would expect from the heartland -- the highway-adjacent Biggerson's the evident exception -- and all of these were either closed or closing.

He completed his inspection, coming face to face once again with the Roadhouse.  On the one hand, it purportedly had Wi-Fi, his current mission being to locate the same.  On the other hand, it looked like a bar, and he didn't want to walk in there with his out-of-towner face, with his uncool overcoat and his briefcase, and specifically avoid ordering alcohol.

He was just coming around to the idea that he could very well survive off the grid for a night when a pair of headlights attached to a shadow came roaring down from the north end of the street at him, the car banking into a smooth, undoubtedly illegal U-turn in the middle of the block, slinking confidently into the open space directly under Castiel's street lamp.  The engine cut off, then the lights, and then a man was ducking out of the driver's side, slamming the door shut behind him.

Castiel was stuck.  He hadn't counted on this particular type of social awkwardness, caught loitering on the street without anything to say for himself.  He averted his eyes, expecting the man to pass him by and go on with his business, but to his increasing embarrassment and frustration, the guy stepped up onto the sidewalk and shoved his keys into a pocket of his green canvas jacket and definitely didn't continue on his way.

"Coming or going?" he asked.  The voice was something of a deep growl, but the tone was friendly enough.  

Castiel looked up to be polite, or, at least, to be less weird.  "I don't know," he found himself saying.  Any chance to possibly come across as a reasonable human being was thoroughly smashed, he thought.  He couldn't talk his way out of this one, even if he tried.  Especially if he tried.  "I've only just arrived," he added.

The guy looked him up and down, not in a lecherous way, or even in a macho, sizing up the competition way; just an unguarded appraisal of his bus-rumpled appearance, the suspicious looking briefcase, the disconcerting way he was caught standing in the dark looking at the door of a place without going in.  The inspection was over in a second, and concluded with a good-natured nod and an open-handed wave that clearly said, "yeah, I figured out that much on my own."

"Well, we don't bite," the guy said aloud, slapping Castiel hard on the shoulder, making him rock from the impact and almost exactly undermining the sentiment.  He immediately turned and stepped up to the Roadhouse's door, hauling it open and beckoning back at Castiel to get his ass inside.  "C'mon, at this rate they'll be closed before you make up your mind."

If Castiel had been looking for some kind of sign, this was clearly providence's way of sending him one.

Even so, he realized he had started moving forward to accept the invitation without consciously meaning to, and, well, he had a lifetime of conditioning to thank for that.  Castiel, ever the good little soldier, taking orders at face value, instead of thinking for himself.  He frowned a little on the inside -- remembering to briefly tug a smile of thanks on the outside -- until the wave of warm, coffee-scented air hit him in the face along with the unavoidable understanding that the Roadhouse was not, in fact, a bar.

The relief of this revelation was powerful enough to enable him to put his weird little hangups back inside the box where they belonged, his outside smile going soft and honest around the edges, and he ducked his head sheepishly at the guy, who had followed him in.  Automatically angling himself towards the register, as one did one when one entered a coffee shop, he said, "I was informed there was Wi-Fi here.  Just not what 'here' was.  'The Roadhouse' sounds -- I thought perhaps it was a bar."

His honesty caught himself off-guard, uncertain as to where the need to explain himself to this stranger came from, exactly.  It was probably because he had already demonstrated the kind of small town friendliness that made Castiel feel like it would be read as rude if he didn't attempt a bit of smalltalk in return.  The guy looked like a nice enough sort of person to meet halfway; about Castiel's age, a little younger, perhaps; kind of a non-threatening good-ol'-boy with his ripped jeans, plaid flannel, and his not-quite-scruffy-not-quite-clean-cut style.  Castiel thought that maybe he could survive being social for a minute or two, with someone like this.

Instantly, this thought hit a bump in the road, as his new friend twisted a funny look at him.  "Got something against bars?"

Castiel dropped his eyes and tried to ignore his obvious misstep while he drifted into the back of the line, behind a towering mountain of a man in a black leather jacket.  Castiel wasn't short, by any stretch of the imagination, but the two men hemming him in were both taller still.  He thought about his answer to the question, flicking rapidly through the options, but wasn't able to pick one that was both simple and truthful before the guy abruptly leaned in.  This startled Castiel, who instinctively shifted away a half step, shoulder bumping up against the glass that separated him from a shiny brass espresso machine.

The guy didn't notice his discomfort, having breached Castiel's personal space to say in a stage whisper:  "If it's rough company you're worried about, nothin' to be afraid of, around here.  The real seedy joints are across town.  Ain't that right, Tiny?"

At this last, he straightened up and raised his voice some, directing the question straight past Castiel.

Castiel turned his head to see the huge leather jacket man fixing the tall canvas jacket man with a full-bodied glare.  He also, at this time, took in the man's shaved head and appreciated the twisting serpent logo coiled on the back of the jacket.  He shifted even closer to the espresso machine, clearing the space between the two men as best he could.

But "Tiny" didn't otherwise react, just turned back and stepped up to the register, boots heavy on the wooden floor.

"Wi-Fi's pretty decent here, yeah," Castiel's companion went on.  Castiel looked back to him, surprised to see him relaxed and indifferent, like he hadn't just specifically tried to antagonize a 400-pound member of a biker gang after dark.  "And the lattes are alright.  Fair warning:  your choices are pretty much either that or black coffee, those're the only things the kid can't mess up too bad."

Off the guy's nod over Castiel's shoulder, he obediently turned and saw the referenced kid -- in actuality, a young, sandy-haired man of about seventeen or eighteen -- working the espresso machine on the other side of the glass.  The milk frother hissed demonstratively for a moment, the kid's face pinched in comically serious concentration on the task, but when he shoved the arm back into the off position, he looked up to see who was watching him and broke out into one of the purest smiles Castiel had ever seen.

"Hello!" the kid said, sunnily, like Castiel was his closest friend and not a literal stranger gawking at him like a zoo animal.  The hand that had been operating the machine was summarily raised in greeting, palm forward, fingers wide.  He radiated a positively angelic energy that instantly made Castiel feel at ease, despite the anxiety of the last several minutes, somehow even despite the soul-crushing weight he'd brought with him to town.

"Hello . . . Jack," Castiel replied, after realizing he could make out the kid's name tag pinned to his apron.  Pinned to their apron, rather, as he belatedly noted the "they/them" pronoun declaration stuck on underneath the name with white label tape.  He smiled, the desire to return just a small portion of the hospitality he'd received so far rising ferociously inside him, one of the strongest emotions he'd had the pleasure of feeling in recent memory.  "I've been informed I should try one of your lattes."

He nodded at the stainless steel carafe of foamed milk in the kid's hand, and they looked down at it as if they'd forgotten it was there.  "Oh!  Yes, I suppose you should."  They poured the milk into a waiting paper cup of espresso, face contorting back into that look of supreme concentration for only as long as it took to pour, smiling back up at Castiel the second the task was done.  "I'm still learning how to make everything, but I'm getting better at the basics."

"Yeah, you are," the guy behind Castiel said, in that manner of speaking that was as aggressive as it was supportive.  Jack grinned shyly, ducking their head at the praise, and shuffled the drink off to the pick-up counter on the other side of the register.

Castiel looked back over to see the guy grinning after the kid, and a thought hit him.  "Are you their . . . parent?" he asked, tripping and catching himself on Jack's pronoun only slightly, a very jarring rush of panic hitting him in time to swerve around using the word "father," just in case gender-nonconformity ran in the family.

The . . . person met Castiel's eye and then looked away, shrugging a little.  "Oh me?  Nah.  I mean.  Sorta.  We're kind of just, looking after them, I guess you could say."

The use of the first-person plural pronoun seemed like something Castiel would pry into next, were he the prying sort.  Instead, he very, very briefly wondered what the average household looked like in Lebanon, Kansas, these days, or if he'd just stumbled into the exception on accident.

A hand was extended his way, along with a name.  "Dean," Castiel was told as he accepted the handshake, "He/him, in case you were wondering."

Castiel let out an inward sigh of relief, and the guy winked before adding:  "Aquarius.  Stones, not Beatles.  Star Wars and Star Trek, but not the garbage that came out after the nineties."  Dean let Castiel's hand go with a chewed-on smile and something of a self-deprecating eyebrow wag.  "That's basically all the important stuff you have to know about me up front."

"Castiel," he returned, "And . . . I am also a man."

Dean snorted a short little breath at that, eyes bright.  He rubbed his chin, scratching through the close-trimmed stubble.  "Castiel, huh?"

Castiel pressed his lips together and took a moment to take stock of the state of his shoes, squaring himself for the inevitable question about his uncommon name, but for once it didn't come.  Dean didn't have the chance to ask it.  When Castiel glanced up, Dean was looking over Castiel's shoulder in the direction of the register, all traces of his friendly disposition replaced by a cold scowl.

As one did, Castiel, too, turned to follow Dean's gaze, searching out the source of his sudden displeasure.  For a second he assumed it had something to do with Jack, maybe getting into some difficult situation with a customer, but at a glance he saw that he only had it half right.  Instead of Jack, it was the young woman behind the register, who pulled her wrist out of Tiny's pawlike grasp as Castiel watched.

Castiel's throat closed up, his second-hand anxiety over the situation momentarily flooring him.  Embarrassed, he looked away, out over the sparsely populated cafe, everyone he saw slowly doing the same:  turning back to their screens and their friends, pretending nothing had happened.

Everyone but Dean, Castiel saw as he finally looked back up at him.  Dean was still watching Tiny closely, his brow drawn down and his mouth set in a firm line.  He flicked his eyes down to Castiel when he caught him looking, and did a stuttered double take when he realized he had accidentally leveled that glare at him.

Dean relaxed his expression into something more neutral, obviously seeing the stress on Castiel's face; while Dean was clearly angered by Tiny's overreach, Castiel couldn't help but project a grim ache that he didn't want to name.  Dean's head tilted, as if he was slowly cottoning on to the depth of Castiel's discomfort the longer he looked at him, and Castiel saw his jaw clench the moment before they both looked sharply back over at the register, hearing the woman's voice rise, frustrated and disgusted, over the country twang of the canned music pumping through the coffee shop's speakers.

"You kiss your mama with that mouth?"  The young woman had taken a full step back into the space behind the counter, dodging out of the way of Tiny's reach.  Castiel could see fire in her eyes, and barely registered Jack standing nervously on her other side.

Tiny laughed, a rolling chuckle that filled Castiel's gut with acid.  The huge man leaned up against the counter, shoving a shoulder as far as it would go into the open space next to the register, and curled his hand around the far edge of the counter.  "Why, you jealous?  How 'bout you pucker up, sweetcheeks, let me show you what you're missing."

In an instant, the nerves and disgust flushed out of Castiel's system, and in its place a white-hot righteous anger swirled up.  His hands twitched, settling for fists, and he took a lurching step forward, his briefcase swinging roughly into his leg, the emotion spilling out of him in a growl of "Hey, asshole--"

"Yeah, alright--" Dean growled at the same time, taking the same step forward, bringing him even with Castiel, the two men suddenly a solid wall staring daggers into Tiny's back.

"Stay out of this, Dean," the young woman said, fierce.  The tone in her voice caused Jack to flinch, snatching back the reassuring hand they'd been tentatively reaching her way.

Tiny heaved himself off the counter, turning to face them slowly, deliberately, letting them appreciate his size and giving them ample time to reconsider the hill they might be about to die on.  Castiel's chin went up, eyes narrowed.  At his side, Dean sniffed and thumbed his nose, aggressively nonchalant.

A devil-may-care smile on his face, Dean put one arm wide.  "No can do, Jo.  There's a quick way to handle huge, steaming piles of human garbage like our friend Tiny here," he said, making stabbing motions with his hand at the man in question, "and I'd hate to see you lose your job over a broken jaw."

Castiel glanced sharply up at Dean, trying to gauge the realistic chances of an all-out brawl going down right here between the novelty mugs and the last of the day's homemade baked goods.  Lebanon, Kansas was quickly proving to be something other than the sleepy, middle of nowhere hamlet he had assumed it would be.  

In fairness, though, he had been warned that the freaks came out at night.

Dean didn't exactly look ready for a fight, though, loose-limbed and calm, fixing Tiny with a cocky grin that was daring the biker to make the first move.  Castiel forced his own shoulders down, his fist to relax around the handle of the briefcase he was gripping like a weapon.  He cut his eyes over to Tiny, who was equally not rising to the bait, just sneering at them for what he was reading as biteless bark.

"Like to see you try, pretty boy," Tiny said, digging in his heels.

Castiel frowned, seeing that the situation had ground into a stalemate before it had even started, two immovable objects sizing each other up, both content with the fact that the one who either struck first or walked away first would make himself the de facto loser of the conflict, one way or another.  Even so, Castiel strongly felt that neither of these two would be the type to walk away.  He raised a hand, palm out, and tried to press some sense into the moment before one of them exhausted their patience and decided to throw a match onto this powderkeg.

"No one has to try anything," he warned, making sure Dean knew he was included in the list of people encouraged to stand down, "Let's all conduct ourselves as civilized people.  Please, just leave the young woman alone, let her do her job in peace."

Tiny peered down at him and made it clear it wasn't about to back off just because a stranger in a rumpled trenchcoat asked him to play nice.

Dean, meanwhile, licked his bottom lip and looked like he might actually be considering his options.  He nodded, ducking his head as though coming to an overdue realization.

"See, I know Tiny's mom," Dean said, raising his eyebrows at Castiel.  

Castiel dropped his own right back at him, a suspicious squint pinching his face as he felt in his gut that the situation was about to spin off the axle in some unforeseen way, despite his best efforts to prevent that exact outcome.

Dean went on, unperturbed, sliding one hand into his pocket as he half turned away from Tiny, like he was just carrying on their friendly chat from before, like they didn't have a behemoth of an audience listening in.  "And I know she would be appalled -- shocked, even -- if she found out what her son was up to when she ain't looking.  Sweet old Martha, she's been in hospice for what, six weeks?  Seven?"  

He swiveled suddenly and jabbed his free hand at Tiny--  "Please, correct me if I'm wrong--"  Back to Castiel, he tapped his own chest twice to demonstrate-- "The ol' ticker's just not what it used to be, or so I hear.  Can't imagine what a bit of bad news might do to her delicate constitution."

As he said this last part, Dean's arm fell, and with it his cheery facade.  He rolled his head Tiny's direction, offering him one of the coldest, meanest looks Castiel had ever seen on a person.

All seven feet of Tiny was now quivering with a quiet kind of rage, his boiled egg of a head going pink as he struggled to hold it in, to not lose the game of chicken he and Dean were playing.  "You're not gonna tell my Ma nothing, you hear me?"

Dean exploded forward a half step, a finger viciously stabbing the air in the vicinity of Tiny's face.  "You stop being a dick, and I'll have nothing to tell," he roared.

"Dean!" Jo shouted over the top of him, slamming her hands down on the counter.

Everyone in the coffee shop flinched.  Castiel felt himself hang his head, feeling the sting as if he himself had been scolded.  But he'd made himself a part of it, stepped in and got involved, hadn't been able to prevent escalation.  He looked out of the corner of his eye at Jo, thinking that maybe he should apologize, but she was just glaring at Dean with hard eyes and a furious shake of her head.

"Out," she ordered.

Dean ignored the way she obviously meant him, and swung an open grin Tiny's way, canines and tongue showing.  "You heard the little lady."

Jo grit her teeth.  "Both of you, out.  We don't need your kind of trouble here."

Something about what she'd said or how she said it got Dean's attention.  He dropped his arms to his sides with a slap of canvas on canvas, twisting her way with a schoolboy pout pulling down his face.  "C'mon, Jo.  You know I didn't mean it.  You know me.  I would never--"

"Save it," she cut him off.  "Jack's shift ends in twenty-five minutes.  Go wait in the car."

There was a second where Dean gaped, fish out of water, at the order, but the cool, commanding look that came with it forcibly shut his mouth with an audible click and he reared back, bumping into Castiel slightly.  "Alrighty, then," he huffed, stomping the wrong way through the line and on towards the door without looking back.  

Castiel watched his boots retreat over the polished wood of the floor, heard the bang of the door being slammed open with more force than absolutely necessary, then tilted his head to catch Jo giving Tiny the same icy treatment.

"What are you waiting for, then, an invitation?  Go on, get.  And if you try something like that again, trust me, I won't bother with your Ma.  I'll go get mine."  She smiled, sweet and sharp, leaned forward over the counter, right into Tiny's personal space, to make sure her point wasn't missed.  "And we can see how many bones she can break before the Sheriff hauls her off your dead body."

An ominous kind of tension straightened Castiel's shoulders, surprised at Jo's candid threat, doubtful that hers would work where Dean's had failed.  After a moment, though, Tiny heaved his bulk away from the counter, gave Castiel a dirty look, and similarly made his inglorious retreat into the night.

Castiel wondered what was going to happen now between the two men, whether they were going to carry on in the street or just back off to lick their wounds until their next meeting.  He hoped Dean had sense enough to actually get in the car, at least.

"Next!"

Distracted from the errant thought of the well-being of a near stranger, Castiel turned to see Jo smiling at him from behind the register, the picture of award-winning customer service, and nothing like the stone-cold demon who had seconds ago threatened to have her mother bludgeon a customer to death.  He stepped up to place his order, thoroughly cowed.

"I apologize for the scene, for my part in it," he told her quietly as he leaned to one side to set the briefcase on the floor at his feet, reaching for his wallet.  "You clearly didn't need us to butt in, but still, I hope you're alright."

She waved his apology away, shaking her head.  "Nothing to be sorry for, it's fine.  Small town like this, hard for some folk to avoid bumping into the folk they shouldn't be bumping into.  It happens, you handle it, you move on.  What can I get started for you tonight?"

Castiel offered her a small smile, feeling it press a little tight around his eyes, his misplaced guilt swirling harder at her need to project such a tough exterior.  It was unfortunate and unfair that the world demanded the thickest skins from some people more than others, and his heart ached in a vague, nameless way, wishing there was something he could do to alleviate the need for someone so young to have constructed such a defensive worldview.

Off her expectant look, he willed himself to remember what he ought to be doing in the here and now.  He gave the menu board on the back wall a cursory review, not really consuming its contents in any meaningful way, until he looked down and caught Jack's eye from where the eager barista floated at a respectful distance between Jo and the espresso machine.

Castiel smiled, this time with notable ease as he remembered Dean's earlier suggestion.  "A small latte, please.  It came highly recommended."

"You got it," Jo nodded, punching the order into the register and pulling a cup from the stack.  "Your name?"  She looked up at him, reaching into a mug with a missing handle to fish out a Sharpie.

"Uh, Castiel," he supplied, and spelled it for her benefit, just in case.

"Castiel," she repeated, as most did when confronted with his name for the first time, trying it out for themselves, "That's got kind of a Biblical ring to it, doesn't it?  Don't tell me you're some kind of guardian angel?"  

"Hardly," Castiel murmured, dropping his gaze to focus on pulling the correct currency out of his wallet.

Jo passed the cup with his name on it to Jack, who immediately took it to the espresso machine and got to work, that same serious look of concentration commandeering their entire face for the duration.

"Anything else for you today?" she asked.  

It was one of those scripted niceties that Castiel truly appreciated about by-the-book social interactions.  A perfect sequitur that spared him the effort of trying to come up with one on his own.  "Do you have a password for the Wi-Fi?"

She nodded, slipping a business card sized piece of paper from a loose stack next to the register, and handed it over in trade for the cash he gave her in return.  As she punched open the till and dug around for his change, he glanced down at the code.  It read "N@turomDem0nto," which, as far as Wi-Fi passwords went, was certainly one.

The till banged shut with a ring, Jo handing him back his change.  Seeing his bemused look as he inspected the hotspot info, she explained, "Sorry, I know it's a little out there.  Our IT guy, Ash, he's a bit of a supernatural freak."

"I see," Castiel said agreeably, though he felt fairly certain that there was some additional piece of trivia he was missing to be able to recognize the significance of the unintelligible string of letters and numbers.  He put the paper into his pocket, dumped the loose change from his palm into the tip jar, and retrieved his briefcase.  "Thank you."

Jo's eyebrows came down, not unkindly, as her lips pursed in baffled amusement.  "No problem," she laughed, shaking her head at him.  "Jack'll have your drink out in a minute."  She waved him in the direction of the pickup counter, and Castiel went gratefully on his way, looking forward to the upcoming stretch of time where he didn't have to make small talk, or try to avoid physical altercations, or accidentally say "thank you" after tipping.

The remaining patrons of the Roadhouse appeared to have cleared out since he had last looked, but whether this was due to the late hour or the recent potential for violence, he couldn't be sure.  Castiel thought about Dean waiting for Jack out in that beast of a car; thought about Tiny (or men like him) lurking out on the streets.  

He pulled out his phone, noting the time as he thumbed to the Wi-Fi settings.  Again, the hotspot listing was sparse, just the one named after the Roadhouse -- finally, full bars -- and, to his muted surprise, "Big D's iPhone."

He was still looking curiously at the cafe's curtained windows, in the direction where he knew that sleek black muscle car with the animal growl was parked under a street lamp, when a bright voice chimed behind him:  "Here you go!"

Sliding his phone back into his pocket, Castiel turned to face Jack, finding a bloom of warmth filling the hollow of his chest to see them sliding his latte over with an exceedingly proud look on their face, certain of a job well done.  Right on the drink's tail, Castiel was surprised to see a small plate with a piece of apple pie being pushed his way as well.

He held up his hand to stop or question the freebie, thinking he hadn't done anything today to have earned getting rewarded with pie, but Jo popped up at Jack's side and gave him one of those looks he already recognized as meaning he wouldn't be allowed to decline.  His bottom lip pursed, he reached out and obediently pulled the plate the rest of the way over with one finger.

"At closing time, we either have trash all the leftover perishables or give 'em away," Jo explained.  She nodded down at the plate with something of a wicked grin, "Normally I'd be packing this up for Jack to take home for Dean, but here's hoping I can teach him something by revoking his pie privileges for one night."

Castiel's eyes went wide, and his hand flew off the rim of the plate as though it had burned him.  Before he could figure out a way to articulate how uncomfortable it made him to know he was stealing someone's pie, Jack laughed and shook their head.

"No, it's okay, really.  Sam's always saying Dean needs to watch what he eats.  So, you're helping!"  They chirped this last bit with a scrunch of the eyes and a jerky shrug of their shoulders.  Jo backed the assertion, a tilt of her head and a jag of her brow to say Castiel really didn't have the room to argue with either of them on this.

"Ah," Castiel said, eyeing the pie like it was a plate full of gold, feeling completely unworthy, "If that's the case. . ."

He looked up, met Jo's and then Jack's eyes, and told them solemnly, "I appreciate it."

Jack's endearing smile crinkled onto their face again, and Jo patted them on the arm.

"Hey, we're all set here," she said to Jack, "Why don't you clock out a little early, okay?  I won't tell my mom."

Castiel kept his small smile to himself, busied himself shifting his briefcase to his other hand as Jack eagerly tripped off to head out for the night.  Still, he lingered a little at the pickup counter, not missing the guarded way Jo eyed the front door, which gave nothing away as to what kind of trouble might still be skulking in the night on the other side.

She caught him noticing, which was fine, because his thoughts were running along similar tracks.  It gave him the cue to share his own.  "Um," he started, glancing away, "Would it be a problem if I stayed until closing?  There's, uh, no Wi-Fi at the motel."

When he looked back over at her, shy, she was giving him a soft eye roll with her mouth screwed up to one side to hide some kind of smile.  She chewed on the inside of her cheek a moment, then looked heavenward with a good-natured sigh.

"You know, for a guy who swears he's not a guardian angel--"

Behind her, Jack, who had traded their apron for a colorful windbreaker, swung through the half-door at the far end of the counter, on the other side of the espresso machine, and called out a chipper, "Good night, Jo!  Good night, sir, hope you enjoy your drink!"

Oh.  Castiel hastily lifted the paper cup, Jo waving her own goodbye as Jack trotted across the shop floor towards the exit.  He took a sip of the latte, cringing a little to discover that it was still far too hot to drink without caution; even so, he smiled at Jack and gestured with the cup.  "It's very good, thank you."

He was treated to another of those full-face, joyous smiles, and then Jack was out the door and Castiel was left alone with Jo, his scalding latte, and his unearned pie.  He thumbed the lip of the plastic to-go lid, only half-certain she had approved of him sticking around now that she was on her own behind the counter.  For all she knew, he could be just as rotten as any of them, just biding his time until--

"Please help yourself to our Wi-Fi for as long as you'd like," Jo told him, fixing him with a kind, if ever-so-slightly bemused, look.  

He nodded his thanks, and, using the bottom of his drink, shifted the pie plate over to the edge of the counter where he caught it in the fingers of the hand already tucked under the handle of the briefcase, maxing out his awkwardness in doing so.  Jo was biting her lip, watching the juggling act unfold before her, but she didn't otherwise comment.  With a short smile of parting, Castiel fled -- cautiously -- to a small table at one of the shaded windows, far from Jo and close to the door.

As he went, the sound of a car engine, startling in both how loud and how familiar it seemed to him, rumbled up through the coffee shop's backdrop of picked guitars and singing fiddles.  By the time Castiel took a seat, it had already roared off into the distance.  He was glad its driver seemed not to have run into any further trouble, after all.

Drink settled, pie settled, Castiel himself settled, he set the briefcase on the floor beside him and clicked it open just enough to drag the laptop out from the pocket. He slid it onto the table between his other items, determined to connect to the Wi-Fi and check his email, to do the one thing he had ventured out to do, even if only to say he had.

As suspected, he now saw no trace of "Big D's iPhone" nearby, and carefully punched in the access code to the Roadhouse's network.  The computer connected without fanfare.  Dutifully, he clicked on his email app and watched the logo splash pop up over the muted periwinkle of his desktop wallpaper.

While the program loaded up, he reached out and pulled the pie over and dug a chunk out of it with the fork that had been so kindly provided.  The first bite reminded him that he hadn't eaten since Kansas City, and his focus narrowed to the singular task of slicing and chewing until there was nothing left but crumbs stuck to the cinnamon-sugary tracks his fork made as it scraped over the plate's inexplicable cowboy boot pattern.

Returning the plate and fork to the table with a sigh, Castiel took up his latte, now sufficiently cooled, and sipped this while flicking his fingers over the laptop's trackpad, disinterestedly scrolling through his inbox.  The loss of a few of his taste buds notwithstanding, he found he was able to appreciate the quality of Jack's handiwork, and he felt retroactively absolved for the preemptive high marks he'd given.

He stopped scrolling.  Not that he'd been paying attention to the task anyway, but thinking about the young person's ineffable good cheer and the mercurial temper of their guardian had him staring at the curtain as if he could see straight through it, into the street and the night, imagining the shine of the street lamp off the hood of that dangerous-looking car.

He drank the rest of his latte while absorbed in the expanse of his mind's eye, the limitless vistas of the day's bus ride peppered with half-remembered moments of the evening so far,  impressions of the short stretch of Main Street Lebanon he'd traversed, the faces of strangers blending one into the next into the next.  There was one face in particular that he kept circling back to, though, and one moment that was sharper than the rest.

Standing under that street lamp, waiting.  Waiting for--

"Sorry to interrupt," Jo said, tentative, seeming to materialize at Castiel's table.

He whipped his head away from the window -- had he really just been staring blankly at the curtain this whole time?  What must she think -- and pushed back his chair to try to get with the program.  "Sorry -- you've probably been waiting--"

She laughed and held up her hands, and he slowed his frantic sweeping of his belongings from the table.  "Whoa, there.  I was just gonna give you a five-minute heads up, is all.  Didn't mean to spook you."

Castiel perched the briefcase he had snagged from the floor onto his vacated chair, and gently slid the laptop back inside.  "I'm fine," he said, snapping the clasp closed, "please don't let me hold you up."

"No worries," she told him, and when he darted his eyes over to her, she was giving him that slightly amused, slightly puzzled look she'd been giving him since he walked in.  She cleared his plate and cup from the table and made off with them.  He picked up his briefcase and pushed in the chair, standing purposelessly there at its side.

She looked back over her shoulder at him, seeing him not leaving.  "Five minutes," she said again, "and then I'm going to let you walk me to my car, okay?  You seem sweet, and I just can't help feeling like you'll have an aneurysm or something if I walk out there alone."

"Sorry," Castiel repeated.  He frowned, suddenly very invested in the stitching on his briefcase handle.  "I've overstepped again."

Jo pushed open the swinging half-door of the counter and regarded him from across the coffee shop floor.  "I'll let it slide, this once.  Just don't make a habit of it," she told him with mock-gravitas, fighting back a telling smile before disappearing into the back.

It was a joke, he could tell, something to dispel the awkward energy Castiel had fomented up around himself.  It worked, just a little, and he took a deep breath and let it out in a quiet sigh at himself.  Anyway, he could promise her that, and easily.  He didn't know exactly how long he'd end up spending in Lebanon, Kansas, but it wasn't like he was planning on sticking around forever.

He shuffled his feet, waiting on Jo's return, and willed himself to imagine opening that sealed box.  Digging out the keys to the wide, boxy, gold-colored Lincoln Continental.  Climbing into the driver's seat and watching this speck of a town vanish in the rearview mirror.

He wondered what tape would be playing in the deck, or maybe what radio station it was still set to.  What the scent of the air freshener hung over the mirror was, and whether the built-in ashtrays needed to be emptied.  What he might find forgotten under the seats.

All at once, a full-body shudder rolled over him, overwhelmed by all these questions with answers he couldn't yet face.  

"Ready?"

He looked up as Jo crossed to the door and flicked the bank of switches to shut off the overhead lights, leaving them both shadows lit faintly by the glow of the displays on the equipment behind the counter.

Ready?  Not in the slightest.

"After you," he murmured, reaching out to push the door open.

---

Castiel showered with military efficiency, the rushing water just about drowning out his empty thoughts.

He changed into his sleepwear mechanically, put himself into the bed, and flicked on the television because there was nothing else left to do.  The day was finally catching up to him, and his body ached as it reluctantly gave itself over to the support of the mattress.  His bones felt heavy, his eyes raw.  He flipped channels without comprehending anything he saw on the tiny screen.

Maybe it was the jangle of espresso in his veins, or maybe it was his internal clock's confusion regarding what time zone he'd ended up in, or maybe it was his white-knuckled refusal to find out what his subconscious had in store for him, but it was several long, dull, droning hours of late-night soaps and infomercials before Castiel finally let go and allowed himself to sleep.

[6ninaph9]

Climbing up the temple (a short sceen)

I’ve been feeling kinda shit about the plot and worldbuilding of my book, so I went back to the reason I write in the first place: the characters.

So here, have some ‘Clementine just being Clementine’, cause writing that makes me happy, and maybe you’ll like it too!

~Nina PH

It was a slow day and that hated it.

For most people, slow days are good in the temple: no battle, no cleaning duty, no exam to study for. While everyone else is laying back and relaxing, I just can't seem to do the same.

I walked to the sleeping quarters through the empty hallway. I don't like hearing my footsteps in the hall in the middle of the day. The day is supposed to be active, the halls buzzing with people. I like the clamor of conversations as people walk by me, of a hundred feet hitting the wooden floor as they all go their own separate way. Today everyone was sitting around in the gardens, talking, eating sugar, and playing card games in small groups, like they themselves were flower bushes growing underneath the cool shadows of the trees. Now there were only two feet in my ears and it was driving me insane.

I entered the sleeping quarters and took in a deep breath of the refreshing air. The windows were partly closed and the blindfolds shut down, keeping the room cool, almost chilly in comparison to the heat of the outside world. It felt alien to step in this secret pocket of existence, like walking into a new undiscovered cave, filled with darkness and mysteries demanding your attention. But no, it was the same old boring sleeping room and my eyes didn't need to wait to get used to the lack of light as muscle memory sat me down on my sleeping mat.

The room was empty, except for me and the sleeping bundle under the blanket. My blanket. I kicked him in a friendly fashion: »Max! Wake up!«

He groaned and kicked me back: »No.«

»Oh come on,« I stole my blanket from him, letting the cold air shake him awake. My plan was unsucesefull: underneath mine, he was still tightly holding onto his own blanket, bringing it over his head to try to escape me.

»Nothing is going on. I want to do something.«

»I'm not stopping you…«

»Let's go spar.«

»No.«

»Max!« I shook him, trying to rip the blanket away from him, but he held on to it like it was his family honor. »You can't just nap through the entire day.«

»Watch me,« he yawned.

He left me no choice: I got up and with my full force half-fell half-jumped on him, shoulder first. Even if this wasn't going to work, the noise he made alone was entertainment enough. It sounded like a deer that swallowed a blader ballon and was trying to vomit it back up. Max did not find it as hilarious as I did.

»How can you be so cruel? To wake me up at such an unhuman hour…« he squeezed his voice from underneath me.

»It's 16:45 and you've been napping for 3 hours.« I got off him, mostly because his knee was sticking into my shoulder blade. Max is a terrible pillow.

He slowly sat up, able to breathe again: »That's still 5 hours too little…« He rubbed his eyes: »Can't you bother Pietar with your boredom?«

»He's busy with work…«

I didn't check in his office before coming to Max. I didn't have to. A beautiful summer day without a single cloud in the sky, perfect to take a break from daily work and hustle? Where else is Pietar going to be but locked up in his office, buried under a mountain of papers he doesn't actually need to file till another month. I'd bet all my money, of which I have non, that his office window is locked closed, making the air inside smell that all too familiar odor of sweat mixing with dust and oily stale ink. I was not going there, no thank you. I was bored, not desperate.

»I'm busy too…« his hand grabbed for the blanket, but mine was faster, throwing the warm fuzzy fabric on the other side of the cold room. He groaned and slumped right back on his matt: »I was having a particularly nice dream.«

»The brunet?«

He smirked: »The ginger one with freckles.«

»Oh, you hoe!«

»That's my middle name, baby.« He threw his arm over his eyes, blocking out the light that wasn't really there: »You can join me. We'll be hoes together.«

I lay down next to him: »As much as I love being a hoe with you, no. I can't just lay around and do nothing. I'm not made like that.«

»Have you ever tried?«

»Why would I try if I already know it sucks?«

He sighed, every air particle escaping him filled with annoyance and disappointment in me: »Than just… do something while doing nothing.«

»… Dude, saying stupid stuff is my thing, not yours.«

»I mean while relaxing occupy your mind with something. Make a plan of how to get Pietar out of his office, draw a map of the temple grounds. At Astis, you love numbers so much, just count to 100 in your head. Most importantly,« his face turned to mine, his eyes slim from sleep: »do it in silence.« And he turned back away from me.

I stared at the ceiling for a while, thinking. No, I wasn't counting to 100! Neither was I planning to drag Pietar out of his office. I've tried it before, but if I haven't managed it in the last 13 years, I wasn't gonna succeed now.

Drawing the map part… That I could get behind. The problem was, a map of what? I already have more than 20 of them. I've drawn the temple gardens, all the floors and rooms, Pietars office alone counted about half of my map collection. There was no place inside the temple walls I haven't sketched and measured and calculated in size. I know every inch of land inside the walls by heart. But… outside the walls…

I stood up over him: »Come on, get up.«

»Hmgg…« he grumbled. How can a human fall asleep so easily?

»Come with me!« I started pulling his arm up.

»Why? What?«

»We're gonna climb.«

»That's… the opposite of what I told you to do!«

»Trust me, you'll like it.«

»There's climbing involved: I will not.«

»You'll still get to sleep.«

He sat up, his eyes skeptical: »If this is a trick, I'm gonna kick you in the kneecaps.«

»Deal!«

I walked to the window, opened them and shoved the blinds up, letting light and heat take over the room. Max very slowly, his feet dragging on the floor, more in bored defiance than actual tiredness, approached me. I jumped on the window sill and slid on the outside wall of the temple, still looking through the window at him: »You coming?«

»… We're climbing on the temple?«

»Yeah.«

»… You lied to me. Give me your kneecaps.«

I laughed: »Come and get my kneecap,« and started climbing up.

The stones were hot, the wall absorbing all the heath and shooting it back into my hands. No one ever climbed in the summertime. No one ever climbed on the temple any time, but even the climbing rocks right outside the temple were in this time abandoned and silent. I presume it's exactly because of the heat of the stone. I never minded it. The walls being hot or freezing cold didn't make it harder, it just made it more interesting. I was already at the next floor by the time Max even got his footing on the outside wall, overanalyzing every next step and position on the stones.

He yelled up at me: »If I fall and die you're gonna have to explain to my parents what at Astis I was doing climbing up a building!«

»You're not gonna fall!« I turned around, waiting for him to catch up. I held myself in place with one hand and foot, letting the other two limbs relax in the open air. The Red Sun shinned harsh on my face but I loved it. The small beads of sweat on my arm disappearing just as quickly as they appeared, stolen away by the still, windless air. My muscles tense and under pressure, held me locked to the wall 15 meters above the dry dirt. If someone were to fall, they'd go even farther, rolling another 30 meters down the steep hill the temple is set on, only stopping when their body would crash in the swamp. They probably wouldn't survive it.

I smirked at the thought. Me? Falling? Yeah right.

Max finally climbed face to face to me. His limbs were almost digging into the walls, arms tense to the point you could see his veins popping out. His face was turned forward with his body shaking at even the thought of moving a centimeter away from the wall. He eyed me up and down and squinted his eyes in annoyance. »You look like a sail on a boat.«

»Thank you.« I knew he didn't say it as a compliment, but what can I say, I enjoyed being better than him at something.

And he wasn't wrong, I was a sail: free in the open air, ready to take on the world and travel to places no human has been before. Or, in my case, just to the rooftop.

»Hey snail, I thought you wanted to go back to sleep quickly.« I climbed on, Max not able to keep up.

He grinned weakly: »I could beat you to the top! If I wanted to…«

»Keep telling yourself that!« I jumped to the next stone that poked out slightly, probably giving Max a tiny heart attack because I was moving so 'carelessly'. I wasn't careless, I just knew how to do it.

Left hand to the left, leg locked to the right, the other one put up- nope, not that stone. »Watch it, this one is shaking!« The stone above? Yes. Past Pietars window, completely shut closed and blinds down – called it! And one more pull up with my right hand and, voila! My butt was on the edge of the roof.

When Max got in reach I offered him a helping hand. He cringed as the sweat of our hands mixed together, his hands shaking from discomfort while I pull him up and next to me. He quickly let go of my arm and wiped it in his shirt, still breathing deeply.

After he caught his breath he looked at the view in front of us: »Wow…«

I smiled and followed his eyes. Green colors, dark and bright and those turning into yellows, covered the land all to the horizon, the fields lined on one side by a thick forest, on the other by the mountain range. We've been to the fields countless times, but being up here, where you could see how far they stretch, in constant motion either by the wind or small animals hiding in the grass, it stopped being just a piece of land to walk on. It was alive and grand and sitting here, I understood why the gods loved our world. One glance at it explained it better than any book or monk could.

A blue stream splits the land in two, the fields of our and of the east temple, and ends up in the small lake in between our and their hill. I didn't bother looking at their side, ours was much prettier. From up here, you couldn't hear the gurgling of the water, but I liked to pretend I did. The thought of going anywhere near that death puddle was deeply disturbing to my stomach. I'd much rather experience the falling-down-while-climbing situation than have to step in a half meter radius of that thing. But the sound of a tiny stream rolling over shinny stones… I've never heard it. And in all of Maxes books, they described it so beautifully.

So I sat on the warm roof tiles, my feet dangling in the air, pretending to enjoy what I imagined the flowing water sounded like.

Max had laid down much further away from the edge, spreading his arms and legs wide, eyes closed, taking in the warmth: »This is nice…«

»Oh, so you might say that the climb was worth it?«

»Your kneecaps are safe,« he smiled: »for now.«

So we spend the slow day on the roof, Max napping and stretching, his skin getting even tanner, if that's even possible, and me enjoying the sight beneath and around me. I tried to take in every detail, to remember distances between landmarks, to calculate what proportions I would choose to fit it all on a piece of paper, yet not making it so small that the charm and complexity of the land would be lost in it.

The Red Sun touched my cheeks, like giving me their blessing to immortalize in ink the world they have created.

I smiled. This will be a fun map to draw.

[let-it-raines]

Not Your (soul)Mate {13/16}

Killian Jones doesn’t like the idea of soulmates. He sees how happy his friends are with theirs, but he still doesn’t like the idea, not when he’s found love and lost it time and time again only to still not know his sign. He has no markings on his skin, no voices in his head, but then one day he meets Emma Swan and everything changes. Because, well, he may not have ink on his skin to tell him who to love, but the very first time that he hears Emma’s voice he knows that she’s the one for him. Then again, that could simply be his desire talking. After all, for every word she speaks, he becomes aroused.

It’s not the worst thing in the world to be incredibly attracted to a beautiful woman, but things aren’t that simple when she doesn’t have any interest in being his soulmate.

He’s screwed. And not in the good way.

Rating: Mature

A/N: I can’t gush on @captainsjedi enough for her artwork and support and overall kindness. Oh, or her tag flails. They’re my favorite thing in the universe. Also, I just want to give a shoutout to the nonnie who sent me the trope mashup of “soulmates + aroused by her voice” when I was playing that game back in late March because you gave me the inspiration to write one of my favorite stories❤️

Oh, and I want to thank all of you for clicking and reading and flailing! You make me so excited to post these chapters! The next three all take place within 24ish hours, so we’re getting to the climax (literally and figuratively), and then a fluffy little epilogue😘

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

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Tag list: @galaxyzxstark @thejollyroger-writer @idristardis @snowbellewells @karenfrommisthaven @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @a-faekindagirl @emmas-storybook @searchingwardrobes @spartanguard @ultimiflos @jamif  @dreameronarooftop15 @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @wellhellotragic @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @superchocovian @ultraluckycatnd @cs-forlife @andiirivera @qualitycoffeethings @jonirobinson64 @mariakov81 @xellewoods  @cssns

-/-

The fan clicks as Killian stares at it rotating above him, the sound mixing in with his television that’s still playing, some kind of infomercial for mixing bowls on, and with the howl of the wind outside. The temperatures have rapidly dropped in the eleven days since the calendar hit October, and even though he’s yet to turn the heat in his apartment on, he is seriously thinking about getting out of bed to turn the fan off. But that would be such effort to move from underneath his covers, to let the cool air hit the bare skin of his arms and chest, so he doesn’t move, can’t move. It’s all too comfortable to stay in bed and hear about how he can buy this new set of mixing bowls for under twenty dollars.

He definitely doesn’t need any new mixing bowls.

There’s a vibration against his nightstand, and he makes the effort to reach over, letting the cool air cast over his skin for this brief moment, before he’s squinting at the bright screen of his phone and the gray messages that are popping up. His stomach flutters at the sight of it, making him feel like a ridiculous teenager, but that seems to be par for the course lately when it comes to anything and everything that has to do with Emma Swan.

She’d slap him upside the head or punch his bicep if she knew that he thought things like that, but, honestly, he’d take the slap with a smile on his face.

Now, she’d definitely slap him for that. Probably twice.

Emma: I realize that it’s three in the morning because my phone tells me so, but I just woke up and colored mixing bowls are being advertised on my TV. And I kind of need to know who in the world is buying mixing bowls at three in the morning?

Killian: Insomniacs and anyone who works the night shift and happens to be watching TV.

Emma: Why are you awake?

Killian: I needed new mixing bowls, and ordering off of an infomercial is the only way that I shop.

Killian: Why are you awake?

Emma: I was thinking of you in your one night stand’s mother’s bathrobe.

He chuckles under his breath, shaking his head from side to side, and shuffles on his mattress, twisting to the side and pulling the covers up over his shoulders as he thinks of what exactly it is he wants to say back to Emma. It’s the oddest thing having to think of what he wants to say to her. Usually, he doesn’t think before he speaks…or texts, really. They haven’t physically spoken to each other since Ariel’s baby shower two weeks ago, and honestly, after he chased after her into Ariel’s bedroom because he could tell that she was upset, he figured that she’d cut him off. He knows Emma, has really gotten to know her intimately over the past few weeks and months, but they have gotten to know each other through texts and letters, not face to face conversations where one of them breaks down and shares their deepest secrets.

It’s not like they could talk to each other, not really.

For a long time, he thought that they shouldn’t talk at all, that if they did, he’d be entirely too uncomfortable in any pants that he was wearing and he’d be clenching his jaw enough to break teeth. His dental insurance isn’t good enough for that. It was this horrible sense of arousal, this thing that he couldn’t control and couldn’t do anything about, and it honestly felt like some kind of sick joke. But then a sick joke turned into a fun game, one where he could talk loudly to make Emma uncomfortable, one where they could tease each other out on the boat or in the Nolans’ backyard. Hell, they could even make each other uncomfortable (or technically far too comfortable depending on the definition of the word) standing in Ariel’s kitchen making pizza.

It was fun. Emma is fun. It gave him this sense of exhilaration to be able to connect with her, to interact with her, and even if it was entirely superficial at first, something inexplicably changed. He’d like to pinpoint it down to Labor Day, to her spending the morning with him and the twins and the afternoon out sailing with their friends, but he knows that it was before that. It was even before kissing her in what had to be one of the most explosive kisses of his life (firework pun completely and totally intended) in Leo’s treehouse while everyone else was watching David shoot fireworks into the sky. But he doesn’t know exactly when it all changed.

Not at all.

All he knows is that he has fallen in love with a woman who is enigmatic, charming, intelligent, beautiful, witty, and someone who he wants to talk to every day for the rest of his life.

Killian Andrew Jones loves Emma (No Middle Name) Swan with every fiber in his being, in a stomach twisting, notebook turning, high school scribbling on papers type of way.

It’s the craziest, most unusual, feeling he’s ever experienced, and while he thought that he was too old for all of this, thought that he would never feel love after Milah, Emma has proven him wrong in every single way.

She’s…for all of those things that he thinks Emma is, that he knows Emma is, he seems to keep circling back to maddening. Sure, it could go under the enigmatic category, but maddening seems to keep coming back to him. If it were anyone else, any other woman who he’s fancied, he would be sure that she fancies him too from the way they interact. There would likely be dates, phone calls, overnight stays, face-to-face conversations full of laughter and teasing and the occasional serious moment where they shared the depths of their hearts. And he would know for sure where things are going, whether that be a serious relationship or simply sex.

With Emma, he has no clue.

Because even if she had wanted to, they couldn’t have gone on dates, couldn’t have had phone calls, couldn’t have spoken. They could have had overnight stays, ones full of lust and sex and heated moments that never stopped, and as much as he craved that, still craves it, he mostly wants to know what exactly it is he and Emma are doing.

They are soulmates. There is no doubt in his mind about that, and despite the fact that they had a predicament at the beginning, he’s not entirely sure that it’s happening anymore. At Ariel’s baby shower, when Emma was sharing herself with him, when he was getting to learn about the depths of her broken yet still beating heart, the only stirring her felt was within his chest as it broke for her. They’ve both been hurt, damaged, and yet they’re still capable of having all of this love for the people around them.

And he’s capable of having love for Emma.

While he’ll likely never know for sure since there’s no one to ask about this (he’d like to speak to the manager, thank you very much), he thinks that’s what’s made the arousal stop, what’s made them be able to speak to each other without the uncomfortable awkward twinge of pain and desperation. He’s heard of soulmate signs changing over time once two people have found each other. Elsa and Liam only rarely hear each other’s thoughts now that they’re together, Will can no longer see Belle’s fingerprints on objects he’s touched, and he no longer feels uncontrollable arousal for Emma. Of course, he’s still incredibly attracted to her, most likely more than he was at the beginning because of the emotions involved, but he’s almost giddy at the fact that maybe one day he’ll be able to sit on the couch eating take out with Emma, the two of them talking about their days, and then not wanting to sleep with each other right then and there.

A normal spark, really. A normal attraction. Sure, they could decide to screw talking about their days and screw instead, but it wouldn’t be something that they absolutely have to do.

He never thought there would be a day where he’s excited about not being desperate to sleep with the woman he loves, but that seems to be happening.

Not that he doesn’t want to sleep with her.

Because he does.

A lot.

This is confusing to explain even to himself. How can he possibly say that he’s incredibly attracted to Emma while also not being incredibly attracted to her?

It seems nearly impossible, and all he can hope is that Emma feels the same way for more reasons than he can even begin to count. Liam seems to think so from the few conversations they’ve had about the whole situation, and Killian knows that he has to work up the courage to talk to Emma about it all and see exactly what’s going on in that head of hers.

Killian: I looked damn good in that bathrobe.

Emma: I don’t believe it.

Killian: Maybe you’ll have to see it one day.

Emma: Yeah, maybe. I’ll have to buy some bleach before that, though.

Killian: To make sure my robe stays spotless?

Emma: We can go with that if it makes you feel better.

Killian: It does. And at least I know that my undergarments all match.

Emma: You have got to let that joke go. It’s not even a good one.

Emma: And you’ll still never know the answer. All you get to see are the socks.

Killian: I like the mismatched socks. They’re charming.

He’s not sure how long he stays up texting Emma, never putting his phone down or away with the speed of her messaging him back. All he knows is that he wakes up with his phone on his chest and several unread messages from her, most of them strange gifs of people sleeping, and he spends far too long trying to find something to send back to her.

He would say he is too old for things like this, but then that would make him feel much older than he actually is.

(He almost says that he’s hip, but that would basically be him digging his own grave.)

Getting out of bed, he reaches up to pull the chain on the fan to turn it off before heading into his bathroom to get ready for the day. It’s chilly enough in his apartment for him to not want to strip out of his clothes, but once he’s in the shower, the warm water spraying down on him, he doesn’t want to leave. Why does this always happen?

But he can’t wither away in his shower. That would be a horrible way to die (as would freezing to death, but he has to consider his options), so he steps out of the shower and quickly gets dressed before going through his morning routine, the one cup of coffee not nearly enough for him, especially as Liam keeps texting to badger him about missing their run this morning.

It’s too cold, he’s too tired, and he doesn’t want to do it.

He’ll get up for it all tomorrow.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

Not definitely. He needs that adrenaline rush and that feeling of his body accomplishing something, especially lately.

It’s a quick trip to the office, especially since he drives instead of walking to stay out of the cold, and when he opens the front doors, Ariel is already sitting behind her desk in front of his office with her hair pulled up into a bun and her glasses perched on her nose…that means she had an awful night’s sleep, and he needs to either steer clear of her or offer to take her to lunch. The kicker is that he never knows which one, and he’s taking a gamble on how she’s going to react.

He’s got about a forty percent success rate, which isn’t great.

“Morning, A.”

“Morning,” she yawns, covering her mouth with her hands before resting her hands on her stomach, her belly taking up most of the space behind the desk. She’s two weeks away from her due date, and as much as he’s told her she can start her maternity leave, she’s refused. Stubborn lass. “You look like shit.”

“I do so love when women tell me that.”

“I try to make you feel as confident about yourself as possible.”

“You succeed,” he laughs, pressing his elbows down on her desk as they talk, his fingers fumbling with the chain around his neck. “If you’re too tired, you can go home. You know that, right?”

She waves him away, rubbing her stomach once more before adjusting her glasses. “I can work. I like to work, and it’s much more entertaining to spend my day talking to you when I’d be by myself at home.”

“This is true. I am a damn good time.”

“You’re an okay time. Don’t let that head get too big.”

He winks. “I won’t. But you, Mrs. Fisher, are going to go to lunch with me today, and then you’re going to go home and take a nap.” She opens her mouth, and he holds up his hand. “No exceptions. I know you’re not sleeping well, and I also know that you are going to Will and Belle’s engagement party tonight at their new place. There’s no way you’re making it through that with how tired you are today.”

“You sure know how to make a girl feel good.” He tilts his head to the side and smiles at her, figuring he’s pushing in the right direction if she’s not too mad at him yet. Offering lunch was obviously the right idea. Ariel sighs, rolling back in her chair as another yawn hits her. “Fine. I will go home and take a nap, so you’re not allowed to do anything interesting without me. Got it?”

“I promise.”

Unsurprisingly, nothing interesting happens. October is far from their busy season, even if they do get a few requests for upkeep and maintenance on vessels for the holiday season, so he mostly twiddles his thumbs and rummages through his desk, organizing already organized files and pens all the while he lets his phone play music from his desk so he doesn’t actually die of boredom. Liam seems to have the same issue, continuously finding reasons to walk down the hall and pop his head into Killian’s office for no reason other than to tell a story about Luis and Luca or ask if he wants to come over for dinner sometime next week.

It’s simply one of those days where it feels like it’s never going to end, and when four o’clock rolls around, hours before their office technically closes, Liam walks through his door and sits down on his couch, the leather creaking underneath him as he completely lays down and folds his arms over his chest.

“If I complain about how bored I am today, that inevitably means that Monday will be the craziest day of our entire professional lives, right?”

“Navy included?”

“Hell no. That’s an entirely different category.”

“Then yeah,” Killian laughs, rolling back in his chair and moving his legs up to prop his feet on the corner of his desk where his jacket is about to fall to the ground, “I’d say it’s best not to complain. But, you know, if you did want to shut the place down and let everyone go early, I don’t think anyone would argue that.”

“But then what would we do with our day?”

“You’re a workaholic.”

“I’m kidding, you wanker. Obviously, I’m going to go see the kids since Elsa and I are leaving them to go to the engagement thing tonight. That’s pretty much an entire day without us.”

“It’s probably the best day of their lives.”

“Asshole.”

Killian chuckles and rolls his eyes. Liam can be so dramatic, but then again, that’s likely a family trait.

(Definitely a family trait.)

“You talked to Emma lately?”

He nearly stumbles out of his chair, but he manages to keep himself stable, glad that his computer partially blocks his face since he can feel the heat reach the tip of his ears.

“Yes,” he slowly answers, not sure where Liam is going with this.

“That’s good.”

“I mean, yeah, I think so.”

“Still got that tiny, little boner problem?”

“You’re asking me so that you can make a joke about me having a small dick, aren’t you?”

“Glad to see you catch on quick, little brother.”

“I’d say you’re the biggest dick around, but that would be entirely untrue.”

Liam barks out a laugh, one that reverberates throughout the room, before sitting up on the couch so that he’s propped up by his elbows. “So should we call it quits for the day? Let everyone have a better Friday?”

“Yeah, we should. I’ve heard this rumor that one of the bosses is an asshole.”

“I heard that rumor about you too.”

Since they shut down the office early and Killian already has Belle and Will’s gift wrapped in his car, he takes the extra hour to run to the bank and deposit a few checks as well as picking up a few of his suits from the dry cleaner, hanging them on the hook in the backseat of his jeep. He’s not surprised by the lack of things he has to do, and like any smart person when they’re bored, he parks in front of Granny’s and heads inside to grab something to eat.

Eating while bored: a great idea!

The early dinner rush has already started to fill in, everyone settling down into booths and tables with their jackets hanging off the back, but he doesn’t bother to take his leather jacket off before sitting down at a barstool and ordering a lobster roll and some fries as well as a cup of coffee, his lack of sleep finally starting to hit him. He hopes that Ariel got her nap today. He probably should have texted her and asked.

“You know, Jones,” Ruby sighs when she hands him his coffee, “coming in here before five doesn’t mean that I can give you the senior discount.”

“You’re the funniest person in town. You know that?”

“I did, actually. I also have the best hair.”

“And the most confidence.”

“Exactly.” He rolls his eyes at the same time that she winks. He’s not sure if starting to frequent Granny’s Diner in the past few months is a good thing or a bad thing. That seems pretty consistent for a lot of things in his life. “Do you know if we’re supposed to bring food tonight? Or just, like, the housewarming gift? Because I can easily swipe a pie from here.”

“And you’ll pay for it,” Granny shouts from behind the counter back in the kitchen. “You don’t get freebies.”

“Your grandmother is a tough lass.”

“Very stingy about her pies as well.”

“Well, love, all you’re supposed to bring is the gift, but I wouldn’t pass up the pie, especially if it’s a blueberry one.”

“I prefer cherry.”

He turns on the stool to see Emma standing behind him, her shoulders shrugging out of her red leather jacket so that she’s left standing in a fitted black shirt with her jeans and heeled boots, golden hair falling over her shoulders in soft waves. She looks as beautiful as she always does, and he feels his groin begin to stir in a way that he knows has nothing to do with the three words that she said.

“Hi, love.”

“Hi.” She smiles at him, a soft curve of her lips, before taking the three steps closer and running her hand over his shoulder, sparks working their way through his clothes until he can feel them lighting up his skin, covering him in the warmth that’s not present outside. “You trying to get the senior discount? Ruby never gives it to anyone.”

Ruby groans, shaking her head. “You have to be old to get it. Like, your boobs and a bunch of other things need to be saggy and wrinkly and – ”

“Rubes, please shut up. People are eating, and that’s, like one hundred percent insulting.”

“Just saying the truth. You want your usual?”

“Just a hot chocolate.”

“Gotcha.”

Emma reaches over to his plate and takes two of his fries, dipping them in his ketchup, and when he raises a brow in question, she simply shrugs, her lips curling into a smile. So she doesn’t order her own food, but she steals his. Good to know.

There are so many things to still learn about this woman.

“So can I report you stealing my fries as a crime?”

“You could, but that would be a waste of my time. Too much paperwork.”

“I thought you all got the computerized system?”

“Whatever.” She reaches over to take another fry with absolutely no shame. “Why aren’t you at work?”

“I could ask the same to you.”

Emma still doesn’t say much, simply eating his fries and taking a sip of her hot chocolate when Ruby brings it to her, and he takes the time to try to study her, to see if maybe she’s not as affected by his voice as she used to be. Of course, there’s no obvious sign like there would be with him, but he checks to see if her cheeks are flushed or if her pupils are dilated, all the little things he’s learned to notice in a woman. She’s not showing any signs, none at all, and he honestly can’t decide if that’s good news or truly horrible news.

Seriously.

What does it mean if Emma is not ridiculously attracted to him?

Does it mean that she loves him as well? Could it?

Or has she become an expert at hiding everything since they met each other over seven months ago?

“If you stare at me any harder, you’re going to drill a hole in my head.”

He chuckles even as his hand reaches up to scratch behind his ear, his stomach twisting and his heart beating more quickly now that he’s been caught red-handed. “I can’t help that such a beautiful woman is sitting next to me.”

Emma’s eyes roll, as he expects them to, but he also sees her cheeks pink. “Flirt.”

“I try. Did you buy those mixing bowls to fill your now empty apartment?”

“I also got a new chair, which is going to be the only furniture in Belle’s old bedroom.”

He hums in response before twisting in his chair and picking up his sandwich to take a bite, figuring if he doesn’t, Emma’s going to eat it before he ever gets a chance to. Emma ends up ordering a side of onion rings, his fries obviously not enough for her, and they stay sitting on the stools talking to each other and Ruby for the next hour until Emma points out that Sean and Ashley just walked into Belle and Will’s new apartment. He pays for both of their meals before helping Emma into her jacket, the two of them telling Ruby they’ll see her later before grabbing his present out of his jeep and walking across the street to the apartment building, the sound of everyone’s voices already filling the stairway.

It’s obvious why when they get to the second floor and see that the front door is open, music streaming from inside and several people already milling around. For as many people are in this town, their friend group is tight knit, especially since he met Emma and Ruby, and there’s not a single person who he doesn’t know or who he has to make awkward conversation with as people begin to slowly arrive, most everyone still in the clothes they wore to work. He’s simply glad that he wore jeans today instead of one of his suits.

“You want a beer?” Will asks him as he sits down next to him on the couch, the leather one he recognizes from Will’s old place, and holds out a bottle.

“No thanks. You have the worst taste in beer.”

“Oi, that’s not true.”

“It is,” Ariel teases from her spot in the recliner.

He doesn’t think she’s going to move from there all night, like she’s terrified that someone is going to steal the chair and not let her sit back down. That’s a ridiculous thought since every soul in here would let her have a seat, but he doesn’t blame her. Everyone here seems to be pretty stuck where they are. Liam and Elsa are sitting at the kitchen table with David and Mary Margaret, the four of them munching on the tray of cheese and crackers, and Emma is standing against the kitchen counters with a glass of wine talking to Ashley, Sean, and Ruby. Robin, Regina, Victor, and Arthur keep moving between the entryway and the kitchen, going back for food, but mostly everyone is stuck in their little conversations, even if people occasionally move around.

“Where’s Eric?” Belle wonders.

“It’s Friday night. He’s working, so the closest thing I have to a husband tonight is Killian.”

“What the bloody hell does that mean?”

Ariel waves him away and adjusts in the chair, her face grimacing. He can’t imagine how uncomfortable it must be to be pregnant…and he does not want to imagine that. Not at all.

“You look the most like him, and I spend nearly as much time with you as I do with him. You’re obviously not my husband. Thank goodness for that.”

“Hey,” he scoffs, kind of wishing that he’d accepted that beer, but he now sees that it’s gone to Belle, “you don’t have to be rude about it. I would be a fantastic husband.”

“You’d have to date for that to happen.”

He cuts his eyes at Will at the same time that he sees Belle look away, the slightest bit of color appearing on her cheeks. He’s got no idea what that’s about, but he has a sneaking suspicion that it’s about Emma.

Does she know?

“You’re all hilarious.”

“Oof,” Emma grunts, sitting on the arm of the couch next to him so that her hip knocks into his shoulder, “are we making fun of Killian? I want to join in.”

“We’re talking about his lack of dating life,” Belle explains as her voice squeaks toward the end.

“Ah, yes,” Emma sighs. She leans back and puts her arm across the back of the couch so that her fingers tap against his shoulder, the rhythm random. “Our old spinster Jones. Whatever shall we do with him?”

He flicks her jeans at her thigh, and she pinches him in response. The height of maturity.

“You’re all assholes. I’m simply here trying to celebrate my mate getting engaged to the love of his life, and here I am being teased. None of you have any humanity.”

“You’ll be okay,” Emma mock soothes, and when he looks up at her, she’s absolutely smirking down at her with the soft pink lips that he desperately needs to feel against him again. He’s not actually irritated, not really, but the entire reason he’s not going on dates and openly being in love is Emma Swan, one of the people messing with him. It’s damn obnoxious, and it’s taking everything in him not to mess with her in front of everyone right now. “You’re a handsome man. Love will find you.”

A remark is at the tip of his tongue, but he swallows it and says something else. “Swan, if you keep calling a man handsome, he might get ideas.”

“Well, like I’ve said, it’s always a bad idea when you start thinking.”

“I thought the two of you hated each other?” Will questions, circling his hand around as his beer swishes in the bottom of his bottle. “When did this happen?”

“Why would they hate each other?” Ariel seems so genuinely confused by the thought of the two of them ever disliking each other, and he can’t help but chuckle. “They’re always together. I thought they were sleeping with each other at one point.”

“E-excuse me?” he coughs, choking on air and leaning forward as Emma pats his back, which really only makes him cough more. “What?”

“I mean, I knew the two of you weren’t dating because neither of you are big daters. But then you were spending all of that time together, suddenly you were happier at work, Emma was happier when we went to lunch. I figured you were both just getting laid.”

“Oh my God, no,” Emma groans, and he would be insulted by the horror in her voice if he hadn’t just sounded the same way. “We are not sleeping together.”

“Stop talking about my brother’s sex life,” Liam yells from across the room.

“There’s apparently no sex life to be talked about,” Will shouts back, and he wonders, not for the first time, if he could sink into the couch.

Luckily, the conversation moves on, more specifically to Will and Belle, the actual reasons they’re there tonight, and Emma doesn’t seem too put off by the fact that they were teased like that. He doesn’t know what that means, another mixed signal from her, and his stomach can’t seem to decide if it thinks that’s a good sign or an awful one. His heart, however, has definitely decided to speed up to levels that can’t be healthy.

That all definitely comes from being around Emma, and he hopes that her little superpower in hearing has disappeared like his has, because he does not want her to hear the blood that is furiously pumping through their veins.

As the night wears on, toasts are made and presents are opened with lots of talk about the wedding next summer and the vacation that Will and Belle have cancelled so that they can go on a honeymoon instead. It’s a nice, relaxing evening, and he hates to leave the warmth of the apartment to go outside when people start trickling out of the apartment and down the stairs. Ariel has her arm looped into his elbow as they walk out, her pace a little slower so that the two of them and Emma, Elsa, and Liam drag behind the others on the walks back to their cars.

“Does anyone here need a ride home?”

“I only had the one glass of wine,” Liam supplies.

“Same. Though I won’t say no to a ride. I walked to work this morning and am not feeling the walk home tonight.”

“No problem, love,” he smiles, glad that she’s accepting his help. “Elsa, I trust you can get home with your husband?”

“If he lets me.”

Elsa affectionately pats Liam’s chest before pressing up on her toes to kiss his cheek, and he smiles at them before continuing to walk forward only to stop when he notices that Ariel is no longer walking, her feet firmly planted on the ground.

“A? You okay?”

She doesn’t say anything, grunting in response.

“Ariel,” Emma worries, stepping in front of the two of them to look at Ariel. “Hey, what’s wrong? Is it the baby?”

She nods her head up and down, her jaw visibly clenched, and suddenly the chill outside seems to worsen, the wind blowing through and whistling between the buildings as street lights illuminate their paths.

“It’s…I…” Ariel is stuttering, her words strained, and when his eyes meet Emma’s, they’re full of worry. “I could be wrong, but I’ve been in a bit of pain all day. I – ah fuck, I think I might be in labor.”

[dracoqueen22]

[CR] Cordially Invited

Title: Cordially Invited Universe: Critical Role Campaign 2, Bloodlines Characters: Caduceus Clay, Clay Siblings, Mollymauk Tealeaf, Yasha Nydoorin Rated: K+ Desc: Caduceus wanders into Shadycreek Run at his siblings’ behest, and runs into a very colorful duo.

"Get out of the house for once," Clarabelle says as she all but shoves him out the door, and he nearly trips on the front stoop. "There's more to life than fungus, brother," Cara says as they tumble a bag into his hands, filled with mushrooms and rations and one of their anti-poison poultices. They’ve always believed in being over-prepared, and now is no exception.

"The dark hasn't taken us yet," Colton says before she closes the door in his face, and Caduceus hears the distinct sound of her throwing the heavy beam over the door. "Go have some fun!" she shouts through thick wood.

Caduceus stands there, frowning, ears twitching. He's haphazardly adorned in his beetle armor; his shield lies at his feet. He's clutching a travel bag. It seems like they want him to leave for longer than a daytrip. Has he really been that much underfoot? "I don't have my staff," Caduceus tells his siblings, knowing good and well they can hear him through the unshuttered window. The pane lifts. His staff sails out, clattering to the ground. Caduceus sighs and finishes pulling on his armor, buckling it in place. Travelling through the Savalirwood is not without its dangers. He’d best be prepared. They won’t let him in unless he does as they suggest. Granted he could go off into the woods, camp overnight, and return in the afternoon and lie about where he’s been. Caduceus, however, is not a very good liar, and Clarabelle always seems to know when he’s lying anyway. “There’s a circus in town,” Colton says, appearing in the open window, making shooing motions at him. “Go see it. Come back and tell me all about it.” She grabs the window and shuts it with a noisy thunk. If Mother were here, his sisters would have never gotten away with this. Fine. He could use a few more ingredients which can't be found in the forest anyway. If they're so desperate to get him out of the house, he'll leave. They'll miss him when they realize they have to cook for themselves. Caduceus scoops up his staff, murmurs a prayer to the Wildmother to watch over him, and heads for town. Given a brisk pace, he could be there in a few hours, none the worse for wear. Luck is with him, and the Wildmother as well. She guides him straight through the woods, avoiding all obstacles, until he's stepping into Shadycreek Run. It's a crisp fall afternoon, muggy and damp with the threat of storm. A nice shower will cool things off, Caduceus thinks. He moves into the main thoroughfare, thick with the unwashed masses, all with their heads down as they go about their day. Caduceus' favorite shop is just around the corner, but before he can enter, something else catches his eye. Bright flags. A huge tent. A colorful collection of people. The circus. Caduceus pauses, head tilting in consideration. Part of him wants to turn away on principle alone. Simply because his siblings had been so insistent on it. Another part of him is curious. He's never been to a circus before. What exactly are they? "Well, you are definitely someone in need of a good time, if I do say so myself." Caduceus blinks and turns to acknowledge the voice sauntering up next to him. It belongs to a tiefling, as colorful as the flags fluttering around the circus tent. He's lavender-skinned and red-eyed, and jewelry dangles from his horns, making a delicate chime of metal on metal. "Are... uh... are you talking to me?" Caduceus asks. The tiefling breaks into a big smile as he looks up at Caduceus. "Well, I don't see any other charming firbolgs around." He squints. "That is what you are, yes, a firbolg?" "I take it you've never seen someone like me before?" Caduceus asks. "Well, maybe I have, maybe I haven't." The tiefling's shoulders roll in a shrug before he dips forward in a wide, sweeping bow. "Mollymauk Tealeaf at your service, friend. And I am happy to personally invite you to attend the Fletching and Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities." Well. That is certainly a mouthful. He’s impressed the tiefling managed to get it out without tripping over a single syllable. Caduceus chuckles. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Mollymauk. To what do I owe the honor of a personal invitation?" "You're the first spot of color I've seen in this place. Kind of dreary, isn't it?" Mollymauk winks at him, and Caduceus catches movement in his peripheral vision. The tiefling's tail is twitching madly, and rings sparkle on the end of it. "I suppose that depends on your point of view," Caduceus says. Mollymauk blinks but seems to shake himself. "You're a different sort, aren't you?" "Aren't we all?" "That's fair." Mollymauk laughs, and it's so genuine and carefree, Caduceus smiles along with him. He flicks his wrist and a sheaf of paper appears between two fingers, which he then offers to Caduceus. "Here you are. A flyer from yours truly." Caduceus takes the paper and unrolls it, admiring the carefully inked words, the swirls of color splashing across the page. It's five copper, which is entirely doable, but still... "And what do you do?" Caduceus asks. Mollymauk grins up at him. "Now, now." He shakes a finger at Caduceus in a parody of a parent's chastisement. "That would be spoiling the surprise, wouldn't it?" "I suppose it would." Caduceus folds the paper and tucks it away. "Well, Mr. Mollymauk, if I find the time, I will certainly check out your show." "I hope you do. I--" "Molly!" The tiefling twitches, and his tail does, too, as he looks over his shoulder. A tall woman with long hair and dark clothing stalks his direction, her face cast in a glower. "Yasha, my love, were you looking for me?" he asks in a bright tone, his hands spread wide in greeting. "Yes," she says, and her gaze slants to Caduceus. She tips her head in a terse nod of greeting. "Gustav says you're supposed to be handing out flyers, not flirting." Mollymauk chuckles, and his tail swishes around playfully. For a moment, Caduceus is captivated by the sheen across the bells, and the sound they make. He’s never seen someone with such animated behavior before. "Gustav doesn't understand that advertising and flirting are the same thing," Molly says, and he drapes himself against Yasha's side like a cat begging affection. "Wanna meet my new friend?" "Everyone is your friend," Yasha says, a note of fond exasperation in her voice. She pats him on the head, between his horns. "But fine. Introduce me." Molly laughs and makes a broad gesture toward Caduceus. "This is..." He pauses and blinks rapidly. "Wait. I don't think I got your name." "You didn't." Caduceus chuckles and extends a hand in greeting. "Caduceus. Caduceus Clay. Pleasure to make your acquaintance." "Yasha," she says as she shakes his hand in a firm grip that makes his bones creak. Her shoulders and arms are impressive, and Caduceus thinks Clarabelle would love to wrestle her. "It's nice to meet you," Caduceus says with what he hopes is a friendly smile. "And what do you do for the circus?" Molly winks and elbows her in the side. "She's the charm. And the strong arm." "Yes, I can tell," Caduceus says. "I hope I can make it to the show tonight." "You should. It's a good one," Yasha says, and her monotone doesn't do much to hype up Caduceus' interest, but he finds both her and Mollymauk curious. If the rest of the circus is anything like these two, perhaps Caduceus will find himself attending after all. Yasha looks down at Mollymauk. “Come on, Molly. Gustav wants us to keep spreading the word.” “Yes, yes, I know.” Molly flaps a hand at her before turning his charming smile back toward Caduceus. “Hope to see you there, Mr. Clay.” They wave and wander away, Mollymauk jogging ahead to catch the attention of a passing soldier while Yasha trails in his wake, better resembling a bodyguard. Perhaps a man such as Mollymauk needs one. He seems to be the sort to invite trouble. Hmm. A warm wind tugs at Caduceus' ear. There's a tingling in his chest, the core of his being where his faith resides. He hears his goddess, not with words, but with emotion, guiding him in the direction of Mollymauk and Yasha. "Oh, they're important, are they?" Caduceus murmurs. "For me or for the world?" The warmth spreads outward, radiating through his entire body, an echo of a forest song at the back of his mind. "Oh. Both," he says. And then he mutters a curse. Clarabelle and Cara were right. They're never going to let him forget it. **** Feel free to comment if you like! I’d love to have some feedback! ^_^

[atinytokki]

𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐙𝐞𝐫𝐨

Chapter 5: The Kraken

It had been mildly stressful for Wooyoung as he’d worked under Jongho all morning with one eye on whatever task was at hand and the other eye on the island where he knew the Captain and those with him were scoping things out.

He had watched anxiously from the deck as sharks had surrounded the longboats on the way back and jumped in to help them aboard. San had grasped his hand and glanced up at him, fear in his eyes.

Neither of them had ever seen sharks attack like that.

He’d been having thoughts about running for it as soon as they found civilised land.

Captain Hongjoong seemed determined to sail east and face any obstacle without a thought for the lives of his crew and having seen the risks faced just that morning for whatever the Captain’s secret quest was, Wooyoung liked the idea of being alive.

It wasn’t so bad under Si-Hyuk if he remembered correctly, other than lack of pay and sparse meals. At least Si-Hyuk had stayed in familiar waters most of the time.

He was still curious about the unknown however, so that afternoon, Wooyoung caught a break and found San on deck gazing at Smokey Island.

“What was it like?” He asked. San turned to face him and worked his mouth into a small frown. “For me, not as exciting as last time Captain put me on boarding party.”

Wooyoung raised his eyebrows, remembering their conversation last night. Yeosang had jabbed at San for being scared of wild creatures because of something that had happened at their last stop. San went on to tell the tale without prompting.

“It was a few weeks back, we landed on another supposedly uninhabited island with caves on it, and of course we went in those caves to look for clues and such and, well, we found something else...”

San’s face turned red with embarrassment at the memory. “There was a dragon.”

Wooyoung’s jaw dropped. “A dragon? You’re sure it wasn’t just a large lizard-”

“No, it was a dragon. With wings. Breathed fire,” San cut him off matter-of-factly.

Wooyoung shook his head in amazement. “Yeosang didn’t believe it either,” San shrugged and went on with the story.

“The dragon was asleep on a pile of gold, and Captain warned us all to be quiet while we searched around for clues-”

“Clues?”

San shrugged again. “Evidence of other humans, anything to prove someone had been there. Captain always has us look for clues like that when we land on an island.”

Wooyoung wanted to ask more but San was already moving on with the story. “I was going through some very nice looking jewels towards the top of the pile when, well, I happened to lose my balance and dropped one... on the dragon’s face.”

Wooyoung’s eyes widened.

“I made a run for it and the others realised what had happened and followed but it was all we could do to get off the island before the dragon came flying out at top speed, scorching the whole place in fire. I could still feel the heat on my face as the ATEEZ sailed away,” San shivered at the memory. “No one was killed or injured but... that’s why I wasn’t sure about landing party this time. I knew Captain wasn’t happy I had caused any potential clues on Dragon Island to go up in flames, but I’m also not too keen on caves anymore.”

“Captain’s party went in the caves,” Wooyoung pointed out.

San nodded. “But all Mingi and I found was an empty cabin, an unreadable map, and some over-ambitious sharks.”

“Who do you think was here before?” Wooyoung asked him, trying again to get San to talk about what the point of this journey east was. But San simply shrugged.

“There’s no way for me to tell. Whoever they were, they’re dead now. Skeletons in the bottom of that cave,” he shivered again.

“I hear the skeletons had pirate clothing,” a familiar voice came from behind them. They turned to see Yeosang standing there with a pen and paper, apparently having just left the Captain’s quarters. This was news to Wooyoung.

“Who told you that?” San asked with an even tone.

“Captain,” Yeosang flashed a broad smile. “No offence, but Captain and Yunho’s story is a fair bit more interesting than yours and Mingi’s, San.”

San rolled his eyes but Wooyoung wanted to hear it. Yeosang went on to tell about how Yunho fell down the hole and found the skeletons and the gold and how Hongjoong broke up a fight and discovered the gold was cursed.

“It definitely sounds like a curse to me,” Wooyoung mumbled to himself, though he was immediately overheard by both San and Yeosang.

“I pity them, whoever they are,” Yeosang sighed.

“Well I don’t,” San contradicted quickly. “That’s what you get when you mess around with cursed treasure.”

“I don’t believe in curses,” Yeosang countered.

“Then how do you explain the skeletons?”

“Most likely they were trapped in there and killed each other as they went mad!”

Wooyoung interjected before the argument got out of hand again, “Didn’t Captain himself say the treasure was cursed, though?”

San smirked at Yeosang, thinking he had won Wooyoung over, but Yeosang was cool under pressure. “Captain can do and think what he wants, but until I have evidence—”

“That’s it!” San exclaimed, exasperated. “We’ve got to get him on landing party sometime! The rest of the crew has seen mermaids, witches, and dragons since this voyage started but you won’t even believe in curses until you see them yourself!”

Yeosang had to admit he did want to get on a landing party but a cry from the crow’s nest interrupted him.

“Something in the water!” All three heads whipped to the direction Yunho was pointing to from above and searched the water.

Sure enough, just off their port a dark shape moved alarmingly quickly toward them through the waves. Jongho materialised out of nowhere and instructed Wooyoung to ready the harpoons as the Captain and quartermaster came on deck.

Hongjoong handed the spyglass to Mingi. “It’s not a whale.”

Mingi caught a glimpse of tentacle and shuddered. He tried to rationalise, but both of them knew they were going to be dealing with something very unnatural.

“Squid? You know, we’re not even in deep water yet- I might’ve imagined that tentacle...”

He handed the spyglass back to Hongjoong who took a second look and shook his head, an uncomfortable feeling brewing in his chest. “It’s bigger than any squid I’ve seen,” he admitted before yelling up to Yunho, “What do you see?”

Yunho’s face was pale as he answered, “Kraken.”

“Impossible,” Yeosang who had joined them had his eyes fixed on the shape as it began to lift its head above the water.

Crew members sprung into action. Seonghwa had heard the commotion and was coming up from the hold when a massive tentacle shot across the width of the ship, almost knocking him off his feet. Yeosang let out a yelp and ran to the older pirate’s side.

“Let’s get you below deck, Yeosang,” Seonghwa took Yeosang’s arm but was stopped by San pulling on Yeosang’s other arm.

“No no! Let him watch! I’ll bet he didn’t believe in krakens before just now!”

Wooyoung had no experience with harpoons but was closely following Jongho’s instructions as quickly as possible. There were now two colossal tentacles stretched across the ship trying to cleave it in half, and a third tentacle was headed for the crow’s nest before the first harpoon was shot.

The kraken reeled back with an ear-splitting screech as the metal sunk into its flesh, but kept a tight hold on the ship, resisting the swords and gunfire pelting the other two tentacles. Now that it was angered, it fully raised itself out of the water.

Wooyoung swallowed as he realised its head was larger than the ATEEZ herself, and the shortest tentacle was at least long as the mainmast.

Mingi’s voice boomed out from the quarterdeck, “Don’t let it penetrate our hull! Keep all tentacles in sight and accounted for! Load the cannons!”

Jongho stood up suddenly and looked around at who was with him. Only Wooyoung and a few other powder monkeys who had been on deck were there, working with the harpoons.

Jongho ran below to bring the rest of the boys out and start readying the cannons, but was caught by Mingi. “Jongho, why aren’t the cannons loaded yet? Kraken at ten o’clock!”

Jongho shot him a look over his shoulder, “I’m trying to do two jobs here! Get yourself a master gunner and then you can complain!”

Mingi’s response was cut off by a tentacle shooting his direction and sticking its suction cups to his feet.

He hacked at it with his cutlass in a panic, but another tentacle grasped his arm and before he knew it he was being pulled up into the air. Jongho stretched his arm toward him as he realised what was happening, but the kraken was too quick.

Jongho watched, speechless, as Mingi was swung through the air until Hongjoong made his way to the railing and unloaded his musket on the base of the tentacle, severing it in half.

Mingi tumbled down into the water just as a black ink oozed out of the monster and began to spread. He surfaced, coughing and spluttering on the dark substance and reached for the ladder being tossed toward him.

He summoned all his strength and swam toward it, praying the kraken would be distracted by the cannon fire that was erupting from the deck.

Just as soon as Mingi had been hauled onboard, covered head to toe in black sticky ink, another crewman was snatched from the rigging.

Wooyoung saw Jongho being split between harpoons and cannons so he hastily loaded three of the closest cannons himself and instructed the other boys to bring more powder and cannonballs. He was surprised for a moment that they were obeying him without complaint but they were scared for their lives and knew Jongho was too busy with harpoons to give orders.

Urgently, he aimed the cannon nearest the monster at the base of the tentacle holding the crewman and fired it. His aim was impeccable and the arm detached and went limp, releasing the pirate.

Hongjoong turned from hacking the nearest tentacle to look at where the shot had come from. Their newest addition had successfully saved a fellow crew member.

As he prepared to lower the ladder into the water and rescue him, the Captain noticed something glinting in the hand of the pirate. It was the golden goblet from Smokey Island.

His eyes flew to the crewman’s face. It was the same one who had started the fight in the cave and evidently had stolen the cursed treasure against direct orders.

Enraged, Hongjoong pulled the man up by his collar and dragged him down to the prison hold without a single word. “I’ll deal with you later,” he hissed as he locked the metal cell and turned to go back on deck.

He was a few steps away when Seonghwa appeared at his side breathless and with bad news.

“Captain, the kraken’s made a hole in the ship.”

...

Taglist: @nightynightnyx

A/N: Another cliffhanger!! Don’t worry the next chapter will be along soon. Please like/reblog and support! <3

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[tibalt-the-fineblooded]

Tibalt’s Fanwalkers: Listed

In preparation for upcoming and eventual Fanwalker Fridays (or general asks and buffoonery), I am making this list of my Fanwalkers in order of creation. Short Descriptions will be followed by a longer Bio under a cut. Short and Sweet: 1. Ceral Redd (RBU) He/Him, Storm Mage Human from Kaldheim, has a pet kaladeshi dragon whelp named Raz 2.Laan Dovar (GR) He/Him, Geomancer/Size Manipulator Half-Kor/Half-Elf from Zendikar 3. Except (WGU) She/Her/They/Them, Healer Elf Simic Mimic from Ravnica with no memories of being from Ravnica, Old Walker 4. Y’lona (WB) She/Her, Cursed/Blessed Leonin from Theros 5. Zoya (R) She/Her, Blacksmith Vulshok from Mirrodin New Phyrexia 6. Atlan (WRU) He/Him, Jeskai Monk Djinn from Khans Tarkir 7. Sturn Dregg (BU) He/Him, ‘Skeleton’ Pirate ‘Pseudo Lich’ Death Mage Human from Ixalan 8. Samuel Dusken (WBU) He/Him, Elf Vampire Spirit Summoner from Innistrad, feeds on spirits not blood, Old Walker 9. Kitai Skalto (W) She/Her, Benalish Knight/Glass Mage Human from Dominaria 10. Aseri Kalot (WGR) She/Her, Saytr Beast Summoner from Theros, uses blood-ink tattoos to summon monsters whose blood is in the tattoos 11. Cas Anova (WR) He/Him, Reinforcement Magic/Pyromancer Cowboy Human from Unnamed Plane (wherever Angrath is from)

Bio’s under the cut (sorry mobile users)

Here’s the collection of bio’s for my fanwalkers. This will contain an overall what’s up and some base physical traits. I’ll try to keep it reasonable in length so that I don't clog up your dashes for too long!

1. Ceral Redd, 5′10, glowing purple eyes

Currently a resident of Kaladesh, Ceral has shifted from his previously violent ways to a more focused lifestyle. He spends much of his time traveling from plane to plane chasing legends and rumors, and studying weather patterns in hopes of getting strong enough to tame the storm that ravages his home. He wields the magics of what he hopes to calm, lightning and fire to ice and wind. Having spent several years on Kaladesh, and having worked within the Izzet League, Ceral picked up on how to work with artifice and uses his skills to improve the two red mana batteries he keeps on his person. Ceral has spent much of his time in recent months raising his dragon whelp Raz.

2.  Laan Dovar, 6′2, light green eyes

Hoping to set an example, Laan helps those he comes across in his travels. He spends mush of his time traveling the more dangerous areas he finds, fond of high cliffs and deep valleys. While he's born of two cultures, he takes pride in both. His magic is just as mixed; with a skill in geomancy that allows him to control not only rock and earth, but also sand and even lava. His size manipulaton only allows him to change his own body in a range of passing for a giant to his own height, he can not shrink any smaller than that. While his Kor father has been dead for several years, Laan still returns to visit his Elf mother on Zendikar and catch her up on his travels.

3. Except, 5′4, brown eyes

A simple healer on the outskirts of a Leonin village, Except is anything but. Having spent over one hundred years on Theros as a six armed human with a Leonin tail, Satyr horns and the crest of a Merfolk, she is a respected member of their community. The villagers come to her for injures and illnesses that they cannot treat and the young enjoy playing with someone who can take any form they ask. She was once from Ravnica but lost any memories of that time when she first sparked, believing she is from Theros. Her shapeshifting abilites stem from her being a Simic Combine expirement to create a mimic from a non-mimic being. Except now uses her abilities to take on the hurts of her patients to learn how best to treat them. She only recently started planeswalking again when her adopted Leonin daughter Y'lona sparked.

4. Y’lona, 5′6, dark brown eyes

Only recently a planeswalker, Y'lona is still adjusting to all that there is to learn about it. She is also adjusting to the oddities that are her new planeswalking mentors; the long time patients of Except, her adoptive mother, Ceral Redd and Laan Dovar. The main task the three older walkers have agreed upon is that Y'lona needs to bring her newfound powers under some semblance of control. She had managed, in a state of terrror and confusion, to agree to the biddings of both an Innistradi Demon and Angel. One a curse to harm, the other a blessing to heal; Y'lona can't do one without doing the other. Neither contract was completed, which prevents her from choosing one and she will be stuck with both. 

5. Zoya, 6′4, gold eyes

Having accepted her home of Mirrodin as a lost cause, Zoya has found some peace in focusing in her craft. A blacksmith by nature, she joined the Boros Legion after landing on Ravnica and is very happy to take any style of order. Due to this, she is very aware that others like her come from all over to get custom pieces and parts of weapons and armor made. Zoya has long since been able to tell who can and can't travel off of the plane, aware that even other members of the Legion aren't what they seem. She doesn't mind and has no plans to out any one of a shared secret. When she isnt doing work for orders, Zoya falls into old practices as a way of mourning for friends and family lost on her old home.

6. Atlan, 8′2, pale blue eyes

A follower of the Way and trapped in a time he never could have dreamed of, Atlan has to hold this secret close to protect himself. When he stepped into a different timeline, Atlan lost everyone he had ever known and his sorrow and confusion threw him even further to land on Kamigawa. Making his way back to Tarkir, he found that he was supposed to be missing and has been leading a double life ever since. His goal is to master ghostfire, but he knows he must first master the types of fire he's already learned. Atlan is also working on improving more than his physical and magical abilites, having taken up various games of wordplay, strategy and puzzles.

7. Sturn Dregg, 5′8, deep blue eyes

Stowaway turned sailor turned captain, Sturn has spent most of his life sailing the seas of Ixalan. His ship, the Hangman’s Orchard, and crew currently reside at the bottom of those seas while Sturn works on repaying the survivors of the Hours on Amonkhet. After sparking, he landed on the desert plane grievously injured and was saved from death. Once this debt is repaid, he planes on returning to Ixalan to raise the Orchard once more. Sturn is unsure of whether he wishes to travel the multitude of worlds available to him or if he will remain with his skeleton crew, haunting the seas of his home. 

8. Samuel Dusken, 5′9, silver eyes

One of the last scions of the House Dusken on Innistrad, Samuel is also one of the planes last elves. After the ritual which turned the houses into vampires, Samuel took to researching a way to give his family an edge over all the others. Freedom from the need for blood while retaining the powers already gained. He took a self imposed exile until he successfully removed the thirst for blood, changed instead to a thirst for the essence of the lingering souls that haunted every corner of the multiverse. However, during his absence, Samuel's house had fallen from power in a war with House Maurer and scattered across the plane. He spends his time searching for a way to recreate his success with his now limited power and tracking down his scattered family.

9. Kitai Skalto, 5′10, green eyes

As both a Benalish Knight and a Glass Mage, Kitai has very little free time to pursue her interests across the multiverse. What time she does have is spent learning various fighting styles from friends she's made on previous trips from her home. Her magic allows her to create various things out of glas, from swords and shields to wings she can fly with. Kitai longs for adventure but is faithful to her duties, knowing that the only way to pursue her desires would be to embark upon a pilgrimage by herself. She wishes to prove herself before hand and thus returns to Benalia for her duties without fail. 

10. Aseri Kalot, 4′11, brown eyes

Never in one place for too long, Aseri can always find somewhere to keep her entertained. She is spending her time traveling the multiverse to share the beauty of  Nyx with any and all. Her unique style of summoning allows her to bring forth beasts that she has tattooed onto her own skin, with ink mixed with the beasts' blood. When summoned, these beasts take on the aspect of the Theros sky and resemble the Nyxborn of Aseri's home. Her favorite places to visit are Ixalan and Naya, and she has several tattoos from both. Despite her love of the starfield, Aseri doesn't visit her home very often.

11. Cas Anova, 6′, light brown eyes

A lone ranger kind of guy, Cas does what he can to try and make things better. He refuses to leave any place he's visited without solving a problem or two, even if it's only helping to repair a stable or going out to help deal with a few bandits. His pyromancy isnt the strongest but it allows him to fire small flames from his finger tips that explode on contact. Cas balances out his less than powerful offensive magic with reinforcement magics that can protect him from harm or make him slightly stronger. Having left behind his parents and younger siblings to help make the multiverse a slightly better place, Cas visits whenever he feels homesick.

Thank you for reading to the end! I’m hoping that my crew will entertain you in the future. My current goal is to get art for everyone and, hopefully, keep the list at 11. My asks are also open for more than Fanwalker Fridays and I’m always willing to answer questions!

[shadowdianne]

"You never used to be like this..." "Well, things have changed." SQ as always, please

I’m quitegiddy on how this one turned out even if I tweaked a little the obvious angstundertone just because :P I truly hope you like it twin

Also, sincethis has transformed into a 4k thing and it’s my 2:30 am I’ll post it now andedit the a03 version tomorrow. Apologies for any typo.

Set in:4x21/4x22 (Operation mongoose I & II)

A03 Version

The stillformless silhouette of the tower rose in front of them, the dark of the soiland rock quite the contrast against the waves the ship they had managed toprocure at the port kept on soaring through and Regina bite down on her bottomlip as she glanced at it, droplets of salt water hitting her cheeks as she didso. At her side, albeit equally silent, the teen that had come to her withtheories that would surpass any dream or vision given by fairy dust, was eyeingthe tower as well with barely concealed anticipation. Anticipation that Reginafelt as well; coiling in her stomach as she fidgeted with the ends of her vest,her eyes briefly glancing at the case in where her not mounted bow and arrows waitedfor her.

She stilldidn’t understand what she was doing; why she had given to the captain’s boatevery piece of coin she owned, as close as she had been to have enough to buy asafe passage to some of the more northern kingdoms within the forest. A briefmoment of fear assaulted the back of her throat, coating it with bitterness butthe feeling disappeared just as quickly even if her fingertips itched as shestared at the bow. She had apparently decided on going into an adventure, anoperation like the teen at her side kept on calling it, even if she didn’t knowwhat to make of it yet.

Back at thesmall place she had created for herself she had been about to tell the boy toleave her alone, to try to find this Emma, whomever that was, after the boy hadcalled her “mom” for the hundredth time. The title, as much as it surprisedher, wasn’t exactly what had left her speechless but the story that accompaniedit. A kind of story that could only be product of a feverish, maddened mind.

“Am Isupposed to live in Mine? Where I became your adopted mother after someonenamed Emma gave you up?”

That othername was also a strange one; the reaction it brought within her enough to makeher pause as she pressed the tip of her tongue against the roof of her mouth.There was something there, her subconscious had whispered. She had pronouncedthe name just as the boy had done but her tongue halted between the “m”,lengthening the name for a second longer, the resulting sound breathier andconjuring up a trembling image made out of forest green and dirty white shadowthat had almost made her stumble. She had glanced at the boy, weary, afraidthat behind those gentle eyes the Queen would be whispering those words,fingers curled around a heart that wouldn’t belong to the boy anymore. Yet,when she had asked it directly the boy’s eyes had widened in surprise andtiredness, the reaction far too human, far too alive, for her to be able to shootthe arrow she still had had dangling from her drawn bow.

“I’m trying to help you.”

He then hadproceeded to bother her with questions regarding Robin Hood, the man notexactly high up her list of people she cared about and so, when he hadmentioned true love as the final prove that would be her own way to destroy thecurse they allegedly were under, she had shaken her head, denying and stompingon that option as soon as it was spoken outload. It didn’t matter if she wastruly Regina, from Maine, her happy ending wasn’t with a man and so she wasgoing to help Henry, yes, but with one condition; she decided how.

And so theyhad ended up in the port, the captain they had found open enough to the notionof carrying them to the tower one that had been far too occupied with savoringthe money he was asking them to give to truly question why they needed to go toa place that, for what the stories said, was not only heavily guarded but holda powerful sorceress that had made Queen Snow decide to make an example out ofit. Something Regina knew that it wasn’t something that common.

Now, as theship approached to the tower, she wasn’t entirely sure what she was going tofind at the top of it. Henry had been secretive about Emma, about this… savior.She was her mother apparently and had magic on her own but the boy himselfdidn’t seem to have any or truly be willing to explain how his mother’s worked.Not like it interested her, Regina chided herself, magic wasn’t something shedwelled on, not after Snow. As the ship sailed even nearer to the tower sheglanced around, to the few dark figures scattered here and there that hadprobably already seen them; their dark clothes signaling them as king’s guards.

That madeRegina smile minutely; taking a few of those? That she could do.

She didn’tfeel the pull up until the captain told them that he would not carry themfurther than where they currently were, the promise of waiting for them oneRegina managed to get out of him with a glance to her bow. Henry’s face waswhite, his facial muscles tight when they both picked up the small rowboat theship had, the oars old but sturdy enough as they both moved. It was then, inthe middle of slowly dying waves, that she first felt the pull, a tingle,almost imperceptible, making her glance at the top of the tower once more; atthe dome-shaped roof.

“Emma.”

The nameechoed strangely inside her mind and she shook it once more, a vague butslightly more focused image being conjured as she kept up the pace, the firstshouts from the king’s guards already beginning to reach their ears. Luckilyfor them, it didn’t seem that nights had been waiting for anyone to arrive andthey truly didn’t pose much of a problem as Regina shot arrow after arrow asthe rowboat hit the shore. The squelching sound of arrows impacting thejunctures of their armors one that made Henry press his lips together, greencoloring his temples, but not something Regina knew how to help with. She stilltried however, giving him a tense smile as the boy fidgeted for a second beforekneeling next to the one that had seemed the captain, a set of keys on hisbelt. She didn’t say a thing then, but she followed him as he turned and beganthe ascension to the first steps of many, the keys on his hands and a glare onhis eyes. It reminded her of someone she suddenly realized but she shook herhead and kept on walking behind the boy who had spent their entire journeytogether trying hard not to call her mom and failing spectacularly while doingso.

Theinterior of the tower was truer than the exterior; years of unkempt obvious inthe many cracks the walls sported, cold salty air running through the mostlyempty place as they kept on ascending for what felt like hours. Dust cakedevery surface aside from the faint footsteps imprinted in some parts of thestairs and they followed them as wind howled at the other side, small windowsletting Regina check from time to time that the ship was, in fact, still wherethey had left it. Henry didn’t speak as they ascended but his breathing was labored,and Regina kept glancing at him, an almost fond feeling growing inside herchest even if she didn’t know where that came from. Her thoughts were cutshort, however, when they reached the last landing, the roof far too close totheir heads as they both stared at the closed door in front of her. Made fromsturdy wood, scratches covered it, symbols that made Regina stare at them; glyphsshe didn’t understand, that she was not supposed to understand.

Yet, evenif she didn’t, she found herself stepping closer to the door, a substanceoozing out of the symbols as if it had just been applied and even if she wasn’tentirely sure of the glyphs origin she had traded with enough shady individualsto recognize squid ink when she saw it. A magical inhibitor.

She shouldbe frightened, more than she felt truly, but she stepped aside as Henry beganto fiddle with the keys, the third eliciting a crackling noise as the door gaveaway and let them enter.

The insidesof the room weren’t dark as Regina had thought they would but the scattered sunbeams that seeped through holes in the roof weren’t strong enough to cast totallight in the dome-like room. Not that they needed it as the woman they had beensearching for laid in the middle, crouched in a ball and face partiallyshadowed by blonde locks.

“Mom!”

Henry’sscream made Regina realize she had been staring, utterly dumfounded. Thekneeling woman was shackled, the clinking sound of the chains the first thingher ears registered as Henry took a few steps before halting altogether; theblonde mane moving as well as the kilometric amount of cloth the dress thewoman wore. Something that, even if her mind simply deduced was what sorceresswore, was quickly replaced by tight pants and a very thin white top, thinnerthan anything Regina could truly think off. The image appeared and fizzled outfrom her mind the second she tried to focus on it but when the slumping womanrose her face towards them she found herself swallowing thickly at those greeneyes that quickly fell on her before falling back to the boy at her side. Boythat, as Regina fought against the prickling feeling that kept on growing atthe back of her mind, now seemed much younger than he had previously looked.

Bowclutched on her hand, Regina stood near the door as Henry sighed and chewed onhis bottom lip, nervousness on his movements as he took a few steps more, thesilence heavy as the other woman kept staring at them, fear on her own eyes,chin trembling in something that Regina could only guess was a sob.

And shewondered how she could know that, how she felt connected to her. Henry had toldher she had adopted him but she had never explained how Emma had come in thepicture once more -the thought of the other woman’s name eliciting the samestrange echo than before inside her mind, the name an important one, a powerfulone- and, for a second, she felt like kneeling herself in front of the blonde,ask her who she herself truly was.

A stupidthought, her more practical side whispered, but once that clung to hernonetheless.

“Hello.”Henry seemed to have found his voice again and he tilted his head to his right,a movement that was followed by the woman’s green eyes as she still keptsilent. It occurred to Regina that Snow was a master in disguising herself, intorturing those who wronged her. Emma didn’t sport any obvious wounds, not onesshe could see on her hands -clutched around her dress, bunching the alreadywrinkled dress- or her face -blank, weary-, but that didn’t mean she hadn’tbeen tortured.  “My name is…”

It feltlike a strange echo of how the boy had approached her before, but this time thewords came burdened by the fear of his other mother not recognizing him. Somethingthat made Regina close her eyes at. Even if the boy was truly mad he seemedlike he truly cared about the kneeling woman. It would be devastating if…

Herthoughts were cut short was a ragged “Henry”, the blonde’s voice hoarse as ifshe had been screaming but clear enough for the boy himself to stop and smiletentatively.

“Youremember?”

Reginawatched the reunion from afar, how Henry closed the final few steps between hisblonde mother as the woman scrambled to her feet, the shackles making her tokeep herself slightly hunched, unable to reach her real height as they draggedher down. The dress hung badly on her frame, as it not only truly didn’t belongto her, but she hadn’t been fed in quite the time and Regina sucked on herbreath at that, feeling useless as well as angry. A feeling she didn’t reallyunderstand.

Emma, onher part, was smiling at Henry now, her lips stretched thin as tears welled up,red beginning to rim her eyes but her momentarily blindness was short lived asshe quickly zeroed in Regina once more; a very different kind of hope shiningthere. One that made Regina take a step forward without even realizing it.

“Reg…”Emma’s voice was dubitative at best, her eyes now taking into Regina’sappearance, the look one the brunette truly didn’t know what to make out of it.One corner of those lips rose, creating a ghost of a smile that fell just asquickly as Henry shook his head, his voice soft but sad.

“Shedoesn’t remember.”

Emma’s eyeswidened at that and Regina pressed her lips together at Henry’s words. Up untilnow a part of her had considered that this, whatever that was, was a mereproduct of the boy’s imagination. Yet, Emma’s attitude as she looked at hertold a different story; one in where she was in the wrong, in where she was,apparently, truly the boy’s other mother. The punch that brought with it onethat made her almost take a step back as Henry quietly but quickly liberatedthe blonde with another key, the shackles falling into the floor with anechoing clanging noise.

Reginalocked her shoulders, straightening her spine as Emma kept eyeing her, thefeeling of unease morphing into something the brunette wasn’t entirely sure howto describe. And yet, when Emma began to chuckle, she could only blink andraise one eyebrow.

“What?” Hervoice sounded acerbic, not exactly like hers but holding a different drawl,almost a different accent altogether, a mix of her own usual one, the one sheknew she possessed, and one that spoke of a royal. Something she wasn’t.

Emma,however, didn’t seem all that bothered about her voice or her posture, thechuckles morphing into an almost wheezing sound that made her shake her headfrom side to side, blonde hair following the movement.

"Nothing.”Shoulders shrugging, Emma seemed to be immersed on her own private joke assomething close to fondness glazed her eyes. “It’s just… you never used to belike this, dress like this. Once you remember you are going to be mad.”

Reginafound herself rolling her eyes at that. The words spoke not only more aboutthat apparent other self she had been back in Maine but also on therelationship she seemed to have with the blonde woman. One close enough for herto know how she used to dress.

Lips pressedand a part of her starting to grow impatient and yet craving of that otherreality, she run her tongue through her teeth for a moment, realizing that thebuzzing feeling on her skin seemed to have settled for the moment as Emma hadbeen liberated. A strange notion to have.

"Well,things have changed." It wasn’t exactly the answer she wanted to give, asshe didn’t know how much things had truly changed for the blonde in front ofher but, for the first time, she found herself wanting to be that other womanboth Henry and Emma seemed to see whenever they looked at her.

Fortunatelyfor her, a roar was heard in that moment, the flapping of wings outside thetower giving her the perfect answer to the tension she felt inside her chest:time to go.

The descentwas just as quick as the ascension had been with the added bonus of somethingthat felt very much like a dragon growling and roaring just above them all. Thesea had begun to get choppier, the waves taller than before with every glanceRegina took from the slits the windows were. Yet, the ship was still there, thecaptain apparently more interested on getting more gold than leaving them.Which worked for Regina as long as they reached the ship itself.

Emma’s legsseemed to not truly be able to keep her standing though; the amount of time shehad been chained an undetermined one as apparently the curse they were all inaccording to Henry’s previous words back in the forest had been for them all toremain in stasis within the book. So, even if she managed to fair well throughthe stairs, dress billowing after her, as they reached the bottom of the towershe staged and almost fell, the movement causing Regina to reach forward andhelp her. Something that made her blink as roaring flames from a memory she wasn’tentirely sure was truly hers momentarily became everything she was about tofocus on as it was Emma this time -the Emma dressed almost like a knight, thetexture of strange clothing everywhere- who helped her. The image left her,dissolving into nothingness as she pushed forward but it seemed like Emma wasalso thinking about it as well as she glanced at her, bottom lip trappedbetween her teeth.

Theimposing shadow of a dragon the moment they stepped outside, however, madeimpossible for Regina to question herself about that. She had heard storiesabout the scaly creatures; how they were able to shadow entire lands with theirpower and yet nothing could have prepared her for the roaring monster or howintelligent and cunning eyes zeroed on them as the first wave of heat touchedthem, making them squint their eyes and duck, a fireball exploding far tooclose for Regina’s liking.

“We need toget into the boat!”

Henry’sscream brought Regina back to the present and she could feel Emma nodding ather side, her body still trembling a little. As much as Regina wanted tobelieve they were going to make it, however, a sudden doubt clutched her chest,making her stagger but the blonde at her side kept on moving, her weightshifting just slightly so, for a moment, she was the one carrying Regina,pushing forward.

The dragonkept on flapping its wings high above them, claws and teeth everything Reginawas able to think about as their approached the boat. The ship ahead, however,seemed to start moving, the captain probably having decided it wasn’t worth towait for them anymore and Regina wanted to scream at it as she moved her headto the side, trying to get some loose strands of hair away from her eyes.

Stillholding onto Emma with one arm-or letting the blonde hold onto her, she wasn’tsure anymore- she swallowed and turned abruptly towards the monster. Maybe, avoice inside of her, she could try to shoot at it, try to make it focus on herrather than…

Herthoughts, thoughts she didn’t know she even was able to possess, protectivenessof others not precisely her stronger suit, were once more interrupted by Emmaas the blonde’s hand grasped her wrist, skin prickling once more as tiny sparksthat only grew in intensity seeming to pour from the blonde’s body into herswith a hint of urgency that made Regina wince.

“You nevertaught me how to do this.” Emma’s words didn’t make any sense, but her eyeswere colored dirty white as she spoke, and Regina could feel the taste ofsomething her deeper part of her mind latched into; some old memory beingjogged by the feel of magic. Emma smiled that lopsided smile of hers, oneRegina had surprisingly found herself attached to, before she turned back toHenry; the boy having halted as well as the ship kept on moving in the distance,probably too far away from them now. “Kid! Come here!”

Henryturned and rose his brows, curious, but he ultimately followed the blonde’srequest, face paler than ever.

“Do youhave a plan?” His voice cracked, and Regina’s mind brought forth yet another imageof a slightly younger boy, barely eight, that was scared of darkness. Shepressed forward.

Emmanodded, her hand still around Regina’s wrist, the wrist that wasn’t holdingonto the bow as the dragon kept roaring ahead of them. It didn’t seem to be aboutto kill them though, as if it sensed that they were truly stranded now. Shestill felt on edge though, the charred marks of the dragon’s attacks smokingaround the three of them.

Offeringher other hand, the blonde’s eyes flashed once more, her voice growingstrained.

“Give meyour hand.” Her tone didn’t give that much room to doubt the order and so Henrygrasped it just as quickly, the humming from before intensifying on Regina’sears as Henry’s eyes kept focused on Emma; afraid.

“Mom, youdon’t know how to…”

Emma’s jawlocked.

“I will doit.”

And, justas the dragon began its descent, Regina felt her body disappear in a plume of dirty-whitecolored smoke, their feet quickly repairing at the ship’s dock making thecaptain curse a couple of expletives she wasn’t truly in the mood to listen to.

The dragonroared, knowing it had lost but it wasn’t that what Emma seemed to be able tofocus on as her eyes fell to Regina’s hand, skin still prickling, and thebrunette needed to swallow a gasp as she saw purple oozing out of her.

“Seems likethe author wasn’t able to kill that about you.”

Emma’swords were full of pride and Regina didn’t know what to make of them, but shenodded as the sparks slowly died out; exhausted.

It wasn’tuntil much later, once they were back in the enchanted forest shore withsomething close to a plan formed and Snow’s sneering words still ringing ontheir ears as they run towards a chapel Regina didn’t want to enter into, thatEmma brought the magic once more. She had already changed, the dresstransformed into something closer, much closer, to the image that keptsuperimposing itself every time Regina looked at her and she kept looking ather in a way that made a thousand questions spill from Regina’s mind. The onethat kept appearing, however, is how the blonde seemed to sure that shecrashing a wedding would help them all in any way.

It had beenHenry who had tried to explain it; the end of the book, the end of curse ifthey managed to alter the narrative. Regina had wanted to point out that thenarrative had probably been altered, whatever that truly meant but Emma hadsaid that only true love could break the curse. Her voice when she had saidthat had been dull and, for a moment, it seemed almost like she had forgottento create a façade between her words and her actions, sparks crackling betweenher fingers and hair once more before she had shaken her head, probably willingthem all to disappear.

And Reginawanted to question the blonde about it, about the strange look she had given toHenry when the boy had softly pointed out with an almost morose look that hehad been unable to find Hook. The name didn’t ring any bells to Regina, but shehad felt an immediate animadversion to it and, judging from Emma’s distant anduncomfortable hum she wasn’t fond of him as well. Which, for who knew whatreason, made Henry blink, at loss.

She hadn’t questionedthe blonde about at the end though, the stiffening of the blonde’s limbs astheir plan was discussed more than enough to make Regina want to say that no,Robin couldn’t be her happy ending, couldn’t be the end of the curse. The verythought made her uneasy and she didn’t like the fervent look Henry got on hiseyes for a few seconds, words of ink, authorship and quill falling from hislips until Emma had stopped him with a soft glance.

“It will bealright.” She had said before sighing and closing her eyes for a second, façadeslipping back in and Regina had opted to choose to believe her.

The plandidn’t work as expected; the Hero, the one who Emma called Gold between grittedteeth, had arrived far too early, Emma had tried her best and Regina had shotarrow after arrow as they all waited, hoped for Robin to come, to look atRegina and for Regina to feel whatever was expected from her, a flash, a stringof memories like she had with both Henry and Emma. But that never happened, notwhen Emma got hit and Henry interceded, picking the sword as he screamed forRegina to go inside the church, to stop the wedding.

But Reginacouldn’t, wouldn’t, so she stepped between the final blow of the blade and theboy, falling into her knees and looking at the gash as she slowly began tobleed.

She didn’tquite hear Emma’s scream, the echo of the chiming bells faint and distant thelonger she tried to remain conscious. The gash itself wasn’t all that deep butit cut through her stomach, the pain making it almost impossible for her tobreathe and so she gurgled, trying to, hoping that something, anything wouldhappen.

Yet, Robindidn’t appear, time running out and Emma rushing to her side, her bootsstomping into the ground as she knelt.

“Regina,please.”

She couldhear Emma now, magic pouring out of her, curling around her braid but Regina’smind conjured the bleak and yet utterly stupid realization she had never taughtthe blonde how to heal. She almost chuckled at that; sets of memories erasingothers with a glacial pace; stuck between that Regina of Maine and the one shehad thought it had been her. Rising one hand she touched Emma’s cheek, thinkingback on the forlorn looks, on how Emma’s breathing had caught whenever Robinwas mentioned, whenever that other man, Hook, was mentioned.

She knewwhat it was now, but it was too late.

Or maybenot, even if she was almost fainting by the time a commotion echoed a few feetaway from her, her name falling from other’s lips. A voice she was supposed towant and yet she didn’t.

“Mom! Youneed to kiss her!”

That lastsentence clung to her as she closed her eyes…

Only toopen them a second after, Emma’s name on her lips and a very difficultexplanation swirling on her mind.

“I guess,”The blonde’s voice said as she helped her get up from the middle of the street.“That you now remember.” She was back to her usual clothes as well as Reginabut the brunette felt something amiss; as if part of her still wanted thatother world in where she was slightly more naïve, slightly less jaded, slightlyless preoccupied.

But shedidn’t have time for that, she decided, her lips tingling with a kiss she knewwell who was from, Emma’s magic buzzing from inside of her. Not now.

[queenslasharchive]

Fathoms Below

Features: Anderson’s Little Mermaid and Jolly Sailor Bold by Disney

Merry Christmas!!! @matcha-maru 

“Upon one summer’s morning, 

I carefully did stray

Down by the Walls of Wapping,

Where I met a sailor gay.

Conversing with a young lass

Who seemed to be in pain,

Saying, William, when you go

I fear you’ll ne'er return again.”

Brian woke up, when he felt a small hand tug sharply at the end of his curled ponytail. 

It was his one vanity, sea-foam green in color and always intricately braided back with ribbons and sea-glass or fragile shells, anything pretty and decorative that the strands could hold. Currently it was tossed over one shoulder, long and thick as a fist. 

And the next time that little hand reached for his braid, he caught it deftly without a second thought, thanks to the inborn reflexes of an apex predator, quickly recognizing the rough callouses from holding a drumstick on the pads of the fingers. Along with the gnarled little scar on the thumb web, a memento from a bad run in with some fishing-line when they were children. 

“Angel, why the hair? Why must you always go for the hair?”

He didn’t even need to look over, or even open his eyes, to see his lover pouting in bed beside him, their love-nest illuminated by the foggy window, torrential rain was falling outside, the smell of Roger and rainstorm was heavenly, better than any of the scented candles Freddie would drag in and light up in the flat. 

For the ambience, darling!

The delicate hand he still held by the wrist, twisted into a familiar vulgar gesture. 

“Yes, Roger. I love you too,” He yawned, showing all his teeth, naturally asserting dominance over the boy he’d loved for just about all of his life. 

“Brimi, you’ve been sleeping forever.” Ah, yes, the bitching to remind him that his lover was eternally five years old.

He grunted an affirmative, he had been sleeping forever.

Roger could have said a million other things and Brian would have happily agreed for five seconds more peace. The only thing that spurned his wakefulness was the heavy weight that Roger laid on his chest. A wrapped parcel. 

He blinked open his mismatched eyes to see the blonde looking at him with the most impish smile, biting at the corners of his mouth in excitement. “Happy Anniversary, Ariel.”

Inside was a book, but not just any book. 

It was a beautiful copy of Anderson’s fairytales, the kind with a fat embossed cover and words that seemed to come off of the page, pictures etched by hand, from old ink-wells and feather quills. 

“Rog, its beautiful.” He gasped, it practically took his breath away. He didn’t even mind the silly nickname. “Would you like me to read you something?”

The devilish blonde nodded into the guitarist’s narrow pigeon chest, like that was what he’d wanted all along, his ear resting just over Brian’s heart, lulled by the sound of the beat as his current pillow was so often lulled by the lapping waves of the sea.

Sometimes Brian wondered how it was possible to love someone so much. To be happy to watch your heart live outside of your body. To be resigned to the fact that you would never, ever be enough for them. That you would never ever deserve them. 

“Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal, it is very, very deep; so deep, indeed, that no cable could fathom it: many church steeples, piled one upon another, would not reach from the ground beneath to the surface of the water above. There dwell the Sea King and his subjects…" 

Rog snored a little in his sleep, snorting like a piglet, and Brian couldn’t keep the fond smile off of his face. 

‘“When you have reached your fifteenth year,” said the grandmother, “you will have permission to rise up out of the sea, to sit on the rocks in the moonlight, while the great ships are sailing by; and then you will see both forests and towns.”’

Bri slowly slipped his own thick red bracelet off his wrist, a small clunky chain, with one hand and squeezed it tightly until it was a thick red blanket, one that he tucked securely around the both of them. His cohuleen druith. His soul. The mark of a Merrow. One who would always belong to the sea. 

“At last she reached her fifteenth year. “Well, now, you are grown up,” said the old dowager, her grandmother; “so you must let me adorn you like your other sisters;” and she placed a wreath of white lilies in her hair, and every flower leaf was half a pearl. Then the old lady ordered eight great oysters to attach themselves to the tail of the princess to show her high rank.

“But they hurt me so,” said the little mermaid.

“Pride must suffer pain,” replied the old lady.“ 

Then as if he’d thought better of the change, the blanket melted away, until it became a sold tiny ring that nearly fell into the crevice between them.

Its base was a twisted circulatory system, redder than the most glittering garnet, deeper than the most ravishing ruby, all of the tendrils curling in towards the center, where an enormous creamy white pearl rested.

Pearls that size were only found in the deepest, darkest and most treacherous parts of the sea. No mortal bride would ever have a pearl that big. No one but his Roger, who deserved so much more than Brian could ever give him. 

He slipped it onto Roger’s hand as delicately as he could, kissing the blonde halo of hair that he had known for most of his creation. 

“Happy Anniversary, my prince.” My love. 

-X-

Freddie asked how they’d met once, as he and Deaky had sat huddled on the couch.

Brian and Roger had been wrapped around each other as always, lying on the floor in a heap, practically nose to nose. Simply existing in each other’s presence as they were wont to do. 

“You know what I’ve always wondered? How did you two meet, darlings? Was it love at first sight? Lust?”

Instead of rolling his robin-egg eyes, Roger had flashed that same wicked gremlin grin of his. 

“At the beach when we were kids. So I’m not sure I wanted into his trousers quite yet.” His voice turned wistful as his tongue peeked out of the corner of his round lips. “Although it certainly didn’t take very long.”

All joking aside, Roger had only been five years old then, running rampant in Truro, the tiny little fishing port that it was. Small, homely. 

He had known his way around the stones and rocky shoals of the local beaches like the back of his hand, even back then. And so was often left to play there alone. 

The feckless child had wandered too close one day however, just after a storm, a frightening squall, when the beach was fraught with debris and danger, the shoreline was slick and the waters dark and murky.

Hiding the remnants of ships smashed to bits, and he likely would’ve died on the jagged rocks that peppered the wide-open breaks, if a long webbed hand hadn’t stopped him in his descent.

The hand had belonged to an older boy sitting up on the aforementioned rocks, who had managed to snag the back of the untucked and oversized school uniform shirt that Roger wore, with his predatory reflexes.

Having done so, only seconds before the blonde would’ve met an untimely end in the watery depths below. 

Fathoms below.

Roger had whimpered softly at the sensation of it all, sniffling more so out of shock than fear, as the youth gently placed him into a little dip, an alcove on the rock’s side. 

“That wasn’t very smart.” Brian had sighed, clucking over the bright red blood that welled up from a small gash on the young drummer’s knee.

Running on the slopes like a little fool. 

Rather lacklusterly, he’d mopped at it with the corner of the bright and violently red hoodie he wore.

But Roger had paid no mind at all to his battle wound and was far more interested in gawking at his odd-looking savior. 

Brian, long before he had introduced himself as being so, long before his name even was so, with his long wet hair that hung in tangles around his round face and trailed far down his back, green of all things, was certainly a sight for sore eyes. 

His hair was green like the seaweed that stunk in the hot summer’s sun and washed up in clots on the sand.

His pale hands were webbed between the first-knuckle, as were the toes on his flat feet, and his shining eyes were strange.

Two completely different colors, one was the beautiful blue-green color of splashing sea-foam, of playful days spent in the surf, the other was so dark blue-violet that it was like the sea during a tempest, fierce and frightening, a warning to all who dared come close.

Rog had cried out then, not at Brian’s odd appearance, but because the salty water pressed into his aching knee stung like St. Elmo’s Fire.

He flinched away from the tsking youth, who hummed a soft apology. “It’s a natural disinfectant. But you’ll want your Mum to take a better look when you get home.” 

Roger’s Mum had always been a special kind of woman. (It was she who would adopt Brian as her own, when he finally came from the water and chased her cruel husband away). 

An inquisitive girl even as a grown woman, full of freckles playing peekaboo on her exposed shoulders and impossibly red tresses that curled up and around her like the embers of a dying flame. 

As a child she’d so eagerly swam with the seals that basked on the shoals of the beaches, near her sleepy little village home.

And would often nap on the sunbaked windswept hills near the cliffs, once the day’s play was done. 

As a little girl she’d believed in the old stories and songs that permeated everyday life there, like an invisible presence, a gentle fleeting touch of old.

At night, she listened for the banshee’s wailing cries, and tried to catch a glimpse of a dullahan on his glossy black steed. She could recite the tales of Lir’s Swan Children and the Tuatha Dé Danann who made their home in Tír na nÓg, the land without time. 

But above all else, Rachel, whose Gaelic name was Muirín ‘born of the sea’, was a child of the surf and sky. 

It was her second home and her father often joked, fluffing her red curls with his calloused hands of fishhook and twine, that she would marry a Selkie and have half-seal babies one day. 

He was wrong. 

The man she married was a cruel cold man of the earth, who treated her like silt beneath his boots and little more than a dirty maid.

Yet she bore him one son, born with his sandy locks and her face.

She would run into the crashing crystal blue surf with her baby boy perched on one hip and he would shriek and cling to her curls with joy. And eventually with the years, he grew to be big enough that they could run in and jump out together.

The man she married slowly stole the life from her body, the song in her soul. 

Eventually she simply collapsed on the beach outside their cottage in the middle of the night, crying desperately, desolately into the sand.

Screaming for something, someone, begging.

The pockets of her dress were loaded down with cowrie shells and other heavy island debris, her long red curls rocked with the waves of the ocean that swallowed her up. Swirling, twirling russet-red. 

But she didn’t drown. Her son was not left without a mother. 

She woke up with a mouthful of sand and a pair of vivid mismatched eyes just inches away from her own. 

He stayed.

So she was unafraid of leaving her child unattended in the surf.

Muirín Taylor was a woman who grew up with the spirits of Ireland dwelling safely in her heart.

She was unfairly hurt and wronged by a life that she shouldn’t have lived in the first place. The poor girl eventually gave up and forgot the old ways of her once vibrant world, but they never forgot her.

When she cried, the ocean listened. 

When her son cried, the ocean listened. 

Brian sat on his rocky perch and waited, listening. 

Then the little drummer boy noticed that the red hoodie was all that the older boy wore. 

“Where are your clothes?!" 

Brian had simply shrugged, tossing back his hair and batting those unforgettable eyes. 

“I don’t need any underneath the water.” 

Roger still hadn’t picked up on the strangeness of it all. It would be years still, before he saw the bloody red tail that could cut through the surf like butter, the scales far sharper than daggers that glittered in the moonlight, the predatory teeth and slitted eyes, made for tracing the movement of appetizing prey. The true apex predators of the deep. 

"You live in the water?" 

Brian had nodded. 

"On a boat?" 

The mismatched eyes creased slightly when he frowned, and then he’d just shaken his head to the contrary. 

"No, not on a boat.” An obliging smile graced his wind-chapped lips as he finished the makeshift bandage. “You should be heading home though, this place is not safe for your kind, especially not for one so young." 

It was far more than the suggestion that his soft tone alluded to, it was a warning. 

Now Roger may have only been a child then, but he was a child who knew the sound of angry voices and the touch of violent hands.

Perhaps even better than the gentle and soothing ones that he had always craved. His father was not a patient man, and he felt even less inclined to give favor to a son who had still shown no promise at anything of value. 

Roger had been beaten senseless many times, and for an instant, he feared that the boy on the rocks with his too-sharp teeth and strange eyes may do the same. 

As if Brian had been the same sort of monster that Roger had come to fear.

Then, just as he was standing once more, hunger pangs hit him sharply and his stomach let out a growl that just wouldn’t be stifled.

He was mortified, sick, by the loud sound and flinched away, wrapping his hands tightly around his concave middle and waiting for the angry hands and yells that would often follow such rudeness.

But none came. 

Only the gentle concerned eyes of the boy Brian was, who seemed to realize the true extent of the younger child’s plight before him, within the same breath. 

Webbed pale hands helped Roger to sit down once more. 

"Sit. Stay." 

Twin orders, that would most assuredly be followed, before Brian stood upright, balanced in a single graceful motion and dove into the frothing waters below.

Roger thought he saw a hint of something red and shiny, perhaps even a fin, but it soon left his field of vision before he could see properly.

When the older boy returned it was with four fat fish being tossed up onto the rock-face, before he climbed there as well. Green hair flying haphazard with the wind and his red hoodie sticking to his skin as if loathe to leave it. 

Three of the still-quivering fish were pushed towards Roger, while one was seized by Brian himself and a mouthful of flesh torn away, revealing shock-white bone and dripping entrails. 

He swallowed the chunk whole and even licked his lips before foisting the messy carcass into Roger’s hesitant little hands, as if expecting the child to do the same.

Abject horror was plain as day on the little one’s face. 

"Oh.” It seemed to dawn on the older boy then as well. “You cook fish." 

The blonde child nodded vehemently, and was quick to hand the masticated fish back with a grimace. 

Brian reclaimed it with another little laugh, devouring the rest with a terrifying speed and ferocity that almost brought back Roger’s original fear, or would have, if it hadn’t been belied by the funny faces the green-haired beanpole kept making to assuage them. 

He then softly instructed the younger boy on how to hold the three fish all at once, to transport them safely back to his family.

Roger and Rachel would eat well for one night at least. 

The odd youth guided the tiny boy away from the broken rocks and back onto the dry land.

And surely would’ve left right then, but Roger, as if expecting such an escape, had hastily seized a small webbed hand within two of his own. 

“What’s your name?" 

Brian had paused for a moment, before almost sighing the word, ”Muirgeilt.“ Sea-wanderer. 

"That’s a pretty name… But I can’t really say it properly. Do you have another one? I’m Roger Meddows Taylor.” So proud of it. Like he'd practiced saying it aloud with conviction. 

A small sad smile graced the elder’s lips. 

"It is very nice to meet you, Roger. You can call me whatever you’d like.”

”…If I come back tomorrow, with a name, will you be here?“ Pleading eyes.

Brian turned his head slightly, angled towards the ocean as if called by some silent siren song. One hand touching the place where Roger’s blood had seeped into his red hoodie. 

"Yes, I will be."  Forever it seems. 

And he was. 

“Yeah.” Brian smiled, years upon years later, slowly eskimo-kissing the love of his life, who still rested in his arms. What a wonderful thing, to be able to hold one’s whole world. 

“At the beach when we were kids.”

-X-

“My sailor is as smiling

As the pleasant month of May

And often we have wandered

Through Ratcliffe Highway…

My heart is pierced by Cupid

I disdain all glittering gold

There is nothing can console me

But my jolly sailor bold.”

[darkmindsthinktwistedthoughts]

AERION!!! Will you write something for @jennacat84 please? Masa fluff. Like super fluffy. So fluffy she dies with a grin on her face. Please???

@notsafefortum-blr Requesting a request for someone else? My how generous as expected from a Princess. Ok, then @jennacat84 I hope you enjoy this. Excuse a writer’s musings on a certain fluffy creature.

— 

It had been a long ride. Returning home to Aoba and his own Oshu Castle and Masa couldn’t help but smile. Regardless of his own fatigue, he pressed on his loyal entourage close behind him. 

Azuchi captured his imagination. Every time he returned home he brought with him more and more ideas. Improvements here, some fresh ideas there. Nobunaga had been a good source of information. He had admired the castle town of his Lord. There there was access to a lot of different things, the way of trade was more open thanks to Nobunaga's progressive ideas and laws. 

Masa had seen his fair share of areas and its people struggle. Whether it was famine caused by war or a natural period of truly bad luck. He recalled that one village where the local shrine appeared to almost being buried under a see of wishes and prayers to see the end to their problems with their crops, to just allow their families to survive the drought of basic food required for living. 

He had always felt a keen desire to see his people around him suffer less. His studies with the monks provided him with more knowledge but it was Nobunaga that had really captured his imagination and inspired him. He intended to learn all he could from him, Lord. Aoba and any of the other provinces he acquired would thrive. As the 17th head of the Date clan, he promised this and was determined to see it happen.

—

Early morning and just as the sun rose on the horizon casting away the shade of night Masa decided to do a little bit of an inspection on the area. He had heard tales in the letters from home and from other people after he arrived that there were some traders that had arrived close to home. 

It was not unheard of that the Southern barbarians should be around as they seemed to sail further and further over time in search of new trade connections. Nobunaga was a well-known figure for them and his trade for firearms and beloved konpeito. 

Driven by curiosity Masa mounted his steed and left.

—

The area for trade was rough, and that was probably putting it politely. This was certainly an area he had plans to improve. As he looked around Masa had a vision. It would be a complete overhaul of the remote backwater as the whole place required repairs, improvements and a general facelift. 

Judging from what he could see access from other areas by way of trade seemed to be ok. I wonder if I could find a way to encourage that more? More trade would mean more access to goods. It would mean improvement and enrichment to the quality of life around here. If I can make it happen… no, when I make it happen perhaps I’ll even build a boat.

-Mraah!-

Now, what was that? Masa cast his keen eye over the traders and it fell on one that seemed to have a large collection of pelts. Again this was not unusual but something about this stall caught his eye. the bright colour contrast of it. Something only usually seen in paintings. The rich orange lightly tinted with undertones of warm browns in places and the striking ink black stripes. 

“Good day to you. See something you like?” The voice of the trader called out. He was speaking Japanese even if it was a little slow and broken in places.

“Hi. Yeah, you could say that.”

“Oh, you have a good eye there. This came from China. Beauty isn’t it? It would make a fine addition to any home… perhaps even as an embellishment to some clothing?”

-Mraah-

The same sound cried out again except this time Masa could tell it was coming from the direction of some crates.

“What’s over there?” He pointed behind the trader.

“Mm, oh nothing of concern. I acquired some more stock on my last trip and am waiting for someone to come and collect it.” 

The trader removed the sheet from what was more obviously now a cage revealing something more amazing inside. A bundle of soft fur, patterned the same as the pelts hanging on display paced back and forth. Masa had seen cats there was no doubt it was feline, much larger but still a cat all the same.

Its sleek movements caused its fur to move and fall in a mesmerizing way. The pelt was pretty but it had nothing at all on the living thing. So this is a tiger? 

“What will you do with it?” Masa asked lost in the beauty of the exotic creature.

“I have a man who is interested in its uses for healing. It isn’t a widely known thing here yet but Chinese medicine is becoming a little more popular of late. After he takes what he wants I will have a new pelt to sell.” The trader spoke in an off-hand manner. So that is what he intends to do with it.

Masa crouched down looking through the bars at the small tiger. As if sensing something was different the tiger cub also sat down and stared back at Masa’s blue eye with a pair of bright large orbs of its own. It was wild and new. It was beauty and danger rolled into one large adorable furry package. And yet the plans for such a creature had Masa’s stomach feeling uneasy.

There was cruelty in the world all over. It was just a fact of life at this point. But for whatever reason Masa could not see this cub used in such a fashion.

“Whatever your guy said he’d pay you I’ll double it.”

“Double?” The trader repeated the word a little shocked.

“Yes, and I will give you more than that to take him with me now, alive.”

—

The Castle staff were a little shocked, to say the least when their Lord and Master returned from his excursion with a baby tiger. They quickly recovered and made preparations to accommodate the new addition. 

Masa sat in the castle garden watching as the stripy ball of fur prowled around it sniffing the plants and pouncing on leaves that were disturbed by the wind. He had never really thought of owning a pet but when he saw this impudent little kit he felt a connection and just knew he had to have him.

“Mrwah” The cub let out one of the cutest noises Masa had heard as he pounced on Masa knocking him to the ground. 

“What’s wrong little guy? You wanna play?” Masa asked breaking out into an even bigger smile.

“Mraah!”

“Ok ok.” Masa laughed as he played with the creature. the castle staff paused in their daily tasks and watched happily as their Lord played with the cub as if it was nothing more than an ordinary house cat. 

—

The room in the castle prepared for the cub was large. after placing the raw meat on the ground for it Masa watched as it was torn apart and happily devoured. 

“Well, it’s not exactly the most complicated meal I have ever prepared for someone but damn if you don’t make it look good.” Masa laughed at the sight. He was in love with the reactions. The honest, pure, bliss of it. 

Preparing food for others was his simple pleasure in life. Watching the happiness bloom on their face as they took a bite of food he had prepared was as rewarding to him as any victory in battle. And here he had a creature that could give him that feeling and a lot more on top.

When the cub had finished eating it yawned sleepily and plodded over to Masa’s side where the warlord had been sitting on the floor by the wall. With an almost audible flop, it collapsed using Masa’s lap as a pillow. Masa stroked the oversized cat softly relishing the warmth he felt. He’s alive. I saved him right? He’s really alive…

Anxiety he hadn’t realised he had felt when he originally saw the tiger in the trader’s cage bubbled up in him. So that was the uneasy feeling my stomach? Rest now, you’re safe. But I suppose if you are to stay you should have a name.

Clouds that had been traversing the night sky outside parted bathing the room in pale moonlight and the cub purred happily in the quiet room 

“Shogetsu…”

—

[punishandenslavesuckers]

magnus/george? Magnus being involved a mortal war in itself is p interesting. Also like of course he was. (omly if u wanna of course)

Magnus/George! 

It’s a tradition, when The Lone American makes dock in the port of London, that George Ramirez disembarks from his ship and heads straight to the heart of the city. He makes certain to stop by a bathhouse or make use of a friend’s sink and soap, scrub the rind of sea salt from his skin. He shaves a little, unpacks the only clean sweater, trousers, and shoes he has after a long time at sea. He packed them very particularly, wrapped in a witch’s charm and wax paper to keep it neat. Brujeríaisn’t respected the way warlock magic is respected, or known the way the Salem witches are known, but George doesn’t think much of that.

He’d be brujo himself if he had the disposition. But he doesn’t and so…

He heads down a side alley, one seemingly invisible to those not looking for it, the faintest breath of a glamore, a hint of illusion that smells faintly copper to him, like the smell off metal when it gets hot. Down this alley, there is color in the old brick walls, painted in by hands that know the world below. Downworlder hands painting Downworld murals. George ducks into a doorway recessed into the wall, heavy oak that swings open when he knocks and says, “I’m looking for monkshood and silver.”

It’s a vampire bar, after all, and not friendly to werewolves.

But he’s not here for werewolves.

He’s here for the man in the back room, behind the old oak door with Seelie runes carved in the wood. He moves to knock, but the heavy door swings open all on its own and Magnus Bane looks up from his desk to blink at him. Then, registering the familiar face, he smiles and stands. So just like that, all the weeks at sea slip easily from George’s shoulders. He’s light as a sunbeam now, growing lighter as one of the most powerful warlocks in Europe gives him a disapproving look and folds his arms.

“You can’t come here every time you make port,” says Magnus.

“I’ll come here as many times as necessary,” says George, tipping his cap just a little. “And if I should fail after all in winning you over, then it’s the memory I take back to the States.”

Magnus sighs. “This is a bar full of Belcourt vampires. You shouldn’t try to seduce me with so many still near.” He gives George a warning look as he circles away to grab a bottle of scotch and two glasses. “You’ll get yourself bloody well murdered and you know I’m not quite joking. If someone gets the notion you’re serious that could be the end of you, my lone American, and that would be a shame.”

George smiles. “When’ll you let me do it?”

“Do what?” Magnus says, pouring drinks.

“Steal you away to America.”

Magnus, in the process of pouring, almost spills the lot. He clears his throat loudly and puts the bottle down, then gestures with one hand so the door slams shut. He turns angrily on George.

“Alright. That was fun. Now listen very closely, you cannot say those kinds of things even in jest. It’s one thing to flirt with me, it’s quite another to threaten removing me from the country.”

“I’m not jestin’.” George should probably stop smiling like an idiot, but he can’t. So he just smiles while he makes his grand gestures. “You ever want off this damp island, just say so and I’ll take you to the New World, darlin’.”

Magnus looks faintly panicked now. “George. You’re not in love with me and even if you were, I’m with Camille. Like I’ve been for the past twenty years and that’s not—” he sighs— “not changing any time soon. So… have a drink.” He hands the glass to George and kind of tips his own glass in a toast. “And just enjoy the company until you head back to sea. Alright? You must have stories for me.”

George considers the warlock, just sitting there, leaning against his desk, dressed in a bespoke suit so expensive it’s probably worth more than everything George owns. So he finishes his drink in one go and sets the glass aside. Magnus, huffing, follows his lead. He shoots two fingers of scotch like they’re in a pub with whiskey. Then he reaches for the bottle again – so he misses it when George crosses the last long step between them, hook two fingers under his chin and tugs the warlock’s face up.

Magnus drops his glass but it never hits the floor, disappearing and reappearing on a shelf.

His mouth is soft, warm, and parted on the beginning of a protest which dies under the sweep of George’s tongue, lifting the words from his lips like ink not yet dried. He makes a low sound in his throat. Before Magnus can remember all the very good reasons why he forbade this thing exactly, George gathers the immortal’s head in his hand and cradles his neck, kissing him harder, more deeply, the way he’s been imagining all these months away. Magnus tastes like the scotch he just drank, like skin, like any other man but he’s not that at all—

And Magnus shoves him away. Firmly, not roughly, pushing him back a step.

“You can’t,” Magnus says coolly, “keep doing this.”

“First of all, I can if you let me. And second of all, I have to.” He gives up a lopsided grin. “One day you might say ‘yes’.”

“I won’t,” Magnus says. “And I don’t like people who ignore me when make it very clear what I want.”

“I know. One soulmate at a time kind of man, but you what I don’t like? I don’t like seeing you fading every time I come back.” George raises a hand and Magnus lets him, lets him brush the back of his fingers across his cheek. “Every time, I tell myself you know that I’ll leave you alone if you seem happy.”

“I am happy,” Magnus says quietly.

“Then you want me to sail away? Leave you alone for good? Never offer you safe harbor in some other place? You’ll be okay without me or someone like me?” He lowers his hand. “I come in here making grand gestures because it’s fun… but also cuz I think, one day, you’re gonna really want to put an ocean between you and here.”

Magnus says nothing, then, “Maybe one day, George. But not today.”

George smiles. “Then next time.”

Magnus sighs and fetches that bottle of scotch. “You might wait your whole life, George. Don’t hold out for me.”

“Thanks for the warning,” George says while quietly vowing to wait however long it takes.

[thereluctantinquisitor]

Hey Reluctant you remember that tragic fic you wrote about Dorian leaving Varlen bc he refused to stay behind while Dorian went to Tevinter? since I've been thinking about it again and it's re-broken my heart, could you pretty please maybe do a short sequel where Varlen follows Dorian to Tevinter anyway and keeps him safe from the shadows, something with a happy ending? Bc I'm dying still thinking about my boys sad and lonely even if the fic isnt technically canon its still breaking my heart ;~;

PHEW. Sorry about this taking SO LONG to actually get to, but it ended up much longer than I anticipated. Because of that, I have uploaded it to AO3 in chapters for ease of reading (LINK HERE), but will also put it here for people who don’t mind… y’know… a lot of scrolling >.>

Also HERE is the break-up fic in question, in case people are interested

Things Thought Lost (Pavellan, Post-Trespasser)

Varlen Lavellan x Dorian Pavus, approx 8500 words. CW: violence, attempted assassination.

“Magister Pavus?”

Dorian groaned softly, the fingers of hisleft hand rubbing a tired circle against his temple. “Yes, yes. What is it?”

The scribe entered; a mouse of a thing calledAdiran. New to the household, he bobbed his head deferentially, and with theMaker as his witness, Dorian swore the young man’s knees were trembling.“T-There has been a change of venue for your meeting with Magister Tellene.Instead of the upper chambers, she has requested you meet her at the,u-um…“ He paused, glancing hurriedly at his board, which quivered andjumped in the air. “The Gilder.”

One dark brow arched high on Dorian’sforehead. “Harbour-side? An interesting choice for a lady with such a notabledislike of salt air.” The young man opened his mouth as if to beg apology, butDorian quickly waved a hand. “No matter, no matter. Thank you, Adiran. Informher that I will be present at the agreed upon time.” Typically, Dorian wouldmake a show of rescheduling entirely, as was common practice within theImperium when one wanted to assert one’s status over another. Or be a little petty. However,if he was to ever bring forth discussion of the treatment of slaves in themagisterium, he needed Tellene on side. She was old blood – something that carriedgreat weight in a nation stained red. Her support would be invaluable. Despitehis better judgement, he had little choice but to attend whatever she deignedto organise. If he did not establish an alliance now, someone else wouldinevitably beat him to it. It was not something he could afford.

Sighing softly, he pushed himself to hisfeet, chair sliding out behind him along the soft carpet. Moving to thefloor-length mirror, Dorian took a moment to adjust his attire, tugging hisrobe slightly, reasserting the perfectly effortless flow required of his cloak.He would not be wearing his insignia of office this time. Not if he was toventure so far from the heart of the Magisterium. It would be interesting, hesupposed. He had yet to visit the harbour since his magnificent return toTevinter. It held a rather significant number of fond memories.

All he hoped was that the meeting would gosmoothly, and those memories would not be replaced by something comparablydark.

The Gilder was decidedly… unremarkable. Nice,mind you, but most things in that part of the city could at the very least bedescribed as nice. Dorian exited his carriage with a nod to his driver, Valus, who wouldwait for however long the meeting took. Adiran hurried out behind him, carryinga stack of papers and ink to transcribe should the casual conversation take amore formal turn. It might not be needed, but Dorian always found it better tobe prepared, and the young man seemed as though he would benefit from theexcursion.

“Try to calm down,” he said to Adiran as they approached the establishment. “I brought you here as a member of myhousehold staff. Do try to look the part, yes?”

“Y-Yes, Magister Pavus.” Adiran swallowedtightly, sweat beading on his brow. “I’ll… I can do it. I’ll be fine.”

Dorian’s expression softened slightly as theyascended the steps to the entrance. “There. That’s the spirit. Just stay withme and look interested in what’s happening.” He paused as Adiran hurriedforward to get the door, then as he passed, he fixed the scribe with a sidelongglance. “But not too interested.”

The young man paled again. It was a bit cruelto tease him, but Dorian couldn’t help himself. It was the sort of thing thatwould have earned a soft snort of amusement from his companions back inFerelden. A touch of the arm. A bright smile. Silver hair swept over oneshoulder, blue eyes gleaming with barely contained laughter…

Dorian caught himself mid-thought, startledthat his mind had wandered so far from its course. No. Now is not the time for such…distraction. He needed tobe focused. This meeting could make or break half a year’s worth of work. Ifhis thoughts were elsewhere, it could lead to disaster. He had to deny them, nomatter how desperately they wished to elope.

“The meeting is upstairs, Magister Pavus.”Adiran, who had been swift to hurry over to a richly attired man with a ledger,returned just as quickly, his brown hair tousled, green eyes bright withnervous energy. “Shall I lead the way and ah… introduce you? Is that, um… howthis goes?”

“Yes. If you please.” Dorian’s response wasclipped, his mind still distant as he followed the young man. Why think ofVarlen? Why now? Was it because there was so much at stake? Was it because he wasfeeling so very out of his depth?

Or was it because, if he were to be perfectlyhonest, he would give anything in the world for Varlen to be the one currently standing by hisside.

You are the one who set thatship to sail, you know, Dorianchided himself silently as he followed Adiran up two flights of carpeted stairsto the room. Thenyou launched a fireball and burned it to ash for good measure. You have no one toblame but yourself. He is not coming back.

It was a bitter thing, to consider how muchhe had already been forced to give up to become Magister Pavus. Maker’s breath,he had yet to decide if it had even been worth it. Perhaps, if he could doenough good here, he might be able to make it safe. Yes… yes, if he could dothat, Varlen might just…

Dorian’s thought was cut short as Adiranknocked meekly on the door of one of the rooms. Good grief, even his knock wasmouse-like. Dorian would have to work on that with him; give the young man abit more presence. It would do him no good to come across as so fragile. People arewant to take advantage of such individuals, particularly in the Imperium.

There was a soft affirmation from beyond thedoor, and Adiran took a steadying breath, steeling himself. He glanced back atDorian, who gave him an encouraging nod despite feeling almost sick with nerveshimself. But to offer support was only fair; Dorian had been the one to insiston Adiran’s involvement, after all. It was the least he could do. To Dorian’ssurprise, the young man actually mustered a flicker of a smile, standing alittle taller before turning the gold-coated handle and pushing open the door.It swung on perfectly oiled hinges, revealing the lamp-lit room beyond. Chin raised,knees still shaking slightly, Adiran stepped in ahead of Dorian, as wasprotocol. When he spoke, his voice rang out with unexpected clarity.

“Magister Tellene and valued associates, itis my honour to present the esteemed Magister Pavus, son of the late HalwardPavus, member o—”

It had been difficult for Dorian to keep aproud smile off his face at Adiran’s confident tone, but he had managed upuntil the young man suddenly cut off, his introduction coming to a jarring haltmidway through. Dorian frowned, brow creasing in mingled disappointment andconcern as he stepped forward to usher Adiran aside, assuming the scribe’snerves had simply overcome him. No matter. There would be other opportunitiesfor him to practice. He placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder comfortingly butfirmly. “That is enough with the formalities for n…” Dorian halted the momenthe stepped up to Adiran’s side. He caught the young man’s expression. Adiran’sgreen eyes, once bright with nerves, were blown wide, staring down in shock.His head was barely tilted, frozen in place, colour draining fast from histanned skin. Bitter dread clawed up the back of Dorian’s throat, and almostreluctantly, he let his own gaze descend.

A hilt, adorned with delicate gold weave,jutted from the centre of Adiran’s stomach.

“Fasta-vass!” Doriansprang into action, his time spent fighting with the Inquisition far fromforgotten. Magic leaped to his fingertips in less than a frantic heartbeat, butfor once the destructive fire of his youth was not the first thing to rise tothe occasion. Instead, a barrier rippled around Dorian and the young man,wrapping them in a familiar hum of energy, and it was just in time as anotherdagger streaked towards them only to be turned aside by the magical shield. Ahigh, panicked whine crawled up the back of Adiran’s throat as blood began toseep around his fingers, wrapped almost protectively around the hilt of theblade. Dorian drew the young man close, hooking him around the waist to keephim on his feet. “Stay with me.” He clenched his teeth as he fought to maintaintheir defences as another projectile – one far less mundane – was repelled. “Do not pullthat out, do you understand? Stay with me.”

There were four figures in the room and nosign whatsoever of Magister Tellene, save the fact that she was likely behindthe foul play. Just four assassins against one mage and a young man whose skinhad already drained of colour as he entered the first stages of shock. This wasbeyond bad. In fact, as Dorian attempted to back towards the door, eyesflicking between his assailants, he could think of few more potentially deadlysituations in which to find himself. Foolish. He shouldhave been more careful. Should not have rushed in so eagerly. His instincts hadwarned him, and he had ignored every last one of them.

Dorian’s father once said that a man’s worthcould be measured by his ambition. Dorian himself always fancied ambition to beworth remarkably little if, in its realisation, one fell to the folly of haste.

Just this once, he wished he had taken hisown damn advice.

Sweat beading on his brow, running down histemples, Dorian backed all the way to the door only to find it had somehow beenclosed behind him, the act going unnoticed in his rush to protect his scribe.He snarled; a surprisingly vicious sound; as an assassin started forward,intending to rush the barrier. Dorian snapped his hand to the side, three boltsof fire shooting from his palm to catch the cowled man mid-flight. The assassincried out, staggering, throwing his arms up to guard his face, but his clothingremained uncharred by the flames. In fact, the fire seemed to sweep pastharmlessly, repelled like water from oiled canvas. Of course.Yes, he should have guessed they would be ready for combat with a mage of hisparticular specialty. These were no mere hired blades, after all.

“Kaffas,” Doriangrowled, face set in a snarl as he chose lightning, charging a bolt in his palmand sending it lancing forward. It hit one assassin, then leaped to a second,but again the effect seemed almost laughable. They slowed under the assault,only human and unnerved by the display, but did not stop. For all his power,Dorian was little more than an inconvenience to them.By his side, Adiran’s breathing had started to come in short, panicked gasps;too little to fill the boy’s lungs. They didn’t have much time. He didn’thave much time. Turning, Dorian threw a hand towards the door, summoning magicto his palm and sending it scorching outwards in a bright, loud blast. If hecould get them out and summon the city guards, then perhaps—

The sound of shattering glass ripped Dorian’sattention back to the room even as the door buckled and blasted outwards. Theassassins standing by the window cried out in surprise, stepping away hastilyas a figure swung into the room. A blur of black and brown, the person hit theground, rolled, and was on their feet in less time than it took to bat an eye,twin blades flashing in their hands. For a moment, Dorian thought this might beanother assailant, come to ensure the job was done thoroughly. But before thatthought even reached completion, the stranger whirled on the assassins,slashing fast, feinting and dodging and weaving, harrying and harassing them inclose quarters. It seemed the stranger’s arrival was as much as surprise tothem as it had been to Dorian, and they scrambled to defend themselves,momentarily distracted from their quarry.

In the confusion, Dorian did the only thinghe could. Grunting, he hauled Adiran up and made for the door, almost trippingover the debris, staggering out into the hallway. The boy’s blood ran freelydown his front, now, staining the carpet red as they stumbled and wovechaotically. After a few hindered steps, Dorian opted to simply sweep the boyinto his arms, ignoring the shriek of pain Adiran let out at the movement. Thesound stole the breath from Dorian’s chest in the worst possible way and hegritted his teeth, trying not to give in to the rising panic. The guilt. Adiranshook in his arms, tense with pain, eyes glassy and wide as he stared down athis wound.

He’s just a boy. I shouldn’thave brought him. I shouldn’t have—

Dorian reached the stairs just as a form camehurtling out of the room’s shattered doorway, skidding into the hall, a horrorof black fabric and deadly blade. Assassin. Cursing,Dorian threw up another barrier, but before he could attempt to flee the mancrashed into him, sending both Dorian and Adiran to the ground. They hit hard,and Dorian rolled on instinct just as the assassin’s wicked blade slammed intothe ground where his neck had been. Whatever it was made of, it sliced straightthrough the floorboards as though they were paper. With little left to hisdisposal, Dorian kicked out, catching the assassin in the side, knocking himtowards the stairs. Unfortunately, the cloaked man managed to catch himself onthe first step, avoiding the damaging fall that might have followed, andimmediately launched himself back towards Dorian, who had barely had time tostagger to his feet.

Whether through skill or sheer luck, Dorianmanaged to catch the assassin’s wrists, that deadly blade stopping mere inchesfrom his chest. Both men grunted, snarling, one’s face hidden by a mask, the other’sexposed and desperate. Despairing. Livid. Adiran layin a crumpled heap, curled in on himself as if to guard the blade sheathed inhis stomach. He’sjust a boy. Dorian cried out, heavingback against the assassin, forcing the man back a half-step from the suddenforce of it. Justa boy. His grip tightened on theassassin’s wrists, clamping down hard, the fitted fabric of the man’s sleeveslipping down as they struggled for dominance. I should not have brought him. 

For a split second, Dorian felt warmth against his palms –skin – and quite literally seized the opportunity with both hands. Ignoring thethreat of that deadly blade, Dorian focused his magic, dropping his barrier anddrawing its power into his attack, feeling the energy coil and writhe inside him. Then,just when he could contain it no longer, he released it in a rush, theelectricity discharging with a muted crack directly into the assassin’s exposedskin. The man screamed, arching, grip tightening on his blade, neck snappingback, body shaking. Dorian refused to let go, his eyes on the assassin, hisheart on Adiran, his mind chanting a desperate mantra for it to all be over.The smell of something cooking, and then burning, rose thick in the air, untilthe assassin finally collapsed in a smoking heap on the floor. Without eventhinking, Dorian snatched the man’s blade and slipped it into his belt, themimmediately staggered over the corpse and towards the crumpled form of hisscribe.

“Adiran,” he rasped, exhausted, shaking as heturned the boy, rolling him onto his back. Dorian was greeted by the faintestof moans, but it set his exhausted heart racing again, newfound energy risingto flood his veins. “Come – that’s it. We’re fine. You will be fine.” Hegrunted, heaving the boy up again. Adiran did not cry out this time. In fact,he seemed barely aware of who Dorian was or what was happening, head lolling,eyes unfocused and half shut. Bitterly, Dorian could only think that was alllikely for the best.

Dorian did not exit via the front of theestablishment. The back door was closer, and his chariot was waiting down theside of the building. As soon as Dorian stumbled into sight, Valus,leaped to his feet, eyes blown wide with shock. “Get the door open,” Dorianordered as he ran towards it. “Now! Take us to Maevaris.” She had a spirithealer on staff – one who might be able to help. That was the boy’s onlychance, Dorian feared, and even then it was slim. As he and Valus heaved theyoung man into the carriage, Dorian eyed the wound and felt a sick sensationchurn in his stomach. Itwas bad. Any seasoned fighter wouldsay the same. A slow, painful way to go.

Once inside the wagon, Valus immediately setthe horses off at a canter, moving recklessly through the streets, hollering tomove people out of the carriage’s way. Inside, Dorian cradled Adiran’s head inhis lap, smoothing the boy’s hair, unable to find the words he deserved in sucha moment. His hand worked what little magic he had left, trying to numb thearea – ease the pain. Whatcould one truly say? 

“M… Magis…ter…” Adiran’s voice was barelyabove a whisper, and Dorian started, almost missing it for all Valus’ shoutingand rein-cracking.

“Shh, hush now,” Dorian murmured almostreflexively, reaching to wrap a hand comfortingly around the young man’s wrist.Holding him. What else could he do? “Save your breath. We are almost at thehealer.”

Adiran swallowed, flinched, then gasped atthe contraction, his hands twitching painfully around the embedded blade.“A-Are y… s-safe?”

The expression on Dorian’s face would havebeen comical had it not been lined so heavily by grief. “Foolish boy,” hechoked, shaking his head, fingers still combing soothingly through his tousledbrown hair that seemed immune to any form of taming. Sucking in a shakingbreath, Dorian pressed on, “I am fine, Adiran. Unharmed. You did well. You… didvery well.”

Had the young man been more present, he mighthave disputed that claim, given the circumstances. But instead his feverishgaze seemed to brighten ever so slightly as it drifted upwards, focusing on thejolting roof of the carriage. Their green was dimmer than before; wilting fastlike cut grass. All Dorian could do was helplessly beg the carriage to gofaster.

Maevaris, as always,moved with the efficiency of a woman whose world always ran on perfectschedule. The moment Dorian’s carriage pulled up, she appeared as thoughsummoned, whether warned by her own guards or Valus’ booming voice, Doriancould not say. Either way, it did not matter; the moment she saw Adiran shelaunched into action, sending a servant to fetch the healer before slidingbeneath Adiran’s other arm herself and helping Dorian carry the boy along.“Maker’s breath, what happened to him?” she demanded as they ran into themanor, a cot already being wheeled down the hallway from one of the nearbyrooms. “And if you are going to stop by unannounced, flowers never go astray.”

“Not now,” Dorian begged, andMaevaris seemed more than happy to oblige him in this instance. While boththeir instincts in the gravest moments were to make light, this time… this timeDorian just couldn’t bear it. What happened next was something of a blur, andthe next thing Dorian knew, the boy had been whisked away by not just onehealer, but a group, all speaking in fast, serious tones. The only thing thatstopped Dorian from following them instinctively was Maevaris’ steadying handon his shoulder. He turned to her, aggrieved, but she just shook her head, gazesympathetic but firm.

“Let them work, Dorian. There isnothing either of us can do for him now.” Her pale gaze drifted to where theyhad disappeared down the corridor, voices fading in the distance. “I do notknow who that boy was, but he is in good hands. The best, if Jahvri’srecommendations are to be believed.”

“One can only hope. Maker’sbreath…” Dorian sagged, andMaevaris quickly guided him over to a chair, steadying him by the arms as hecollapsed into it. “How?” he continued, shaking his head, curving forward andburying his face in his hands. “How did I let this happen?”

“Hush.” She pulled him in close,letting Dorian’s head rest against her stomach, holding him without a care forthe blood, both fresh and dried, that coated the front of his robe. “You will tell me what happened, Dorian… but not now. Youare safe here. That is what matters. Stay as long as you feel you must.”

“You are too good to me.”

“I am. But Maker knows you woulddo the same.”

To his credit, Dorian managed afaint smile at that. It was true, after all. But it wavered and fell all tooquickly. Maevaris, perceptive as ever, gave the excuse of fetching tea for themto drink. As if she did not have staff for such an endeavour. But regardless,she made herself scarce, offering Dorian a moment’s reprieve, and he wasgrateful for the solitude. Suddenly overcome by a wave of exhaustion,Dorian raised his hands to rub at his eyes, then jolted as thesight of his own bloodstained palms sent a spike of panic through him. Yes. Yes,of course. As if reading hismind, a servant appeared with a warm, damp cloth, offering it to him for thetime being and informing him a bath was being drawn and would be ready shortly.Maevaris was nothing if not a gracious host.

Sitting there, Dorian’s mindwandered back to that room at The Gilder. To the figure who had leapt in; asaviour of dark leather and flashing steel. Whoever that person had been,Dorian wagered he owed them his life. Perhaps even Adiran’s, if…

Dorian blanched and leanedforward heavily, resting his forearms on his knees, uncaring of how he mightlook to the guards flooding out to take up extra watch duties in the wake ofhis dramatic arrival. What he had done; attending that meeting; had been amistake he could not afford to make. Not now. Certainly not again. A singleerror of judgement could mean the end of everything. Of himself. Of others. He was more than just a lone agent – a pariah actingout against an established ideal. Finally, he was in a position where his voicecould be heard above the powerful ruling minority. If he allowed himself to besilenced through his own recklessness…

There was a sound from outside;men and woman shouting what sounded like a warning. Dorian launched to hisfeet, exhausted but rekindled by the thought that the assassins had givenchase. The idea that he might have brought danger to Maevaris’ house left himsick and hollow inside, but as he attempted to rush out a pair of guardsmenstepped in front of the door, blocking his path. “Apologies, Magister Pavus,”one said, “but we are under strict orders.”

Of course they were. Dorian’slips curled disdainfully, but quickly his rational side caught up, windingtight around his anger and stemming its flow. He was drained. Exhausted andbroken in too many ways. If he rushed out there, he would only be a liability.

A horn sounded – a few staccatobursts – and Dorian’s gaze flicked between the guards with an appropriate levelof indignation for his station. “At least tell me what is happening,” he said,seeking compromise. “I trust you can do that much, yes?”

After sharing a nervous glance,the other guard spoke, her voice ringing within her helm. “An attempted breachof the estate’s wall, Magister Pavus. That last call was to say whoever madethe attempt has been apprehended. They—”

Suddenly, the door behind theguards was thrown open, sending the pair staggering to the side and Dorianjumping back a step. Another group of Maevaris’ soldiers stormed in, a figuredragged between them, gripped tightly by the upper arms, surrounded by thethreat of blades. Dorian’s heart raced, but it seemed their captive was notputting up much of a fight; an occasional grunt and jerk of resistance when aguard got a little too rough or a blade slipped a little too close, but nothingmore. It was… well, rather strange. The group started moving past Dorian, their captive twisting,brown and black leather stained by blood…

… that was when Dorian recognisedwho it was.

“Wait! Stop!” Starting forward,Dorian placed himself between the guards and the hallway, cutting them off. Thegroup immediately halted. They might be under Maevaris’ employ, but they werenot so bold as to trample a Magister. Breathing harder than he had any need tobe, Dorian held out a hand. It was trembling. “Wait. I know that armour. Thisperson saved my life.”

There was a hush of uneasytension that filled the room. “Apologies, Magister, but we are under strictorders—” one of the guards began, but then the captive spoke over the top ofhim.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was deep.Earnest. Achingly familiar. Somethingtightened in Dorian’s chest, his eyes widening at the sound. No. Itcouldn’t be. “Itried to keep them all in the room, but one slipped past, and I’m…” The figureshivered and hung his head, still cowled and masked. Only his eyes werevisible, and Dorian caught a glimpse of them for the briefest moment. A bright,brilliant blue. “You got away.” The man continued weakly, almost to himself.Almost relieved. “Fora second I thought…”

“Release him,” Dorian breathed,stepping forward. But the guards did not comply, and his angerrose swiftly from the centre of his chest. “Did you not hear me? I said—”

“It is all right.” Maevaris’voice rang clear and crisp through the room. She had entered with a servantbearing a tray of tea, and while she seemed wary, her ability to read Dorianlike an open book spurred her to act. She met Dorian’s grateful gaze and noddedto the guards. “Let him go.”

Immediately, the guards releasedthe cowled man, who grunted and rubbed his arms where he had been held. Then,slowly, he straightened, his gaze rising to meet Dorian’s. They held eachother’s stares for a time, neither entirely sure of what to say. What to do. Dorian’s mind was little more than a whitewash ofemotion, fuzzy and uncertain, relieved and terrified all at once.

What was he doing here? How did he…?

“If you’re going to shout at me,can we at least do it without an audience?” Varlen’s voice was the same asDorian remembered, but somehow different as well. Harder. Colder.

“I’m not…” Dorian trailed off,then licked his lips, glancing about the room full of armed men and women.“Maevaris, if you please… I would have a moment with this man. Alone.” Underher intense stare, Dorian gave her a pointed nod. “All is quite well. You havemy word. Is there somewhere we might speak? Preferably a room without yourdutiful guards present.”

“Dorian,” Maevaris said warningly, but at the look on hisface she just sighed, reaching up to rub her forehead with her fingertips.“Very well. Fine. This way.” She spared a glance for the newcomer. Or perhapsa glare wouldbe more fitting. “Attempt anything at all and I will have you skinned and wear you like acoat. Understood?”

Dorian imagined Varlen would havepaled beneath that mask, but his voice remained surprisingly resolute as hegave a small bow of his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

Yes ma’am. Ittook all Dorian had to suppress a cringe as Maevaris arched a brow at theimpropriety of it all. But he supposed, if nothing else, it was strangelycomforting to know that some things had not changed.

When the door closed behind them,the first thing Dorian did close the space between himself and the cowledfigure. His hands reached out, thumbs brushing along the sides of Varlen’s coveredface, both pleased and surprised to find his former lover did not jerk awayfrom his touch.

So, Dorian removed the mask.

The elven man’s features wereprecisely how he remembered, although he supposed he shouldn’t really besurprised. It had only been just over a year, after all, since they had gonetheir separate ways for good. Discarding the mask, Dorian’s hands returned asthough drawn by a mysterious force, ghosting along the sides of Varlen’s face, wantingso badly to feel the warmth of his skin, but uncertain of whether such intimatecontact would be welcome. Instead, he allowed himself a moment of indulgence,drinking in the sight that stood before him. Those bright blue eyes, that palevallaslin. Cheekbones that gave such pleasing shape to his face; lines Dorian hadonce loved to absently trace. They were more pronounced now, he realisedvaguely. Varlen had gotten thinner. Then again, Dorian figured they both hadneglected themselves in more ways than one. Nothing could drain a person quitelike constant, unwavering stress.

In Dorian’s distraction, it wasVarlen who was the first to speak. “Dorian… were you hurt?”

That question. Why did everyone always ask that first?Pain flickered behind Dorian’s eyes and he lowered his hands, stepping away,the image of Adiran shivering in his arms suddenly too vivid. Too overwhelming.“I am well, Varlen.” He paused, collected himself, then added. “And you? Icannot imagine your entry through the second-storey window was a comfortableexperience.”

A faint smirk flickered acrossVarlen’s lips and he shrugged, although a little stiffly. “It’s not so bad. Ifyou do it right.” With a sigh, he reached up, tugging down his hood, hairspilling from its confine to tumble down past his shoulders. Dorian’s eyeswidened at the sight. Still long, yes, but he wore it shorter than before. Thedemands of practicality. But more than anything, it was predominantly black.Dorian was stunned into silence for a good while, slowly taking in changes hethought he would never see. Varlen lovedhis hair, proud to wear the same silver as his mother and sister. Now, only afew inches of it had grown, catching the wavering lamplight, no doubt awaitingthe dyeing process. What followed the unveiling was an uneasy silence; one thatseemed better suited to a funeral procession than an untimely reunion of formerlovers. Then again, perhaps it was a perfect silence. After all, Dorian had noidea how to fill it.

Uncertainly, Varlen rose to theoccasion, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Dorian… I know this isn’twhat you wante—”

“No.” Dorian, it seemed, hadfound his voice. Funny, how easy it was to make the throw once the first stonehad been cast. Varlen blinked, uncertain of what to make of single word, butDorian just shook his head gently. “Varlen, if it is apology you areattempting, I would much rather you refrain.” He paused, a familiar discomfort gnawingat his stomach, but forced himself to continue. “I know that we left each otheron rather unfortunate terms. To putit mildly, of course. But if it is quite the same to you, I would rather notdwell on that particular conversation.” Themistakes that I made. “The… things that were said.”

Varlen licked his lips, and therewas an air of uncertainty to the movement. For a time, Dorian feared he haddone precisely the wrong thing; that their parting words might have beensomething Varlen needed to address and he had just crushed that need underheel. But then the elven man released a long-held breath, some of the tensionleaving his shoulders as he did so, and glanced up to meet Dorian’s gaze. “Yeah.All right, sure.” A faint smile quirked up the corner of his lips. “So… I takeit you’re not going to lecture me, then?”

“Come now, let’s not be entirely unreasonable.”

Varlen laughed, and Dorian foundhimself succumbing to the desire as well. It was a giddy feeling, especiallyconsidering what had just transpired, but a part of him simply couldn’t helpit. His scribe was barely clinging to life, he had nearly been assassinated,and now his former lover stood before him swathed in black like a murderer fromsome cautionary tale. But he was smiling. Laughing.

These were strange times indeed.

They quieted after a moment,returning to a kind of still contemplation of one another, eyes locked.Focused. Neither seemed willing to break the connection. “I… had considered anumber of outcomes. For my meeting with Magister Tellene, that is.” Dorian’sconfession was soft, and he shook his head, still not quite believing what washappening. “But this… well, this one hadcertainly failed to cross my mind.”

“I know.” Varlen was the first tobreak the stillness, looking away and moving over towards the window. He peekedthrough the curtains, squinting against the late-afternoon sun. What he waslooking for, Dorian could not say. “I got most of them,” he eventuallyexplained after glancing over his shoulder and catching Dorian’s perplexedexpression. “But one of the assassins slipped past. I tried to chase him down,but the others cut me off and…” He pulled his lower lip between his teeth, eyesflicking back out to the front of Maevaris’ estate. There was shame in theexpression. Whatever Varlen had intended, it clearly had not gone according toplan. Loose ends were always complicated, after all.

“I believe I ran into thatfellow, yes,” Dorian said. Varlen turned sharply at that, eyes widening inalarm, and Dorian quickly gave a placating wave of his hand. “Now, now, not tofret. He was… dealt with.”

“But the clothing they had on was—”

“You will find little in thisworld that is entirely mage-proof,Varlen.”

“Right. Yeah. Good point.” Varlencleared his throat, nodding and letting the curtain fall back into place as he steppedaway. He wiped his hands on his pants anxiously, and Dorian couldn’t help butfeel a pang of guilt. After all, he knew why Varlen might be in such a state.But before Dorian could find the correct words, Varlen turned to face him,expression tense. “Well, are you going to ask me or not?”

“Ask you…?”

“Why I’m here, Dorian.”

“Ah.” Dorian sighed, moving overto a sturdy mahogany table – a wood favoured by Maevaris and half themagisterium - and leaning against its edge. “Very well, then. Why are you here,Varlen?”

The elven man had seeminglyexpected an argument. He paused, mouth half open, and then closed it with aclick of his teeth. He was clearly on edge; Dorian could read that much, atleast. But despite it, Varlen pushed himself to speak. “I… heard rumours.”

Now it was Dorian’s turn tofrown. “You will have to be a tad more specific, Varlen. A great many rumours havecircled me of late.” He made a grand gesture at his bloodied robes. “Somewhat partof the office, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, well… part of the job ornot, I didn’t like what I heard.” He was pacing now, that familiar restlessenergy demanding some kind of outlet. Dorian said nothing, simply lettingVarlen sort through his thoughts. “I’d begged Leliana to keep an ear to theground for me, and she…” He swallowed; shook his head. “People want you dead, Dorian. More than most Magisters.Which I guess is something of anachievement, but not exactly what I‘d been hoping to hear.”

“And that surprised you?”

“… No.” Varlen sighed, raking hisfingers through his hair. Silver fading to black. “Just… do you know what it’slike? To be so far away and hear reports like that? Over and over again? Firstit’s unnamed mercenaries. Then trained assassins. Then suddenly any wealthy altus who can afford morethan a single attempt on your life. Then the threats started coming from yourfellow magisters. Dorian…” Varlenshook his head, although he was unable to look over and meet Dorian’s gaze andhis voice dropped to barely a whisper. “What was I supposed to do? Wait until Igot the news that y… that you’d been…?”

The unfinished question was metwith silence, heavy and uncomfortable. Dorian knew what he should say. You were supposed to stay away. It is notsafe here for you. That was, after all, the bitter note on which they hadended their relationship. Dorian had thought cutting ties was the only way tokeep his amatus out of danger. But they were no longer a couple – there was nolonger that sense of obligation – and Varlen had still come to him.

“I don’t know, Varlen.” It wasthe most honest answer Dorian had given anyone since returning to the Imperium,and it seemed Varlen sensed that by the way his gaze finally flicked over and stayedfocused on him. “Things here… they have been difficult. On that matter, I willnot lie. What I am attempting here was always going to breed some measure of hostility.” Slowly, painfully, he offered a weak smile. “If it is anyconsolation at all… this is the closest anyone has ever come to completingthe deed. Your timing remains remarkable as eve—”

To Dorian’s surprise, Varlen snorted. He seemed utterly amused, andDorian stopped mid-sentence, uncertain what to make of the outburst. Anapologetic look washed over Varlen’s face and he cleared his throatuncomfortably. “Sorry. It’s just… this wasn’t the closest. Not really.”

Dorian felt his face go slack. “Itwasn’t?”

Varlen shook his head. “Therewere a few times. At night, mostly. At your estate. Some were ready withpoisons, waiting for you to head to your rooms for the evening. They planned toslip it into the water pitcher on your bedside table. Once was…” He paused, asif uncertain if he should continue, but after an encouraging nod from Dorian,he did. “It was your old scribe, Dorian. She was to deliver you a message, butthe parchment was soaked through with something.She wore gloves so she wouldn’t touch it, but knew you wouldn’t have any onafter dinner.”

My scribe. For thebriefest moment, Dorian’s mind flickered to Adiran, but he quickly shooed theimage away. No, not him. The one the boy had replaced. “I thought she had simply fled my employ, the same as some of the others,” he murmured.Feeling strangely unsteady, he reached out, groping behind him, dragging one ofthe chairs out from beneath the table and sitting down. “Corellia. She hadserved my family for years. It was a shock, mind you, but I imagined many of myfather’s old staff were less than pleased by my replacing him.” Then, Dorianlooked up, grey eyes finding Varlen and fixing on the man. “So she… did you…?”

“I had to.” His voice was barelyabove a whisper, and Varlen closed his eyes, turning away. “She wanted to killyou, Dorian. What choice did I have?”

Dorian’s heart felt like stone,heavy and coarse. “Was she the only one? Among my household.”

“No.”

“And did you…?”

“Yes. I did.” Varlen let out ashivering breath, but opened his eyes again. Just a touch. But he did not lookat Dorian, and there was something defeated in the expression on his face. WhenVarlen worked up the will to speak again, his voice was hoarse, thick with a hurt that could not bedescribed. To hear it tore Dorian apart.

“I’m sorry, Dorian. For all ofit. I know you cared about them, but I couldn’t just let them go.” Hisvoice had risen as he spoke, edging into something panicked and desperate.“M-Maybe I shouldn’t have done it. Come here. Interfered. I just…” His voice cracked,and something inside Dorian cracked with it as Varlen turned away sharply,almost desperate to look away. “I didn’t think it would be so…”

“Varlen… come now, none of that.”Dorian rose quickly, ignoring the lurch of unsteadiness that accompanied themovement, and crossed the room in a few long strides. He reached out, takingVarlen by the shoulders, finally seeing the pain the man had been sodesperately trying to hide. Perhaps the mask had allowed him to pretend, for atime. Perhaps it had let him pretend it was someone else holding the blade and taking the lives. Now,that dark cloth lay abandoned on the floor, a black stain on Maevaris’ plush carpet.Dorian wanted nothing more than to burn it to ash. “Varlen… look at me.Please?” Slowly, the elven man’s gaze drifted up, glassy but stubborn, refusing to give in to the threat of likely much-needed tears. Dorian smiledfaintly and brushed a strand of hair from Varlen’s face. “I owe you my life, itseems. Many times over. What you have done… it is a debt I can only ever hopeto repay.”

Varlen just nodded, but the movementwas stiff. With a pang, Dorian realised that was not what he should have said.Wincing internally, the mage forged onward. He had to find what Varlen needed tohear. “What you have endured… I can only imagine how difficult it must havebeen. Tell me; were you alone?”

“Leliana,” Varlen murmured, eyeson Dorian’s chest rather than his face. “She would send information. Leads. Ijust followed them. Got in the way as often as I could.” He paused, and thenadded even more softly, “Some were… harder than others. There aren’t manyplaces for someone like me to go here, when things go wrong.” He snorted dryly. “You were right about that much, at least.” There was abitterness to that last remark that stung like a slap.

“Oh Varlen…” Unable to helphimself, Dorian just pulled the elven man into an embrace, holding him tight.At first, Varlen remained rigid, the way one might when dragged into anunexpected hug by an acquaintance. Polite endurance, nothing more. But then,after a few tense beats, he relaxed. Leaned into the embrace, wrapping his ownarms around Dorian and pulling him close, burying his head in the crook of hisneck. For a moment, everything almost felt like before. Dorian closed his eyes.Breathed in the familiar scent of his amatus. Maker’s breath…

Dorian had no idea how badly hehad missed this. How badly he had missed him.

“I have made so many mistakes,”Dorian murmured, shaking his head slightly, arms refusing to let go of Varlen.“More than I have any right to. But… how we left things…”

He felt Varlen shift against him,but he made no attempt to extract himself from the embrace, settling to mumbleagainst Dorian’s shoulder. “It was bad, wasn’t it?” Dorian just nodded, andVarlen continued. “I won’t lie. A part of me wanted to wash my hands of you. Itseemed… for the best, in a way. I didn’t want to admit it at the time, but youwere right. Coming to Tevinter and standing at your side… it would have been too dangerous. There is just noway we could… be us here.”

A thought suddenly occurred toDorian that saw cold flood his skin. “Varlen, I need to make something clearthat I may have neglected. It is true, we can never be what we were inFerelden here, but it is not because I do not want it.” He tightened his grip instinctively. “Maker’s breath, even back then, against my better judgement, Iwanted it more than anything. But… the thought that you would come here becauseof me, and place yourself at risk…” Dorian felt his throat constrict but attemptedto talk through it. “If somethinghappened to you…”

“Stop. Dorian...” Varlen’s words were firm, but his touch remained gentle. Hepulled back, taking Dorian in, and it was only the expression of concernthat flashed across his face that made Dorian aware of the fact that he was,indeed, crying. Perhaps it was his exhaustion or his worry for Adiran, or hisdiscovery of Varlen struggling in the heart of the one place he had tried tospare him from. Perhaps it was a culmination of all the day’s miserable, bloodyevents. But regardless of the reason, silent tears had crept past Dorian’scareful guard, and he regretted them immediately. Ashamed of himself, Dorianmade to wipe them away in a harsh motion, but Varlen beat him to it. And hishands were gentle. His gloves soft. Without dismissal, he brushed away the first sign that,finally, Dorian had reached a limit he was not prepared to handle.

At least, not alone.  

“You shouldn’t be here,” Dorianbreathed, his voice only shaking ever so slightly. It was the most composedanyone could be while crying their eyes out, he liked to imagine. It helpedlessen the sting a touch. “Amatus, this is too dangerous. I won’t beresponsible for dragging you into it. I can’t.”

“Well that’s fine. Because youaren’t.” The words were so simple, and Varlen spoke them with such convictionthat it actually gave Dorian pause. A faint smile managed to find its way toVarlen’s lips and he held Dorian’s face in his hands, keeping their gazeslocked. “We broke up, Dorian. There was, as you said, no obligation for me tocome here.”

“You came anyway,” Dorianmurmured. Varlen nodded.

“I came anyway.”

“After everything I said to you.Everything I…”

“Yeah, well…” Varlen gave a faintshrug. It was meant to appear dismissive, but deep down, Dorian could onlyimagine how many months it must have taken for him to perfect it. “Turns out itwas going to take more than a bad fight to keep me away. Whether we’re togetheror not, Dorian, I care about you.You’re my friend as much as you were… more than that.” He swallowed, taking asecond to collect himself. “The fact of the matter is, I believe in what you’retrying to do. Fenedhis, I want you to succeed. I know I can’t helpout in the open, so I figured I would do it my way, and it was actuallyworking.”

“Until today.”

“Until today,” Varlen agreedquietly. He let go of Dorian, the tears having ceased as they spoke, and took asingle step back. Not too far, but far enough. “I… messed up, today. I was tooslow. I didn’t pay enough attention to the obvious threat, and it…” Varlen bithis lip, glancing towards the door. “Creators… he’s so young, Dorian. Just a kid.”

“I know.” Dorian’s voice washusky, and there was no helping it. He could still see Adiran’s shocked expression;that vacant stare at the roof of the carriage; and it pained him in a way thathe simply could not describe. “But it was not your fault, Varlen. Do not blameyourself. What you have been doing… it is already more than I deserve.”

“No, it isn’t.” Varlen steppedforward again, resting one hand on Dorian’s shoulder, squeezing intently.“Dorian, this would be a lot easier for both of us if you would just let mehelp you. It’s hard enough hiding from the rest of Tevinter without having to dodge you too.”

To Dorian’s surprise, a dry laughmanaged to escape him. “You say it as though you will continue regardless of myanswer.”

“Funny. That’s probably because Iwill.”

“You remain stubborn as ever.”

“Did you expect that to change?”

Varlen smiled, and Dorian evenmanaged a weak one back, not sure what precisely was happening between thembut grateful for it nonetheless. But something remained unspoken;something Dorian could not simply ignore. “Varlen… if you are to remain…”

“It’s like you said,” Varlensaid, cutting him off quickly. “We can’t be what we were in Ferelden. I get that. If we’reseen publicly together… well, let’s just say it wouldn’t help you start thismovement of yours.”

“Not when the people I amattempting to move possess moreprejudice than sense,” Dorian agreed reluctantly. “No, of course. You areright. We couldn’t.”

There was a pause. A long one. “Imean… did you actually…?” The words left Varlen so awkwardly that it remindedDorian of when they had first met. A pocket of warmth filled his chest as theelven man continued hurriedly. “I mean, yeah. No way. It couldn’t work…. right?”

“No. Not at all.”

The pause returned. Then Varlensaid something that caught Dorian completely off-guard.

“You called me amatus.”

Dorian blinked. “What? When?”

“Before. When you were… y’know…” He gestured to his face. “Crying.”

“Well now that’s hardly fair, tojudge a man when he is so clearly outof—”

—“Did you mean it?”

Dorian stopped. His mouth hungslightly open, as though in the process of giving voice to defensive words, butno sound passed his lips. Had he meantit? Thinking back, he did not even recall it, but he had no reasonwhatsoever to believe Varlen was lying. In the end, that meant only one thing.

“Yes.”

He had said that word; a word thatcarried so much weight. A word he had not been able to utter since they parted.A word he had dreaded and sampled and discarded more times than he could count.If he had truly said it, after all this time, and without even realising… then yes.He meant it more than anything.

His response seemed to stirsomething in Varlen because he sniffed suddenly, blue eyes flicking away asthough the far wall suddenly offered something incredibly interesting. “I…” Helet out a watery laugh. “I really fucking missed that, you know? The way you’d say it.”

Dorian didn’t bother holding backthis time. He just reached out, turned Varlen towards him, and kissed him. Theirlips pressed together, warm and soft and everything he remembered; Maker,everything he had wanted for so long.There was no stiffening of surprise from Varlen. Not even a hitching of breathas Dorian’s tongue swiped along the inner curve of his lips, tentativelyseeking more. If anything, he had been more ready for the moment than Dorianhimself, who had initiated it. Varlen opened his mouth, inviting Dorian in, onehand threading through his hair, the other sliding past up his armand coming to rest on his shoulder, holding him in place. Holding him close. Dorian turned them both, moving afew mindless steps until Varlen was against the table, their lips still locked,hands roaming one another as though feeling their shapes for the first time.And in a way, there was a newness of it. The newness of a fire rekindled.

Dorian broke the kiss for amoment, rasping a breath, neither drawing away not pushing for more. “Amatus…” he breathed, shaking his head,not quite believing what was happening. Not quite believing how badly he hadneeded it, all this time. A low chuckled curled from Varlen’s chest, meetingthe fond curve of his lips.

“There it is…” Varlen’s eyes wereclosed, almost peaceful, his head cocked slightly to the side as thoughlistening to beautiful music somewhere in the distance. Then, slowly, his eyesfluttered open to catch Dorian’s. Dorian’s expression was, understandably, confused, but Varlen justsmiled, his thumb brushing along the curve of Dorian’s cheek.

“How you said it. That was it.”Understanding flickered in Dorian’s eyes and Varlen leaned in, stealing aquick, chaste kiss, smiling against his lips. “It was just like that.” 

[bromfieldhall]

101 Days of CS Drabbles - Day 44

Read from the beginning on FF.Net or AO3 or

Day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43

For Polkie2

012:"I can't stop thinking about you."

Emma sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the letter that had her name inked on it in elegant script.

She'd found it, and several others all inscribed to her, by complete accident while searching for her own box of memories. They'd been contained in a small, plain wooden box that had fallen down from the closet shelf and burst open as soon as it hit the floor. Naturally, seeing her name she'd gathered them all up and now she didn't know what to do.

Open them – or not?

On the one hand, it was clearly Killian's handwriting on the letters - but surely he would've given them to her if he'd wanted her to read them?

On the other hand, they were addressed to her, so…

Curiosity won out and she turned over the one she held. Breaking open the wax seal, she unfolded the paper and saw that it was dated a few weeks after the curse had been broken and he'd been sent back to the Enchanted Forest. Intrigued at what he had written during their year apart, she began to read.

"My Dearest Emma,

May I call you that?

I know I've not earned the right but, perhaps, since we are never to see each other again, you'll allow me to put to paper that which you were not ready to hear.

For even though you'll never remember my last promise to you before we parted, I still kept my word. There's not a day that's gone by when I haven't thought of you. Sometimes at night I even see you in my dreams – visions of what might have been, in another time, another realm. If I had been a different person.

I imagine that you and Henry have settled into your new life now. Are you happy there, Emma?

Because that was all I ever wanted for you. Your happiness. For a short while I had hoped that I, too, might have been a part of that for you one day. I know now that it was never meant to be.

Perhaps it is for the best. As you were fond of reminding me, I am a pirate after all and that will never change. Indeed, upon my return here, I wasted no time in going back to my former ways. I thought that the familiarity of this life was just what I needed to distract myself from having to face up to the many changes those last few weeks in Storybrooke and Neverland had wrought.

But it didn't work. I found that my heart was no longer in it. How could it be, when it is with you?

I don't even have the Crocodile as a diversion. Now he is vanquished it only adds to the growing dissatisfaction that gnaws away inside of me. My vengeance was all consuming and it's fuelled me for so long that, without it, I'm not certain of who I am any more.

All I do know is that I must find another way to live my life. While reclaiming my ship recently, I did something that does not sit well with me at all. It is my burden to bear, but it made me realise that I no longer want to go back – I wish to move forward. See what kind of man I can be.

And that, my love, is because of knowing you.

I want to become someone that you would have, in the fullness of time, gladly called a friend – maybe even more.

I don't expect it to be easy. I daresay I shall make mistakes along the way, but I will get there in the end, Emma, of that I am certain. I am determined.

I must bring this missive to an end now. Smee has just informed me that we are nearing our port for the evening and I must go on deck to take the wheel. Like you and your boy, it is a new realm and, I hope, a new beginning.

Yours always,

Killian.

Emma carefully folded the letter and looked down at all the others that were in the box with a pained frown. She hadn't thought about that year she'd lost her memories in a long while. She and Killian were married now and they'd recently found out that she was expecting their first child. But reading that letter had suddenly made her very aware that, apart from what happened with Ariel, he'd never really talked about that time except in the vaguest of terms.

And here was the perfect opportunity to learn more.

She grabbed another letter and broke the seal. That one led to another and then another. Avidly she read, devouring every word, her heart aching for him as his loneliness, his determination and his unwavering devotion to her all leapt off the pages as he worked towards being better just because he wanted to.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was when she learned that he'd been on his way back to seek out her mother and father. He'd hoped to join them, where before he'd walked away. It was while he was making the voyage back to the Enchanted Forest that he'd received the potion meant for her. His joy at having the opportunity to see her again was marred only by the reason he was being charged with his mission.

She'd just finished reading that particular letter when a familiar voice made her jump in surprise.

"I wondered what was taking you so long."

Emma let out a startled gasp and looked up to see Killian standing in the doorway, leaning against the wooden frame.

"I..." she began, trying to think of a plausible excuse. One guilty glance at the opened letters strewn all over the bed soon put paid to that tactic however. "I...found these," she finished lamely.

"So I see."

He straightened up and sauntered into the room, his expression unreadable as he came to a halt in front of her. He reached out and took the letter she held, then opened it up to scan the contents before silently handing it back.

"Are you angry?" she asked hesitantly, unsure of his reaction.

He raised a brow, genuinely surprised that she would think so.

"No. They're yours."

"But you didn't actually give them to me," she pointed out wryly.

He smiled at that, then shrugged his shoulders.

"Only because, at first, there was never a good time and then, once we were together, there just didn't seem the need. You knew how I felt."

Emma smiled back at him.

"I did," she agreed. "I do."

"I know." Using his hook, he pushed aside a couple of the papers that littered the bed then sat down next to her. "That's why I left the chest where I knew you'd find it eventually," he revealed as he took her hand brought it to his lips for a brief kiss. "You never could resist a good mystery, love."

Emma's mouth dropped open at his not so subtle implication.

"Wait - are you saying that I'm nosey?" she asked him, incredulously.

"More...endearingly curious," he replied, with a quick grin. "It's one of the many things I love about you."

Before she could reply, he leaned in and gave her a tender, lingering kiss. One wasn't enough though. Soon they were wrapped in each others arms and Killian manoeuvred her gently down to lay on the bed.

"The letters," she muttered in protest as the paper crackled beneath her.

"I'll write you more," he assured her, peppering heated little kisses along her jawline and neck.

"You will?" she asked, gasping softly when he nipped gently at her collarbone then began moving down her body.

"Every day," he promised in between deftly working the buttons of her top apart and kissing each new piece of skin he exposed.

"Every day? With the lives we lead?" she queried a little breathlessly, lifting her hips so that he could pull her pants down and off.

He paused a moment and looked down at her smiling face with a faint frown. "You're right. Better make it once a week," he decided before grinning and going back to stoking the flames of her passion.

Emma laughed but her mirth soon gave way to groans, then eventually cries of pleasure as they consummated their love.

It was a couple of mornings later when she came into their bedroom after having a shower and found the first letter. It was short and incredibly sweet and after she folded it carefully up again, she placed it in the box with all the others. Creased though they were, crumpled in some cases, she'd refused to allow him to throw any away.

Over the years, she needed more boxes to hold all the letters he wrote for her. Some happy, some sad. Some short, some long. But no matter what happened, they were always loving and he never missed a week until the end of his days.

Send me a number from my blog!!

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