#hey you remember the prophet's words??

[vroomian]

What’s Odyssey’s opinion of yrz when he gets back??

bad :)

[meteor752]

Epic the musical side story where Hades and Persephone get really invested in the story during The underworld saga, sorta small talk about the strange man for the next couple of years, and then freak the fuck out in the audience during god games when they find out not only is the guy still alive, he’s managed to piss off like half the pantheon

Just

“Hey babe?”

“Yeah Perse?”

“There’s like, a bunch of mortals here”

“Mortals? What, how?”

“Idk, they’re like, on some ship”

“Huh. Should I call Thanatos, have him take care of it, or should we just wait it out”

“Call Thanatos, best to rid the garden of any pests before they manage to kill your flowers”

“Pfft, alright. I’ll be right back”

“Okay- wait. A bunch of the dead are singing to him”

“What?”

“Yeah like a bunch. Who are they?”

“Uhh, most of them drowned, a few killed by a cyclops. One broke his neck?”

“They’re singing about a cyclops, about how he let one live or something”

“Probably one of Poseidons. Should I still call Thanatos?”

“No wait, I wanna see where this goes.”

“Alright.”

“An infant, what infant?”

“Maybe the cyclops?”

“OH NEW GUY! He seems important!”

“Also a cyclops victim. They seem close, what do you think friend or lover?”

“They’re Greek, it’s probably both”

“I don’t know how he managed it, but this guy brought down like, the entire vibe of the entire underworld. That shouldn’t be possible”

“Yeah. Oh who’s this lady now?”

“Suicide by drowning. Not sure. Maybe a relative”

“Yeah may-THATS HIS MOM”

“OH MY GODS. OH HE DIDNT KNOW OH LORD”

“Hooooooly fuck, what a way to find out”

““Here in the underworld the past is always close behind”. Think we should make that a slogan?”

“Then we’d have to credit him and stuff tho”

“Yeahhhh. Well, seems like this guy is sticking around for a few hours. Should I grab some popcorn?”

“Yeah I’ll grab the fainting couches”

~~~

“Okay what’s happening now?”

“He just stated speaking to Tiresias”

“Tiresias? He went all the way to the underworld to speak with a prophet?”

“Well he is quite good”

“Wait did Tiresias just reject him?”

“I think so? Oh wait predictions”

“Past romance, sacrifice, betrayal, and some final battle? Who the fuck is this guy?”

“Dunno, but he’s not going home that’s for sure”

“Palace? He must be a king of some kind then”

“Do we know the names of any mortal kings”

“Nope, so that didn’t help at-wait his wife is doing what”

“Ohhh, that must be rough, hearing it from a prophet”

“Okay this chanting is getting intense. I think I heard the word Scylla”

“I heard lightning bolt”

“That doesn’t bode well”

~~~

“He’s just, sitting there”

“Is he done? Should we-oh. No okay new song, let’s see what’s going on”

“Man this guy has it rough. Should we like, do something?”

“I mean, I’m not really the “bless the mortals” type of god. I mean I let a guy borrow my helm once, and I haven’t seen it since. I should probably check up on that actually”

“Yeahhh. They killed a friend of the cyclops?”

“That explains all the cyclops victims”

““Witch turn men to pigs”, you think that’s Circe?”

“Sounds like he-WHAT WAS THAT THIRD ONE”

“You don’t think-?”

““God comes down and makes a fleet drown”, I am most definitely sure!”

“Damn. Wait wooden horse? Oh, I know who this guy is!”

“Really?”

“Yeah he’s one of Athenas warriors! Ody something. Odyssen? Odyssa? Whatever, I remember the horse thing was a big deal when it happened, Ares was pissed, Hermes spread the word to all of mount Olympus”

“One of Athenas eh? Interesting. Oh yeah, the god was definitely Poseidon”

“How are you sure?”

“That line he just sung, “Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves”, Posy is always fucking saying that crap”

“500 men? Damn”

“Penelope, presumably the wife. Don’t know about the other guy tho”

“Either a son, brother, or lover. Or maybe just a friend I dunno”

“Another infant? What the fuck is wrong with this guy, pulling a fucking Hera”

“Gotta appreciate the determination of him”

“Yeah, but I think we’ll see him here again soon. If he’s pissed of Poseidon, and soon to be Zeus if Tiresias is to be believed, I don’t think he’ll get much further when he gets out of here”

“So we are letting him go”

“Yeah. Partly because I want to see what happens next. When he gets here we’ll ask him to tell the full story, from beginning to end”

“Alrighty then”

~~~

“I swear if I get dragged out of the underworld for one of Zeus’ little games one more time this year I might actually start a war”

“Mum keeps staring at me…fuck she’s probably gonna try and talk after this, fuck meeeeee”

“We can escape in the middle of it, no one will know”

“Oh she’ll know. Do you know what this is about like, at all?”

“No, but I think Hermes might launch into the fourth dimension if he keeps vibrating like that in his seat”

“Yeesh”

“Hmm, odd. I don’t see Posy anywhere”

“Maybe he’s competing?”

“Nah, he always declines when Zeus asks, he hates it”

“Why were you not invited?”

“Dunno, probably has nothing to do with me”

“Oh it’s starting, it’s starting”

“Athena’s challenging eh? Interesting”

“Would love to know what any of this is about”

“Mortal lover? Demi-god child? Those are the usual subject”

“Yeah but that’s not Athenas thing. Probably something to do with one of her “warriors” or whatever”

“Apollo, of course. Always has to be apart of these things”

“The drama queen”

“Truly”

“Hephasteus and Aphrodite? That’s a little awkward”

“Weird lineup so far- fucking Ares? Yeah shes not winning this one, sibling spite is stronger than any argument she can give”

“Why would all three of them be included. I can feel the tension from here. I’m uncomfortable”

“And Hera? Yeah no she’s loosing for sure, Hera like not care less about any mortal, unless they’ve offended her”

“She might be convinced, just to spite Zeus?”

“That just sounds unhealthy on so many levels”

“Alright let’s see what this is about”

“Hold up, Ody?”

“Oh my gods. You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Well he was one of her warriors. Was he not?”

“I can’t believe he’s still trying to get home. It’s been like ten years, how the fuck”

“Well, if he pissed off Poseidon then he probably has something to do with it, the pissy bastard”

“Killed sirens. Why would you do that, so unnecessary”

“Sacrifice??? What the fuck is this man up to????”

“Didn’t we have a few Scylla sacrifices a few years back. Think that was him?”

“Holy shit we did. Yeah, Posy stays away from Scylla to the best of his ability, travelling in her domain to avoid him is not a bad idea”

“‘Phro is mad that his mum died? Girl you are grasping at straws, even more than the previous two”

“Hold up, why the fuck was I not invited?! He traveled through my domain, disturbed my souls, he even woke up Cerberus with his monster wailing, I should be apart of this!”

“I mean it’s a bit weak”

“I have more grounds to be down there than fucking Apollo. Like sirens? Come on man”

“Oh ‘Phro refused huh? Only got two, that’s kinda weak coming from Athena, she usually gets at least four”

“Is that cheating? Her quick thought thing. That cheating?”

“Are there any actual rules?”

“Just, try to win, I guess”

“Oh Ares turn. Wait she lost Aphrodite, this should be over”

“I think this is more of a personal thing. Like I said, sibling spite”

“Oh yeah, Scylla! Fuck this guy is getting around”

“Oh damn, that pissed her off”

“Guessing that the guy other that Penelope, Telemewhatever was his child then”

“Oh wait they yielded?? Huh, never thought that would happen”

“And, Heras turn”

“Yeah like I said she does not give a fuck. But it was a good run”

“Yeah, keeping her four out of five streak”

“Wait what the fuck was that”

“She- she actually yielded?”

“And for not cheating! Man I love this guy, I can’t wait for him to die”

“Only you babe. Wait holy fuck she won?”

“Oh Zeus won’t like- oh, just like I said. He’s pissed”

“Is he gonna kill her?”

“If he does I’ll just resurrect her probably. She deserves a better end, even if she is annoying”

“Well, should we go then?”

“Yeah I have some paperwork to- do I hear boss music?”

“OH SHES STILL ALIVE!!”

“She took a lightning bolt to the face and lived, holy fuck. Gotta respect it”

“I think, she’s actually convincing him? Never thought I’d see the day”

“Well, she’s his favourite child. I think if Ares tried something similar he’d just get struck by another lightning bolt”

“Well, that was fun. When I come back up for spring I’ll have to check with Hermes more about the details of what’s live, actually going on with this Ody dude”

“Yeah. Wanna stop for applebees before we head on down?”

“Yeah, but let’s go now cause mum is heading like right for me and I don’t wanna deal with that until another few months”

This was dumb lol

[cassiopeia-longbottom98]

Nott's Big Question

Relationship: Theodore Nott x Reader

Summary: Theo takes you to dinner. It's just a normal dinner at Blaise's, right?

Warning: Use of Y/N

_______________________________________

"Theo, thank you so much for dinner. You know how much I love Blaise's lasagna." I said happily. I tilt my head to the side and smile.

Theo stares back at me in awe. He admires us from across the table. "My goddess, you are absolutely stunning tonight. You always are, but tonight even the stars are envy your beauty."

I blush at the compliment. Theo has always been very good with his words, but they always seemed to leave me flustered.

"T-thanks Theo.", I say blushing, "You look dashing as ever. Blaise should offer you as dessert." I wink at him.

Theo grins, "Only for you, my darling."

You both talk about your day. Theo rants about how Draco keeps coming in late and how he has to pick up Draco's slack.

Ever since Draco and Hermione had gotten back from their honeymoon 3 months ago, Draco has been coming in late. I have my theory that she's pregnant. She wasn't looking too well after she had to use the floo when we had dinner last week. Theo thinks they are just shagging all the time.

"Hey Y/n!" Ginny calls. I look up to see Mr. and Mrs. Potter. Ginny and Harry have been married for a few years now. Their wedding was on the cover of the Daily Prophet for at least two weeks.

I smile and greet them. "Are you guys here on date night as well?" Theo asked. Harry nodded.

"Yeah. Ginny has been talking about wanting to come back here, since Y/n's birthday dinner." Ginny elbows Harry in the side. Harry grunts and glares at his wife.

"Anyways, I see you guys are here on date night." Ginny smiles and gives Theo a weird look.

'I wonder what that was about.' I think to myself but eventually brush it off.

Harry and Ginny go and sit at their table and we continue with our date.

Theo and I continue to eat your food in comfortable silence. It was never uncomfortable between you guys. He looks up at me and smiles.

When I first met Theo back in second year, he never smiled. I remember the first time I saw it.

It was fourth year and everyone was coming back at the Yule Ball. Draco seemed to be in a mood. Pansy stormed off to the dorm room, and everyone else was starting to get tired. Blaise wanted to lighten the mood and to make his best friend smile, so he asked Blaise to dance. Both being purebloods, they obviously knew to dance properly. The two of them started doing the tango. I watch from afar. Being a muggleborn sorted into Slytherin was rare and that meant I was an easy target.

I laughed at the boys being silly. I turned to see Draco smirking. I looked back at the dancing duo and was taken back. Theo had the most beautiful smile and his laugh could cure all things evil. The Slytherin common room never felt warmer.

"Well, hello lovers. I took time out of my very busy schedule to bring you this exclusive dessert." Blaise greeted. I giggle at his antics. Blaise has always been dramatic. Blaise shows us his very new cheesecake, carrot cake cheesecake. Theo grunts, trying to convince Blaise to leave.

Blaise chuckles and looks down at me, "You know Y/n, if you ever get tired of him, my bed is always available." I chuckle at him as he walks away. Theo mutters about how he is going to kill him.

"Theodore darling, we both know you won't kill him. Who else would you dance with?" He glares at me as he tries a bit out of the cheesecake.

I take a bite and moan. Theo looks up at me hungrily.

"Y/n, would you care for a stroll after dinner?" Theo asks. "I am going to have to work off this cheesecake to keep this sexy body." He grins at my laugh.

"I would love it. Got to keep that figure or else I may have to take up Blaise's offer." I wink at him.

He glares at me as he finishes and goes to pay.

As we walk down Diagon Alley, I lean into him to try and warm myself. "Cold, my love?" Theo asks softly.

I nod. I feel as the warming charms that Theo placed work its magic. Theo has always been a sweetheart. He doesn't act like it around others, but he's such a softie with me. As we walk, I feel Theo pull my closer and wrap his arm around my shoulders. I lean into smelling smoke, wine, and cinnamon. His scent comforts me.

Abruptly we stop, and I look up at Theo. I see him grinning, his cheeks dusted with red.

"Remember this spot?" He asks cheekily. I look up and see we are outside of Fortescue's Ice cream Parlor.

I blush. "Oh Merlin. How could I forget?" It's the day I embarrassed myself in front of you."

"By embarrassed, you mean ruin one of my favorite shirts." I smack his arm. "You know it was an accident." He chuckles. Theo grabs my hands and smiles at me.

"You know that is one of my favorite memories of you. I don't understand how I never noticed you before then. I love your dark green eyes and sandy brown hair. You make my life so much better. I never knew happiness or love until I met you. You know how my father was. I would go through again every time if that meant I would get to be with you. Y/n Smith, I will love you until the day my magic gives out. I will love you until Draco and Blaise stop getting annoying.", Theo says as he gets down on one knee with a ring in his hand, "Will you please do me the honor of marrying me and making me the happiest man in this galaxy?"

I stand there stunned. I never imagine Theo would be on one knee in front of me. I stare at him until I could see the nerves starting to hit. I squeal and wrap myself around him. "Yes, Yes, Yes!!!" I yell. I hear Theo curse under his breath.

"Salazar woman, you about gave me a heart attack. I thought you were going to say no." Theo chuckled.

I look at him and place my hand on his cheek.

"Merlin Theo, I never thought you would have proposed to me. I would always say yes to you. I love you so much."

I pull Theo closer and kiss him softly. Theo leans in and deepens the kiss.

We finally pull away as we heard people around us start whispering. I stand up and pull Theo up.

We apparate back to our house. As we snuggle on our couch, I look at my ring. "How does Y/n Nott sound?" I look at Theo smiling big.

"It sounds perfect love." Theo whispers and he leans down to kiss me.

[baleriontheblackkitten]

Something I find intriguing about the books is how, the more you advance through the story, the more Targeryen there are in one way or another. You start with this picture of a realm that has gone through a regime change years ago, all the royal family killed except for two kids in exile, half a world away, with no remaining connections to the land their family used to rule. And the land the Targaryen used to rule seemingly has no more connections to the old regime, and yet - the bones of the dragons are still there, underneath the main halls, hidden but very much there. There's a Targaryen in Castle Black, assumed to be harmless - a disabled elderly man whose allegiance to both the Citadel and the Night's Watch excludes him from the line of succession, theoretically wiping away his family history. And yet he is a Targaryen, and he mentors a new generation of protagonists of Westerosi politics, and surely the fact that Sam heard his words about the prince/princess who was promised and Daenerys will have consequences. There's a secret Targeryen also in the North, although very few know. There are Targaryen loyalists who are planning to topple the new regime. There's a boy who is either another secret Targaryen or the descendant of a Targaryen cadet house, either way someone whose identity (real, imagined or both of them) matters so much to many. But there are also people with Targaryen ancestry who do not carry the name because they're not descended from the male line, or descended from someone born out of wedlock, like Bellegere Otherys and who even knows how many others. And of course Targaryen blood runs through the veins of many whose ancestors married Targaryen women - the Baratheons themselves use their Targeryen blood as a crutch for their ascent to the throne, we see from Quentyn Martell that his Targaryen blood is something he feels important to who he is (although it appears not to be as relevant as he hoped to, it's still something he's acutely aware of). And of course there's Bloodraven doing what he's doing, tapping into a power no one else even understands, and also mentoring a new generation.

House Targaryen is simultaneously a ghost haunting the Seven Kingdoms, and something very much alive. After all, in this world ghosts can be things that are very much alive. It's not a contradiction. There's dead dragons under the floor, but their eyes follow you. There's more living dragons that you knew.

Speaking of which. The way the lines between dragons and Starks/weirwood trees are blurred is obviously so important. A man of Targaryen blood tapping into the power of the weirwood network and teaching a Stark about it. The empty sockets of the dragon skulls underneath the Red Keep seemingly watching you like the faces on the trees... but also the statues of the dead Starks in the crypts underneath Winterfell! It's all about the meeting of ice and fire, of Stark and Targaryen, of the Old gods of the North and the gods of Old Valyria. Aegon the Conqueror knew, he did call his prophetic dream a song of ice and fire. Rhaegar tried to figure out what that meant, at some point probably assumed the prince that was promised was supposed to be born from a Stark and a Targaryen parent. But there's probably more than that.

Also - the Starks are also assumed to be mostly dead! At some point, the general consensus (at least among those who know that the fake Arya is fake) is that only Sansa remains alive, just like the general consensus about the Targaryen is that only Dany remains alive after Viserys dies. But more Stark children are alive than most people know - there's Stark loyalists planning on putting Rickon back in Winterfell, even.

The post ended up taking a life of its own and I don't actually remember what point I was going to make initially, but hey.

[loveinhawkins]

ao3

Steve hears Eddie’s voice in The Upside Down.

It starts when they reach the vine infested attic of the Creel House, after they’ve lured the bats into the woods with a trail of fire, made them drowsy and stupid before setting them all ablaze; like a fucked up fairy ring, Steve had thought, and it had felt like exactly the kind of thing Eddie would think, and Steve’s trying to hold onto the words so he can remember to tell Eddie later; he wants to tell him—

He’s halfway up the stairs, stepping over a vine when he hears it.

“Shit. Oh, shit,” Eddie breathes.

He sounds so close, like he’s whispering in Steve’s ear.

And then he’s gone, and Steve’s turning to see Nancy and Robin just a step behind him—they haven’t heard anything, he can tell, but they both freeze for a moment, like they can read the fear on his face, something’s wrong, something’s really wrong.

But they all keep going, one step then another, and Steve thinks of history class, of soldiers going over the top.

He prays. Please, please…

More stairs. The door to the attic. Steve opens it.

Eddie’s voice again, high pitched and frightened. “H-hey, listen, man, you don’t—”

The sound is cut off abruptly; Steve feels a touch to the back of his hand. Robin.

He hands her the lighter, but he can see her hesitate out the corner of his eye, are you okay?

He shakes his head once, no time, and he smells a rag soaked with fuel when the voice comes again, still so desperately afraid, but hardening at the edges, “Oh, Jesus Chr—stop!”

“Steve.” Nancy next to him, eyebrows drawn.

There’s a Molotov cocktail in his hand that he can’t remember lighting.

Steve throws it.

He doesn’t even look to see if his aim is true, because Eddie is back, and his voice still shakes but there’s steel in its core, and Steve knows that all too well, knows the exact place it comes from: thinks of standing his ground in ‘84, knowing deep in his bones that it was down to him, that he’d do anything so long as the kids—

“Get away from them. I’m not—I’m not fucking messing around here, get away—”

Robin throws a bottle of her own; the flames soar, and Steve hears a new voice, dark and commanding—one he’s heard across the basketball court, but never quite like this.

“And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone—”

Nancy aims the gun.

“—where the beast and the false prophet are—”

Fires.

“—and shall be tormented day and night—”

Again.

“—forever and ever.”

Nancy steps forward, takes aim once more.

And Steve hears another pair of footsteps, someone running; he turns towards the sound, towards the door, and for a moment it’s almost as if he can feel Eddie rush past him like a ghost—wants to reach out, to grab his hand, but the sensation slips away like smoke; he’s too far away, he’s too…

Nancy takes the final shot. Henry Creel’s body shifts from something monstrous to something that’s smaller and human, but no less terrible for it.

Steve doesn’t watch. Can’t rid the feeling that it all rings false.

He can’t hear Eddie anymore. Can’t hear anything apart from the frantic thud of his own heartbeat, but that’s good, that’s good, he can work with that—lets it drive him forward, lets pure instinct take over so he’s grabbing the axe without a thought, swinging so it hits the vines still tangled on the wall, dormant, dead.

They break easily. Steve keeps going; there’s the barest hint of resistance, but all it tells him is that he’s on the right path, and then something gives, parts…

“Nance,” Steve says.

She’s right by him; he feels her hand around his wrist. From the way she squeezes tightly, knows that she’s already understood.

“Okay,” she says, fragile, “okay, okay.” A shuddering breath. “Steve, I can’t just—I have to—”

“I know,” Steve says softly, because he feels it, too: the awful thought that it’s all over too quickly. Senses Nancy’s anxiety as if it was his own, the desperate need to check, to stand vigil. Then—and only then—will she declare it over to herself.

He holds her hand, squeezes back. Lets go.

There’s movement to the left of him. Robin, her hair in her eyes, and that’s gonna bug her eventually, so Steve fixes it for her, tries to smile, to make this easy.

“Five minutes, okay?” he says—thinks of the elevator in Starcourt, how she counted the seconds passing with freakish accuracy. “No more.”

She opens her mouth, but Steve keeps talking before she can. “Promise me.”

She goes to shake her head.

“Robin, please,” he says, voice breaking.

Years ago, his mom got a phone call about the fatal car crash his uncle had been in. She’d picked up somewhere in between the second ring and the third, and then she’d screamed, and Steve had overheard without understanding—had still felt the echo of her grief.

He’s never told anyone that. But he wonders if Robin can see something of it on his face—that he’s stuck: still in between rings, the split second before the scream—because she’s nodding suddenly, close to tears, but so serious.

“I—I promise, Steve.”

He slips through the Gate in the wall, leaves them both behind—all he has to soothe him is a gut feeling, as the heat of Nancy setting the vines alight fades away: that The Upside Down is just a graveyard now. That there’s no danger to be found—not anymore.

Not in there.

He steps into the attic, where the floorboards are bare. Looks around sharply—Lucas and Max, huddled in the corner, and he can’t tell, he can’t tell if—

As Steve runs to them, a soft click filters through. Max, rewinding her tape; she’s not even looking at her Walkman, like she’s not even aware that she’s doing it. The headphones lie around her neck.

“Oh, thank God,” Steve finds himself whispering, gets one hand on Max, the other on Lucas, “thank God, thank God.”

They shake under his touch. Steve wants to shield them from every horror in existence, wants to swear to them that it’s over now, that they don’t have to do it anymore, but he has to—

“Where’s Eddie?”

It’s not a surprise when Max’s eyes dart to the door. Steve’s stomach drops anyway.

Lucas speaks, voice ragged, “Jason, he…”

And as Steve looks at him, the kid’s thirteen again, eyes wide with fear in the face of Billy Hargrove. You’re dead, Sinclair.

Steve pushes back a hot swell of anger. Hugs Lucas roughly, then Max, murmurs, “Okay, it’s okay. Stay right here. Nancy and Robin are coming, I promise.”

“Steve,” Max whispers when he’s at the door.

He turns back.

But it’s like she’s run out of words, shivering in Lucas’s arms. Still rewinding the tape, but her fingers are slipping now.

Lucas speaks for her—eyes off to the side, like he’s seeing something more than a Gate in the wall. “He had a gun.”

Steve checks a couple rooms, floorboards creaking no matter how quiet he tries to be. His heart’s still racing. It leads him to the staircase.

And Eddie’s right there, just a few steps down.

There’s the faint screech of a car driving away.

Eddie looks up at him. He’s standing obliquely, clinging to the bannister. His eyes shine in the dark, and Steve can just barely make out the evidence of bruises and cuts all across his face.

“He’s gone,” Eddie says with such relief.

I’ll kill him, Steve thinks numbly.

”I, um. I had to run,” Eddie continues, almost like he’s defending himself. “He—he wouldn’t listen, man. The kids, I… I couldn’t let him—”

“They’re fine,” Steve says, talks right over Eddie’s answering sigh, “we should go back up. Check on them.”

A pause.

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “Sure. Think I—think I just need a second.”

“Okay.”

Eddie smiles. It’s the worst thing Steve has ever seen.

“Did it work?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, his throat tight. The word is ash on his tongue. “Yeah, it worked. It’s finished.”

“Good.” Eddie inhales. “And you’ll—you’ll tell my uncle, right? Tell him I didn’t kill Chrissy.”

“Tell him yourself,” Steve snaps.

But Eddie’s shaking his head. Steve can visibly see the adrenaline draining from him: his arms shaking as his grip on the bannister falters.

“Nah, man,” Eddie says, his voice thick and wet with tears.

“Stop fucking crying,” Steve says, instantly ashamed as the words slip out—fear rendering him sharp and mean; Eddie’s hand slips, and he turns, “Oh my God,” Steve says uselessly, “Oh my God, Eddie,” because it’s not a dawning horror really, more a realisation that they’ve both been putting off.

Maybe Steve has known all along.

He gets hold of Eddie before he can fall, mutters, “Here, I’ve got—Jesus, just lie down.”

“No, I don’t—” Eddie kicks out aimlessly, panicking, “I don’t wanna lie down, I don’t wanna lie down.”

Steve ignores him. Presses down on Eddie’s abdomen, hands already slick with blood.

Eddie is hyperventilating. He keeps saying it, “I don’t wanna lie down,” until it devolves into just, “Steve, Steve, I don’t want to,” until it doesn’t sound like he’s talking about lying down at all.

“You won’t,” Steve says, “you won’t, Eddie, just—push down, okay? You’ve got to—here, here, just push—”

Eddie’s hands are slack in his, and as Steve pushes against him, harder, harder, he cries out, breathing so shallow, so quick, too quick, “I’m sorry,” Steve whispers, “I’m sorry, Eddie, I’m so sorry.”

He thinks Eddie must be in too much pain to understand—his body still spasming, still weakly fighting against Steve’s pressure.

But then he feels Eddie’s hand move, loosely clasp around his wrist.

“It’s okay,” Eddie says, still crying, but Steve can hear him smiling somehow, fuck, how can he even—?, “hey, S-Steve, it’s okay. Just—just want to go home.” He’s rambling, almost incoherent, “It’s not that far, it’s—take me home, please, please, can you take me home, just—”

“I will,” Steve lies. “We need to fix this first, okay? Eddie, are you listening? Then we can…”

He trails off at the sight of Eddie looking up at him, his eyes so big, so full of life, and Steve doesn’t understand the expression on his face, doesn’t think he’s ever seen him look like this; and he wants Eddie to explain it to him, just wants him to talk, wants to…

I want to tell him, Steve thinks nonsensically.

“Steve Harrington,” Eddie murmurs, like he’s savouring Steve’s name. “You’re so…”

But Steve will never find out what he is, the rest of the sentence lost to a pained gasp.

“Don’t talk,” Steve says. Hates how harsh he sounds. “Eddie, just. Stay.”

Eddie smiles through blood. “I think I could’ve loved you.”

Steve hears movement from way above, a door slamming open, Robin and Nancy’s voices filtering down, still too far away to understand.

He could keep talking. Keep talking to Eddie.

But he knows.

The front door opens. Erica tears through it, screaming Lucas’s name, and then she stops in her tracks.

Dustin nearly collides with her from behind. Pulls her back, face slack with horror.

Steve leans over Eddie, desperately trying to shield him from them.

Dustin’s eyes meet Steve’s, over bright with fear; Steve thinks of him freezing in the graveyard, his own panicked shout, call Nancy and Robin!

He doesn’t want it to be too late.

“Call an ambulance,” Steve says, and Dustin’s eyes widen. He doesn’t sound remotely like himself, Steve knows, but he can barely even… Can only say it again, voice breaking horribly, “Call an ambulance!”

Dustin tugs Erica back. They run.

Steve stays right where he is. Looks down, and keeps looking—doesn’t turn away, not for anything, not even when it’s obvious that Eddie’s eyes are fixed and glassy.

He will bear witness to this.

[zomtart]

Unknown (Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader)

Hey y’all! So one of my favorite things to do writing wise is pick one of my favorite songs, listen to it on repeat, and write a fic to it lmao. So here’s that with Matt Murdock and my favorite song of all time, Unknown/Nth by Hozier. All writing is mine but of course the italized words are lyrics from Unknown/Nth, which belongs to the one and only Hozier (and Matt Murdock and co belongs to Marvel) <3 

I’m so sorry for the ending this was not supposed to end angsty but I had a prophetic vision I had to listen to it

Warnings: religious imagery to describe love, canon typical injuries/violence, death

Word Count: 1.2k

It ain’t the being alone

It ain’t the empty home, baby

You know I’m good on my own

You know, it’s more the being unknown

Sometimes, you terrified him.

You would say something, or do something, and he felt so…seen. Naked, stripped of any mask that protected him. You would never lay a hand on him, he knew that, but it didn’t make it any less horrifying. The fact that you could reach past any suit of armor, beat him to any punch, because you knew him. Sometimes it felt like you knew him even better than he knew himself. You saw past his attempts to push people away, to act cold and be alone. He’d try, time and time again, to convince both of you that he was better off by himself. It never worked. You weren’t scared away, and you had a way of making Matt feel like he…deserved to be in the company of you. To not be some anonymous figure drifting through the city. 

It was a shitty morning. It was too cold outside, numbing the edges of his fingers and the tips of his ears. He could feel the blood rushing to his nose, his body’s futile attempts to keep him warm. He was so cold he almost missed the scent of freshly brewed coffee coming from the office.

“Morning,” you said nonchalantly, gently taking his left hand and wrapping it around what he knew was a coffee cup. He felt frozen in place, but forced his mind to blame it on the weather. He could already smell it, but he took a sip before commenting.

“Peppermint mocha?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. You hummed in response, already looking over the new papers on your desk.

“How’d you know?”

You just laughed a little, taking a sip of your own drink. “We’ve gotten coffee before, Matthew. My memory isn’t that terrible.”

It wasn’t the fact that you said his full name. It was how you said it. Softly and…reverantly. He’d compare it to a prayer, but it was more holy than that.

He murmured a thanks and tried to relax. Wow, he felt like it was losing it, and for what? Because you knew his coffee order? The four of you have gotten coffee together before for company meetings. You probably remembered Karen and Foggy’s order just the same. It meant nothing.

~

You called me “angel” for the first time, my heart leapt from me

You smile now, I can see it’s pieces still stuck in your teeth

And what’s left of it, I listen to it tick

Every tedious beat

When you discovered he was Daredevil, he expected a lot of things. Confusion. Betrayal. Anger, most of all. He never expected you to…laugh.

He was exhausted. Far too exhausted to do anything but stumble into his apartment, not realizing you had snuck in to surprise him for his birthday. It was a bit past midnight and you stood in his living room with a cake, confused at his absence. You were about to call Foggy to make sure he was okay when he stumbled in with a broken nose and too many bruises to count. You shrieked and dropped the cake, rushing to grab the knife on the counter to defend yourself against…

“...Matt?” you said incredously, setting the knife down and inching forward. He was in too much pain to realize the consequences of what ensued, and he could only let it happen, limping to the couch before he collapsed on top of it. 

You set the knife down and ran to kneel in front of him. You looked him over, at all his injuries and the way his exhausted eyelids drooped downwards. 

“You stupid man…” you whispered, cradling his face upwards, drops of his blood sinking into your palm. “You…you’re…”

��Halloween costume.” he managed, and you laughed, a watery, broken, sound that echoed throughout the apartment he lived alone in. 

You shook your head. “T-the Devil doesn’t take breaks? Even on his birthday?”

“Heard someone…they needed help.”

“You’re blind.” you whispered, looking back to his sightless eyes to confirm. “How…?”

He didn’t answer, just leaned into your hand that still held onto his jaw. After a moment his nose twitched. “Did you..get me cake?”

“Yeah. Happy birthday.” you said quietly with another laugh. The sound was like a balm to his wounds. It was better than any gift he could have asked for. “How did you know?” “It’s a…a lot to explain. We’d be here all night.”

“Don’t tempt me, angel.” you winked. Then you simply got up and left to get a first aid kit, as if you hadn’t left his heart beating out of his chest. 

That night, you didn’t ask anymore questions. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was so beat up, or because you were in shock, or because of what day it was. You bandaged him up and got him to bed. When you were satisfied with the amount of blankets he had you lit a single candle and sang Happy Birthday. Your soft voice was slightly off-tune, and the melody was occasionally interrupted with little laughs by the both of you, but to him it was perfect.

It meant everything. 

~

There are some people, love, who are better unknown. 

He had learned to regret that night. In hindsight, he should have known. He should have known that letting you find out his true identity would put you at risk. He should have known he wasn’t able to protect you, wasn’t able to protect anyone who got close to him. He had put on the suit to help people, but he knew now it only made him an omen. If the Devil was near, death would ensue. 

He should have known.

He should have heard the gun reloading and your footsteps pounding to jump in front of him. He should have never let you be there in the first place. You were dead, and the beating of his fists against your murderer could do nothing to bring you back. He killed for the first time that night, and he was all too aware of the irony. The person who knew him best was gone, and if she weren’t she would not even recognize him.

[demigod-shenanigans]

Late Night Cocoa and other Remedies

Summary: Leo was totally fine, in case anyone was wondering.

Fine with the nightmares that had been getting worse since they got back home.

Fine with the fact that Jason’s place at Camp Jupiter, having been built for one person, only had a single bed.

They were just staying for a week. Leo could completely platonically share a bed with his best friend for a few days.

Sure, their shoulders kept brushing. Maybe Leo wasn’t even sure how he’d make it through the first night with the heart palpitations that was giving him—never mind a whole week. But he’d figure it out.

It was fine.

In retrospect, he really should have accounted for his habit of clinging to things when he had bad dreams

Word Count: ~5.5k

Rating: Teen and Up

Another Valgrace fanfic repost from my Ao3 that takes place in the same universe as this one. This time, we’ve got angst, more pining and lots of hurt/comfort. Also quite possibly some kissing ;)

CW for references to Leo’s canon foster care abuse, nothing super in-depth or graphic but as per usual my rule of thumb with this stuff is better safe than sorry.

———

Leo was totally fine, in case anyone was wondering.

Sure, his nightmares had been getting worse since they’d gotten back to camp, like the brain equivalent of adrenaline draining out of his body after a fight, leaving him aching all over.

Hey, you lived, congrats! Now, remember all that pesky trauma you’ve been ignoring?

Nightmares were a normal thing that every demigod experienced. The last few months had been a lot. The gods liked to give you shitty doomsday visions whenever they got the chance. And sure, those dreams sucked, but excitingly, Leo also had plenty of memories from before that time to have nightmares about. Now that he no longer needed to have prophetic nightmares about Gaia, he got to have dreams about all the other shit that had happened to him, plus a little extra trauma he’d collected on the journey. Wasn’t that exciting?

He was fine, though. It wasn’t anything he’d never dealt with before. It helped when he had ways to keep himself busy.

For this reason, among other things, Leo had been glad that Jason had asked him to go along on a trip to Camp Jupiter. It made for a welcome distraction—those were harder to come by than Leo wished, with everyone insisting they “rest up” and “take a while to recover” after their several week trip on the Argo II. It also made for a great excuse to spend some alone time with Jason.

Technically, their visit to Camp Jupiter was about the Temple Hill renovations Jason had been planning since they’d gotten back to camp, along with the new shrines at Camp Half-Blood. When he wasn’t talking over details with Annabeth, he’d been rambling about it to Leo a lot. It was obvious how passionate he was about it. He had sketches and a model made out of old monopoly houses and everything. It was cute.

Leo wasn’t exactly needed for Jason to present his first draft to the Roman demigods. But Jason had been nervous, and he hadn’t seemed to like the thought of leaving Leo—aftereffects of him blowing himself up to save the world, apparently, despite the fact that it had been two months. And, well, it wasn’t like Leo had anything better to do, so they’d taken Festus on a little cross-country road trip.

The trip itself had been shockingly uneventful by their standards. Sure, there’d been the occasional monster, but compared to their trip to Greece, Leo was pretty sure that almost counted as a vacation.

Their arrival at Camp Jupiter, however, came with a whole host of new and exciting problems.

For one, being the guy who’d fired on their Camp a few months prior, Leo wasn’t exactly popular. He didn’t blame the Roman demigods for being distrustful of him—getting possessed sounded like a stupid excuse even to Leo, and he was the one it had happened to.

Jason got very defensive about it, considering Leo’s whole dramatic sacrifice and everything. After one especially mean comment, there’d been some ominous electrical crackling from his direction, and Leo had had to drag him off before they caused another incident, proving the guy’s point by getting him struck by lightning or something equally unfortunate.

This actually wasn’t the main problem. Leo had mostly been expecting it. Besides, he hadn’t exactly been popular in most places he’d lived, neither at school nor with his foster parents, so it wasn’t like this was a novel experience for him. He was pretty used to it.

The bigger problem was Jason, who, seeing as Leo getting glared at in the barracks wasn’t a feasible living situation, had asked Leo to stay at his place. A place that, as it had specifically been designed for Jason and his new role—high priest, or whatever it was, Leo could never remember the exact title—had been built for exactly one person.

This was Jason’s first proper visit to Camp Jupiter since the war had ended, so he hadn’t been to his new place before. The furniture was bare-bones, just the necessities, picked out by someone who wasn’t Jason. Meaning: no couch, and exactly one bed.

The living room came with two armchairs, which were decently cozy, but even Leo wasn’t short enough to use them for a bed. He’d need both legs detachable instead of just one for that to work, and even then it’d be a tight fit.

So that left them with just the bed.

And sure, they’d slept around each other before, shared a tent or a campfire, but that wasn’t the same as sharing a bed. Bed sharing wasn’t something Leo had ever done with anyone except his mom and Piper, who was basically his sister and therefore didn’t count.

Sharing a bed with Jason… that was different.

Leo had offered to spend the week sleeping on the floor, because he’d slept in less comfortable places than wooden floors in a heated building, but then Jason had said he sometimes found himself a nice bush to sleep in when he got anxious and he could just do that, which… yeah, okay, even Leo had realized at that point that they were both being ridiculous. Sometimes he really did wonder why Piper put up with either of them.

Anyway, they’d decided to stop being idiots and just share the bed, so now Leo was awake at one in the morning, staring at the ceiling, trying to ignore Jason dozing quietly next to him and the way their shoulders were brushing.

Jason ran a little colder than he did, which Leo had never noticed before, but now he could barely resist the urge to hold a hand to Jason’s cheek to warm him up, and maybe keep it there. Maybe just lean in, and… yeah, no, absolutely not.

Leo really shouldn’t spend extended periods of time thinking about any of this, because if he did, his brain would kick into overdrive again, and if he let it… well, the top ten things of what not to do when you were hopelessly in love with your best friend probably included accidentally lighting his bedsheets on fire.

He wasn’t even noticing the fact that their hands were almost touching.

Jason didn’t seem to mind lying next to Leo at all. The second they’d flopped down on the mattress, he’d been out cold. And here Leo was, still awake, fighting the heart palpitations that Jason‘s peaceful smile gave him. How Leo was supposed to make it all the way to the end of the week when this would be a nightly thing, he had no idea.

This was no fair. Leo hadn’t cheated fate only for his bisexuality to kill him.

He turned his back to Jason, facing the wall. It was impossible to ignore he was there, even when Leo wasn’t looking, because no matter which way he turned, they were always touching. Leo had tried, but the bed just wasn’t big enough to avoid it completely. His skin prickled. He was used to having disastrous crushes���to falling hard and flat on his face. But he’d never been so close to one of them before—physically and emotionally speaking. He wasn’t sure what to do with that.

Not that the falling flat on his face-part couldn’t still happen. Jason had seen him do a lot of stupid shit. That wouldn’t even make the top three.

It felt impossible that Leo fell asleep under these circumstances, but at some point, he did. Maybe it was the exhaustion from traveling here. Maybe, despite feeling like a live wire every time Jason got too close, the backdrop of his steady breaths was actually calming.

Whatever it was, at some point throughout the night, Leo did fall asleep. Inevitably, the nightmares came, as they always fucking did.

~~~~~~~

It was Teresa this time, yelling at him after he’d gotten another bad report card. Grabbing his shoulders too hard. Leo should have run sooner than he did, but it had been the early days, right after his mom died, and he hadn’t figured out running was an option yet. Instead, he just froze and curled up and tapped “I love you” into the carpet until his fingers hurt, waiting for his mom to tap back from wherever she was. She never did. She couldn’t.

Teresa yelled at him to stop fidgeting, stop making noise. Told him that it was no wonder his relatives hadn’t wanted to put up with him, and he should be so grateful that she did, but her patience was wearing thin. One more mistake, one more step out of her perfect lines…

His face hurt. There was more yelling.

The dream dissolved into something completely incoherent after this, just vague images. Then suddenly he was alone, swallowed by darkness or maybe the earth. Breathing hurt. The yelling was still there, further away now, but it wasn’t Teresa’s voice anymore.

“Leo? Leo!”

Someone was shaking his shoulders.

~~~~~~~

Leo startled awake with a gasp and an embarrassing wet sound. Someone really was shaking him. The room around him was dark, which was just a little bit too close to the dream for comfort.

It took a moment for Leo‘s soul to return to his trembling body, and even longer for his brain to process what was going on. His head was buried in something that felt just cool enough to be soothing. His hands were clutching soft fabric way too tightly.

“It’s okay. You’re okay. We’re safe.”

Jason’s voice, so close that it must’ve been right in his ear.

Right. Jason. Camp Jupiter. No fucking Teresa. This was ridiculous. Leo had almost gotten killed by monsters countless times in the last year. He’d died. It seemed incredibly stupid that, after all this, he’d get worked up over some mortal lady he hadn’t seen since he was nine years old.

He blinked a few times, bleary, trying to make sense of his surroundings. That it was dark probably meant it was still the middle of the night. So, normal. No reason to panic.

He wouldn’t freak out any worse than he already had. Not over this. Not in front of Jason, who he’d probably woken up with his tossing and turning and his idiotic tendency to-

Leo froze as his brain finally caught up.

Jason.

Jason, who Leo was currently clinging to like he was a giant pillow or a human-sized marble statue of Nike.

It suddenly made a ton of sense why the place his face was pressed into felt so much like skin. Because, duh, it was. His head was buried in the crook of Jason’s neck.

His hands were clenched so tightly into Jason’s shirt, digging into his back, that Leo was sure it must’ve hurt, but he couldn’t get his stupid cramped fingers to unclench.

Jason didn’t seem bothered, though. He’d stopped shaking Leo once he’d realized he was awake, and now his arms were wrapped around Leo’s midsection in a gentle hug.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” Jason said it solemnly, like a promise or a Styx oath he couldn’t possibly keep. “Never again.”

Leo had to choke back a sob. He really didn’t want to cry right now. Not when it felt so nice to be held like this, and he was terribly afraid anything he did might make it stop.

“I’m fine,” he forced himself to say, trying and failing to get his breath to steady. “I’m fine.”

Because clearly, saying it twice in a row would make it way more believable!

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was also somewhere in the incoherent nonsense I mumbled at Piper after I got stabbed,” Jason replied, not moving even a little bit. “It hurt more than any of the times I got knocked out, but I was way more conscious through that incident than most.”

Jason wasn’t great at jokes. For some reason, most of the jokes he did make were like this—aimed at the fact that he kept getting hurt.

Something about him trying to joke now made Leo’s insides feel gooey. Like maybe Jason realized that jokes made things less overwhelming for Leo and was gently egging him on. Telling him they didn’t have to talk about anything if he didn’t want to. That it was okay for them to just stay like this, for as long as Leo needed, and if being ridiculous helped, that was what they’d be.

“Still can’t believe how many times you got concussed in the last year. You must’ve really pissed off the Roman god of head injuries at some point.”

Jason snorted. “I’ve been researching all the minor gods and I’m pretty sure we don’t have one of those.”

“Careful. If they do exist, you just made them mad again,” Leo teased, the pressure on his chest easing. It wasn’t as hard to breathe now. “Though I guess I can’t blame you for getting knocked out so much. It’s not your fault you’re so nearsighted you couldn’t see the stuff flying at your head until it was literally hitting you in the face.”

“I can still see things that are far away. They’re just blurry because they’re far away.”

“Yeah, and then they’re blurry because you have a concussion.” Leo finally managed to get his fingers to unclench, gently patting the spots where they’d been digging into Jason’s back. “Sorry for going all human clamp on you, by the way. I, uh… I have a tendency to cling to stuff when I’m having nightmares. It’s been that way since I was little. Kid Leo never quite learnt his lesson with that one.”

“If you remember what we talked about earlier, I don’t think hugging stuff is nearly as weird as me sleeping outside when I get stressed,” Jason said, his head still resting on top of Leo’s like they were two gears perfectly made to fit together that way. “Besides, I don’t mind. Not like it was your first time.”

Right. The campfire koala incident. For a moment, Leo had been too busy being overwhelmed to be embarrassed.

Nice to know that couldn’t possibly last.

“Piper still gives me shit for that. She’s gonna have a field day if she finds out it happened again.”

Jason laughed. Gods, there was a sound Leo would never grow tired of hearing.

So, there was an obvious downside to the fact that Leo was slowly calming down. The downside being: he could start thinking about the way he was curled into Jason, so close that he could feel his heartbeat. He could start thinking about how they were still sharing a bed, except unlike earlier, there was barely any part of them that wasn’t entangled in some way.

His skin prickled and felt hot.

Well, that had the potential to become a problem.

“Hey Superman, think you could release me for a second? I kinda wanna go splash my face.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Do you need any help with the prosthesis?”

Jason slowly untangled himself from Leo, who missed him immediately, but also instantly felt like less of a fire hazard. He really didn’t want to go all Human Torch right now.

“I know how to put my leg on, you dork.” Leo raised an eyebrow. “Besides, Harley said the time you removed it after I fell asleep on you, you spent fifteen minutes just staring at it, trying to figure out how to do it. Not sure how helpful that would be.”

“I was afraid I’d break something,” Jason said sheepishly.

“If you had, I could have just fixed it. As you may recall, I’ve melted parts of this prosthesis before. I’d researched stuff before making it and everything, but it turns out spontaneous combustion isn’t a common amputee issue, not even for demigods. Can you believe it?”

That had Jason laughing again. “Shockingly, I can. Hang on, let me get the lights.”

There was a routine to putting on the prosthesis now, so Leo only sometimes had to take it back off when he realized he’d forgotten to put the sock under the liner or something equally dumb. (It wasn’t his fault this stuff came with a ridiculous amount of steps and what felt like fourteen different socks.)

Considering the fact that it was four am and he was both shaken up and distracted because his crush was right there, looking softly at him, it was still something of a miracle that Leo got it right the first time.

~~~~~~~

Splashing his face did actually help. Leo considered just going back to the bedroom after, but he still felt too agitated, so he spent a few minutes pacing in the hallway with his crutches, then briefly went outside for some fresh air to clear his head.

When he finally got back to the bedroom, Jason wasn’t there.

This would have been more alarming if he hadn’t appeared in the doorway a moment later, holding a cup of steaming liquid.

“I thought maybe a warm drink would make you feel a bit better. Reyna says it helps her, so.” He shrugged.

“Coffee?” Leo asked, trying his hardest not to grimace because the thought was sweet, even if the drink was something you could technically chase him with.

“Cocoa.” Jason smiled at him. “You don’t like coffee.”

“Oh.” There was a warmth in Leo’s chest, flames licking gently at his heart. It had been so long since he’d stayed somewhere long enough for anyone to remember little things like that about him. It had been so long since anyone had cared enough to bother. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, there’s a decent chance it might taste burnt,” Jason said with a grimace. “Or, uh, very sweet. I think I turned the stove up too much and then I got distracted and then I tried to fix it with extra sugar, but that might’ve been a bad call.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, it could also be both,” Leo joked, taking the warm cup in both hands.

Jason startled, still gripping the handle. “Wait, careful, it’s really-”

“What, hot?” Leo laughed. “Appreciate the concern, but I seem to recall being fireproof. Out of all the things that genuinely could kill me a second time, I doubt hot liquid will do the trick.”

Jason looked embarrassed as he removed his hand from the cup. “Forget I said anything.”

“Nah. It’s no fun if I don’t get to tease you about it.” Leo lifted the cup to his mouth and took a sip. The temperature didn’t bother him at all, but he struggled not to splutter at the sweetness of the drink. “Gods, Sparky, how much sugar did you put in this?”

“Three spoonfuls?” Jason answered tentatively, and from the way it tasted Leo was pretty sure he meant tablespoons. “Is it bad?”

“Awful,” Leo teased, but the way Jason deflated made him backtrack immediately. “Hey, I’m messing with you. It’s fine. Just very sweet. Fair warning, though, I cannot guarantee that I won’t spend the next three hours jumping on your bed trying to get the excess energy out.”

“I think I can live with that.” Jason wrung his hands like he usually did when he got nervous. “Listen, you don’t have to tell me what your dream was about. But it sounded bad, and I… if you ever do want to talk about it, I’m here, okay?”

That made Leo feel a little sick, though that might also have been the amount of sugar in his cocoa. He nodded slowly, then spent several quiet minutes slowly sipping the warm, sweet liquid until the cup was empty. It helped, if only a little.

Jason didn’t push him.

Maybe that was why, when Leo sat the cup down on the bedside table, trying to calm his racing heart, he did say something.

“The nightmares are worse than usual lately. Sometimes I dream about what happened to my mom. Sometimes it’s just bad memories from quests we’ve been on. Piper getting hurt. The time you got stabbed. The time I died.”

Jason winced. “Yeah, I’ve had a lot of nightmares about you…” He broke off, like maybe saying the word ‘dying’ would remind Thanatos Leo existed and to come back for him. “Sorry. Keep going.”

Leo desperately wished he had some way to keep his hands busy. He didn’t sleep with the toolbelt on. He wasn’t sure about the constraints of magic items, but it would be really inconvenient if he somehow broke it by rolling onto it or if it started spilling random half-finished inventions all over the bed every time he turned during the night, so he didn’t risk it.

For lack of anything better, he drummed his fingers against the side of the bed.

“There’s other stuff, too. It was mostly ‘other stuff’ tonight—at least the coherent bits I can remember. Bad childhood memories from after Gaia killed my mom.” Leo’s fingers clenched around the bed frame. He felt properly sick now. He’d never told anyone about this—not even Piper, who knew just about everything else. “Right, cool, so not to waste that perfectly good dramatic build-up, but I don’t really know how to talk about this.”

“You don’t have to talk about it right now, if it’s too much,” Jason reassured him, squeezing his shoulder. “We don’t have to talk at all. We can just sit here. Or we can go back to shitty head injury jokes. Whatever helps.”

“This is helping,” Leo said immediately, unsure if he was referring to Jason being there in general, how being touched grounded him in the moment, or Jason making it blatantly obvious how well he knew him.

That the third one was even an option felt absurd in itself.

The thing was: Leo was kind of terrified of being known. Terrified of people looking at him differently if they saw all of him—all the cracked and broken bits.

But this was Jason. Jason, who sucked at this stuff just as badly as Leo did, but who was still trying because he cared so much. Who paid attention to little things no one else bothered to notice. Who knew when Leo felt vulnerable about something and didn’t tease him or push him to talk. Who made him terrible sugary cocoa at four in the morning because he thought it might help.

And every part of Leo that wasn’t busy being terrified was so incredibly sick of being alone.

He took a few steadying breaths, which was a colossal waste of time because they did not help, and then everything came spilling out.

“I’ve had some shitty experiences with foster parents. The first one was the worst—like, if you looked up ‘terrible’ in a dictionary, I’m pretty sure you’d just find a picture of her face. She shouldn’t have been around kids at all, but she seriously couldn’t handle a traumatized eight year old with severe ADHD. She yelled at me a lot. Sometimes it was more than yelling. It got worse the longer I was there—the more she realized I wasn’t any of the things she’d wanted me to be.” Leo looked away. “Story of my life, I guess. I’m never what anyone wants me to be.”

This time he couldn’t choke back the sob that was bubbling up in his throat. It was too much, too fast, and he didn’t have an undo button. He was afraid of what he’d see in Jason‘s face when he looked up. Him and his stupid lack of a brain-to-mouth-filter. No one wanted to deal with-

Jason’s arms wrapped around him again, pulling him back into his chest, promptly interrupting Leo’s spiral.

“Forget her. Forget anyone who ever made you feel like that.” Jason’s voice was soft and reassuring, but there was an angry edge to it, the same kind he’d had when he’d started sparking electricity after that one kid’s stupid comment. “There isn’t a single thing I’d change about you. You’re everything I didn’t know I needed in my life.”

“What song did you steal that from?” Leo joked, because he couldn’t fathom the thought that Jason might mean that.

He’d never been what anyone needed in their lives—a lot of the time, he was actively the opposite. His mom had loved him to pieces, he knew that, but him being there had been the thing that got her killed, and he hadn’t gotten any less skilled at screwing up people’s lives since.

He pressed his face into Jason‘s shoulder, shuddering, trying to get the tears to stop. Fuck, this was embarrassing.

“I never told you what my first impression of you was, did I?” Jason continued, undeterred. He didn’t let go. It was completely unfair how nice that felt.

“Confusion?” Leo guessed, finally getting a handle on his breathing, if nothing else. “That was amnesiac Jason’s main emotion for the first hour or so after I met him.”

“I guess, yeah.” Jason shrugged. “But for reasons other than the general ‘waking up on a bus with several people I don’t know’-situation. You weren’t how I expected my best friend to be at all. You were exactly none of the things I’d been taught were important my whole life.”

“Dude, your pep talk needs work, because ouch,” Leo muttered. He tried to make it sound light-hearted, but he was failing miserably. Even knowing that Jason was probably going somewhere with this—what, with the fact that he still had Leo wrapped in his arms and everything—hearing these words still stung. “Way to kick a guy when he’s down.”

“I wasn’t done.”

Leo forced himself to look up, meeting Jason’s eyes for the first time since he’d started talking. There was something so sincere and vulnerable in his expression that Leo didn’t really want to look away again.

“Oh, are we getting into all my great qualities now? That might take a while.” Joking was easy. So much easier than to address that Jason looking at him like this made his heart sputter like a faulty machine engine.

“You’re a troublemaker, and impulsive, with no respect for authority. You just act instead of thinking. And somehow it always works out. I overthink everything I do, but when you say you’ve got a plan, I know we’ll be okay, even before you’ve actually told me what the plan is.” There was such genuine awe in Jason’s voice that Leo thought something inside him would crack open. “You make me laugh and be stupid in a way I never would have allowed myself to be before I met you. And I like myself so much more when I’m with you. I’ve spent my whole life learning to be a hero and a leader—being exactly the kind of person everyone else wanted me to be. When we’re together, I feel like I’m finally learning what it’s like to be happy.”

The world tilted off its axis and Leo wasn’t sure he ever wanted it to right itself again. The way Jason was looking at him right now stood a very real chance of being the reason for his second death in under three months.

Leo seemed to have decided he had a point to prove in regards to impulsivity and lack of thinking, because before his brain had the chance to catch up, he was leaning forward and kissing Jason.

With all the love he had for Piper and her confidence in him actually confessing his feelings like a reasonable person, a part of Leo had always known it would go exactly like this—a heat of the moment thing he had no chance to overthink and plenty of time to regret later.

Jason’s lips were chapped and tasted faintly of toothpaste, and it was a miracle that Leo was even doing this without setting either of their faces on fire. His heart was thundering in his ears, so loud that he was almost sure they must’ve been able to hear it all the way back at Camp Half-Blood.

He pulled away before Jason had much of a chance to react with anything that wasn’t gaping like a fish. For several seconds, Jason‘s expression was the human equivalent of a loading screen, which would have been hilarious in any other situation, but currently made Leo want to melt himself through the floor and disappear.

The regret part of his brain took no time at all to kick in. What the fuck was wrong with him? ‘Here’s a thought: don’t follow up the recollection of traumatic shit you’ve gone through with trying to kiss your best friend.’

Maybe he could move to another country. Did Frank still have relatives in Canada that he could flee to? Or maybe he could ask Thalia for Artemis’ contact information and beg her to let him move to the moon.

Somehow, the first words out of Jason’s mouth after the kiss were, “yikes, you weren’t kidding about the amount of sugar in your cocoa. Sorry. There was chocolate in there at some point, I swear.”

“Is that the only thing-” Leo started, but was promptly stopped by more chapped toothpaste lips.

Jason was kissing him. Jason was kissing him.

It took every bit of focus Leo was currently lacking to not burst into flames as he wrapped his arms around Jason’s neck, melting into him as best he could. His skin was still tingling, and when Jason‘s hand brushed his bare elbow, he got a minor electric shock.

“Ow! Gods, we’re both safety hazards,” Leo laughed, slowly pulling his hands back before they could reconsider and burst into flames belatedly. “Here I am, spending my very limited reserves of concentration on not lighting you on fire by accident, only for you to almost zap me into cardiac arrest. Unbelievable.”

“I may also have made your hair poof out. Sorry,” Jason said, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “You okay?”

“I will be if you kiss me again.”

“Are you sure you want to risk that?”

“Hey, I happen to enjoy living dangerously.” Leo grinned. “Besides, you said my lack of thinking was part of what you liked about me. No take-backs.”

And then Jason was back to kissing him.

~~~~~~~

Four extremely clumsy sugar-toothpaste-kisses later, Leo wasn’t sure his hair or his heart would ever go back to normal. He also wasn’t sure he cared.

They curled back up in bed after, like semi-reasonable people who had to get up in an hour and a half because the whole point of this trip had been Jason presenting his plans to the senate, and him sleeping through that would probably not be the best impression he could make on his first day at work.

They were touching intentionally this time. Leo’s head had found a nice spot on Jason’s chest, and one of Jason’s arms was wrapped around his shoulder.

Leo was pretty sure he’d never felt this happy in his life. That was one point for emotional vulnerability, he supposed.

“I meant what I said, by the way,” Jason said into the silence of the room. “I want you to know you can talk to me. About anything.”

“Oh, I’ll make sure you regret that offer the next time I get excited about socket wrenches,” Leo replied with a grin. “I appreciate it, though. And right back at you. It’s not like you’re any better at this than I am.” He gestured, trying to convey the existential horror that was opening up. “But I’ll need precise measurements on how much chocolate you take your sugared milk with in advance.”

Jason groaned. “I feel like I need to apologize to your teeth.”

“Stop saying stuff that makes me want to go back to kissing you while we’re trying to sleep,” Leo chided him. He said this like sleep was a thing that might actually happen. Like his skin wasn’t still prickling with electricity and he wouldn’t spend the remaining night staring at the ceiling, thinking about kissing Jason again in the morning. “Besides, one time you missed my lips so bad that it probably counts.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to open your mouth!”

“That’s the thing with us pesky mortals, Superman. Sometimes we need to breathe.”

Jason chuckled, which made a fresh bout of warmth bubble up in Leo’s chest, but he wasn’t quite as afraid of bursting into flames now. The fire under his skin had tapered off along with his nervousness, feeling less supernova and more overactive radiator. Overactive radiator was a level he could usually control. He wasn’t sure it would ever go below that again if he got to keep kissing Jason whenever he wanted.

“We should probably actually try to get some rest,” Jason sighed, obviously none too thrilled about the thought of having to do the senate presentation on four hours of sleep.

“Boo,” Leo complained, but he nestled up to Jason, moving his head a little for a better spot on his chest. “You’re lucky you’re so comfortable.”

“I think I’m lucky for a lot more reasons than that.”

How Leo managed to not spontaneously combust at that point, he wasn’t sure.

———

Some notes:

Genuinely shocked I don’t see people using Leo’s tendency to hug stuff when he has bad dreams more. I read that part and immediately knew I was gonna do something with it, lol

Fun fact: this wasn’t meant to be a kiss fic, just regular pining hurt/comfort. But then Jason started saying all this stuff and Leo was kissing him and hey, sometimes when I write all I can do is accept I’m only along for the ride.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Jason’s initial reaction to Leo being his best friend in the first book vs him genuinely becoming his best friend later on. Leo is all the things Jason isn’t and was never allowed to be and then he learns that that’s a great thing and seems to be so genuinely in awe of him? Something something child soldier gets to be a kid for the first time in his life and never recovers.

Is Leo’s way of dealing with everything he went through by making jokes about it healthy? Not necessarily, no. But it’s been his main survival technique for ages, and even if he were to eventually recognize that, changing it wouldn’t be an instant thing. What definitely doesn’t help in a situation like that is trampling all over his coping mechanisms. There were a couple of writing decisions made in ToA that I didn’t love for a variety of reasons, and that one is definitely up there. But as far as I’m concerned, canon is only a series of vague suggestions, anyway.

Jason and Leo are both completely shit at admitting anything is wrong and learning how to talk about it to anyone, including each other, is hard. But sometimes trying is all we can do.

Also, for the sake of everyone in that entire series, I hope New Rome has therapists, because CHB sure doesn’t. (Mr D, who’s been gone from camp a lot and canonically didn’t bother to give therapy to anyone but Chris and Nico, is an outlier and should not be counted.)

Anyway, thanks for reading! Comments and reblogs appreciated!

@poppitron360

[ruestheday]

Please expand on your Steph AUs??? I want to know everything????? From reading just those excerpts on that one post I already love your writing and I don’t even know anything about supernatural (we’re in this together Steph, Idk who Dean Winchester either) but I WILL read a crossover fic you write about it

i would love to!!!

this will be the death of me ( crime lord au )

this one was based off of a conversation i had with a friend about the various other ways steph could’ve stopped her dad instead of becoming a vigilante. i thought it was the most interesting.

in this au, steph is a little more morally gray. well, morally gray enough to decide to become a crime lord just to make her dad look stupid. basically one of those “you’ve been trying to be a batman rogue for years and it took me three months to do better”, and then it snowballs out from there. it gets to the point where she’s no longer looking at it as a way to get back at her dad, and an actual way of living.

it’s a crack treated seriously fic, because a lot of it you need to suspend your disbelief. it also has timsteph, because i think the idea of tim dating the girl who’s criminal empire he is trying to topple is funny.

she girl bosses so hard while committing several felonies.

also because she doesn’t have to worry about her secret identity she dyes her hair purple (also to symbolize her spoiler costume in another world). by the end of the fic she will have tried every purple hair dye i can find on google.

imagine being a goon and your boss is some sixteen-year-old girl also concerned about her english essay because she may be a crime lord but she’s a crime lord with an education!!!!

i see dead people ( clairvoyant au )

this one’s more serious but i can’t write just angst to save my life so it still gets silly.

stephanie has been able to see the dead for as long as she can remember, and she’s been helping them since she’d been able to. normally it was small things, like a ghost wanting to make sure her poor Mr. Fluffy was being well taken care of, until she meets the spirit of the once-was robin.

all jason wants is his dad to stop being so violent, but steph isn’t going to walk up to big man batman and tell him Hey, you’re upsetting the spirit of ur dead Robin, stop it, so instead she decides to just take his mind off of it.

they become besties. they hang out constantly. she teaches jason everything she knows about being a ghost. best six months of her life.

until he disappears!!!!

now, the fun thing about ghosts is they’re like little spies. they see everything and they can move faster and further than humans, so they see even more.

the ghosts tell her that jason isn’t just missing, he’s alive. and he’s been taken out of the country.

now normal people might’ve ran straight to the bat, but not steph, she’s got the power of ghost spies and spite, she’s hunting her undead bff down herself. with the help of a freaky little brainiac kid (aka tim drake).

and then she accidentally discovers the league of assassins … oops

the devil knows my name ( prophet au / supernatural crossover )

in supernatural, there are prophets of the lord. they all (seem, we have met two.. well.. it gets complicated) to have different purposes in being prophet. the first one, chuck, writes the "gospel of winchester" which is just the future of the main characters lives. the second prophet, kevin, is the person who translates the word of god.

there can only be one prophet at a time, which would suck for my au, but! but! in a fun plot twist (spoiler warning) chuck actually ends up being god in disguise.

so in the version, steph is the actual prophet that chuck replaced. chuck is still there because he is important, there's just two prophets because god committed identity theft.

this means the au takes place in season four of supernatural, which (spoiler warning) has dean winchester returning from the dead/hell because the biblical apocalypse is about to go down on earth. yeah, i'm throwing batman into the actual biblical apocalypse, where angels and demons are both the bad guys trying to have a grudge match that'll level the earth.

i'm so hyped for it.

[asmo-d3us]

angsty & regulus’ death || the letter sirius received from his brother || part 2 of 8

~*~*~*~*~*~*

~*Sirius Black*~

“Drink the tea, darling, it’ll help with the headache.” Euphemia cooed, bringing over a cup of Chamomile tea and placing it in front of her second son. Sirius thanked her with a nod, picking up the cup and bringing it to his chapped lips. James hasn’t been talking to him ever since what happened with Regulus, so because of the cold shoulder he had been getting, he had packed his bags and went to Effie’s and Monty’s house. This had given him some very unwelcome nostalgia and deja-vu.

He chugged the cup in three gulps—to Euphemia’s dismay—and placed the teacup back on its saucer. He placed his head in his left hand, the other fiddling with the handle of the cup. He hadn’t spoken to Remus in a while, it made him realize how much he missed his boyfriend. He nearly smiled at the thought, but then remembered his brother, and he frowned again.

He had a pile of letters sent from Regulus, and Sirius being the stubborn mule he is, he hadn’t read any of them. Remus had told him he must one day, and sadly—Sirius knows this. His relationship with his brother hadn’t been good, not at all, and he wishes his stupidity hadn’t brought them here, yet it did. And it was too late to change that. But was it actually? Maybe he would have the chance to reconnect with his brother. The chances were slim, but not impossible.

He continued fiddling with the empty cup, closing his eyes as the pain in his temples slowly began to fade away. The feeling of the war going on had numbed him. He can’t feel anything now-a-days.

Sirius’ eyes snapped open when hearing a loud thump. He lifted his head, and saw that his now-empty cup had been replaced with a letter. It was upside down, so Sirius didn’t manage to see the address. Monty sat down next to him at the circle shaped table with a huff, ruffling the newspaper in his hands and sliding his glasses down his forehead and onto his nose.

“Who’s it from?” He asked, his eyes not leaving The Daily Prophet. “That owl wouldn’t leave me alone until I untied it.” Sirius sniffled (it was cold in the house—it made him uneasy), and shrugged sluggishly, “No clue. I’ll read it later.” It’s most likely from Regulus. Those words were left unspoken.

Euphemia placed herself gracefully on the other side of Sirius, her own cup of tea in her hands. She smiled at him, and he couldn’t resist smiling back. “Is your head better, dearie?” She hummed, grabbing his hand and rubbing her thumb on his skin in a motherly fashion. It brought him comfort, yet the feeling would always be replaced with guilt after remembering Regulus.

Somehow, maybe it was because of her motherly instincts, Sirius had no clue, she sensed his thoughts. Her gaze wandered down to the upside down letter, and she sipped from her cup, her warm touch still on his hand, and he let her. Effie kicked Monty’s leg under the table and he yelped, dropping the paper from his hands. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he grinned at her sheepishly. Sirius watched this exchange.

She beckoned her head towards Sirius, staring into her husband’s eyes, and he immediately understood. You see, Sirius always craved the advice from a father figure and the love from a mother figure, and both parents had been using this fact to make sure Sirius was more comfortable and more open with them. Monty’s eyes widened with realization and he nodded before grabbing his paper again and leaning back against his seat, a serious expression slipping onto his face, and Sirius barely held back his laughter, his head still in his hand.

“Son, why don’t you read those letters? I’m sure your body will allow some form of worry to let go. And hey, maybe you could reply back to him.” Fleamont spoke smartly, his eyes staring into Sirius’, though instead of Orion’s deadly and disappointed glare, it was a soft and caring one. Sirius sniffed again, and this time he didn’t know if it was from the cold or from uprising emotions in him.

“Darling, perhaps you should! It’ll be good for you.” Effie hummed, having finished her tea. Sirius shrugged, now placing his head in both his hands and rubbing the heels of his palms against his eyes. “I d’know, i’m scared.” He mumbled, and there was silence. He thought that perhaps they had left, or he had annoyed them, but all of a sudden he felt a warm embrace. It was Euphemia.

He felt a few warm tears slip down his cheeks, and he didn’t swipe them away. He let himself be engulfed in the parental hug he so desperately needed, and right when she pulled away she placed her hands on his shoulders. “Go read those letters, they might be from James, or from Remus.” She teased, and Sirius blushed with a laugh, thanking her for not mentioning who it most likely was.

He stood up, smiling when Effie slid in his former seat and right next to her husband. Monty smiled at him and with one nudge of his head, Sirius turned around with the letter in hand, and walked to his room. He closed the door behind him, and sat down on his bed. He stared down at the letter, and hesitantly flipped it around, expecting it to be perhaps James with an apology, but he froze. Was it from his parents instead? It was their address, but the writing…this was definitely from Regulus.

He shuddered, gripped onto the all-too-familiar green wax and tore open the envelope. Pulling out the paper inside, he noticed the dried splotches of tears on the letter, and his ‘protective brother’ act immediately flipped to the on button. His brows furrowed as he unfolded the letter with a sharp inhale of breath, and he read.

______________________

08/01/79

To my protector,

If you have received this letter, I am dead. I have told Kreacher to send out all of my letters if I don’t make it back. In all honesty, I always knew I wouldn’t make it back, but I foolishly kept my hopes up. I kept my hopes up that if I went on just a day longer, things would change. But they didn’t. To make sure you read this letter, even if you neglect all the others, I have sent an owl to accompany it and bring it to the receiver.

I will never forget the bond we had as kids, and I hope you never forget them either. I’m sorry that things have turned out this way, and I apologize for not being a brother like James. apologize for not being the little sister you had, and for wishing to be a man. Yet at the end of the day, you have chosen James. I don’t blame you, Sirius. James is an amazing person, and he’s a better choice than I would ever be.

Do you remember when we were kids, we broke our mother’s vase? I remember I was the one that broke it, not you, yet you protected me from the wrath of our mother. You knew she would’ve Crucio’d you, yet you protected me anyway. Because that’s just what you do, Sirius, you protect and that’s the way you love. That’s what I love most about you.

I forgive you for leaving me. Normally, I would never tell a single soul that I forgive you, that I send you letters, that I still love you, but considering my corpse will be underwater, there’s no reason to keep up my facade. I know my death will impact you strongly, because I know without a doubt that you still do love me.

Sirius, please don’t go too hard on James, nothing is his fault. I was the one who had made the first move, and it’s not that I was playing him no not at all, I loved him Siri. I loved him so much, and I always will. I’ll always be in love with him. He was my soulmate. I know that he’s still in love with Lily, and I hope they get together and continue their family line, filled with love. It’ll hurt seeing them together, but the pain will go away eventually.

I guess I should come clean about everything, should I? In our years at Hogwarts, I had joined Remus’ and Lily’s study group, and we had become close friends. I never admitted that I liked being with Lily, but now I will. I understand why James loves her, because I caught myself loving her too.

I have just one request Sirius, don’t judge anyone else for the house they’re put in. And when you see my friends in public anytime, respect them as they respect you. That’s my only wish before I die. I want to see the people I love most showing respect to each other in some way or another.

Never forget who I was, and never forget what I have tried to do. I am not on the Dark Lord’s side, nor am I alongside The Order. I am my own person, with separate beliefs. They’re both bad guys, Sirius. I have a feeling it won’t be long before I see you again after death.

I love you, brother. Maybe in another life we’ll be able to grow old together with the love of our lives. Maybe in another life we’ll understand each other, and there won’t be any stereotypes placed smack-dab in the middle of our foreheads. I face death with the hope that you will all live a long and healthy life, and if not, I fill myself with yet another foolish hope that when we all die, we’ll be reunited.

Tell our story brother, and don’t be ashamed.

R.A.B

______________________

He rose up from his bed, expression like stone but his eyes filled with the gaze of agony. His brother was dead. That’s it. His brother is fucking dead.

He held back his broken cries, stormed over to his closet, and began to rummage around for his luggage. When finding it, he placed it on his bed, opened it with two soft clicks, and began shoving random clothes into it. Euphemia barged into the room without a knock, having heard the ruckus and wanting to see if everything was alright. “Sirius?” She hesitated, staring at him as he ran back and forth around the room, stuffing a shoe in his bag and leaving the other pair in the closet.

“Sirius!” She yelled with an exasperated tone, crossing her arms. “Yes?” Sirius replied, his voice dry and cracking with held back tears. Almost immediately, her eyes softened and she uncrossed her arms. “Oh darling, what happened?”

“THIS!” He roared, his eyes welling up with burning hot tears, and his heart shattering by the second. He shoved the letter in her hands and continued packing. “This.” He mumbled, disbelievingly.

Her eyes surveyed the letter, and her gaze changed from confusion to shock, and then she was suddenly crying. Sirius couldn’t handle seeing her cry. “Oh!” She sobbed, approaching Sirius and wrapping him in her arms. He shut his eyes, not hugging her back. “Oh, I’m so sorry love, I’m so sorry poor boy!”

He sniffled, managing to hold back the volcano of tears waiting to burst. He pulled away from her, going back to packing but this time he did it calmly. “Is there anything I can do for you? Where are you going?”

“James.” He spoke, his nose clogged. Effie nodded her head, patting his back, “is there anything you need at all?”

He stopped, not facing her. “I want to be left alone.” He spoke after a few moments, and she nodded, stepping out of the room. Sirius heard her sobbing to Monty as his voice began to raise with concern and shock. They loved Regulus, so much. He continued packing, and finally closed his luggage, walking out of his room and down the hall, ignoring the calls of Fleamont, and fleeing out of the house.

Halfway through his walk, he realized that he could’ve taken the floo, but it didn’t matter now did it? His brother was dead. He shouldn’t be complaining about a 30 minute walk. His brother is dead. The disbelief was still there.

He knew exactly why he was going to James’ house and not Remus’. It was because 1, it was his house too and 2, James had a history with Regulus, and Sirius wonders if he received a letter too. He’s pretty sure he did.

Finally reaching the house, he noticed the lights were on, and he wondered what sight would be awaiting him when the door opened. He harshly banged his fists against the wood, feeling his heart’s rapid pumping accelerate. The door finally swung open, and he was greeted with the sight of a tired James, freshly cried, eyes puffy, lips bleeding and chapped, weak and stumbling, and Sirius didn’t know if it was from what he had just seen or from keeping in his emotions for so long, but he broke.

He let out a choked sob, taking a step forward and falling apart in James’ hands. Their grips were strong against each other, trying to keep each other steady, but it wasn’t really working. He could tell James was holding himself back, and it made Sirius feel like shit. Feel like shit that James can’t even cry in front of him when his boyfriend is dead. Or, well, his ex-boyfriend thanks to Sirius himself.

“Let it out Prongs, I know it hurts.” He mumbled, hiccuping in his cries. James let out a gasp of air, and then he began to cry. They hugged each other, the grief and the pain in their souls intertwining into one. It was so cold. And Sirius knew it wasn’t from the weather.

After a while of crying and hugging, Sirius spoke, “Di-did you get a letter t-too?” He cringed at his stutter, keeping his eyes closed because he couldn’t really face reality at the moment. He felt James’ slow nod into his black hair (the height difference always bothered him) and the confirmation of what he had been thinking caused another wave of salty droplets to flow out of the tear-ducts in his eyes. They embraced tighter.

Sirius’ knees seemed to buckle, both of the boys falling down to the floor. They didn’t mind. The floor was cold, stable, it felt no different than the state of their hearts. The ravenette will admit, while hugging James he did imagine it was his brother. It was a bit therapeutic actually. It helped, because he knew Regulus had hugged James’ body before. Many times.

They eventually sat down on the couch, still huddled together, and exchanged letters. Seeing the true way Regulus loved James was gut-wrenching enough that the grief, the torture, and the loss made their way inside of his soul for the remainder of his life. It made its little home there, in the dark crevices of Sirius’ spirit. Then—so suddenly and yet so loudly—there was another avalanche of loud knocks against the door.

13 years later, Sirius Black was ashamed.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hey I don’t mean to further flood your inbox and I know I sent an ask a week or so ago. But in church this morning the sermon was on the 1 John passage about how if you hate your brother or sister you don’t love God, and I just. I bet you can guess which political figure immediately comes to mind. I know we’re supposed to love and pray for and forgive our enemies, and it’s not supposed to be a thing where you only do it if you know you’ll get an apology/changed behavior/etc. But the most positive thing I can say where he’s concerned is if he showed up on my doorstep bleeding and starving I would work past my anger to bind his wounds and feed him cuz that’s what you’re supposed to do for fellow human beings. Other than that I have no love for him (or people like him, really). Just anger and immense disdain. Maybe even hate. What do I do with that??

Hey there, I feel you on this. I can also think of maaany political figures I feel this about lol.

I have an old post delving into what it means to love one's enemy and what forgiveness is (and isn't) that I recommend to you.

I'll start with a TL;DR from that post, and then add some other stuff about working through feelings like anger and hate, and close with some reading recs <3

When we find it desperately difficult to love, or to forgive, we can ask God to feel and be what we find ourselves unable to feel and be.

We can remember Christ's words on the cross about the soldiers crucifying him: he does not say "I forgive them," but asks, "Father, you forgive them, for they know not what they do."

He cannot himself forgive them in that moment — not while they are in the act of torturing and killing him, not while they hold all power over him, not even when his compassion allows him to understand that they do what they do out of ignorance — so he asks God to be that forgiveness for them.

When I struggle to feel love for someone who is doing great harm and seems completely unrepentant of that, I turn to God the way Jesus did: "God, I'm struggling to see the spark of You in them. Please love them the way I can't in this moment."

Next point:

Throughout the Bible, the concepts of love and hate are much more about action than sentiment.

If you feel love for someone, yet don't come to their aid when they need it most, what use was that love to them? Meanwhile, if you fear or disdain someone, yet help them in their direst need, you have acted with love.

Furthermore, when it comes to difficult emotions, the good news is that we are indeed invited to bring all our feelings — anger, disdain, even hate — to God. We can be real about what we're feeling.

Scripture shows us this over and over: There are so many psalms, and passages from the prophets, where someone has been hounded and terrorized enough to wish pain or even death upon the ones who oppress them. In one of the most infamous, Psalm 137, the psalmist even goes so far as to wish that their oppressors' children might be "dashed upon a rock" — that everything Babylon has made them suffer might be enacted on Babylon.

These are not pretty feelings, yet they are preserved in holy poetry, because they are part of the human experience. (And tantamount to understanding them is realizing that those praying such things will happen almost never have the power to enact them. The psalmist who wishes Babylon's soldiers experience what they've put the psalmist's people doesn't have the army, the weapons, the power to actually make that happen. They're just honest about wishing it in a moment of collective trauma and grief.)

In all this, I'm not saying God "wants" us to feel loathing or hate — any thought or feeling that puts us at risk of denying another person's humanity is one we do need to work on; but we do that work by being honest about feeling it, rather than being too ashamed to face it or to share it with God.

No pressure to read any of these of course, but here are texts I'd recommend on these topics:

James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, a brief but rich text in which (among other things) Baldwin grapples with the need to love his oppressor (namely white people) — to affirm their humanity in a way they have denied him. Only in recognizing one another's humanity can we have any hope of something like justice and peace for the generations to come. Baldwin believes this vehemently, but he still acknowledges that it's still not easy, in fact it's one of the hardest things, to love one's oppressors in such a way. .

Cole Arthur Riley's This Here Flesh, another short book rich in meaning. I especially recommend the chapters on lament, rage, justice, and repair for this topic. One thing she discusses is that love is not "niceness," that rage can be righteous, that sometimes the most loving thing we can do is to let a harmful person witness our rage, to call them out. .

The same link from the beginning to that post about what forgiveness is and what it is not

[letters-from-dekarios]

[There's a letter in your pocket you don't remember being there before you went off to fight the Netherbrain. The scribbly, barely legible handwriting tells you it's from your partner, Alethea. She must have slipped it to you at some point, but only the Gods know when.]

To my dearest,

If you're reading this, then it either means that I've met my end or I've forgotten to take this back from you. I can only hope it's the latter.

…Are you still there?

After everything that's happened, the past month has felt like it's accounted for so much of my life. I feel like I've been forced to grow, but that's probably for the best. I wonder what would happen if I told the me from last year about now? About spilling blood, stopping a city wide conspiracy…

Even falling in love would've sounded far-fetched, actually.

[There's a few bits of scribbles that might have been words once, but they're blurry and illegible.]

Am I still there? Are you still there?

I hope you are. I hope all of you are. I hope whole little brigade is still alive and well. Even Astarion. What are they doing now? Do you know?

Are they mad at me? I hope not. I hope that if there was anything I could teach them the entire time I knew them, I hope it would be to smile, even through hurting.

Did I really become the leader that I dreamed of?

What of you? Are you still there?

Are you making the most of what you have left? If I'm not the one you happen to be sharing lovely sunset views with, is there someone else there instead?

As bittersweet as it sounds, I hope so. I hope you still search for happiness, in some way, even if I'm not there to share it. But again- ideally I am.

I love you.

Always yours, Allie.

[You know she isn't dead, you saw her just this evening. A flurry of tears and anxiety before she ran off to Avernus, unable to handle the idea of Karlach dying. Anything you say, she won't see for a while yet,but there is one thing you both know in certain terms: You are still here.]

(OOC: Hi there! This is my first time doing something like this, so I hope it's both good and useable. Came out way longer than I wanted it to, but hey, that's just how it goes sometimes, right? You're doing great around here, it's very cool to see :) )

My sweet Allie,

I can only imagine the panic in your heart when writing this. I know you are safe, but the contents of your letter shake my core nonetheless.

I’m still here. I always will be. For you, I would fight the gods. I have, right by your side.

Trust that I recognize the feeling of madness when it comes to love. I would have never believed even the highest of prophets if they came to my door with this notion. But I am ever so glad I listened to my intuitions and accepted the longing fact of adoration that I hold for you. I would not change this for the world, you know that.

All of us here are doing well, my love. Astarion included. We see each other less frequently now, but I promise you, we all love you very, very much.

My love, my sweet love, I could not dream of moving on in this world without you. I hold your inspiration close to my heart as I long for the day we will be together again. You always were ambitious and caring, it is no surprise you followed Karlach to aide her.

Trust me, darling. You are all that I have ever wanted and more, I would never dream of finding another to replace you. No one person could come close. I am still here. I am still waiting. When you return, my arms will be open for you to run into.

Please, my love, do not hold such anxiety in your heart. Take care of yourself. I love you, I always will.

Yours forever,

𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒆 𝑫𝒆𝒌𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒔

text reads: gale dekarios

stoppppp this was so cute and so sad at the same time. I can imagine the panic in gale as he reads this and has to reassure himself a million times over that, yes, he did see her and she is okay. ughhh I love this so much ~ kore

[kiwi2229]

Knock on the door

(James Potter / Regulus Black | 529 words)

For @jegulus-microfic prompt: Smoke

The last time James ever saw Regulus was in the middle of a battle. It was only for a second. He saw the familiar dark curls, that he could never forget. And then Regulus turned around and James could see the fire in those stormy eyes. One second, he was there and one he was running somewhere else. They were already broken up by then. They both picked their sides. Regulus took the mark and James joined the Order. The war split them up. It was the first time he saw Regulus after two years and also the last time ever.

Several months after this battle one horrible morning James read the article in Daily Prophet and his word crushed down. Because Regulus was pronounced dead. His Regulus. His star. Was gone. They were already broken up but somehow James wished he could save him. That he would make him change his mind and run away with him exactly as they talked about. But Regulus was gone, and James was left alone shattered.

He still feels the smoke of that battle in his nose. He still sees those beautiful eyes. He still misses him.

That battle was the last time he saw Regulus until now. And he isn't sure if it's not a dream. He was woken up by the knock on his door. It had to be only someone he knows because of the wards. When he rushed to open the door in fear that someone is hurt his heart stopped.

Because here he is. Regulus. Standing at his door. Looking exhausted and beaten up. But breathing. Regulus. Breathing. On his doorstep. And it doesn't make sense.

“Hey. I...” Regulus says and oh how James missed his voice. “I'm sorry to wake you. I need a place to stay, and you were the only one I could think of.” Regulus says fidgeting with his hands nervously. James isn't sure what to do. His brain didn't yet catch up. “I did something and well...”

“They said you were dead,” James whispers because that's the only thought in his mind.

“Yeah, I had to disappear for a while. I can explain. Will you let me explain, please?” Regulus pleads and James was never able to say no to him. Not really.

James watches him, trying to make his brain function. “You are more beautiful than I remember.” it's the thing he says out loud. It's probably a stupid thing to say but true, nonetheless. James slowly reaches out his hand. He needs to touch him, to know he is real. Regulus seems to understand so he holds very still.

If this is a dream James probably won't survive waking up. He can't lose him again. Not when Regulus is standing here looking real.

When his hand finally touches Regulus’ arm, and he feels the strong, hot and very alive body under his fingertips he doesn't even try to fight the tears as they spill from his eyes. He pulls the boy towards him because after almost three years he can do that.

“I'm sorry, Jamie. But I will explain everything.” Regulus whispers as he buries his face into James' chest.

[thorns-and-rosewings]

In light of the most recent TSAMS episode, how about some funny Ruin craziness from the Home Sweet Bar AU? 🍻

Now here's the thing with Ruin, in spite of owning a bar he has never really been much of a drinker, he openly prefers tea to alcohol.

The man is a living British stereotype

But on this particular day, a few of the customers at Infernal Machine actually offer Ruin a sip of their quite potent alcoholic drinks, this was a mistake...

Turns out the British twink cannot handle drinks...

Ruin gets WASTED practically off of one drink. His behavior quickly becomes erratic, random and weirdly hypnotic to nearly all of the crowd at his bar. He maintains still being mostly his harmless self... For a bit...

Before Eclipse can grab his business partner, Ruin escapes from the bar. Standing outside with spirals in his eyes and surrounded by the merry bar patrons.

Ruin: LETS... ROB A BANK!!!!!

The crowd cheers and follow Ruin as he races down the road... However one singular patron and Eclipse stand in the steampunk bars entrance just watching the group disappear from view.

Patron: Hey um... I'm not cool with robbing a bank.

Eclipse: Don't worry there's about two hotdog stands and a zoo between him and the nearest bank, he'll never make it.

Patron: 0_0

Eclipses words were prophetic...

.

It's the next day in the complex that functions as the duos home underneath the bar; Ruin is in his cute shark onesie pajamas with his face in the kitchen table. While Eclipse sits across from him in his silken Yukata that he uses as a robe, counting out what looks to be a vast amount of cash.

Eclipse: (Sarcastic) Have fun last night honey?

Ruin: (Groans)

Eclipse: So what happened during your little adventure?

Ruin: I... I believe I spent quite a bit of time feeding hotdogs to a giraffe...

Eclipse: How'd that go?

Ruin: He wasn't too keen on it first but he eventually came around. After that I... I fear it's become very blurry...

Eclipse: Want me to fill in the blanks?

Ruin: You know? Oh... H-How bad-?

Eclipse: After you gave a giraffe a taste for meat... Or as close to meat as whatever hotdogs actually are... you hopped onto its head, slid down it's back and the proceeded to ride it out of the zoo screaming 'Viva la Revolution!' while many of the zoo animals chose to escape their enclosures. You rode the giraffe into the center of the city while the other animals released untold destruction upon the area. Your adoring fans, many of which I am guessing were either drunk or just outright under your spell, started blaring the song Wannabe by Spice Girls... Which prompted you to put on what I can only assume to be... An impromptu strip show.

Ruin: Oh no...

Eclipse: Yeah... Where'd you think all this cash came from? Maybe the bar business isn't the business you should have gone into.

Ruin: How did I get home?

Eclipse: At some point you just passed out and right as the police were starting to show up, everyone scattered and I grabbed your drunk ass and dragged you home. You put on your stupid pajamas and then...

(...Ruin spent all night hugging onto Eclipse who was unable to free himself from his partners insane grip. So he had no choice but to just let him sleep next to him all night...)

Eclipse: ...you spent the night on the couch...

Ruin: (Doesn't remember) Bloody hell... Well... At least it's over.

Eclipse: (Reading the newspaper about a man-eating giraffe loose in the city) Uh huh... Sure it is...

[ladylynse]

Secret Trio/Secret Quartet three sentence fics below the cut! For more like this, see my other three sentence fics/crossover three sentence fics, my tumblr fic masterpost, random WIP scenes and snippets, fic ideas, or find me on FFnet and the AO3! Also, take a peek at the fanart and fanfic I’ve been gifted.

If you like my work, you can consider buying me a coffee. (I write thank you snippets–which could be an expansion of a three sentence fic if you like!)

Adrien and Plagg (”watching idols”) Jake and Adrien (”painting” x2) Jake and Randy (“trapped”) Randy, Jake, (Danny, Adrien) (“rat”) Danny, Adrien, Randy, Jake (”Hide”) Adrien, Jake, Danny, Randy (”Jake, who is Rose?”) Jake and Danny (”TUE happened”) Marinette/Ladybug and Adrien/Chat Noir (”failed over and over again”) Adrien, Jake, Danny, Randy, Marinette (“redemption/corruption”, ”path of destruction”) Marinette, Jake, Danny, Randy, (Adrien) (”shoulder to cry on”) Adrien, Marinette, Danny, Randy, Jake (”Hello, Ladybug” x2) Danny, Adrien, Jake, (Randy) (”hey, guys, where’s ---?”) Adrien, Randy, Jake, Danny (”I-I can’t hear his heartbeat”) //death alt (more painful) version | follow up Marinette, Danny, (Adrien, Lila, Elliot) (”Lila and Elliot”, “liars”, ”two peas in a pod”) Lila and Elliot (”partners in crime”) Jake, Randy, Danny, Adrien (”power/mind swap”) Randy, Jake, Rose, (Danny, Adrien) (”meeting Rose post Hong Kong Longs”) | related Jake, Randy, (Danny, (Adrien)) (”80 word challenge”) Randy, Adrien, (Danny, Jake) (”ghost king au”, “ghosts vs magical creatures”) Danny, (Randy, First Ninja, (Adrien, Jake)) (”ghost king au”, “Danny helps Randy remain the Ninja”) Randy, (Danny, Jake) (”about being mind-wiped”) Jake, Danny (Randy, ((Adrien)) (”there’s no one left”) Jake, Randy, Adrien, (Danny) (”Danny tells them about Dani”) Randy and Marinette (”Ladybug mistakes one of the SQ for an akuma”) Marinette, Adrien, (Danny, Randy, Jake) (”SQ post ML reveal”) Adrien, Danny, (Randy, Jake, Plagg) (”temporary power swap”) Danny, Adrien, Randy, (Jake) (”identity reveal of Danny Phantom”) Susan, Jake, Jonathan, (Danny, Adrien, Randy) (”parents find out”) Adrien, Danny, (Randy, Jake) (”legacy”) Adrien, Jake, Danny, (Randy, Luka) (”snake”) Danny, (Jake, Randy, Adrien, Jack, Maddie) (”Fentons find out”, “angst with a happy ending”) Randy (”Randy remembers”) Adrien, Jake, Randy, (Danny) (”bee”) Randy, Jake, (Danny, Adrien) (”comic book”) Danny, Jake, (Randy, Adrien, Vlad) (”Uncle Vlad AU”) Danny, Randy, (Adrien, Jake) (”broken sky”)

Adrien, Danny, Randy, (Jake) (”siblings”) Jake and Adrien (”Rotwood”) Ladybug, Adrien, (Danny, Randy, Jake) (”reinforcements”) Randy, (Adrien, Jake, Danny) (”prophetic dream”) Randy, Danny, (Adrien, Jake, Ghostwriter) (”true friendship”) Jake, Plagg, (Adrien, Danny, Jake) (”that was you?”) Randy, Adrien, (Jake, Danny) (”frostbite”) Danny, Randy, Jake, Adrien (”first date help”) Adrien, Randy, (Danny, Jake) (”apocalypse”) Danny, Jake, (Adrien, Gramps, Haley, Fu Dog, Susan, Jonathan) (”escape from NYC) Randy, Adrien, (Danny, Jake) (”Stabby the roomba”) Randy, Adrien, (Danny, Jake) (”love square”) Jazz, (Haley, Howard) (”evil clones”) Adrien and Danny (”discovered”) Adrien, Randy, Danny, (Jake) (”war zone”) Jake, (Adrien, Randy, Danny) (”Miracle Queen”) Debbie, Theresa, (Adrien, Randy) (”cartwheel”) Heidi, Jake, (Howard, Randy, Danny, Adrien) (”busted”) now expanded  FF | AO3 Jake, Randy, (Danny, Adrien) (”nasty sauce”) Bunnyx (”Chat Blanc”) Jacques (”inspiration”) Danny, Plagg, Adrien, (Jake, Randy) (”Box Ghost”) Plagg, Danny, Randy, (Jake, Adrien) (”blood magic”) Gabriel and Desiree (”be careful what you wish for”) Adrien, Jake, Randy, Danny (”what are you?”) Randy, Jake, (Danny, Adrien) (”he treats us well”) Randy, Jake, (Danny, Adrien) (”mermaids”) Jake, (Randy, Danny, Adrien, Gregory) (”arrogance”) Ladybug/Marinette and Adrien (”confessions”) Marty, (Randy, Danny, Adrien, Jake) (”entire world”) Danny, (Randy, Adrien, Jake) (”fire”, “reveal”) Jake, Danny, (Randy, Adrien) (”grenade”) Jake, Danny, (Adrien, Randy) (”mercenary”) Randy, Debbie, (Danny, Adrien, Jake) (”Debbie/Randy”) Adrien, Jake, Danny, Randy (”new year”) Jake, Adrien, (Danny, Randy) (”fallout”) Danny, Adrien, Jake, (Randy) (”stargazing”)

Now on the AO3 Randy, Debbie, Adrien, (Danny, Jake) (”Kangham”, “hide”)

[autumnmobile12]

Status: I have made a minor adjustment to Touya and Fuyumi's conversation in Chapter 6 of Ambush Simulation because sibling shenanigans are my jam.

I know it's been a week, but if you still need a laugh after that last episode, here you go:

...

The Original:

Fuyumi leaned her head against his leg and snaked her arm around his calf in an unconventional hug.  “Who did end up playing Snow White in the end?”

“Fuck, I don’t remember.  I just know you were the Evil Stepmother.”

“Magic Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”  She giggled.  “You were just part of the stage crew, right?  Lighting and all that?”

“Yeah.”  Dress or no dress, raising his voice till it was loud enough to project throughout an auditorium for any length of time would have strained his damaged vocal chords.  If it didn’t temporarily put them out of commission entirely.  He took a deep breath.  “Hey.  You should know,”  he began.  “The thing we’re doing at the camp, it does involve a lot of fire.”

...

The Re-Write:

Dress or no dress, raising his voice till it was loud enough to project throughout an auditorium for any length of time would have strained his damaged vocal chords.  If it didn’t temporarily put them out of commission.  However…  “No.  I was the ass-end of the Prince’s horse.”

Yumi burst out laughing,  “Oh, that’s right!  You were zipped into that thing!”

“With my head uncomfortably close to Yamasaki’s ass.  He threatened me with flatulence if I made snarky comments, which fair, I was making a lot.  I was being a butt about being a horse’s butt, sue me.  Then he told me to ‘know my place,’ and I said, ‘yes, Daddy,’ which is how we wasted fifteen minutes of rehearsal time because nobody had their shit together after that.”

His sister was laughing harder, her whole body shaking as she wiped tears from her eyes.  “I forgot!  Holy shit, how could I forget that?”

Touya grinned up at the ceiling.  “I should give Yamasaki a call.  See how he’s doing.  Although I don’t think we ever called each other by our names after that.  I think we were Top and Bottom from that day forward.”

“No!”

“I mean, prophetic words given my preferences, but——”

“Gross!  I don’t need to hear that!”  Her head was in her hands now.  “Oh hell, you’ve made my headache worse.”

“Need to throw up again?”

“No,”  she groaned.

They fell into a comfortable silence, barring occasional snorts and giggling.  Touya’s ribs ached as he took a deep breath and softly brushed a hand over Fuyumi’s hair.  “Hey.  You should know,”  he began.  “The thing we’re doing at the camp, it does involve a lot of fire.”

[uncertainwallflower]

ATLAS For @jilymicrofics March 2024 (because Gryffindor will win the House Cup, as we win everything). Prompts: troubled, joy. Words: 749. Trigger warnings: mild panic attack.

In Greek mythology, the Titan Atlas was responsible for bearing the weight of the heavens on his shoulders. (World History Encyclopedia)

James frowned as he looked down at Lily. Huddled by the fire, legs drawn up to her chest, chin dropped upon her knees, glazed eyes betraying her far-off thoughts.

Around them, the common room was its usual boisterous self. Laughter and chatter and the odd boom of exploding snap. Outside the world was a virgin white fleece, the castle, the grounds, the forest and mountains beyond all buried in coarse snow. But inside was warm and bright and joyous. Except for Lily.

The boys were probably already up in the dormitory, wondering when and where they'd lost him. James could already picture Peter's head poking out from the stairwell, peering around in search of him. Then he'd shout something crude in the hopes of hurrying the straggler along. James shook away the thought.

He dropped into the space beside her. "Alright, Evans?"

She started, apparently having not noticed the shift in the cushions and his presence beside her. He could feel hers. Feel the heat emanating from her as it emanated from the roaring churning. But with it was a heaviness. He could almost see it weighing on her, baring down on her neck and shoulders, forcing her to fold, to grow smaller, smaller.

She offered him a weak smile. A flimsy Trojan horse of a mask with gaping holes for eyes that let him sink into the depths of her soul and feel the cold sadness seeping through her.

He frowned further, voice lowering as he asked again: "What's up?"

"Hmm? Oh, nothing."

A soft snort. "Yeah, okay." He said nothing else, hoping she would fill the void with a real answer but the silence only stretched. So, in the tenderest voice he could summon, he pushed on. "Evans, really, are you alright? You seem..." Here he made an awkward unsure motion with his hands. "Troubled."

Still she said nothing.

He nudged her with his shoulder. "Come on, you can talk to me. We're supposed to be a team, remember? How 'bout it, Head Girl?"

Reluctantly—forehead creasing as she brought her auburn brows together, lips twisting as she too twisted about—she drew a copy of the Daily Prophet from the crevice down between the couch cushion and the armrest.

MUGGLE FAMILY FOUND MURDERED IN THEIR BEDS: AURORS SUSPECT MAGICAL INVOLVEMENT.

James withered. "It's horrible." But, beyond the tragedy of the murdered family, he frowned and checked the date. The paper was two days old. "Did...did you know them?"

She shook her head, whisps of hair falling over her eyes, which swum with silky tears.

"Lily, hey, it's going to be okay. You know that, right? They'll catch whoever did this."

When she looked at him, and when he looked beyond the swell of tears, anger shone out—not sadness but anger, rage. "It's the third murder this month. And look." She snatched the newspaper back from him, tearing through the papers until she came across a small continuation printed under an advertisement for Broom Extensions: Fit the Whole Family! "Their daughter was a witch. Confirmed by the Ministry Book of Records. And they're not the only ones, I have the other articles in my dorm, I could show you, they-they're being targetted James; Muggleborns and their families are being hunted down—" she took a ragged, wobbly breath "—and killed, like-like—"

"Okay, Lily, take a breath, yeah? Breathe. You're gonna scare the first years."

She glanced around the common room, wide-eyed, noticing the lull that had come over the space as their Head Girl had closed in on hyperventilation. "I..."

"It's alright." He placed a hand on her shoulder, thumb rubbing back and forth in a way he hoped was comforting. "How 'bout we go up to your dorm? You can show me those clippings, maybe talk through all these thoughts rattling around your head?"

"Er—yeah, okay." And wiping away the hot, angry tears that had spilled forth with a rough hand, Lily rose from the couch, James following closely behind her as they picked their way through the curious common room.

As they neared the girls' staircase, Peter's fated head appeared and, quickly catching sight of James, he shouted: "Oi, Potter, what's taking you so long?"

"Rack off, Pete!" was James's reply—releasing the common room of their fascination and returning them to their own conversations—and the mousy boy vanished with a shrug, while the Head Boy and Girl disappeared up the stairwell without another glance spared for the rest of the world.

AO3