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ollieofthebeholder · 4 years ago

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leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

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Chapter 33: Jon Prime

Martin breathed deeply, tilting his head back slightly and closing his eyes. “It smells like snow.”

“It’s a bit warm for that, fortunately.” Jon’s fingers laced through Martin’s, their palms pressed together. “Lessens the chance of frostbite.”

The Institute was closed until the new year, which meant Jon and Martin would be able to move about the Archives freely during the day, rather than only being able to come out at night, and Jon had spent much of the previous month attempting to remember where the cameras in the Institute proper were located so he could avoid them. He wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do, exactly, since he still hadn’t figured out how to safely dispose of the table, but he supposed he had nine uninterrupted days to figure it out.

For now, however, that was in the future. For now, they walked hand in hand down the streets along the Thames. The typical sounds of a London Saturday evening washed over them, punctuated by bells—the jingle of the bells on the harnesses of the horse-drawn carriages that capitalized on the Dickensian nostalgia, the steady clatter of the bell-ringers who stood on street corners and at shop fronts with their kettles asking for charity, and the gentle tolling of the steeple bells calling the faithful to Christmas Eve services. The sky was overcast, which meant their walk was lit only by street lamps rather than stars or the moon, but that was all right by Jon; there was enough light for him to see by, and he’d never been much of a stargazer. The air smelled crisp and cold—as Martin had said, it smelled of snow, but the air was too warm—and Jon could almost fool himself into thinking he smelled pine and cinnamon.

“I never asked you if you had any Christmas traditions,” he said. “I mean, not that there was ever much opportunity. That first Christmas we were all working in the Archives, I was still trying to be distant and acting like I hated you. The second year I was paranoid and obsessing over the tunnels and Gertrude’s murder, and…” He trailed off, not wanting to bring up the third year. Or the fourth.

“And that was the last Christmas you were aware of,” Martin supplied, squeezing Jon’s hand briefly. Jon gripped it tightly and refused to let him go. “Honestly, not really. When I was little, Granddad had a collection of Christmas poems we used to read together, and we’d sing a couple songs he’d learned as a boy, but I don’t know what happened to the book after he died. Mum used to go candlelight services on Christmas Eve, but…even when she let me go with her, I never got much out of them. I liked sitting out in the evenings and listening to the church bells, though.” A smile flitted across his face as another church tolled out its summons nearby. “How about you? Any Christmas traditions?”

“Not outside those dictated by policy,” Jon said, unable to hold back an exasperated smirk as he thought about the dreaded Institute Christmas party. God, he’d hated it even when he was a researcher, and it had been infinitely worse when he was a department head and supposed to be a presence. “Grandmother was…she’d been raised non-Christian. I think she observed the holidays for her husband when my father and his siblings were young, but after they were out of the house and Grandfather Sims died, she went back to the faith she’d been brought up in, as best she could, anyway. I was never sure what religion she belonged to, actually. She didn’t exactly practice it. I suppose she assumed that I was young enough not to really remember what Christmas and Easter and that sort of thing were like, so she never saw it as her duty to give me any of those traditions.”

“So I guess you were like me. The Christmas holidays were just a reason to be out of school.”

Jon hummed in agreement. “I strongly suspect this is mostly for Tim’s benefit. Possibly Sasha’s.”

Martin laughed. “I mean…if Tim had asked me, I’d have done Christmas with him that last year. But I think he was too upset to even acknowledge it, you know? Didn’t even change the background on his laptop to anything festive.”

Jon’s hand tightened in Martin’s again. Regret swirled through him. He hadn’t paid a great deal of attention to the significance of the dates, and he’d completely missed Tim—whom he’d always seen at his cheeriest around Christmas—practically ignoring the holiday. “I wish…there are a lot of things I wish I’d done differently. The way I treated Tim…the way our relationship deteriorated…that’s probably one of the biggest. That and the way I treated you. Watching our…counterparts do things better just makes it worse, honestly.”

“Because you can’t make it up to our Tim,” Martin guessed. “Jon, wherever he is…wherever he was, I’m sure he forgives you. Now, anyway. Now that he knows you didn’t—there’s blame on both sides. Same with you and me.”

Jon huffed. “No, there’s really not. You were nothing but polite to me—”

“Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t have respected me more if I’d stood up to you sooner.”

Jon had to admit, Martin was right, but he decided he only actually had to admit it to himself. “How would you know if I wasn’t looking you in the eye?”

Martin bumped Jon’s shoulder, but he was laughing at the same time. “Asshole.”

“I’ll cop to that.” Jon laughed, too.

It was a pleasant enough walk, serenaded by the bells and the occasional snippet of a Christmas carol. Martin swept his cane along in front of him, although he didn’t really need it with Jon holding his hand. Still, Jon could appreciate Martin’s desire to be as independent as he could be. Part of what made them work as a couple was that they could function on their own.

Jon and Martin hadn’t ventured out of the Institute in some weeks, certainly not since Daisy’s visit and Jonah’s tormenting of Past Martin, so he hadn’t seen what the decorations looked like. Past Jon hadn’t bothered to describe them, either, merely saying “they have to be seen to be believed”. Jon prepared for the worst as they came around the corner.

To his relief, things seemed…tasteful. Tim, Past Jon, and Past Martin lived on the end of a row of four terraced houses, identical save the trim, and he’d half expected to find it ablaze with colored lights and tinsel, but it was surprisingly subdued. There was a wreath on the front door and a plant of some kind—Jon presumed holly from a distance—hanging from the center of the frame, and handmade paper snowflakes plastered on each windowpane visible from the street, but that was it as far as decoration went. The reason became clear when they drew closer; while the house on the far end of the row had some garland and lights, dark at the moment, and the one next to it bore several blatantly Christian decorations, the one next door to the Archive crew’s home was undecorated entirely. Through the half-open curtains, Jon could see a shaking, age-spotted hand lighting the first of eight candles in a curved holder that looked like a long-cherished family heirloom.

Martin’s cane bumped against the low step leading up to the threshold, and Jon, who knew the drill by now, let Martin lean on his arm to steady himself as he stepped up. Jon steeled himself to reach for the knocker, then noticed a pearly button set next to the door. “Ah, they’ve installed a doorbell, excellent.”

He pressed it. He could faintly hear the chime, more of a clanging really, sort of like a ship’s bell. A moment later, the door opened, revealing Tim in all his festive glory. He wore a sweater that could not possibly feel good on his skin given the sheer tinsel-to-yarn ratio, a floppy sequined hat with a sparkling ball of fluff on one end covered his hair, and he’d traded out his usual discreet star-shaped stud for a dangling glitter-covered candy cane, but the bright grin splitting his face ear to ear outshone it all.

“Hey, you made it!” he cried happily.

Jon couldn’t help but grin. “Sorry we didn’t bring anything. Our oven was out of order.”

“Please. We’ve got enough baked goods made to last us until Easter.” Tim scoffed. “What’s important is that you came.”

“Tim. Did you really think we wouldn’t?”

Martin reached out and tentatively touched Tim’s arm. “Christmas is about family. If we’re really allowed to be part of yours, of course we’d be here.”

Tim’s eyes actually filled with tears, even as he smiled, and his breath hitched. “I’m going to hug you now.”

“Tha—” Martin began, but got no further before Tim lunged forward and wrapped him in a hug. He laughed and hugged him back, dropping his cane in the process, presumably so he didn’t accidentally goose Tim with it. It was a sight at once strange and familiar, but something about it tugged at Jon’s subconscious and he wasn’t sure what. All he could say with any certainty was that it looked different than the times he’d seen Tim hug Past Martin, and he had no idea why.

After a moment, Tim released Martin, then picked up his cane and pressed it into his hand before turning to give Jon a hug. Jon hadn’t hugged Tim—or Sasha, for that matter—except as part of a group hug, and then only once, so he wasn’t prepared for the renewal of long-forgotten, or at least long-buried, feelings of comfort and security that came from one of Tim’s missed-you-buddy hugs. Even as he hugged him back, he tried to hold himself as separate as he could. After all, he wasn’t Tim’s Jon and—

“Nope, not happening,” Tim said in his ear. “No guilt tonight. No anger, no fears, no death. No talking about the past or the future. Nothing about my eyes or your scars or any of that. All of that can wait. It’s Christmas, and it’s about family, and I’m going to stand here and hug you until you cancel your travel reservations for that guilt trip you’re starting on and fucking hug me back properly.”

Jon laughed. “You always did know how to say just the right thing at the right time,” he mumbled as he let himself sink into Tim’s embrace.

Tim tightened his arms. “There you go. Welcome home.” He clapped Jon on the back, then stepped back with a smile. “C’mon. Let’s get this party started.”

“As long as you don’t make us play Strip Charades again,” Martin teased.

Jon stumbled. “Again?”

The way both Martin and Tim laughed at his reaction told him they were just kidding. Probably. He hoped.

The front room of the house did hold all the garish, over-the-top decorations Jon had expected. Apart from what was presumably a Christmas tree under the glut of lights, tinsel, and ornaments, topped with a lopsided star that looked like it had been crafted by a glassblower with the hiccups, there was no part of the wall not covered in garland, ribbon, or something glittery. The coffee table was covered with neatly-arranged platters of every kind of biscuit imaginable, from brandy snaps to shortbreads to something soft and crazed and dusted with powdered sugar, while Sasha and Past Jon tried to shuffle things around to make room for a charcuterie plate. On every other available surface stood a jar candle, lit and emitting a pleasant, Christmas-themed scent, that all mingled together in a miasma that was just a tad overwhelming.

A portrait of an angel in bright tempera paint, with two sets of glitter-dusted handprints for wings, held pride of place on the wall. It looked like a child’s school project, and Jon was going to go closer to peer at the signature when Past Martin came into the room, bearing a tray loaded with six steaming mugs. “I don’t know where we’re going to put these, guys, but—oh, hey, you made it!”

Past Jon and Sasha looked up from their endeavors with broad smiles. Warmth bloomed in Jon’s chest at the relaxed, contented look on his counterpart’s face, and he swore again that he would do whatever it took to keep that look there. “Good Lord, you weren’t joking about the baked goods.”

“This isn’t even all of them. Just what we could fit on the table,” Past Jon said ruefully. “We’ll give you some to take back with you whenever you leave. You, too, Sasha.”

“Sit down,” Tim told them. “All of you. We’re not standing on ceremony. This is just…we’re just getting together, right? Baked goods, hot drinks, telling stories, maybe playing some games that don’t rely on being able to see?”

“Damn. I was looking forward to dominating you at ‘I Spy,’” Martin said with a straight face. Jon choked back a laugh.

Sasha perched in an armchair, her legs crossed beneath her as she took one of the mugs from Past Martin. Past Jon and Tim sat on the sofa, and Martin and Jon, as was their wont, took the loveseat. As Martin accepted a mug from the tray—Jon found himself continually delighted that they always made sure there was a mug with a distinct carving or detail to it so Martin would be able to tell his from the others if he set it down—he asked, “How was the Institute party this year?”

Jon hid his smile behind his own mug at the chorus of groans from the other four. “That bad, huh?”

“Oh, God.” Tim picked up a gingerbread man and bit its head off savagely.

“So first of all,” Sasha said, “there’s the usual bullshit that comes from an Institute event—namely, a bunch of upper-class old white men talking down to anyone who isn’t and a load of rich people expecting everyone to suck up to them—all of whom, I might add, we had to interact with because, between the CO2 system getting installed, the fire, the infestation, and the subsequent cleanup, not to mention the usual requisitions and expenses we had to deal with, the Archives apparently had the highest budget of all the departments this year, so we had to deal with the donors—”

“Hey, at least there were four of you to spread it around a bit,” Martin pointed out. “Our Tim and I had to do it all on our own. The Not-Sasha didn’t show and Jon left early after spending the entire time he was actually there in a corner nursing a glass of wine and hissing at people walking past.”

“I would like to register a protest about that description.” Jon rested his hand on Martin’s leg, and Martin covered it with his own. “Unfortunately, it would do me no good, because it’s accurate.”

Sasha giggled. Past Martin snorted. “Yeah, well, then you had that one guy who thought he was God’s gift to women. Half the female-coded people at the party spent the night trying to get away from him and the other half were practically dripping off of him, until he made the mistake of flirting with a married woman whose husband is apparently some sort of underground fighter. Who took it aboveground. There was punch everywhere, it was nuts.”

“At least that was towards the end of the night,” Tim added. “And made slightly more interesting by the fact that whoever was in charge of the music managed to find ‘Bad, Bad Leroy Brown’ and put it on in the background while it was going on.”

Past Jon sighed heavily. “You know, I think I would have been able to handle all of that if I hadn’t also had to deal with Elias. Bad enough having to pretend I don’t know what he is or what’s going on. Worse to have to pretend I didn’t know what he did to Martin.”

Past Martin blushed and looked down at his mug. Tim’s hand tightened on his own, but then he said evenly, “Hey, I already told them. We’re not talking about any of that heavy stuff tonight. This is a night for fun. We can vent about Elias fucking Bouchard on…Monday, ‘cause we’re not talking about it on Christmas either.”

“Yes, sir,” Past Jon said with a mocking salute. Tim kicked at him halfheartedly, but he was laughing, too.

The conversation did shift after that, thankfully. They nibbled at the biscuits and cheeses on the table as they talked about the best and worst Christmas parties they’d ever attended. Martin was attempting to describe the horror that had been Peter Lukas’ Institute shindig when the doorbell chimed. Past Jon looked up with a frown. “Who could that be at this hour? On Christmas Eve, no less?”

“I’ll get it.” Past Martin set his mug down and crossed over to the front door, then opened it.

“Here we come a-caroling—” The lone voice that started singing was high, young, and punctuated by the peculiar wobble caused by someone hopping from foot to foot on each downbeat while they sang.

“Charlie, where’s your coat?” Past Martin sounded like he was trying not to laugh.

“It’s not so bad as long as I keep moving,” a child’s voice replied.

“Go home and put a coat on. Or at least a sweater.”

Past Jon rolled his eyes at Jon, but he was smiling fondly; Jon wasn’t sure if it was at Martin’s instinctive tendency to mother hen or at the idea of the child on the stoop. From the expressions on his and Tim’s faces, Jon suspected they’d had more interactions with Charlie beyond the initial one when he’d dropped off the casserole and cake the day they moved in.

Their expressions froze, however, when the child’s voice replied, “I can’t. Nan says I’m not allowed in the house by myself, so I have to stay outside until she gets home from midnight mass.”

“You didn’t go with her?” Past Martin asked.

“Oh, you know…” The child’s voice trailed away.

Past Jon was already up and moving towards the kitchen when Past Martin said, “Tell you what, why don’t you come inside and help us eat some of these biscuits? We can tell stories and sing some carols together until your nan gets back.”

“Will I be in the way?”

“Of course not. We’ve got plenty of room for you.”

“Well…okay.”

Past Martin stepped aside, then closed the door and ushered their new guest over. Jon gave a fleeting thought to how they were going to explain his and Martin’s presence, a thought that was swept aside as soon as he laid eyes on the child. He was no more than seven, still rounded with baby fat, and far too young to be left outside alone after dark. He was dressed in a shirt too thin for the weather, and despite his brave words outside he was shivering slightly as he got warm.

What left Jon breathless, however, was the fact that, save for his hair—which was a dark reddish-brown instead of bleached blonde—he was a dead ringer for Annabelle Cane.

Fortunately, Charlie—if that’s who he was—didn’t notice Jon’s face at first, or anything else about him. His attention was caught by the painting that had caught Jon’s eye upon entry, and his whole face lit up. “You really framed it?”

“I told you it was good enough to be in a museum,” Tim pointed out.

Charlie scuffed a shoe against the carpet. “Yeah, but I thought you were just saying that ‘cause you thought you were supposed to.”

“Tim never does anything he’s supposed to,” Past Jon called from the kitchen.

“Shut up,” Tim called back, but he was laughing.

Charlie giggled. It sounded like the usual innocent, impish laughter of a child, but Jon was on edge enough to be wary. Even knowing the entities didn’t usually like the fear of children, he was…worried. The Web, more than any other save perhaps the Dark, had a tendency to mark children, or so he’d gleaned from all the statements he’d consumed over the years, not to mention his own personal experience. Between his appearance, his name, and the fact that abuse and neglect could sometimes beget exactly the sort of survival tactics that would draw the attention of the Mother of Puppets, it was a risk, and Jon couldn’t help himself.

He reached out with his powers, just a little bit. He didn’t have Tim’s eyes, and he’d never quite understood how Elias saw and identified the marks, but he could, at the very least, sense if someone had a statement to feed the Eye. Even if it would be something the Eye found unappetizing or…unfinished, if Charlie had been touched by one of the fears, he would know.

Nothing. He almost gasped with relief. Charlie was a solitary child, starved for affection, certainly vulnerable to a surprising number of the entities as well as just ordinary horrible people, and aware in a way even Jon and Martin had never been at his age that his grandmother hated him—and his father had definitely been one of Annabelle’s brothers. But none of the fears had even started giving him attention. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Jon withdrew his mind and smiled, and in that instant, Charlie tore his attention away from the angel and caught sight of Jon and Martin sitting on the loveseat. “Oh! Hello. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“You’re fine,” Jon assured him.

Past Martin patted Charlie’s shoulder. “Charlie, this is my cousin Kieran and his fiancé, Walter. And this is our friend Sasha, she works with us…guys, this is Charlie. He lives a couple doors down.”

“And he’s an amazing baker, too,” Tim added, sweeping a hand at the mass of plates on the table. “He helped us with all this.”

Suddenly, Jon understood why there were so many baked goods. “And a fine job he did of it. It’s wonderful to meet you, Charlie.”

“Good to meet you, too.” Charlie gave Jon a broad, gap-toothed smile, but his eyes were puzzled. “Are you Jon’s cousin, too? You look a lot like him.”

“Ah—not his cousin, but we are related,” Jon said, which was true enough to be getting on with. “I suppose ‘cousin’ works, though.”

“They’re visiting us for Christmas,” Past Martin explained, shooing Charlie towards the sofa. “Here, come have a seat…Kier, you were telling us about that work party that went south?”

“That was it, really,” Martin said. “I had to do most of the talking, but there wasn’t really a lot of talking to be done. Quietest office party I’ve ever been to.”

“Where do you work?” Charlie asked innocently as Past Jon came back with a mug for him.

“Oh, that was a couple years ago. I don’t work there anymore.” Martin tapped the corner of his eye. “I went blind earlier this year. But I used to be the personal assistant to a man named Peter Lukas.”

Charlie accepted his mug from Past Jon with a surprised thank-you and settled onto the sofa between Past Martin and Past Jon. “I’m sorry you went blind. Is it scary?”

“It was a little, at first, but I’m used to it now.” Martin squeezed Jon’s hand and directed a smile at him. “And I have the best support I could ask for.”

Jon smiled back. “I do what I can.”

Tim plied Charlie with sweets for a minute, effectively distracting him from asking Jon or Martin any more questions. He waited until Charlie was halfway through a florentine before he said casually, “I bet it’s not much fun at your grandmother’s church. Not on Christmas, anyway. Maybe sometimes it is, but if you have to sit still for a whole hour?”

“Oh, it’s more than an hour. It’s a long, long time. Nan won’t be back until very late,” Charlie said. “But there’s lots of music, and I love it when the lights are off and all the candles are lit and it’s quiet except for the chanting and singing and the organ playing. And I like listening to the stories and the messages.” He suddenly looked anxious as he looked up at Tim. “And I can sit still, honest. I’m very, very good in church.”

“I believe it,” Tim assured him quickly. “You��re good everywhere else, so why not in church?”

Charlie looked hopeful. “You really think so?”

Tim ruffled Charlie’s hair, making him giggle. “I sure do, buddy. Why didn’t you go with your grandmother this year?”

“Oh…” Charlie’s face fell, and he looked down into the mug in his hands. After a moment, he mumbled, “I’m not allowed to go back to church with Nan unless I stop being a boy.”

Two bright spots of color appeared in Tim’s cheeks, and he pressed his lips tightly together. The look Past Jon and Past Martin exchanged told Jon this was not a new and startling discovery for them like it was for him, but then, if they’d truly interacted with Charlie for a while, he’d probably told them something like this before. It still seemed to upset them, though.

“Is that your nan’s rule, or the church’s?” Martin asked, in the same tone he’d once used to ask Jon how many times he’d listened to the tapes after the Watcher’s Crown—gentle and patient, but with an undercurrent of worry and maybe a bit of anger that was being restrained so the questioned didn’t think it was directed at him. It brought back memories of those horrible—weeks? Months?—after the world ended, but also brought feelings of safety and security and love.

Charlie responded to it the same way Jon always had. He raised his head and gave him a look of mingled sorrow and trust. “Both. The teachers at church say God won’t recognize me if I’m a boy, and Nan says Mum and Dad wouldn’t either.”

“Well, that’s silly,” Jon said, trying to summon up the brusque and authoritative face he’d put on as the Archivist. “Anyone who doesn’t recognize you because you’re a boy isn’t someone who knows you, or loves you. You would know your parents no matter what they looked like, wouldn’t you? Even if you haven’t seen them in a while.”

“I—I think so.”

“Then they’ll know you, even though you didn’t tell them you were a boy the last time you saw them in person. And if they don’t, they don’t deserve to know you.”

“You can trust him, you know,” Sasha said sagely. “He knows everything in the world.”

Charlie’s eyes widened. “Really? Everything in the whole world?”

“Just about.” Jon decided not to go into the limitations of his abilities, or indeed what those abilities were. They weren’t important to the discussion.

Charlie studied Jon with a gravity far beyond his years. At last, he asked, “What’s her name?”

“Whose name?” Jon frowned. Had he missed part of the conversation?

“My—Mum said my sister was on the way. But something went wrong, and Nan said Mum and the baby both died. I never even got to meet her. If you know everything in the whole world, what’s my sister’s name?”

Jon hesitated. He wasn’t sure if that was actually something he could Know, considering there was a good chance everyone who knew the answer to that was dead. But he knew he had to try. And if he couldn’t come up with the answer, he wouldn’t lie. He wouldn’t. He reached out with the Eye, feeling the familiar crackle of static as he did so.

In the end, it was easier than he’d thought—just a matter of plucking the right information from the right heads. The date and location of Charlie’s mother’s death from his grandmother’s mind, a nurse who’d been in the room, a buried memory of a gasped-out conversation, and a startlingly clear pair of blue eyes meeting her mother’s before taking her last breath. He couldn’t help but smile.

“Athena Joy,” he answered.

Charlie looked at him, then smiled, too. “Athena Joy Cane is a pretty name.”

It effectively ended the serious part of the conversation, which was a relief. Instead, they started telling stories of Christmases they’d experienced when they were younger, which devolved into jokes and silly stories. Tim got up to refill everyone’s mugs at one point. He was gone for quite a while, and Jon would be prepared to swear he heard the kitchen door open at least twice, but he didn’t say anything. Not then. Instead, he simply accepted his refill and watched Tim settle back onto the sofa.

“Shame it’s so overcast,” he commented. “I took a peek outside, and it’s still cloudy. I love studying the sky on Christmas Eve.”

“Looking for Father Christmas?” Sasha teased.

“Ha, ha.” Tim stuck his tongue out at her. “No, I just like looking at the stars. I mean, I always like looking at the stars, but there’s something special about it on Christmas Eve.”

Past Martin looked wistful. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I used to sit and watch the stars while I listened to the bells. I could almost convince myself the stars were ringing, too.”

“What bells?” Sasha frowned.

“Church bells, mostly. I didn’t attend services or anything, it wasn’t—” Past Martin checked himself with a swift glance at Charlie. “I always felt like the message in the bells was more comforting.”

“‘The wrong shall fail, the right prevail’,” Martin said softly.

Jon looked over at Martin, struck by the words in a way he couldn’t quite explain. “What was that?”

“It’s a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Someone put a tune to it later. Granddad taught it to us, remember?”

Past Martin opened his mouth, then memory lit up his eyes. “Oh, yeah! ‘I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.’ Yeah, that makes sense, now I think about it.”

“How’s it go? Can you sing it?” Charlie asked around a mouthful of mint meltaway.

Jon expected Martin to prevaricate or enter a stammering denial. Certainly Past Martin blushed and opened his mouth to. But before anyone could say anything, Martin took a deep breath and began. “I heard the bells on Christmas Day their old, familiar carols play…”

Jon had only heard Martin sing a couple of times before—the time he’d sung to the little girl in the Archives, and when he’d sung along to the recordings while they helped the others set up the house—and the former he’d been barely audible and singing to entertain a child, while with the latter it had been a bit difficult to parse out what was Martin (or Past Martin) and what was actually on the recording. This was different. This was Martin alone and unaccompanied and singing a song he meant in a voice meant to be heard, and it was one of the purest, warmest, most beautiful things Jon had ever heard in his life, topped only by his name on Martin’s lips and the sound of him saying I love you.

It took until the third verse for Past Martin to finally join in, but when he did, it only added to the song. Jon let the words fill his mind as the music settled in his soul. They spoke at first of a message of despair, but then of hope, reminding the singer—the poet, really, Jon supposed—that hate wouldn’t, couldn’t, win in the end. That there was still a greater power out there.

When they finished, Charlie stared at them both with shining eyes. He wasn’t alone in that; both Tim and Past Jon looked as though their brains had short-circuited. Jon couldn’t blame them. Honestly, even he hadn’t known Martin had a voice like that.

“That,” Sasha said softly from her armchair, “was brilliant.”

“I like that song,” Charlie said. “Do you know any others?”

Past Martin blushed a flaming red, but Martin simply smiled. “Lots. What’s your favorite?”

It was the right thing to say, apparently, as Charlie launched into a song he liked that even Jon, who’d never really sung Christmas songs until he’d been in college and his friends had all but bullied him into it, knew all the words to. Sasha joined in, along with both Martins, and eventually Tim and Past Jon recovered enough to join in as well. They spent the next couple of hours interspersing songs with stories and poems, from the familiar to the obscure. Charlie’s enthusiasm was impossible to quash and even harder not to respond to.

Eventually, however, his eyelids flickered, and it was obvious he was forcing himself to stay awake. Sasha caught Past Martin’s eye and nods quickly at him; Past Martin nodded back and set his empty mug down. He ran his fingers through Charlie’s curls for a moment, then started to sing a song Jon had never heard before. “When the mountain touches the valley…”

Martin joined in with a soft harmony—or perhaps it was considered a counter-melody, Jon wasn’t quite sure—and it was another hauntingly beautiful song. Tim caught Jon’s eye and jerked his head towards the light switch; Jon nodded, slipped off the love seat, and turned off the main lights, leaving them bathed only in the glow of the candles and the Christmas tree as the Martins sang. By the time the song ended, Charlie was curled up in Past Martin’s lap, sound asleep.

“That worked surprisingly well,” Past Martin said, keeping his voice low.

“My God.” Past Jon’s voice was barely above a whisper, and Jon didn’t think it was to keep from waking Charlie.

Sasha snorted softly. “Seriously, why did you not study music in school, because that was fantastic.”

“I-I mean…I had to drop out,” Past Martin reminded her. “We needed the money. I was studying music before that.”

“Wait, seriously?” Jon said, startled. “How did I not ever know that?”

“Jon, you never asked,” Martin said, squeezing his hand. “We never really talked about college or anything like that. I dropped out, that was all we ever brought up. But yeah, I was in a music program. That woman, um, what was her name—the one that came up after the Christmas concert?”

Past Martin frowned. “God, I don’t…Mrs. Smith?”

“Yeah, her. The one that said she knew Granddad.” Martin sighed. “Anyway, she’s the one that suggested I audition for the program. Got in, too. But I was only a couple weeks into the first term when Mum got really bad and I had to drop out.”

Tim shook his head. “You never cease to amaze me, Martin.”

Past Martin blushed furiously. Sasha put her mug to her lips, but since she didn’t take a sip, Jon guessed it was to hide a grin. “If I’d known that, I’d have bought you some music books for your birthday or something.”

“Oh, I don’t—I don’t really sing anymore. Not like that. Just, you know, folk songs and that sort of thing. I was never all that great with the fancier stuff, really. I’m okay with choral stuff, but…” Past Martin trailed off.

Jon decided to spare him and change the subject. “I take it Charlie’s been spending a lot of his time over here? He seems…comfortable.”

“Yeah. His grandmother’s not the outgoing type, but she’ll have her bridge club over or a sewing club or something and he has to either stay in his room or go outside, so lately he’s been coming over here,” Tim answered. “He’s a good kid. And he likes us, too.”

“Jon’s his favorite,” Past Martin added with a teasing smile.

Jon looked pointedly at the little boy cuddled against Past Martin’s chest, relaxed and contented, with his fingers curled in one of the cables. “Are you sure about that?”

Past Jon gave a soft, shaky laugh. He still looked rather stunned, which, well, Jon couldn’t blame him. “Frankly, I think his favorite is ‘whoever is paying him attention at the moment.’ He’s well cared-for from a physical point of view, but…”

Jon understood. His grandmother had been much the same—resenting being asked to raise a child after her own were grown, mourning his father and constantly reminded of him every time she saw Jon, making sure he was fed and clothed and educated but never taking the time to get to know him. He imagined it would have been worse if she’d known he was queer, although he couldn’t be sure.

“He seems like a good lad,” he said. “Lucky thing he has the three of you.”

All three of them seemed embarrassed by that. Sasha didn’t even try to hide her grin this time. “Suppose his grandmother will think to look over here for him if she gets back and he’s not at home.”

“If she doesn’t think of it herself, I left her a note,” Tim said.

“I thought I heard the kitchen door,” Jon said, raising an eyebrow.

Tim ignored him. “I said we’d keep him until the morning if she gets back too late. Frankly, I wouldn’t send him back at all if I didn’t have to, but…”

“No, me, either.” Past Martin got carefully to his feet, cradling Charlie in his arms; the boy’s head flopped onto Past Martin’s shoulder as he nestled against him in his sleep. “I’m going to go tuck him in, at least for a bit. Be right back.”

Past Jon watched him leave the room with an expression that felt familiar to Jon. He brought Martin’s hand to his lips and kissed the back of it gently. “All that goes to prove I’m right, you know. You’re going to make an excellent father someday, Martin.”

Martin laughed softly. “Thanks. I think.”

Past Martin came back into the living room and took his seat. Tim and Past Jon leaned into him from either side, and the six of them just sat together for a bit longer in silence as the candle flames flickered and the lights on the tree twinkled.

Finally, Tim started singing, his voice low and rumbling, a Christmas song Jon was mostly familiar with. Past Martin joined in, then Martin, until all of them were singing along as the world turned on and the clock ticked over to midnight and Christmas Eve turned to Christmas Day.

And for a little while, Jon felt completely at peace.

#ollie writes fanfic #leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall)#jonmartin #tma #the magnus archives #implied transphobia #implied emotional abuse #death mention #child death mention

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blissfulalchemist · 4 years ago

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Hey, so for the drabble challenge, can you do "Stay awake" and "It's Christmas, don't be mad at me," for a young (like when they were kids) Chance and Faith. Like they're waiting up for Santa or something. You said you wanted platonic at, and it would just be so cute, but if not, I entirely understand, and you do not have to

Alright this was a brilliant idea so thank you for the suggestion please enjoy young Chance, Faith, and his family!

“So how did Christmas go for you this year?” Chance asked as he picked up rock tossing them into the river, “Did you get anything cool?”

Rachel jumped back some of the water splashing in her direction, “We didn’t get a Christmas. Santa didn’t come this year.”

Chance looked at her eyebrows raised, eyes wide, “What?! He comes to everyone! How did he miss you guys?”

She shrugged her small shoulders, “Maybe I wasn’t good enough.” The two looked up at the sound of Rachel’s name being called from the house. “I should get going. I’ll see you in a few days Chance!” She called out rushing up the hill. Chance stood at the bottom rubbing his chin with his thumb as his dad would. It didn’t seem fair that Chance got a Christmas and she didn’t. But it was May and he didn’t come up for Christmas normally so there went that plan…..unless.

Chance gasped running back to his house barreling through the front door, “Dad! Dad!”

Ray took the stairs two at a time, panic in his deep blue eyes, “Chance! Are you okay?”

Chance was catching his breath, “Yeah I’m fine. And Rachel’s fine but dad!” He stood up straighter, “We need to make Christmas!”

Ray’s face went from panicked to confused as he ran a hand through his greying black hair, “You want to make….Christmas….in May?”

Chance rolled his eyes, “Uh yeah. I have to.”

Ray shook his head pinching the bridge of his nose, “Does this have to do with Rachel?”

“Yeah. Dad, Santa did visit her this past year and it’s not fair!”

“Okay, okay. Calm down, son,” Ray took a deep breath looking around the house. ”I think I have some ideas on how we could do that,” he placed a hand on Chance’s shoulder, “Let’s go make sure Grandpa is okay with it first okay.”

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

Rachel stepped out of the car looking up to Ray’s eyes, “Where’s Chance? He always waits for me out here.”

Ray gestured to the house, “Well he’s got a surprise for you inside.” He led her through the front door, the house covered in gold, red, and green.

Rachel’s eyes went wide as she took it all in. The small pine tree, lights wrapped around it, the wreaths littering the walls, red bows connecting them all together. Stockings hung on the fireplace with care, Christmas music playing softly, the smell of sugar cookies baking hitting Rachel’s nose as her eyes landed on Chance. His brown hair covered by a red santa hat, a too big sweater with reindeer, gapped tooth grin on his face as he walked to hug her. “Merry Christmas Rachel!” He declared as he led her into the house, “Look, I made you a stocking,” Chance pointed to the one in the middle Rachel’s name made out of yarn and adorned with blue snowflakes.

“Chance,” he looked to her blue-green eyes, “it’s May.”

He rolled his eyes, “No it’s Christmas,” he pointed to the calendar on the fridge, “See it’s Christmas. Right dad?”

Ray nodded, having put on his own Christmas vest and a red nose, “He’s right it’s Christmas. Well Christmas Eve to be exact.” Rachel looked between Chance and his dad, doubtful crossing her arms.

The back door opened to Mickey Ruicknar stomping in brushing off the white flakes from his hair, “Well looks like that snow is starting to come down.” Rachel’s eyes went wide looking out the window.

“It’s May,” she protested, “It can’t be snowing.”

Ray squatted down to look her in the eye, “I promise you it’s snowing. You want me to show you?” A small smile came to her face as she nodded, “Alright let me show you,” he lifted her from the ground, Chance following behind. He brought her up to the back window, her eyes going wider the closer she got. The white flakes fell gracefully to the ground that was covered in white. “See it’s snowing outside,” Ray set her back down on the ground, “but we can’t go outside because it’s just way too cold.”

“Yeah and we have to make cookies still for Santa,” Chance pulled her towards the kitchen where Mickey was pulling out a tray from the oven.

Chance didn’t hesitate in pulling one of the perfectly golden brown cookies from the hot tray, “Chance! Those can burn you still,” Mickey chastised as Chance reached for another one.

“Hey- Ow. Ow,” Chance handed one of the hot cookies off to Rachel, “Careful they’re hot. But Grandpa it’s Christmas, you can’t be mad at me.”

Rachel tossed the cookie from hand to hand before placing it on the counter, “I think he can still Chance. May I have one of the other cookies?”

Mickey brought the plate of cooled and finished cookies down from the counter, moving it away quickly when Chance tried to reach for one, “Chance, kiddo, you’ve already had six of them. You won’t eat dinner.”

Chance looked to the floor sad, the warm cookie stuffed in his mouth, “I can still eat dinner.”

Rachel laughed at him, “Yeah Chance you won’t be able to eat dinner!” She grabbed a blue frosted cookie, her lips starting to stain already. She stuck her tongue at Chance who responded in kind.

“Alright kids,” Ray announced placing a box near the small pine tree, “Who’s ready to decorate the tree?”

“Me! Me!” The two kids screamed as they rushed over to the box of sturdy ornaments and some that were made the day before. Rachel pulled out the sparkling silver garland wrapping it around herself like a scarf singing along to the song playing on the radio. Chance making work of pulling out some of the pine cones, their placement haphazard, his voice over taking Rachel’s. She lightly pushed him laughing and giggling as Chance dropped a little tinsel in her hair. The older men watched and helped out where they could, their main job keeping the cookies from burning and that the snow stayed falling.

Ray had doubted the reception of Christmas in May for Rachel would be what Chance expected but he was right in that it wasn’t fair. Seeing the two of them laughing, dancing, and singing made it worthwhile to go as big as they did. Ray took a sip of the Irish coffee leaning against the kitchen counter, Chance and Rachel having moved on to coloring and writing letters to Santa, his own father joining him. “Can’t believe you talked me into this,” old Mickey gave a sigh, “glad we did this though. Nice to see him spending Christmas with someone else close to his age.”

“Yeah, it is. Guess that’s what we get for having such a small family,” Ray met his father’s light blue eyes.

Mickey scoffed, “Yeah. Just glad you got a little bit of time with them,” Ray watched as his father grabbed a cookie, “You think maybe we come up here for the holidays from now on? Let those two celebrate it together,” he pointed to the kids lying on their stomachs on the floor, both with the tips of their tongues sticking out of their mouth as they concentrated on writing.

Rachel’s raised feet moving along to the beat of Paul McCartney from the radio had Ray thinking about the possibility, but work was work and Montana winters were unpredictable. “Her family would never let her come over during that time. It’s hard enough now to get them to allow her over as it is,” Ray set his mug down shaking his head, “I wouldn’t want to get their hopes up.”

“And there’s your work too,” Mickey reminded him, “But you have a point. So what, we just have Christmas in May every year?” Ray gave his dad a shrug laughing, his dad putting his hand on his shoulder, “Well guess I better leave the rigs up then. Too bad you can’t just have Rachel stay with us full time. If it’s as bad as it seems then it would be best for her.” Chance stood up making his way to Mickey paper in hand, Rachel not far behind, “Did you two finish your letters already?”

The two kids nodded and spoke eagerly as Mickey led them back to the living room, looking over their work, Ray left in the kitchen lost in thought. Surely it wasn’t impossible to take Rachel in, but it would be hard, take some time. Would it even be the right move to take Rachel in? Would she be okay once all was said and done? Ray shook the thoughts from his head, it was just the heat of the moment thinking, he was probably misreading some of the events that had passed recently. If it looked like it was getting worse Ray would look into it, after getting a professional involved.

“Dad! Is it time to decorate the cookies?” Chance asked, bringing Ray back to the room around him.

“It’s only because you want to eat them right away,” Rachel giggled.

Chance rolled his eyes, “Well yeah what else are you gonna do with them?”

She put her hands on her hips, “Make a gingerbread house,” she looked up to Ray and Mickey scared, “Wait did we make gingerbread?”

Ray pulled down the box on the fridge, “Well we didn’t but we managed to find a kit,” Ray set it down gently on the table, “You just have to be careful okay?”

Rachel screamed in joy as she jumped up and down, clapping her hands, “I promise! Chance can we do that first? Please, please,” she begged.

Ray laughed at the look Chance gave her, his lips pursed, green eyes looking to the ceiling away from her, “Well I guess we can make the house first, Princess.” She squealed, giving him a hug before pulling him by the arm to the table. Ray pulled out the disposable camera taking more pictures of the night hoping that maybe some would turn out decent to commemorate the night. The two of them fighting over the best way to set up the house, or what decorations went where, had Ray and Mickey wondering how a house managed to get built and the lack of frosting on the walls. The cookie men proved to be where the frosting fight began. To be fair, Chance had started it by eating the eye of Rachel’s cookie self, she was appalled and covered cookie Chance’s green eyes with black frosting. Back and forth the two went, frosting ending up in both of their hair by the end of it all.

“Chance you weren’t playing fair!”

“I was only joking!”

“Alright you two,” Ray warned, “Let’s take a breath and then we can get the two of you cleaned up okay. Besides its time for bed soon anyway,” Ray patted their small shoulders.

“Mr. Ray,” Rachel looked up to him, her eyes big, “Is Santa really going to come tonight?”

“Well of course he is,” Mickey’s deep voice interjected, “But you have to be in bed first before he comes. It’s part of what makes the magic work,” Mickey winked at Ray.

“He’s right. So let’s get ready for bed,” Ray looked to Chance, “You take a bath first mister.”

“Yes, sir,” Chance mumbled, getting down from the chair, the older men’s eyes not leaving Chance until he went to the bathroom.

“What about me? I don’t have anything for a bath,” Rachel asked softly.

Ray knew it was a lie, “You have some in your bag, you showed me earlier,” she shook her head fervently. She was lying but there was no reason to lie, Ray glanced up to his father, “You’re right. I’m sorry Rachel.” He pulled out a frosting covered strand of hair, “However we need to get this frosting out of your hair still, so here’s what we’re going to do,” Ray pointed to the kitchen sink, “We are going to wash your hair in the sink there and clean your face up. Then you can go to Chance’s room and change.” He looked her in the eye, “Is that okay?”

She nodded smiling, getting the shampoo from her bag. “You might be onto something Ray,” Mickey whispered, “I’m gonna check up on the snow.”

Ray nodded making sure the two kids got ready for bed and all their letters and cookies for Santa placed by the tree. Ray was starting to usher them to the room when Rachel spoke up, “Can you read us a story? The Christmas story?”

Chance looked up to his dad before looking to the ground sadly, “We don’t have the book Rachel,” he told her avoiding her eyes, “Sorry.”

Her shoulders slumped, “Well we may not have a book but I have it memorized,” Ray tapped the side of his head. “Come on let’s get you into bed and then I can tell you the story.” Their faces lit up rushing and shoving the other to get onto the bed first, settling the pillows just right. Chance holding his white toy cat Artemis, a crescent moon on his forehead, Rachel gripping the Cheeseburger bear she won the summer before at the Testy Festy. The blue and green eyes focused on Ray as he clapped his hands, “Okay you ready?” They nodded, “Twas the night before Christmas…,” Ray started, he got through the first verse before forgetting all the exact words. The improvisation worked on them as the two kids laughed and their eyelids became heavier, eventually falling asleep.

Ray tucked them both under the covers before silently leaving the room. “You going to stay awake with me,” Mickey’s voice startled Ray as he grabbed his chest, “or are you actually going to try and get some sleep?”

“I’m fine dad. I want to help you get the presents all set up,” Ray waved his dad off making his way up to his room in the attic. The box of gifts and candy in the center of it, Ray hoped that Rachel would be happy with what they had picked out for her, if anything she couldn’t hate the stocking stuffers. When Ray got to the living room he tossed a red hat with a white beard attached to it towards his father, “Here in case they wake up.”

Mickey looked at it laughing, “You got a red coat in there too?” Ray grinned as he pulled out the read coat, “Of course you do.” Mickey groaned as he stood to put the garments on, “You really can’t do things halfway can you?”

“Chance wanted to go all out, so that’s what I did,” Ray shrugged, getting the smaller gifts placed in the stockings.

“Kid was also fine with there being no snow, but you managed to set up a rig that let’s the fake snow fall constantly,” Mickey adjusted the belt on the coat before bending down to help fill the other stockings.

“A basic chemical reaction and reusing an old fertilizer spreader is not that hard to do dad,” Ray picked up one of the cookies taking a bite.

His dad shook his head rolling his eyes, “Proves my point more Ray. Thinkin’ ‘bout it though, she deserves the all out.” Mickey finished setting up the stockings taking a break on the sofa, “I think we can wait to set the presents out a little bit.”

“Starting to get too old for Christmas, Dad?”

“Nah,” he reached for the letters next to the cookies, “I just want to see what they asked for.” He handed one over to Ray, the picture drawn by Chance, it asked for a science coat like dad’s and that Rachel has a fun time. “He’s gonna take after you, Ray, I promise you that,” Mickey looked at the one from Rachel, “Dear Santa I just want a pretty crown of flowers and to spend real Christmas with the Ruicknar’s.” Ray and Mickey looked at the letter, a family picture with herself thrown in, drawn on the back, “Maybe you make the time to come up here Ray. We could all have a real Christmas. One the two of them can play in the snow kind of Christmas.”

Ray sighed, taking the letter, “Maybe. I’ll see what I can do dad,” Ray turned the letter back over chuckling, “She spelled our last name wrong,” the two laughed trying to not wake them, “Can’t blame her though. She was close….”

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

Chance pulled the old journal down from the shelf looking at the dates on the side, January 2000 to June 2000. He had skipped over this journal the first time around, paying more attention to finding out about his mom and his dad’s early life. Chance turned to head back downstairs to Faith who was making pasta, hearing the falling of thick paper. He looked down to the floor seeing bright blue and pink construction paper and two photos. He picked them up, looking them over as he walked down the stairs.

The first picture was of him and Faith as kids, frosting on their faces, his dad behind them smiling at the camera, a messy gingerbread house in front of them. Chance set it down on the table taking a seat looking at the other picture, this one Chance’s grandfather holding Faith helping her put the star on top the small tree while Chance sulked underneath, he couldn’t help but laugh at how dramatic he was back then. Faith turned to face him in her too big plaid shirt, “What’s so funny?”

Chance handed over the photo, “You remember when we had Christmas in May?” He looked over their letters to Santa once she took the pictures from him.

She smiled fondly at the memories, “Yeah. You guys got me a book on Greek myths. It was way too advanced for me, but I read it all the time once I was older,” she moved to sit in Chance’s lap kissing him, “I still have it too.”

#chance ruicknar oc #x: emo flower child #a chance for faith #I hope you enjoy it!

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writing-and-uhh-stuff · 5 years ago

Text

My sweater half

On ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21886408

Summary:

The day before Christmas Eve Roman is faced with a problem: his own Christmas present plus his upset beloved Patton, who did his best at making said present. Would Roman be able to fix it?

Pairing: romantic Royality

Warnings: None

❤️💙👑👕👓💙❤️

‘Roman!’

Creativity almost dropped his almost-fully-manicured sword upon hearing the whine that had escaped from his lover’s mouth.

The mindpalace’s commons had been completely silent only brief seconds ago, when Roman was the only one there. The Christmas tree shone bright and showed off its colourful baubles and garlands like a French aristocrat from the 17 century. It was the 23. December, just a day before Christmas eve.

‘Roman!’ the plea echoed across the room once more. A cardigan-clad man, glasses nestled janky in his bed hair and clothes wrinkled, made his way slowly across the room, each step a soft and at the same time distraught sound. From his movements alone, from the shaky-breaths to the relentless rubbing of his face, Roman understood the other was feeling perturbed. His breath got stuck in his throat; normally, whenever he saw the love of his life, he made the room seem brighter. Now he stood there, the portrait of a sad subject. And Roman would do anything for him to be happy.

Patton, teary-eyed and hugging something Roman could only describe as a mess of wool, stood droopy in front of the sofa, hunched shoulders, unable to make eye contact with the other Side. Not being able to get lost in his eyes or caress his face, his cheeks with freckles sprinkled like stardust, was about to crush Creativity.

He threw his sword out of the way as soon as he could. The blade clanked uselessly on the floor.

‘Padre, dear, what’s the matter?’ Creativity quickly sprang to hug him, squeezing tight, brushing the other’s hair with his fingertips. ‘Your prince is here to slay any monster and punish any bandit that dares upset his beloved!’

Albeit a few more tears slipped out and watered Roman’s sash, Patton couldn’t help but crack a smile and nestled himself even closer, practically rubbing his entire face on Roman’s chest. The two of them remained like this until Patton’s breathing had calmed down completely. He pulled away gently and put his smudged glasses back on. Roman was about to say something else but saw that Patton wanted to explain:

‘This is… was supposed to be your Christmas present, Ro.’ Patton’s arm swung meekly. Creativity’s attention was immediately focused on the thing in it, mostly because he really wasn’t sure what that was supposed to be. Afraid of upsetting his boyfriend further though, he didn’t say a word. ‘I wanted to knit you a Christmas sweater, just like you do for us every year. But I messed it up! I tried fixing it but couldn’t, and now there’s no time to make you another gift. I’m so sorry… I ruined your Christmas before it’s even began!’

‘No, no! Are you kidding? You haven’t ruined anything!’ the creative Side wiped away the tear marks on Patton’s face and planted two kisses on each of his cheeks, as well as on his nose. He took his time to gaze with the utmost affection at his aquamarine irises. ‘The only gift I want is to see you smile! I don’t need a grandiose romantic gesture to be satisfied – simply the thought that you took time to teach yourself how to knit just for me is flinging me right up on cloud nine!’

Patton held Roman’s hand on the side of his face.

‘Yeah, but… this isn’t really something particularly hard to make and I still couldn’t do it properly.’ Morality averted his eyes sideways.

‘It’s fine, really.’ Roman looked at Patton’s attempt at knitting and an idea sprung to mind. ‘Hey, can I have it for a moment?’

‘Sure, if you insist.’ The failed jumper was passed onto Roman, who sat back down on the couch and had a closer, more thorough look at it.

Most of it seemed to be relatively competent knitted, if you didn’t count the sleeves and the collar. And the fact that on the left it had started to completely fall apart because Patton had tried to unweave and reassemble the fabric several times to get it right. In the process, a lot of it had been torn and severed. However, Roman was absolutely and utterly charmed by the colours chosen and the quite intricate pattern Morality had wanted to impress him with.

‘You know, now it may seem in a rough state, but I think we can save it from the premature demise you could have relegated it to in the depths of the trash can. If you want to help me with it, of course.’ Roman wiggled his eyebrows and grinned teasingly, then conjured a few balls of yarn, scissors and each a pair of hooks. In spite of his surprise that the sweater was not a lost cause, Patton’s smile now threatened to outshine the sun. ‘We’re going to have to cut it in half because – do you see that on the left? – it’s going to tear completely, and we need to fix the sleeves. What do you say – I’ll take the right and you do the left sleeve, alright?’

‘Let’s see if we got any tricks up our sleeves!’ said Patton and Roman’s laughter rang through the mindpalace.

The creative Side had already grasped the scissors and started cutting with surgical precision. The jumper came undone easily and allowed the two to revamp it whole. Listening to Roman’s instructions, Patton worked slowly, but surely, on fixing his part. The other Side had purposefully left him preoccupied, which perfectly served his cunning and, in the end, stunning plan. The amount of wool used on the main part was altered heavily, yet that was done in such a sneaky-cheeky way so that Morality wouldn’t notice the difference. Sure, Roman often thought Logan was too stuck up on planning. He now had to admit to himself that it was actually quite fun, seeing how his dear Patton had bit his lower lip and furrowed his eyebrows in concentration, who would be so astonished with the final result.

Hours passed. At some point after the banter had dried itself out Patton was humming “Jingle Bell Rock” and Creativity joined in. Gradually the hum grew into a complete melody and then transformed into the song. Roman knew how much Patton loved both to hear him sing along and for their voices to harmonize effortlessly. The songs changed – “All I want for Christmas is you” replaced the old tune and so forth until they somehow ended up singing “All Star”. Right about the middle of the song Roman put down his hooks and glanced at the moral Side.

‘Wait – ‘Patton mumbled. ‘This is all wrong!’

Lifting up the cloth he was about to realize that –

‘It’s too big!’ His face scrunched up, his lip was trembling. ‘We made it too big!’

‘We made it just right, my ever-daylight!’ Before Patton could become sorrowful again, Roman planted a quick kiss on his jaw. Afterwards he grabbed the new, improved jumper. ‘Put it on!’

‘Princey, this won’t – ‘

‘Please, just do it!’

Patton nodded and obliged by clumsily shoving his head through the neckhole and his arm in the left sleeve. What he didn’t expect was that Roman would do the exact same, his head popping in next to his boyfriend’s to witness his delightfully stunned expression. The sweater fitted both of them perfectly. Beaming at this, Roman threw his right arm in the air proclaimed:

‘Surprise!’

A cannonry of smooches showered the prince as Patton clasped him in a tight embrace and nuzzled him close. During this sentimentally vicious attack both Sides had become giggly blushing messes.

‘You were right, Ro, that two heads think sweater than one!’ Morality lied down on Creativity’s chest. ‘I’d have never come up with something quite like this!’

Suppressing his giggling, Roman took a deep breath.

‘The best Christmas gift is you, my sweater half.’

#royality #roman sanders #patton sanders #romantic royality #sanders sides #sanders sides fic #my fics #ts fanfiction #sanders sides fanfiction #christmas

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ninzied · 6 years ago

Photo

christmas rose [for oq advent]

In the weeks leading up to her first Christmas without Henry, someone starts to leave Regina a small gift each day, marking her very own advent. Missing Year. Written for @onceuponanadvent. Many thanks to @loveexpelrevolt for the idea and all the gift brainstorming. ffn | ao3 | advent site

It was shaping up to be a pretty dismal winter, here in the Enchanted Forest.

Autumn had breezed by without much of its usual fuss – the leaves had still changed, but the pumpkins had not made a great showing this year, and besides that castle morale had reached an exceptional low. All Hallows’ Eve had been a muted affair, and by the time Thanksgiving came around, even Snow White couldn’t muster the strength to explain what pilgrims were or why they deserved celebration.

Not that Regina complained.

She was in fact perfectly content with the lack of fanfare, and kept to herself on the holidays without much objection from Snow, quietly missing her Henry and hoping that somewhere, worlds away from this one, he was not missing a thing.

Regina emerged from her quarters only when needed; she strongly suspected that Snow would make a scene if she missed any mealtimes, and apart from that there were more general matters of upkeep to tend to, witchly plotting to thwart, and the occasional date with a boy on the hunt for some new books in her library.

But as the air thinned to below-freezing temperatures, her mood seemed to plummet along with it – not on account of the cold, but the spirited fervor it seemed to revive in just about everyone else. The thief and his Merry Men were certainly living up to their name; they’d made themselves quite comfortable here in her castle, and when Snow snapped out of her own doom-and-gloom to suggest a midwinter ball of all things, they were the first to chime in their agreement.

“What do you say, Regina?” Snow rounded on her with a beaming expression, trapping her there as everyone else did the same.

Well, everyone minus the thief, that is, who had an ear bent toward Leroy right next to him. They were whispering cheerfully – snippets of “Hey, I’ve got the beard” and “My boy would adore that” filtering over – and the fire that had been building inside of Regina was abruptly snuffed out.

“It sounds like it’s already been decided,” she said rather stiffly, and then, before Snow’s smile could grow even terribly wider, she leaned to cut in, “Do enjoy your little party.”

The whispering stopped, to her grim satisfaction, and she swept from the table, half-waiting to hear someone protest before stalking her way toward the door.

She could feel their eyes on her – how freely they looked, now that she had her back turned – and she told herself not to regret it, one bit, as she let the door slam shut behind her.

…

The preparations were already well underway the following morning, the entire castle coming alive with the thought of a break from routine. Even her presence did little to discourage their good mood, and she soon began to think rather bitterly back to a time when a well-placed glare would be enough to send a man scurrying the other direction. Now, as it was, even the dwarves had grown fearless, practically tripping over her in their rush to festoon every bare inch of wall, until she finally threatened to step on one of them.

Still, brightly glinting baubles managed to find their way up to the darkmost ceilings of her castle, green things sprouting up everywhere she turned until she thought they may as well be living in the damn forest itself.

She burned incense regularly, smoking up the hallways and alarming passersby, but try as she might, she could not get rid of that smell of pine.

And she didn’t have to look far to know who to blame.

Every morning like clockwork, the thief Robin Hood would come strolling indoors with a fresh haul of boughs or split logs for the fire, the occasional dusting of snow on his cloak. His men were never far behind him, traipsing inside and dragging their filth around her foyer as she stood disapprovingly off to one side.

“What a magnificent tree, don’t you think?” Snow said beside her one morning, as if one stupid tree could really look all that different. Before Regina could point out as out as much, Snow carried on, her gaze still trained on the thief, “You have such a good eye, my friend!”

“Your Highness,” he grinned, in a way that made Regina feel strangely irate. “I did have my orders, after all.”

“She has you earning your keep, then, I take it?” questioned Regina, and Snow turned to stare at her, looking faintly mortified.

“Your Majesty,” said the thief, with a slight bow of his head. His smile seemed to lose a bit of its brightness, though he sounded friendly enough as he told her, “My men and I prefer to make ourselves useful.”

“Then perhaps you could start now,” she returned, “by learning to close the door on your way back out? You’re letting in a draft.”

The thief opened his mouth to respond, but she gave a wave of her hand to dismiss him, already half-turning to be on her way.

“She appears to be fond of making these exits,” she overheard the thief saying, and then Snow rushing to make her apologies, as Regina strode off with her hands clasped tightly together.

…

As the days got progressively shorter and darker, the castle only seemed to grow bigger and brighter, as though it had awoken from a deep slumber. Regina hardly recognized parts of it anymore, and so took to her more private haunts, the ones that hadn’t yet been discovered by some nosy thief and then strung up with garland and bows.

It was during one of these walks, in a small wraparound garden overlooking the forest below, that she found the first gift – at least, she assumed it was intended as such. There on a round marble stand, half-tucked away by some overgrown vines, sat a pair of thick woolen mittens. They were a muted taupe color, but when Regina bent closer, she could see thin threads of purple woven delicately into the yarn.

For a moment she thought they must have been dropped here by Snow, lying forgotten while the Princess went trolling about where she was not welcome. But there was something about the way they were folded, one angled primly on top of the other, that looked altogether too, well, arranged to have been left there by accident.

This somehow infuriated Regina even more than the thought of Snow simply nosing around without any purpose at all, and she promptly flung the mittens back down, vowing to make that the last word on the matter.

If Snow White thought she could shame her for how she’d behaved around Robin that day, well, then Regina was more than ready to show her just how recalcitrant she could be.

The opportunity presented itself even sooner than she’d expected as she thought to stroll past the front doors, where Snow – bundled up in thick furs and a matching hand muff – was greeting the men just returned from a hunt.

“Oh, you boys, I can’t wait to tell Granny!” Snow was exclaiming as Regina made to approach them. “I know just the thing that will go with the rabbit stew we’re having tonight, thanks to all of you.”

Regina noted, with an almost absurd satisfaction, that the thief had hung slightly back from the others, nudging the door closed and fastening all of the locks into place.

“Oh, Regina,” Snow turned on her next, mildly scolding as she took in Regina’s bare hands, her neck exposed to the elements. “You must be freezing.” She gave her a too-knowing look, and received only a bland sort of smile in return.

“Not at all.”

The thief had ambled over to them, nodding toward Regina when she deigned to look in his direction. “Your Majesty,” he greeted her warmly, as if he might think that he’d finally caught her in the right mood. “I hope you find everything is to your liking.”

“It will have to do,” she replied, then added an offhand, “I suppose that roast boar would have been far too much trouble,” earning another grave look from Snow.

“Rabbit happens to be Roland’s favorite,” the thief told her pleasantly, not missing a beat. “But I’ll keep your suggestions in mind the next time we’ve gone out.”

“Well I, for one, think it’s finally starting to feel something like Christmas,” declared Snow, removing a hand from her muff and linking it around Robin’s arm. She pulled him forward, and he went along with a smile, patting an affectionate hand over hers as she called back over her shoulder, “See you at dinner, Regina.”

The two of them walked on without so much as another glance, leaving Regina to fume silently behind them and wonder how she could have possibly been so lucky as to be stuck with them both.

…

It was another several days before Regina thought to venture back up to that balcony garden. She’d half-expected the mittens to have made a quiet exit, leaving no trace that they’d ever been there. This is what she told herself, at least; the truth was that she didn’t know what she expected at all, or why she even bothered except for some darkly unshakable impulse to find out.

The mittens were indeed where she’d left them, but they were not alone this time. A small assortment of things had squeezed their way onto the table, and Regina could only stand there a moment, too taken aback to know where to look first.

She finally picked up what looked to be a candle, resting beside one of the mittens. It was small and squat, and a bit roughly shaped overall, but finely carved around the sides, with a trellis of ivy and bluebells that bore a striking resemblance to the very garden she stood in.

None of this made any sense, thought Regina. She knew Snow must have picked up some hobbies, during her banditry days, but this…

This felt like something else, and when she touched her nose to the tip of the candle, and breathed in the scent of spices and pine, her heart did a strange little knock in her chest.

Her hand moved with a will of its own, touching a dark lump of some soft material that had been rolled up and placed just next to the candle. Slowly, she let it unravel, trailing her fingers down each side as it opened, the butter-smooth leather on one, silky white rabbit fur on the other.

On either end of the pelt, a knobby little button and a loop of beige leather had been sewn into place. Fastened together, it would have warmed her neck perfectly.

She dropped her hand away.

Feeling peculiar, Regina took a step back and glanced all around her, as if the bearer of these small offerings might have thought to linger until she arrived. She stared hard into the growing twilight, but not even her garden had stirred while she’d been here, and she knew that she was alone.

There was something else – something feathery and dark near her feet that she must have brushed aside in her study of the rabbit fur, but this was all too much, these…things that she’d neither asked for nor wanted, and she jerked away like it had burned her.

Regina descended the stairs, spiraling down toward the main halls of the castle. There would be gathering of sorts in the drawing room by now, where people tended to go for a drink in the evenings, and she veered a sharp right, meaning to give it as wide a berth as she could.

Before she’d reached the end of the corridor, she heard the door open, and a distant but unmistakable voice calling out over the din of the room, “I’ll grab the next round – do try to hold it together while I’m gone, yeah?”

Something froze Regina in place, and she turned to look back before she could help it. The thief had shut the door behind him and was heading in her direction now, gaze still lowered while he chuckled to himself.

She noticed the moment he sensed her, the alertness gripping his body before his eyes lifted to hers, surprise overtaking his features as he slowed to a stop some feet in front of her.

“Your Majesty,” he said, recovering the next second, and perhaps it was the ease with which he smiled at her now, or that he’d no doubt been on his way to her wine cellar, but the confusion she’d been battling with quickly submitted to ire.

“What do you want?” she asked brusquely, as if he hadn’t been the one to find her just standing there waiting for something.

He seemed to tense ever so slightly before relaxing again, though there was a hint of dryness to his tone when he shrugged and replied, “I was about to ask if you’d like to join us, but I suppose you’ve already given your answer.”

Regina found she couldn’t look him in the eye anymore, all that blue in the candlelight, in this hallway that suddenly felt ten sizes too small. “I have a spell to work on,” she told him thinly, examining her arm for stray bits of lint.

“Ah,” he said, looking far more understanding than he had any right to with her. “Yes, Belle had mentioned—”

“How nice,” Regina cut in, but it lacked any of her usual bite, sounding flat as it devolved into silence, and why was he still smiling at her? “If you’ll excuse me…”

She turned to go, but didn’t hear his own footsteps resume like she’d expected, and she could feel his eyes on her still, her whole body stiffening as if that could keep him from seeing things she didn’t want him to see.

He was proving to be quite resourceful, this thief of Locksley.

Finally, he called after her, “I don’t believe that was a no, Your Majesty.”

Regina half-turned her head over her shoulder, startled. “What?”

“To a drink.” She could hear the smile in his voice growing wider. “Tomorrow, perhaps?”

She’d paused too long to effectively discourage this new line of questioning, and they both knew it, though Regina refused to give him the full satisfaction of seeing it written all over her face. “Good night, thief,” she said curtly, gathering her skirts with a flourish and trying not to think about how she’d never noticed the way his eyes crinkled to look at her before.

…

It was needless and entirely foolish of her, but the following day she couldn’t escape the thought of that now not-so-secret garden in her balcony, and what else she might come across if she just so happened to find herself up there again.

But Regina couldn’t risk anyone seeing where she was headed, so she opted to travel by magic this time, purple smoke carrying her straight there from her chambers. She was reaching for the latch on the door when she felt an odd fluttering in her chest, like something trying to break loose and take flight, and she was so struck by the absurdity of it that she almost poofed right back to her bedroom.

It turned out that she needn’t have concerned herself with being this careful – it didn’t appear that anyone else had been here since she had, everything looking untouched, the table just as she’d left it. The item she’d dropped the night before was some kind of quill, she thought, glancing over, trying to ignore how it looked slightly bent in the middle. She should at least put it back where it belonged…

But the longer Regina stood there the more ridiculous she felt, and it was such an unwelcome feeling to her that she walked briskly to the opposite end of her garden, snatched up a handful of calla lilies as if that was why she’d come here all along, and marched with purpose back through the door.

The ridiculous feeling refused to abate even after she’d gone, and with it grew a bizarre paranoia, everything seeming to catch her off guard. Gripping her lilies, she rounded a corner only to double back several steps when she heard someone approaching on the other side.

She blew out an exasperated sigh.

“Oh, aren’t those just lovely!” said Snow as she walked up to her. “I haven’t seen them growing around here in ages – where did you—” and Regina promptly deposited them into Snow’s arms with what she hoped would pass for a smile.

“I thought you might like them,” Regina said tersely. “A little pick-me-up while you handle your…burdens,” and she made a vague gesture at Snow’s pregnant belly.

The Princess looked genuinely touched, nose buried deep in her lilies, and Regina went on her way feeling somehow more irritated than ever.

To her absolute horror, Snow had arranged them as the centerpiece of their royal table that night at dinner, proudly announcing to anyone within earshot that Regina had selected them just for her.

There was only one other person who knew where the lilies had chosen to bloom that year.

But if the thief noticed (oh, who was she kidding?), he made no indication of it, his attention never straying from his own table.

His son was in the middle of telling some story, arms flapping wildly about as he stood on the bench and made as if to leap into flight. The thief was gazing warmly at him, dimples on full display, laughing outright when Roland gave a little jump and landed dramatically into his arms.

Regina forced her eyes away when Snow passed a full plate of food over to her, the scent of roast meat in the air.

She glanced down.

“Wow,” she heard Charming from two seats away, already slicing into his portion with gusto. “I can’t remember the last time we had wild boar. This is fantastic.”

It was a mistake to look back up. Her eyes met the thief’s across the hall, just as he was taking a sip from his goblet. He didn’t appear smug, or smirk at her like she’d expected him to as he raised his drink in her direction. The smile he gave her this time was a bit crooked, a bit shy, and she didn’t know what to do with him like this – or what to do with herself, for that matter – and so she could only look away again.

Regina stole from dinner early, before the plates had even cleared, with a hasty excuse to Snow about needing to follow up on some things in the library.

It was not exactly a lie; she’d hit a dead end in her spell books after exhausting her last stash of hellebore, but as Belle liked to say, there was always room for more learning. They’d been taking turns reading whatever they could about Oz in the meantime, and tonight in particular suddenly felt like the perfect moment to do so.

Belle herself was just returning from the washroom when Regina slipped out of the banquet hall.

“Off to the library?” she asked knowingly. “I’ll come join you soon.”

Regina waved her off. “There’s no sense in both of us letting a good evening go to waste.” She cleared her throat, hating how very transparent she sounded as she added a curt, “You should go have a drink with the others.”

“Are you sure?” Belle’s forehead creased at her. “Did you want to come? We could both use a break, I’m sure.”

Regina thought of a hearth draped in pine, warm cider, warm other things, and realized that she’d already made up her mind.

“You go,” she told Belle. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

…

She never knew what to expect anymore, as far as the thief was concerned.

But she had braced herself for whatever remarks he would make about her absence the previous evening, and so when they crossed paths around lunchtime, she turned on him, ready.

“Hullo,” he said cheerfully, no more than that, not even a customary nod to her title, and she was so thrown by the change that he’d already moved past her before it occurred to her that she hadn’t said anything at all.

She had destroyed men for much less.

But there was something about him that made her feel strangely unlike herself, and as he walked on there was another twinge in her chest, like he’d tethered her to him somehow, and this…this, she supposed, was a different kind of ruin.

By the time she arrived at the garden, the sun had already begun its descent, casting a welcome glow in the chill. She wandered toward the balcony rail for a moment, musing over the idea of him scaling up walls and firing arrows through open windows, swinging himself from ledge to ledge. It would have pleased him to know this, she thought, when he’d probably just taken the stairs.

He’d folded the neck warmer back up since she’d been here last, the tip of the quill now nestled safely inside the fur. Regina hesitated a split second before carefully pulling it out, examining the way that it bent at an unnatural angle, a flicker of shame running deeper than she would’ve cared to admit.

It was beautiful, the feather he’d chosen – a rich swirl of deep blues and greens, with a hint of purple down the middle, tapering down to a nicely shaped point. Magic pooled instinctively to her fingertips, and she itched to set it straight again, but that somehow felt wrong to her, almost offensive to try.

She curled her hand around the quill, pressing it gently over her chest as she turned to go.

Her breath caught when she saw it.

There by the doorway, ensconced in a bed of thick ivy, sat a small plant that couldn’t have grown there, with leathery leaves and blooming rose-like white petals, their edges tinged in pink. Thin black roots sprang out from a fresh clump of soil, clinging to the nearby stems of ivy.

Hellebore.

Regina had to refrain from rushing over too quickly, as if sudden movement might break the illusion, or cause the plant to go into hiding. It was not the same species her spell books typically called for – those were of a deeper hue, maroon or even darker – and this pleased her, that she had an excuse to simply let them grow.

She used her magic this time, gingerly extracting the roots and potting them into a warmed handful of air. The flowers seemed to wave at her in the breeze, the pink in them flushing prettily when she touched her finger to the petals.

She knew the perfect place for it, in her bedchambers, and she swept down the stairs with her new plant bobbing gently through the air in front of her.

A curious warmth had settled into her body, but she chose not to question it any longer, hardly even caring that someone might spot her absconding with such a lovely thing.

—but no, she told herself firmly, one couldn’t steal what one had been given, and this was quite possibly the most thoughtful gift she’d ever received.

…

He seemed to know her and her preferences so well, and up until now he had never been far from view either, so long as it inconvenienced her in some way; but once Regina determined that she wanted to be found for a change, he proved to be just as elusive as his fairy tale reputation implied.

As far as she could tell, he paid his visits to their garden at an arbitrary time each day. If he did this to avoid any run-in with her, he was more than successful, and short of installing some magical sensor she doubted she could catch him there.

At mealtimes, he was either with Roland or the rest of his men, and she could not figure out how to approach him this way; whatever this was between them felt too new and uncertain, like the smallest thing might break it before it had even begun.

Meanwhile, he didn’t stop leaving her gifts here and there – medicinal herbs, some other ingredients she’d run low on (Belle must have been feeding him intel, she thought), a handful of apples he’d somehow procured when even her tree had stopped bearing fruit for the season.

She accepted his offerings in secret, though never more than a few at a time. The rabbit fur warmer came with her last, and she tried it on once in front of her mirror, sighing into its warmth for one indulgent moment before tucking it into a drawer with the mittens.

Each time she saw him it was as though she’d never truly seen him until then, the way he bit his lip sometimes when he smiled, a new sound his laugh made, how blue his eyes looked no matter the lighting.

In her distraction, she’d let Snow rope her into supervising the last of their preparations for winter solstice, a towering fir that was to go in the middle of the ballroom. It had taken all the thief’s men to haul it inside, though not without several missteps that might have ended badly for them, had Regina not intervened with a few discreet waves of her hand.

She was still glowering when the thief ambled by.

“Your Majesty,” he said with a perfectly straight face, clearly making an effort not to worsen her mood.

“Thief,” she returned, heart thundering madly. Everyone else was still happily preoccupied, carting in things for the tree, and this was perhaps the only chance she would have to get him alone before the ball.

He saw her gaze sweep over the room and gave her a lopsided smile. “Excited for the festivities, I take it?”

Their eyes met. “I hadn’t planned on going,” she told him carefully, watching his face for a reaction.

He took a step closer.

“I see.” He looked gravely serious, like he wanted to say something more but hadn’t quite found the right words, and then John was calling for him, requesting his assistance on some matter regarding the tree.

Regina released the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, feeling the moment slip away.

But Robin seemed remiss to go, stalling another few seconds to simply gaze down at her, eyes warm and terribly endless, and she wondered what he saw in her, how he had never looked at her any other way.

“I should…” He cleared his throat, raising a placating hand in John’s direction, and then excused himself with a bow of his head. “Your Majesty,” he murmured, so low she wasn’t sure she hadn’t imagined it, but the words sank into her like a gentle caress, and nothing had ever made her feel this warm, so warm, before.

…

She could hear the music from the ballroom very distantly from her perch in the garden, the lively instrumentals, the rise and fall of Snow’s makeshift choir. The dancing would have begun by now, after that extravagant feast had time to settle.

Snow, thankfully, had been dragged away from dinner early to mediate a dispute between her two lead sopranos. Regina had snuck off without any trouble, Charming electing to look the other way as she passed him; and then, just for good measure, she’d sent a little spell over to Leroy, who was red-faced from too much mead and loudly insisting that Friar Tuck’s range made him more of an alto, really.

He erupted into a coughing fit, demanding in between breaths for a lozenge and a tall glass of water, and Regina was able to make her escape unnoticed.

Now, she sat at the very edge of a bench in her garden, hidden behind the flowering lilies, and she waited.

He hadn’t left her any gifts today, not that she’d expected him to. Snow had kept him busy all afternoon with last-minute details, and he had no reason not to attend the party himself, to drink hot chocolate with his boy and twirl him around in a dance while they caroled.

In another world, she thought, another boy would have told her that she deserved happiness, too.

She didn’t hear him come in, but there was a change in the air, a sudden stillness to it that made her chest tighten as she glanced over and saw him.

He was standing by the round stone table, where two empty glass tumblers awaited, an unopened bottle of whiskey beside them.

Regina stood. “You came.”

“Milady.” He lifted his gaze to hers, and the look in his eyes nearly took her breath away. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He smiled at her as she came over to him, shyness or something like it making her feel as though they were both in slow motion. “I apologize that I couldn’t make it sooner; Roland was a bit resistant toward his usual bedtime.”

“With good reason, of course,” she said.

“Indeed.” He gestured back toward the table, voice going soft. “What’s all this?”

“I…believe I owed you a drink.”

His smile spread, dimples deepening at her. “That you did. May I?” He reached past her, brushing their arms together as he picked up the bottle and pulled out its stopper. He worked slowly, intently, and she tried not to breathe in too deeply when he leaned back to hand her a glass. “Cheers.”

She clinked her glass with his, but neither of them drank. It was hard to get her body to cooperate at all, not with him standing this close to her.

“Speaking of which, Roland quite enjoyed his chocolate beverage.”

Regina swallowed around a sudden lump in her throat. “I’m glad.”

“The, uh, cinnamon. It was a nice touch.”

She blinked and had to look away for a moment. “An old family recipe.” Her voice tried to crack, eyes burning, but then everything seemed to right itself again, feeling uncommonly steady, and she realized he’d set their glasses back down and taken her hands into his.

“Your hands are like ice,” he murmured, closing his more firmly around them. She almost shivered into the warmth, thinking that she hadn’t known to mind the cold until now. “So – just to be clear—” and there was a teasing glint to his tone this time, “Of all the gifts you thought to claim first, you chose a weed—”

“It’s not a weed.”

“—and a broken quill.”

“It writes perfectly well,” she told him.

“I could mend it for you.” He rested their hands to his chest, coaxing her forward just slightly. She was much too warm now to even think about how she’d ever stood for anything less. “Or make you a new one.”

Regina curled her fingers into his tunic, offering a demure, “I suppose I wouldn’t say no,” feeling the way his chest rumbled with laughter.

“Have you tried the candle yet?”

She shook her head. It had seemed a waste, to let it burn.

“Well,” he said, shifting over her a little, “should you ever choose to light it, you may find it has an interesting way of masking its own scent, and that of its surroundings. Quite handy when you’re on the run…or perhaps tired of your castle smelling like it’s gone a bit wild.”

Regina straightened and said, very primly, “I don’t know what gave you the impression that I would ever want a candle like that.”

He released her hand for a moment, brushing back a lock of her hair. His touch lingered, and she leaned into his palm, feeling dizzy and so unbearably light.

“So what did you bring me today, thief?”

“Well, since you’ve been averse to wearing the things that I made you…” He grinned, and she couldn’t help it, reaching up to rest her fingers on his jawline, learning the feel his stubble, the way his dimples moved when he bit his lower lip at her. “I thought I might try to find some new way of keeping you warm.”

She wanted to tell him that he already had, but instead she stretched onto her toes, and she kissed him.

It was brief but full of promise, and she rocked back onto her heels, feeling breathless. His lips were parted, gaze heavy with want when she opened her eyes, and all she could do was sigh into him as he gathered her up and kissed her again.

His hand moved through her hair, cupping the back of her neck and angling her closer. His mouth was warm and inviting, moving together with hers in a tangle of heat and tongue. She stretched her body up against his, feeling his weight, his warmth, his arms closing around her and holding her to him.

Everything tingled, where they pressed together, and she was more than lightheaded when they parted again, his forehead coming to rest against hers as they breathed each other in. But her hands would not still, wanting to touch him, to wander up his chest and his shoulders, finally reaching the sides of his neck. He nudged the tip of his nose to her cheek, the world slowing again, and she stole another kiss from him, softer this time, lips parting and brushing back and forth without fully settling back together.

His arms around her tightened, a kiss finding its way to her temple as he rasped into her ear, “I ought to head back soon, in case he wakes up.”

“Mm.” She didn’t trust herself to speak quite yet, her whole body still alight with the need to kiss him like she might not get the chance to tomorrow.

“Could I perhaps…” he leaned back with a mischievous quirk of his eyebrows, looking quite boyish as he asked her, “accompany you on the walk to your room, milady?”

She couldn’t hide her surprise even if she’d wanted to. “I’m not stopping you,” she said, watching the way his everything seemed to transform in the warmth of his smile, and she marveled that this was all for her, that this was what he wanted too, and oh if this feeling didn’t destroy her, she knew it was certainly going to try.

He pressed one last kiss to her lips and released her, wrapping an arm around her waist as they walked.

“We’ll have to come back for that drink,” he said, and Regina turned into him, touching her hand to his chest for a moment.

“Tomorrow sounds good to me.”

He tugged her back in, both of them smiling into the kiss now, and at this rate, if it took them all night to make it where they were going, she would not mind it at all.

…

“How was the rest of your night, Regina?”

She almost choked on her eggs, taking a liberal swallow of coffee before she was able to get any words out. “Excuse me?”

“I didn’t see you at the ball,” said Snow. “I hope you were feeling all right.”

“Just fine,” Regina told her firmly. “I’d told you I wasn’t going to go.” She tried not to let her gaze wander too obviously toward a certain table in the back, focusing instead on spearing up another bite of potato.

“I know, but…” Snow’s tone dropped to something suspiciously covert. “I thought maybe someone would have convinced you to change your mind.”

Horrified, Regina nearly dropped her fork before deciding altogether it was too dangerous to try eating anymore, with Snow so determined to keep talking to her. She took a measured sip of her coffee, and said as flatly as she could manage, “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Snow seemed willing to drop it for the time being, and Regina let herself relax into her coffee again, stealing another glance between sips. Robin looked just as focused on his own breakfast, but she caught him smiling to himself on more than one occasion, and she couldn’t help but look shyly away each time she felt his gaze flick over to her again.

She touched her hair without thinking, curling the ends behind her ear, fingertips grazing the fur at her neck.

“That scarf looks warm,” Snow remarked, something intentional about the bland way she said it.

Regina almost took her hand away, but she pushed back the instinct, toying with the Christmas rose she’d pinned to its side that morning. “It is.”

“That’s wonderful,” said Snow.

Their eyes met for a moment, and for the first time that winter, Regina felt, truly, that wonderful was just the beginning.

#outlaw queen #oq ff #oq fic #missing year #oq advent 2018 #my scribbles

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mrpotatobrown · 6 years ago

Text

38. There’s no place like Home

The streets of Venice are winding and endless, if you disregard the many dead ends that is; it’s much like a mystery as you solve your way through the many spaghetti like routes with the desire of tracking down your destination. Crossing off points you’ve been to, asking for directions, recognising landmarks which all help you piece together the puzzle in the hopes of finding out where the devil you have to go next. That’s the essence of a mystery; learning more and more till you can see a bigger picture. Sure you’ll take quite a few wrong turns, maybe follow a red herring or two, but it’s all part of the journey of cracking the code.

Which brings me to the film I saw today at the Festival: The Accused (2018). I won’t spoil any of the big story moments of the film, but the general synopsis is: Young 20 something girl is accused of murdering her friend, and we see the chaos as the media turns against her and the trails commence, all on the path to finding out if she actually did it not. You could say it’s a MYSTERY.

Only... It’s not.

The Accused wants to be, and everything is set up for that potential, but the film doesn't understand the structure of a Mystery, the actual function of one. So what does it get wrong? Well, this requires the help of a very special detective:

Now, Mr Detective Brown right here has no time for spoiling movies, so to explain how a mystery can work (and I really want to emphasis the ‘can’, because rules super can be broken for great effect (not in Accused’s case though)) we will be crafting a yarn for ourselves. A yarn based off a true story that was solved a mere few days ago. I behold to you:

The Mystery of the Stolen Ruby Slippers

It started 13 years a go when the most famous slippers in the world were nicked from a museum. What famous Ruby Red slippers I hear you ask? Well...

That’s right, the original pair actually worn by Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz.

As these were lent out to the museum, worth millions and were a pair of the most iconic footwear every worn in cinema, it was on top of the list of things to find. And so, like the venture from A to B across the maze like labyrinth of the Venice streets, the Mystery began; just where did those slippers go?

Spoilers: They were found, and sadly at this time of ‘printing’ we don’t know the actual details, but what we do know is how we could make this into a captivating little mystery.

See, way Mr Detective Brown right here thinks, most films have an overhanging arc. Many times this is assigned to the characters we follow through their journey as they change and develop, reach their catharsis and grow as people (or sometimes they turn worse, it really depends on what the story is attempting to accomplish).

But many mystery's we know and love assign the arc to the actual mystery instead, or better yet, assigns the arc to what the audience knows about the mystery; it’s not the characters that change per say but rather our understanding of the mystery. Who do we think are culprits? What trails are we following? What evidence do we have? And much like a good action plot, it’ll weave, cross over itself and turn on it’s head. The reveals are propulsive and with each new find we’re pushed forward to the next part of the story.

Yes, mysteries can appear convoluted and mysterious but in actuality the best ones keep it simple. There’s always a clear objective at each step, and even though every turn might flip everything on it’s head the story will reevaluate everything and set forward a NEW clear objective.

For example: The police might start stroking their chins at who might be this crazy slipping slipper thief. They’ll check CCTV footage, dust for prints and find nothing. It makes no sense, this is the Museums best exhibit and was most highly guarded, how could it have been stolen so cleanly?... “Of course!”, they exclaim, “It’s must be the Museum owners themselves”; business was getting tough after all with the other Museum across the road drawing in more people, so have the slippers ‘disappear’ and they claim on insurance.

And so the police start questioning the head of the gallery, only to find everyone that night was at a country wide Museum convention, where all owners congregate and discuss upcoming events and new regulations they must abide to etc. (no idea if there is such thing, works for the story though). So the police check the register for said event to see if they did actually attend. They did. “Drat”, the police mutter, “who could it be then?”, which is answered shortly after as they look further down the register list to find the neighbouring museum, who had skipped that talk. The police remember hearing how competitive the two museums were, so perhaps the other museum nicked it. All in the hopes of driving away further business from their competitors. BOOM! The story takes another turn and is propulsed into another direction!

And I truly do believe that’s what keeps a mystery ticking, helping it keep fresh and alive. You give it the allusion of complication when really it’s just reevaluating clear goals. Without clarity on what they’re trying to solve at each step you’ll just leave your audience frustrated, and the film will bog down and they won’t even end up caring about where the flaming Slippers were.

Which leads me up to The Accused. This film had a different idea on how to perform a Mystery, and by all means it can be great to deviate from the path, but you have to do it all in the name of my favourite word: Function. Everything you do will have an effect and without understanding the consequence of your choices you’ll have no idea how it’ll effect your audience. Because story’s are all about having an affect on an audience, and different stories have different effects, so the real question is: What effect do you want your audience to have?

From what I can garner, The Accused wanted to grip it’s audience in the unfolding of the case at hand. Problem was that it wasn’t a mystery unfolding (apart from one reveal later on which didn’t effect the cases’s direction). The film didn’t slowly reveal the case as new details surfaced. Instead, it revealed information that all the characters already knew, but held back getting us up to speed all in the name of garnering our intrigue. The purpose of this? If it reveals the story slowly then it’ll hold out attention, with us wanting to know more. Problem is though, us finding out this info didn’t change the direction of the story, and so the pace sagged and it all went in one direction. It just lost all propulsion.

If the character’s WANT is to solve a mystery and you want the audience to care about the same thing, put them all at the same level. How is the audience to care about a thing they don’t know about yet. Get them up to speed then take them down the same winding streets. Because being senselessly lost will always frustrate.

When I got lost down the labyrinth of Venice, it was the clues on where to go next that drove me with energy. Walking aimlessly with no results would always leave me bitter, but moving with a sense of I was getting somewhere (even if I was going the wrong way) always pushed me further.

Which leaves me to where I’m at now; the film festival is almost finished and I can’t stay here forever. So, much like a man lost in a mystery, much like when I was lost in the many turns of the Venice maze, I ask myself: Just where do I go next?

The answer came to fruition when I found out this story of the missing ruby slippers. I wanted to solve this mystery, I yearned for more details, but nothing was being said. So, out of frustration, I created my own narrative; I wrote a little story to quench this thirst, answering my own questions. Which made me realise I didn’t need to find a destination because, much like the straw man from the Wizard of Oz, it was inside me the entire time. I can be anywhere to write. And I knew, deep down, in my starchy heart, that the best place to write was the place that made you feel at ease; the place you knew best, that you could never be lost in.

And so, as this holiday draws to a close, my next destination became clear to me for stories always come from close inside, so I had to return to what I knew.

As Dorothy said as she clicked her heels together:

“There’s no place like home”

#writing #writer #writers #my writing #young authors #writerblr #writers on tumblr #storytelling #log #blogger #potatoes #Venice #venice film festival #Films #Cinema #Essay #2018 #blog

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nalufever · 7 years ago

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Fairy Tail December Drabbles

I’ve compiled all my December Drabbles, most of which are ‘5-sentencers,’ all featuring my OTP of Nalu, some with a few additional Fairy Tail Characters to round out some of the drabbles. They’re a mix of mostly-canon and mildly ModernAU.

Ice Skating

“You know, I never figured you for the ice skating type,” Lucy shrugged and reached out to boop Natsu on the nose. “You’ve got hidden skills.”

He laughed and grabbed Lucy by the hips, pushing her ahead of himself. She shrieked with mock fear, threatening to pull Natsu’s hair out if he made her fall.

Natsu ignored that, holding his partner closer, whispering into her ear. “Not just at skating, Luce!”

“Yeah?”

Natsu slowed their pace, gliding to a stop at the far end of the rink - away from all the other skaters.

Lucy turned and grinned, mischief and desire an equal mix on her face. “What else are you good at?”

Natsu blinked owlishly - astonished by Lucy’s tone and hands that were busy stroking his shoulders. “Lots of things?”

Lucy played with Natsu’s scarf, tugging his face closer. “Like what?” She laughed and apologized, “Sorry, you’re so cute when you’re flustered!”

Her eyes widened as Natsu smirked. The fire kindling in his eyes made her stomach twist and flip in the most delightful way. Natsu’s feet slipped and he grabbed at Lucy, who reflexively hugged him close.

Feet now steady and voice smug, Natsu bragged, “I’m good at pretending. Didja forget how well I skate, weirdo? We’ll see who gets flustered more.” He bridged the gap between them, connecting his lips to hers. Long minutes passed as they kissed, lost in their own personal wonderland.

Scarf

Natsu thrust a gilt-wrapped box at Lucy, “This is for you, I’m sorry I destroyed your other one - I couldn’t find one that was close, so I hadda make it myself.”

Lucy pulled back several layers of tissue to reveal a scarf, knitted from glittering white yarn.

She wound it around her neck and smiled. Lucy ignored the uneven stitches and lop-sided fringe, and the fact that it was wider on one end than the other. Natsu had made this for her and she’d treasure it always.

Frost

“For the last time Natsu, the line isn’t ‘Frosty the idiot’!” Lucy elbowed her partner, stabbing her finger on the printed lyrics. “It’s Frosty the Snowman!”

Natsu grinned and shook his head. “This song is obviously about Gray - it’s got a few details wrong, but 'made of snow’ and all the dancin’ around, pfft, that’s a dead giveaway!”

Family

A gasp and crash from the bathroom had Natsu racing over and forcing the door open. “Are you okay, Lucy?”

“I will be,” came her shaky reply, “in around nine months - no, make that eight months.”

“Are you telling me what I think you’re telling me?” Lucy yelped as Natsu gathered her in his arms, kissed her cheek and swung her around, “We’re gonna be a family!”

Blizzard

“Stay right where you are,” Lucy whined, clutching Natsu tighter and snuggled her face on his chest.

“I was just gonna get up to pee, I’ll be right back.”

Lucy nodded reluctantly, allowing Natsu to climb out of bed. “Fine, but you’re gonna have to warm me up again.”

“You’re insatiable, but I like it.”

Candy Cane

Natsu dropped the new pair of panties into Lucy’s underwear collection, leaving a corner sticking out. Grinning, he shut the drawer and hollered, “Lucy, I can’t find it!”

“Seriously -” Lucy marched into their bedroom and nudged her boyfriend aside, yanking the drawer open. She stared slack-jawed as she picked up the frilly undies decorated with tiny candy canes.

Natsu blushed, “I wanted you to know I love eating candy canes.”

Cold

Lucy rolled over in bed, flopping into the spot where her personal heater should be - ah, make that Natsu, love of her life. “What’re you doing so early, out of bed?”

“Nothin’, totally not wrapping your Christmas gift,” insisted Natsu, “gimme another minute and I’ll warm you up.”

“But I’m not cold,” Lucy purred, “I’m feeling hot - so get over here and let’s blow off some steam.”

“Hells yeah.”

Hot Chocolate

Lucy sat and waited on the couch, Natsu had promised to make dinner - including dessert. Who could pass up something like that? The smells coming from the kitchen were amazing. The sizzling meat, roasted garlic and chocolate scents mingled in a mouth-watering way.

><><><><

“That was heavenly, Natsu.”

“Just wait ‘til you taste the cake - you wanna guess what the secret ingredient is?”

Lucy took a bite of the rich chocolate cake, closing her eyes, savoring the flavour. After a long minute she asked, “Chocolate?”

“Pfft, I said 'secret ingredient’ - of course there’s chocolate in there - but what kind?” Natsu could barely restrain himself from wriggling about like a puppy. “Guess again!”

“Coffee?”

“Not a big surprise either, you were the one to tell me about that trick.” Natsu rolled his eyes in an exaggerated display, “Guess again!”

Lucy giggled, “You should just tell me, I’m out of ideas.” She took a sip of her beverage and sighed with pleasure. “You made the most incredible meal though, Natsu.”

“One last guess, and I’ll give you a hint.” Natsu grinned. “Wanna make a bet?”

“Now I’m intrigued,” Lucy sat on the edge of her seat and considered her chances. “Winner takes control?”

“Is there any other bet worth making?”

“Do I still get a hint?” Lucy fluttered her eyelashes and pouted.

Natsu nodded, “Even if I lose I still win - yeah, you can have the hint. The secret ingredient is something we drank with dessert.”

“Wow, way to give it away, Natsu,” Lucy crowed, “Not so much a hint as it was the answer. The secret ingredient was hot chocolate!” In the thrill of winning the bet, she jumped to her feet in celebration. “You’re under my control tonight.”

“Ain’t I always?” Natsu laughed as Lucy dragged him to the bedroom, telling him the dishes could wait - but she couldn’t.

Snow Day

“Take that!” Lucy threw a snow ball straight and true - tagging Natsu full in the face because he’d whirled around at her gleeful shout. She gasped in horror, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry!”

He spat snow and laughed, scooping up a new round of ammunition, “You’re gonna get it!”

“Yeah -” Lucy giggled, “but right now, it’s a snow day and getting’ it can wait until tonight!”

Lights

“What’s so important we need to go to your house this late at night?”

Natsu slung an arm around Lucy’s shoulders, “Don’t be so impatient - you’ll see - keep walking.”

“Fine, but…” Lucy gulped - the largest evergreen nearest to Natsu’s house blazed with light, glittering with ornaments and garlands.

“You said one of the things you missed from your childhood was the giant tree your parents decorated,” Natsu scuffed his boot in the snow, “ - this isn’t prolly as nice, but me an’ Happy made all the decorations ourselves, an -”

Lucy launched herself at her boyfriend, peppering his face with kisses, “It’s beautiful, I love it, and I love you.”

Fireplace

Happy dragged a stocking so big it could be considered a sack, offering it to Lucy with a mischievous grin, “Hang it on the fireplace for me?”

Lucy shook her head but accepted the item, “Don’t expect me to fill this to the top with fish.”

Affronted, Happy slapped his paw on his chest, “Of course not,” his voice lost the shocked tone and became overtly derisive, “Santa fills the Christmas stockings!”

Natsu laughed, “He’s got you there.”

Lucy let a little smile play about her lips, “And if you’re naughty, he fills them with coal.”

Slippers

Lucy tilted her head and begged for a kiss; Natsu brushed his lips over hers, coaxing a moan from his lover. He cupped her chin and tasted her mouth, tongue gliding - the languorous heat in his blood starting to blaze.

Natsu hoisted Lucy high on his waist - her legs wrapping around him - never stopping kissing. Shuffling backwards, he moved to their bedroom, kicking his slippers into opposite corners. “Time for that ‘quality alone time’ you wanted,” Natsu panted as Lucy nipped at his neck, “-so don’t hold back.”

“Can we make a double batch of cookies?”

“Mmm, sure - or we can make two different kinds,” Lucy offered, “How about some shortbread and sugar cookies?”

Natsu charged into the kitchen and threw on an apron, gathering tools and ingredients. He shouted over his shoulder towards the living room, “Hurry up Lucy - I wanna do it with you!”

Lucy sneaked behind Natsu and pinched his butt, “Cookies first, doin’ it later!”

Snowflake

“Don’t move,” Natsu clutched Lucy’s arms and looked over her head, eyes tracking the meandering snowflakes drifting gently down.

“W-what?”

“I’ve never seen one so large or beautiful,” Natsu leaned closer, his eyes suddenly switching to stare into Lucy’s, “But not as beautiful as you.” His cheeks flamed and he continued, “Will you marry me?”

Lucy nodded and then a wide smile bloomed, “Yes.”

Decorate

“Hand me the silver and blue one next,” Lucy instructed Natsu, “It’s got polka-dots.”

Natsu grabbed the ornament and gave it to Lucy, “When do we put the tree topper on?”

“Soon,” said Lucy, “I have a silly request for when I do, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure,” came Natsu’s reply, “This is our first time to decorate a tree as a couple - so I’m invested in doing this right.”

Lucy turned away from the tree, smiling at Natsu, “I want to turn on the tree lights, hold hands share a kiss - like my parents used to do.”

Winter

“Lucy, you never look like you’re cold,” said Levy, “here we are in the dead of winter, half a foot of snow on the ground and you’re still wearing crop tops and miniskirts- not to mention that jacket is more decorative than functional.”

A charming blush on her cheeks, Lucy giggled. “Fashion is enough to keep me warm.”

With a sly smile Levy asked, “Is that what you’re calling Natsu these days?”

"Natsu keeps me all fired-up, if you know what I mean."

Stars

Natsu wrapped his arms around Lucy, pulling her into his warmth, nestling his head on her shoulder, “How’d you know there’d be so many stars out tonight?”

“Am I or am I not, the greatest celestial mage you know?” Lucy topped off her words with a giggle, “You don’t know very many celestial mages, but -”

Natsu cut off Lucy with a long, lingering kiss. Pulling away he caressed her cheek, “The biggest, brightest star is always you.”

Candles

“Lucy, don’t you already own more candles than clothes at this point?” Levy picked up a package of emergency candles and dropped it back into Lucy’s groceries, “Did your landlady turn off the electricity or something?”

“Nothing like that,” Lucy blushed, “Natsu keeps complaining about how strong the scented ones are - and this is going to be his stocking stuffer.”

“Why the red cheeks and sparkle in your eyes?”

“Natsu does some of his best ‘work’ by candlelight.”

Christmas tree

“Now why do you suppose I had you carry an axe, Natsu?” Lucy pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head, “You said you wanted an authentic experience - using an axe is part of the tradition.”

Natsu looked down at the still smoldering tree and back at Lucy, poorly hiding her smile. “You don’t care about that,” Natsu grinned, “you know what I’m like.”

“Still,” Lucy giggled, “I suppose a burned Christmas tree is exactly your style - let’s get it home and decorate!”

Gingerbread

"Lucy, did you make extras?” Natsu chewed and swallowed the rest of the gingerbread man he’d stuffed in his mouth.

“What kind of question is that?”

“An important one, ‘cause these are delicious and I want more!”

Lucy dropped a kiss on the side of Natsu’s head, “Yeah, I made extras.”

Mistletoe

Cana let out a long, low whistle, “Wow, you guys have gotten pretty bold in a short amount of time.” She walked around the still kissing couple under the mistletoe and poked Natsu on his back. “Times up, there’s other folks who wanna make out in public!”

Lucy pulled away with a pout, “If I know Mira - and I do, there’s more than a dozen balls of mistletoe decorating the guild.”

Cana nodded slowly, “Yeah, but you guys are blocking me from getting inside!”

White

Lucy accepted the white dove and placed the ornament high on the tree. “This one reminds me of my mom,” Lucy said to Natsu, “always a peace-maker - but if you pissed her off, watch out!”

Natsu dug into Lucy’s collection of second-hand and home-made decorations, selecting a nut-cracker soldier, “Who does this remind you of?”

Lucy grinned and brushed off some the flaking paint, “"Who else but my dad? Rigid and seeking order, but in his heart looking for his balancing better half - my mom.”

Ribbons

"Oi, ashes-for-brains, you have something in your hair-,” Gajeel snickered, “-tryin’ to look pretty?”

Natsu ignored Gajeel, giving Lucy a wide fang-tipped grin, “We can go eat breakfast somewhere else if you want - it’s kinda noisy and stupid over there.”

Lucy shrugged and made a show of considering her reply. “If Gajeel can’t get over his jealousy that you rock ribbons in your hair better than he ever could - that’s his problem. I did a great job on your braids and we’re not going anywhere.”

Presents

Natsu grinned, Lucy had fallen asleep on the couch reading. Removing the book from Lucy’s lax hands, Natsu tucked the blanket tighter and kissed her forehead. Now was the best time to wrap and stack her Christmas presents he’d hidden in the back of the closet. He hummed, happier than he could ever remember being - this year was special. This was their first Christmas as a couple and he wanted to treasure every memory.

Holiday

Natsu tossed a crumpled piece of paper at Lucy, “So, which present did you like the most? Was this the best holiday ever, or what?”

“I’m kinda partial to the one I’m giving you later,” Lucy picked up the missile and fired it back at her boyfriend, giggling as she scored a direct hit. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving, all night, if you know what I mean.”

Icicles

Natsu broke the icicle overhanging Lucy’s bedroom window, letting it drop once he determined it safe, “Lucy, what sort of reward will you give me?”

“Reward? I could have done that for myself,” Lucy crossed her arms and mock frowned at Natsu. “Actually, I liked how the light made the icicles shine.”

“Heh, I can make you forget all about that,” Natsu advanced on Lucy and kissed her deeply - instantly following through on his promise.

Snow globe

Natsu took the largest snow globe in Lucy’s collection and polished it before placing it on the end of the display. He shook each one in order, smiling as the fake snow inside swirled and calmed, “One more time?”

Lucy sat up on the couch and coughed, rasping weakly, ‘yes.’

“All right! One more time and then I make you some soup and more tea with honey.”

Shiver

Lucy hugged Natsu tighter in her sleep. A shiver wracked her body and she mumbled nonsensical words into his chest.

Natsu petted Lucy’s hair and stroked her back, surrounding Lucy with comforting heat. Pressing a kiss to Lucy’s temple, he began to hum a song. The early morning light was still hours away and Natsu would do his best to soothe Lucy deeper into slumber.

Evergreen

“Move over a few steps, get right under the evergreen tree.”

Natsu looked at the snow laden branches and then at Lucy, “Did you booby trap this tree or something?”

“As if - what kind of person do you think I am?”

“The kind that vowed vengeance on my sorry ass last night after I won the snowball fight,” Natsu played with the ends of his scarf, “Did I mention how pretty you look today?”

“You worked hard to earn mercy last night in bed, so just smile and let me take a nice picture.”

Memories

Natsu held Lucy's hands, squeezing gently, thumbs rubbing over her soft skin. He looked at their friends packed into the church and then back into his bride's eyes. "I remember the first time we met as if it were yesterday. I vow to cherish you even more than all our shared memories, in sickness and in health, until death us do part."

New Year’s Day

"Make the light go away," Lucy rolled and tugged her blanket over her head - or rather, tried to - the heavy weight of Natsu making it impossible. "I'm never drinking so much ever again. Why'd you let me keep drinking?"

"Luce, I don't 'let' or 'not let' you to do anything," Natsu said, shifting so his girlfriend could pull the comforter. "New Year's Eve only comes once a year, and from the amount of screaming you did, we both had fun."

#December drabbles #veraspromptchallenge #ftfanfics #fairy tail #nalu #fluff #drabbles #natsu #lucy #Natsu x Lucy #levy #brief appearances by other guild members #mild shenanigans

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authoressskr · 7 years ago

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Ugly Sweaters

Pairing: None ++ Word Count: 2352 ++ Warnings: Language, Questionable Knitting Skills (Disclaimer: I don’t knit.), Avoiding Finishing Things, Christmas Fluff, Group Hug

Note: Do NOT repost, copy and paste, post or share my works on any other platform without my EXPRESS PERMISSION. -+- REBLOGGING is fine! -+-

When Cas had suggested knitting to relax you, you’d scoffed but hadn’t totally shot down the idea.

Nearly five months later, looking at the knitted messes - to be hereafter referred to as “the Abominations” - adorning your bed...you should have known this would end up stressing you out. Relaxing my ass.

You’d been working hard on these stupid things and now that you were nearly eighty or maybe ninety percent done with these eight stupid Abominations, you wanted to throw them away. Or burn them. Now there’s an idea!

It was still early, you reasoned. You could absolutely find other things to give all the boys.

Mary’s Christmas gift you’d gotten nearly a month and a half ago when you were in Raleigh for a double poltergeist case. It was wrapped, labeled and sitting beside your desk.

But the boys, well that had been a different story…

The angels (that Chuck had hand-delivered to the Bunker nearly eight months ago...no warning, just “Here you go! This is their new home.” to you guys and “Don’t kill anyone in this room. Rest up and good luck.” to them. It had been a tense first week after that...) could snap up whatever they wanted. And now that Jack had begun learning that ability you’d nearly written the nephilim off the ‘To Buy’ list too.

Sam and Dean wouldn’t know Christmas or celebrate if it bit them in the ass. So, with firm knowledge about their holiday past (slim to none) and your own firsthand account of their attempts at birthdays (one would mutter ‘happy birthday’ to the other and usually get whatever take out the birthday boy wanted; if at home, this may include breakfast), you had decided against buying them anything for Christmas as well. They tended to replace things immediately, so this didn’t give you much chance to buy or even plan to buy for them.

Which had led to the happy, easy decision to make their gifts.

After all, you’d made scarves AND successfully made a pair of black mittens for Jack.

With a few months until Christmas, you had put your faith in your limited abilities - which in hindsight wasn’t the smartest thing you’d ever done - and began looking up simple sweater designs. After choosing the simplest one you could find, you’d made the 3-and-a-half-hour trek to both craft stores in Lawrence, gathering colored heavy-duty yarn like a hoarder.

Giving the Abominations a glare before swiping a tired hand down your face, you simply shoved the mostly finished things to the side and grabbed your laptop. Sure, you had missed Black Friday and Cyber Monday but there was still time to order them all something. It was, after all, only the second day of December.

---

Fucking stress.

Fucking knitting.

Fucking pair of rogue demons.

Leaving Jack, Samandriel, and Balthazar at the Bunker, you, Sam, Dean, and Gabriel had headed out December 5th to track down the demons and gank ‘em. Castiel was helping Mary with a nest of vampires in Montana, stating he’d join you all in Colorado in a day or two.

But by the time you got to Boulder, they’d fled up to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Black-eyed dicks.

Once you’d hauled ass to Cheyenne and tracked them down, you’d only managed to find some lower level peon who they’d convinced to run interference. He’s easily given up their next location. And was just as easily dispatched.

So, on December 17th, you’d finally cornered them in Portland fucking Oregon. By then you had added Balthazar and Gadreel to the roster, so they could pop in and lay the trap while you, Sam, Dean and Cas could kill the few demons on guard and, as your luck would have it, a pair of newly turned werewolves.

When you guys had returned home in the late evening hours of the 20th, you could have wept.

Or pull your hair out. It was five days until Christmas. Fuck.

---

After a few hours rest, Jack had come into your room practically vibrating with excitement.

You had, after all, promised him a Christmas tree when you returned from the hunt. And who could say no to that sweet little face? You’d shooed him from the room to dress, your eyes once again falling on the Abominations that lay in a haphazard pile on the top of your desk. Sighing, you knew what had to be done.

They’d have to be finished.

After the Christmas tree was found. And decorated. And you had a few shots of whatever was handy.

---

Christmas tree shopping was going surprisingly well. Considering.

When Jack had explained to his uncles where you two were headed, they’d all volunteered themselves to tag along. Not that you minded - they had behaved.

Well, they’d behaved as well as could be expected.

Then there had been a trip to a local Hallmark store so that you could get the angels proper ornaments.

“We just bought the colorful ones in town. Why are these different?” Jack queried, running a careful finger over a nutcracker ornament.

“Because we are doing Christmas how I grew up. That means that you get to choose one ornament that you like best. And when Christmas is over we will carefully put it back in the box, and tuck it away until next year. Then we’ll do this all over again.” He’s carefully studying every ornament when you reach past him and press the button on the Mickey Mouse ornament. His eyes light up as he begins searching for more buttons on the ornaments only to pause.

“Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we get this one for Dean?” He points up the little pie on a cutting board.

“Of course, sweetie. Let’s find the box then we’ll find one for you and Sam.”

“And you.” Jack supplies happily as he hands you the tiny pie ornament box.

---

After getting the tree and two big bags full of ornaments home, you’d coerced Dean and Sam out from their rooms to help with decorating the giant tree it had taken four hours for the angels to find and agree on.

Anything to keep the thoughts of your homemade sweaters away.

By the time you called it a night, the nearly eleven foot tree was dressed to the nines. Were the lights evenly spaced? No. Were the ornaments distributed evenly? God no. Was there more purple and silver garland on one side? Yes. Were there giant clumps of tinsel hanging in random places? Yes.

And it was one of the most beautiful things you’d seen in years.

Seeing that wonderful, off-kilter tree had filled you with the thought that maybe the sweaters weren’t perfect, but you’d spent lots of time on them for the boys...so, you guess, maybe, they deserved to be finished.

In the morning.

---

By Christmas eve, you only needed to finish Cas’s sweater. One sleeve end was simply refusing to work with you, making you unravel a couple inches to reknit it properly. You’d have to work on it before bed since you and Dean had been in the kitchen most of the evening prepping as much as you could for Christmas dinner.

You’d also been fighting off Gabriel, Jack and Dean who had all kept coming in to ‘help’ (to unabashedly steal cookies or the little pudding cups you’d made from the leftover lemon, chocolate and coconut cream fillings) you finish baking that afternoon.

Not that you were too upset about it. There was an easiness in the Bunker you hadn’t really experienced before.

You made them watch “Year Without a Santa Claus” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” - your favorite Christmas cartoons - before bed, promising Jack you’d watch more tomorrow.

Scurrying back to your room, you grabbed your knitting needles and set to work.

---

At nearly two in the morning you had all eight sweaters nestled into their boxes, carefully setting the little journals you’d gotten each of them atop the not-so-terrible-now Abominations. After securing each boxes lid you prayed to Cas to distract Jack, if he was anywhere between your room and the tree which is in the main entryway between the library arch and the base of the stairs.

As stealthily as you could, you carried the first of your load to the tree, carefully arranging them on the dark red Christmas tree skirt that Sam had found in the Bunker storage room.

On your second trip, you ran into Balthazar, who simply raised a blonde eyebrow at the four boxes in your arms.

You prayed a big thank you to Cas before curling up in your bed, a happy tiredness dragging you down to sleep.

---

The doorknob hit the wall with a thud, jolting you awake.

Your heavy eyelids finally managed to open, revealing an excited Jack. Sam was leaning against the doorframe, chuckling.

“Y/N!” You notice he’s dressed in the pajamas you bought him a few weeks ago before you shove your face back into your pillow. “It’s Christmas!”

“Jack…”

“We got everything ready. Dean even let me make the toast. Are you gonna get up?” You groan into the pillow before Jack calls out for Gadreel, whose hands are suddenly under your covers, wrangling you from your bed. You groan out a sleepy Merry Christmas to appease Jack as you tuck your face against Gadreel’s chest, letting him carry you down the hall.

“I though,” *yawn* “We were gonna eat breakfast first…”

“We set it up in the library,” Sam informs as you struggle to wake up still.

By the time Gadreel carefully sets you down in a library chair, you’re more awake, but still yawning like it’s going out of style. You rub the sides of your finger against your eyes to chase the sleep away as Dean places a plate in front of you.

“Morning,” Mary says from across the table before taking a generous bite of bacon.

“Merry Christmas.” You mutter in reply before making grabby hands at the cup Dean is filling up with grape juice. He chuckles, shaking his head before handing you the cup.

‘Merry Christmas’ is said all around as the angels loiter around the room, Balthazar and Gabriel laughing at the fact humans celebrate Jesus’s birth in the winter when he was born in the summer. And at how pagan traditions are more prevalent in your ‘holy holiday’ than most people think.

“Says the pagan god,” Gabriel smirks at your words then shrugs.

“I’m not gonna argue with you when you aren’t running on all cylinders.”

“Bite me.”

“Finally! A gift I can really get behind!” His snarky comment just earns him a glare. Gabriel remains unfazed as he and Balthazar both wink at you.

“Eat.” Jack nudges your arm with his, happily shoving the majority of a piece of toast with jam into his mouth.

You obey, working through the mountain of food Dean gave you - pushing it away before you had even finished half.

Now that you’ve eaten, you are feeling much more awake. And as you help Sam gather the dishes and follow after him, a small tendril of anxiety and worry curl in your belly.

They’re going to hate your knitted Abominations. Oh god, what have you done? It’s far too late to take them back. Maybe later you could hold a giant bonfire out back and burn them?

“Hey.” Sam takes the plates from your hand, wrinkling his forehead. “You zoned out there. Still sleepy?” His tone is light and teasing, and you give a huff of forced laughter.

“Not anymore.” No, not at all now that that little thread of fear had wormed it’s way back into your thoughts. You follow him back to the Christmas tree, trying to push the niggling Abominations away.

There seem to be a lot more presents than you remembered from early this morning, sinking down into the comfortable loveseat beside Samandriel.

“Youngest to oldest,” you order cheerfully as you nod at Jack. In a moment of panic, you pray to Gabriel (since he’s doling out the presents) that your 8 identical boxes go last.

You watch in horror as he hands Jack the light blue wrapped box containing your gifts.

I know where the holy oil is AND the enochian handcuffs are! You snap out the prayer watching as he arches an eyebrow in your direction with a broad grin.

Kinky, sugar plum.

Jack pulls the dark leather covered notebook from the box and then grasps the dark green thing, holding it aloft with the biggest smile plastered on his bright innocent face.

Welp, this is it, you think. You’ll have to move out. Change your name. God, this was a terrible idea…

The nephilim eagerly tugs it on, his eyes falling on you as he holds his arms out, showing off the horrible sweater.

“Thank you!” He envelopes you in a tight hug before running a hand down the material. “It smells like you. Did you make it?” You manage a nod, not realizing that all the boys have opened their boxes.

You’re actually taken aback at how well every ugly sweater fits and how even Balthazar and Gabriel have shirked theirs on.

They have you on the edge of tears when you hear Mary.

“Hey, where’s mine?”

“What?”

“Well, they all got nice sweaters.”

“You think they’re nice?!” It comes out louder than you expected, confused. “They aren’t nice. They’re terrible, knitted Abominations.” You sigh, slumping down in your seat a little. “I severely overestimated my abilities and - and, this is where it got me.”

“But we like them.” Samandriel speaks up, the other boys nodding.

“And we are wearing them because you made them for us.” Gadreel confirms.

“It’s … comfy.” Dean supplies, the angels and Sam shooting him a look that clearly said ‘Shut up, you aren’t helping.’

“Really?” You ask hopefully.

“Really,” Cas affirms, his dark blue sweater visible under his ever-present trenchcoat as he pulls you in for a hug.

Then you’re suddenly surrounded by a circle of angelic bodies, each latched onto each other around you.

“Don’t expect us to do this all the time.” Balthazar mutters loudly.

“The group hugging or the sweater wearing?”

“Both.” He answers as you chuckle against Cas’s chest.

For reference: This is the ornament Jack picked for Dean.

@lucis-unicorn @chelsea072498 @clockworkmorningglory @sakurablossom4 @nobodys-baby-now @thewhiterabbit42 @unleashthemidnight @ourloveisforthelovely @sumara62

#supernatural christmas #supernatural reader insert #knitting nightmare #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #jack kline #gabriel #balthazar #gadreel #samandriel #mary winchester #chuck shurley #December 2nd #23 more to go #authoressskr writes #tis the season #ugly sweaters

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