#i know not many people are gonna know Sara- shes quite different from her canon comic design but LISTEN

[the-vegetarian-artist]

Polyam in my TMNT Au? Its more likely than you think ~☆

[love-bokumono-fics]

WIP Wednesday - Friends of Mineral Town, Part 2!

I'm going to make 2 WIP Wednesday posts today for the FoMT WIP Wednesday feature. When I sorted by Date Updated, I realized that the most recent 10 fics have all received a feature on the blog over the last couple months. Which is great! But I also want to take time to feature some of the WIPs that haven't been updated in a little bit, but still deserve some time in the spotlight. Part 1 featured the first 10 fics on the list, Part features the next 10! Happy reading! Do you have a FoMT WIP that didn't get featured today? Drop the link to it in a Submission box! We're always happy to feature submissions! to cure what ails you - by indoorsy; WIP, 7/?, 22k Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationship: Claire the Farmer/Doctor Trent; Characters: Claire, Doctor Trent | Torre Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, his name is Doctor Summary: Claire, a perpetual people-pleaser with a sensitive soul, uproots her mundane city life to take over her grandfather's farm. Her endeavors are supported by the friendly community of Mineral Town - including the town's eccentric doctor. A Happy Lamp for an Unhappy Life - by MacchiatoRodion; WIP, 7/?, 17k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Major Character Death; Categories: Gen, Multi Fandoms: Back To Nature, A Wonderful Life, Friends of Mineral Town, Havest Moon DS Cute Characters: Cliff, Old Nina, Galen | Guri, Mary the Librarian, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Basil the Writer, Celia | Seperia, Marlin | Mash, Pony | Aya | Jill, Jennifer, Gray, Kai, Carter the Pastor, Popuri, Rick, Manna, Lillia the Shopkeeper, Aja | Adge, Doctor Trent, Dr. Hardy | Paddock Additional Tags: Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Suicidal Thoughts, Child Death, Past Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Tags May Change, Childhood Memories, Child Abandonment, Domestic Disputes, Poor Life Choices, Flowers, Developing Friendships, Healing, Child Neglect Summary: Cliff was once considering committing suicide, so his instinct is to jump off the edge of Mother's Hill, where so many lovable people had perished before. But something compels him to look down at the area where the bodies should have landed. To his surprise, there was an entire village at the bottom. He decides to investigate since he doesn't anticipate that anybody will miss him while he is away. He ends up meeting someone who shows him the impact of even the shortest life to him. This story begins in the summer leading up to the beginning of Friends of Mineral Town and the first chapter of A Wonderful Life/DS. Story of Mineral Town - by CustardPudding; WIP, 2/?, 5k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town, Harvest Moon 64, Back To Nature Relationships: Claire the Farmer/Gray, Cliff/Female Farmer, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran/Brandon, Kai/Popuri, Harris/Mary the Librarian | Marie, Elli/Doctor Trent | Torre, Karen/Rick; Characters: Claire, Sara, Cliff, Gray, Jennifer, Karen, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Doug | Dudley Additional Tags: Chickens, Angst, Family Drama, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, More like medium burn? I don't really know, Some Fluff, But also quite a bit of angst, Canon couples, Ann/Brandon is kinda cracky, Some underage drinking, Which is mostly Karen, Minor Swearing Summary: Claire and Sara, sisters who have been inseparable for their whole lives, are vastly different. With Claire's quiet and responsible nature combined with Sara's hotheaded and standoffish one, many wondered how they could possibly be related by blood. But they took care of each other nevertheless. So when they inherit their late grandfather's farm, they expect it to be an easy thing. Take a few looks at it, restore it to its former glory, and then sell it and move on. They were wrong, of course. Rival After Events - by LuxBeacon (Number13teen); WIP, 4/13, 7k Rating: General

Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Categories: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationships: Elli/Doctor Trent | Torre, Kai/Popuri, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran/Cliff, Karen/Rick, Gray/Mary the Librarian | Marie, Harvest Goddess/Pete | Jack, Kappa/Claire, Male Farmer | Yuto/Huang | Won; Characters: Elli | Elly, Doctor Trent | Torre, Popuri, Kai, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Cliff, Karen, Rick, Mary the Librarian, Gray, Pete | Jack, Claire, Harvest Goddess, Kappa, Won | Huang, Gourmet - Character Additional Tags: Fluff, Rival Marriage, LGBTQ Themes, Wholesome, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net Summary: A series of one shots detailing the lives of the Mineral Town bachelorettes and bachelors after marrying their rival. Each story references different locations and characters from across the franchise and each chapter takes inspiration from actual events in the games. Pure Fluff. Year One - by pawprintmusical; WIP, 7/?, 10k Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town, Harvest Moon DS Cute, A Wonderful Life Relationships: Claire the Farmer/Zack, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran/Cliff, Elli/Doctor Trent | Torre, Gray/Mary the Librarian, Kai/Popuri, Karen/Rick; Characters: Claire the Farmer, Zack, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Cliff, Elli, Doctor Trent | Torre, Gray, Mary the Librarian, Karen, Rick, Kai, Popuri Additional Tags: MFoMT, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, alcohol mention, didn't want to tag the whole town but they're here with a chunk of AWL people too, Tags Added As I Go, Pre-Relationship, Not Remake Compliant Summary: Claire needed a change, and Mineral Town seemed like just the ticket. She just never expected how much it would change her. Rainy Day Vignettes - by Shelookstothesky; WIP, 7/?, 31k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: A Wonderful Life, Harvest Moon DS Cute, Friends of Mineral Town Characters: Marlin | Mash, Pony | Aya | Jill, Rock, Muffy | Muumuu, Griffin | Garfan, Takakura, Celia | Seperia, Vesta, Claire Additional Tags: Vignette, Eventual Romance, Angst and Drama Summary: This fanfic is a collection of scenes I wrote with the Jill/Pony and Marlin paring back in 2016 and decided to reread and edit them just for fun. I'm not sure if I'll actually write new scenes in addition to the original ones I wrote back in 2016. I suppose it will depend on how engrossed I get back into the plot. I hope you enjoy anyway!~ Life is like a Festival - by LeafBubble; WIP, 7/?, 26k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationships: Many relationships will happen, Final pairing is a mystery; Characters: Rick, Popuri, Barley | Mugi, May | Mei, Saibara, Gray, Duke, Manna, Basil the Writer, Anna, Mary the Librarian | Marie, Thomas, Harris, Old Ellen, Elli | Elly, Stu | Yu, Jeff, Sasha, Karen, Doctor Trent | Torre, Carter the Pastor, Cliff, Doug | Dudley, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Kai, Gotz | Gotts, Brandon, Jennifer, Zack, Won Huang Additional Tags: Adult themes are present, Depression, Angst, Prejudice, Sexuality, Abandonment, Happy Themes, Life gives the good and the bad Summary: Claire is a young woman who led a comfortable life. Great up bringing, amazing schooling, landed a dream job. As the days go by she feels as if she was doing nothing, but being a cog in the machine. A chance get away on a cruise forever changes her life. A forgotten land, facing turmoil when crops and animals begin to decay. A goddess is in disarray as she needs to find a new farmer to help restore the town. After making a deal with a goddess, Claire vows to find the man who saved her life. Will she decide to take on the challenge of being a farmer in an unfamiliar town and find this mystery man, or pack her bags and face reality? Friendships will be tested, and love will be fought and lost. A slow burn story that will go through the lives of the many

characters of Mineral Town and their connections to each other. all that glitters - by christinahosetti; WIP, 3/?, 5k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: F/F Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationship: Claire the Farmer/Jennifer; Characters: Claire, Jennifer Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, Worldbuilding, Eventual Smut, Fae & Fairies, not gonna tag the whole town but they're all there basically, claire is called clover Summary: “You’re not completely solitary, though,” Clover points out, now harvesting the blackberries into a tupperware container she’s fished out of her rucksack. “You hang out with me all the time. And Mugi, and Lillia, and Harris.” “That’s true. They’re all people with peaceful energies, though, so I don’t mind them so much. No drama or nastiness.” Clover gives her an odd look. “I’m not sure that applies to me.” “Well, you’re the exception.” - Jennifer has secrets to keep, but the farmer makes her want to spill them all. Harvest Moon: The Novel - by CurtTheGamer, WIP, 5/?, 8k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence; Major Character Death Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town, Back To Nature Characters: Pete | Jack, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Doug | Dudley, Mary the Librarian | Marie, Karen, Elli | Elly, Old Ellen, Gray, Jeff, Cliff, Gotz | Gotts, Sasha, Maria the Mayor's Daughter, Anna, Thomas, Manna, Doctor | Trent, Duke, Saibara, Stu | Yu, Won | Huang, Kent, May | Mei, Barley | Mugi, Kai, Popuri, Lillia the Shopkeeper, Rick, Basil the Writer, Harris, Jennifer, Zack, Dog, Horse Summary: Pete is a young man from the big city. He hasn't dreamed of having a job outside the city, nor does he want to. But when an old friend from a small village dies, Pete inherits his farm. Though reluctant, he agrees to leave his city life to become a farmer. Will he live happily ever after, or will the old-fashioned country life become a bore? What is Art? (Not That) - by FosterTheBananas; WIP, 1/2, 1.2k Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: Gen Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Characters: Won | Huang, Brandon Summary: Huang heads to Mineral Town to help oversee shipments for his cousin. While there, he tries to buy some art in the hopes of reselling for a profit, but instead he catches the attention of an eccentric artist who. just. won't. go. away.

[fulcrumahsokaamidala]

Fan Fic Catch Up: One-shot

Hello, everyone!!! So this is me thanking awesome fanfic writers for their amazing work and all the time they put into their fics. ♥️ I want to recommend spectacular fanfic stories I’ve read since my last spectacular Saturday post! ♥️ Which was last November!!! Saturday spectacular post will resume this Saturday. Will still be tagged as #saturday spectacular fic rec

This is the second of three catch up posts.

Completed multi-chapter fics

WIP fic

One-shots

cook with love (to make food for the soul) by @inlovewithimpossibillity | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: ‘I don’t really cook.’ ‘That makes sense.’

An expansion on the beginning sequence of 8x05 within which Oliver takes it upon himself to try and remedy a gap in Mia’s education. The kitchen.

these faultlines in our guard by @alexiablackbriar13 | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Instead of forcing Mia into doing the initiation bell exercise, the Bratva use more extreme measures to try and extract information from Oliver, using his daughter. Mia is left trying to deal with the physical and emotional aftermath of being tortured in front of her father while he dials his overprotective instincts from 10 up to 11.

Viscount Hood’s Return by @hope-for-olicity | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Lady Felicity Smoak attends a Yuletide Ball and is surprised to discover Viscount Hood.

A Perfect Holiday Getaway by @blondeeoneexox | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: This fic is just a whole lot of holiday Olicity fluff.

no I don’t hardly know her (but I think I could love her) by vickovac | Brooklyn Nine-Nine | One-shot

Summary: 'I’m in the library doing extra-credit work and you’re working on a term paper due tomorrow’/'you accidentally took my coffee’ 'you really drink that?’/'I took the flyer for the society you were handing out because you’re so pretty but I have no idea what we actually do�� AU

or Amy Santiago, like any normal college student, has a routine. Naturally, her class rival, Jake Peralta, disrupts it…in the best way possible.

Boyfriends From College by Impossibly_Izzy | Brooklyn Nine-Nine & One Day at a TIme | One-shot

Summary: Jake dated two guys in college, but doesn’t realize until he introduces one of them to Amy.

Into the B99-Verse by ThatOneSmolFangirl | Brooklyn Nine-Nine & Into the Spider-Verse | One-shot

Summary: that title was so bad ANYWHO, our favorite boy, Miles Morales, finds himself in the Brooklyn-99 precinct. Him interacting with everyone and generally having a good time. Based off that one tumblr post

Are You Wearing My Shirt? by @green-arrows-of-karamel | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Felicity has a little accident and borrows Oliver’s shirt.

Not The Last Time by CSM | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Post 804. Mia desperately wants to see her mother and there is no stopping her, so Oliver and William accompany her to Bloomfield to see a surprised Felicity and baby Mia.No association with my other season 8 fic

Big Belly Reprieve by @inlovewithimpossibillity | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Bored in the bunker waiting for their parents to finish at the gala, FTA head to Big Belly to introduce Mia to the food of their childhood. [Set in 8x06: Reset]

Merry and Bright by @inlovewithimpossibillity | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: The 2013 Queen Consolidated Holiday Office Party sneaks up on CEO, Oliver Queen, but if he’s learnt one thing this year, it’s that anything’s possible when he has Felicity Smoak by his side. (For the 'Olicity Holiday Tropes Challenge’ prompt: Office Party)

The Little Green Secret by @green-arrows-of-karamel | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: This is not how Oliver imagined New Year’s Eve was going to be.

A Heart Full of Love by @inlovewithimpossibillity | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: With Christmas upon them now, Felicity has to admit that she’s incredibly excited as well to do something other than eat takeout and watch Disney movies with her baby girl. Sharing the Queen’s traditions with them is just another move towards them becoming a more cohesive family and she’ll always be excited for that. [A Christmas morning fic set within my Single Parents AU 'Welcome to Starling Prep Elementary’ around a year later]

sugar and smoke rings by @inlovewithimpossibillity | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: He never would have believed the full story if it hadn’t come directly from the lips of the man he trusts most in the world. The legendary vigilantes Green Arrow and Overwatch had a daughter no one knew about?[How Connor meets Mia, pre-s7 flashforwards]

kissing death and losing my breath by fbismoak (midwestwind) | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: “In the grand scheme of things, she figures she’s probably due for a mental break anyway.“Picks up immediately after the end of 2x07.

A Late Christmas Present by @alanna-the-lionheart | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: When Oliver and Felicity’s friends send their wedding gift back to them, the two of them feel quite differently about it. Oliver tamps down his frustrations in an effort to make Felicity feel better, and together, the two of them turn an unpleasant situation on its head.

a father should be great by @inlovewithimpossibillity | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Two conversations, thirty years apart. A seven-year-old Felicity and a nine-year-old Mia. Both two scared girls wondering why their fathers are no longer with them. Both seeking the comfort of their mothers.

Everything by WinnieTherPooh | Agents of SHIELD | One-shot

Summary: Jemma tries to reconcile the Doctor of the Framework with her Fitz. Set immediately post-Framework (in a world where the space adventure doesn’t happen, or at least doesn’t begin right away).

hot chocolate conversations by riverwoodhills | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Walter stumbles upon a distraught Oliver being consoled by his Executive Assistant in his office, a hot chocolate being passed subconsciously between them.

open up the door for you by @inlovewithimpossibillity | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: A random evening with a little too much whiskey leads to Mia opening up to Connor about where she comes from and a little bit more.

gentle lady, your knight is here ready  by @alexiablackbriar13 | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Set in S2. A collection of missing scenes. The five times Oliver took care of Felicity and the one time she took care of him.

(drop everything) meet me in the moonlight by @inlovewithimpossibillity | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Oliver is working late one summer’s night in the mayoral office when a text from Felicity alerts him that everything is not alright with his beautiful, blonde ex-fiancée partner. (or post-s4, Felicity’s trying desperately to deal with the guilt of Havenrock and reaches out to Oliver one night when it’s all a little too much.)

we do, but friends don’t by @inlovewithimpossibillity | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Detective Billy Malone learns many things early on in his relationship with Felicity Smoak but his most important finding is just how close she seems to be with her ex-fiancé, newly appointed Mayor Queen.[a (semi-)outside perspective on olicity, just before the start of s5]

Life was Full of Surprises - and Oliver Queen was the Best One byaponderingcharming | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Set sometime in Season 2. After a rough night, Oliver gets drunk and Felicity is left to take care of him. After some fluff and a heartwarming moment of honesty, Felicity notes a shift in their relationship.

kneel by 101places | Agents of SHIELD | One-shot

Summary: Simmons has a bad reaction to an episode of Doctor Who.

a dance or two to escape the gloom by @alexiablackbriar13 | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Queen Incorporated’s Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak of Smoak Technologies, rival CEOs, dance with each other at a holiday gala to avoid their exes.

New Year’s Eve by @alexiablackbriar13 | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: William pulls a 5x20 on Connor and Mia, locking them inside the bunker on New Year’s Eve with Indian food and wine. Of course, things escalate.  

Regret by Altum_Videtur  | Star Wars: The Clone Wars | One-shot

Summary: In the aftermath of the Battle of Ryloth, Ahsoka comes to terms with being responsible for other people’s lives. Set right after Storm Over Ryloth.

The Subtleties of Fashion by FrostOnGalway | Star Wars: The Clone Wars | One-shot Summary: Can we all agree that Ahsoka’s first outfit with the tube-top and mini-skirt is terrible for so many reasons? Anakin thinks so, and he’s gonna take a stand against stupid costume designers. The only problem is, how does he do that without hurting Ahsoka? When faced with a crisis of fashion (or most crises, really) the obvious solution is to go to Padmé for help. AKA The story of how Ahsoka gets her new outfit in Season 3. AKA The Fashion and the Arts (of Subtlety) Remix

you put your arms around me (and i’m home) by @inlovewithimpossibillity​ | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: The bunker is filled with people, Mia had been right about that, and there are many faces she recognizes staring back at her in shock but Mia is only interested in one of them.[An 8x10 spec-fic based off of the promo stills wherein Adult Mia meets 2020 Felicity]

no one will win this time by @alexiablackbriar13​ | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Canon divergent from COIE Part 5.Instead of targeting the Paragons, the pissed-off Anti-Monitor sends shadow demons after Oliver’s loved ones. Realizing two of the people Oliver loves most are vulnerable currently out in Bloomfield, dealing with the archer’s death, Sara rushes to protect Felicity and baby Mia, and bring them back to Star City so they can keep them safe.

The Next Right Thing by @inlovewithimpossibillity​ | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: A cabin. A wife. A teenager. A baby. Felicity Smoak is shaken to her core after the events of Crisis but she must come together for her son and daughter now. For Oliver, and for the true reason he sacrificed so much.

Take Your Daughter Into Battle Day by @alexiablackbriar13​ | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Oliver and Mia are trying to keep her identity secret from the other superheroes as Crisis begins, saying that she’s a Green Arrow from E-20 called Maya. But after their first huge team battle, Barry and Kara quickly notice something is up between them - and the truth unfolds.

Let me know if you want to be tagged!

@hope-for-olicity @emdee8907 @malafle @laxit21 @icannotbelieveiamhere

[winryofresembool]

Edwin fic: A Haircut

A/N: Long time no fics (again). Feels like I’m saying that too often these days. But anyway, here is finally one! This.... probably doesn’t /actually/ happen in canon as in all the post promised day shots of Winry she has long hair but I wanted to write this anyway so here we go. I imagine this fic takes place a few months into the boys’ return to Resembool, and Edwin is starting to act a bit coupley. Please enjoy and review! This fic is dedicated to @stephysketchy for being such a super nice person :’)

Words: 2200ish

Genre: guess.(Floof)

Warnings: none

...

“Did you hear that Annie cut her hair short after breaking up with her boyfriend? I saw her yesterday and I can tell you guys, it doesn’t suit her at all.”

It was an early morning, and Winry was sitting at a small Resembool café with her old friends Nelly and Mary, after deciding to give herself a break from working on her current automail project for a day. Her granny had recommended she should try to bond with her old classmates more now that the whole Promised Day disaster was over and she was allowed to leave the house. However, Winry quite quickly realized it was not a very good idea, in the end.

It had been almost a year since she had last seen either of her friends because of all the traveling, working and hiding. So much had happened during that year, making the emotional gap between her and her Resembool friends wider than she had imagined. Winry supposed it was called growth. She was no longer the same person she had been. Meanwhile, these girls, who knew nothing about the recent events of Amestris, were still in the same spot where they had been when they previously met. They still gossiped shamelessly with no worries about what anyone would think of them, while Winry was already ready to leave the café and never come back. But she decided to try to be patient; maybe they would change the topic soon.

“Really?” Mary asked, pulling Winry back from her frustrated thoughts. “What a shame. Her hair was so pretty. Did she explain why she did that?”

“Yep,” Nelly nodded. “Apparently she had heard some people cut their hair after a big change in their lives, such as a break up. But if you ask me, that’s a liiittle bit overdramatic. I wouldn’t ruin my hair for a boy.” She twirled her long tresses proudly.

There was a loud bang on the table. “OK, I have heard enough,” Winry announced angrily, a venomous expression on her face. “Can you hear how awful you guys sound? What if Annie was talking about you guys the same way? How would you feel about that?”

“I…”

“Uh…”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” Winry hissed. “Annie is allowed to do whatever she wants with her hair. If you guys have nothing better to talk about, I’m gonna go back to my workshop. At least the metals are something I understand.”

Winry rose from her seat and made a dramatic exit that she imagined Ed would have been proud of. She wondered briefly how he would have reacted to the girls’ conversation. Probably the same way she did (except, even more dramatic if possible), she concluded, and continued towards her home.

However, one part of the conversation did stick to her mind: the reason behind Annie’s hair cut. It made her think about her own life and the changes she had gone through. The apprenticeship in Rush Valley. The Promised Day and events that had led to it. A few months ago, she had finally gotten her two best friends back, and things had calmed down notably. She didn’t have to worry about Ed and Al anymore, and she was free to do whatever she wanted. That was a feeling she wasn’t used to, but something told her she should embrace it. She should do something she hadn’t done in a long while, and now she knew what it was.

She would cut her hair short.

Sure, there were also more practical reasons why she wanted to do it: the long hair got easily stuck between the metal plates and joints when she was working on automail, and in the summer heat her ponytail got all sweaty, but more than that, she wanted to see this hair cut as a symbol of the new, more peaceful part of her life. Besides, she smirked to herself, she would definitely love to see her “friends’” expressions when she’d show up at the town center with the short hair. And – a tiny voice spoke inside her – maybe she was also a little bit curious about how a certain golden-haired boy would react. She hoped he wouldn’t hate it even if it was her own opinion that mattered the most.

...

A couple of hours later, Winry stepped out of a hairdresser’s shop. She was sporting an bob cut that was slightly shorter from the back than front and a content smile that was nearly as wide as Ed’s. In her opinion, the cut had been a success and she was quite positive Ed and Al would like it too. Now all she had to do was to go home and see what would happen.

…

“Hello?” Is anyone home?”

Den ran to greet Winry when she opened the door, but to her slight disappointment the boys weren’t anywhere to be seen. She figured they must have been jogging somewhere, working on Al’s stamina. Her granny, however, gave her a couple of compliments about her hair when she found her from the kitchen. Pinako remembered that Winry’s mother had had exactly the same kind of hair cut when she had started dating her son and showed Winry an old photograph of her from that time. In the picture Sara was wearing a blue summer dress that Pinako believed was still in her late son and daughter-in-law’s old room. Winry wanted to see it, leaving her granny to cook and digging into the wardrobe of her mother.

For a moment, Winry felt overwhelmed as she smelled her mother’s dresses and remembered the times when she had seen them on her. After wiping a couple tears from her cheek, she noticed the one she had been looking for and gently took it out of the closet. She tried it on and was happy to notice it fit to her.

The dress in question was a light blue cotton dress, with a long ribbon going around the waist. Its sleeves were short and the hem about knee-length for Winry. She thought it would be quite suitable for the picnic she and the boys had planned for that day; not too fancy but still comfortable for the warm weather. The color also seemed to match her eyes.

The young woman took a look at the clock on the wall and realized it was almost lunch time; Ed and Al would probably come back from their work out session soon. Leaving the blue dress on, she quickly organized the rest of her mother’s dresses back into the closet and went to help her granny to pack the food for the picnic.

“You seem awfully eager about the picnic today,” Pinako noted suddenly as they were filling the basket, taking a look at Winry’s appearance. “Are you sure you are not trying to impress someone?”

“What, who would I need to impress?” she tried casually but blushed a bit nevertheless.

“Winry, I may be old but not blind,” Pinako shook her head but let the topic be.

The boys were waiting in the hall when Winry came there with the picnic basket. At first Ed was more focused on the basket, curious about its contents, but when he turned to see Winry, his mouth went wide open.

“Something’s different about you,” he stammered wisely.

“Well, yeah, brother, she has cut her hair short!” Al said like it should have been the most obvious thing. “Can’t believe how blind you are. Oh, is that a new dress, too, Winry? Both the dress and the hairstyle suit you very well!”

“Thank you, Al! No, it’s my mother’s old dress, but this is the first time I’m using it!” Winry beamed happily, satisfied that at least Al had noticed what was different.

Al nudged Ed on his arm, telling him to say something too.

“Umm… the hair looks… nice?”

“Just nice?” Winry’s happiness turned into disappointment. “You should be happy you won’t be getting so many long hair between your knee joints from now on…”

“Winry, I think when brother says ‘nice’ he means he thinks it’s super pretty,” Al tried to calm her down.

“Oh, well,” Winry sighed. “Anyway, let’s go then.”

On their way to their favorite picnic spot, Winry, who was walking in front of the brothers, felt that she was being stared at the entire time. Her suspicions turned out to be true when she first heard Al whispering something, and Ed, incapable of staying quiet, immediately yelled back: “I’m not staring, I’m just… checking that nothing falls out of the basket!”

“And sheep can fly, brother,” Al snickered back, not having any of it.

Winry smiled contently, glad she had gotten some reaction from Ed after all.

“I’m hoping none of that milk I packed has spilled over, that would be a disaster, wouldn’t it, Ed?” she asked slyly.

“I… what? Why did you pack milk?! Al, she’s crazy.”

“That’s how I know you didn’t actually pay attention to the basket, you would definitely have noticed the milk,” Winry laughed and Ed turned bright red.

“Way to make him silent, Winry!” Al exclaimed and reached to give her a high five.

Ed mumbled something to himself, but the others couldn’t hear what was being said, other than possibly giving a second thought to something.

…

Eventually, the trio reached a spot where they could see all the way to the Resembool lake and spread the sheet on the grass. As an “apology” to Ed for her earlier teasing, Winry sat right next to him and fed him grapes from her hand. Al just watched the two of them with amusement. They still hadn’t made an official “announcement” about dating, but everyone within a 5-mile radius from them knew what was going on.

Ed broke the peaceful silence by asking: “So, why did you cut your hair? I thought you liked the long hair.”

“I did!” Winry answered. “But… You remember Mary and Nelly, right? I heard them mocking someone’s short hair, and… I want to show them that they are wrong.” “That sounds like something you would do,” Ed laughed and patted Winry on her head. Then he combed his fingers through her blonde locks to test how it would feel like, a move weirdly intimate for him. Al decided he should let the other two have a moment alone and pointed towards the road: “Oh, look! Mr. Jackman is there with his dog! I should go say I hi to them, I need to thank him for borrowing… um, something. I’ll be right back.”

“OK, Al. Don’t stay too long, the soup will get cold.” Winry said after him.

“So…” Ed grumbled, not sure what to say once they were alone.

“So…”

“It feels so different from earlier,” he stated after twirling a lock of her hair between his fingers. “In a good way!” he responded to Winry’s questioning look. “I mean, my fingers don’t get tangled into it anymore.”

“Silly. I’m glad you are enjoying it that much. But yeah, it’s much easier to take care of now too. And I should be able to inspect your automail more closely too now that it won’t get stuck there.” She winked.

Chills went through Ed’s spine. “Hey! Don’t… talk to me like that here! We’re in public!”

“And could be heard by whom? Mr. Jackman seems to be chatting with Al eagerly and I don’t see anyone else nearby.”

“You really are a bit crazy,” Ed said but pulled her closer to him. “Anyway, why do I think you are not telling me everything about the reason why you cut your hair?”

“Sometimes you’re too curious for your own good, alchemy geek.” Winry gave him a disapproving look.

“C’mon, you can tell me.”

Winry poked her fingers together nervously. “Well, they say that… some people like to get a haircut after they have experienced some big life change…”

“And?” Ed urged her to continue.

“That is kinda why I wanted to do it,” Winry answered. “Because… this situation is new to us. I mean… we… have lost a lot on our journey, but… now we have reached this point. We are safe… and we can do whatever we want, right?”

Ed seemed to think about it for a little while. “Well, when you put it that way… it makes sense. So, what is it that you want to do?”

“I want to become the best automail mechanic I can be! But… right now? This is probably gonna sound lame to you… but I just want to enjoy this moment.”

She snuggled closer to Ed’s arm, waiting for his response.

“Nah, I get what you mean,” he said to Winry’s surprise and wrapped an arm around her. “By the way… I think it suits you.”

“What?”

“Your new hair! I… really do like it.”

“I figured as much,” Winry chuckled, nudging him gently. Before she could get too comfortable on Ed’s lap, though, his stomach started grumbling, telling them it was time to eat.

“We should tell Al to come back as well,” Winry pointed out, nodding towards the two men still talking a few dozen metres away.

“I guess you’re right,” Ed snorted and hid his face into a huge sandwich.

[murasaki-murasame]

I guess it’s time for me to put on my clown wig and make a complete fool of myself by dumping out all my last-minute thoughts about what I want and expect from the Sarazanmai finale, now that we’re just a few hours away from it.

Mostly this is just gonna be me trying to rationalize a way this could end happily for everyone involved even though I know full well the finale’s gonna murder me. [And tbh this is mostly gonna be me talking about Reo and Mabu lol]

lmao I have so many scattered and messy thoughts about all this, where do I even begin.

Most of all I’m still clinging onto the hope that Reo and Mabu will some way or another get revived in the finale. I’m bracing myself for the worst, though. I just feel like their deaths don’t even fit into the typical pattern of Ikuhara characters ‘dying’ as a way to transcend reality. Reo’s death in particular was so down to earth and casual that I don’t really think it’s satisfying or even bittersweet in the way that a lot of other Ikuhara endings are.

I also just think it seems really noteworthy that instead of getting sucked into the hell of never ending, beginning, or connecting, the ring representing Mabu’s place in the big circle of society bounced back and manifested in the real world to land in Reo’s pocket. And then Reo himself turned into the same sorta ring after he died even though he didn’t even become a kappa zombie or anything, and he just died a regular death. I get the feeling that Keppi might have somehow stepped in to stop them from completely being destroyed, considering what he said after Mabu’s death about how he was going to make sure to connect their desires to the future.

It just comes across like they’re in some sort of stasis where there’s still a chance to bring them back somehow. At the very least, I don’t really see what the entire point of them turning into rings would be other than that.

I’ve also been thinking for a while now that it might be Sara and Keppi who get the trademark ‘self-sacrifice/transcending reality’ Ikuhara ending, rather than any of the main trio or Reo and Mabu. I could even see it being a thing where they don’t even die, but they basically give up their place in the human realm and go back to the kappa kingdom permanently, which wouldn’t even be that sad of an ending for them in my opinion. There’s a lot of different ways it could play out, but I’ve got two ideas.

For one thing, I think Sara might be able to create her own dish of hope like Keppi can. He said he was the only one who can do that [I think he did, at least], but he’s also clearly been lying about being the ‘sole survivor of the kappa kingdom’ so I don’t really trust that, and the fact that the main dish of hope that we’ve spent most of the series working toward has already been used makes me think that another one might be introduced in the finale so that another wish can be made. It also seems really fishy to me that the scene with her and Haruka in ep10 revealed that Sara’s head ornament thing is apparently a type of plate. It makes me wonder if maybe there’s gonna be a reveal where we find out that she’s been hiding a dish of hope in plain sight, literally right on top of her head.

I could also maybe see a situation where Sara and Keppi transplant their own shirikodama into Reo and Mabu to bring them back, like what Kazuki wanted to do with Haruka in ep6. I’ve been wondering ever since that episode if that whole idea was going to come up again, at least. I think this could lead to the sorta situation I mentioned before where they have to give up their place in the human world, since as we also learned in ep6, giving up your shirikodama ejects you from the circle. But they might still be able to just go back to the kappa kingdom even after that so it might not be a big deal for them.

And along those same lines, maybe instead of Sara and Keppi both giving up their shirikodama, maybe Keppi will transplant the two halves of his broken shirikodama into Reo and Mabu. I guess it’s not really that different than the other option, but still. I think it’d at least be a nice bit of symbolism if they end up with two halves of the same shirikodama.

I’ve also been toying with the idea that maybe as part of the whole thing with how they deleted all the tweets from the ReoMabu twitter account, maybe if the finale involves them getting revived, the twitter account will basically be ‘rebooted’ and start posting all new tweets about their post-anime lives together. That’d be a really nice way to turn things around from how depressing the end of ep10 was. And it might be a good way to help balance out the fact that they probably wouldn’t get that much screen time in the finale even if they get revived, so giving them an epilogue story of sorts in twitter form could help make it feel more fleshed out.

In general I’m just gonna be disappointed if they stay dead in the finale, lol. I’m not going to make any harsh judgments or final opinions until the last episode airs, but I just think it’d be lame if their ending is just ‘they died, the end’. It’s obvious what sorta social commentary Ikuhara’s trying to make with them, but I feel like there’d be nothing subversive or interesting about commenting on how gay characters are ‘punished’ for being open about their feelings by just, y’know, effectively doing exactly that. Especially since it feels like Enta’s probably not gonna end up being able to properly tell Kazuki about his feelings either.

But the bottom line is that we just have to wait and see how it pans out. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. And even if I end up disappointed by it, it wouldn’t make me hate Ikuhara as a content creator or as a person or anything. It’d just make me wish that more people would go about this kind of social commentary by giving gay characters happy endings where they get to be open about themselves.

Anyway, aside from the whole question of if this two will stay dead or not, I think the thing I most want out of the finale is some sort of a concrete explanation of how the ReoMabu manga fits into the whole timeline. We know for a fact that it’s canon to the anime timeline and isn’t some sort of an alternate universe story, but the more I think about it, the harder it is to figure out where it fits in.

It boils down to whether it happened before or after the anime, I guess, but both options don’t make complete sense. It seems more logical to assume that it happened before the anime, but it’s worth noting that the twitter account seems to end right before Reo and Mabu head off to the war, but they never acknowledge Sara at all in the whole twitter account, and I think there was even a tweet they made about Children’s Day ‘not being relevant to them’. Which seems like a hint that they haven’t even met Sara by that point.

But it happening after the anime comes with some more obvious inconsistencies. Though honestly I prefer this option, and I think a lot of questions about it could be solved if we assume it takes place post-anime with Reo and Mabu being revived but with some of their memories erased, and if we assume that the otters are completely defeated by this point.

I think the only thing that seems to concretely ‘date’ the manga is the absence of the Skytree, but I still think that it’s very likely the Skytree might just get destroyed in the finale as part of the big final clash between Keppi and Otter, so I think that’s not necessarily a contradiction. There’s also the fact that in the manga, the name and design of the police station is plate-themed instead of otter-themed, which on paper seems to indicate that it’s taking place before the otters took over, but it might instead indicate that it takes place after they’ve been defeated.

The whole thing with them not recognizing Sara at all in the final chapter of the manga also sticks out to me a lot now that we know Reo and Mabu used to be quite close with Keppi. It just seems like no matter where in the timeline the manga takes place, if they know about Keppi, they should probably be aware of who Sara is. But who knows. I just think it might be a hint that they get their memories of everything related to the kappas and otters erased after the anime.

I also think the whole premise of Sara being abandoned in the human world and conveniently adopted by Reo and Mabu seems more and more baffling the more we learn about them all as characters, and I think it might make more sense if it happens after the anime. Maybe Sara uses up so much of her power that her human form reverts back into being a baby. Who even knows! It’s weird in it’s own way to assume that the princess of the kappa kingdom just got abandoned in the human realm before any of this even happened.

The bit with her reuniting with her manager and Keppi also comes across as being pretty final to me. I get the feeling that she’s leaving the human world forever and isn’t going to be able to come back. Which makes me think that even if most of the manga takes place pre-anime, maybe the final chapter or two alone happens much later. Somehow. 

Then there’s the possibility of time looping being involved and there’s just too many ways it could all play out, lol. I just really want there to be a clearly understandable timeline of events once this is all done, otherwise it’s gonna nag at me forever.

If we find out that the manga happened pre-anime, I think they should have basically adapted it into an episode of the anime somewhere in the second half, to flesh Reo and Mabu out more. But we’ll see.

Also, before I forget, the Sarazanmai twitter account reposting the old PVs is making me wonder if we ever heard Reo’s line from his PV about assumptions being dangerous in the show itself. All of the other lines everyone said in that series of PVs ended up being used in the show itself, but I don’t remember that line of Reo’s ever coming up. I’m definitely just grasping at straws but it makes me hope that maybe it means it’ll be part of the finale. It at least gives me the mental image of him and Mabu appearing at the last minute to help fight against Dark Keppi and the Otters or whatever, and them being like ‘BITCH U THOUGHT!!! >:^)’

I don’t really have as many concrete predictions for what’ll happen with the main trio, even though they’re gonna be the focus of the finale. Mostly I just hope this doesn’t end with Kazuki making a wish to turn back time. I feel like that wouldn’t really fit the whole narrative and message of this show. And honestly there’s only so much that could even be ‘fixed’ by turning back time. Like, sure Kazuki might be able to improve his personal relationships and maybe prevent Haruka’s accident, but would turning back time do anything about Toi’s family history and Chikai’s criminal ties? Would it do anything about the destruction of the kappa kingdom, or Mabu’s death and rebirth with a mechanical heart? Would it do anything about Enta’s presumably one-sided crush? It just feels like there’s only so much that could even be achieved with that sort of an ending, unless they completely undo everything. But going by how ep6 played out, I don’t think Ikuhara’s planning on that sort of ending. I just want this to end with the main trio having to move on with their lives and live with the consequences of how everything turned out.

But if we exclude the possibility of time looping and whatnot, I don’t really have any strong ideas about how things might turn out with them. But I guess all they really need to do is just save Toi from venturing outside the circle, and after that they can just deal with the rest of their lives together.

The big wildcard seems to be the fact that we’re finally gonna figure out the true meaning of the very first scene in ep1, which is still one big question mark. It does come across like it’s hinting at some kind of a time loop, but who knows. One way or another I feel like I might end up rewatching ep1 right after the finale. It’ll be interesting to see if it carries any additional meaning after all that.

And on the topic of ep1, even aside from that very first scene, I’ve always kept thinking back to how part of ep1 involved some narrative misdirection where we found out that in the scene at the car garage, ‘Sara’ was just Kazuki cross-dressing. It just seems interesting to me that that level of outright misdirection and lying to the viewer hasn’t really come up again, outside of Enta’s delusions. So I’ve just been wondering if it might ever come up again somehow. Though I also can’t help but hope that his cross-dressing will come up again one way or another since it kinda got unceremoniously dropped after ep6, so maybe I’m just grabbing at straws, lol. I do feel like it’d be a bit of a shame if there’s no actual deeper link between Kazuki and Sara, one way or another.

Though on that note, I do think it’s still pretty likely that if the ending involves her leaving the human realm, we might get an epilogue scene that shows that Kazuki’s basically taken her place as the local idol/TV presenter. Which I think would be a cute way to tie everything together.

In terms of happy epilogue type stuff with the main trio, I think it’d also make sense if we see them all playing soccer together.

I don’t really have much investment in shipping any of them, but part of me’s still holding out hope for a polyamory ending. But the more it goes on the more it does feel like Ikuhara doesn’t plan to really go anywhere super substantial with any of them in terms of their romantic relationships. Which is fine. I think it’d probably just be kinda sad if this ends with two of them getting together and one of them being ‘left out’. I’d rather it be an all or nothing type of thing.

Even the ep11 synopsis hints at the idea of them wishing for something at the end of all this, but I don’t know if that means they’ll literally make a wish with a dish of hope in the finale, after Kazuki just used his to save Enta. It might just be more about them finally bonding properly as a trio and resolving to keep living together.

But I do still think that Sara’s gonna make a wish on her own secret dish of hope, though. And if that happens I think the only things she’d really want to wish for would be related to saving Reo and Mabu, or turning back time completely.

All in all, as much as I want to go into this finale with restrained hopes and measured expectations, I still feel like this is the most stressed I’ve felt about an anime finale ever since Yuri on Ice, lmao. It’s gonna be really sad to see this all end. Even if we still have Migi’s manga adaptation and the second LN volume to look forward to afterwards.

[starcitysirens]

[fic]  really that damaged

title: really that damaged pairing: john constantine/sara lance rating: m word count: 3.4k summary: In which John and Sara bond over their respective dark pasts, and then they have sex. Or what happened in canon, except with better timing. Episode tag/rewrite for LOT 3x10 'Daddy Darhkest'. [No Leo Snarts were almost lobotomized in the making of this fic]

[ao3 link]

“Are you scared?” Sara says, voice soft in a whisper because she’s aware that the question is probably the most personal and intimate she can ask.

John lifts the corner of his mouth in a half smile that betrays his truth; a crack in his shield of arrogance.

“Well, I’m not in any hurry to get to the finish line, I’ll say that.”

It still feels strange to her to think of Heaven and Hell as real places. Too esoteric, even for one who’s experienced death and resurrection.

“Are you?” he asks and she thinks about it for a moment.

For Sara, death had been a lonely, loveless void. She doesn’t know where she went, after. She doesn’t think it was heaven. She doesn’t remember rest or relief.

“I used to be,” she says “Though, these days it’s the living that feels scarier.”

“Feels like the mother of all hangovers, don't it?” John says, and Sara nods because she has no other language to describe the experience. The reality is that demonic possession feels like nothing she’s ever been through before.

She lets herself fall to the floor, thankful for the support of the wall behind her. One less dark space in the room to worry about. She can't shake the feeling that the demon is still watching her, still perched somewhere over her shoulder waiting for the opportunity to infect her with his malice again. Goosebumps prickle all down her back. Her mouth tastes like metal. Her skin feels singed. Her chest aches with the pain of phantom arrows.

But worse, there’s a familiar itch beneath her skin, a need sinister and worrying, like a whisper behind her ears urging her to take, take, take. Her pulse pounds so heavy and so loud it feels as though John can hear it, and the memory of the demon’s voice inside her head makes her shiver anew. They can’t reach you, only I can. She feels herself blurring at the seam and only John’s presence at her side anchors her.

“I thought this was all over,” she confesses, “the bloodlust, the fight for my soul. All the crap I’ve had to endure.” Spilling her guts to the man who saved her soul was not how she thought this day would go.

“There’s always something else to endure,” he says.

He sounds so exhausted. She recognizes that weariness; she hears it in her own voice.

Sara shakes her own troubles aside for a second and turns to look at him. It’s like looking into a mirror, he looks so haunted. She listens as he tells the story of the little girl named Astra and the cursed trip to Newcastle that ruined so many lives and damned John’s soul to hell. The details are terrifying, and John’s voice shakes as he relays them, all semblance of arrogance dropped in favor of a moment of real vulnerability. But she’s grateful for his honesty; it makes her feel less naked.

“Some might say you should forgive yourself,” she tells him, repeating words she's heard so many times before and he lets out a gruff, humourless chuckle.

“Some, eh? But not you.”

Sara understands the practical futility of atonement. Nothing she does will ever undo her past deeds, just as saving Nora’s soul from Mallus won’t pull Astra back from hell.

“Some things don’t deserve forgiveness,” she says.

“You speak of your own sins,” he says, though he doesn’t refute her statement.

Sometimes she pretends she doesn’t know how many lives have been snuffed out by her hands, but she remembers each one. They all weigh so heavy on her conscience, even the ones who deserved it. Keeping score of her good deeds doesn’t really do much to alleviate it. She suspects it’s the same for John. His over-confidence is an affectation for his guilt. She knows because she plays that role, too.

“Well, if we could forgive ourselves,” he continues, “then who would be left to save the likes of poor Nora?”

John pushes himself off the wall and she lets him pull her to her feet. They’re almost nose to nose and has no choice but to stare up into his dark eyes. He’s got a certain magnetism to him that she can’t help but be pulled by. Thea had once called him a specific kind of yummy. He’s a pain in the ass, but Sara can see the appeal.

She sees his hands shuffle around and produce a card out of thin air. Her breath catches at the sight of it, heart full of longing for her sister. There are two birds on the card: one white, one black. Her past. Her present. The future’s she’s fighting so hard for.

“It’s a little reminder that you’re a survivor,” John tells her, “strong enough to keep even the most powerful demons at bay.”

It might be a line but she understands the message: our strengths are the products of our past. The man rescued her soul from the underrealm and she just saw him go toe to toe with a demon, but this cheap parlour trick charms her more than anything. She takes the card from his hands and looks up at his face, her eyes drawn to the haughty curl of his mouth. He is so close she can smell the cigarettes on his breath. He moves closer still and her pulse spikes up again, if for different reasons this time. When was the last time a man made her feel this unbalanced?

“Say, a laundry room in a mental asylum in 1969 might not be the worst place to be stuck,” he says.

And it'd be so easy to pull him forward and take what he’s offering, swallow his breath right into her lungs, fill them up with damnation. She's spent so long trying to rise above the darkness, trying to be something other than-- what was it she’d said to Leo? The kind of girl you take to an exorcism. It’s exhausting.

She’s still rattled and anxious and wants nothing more than to lose herself in the touch of someone equally damaged, someone who has seen the thing the Pit spat out and doesn’t judge it because he’s got his own demons tugging on his coattails.

She leans in just enough to brush her lips against his before the guilt kicks in and the weight of responsibility bears down on her shoulders. She’s a leader now, a Captain, and people are depending on her. A mid-mission tryst with an exorcist is not the kind of thing she should be doing, no matter how much she burns for it.

With a heavy sigh, she pulls back, and says, “We should go find Leo.”

“I told you, I’m fine. Now will you quit it?” Sara insists as John sprays her with holy water for what feels like the tenth time since they made a frantic return to the Waverider after their stint in 1969. She’d made the crew leave them alone in the medbay after reassuring them too that yes, she was okay.

“That was bloody stupid thing we did back there,” he says, his hands on his hips and his face all serious with reprimand.

She tries not to laugh, because he’s right, it was stupid and they could’ve died, but they didn’t, and it worked and they’re here in the Waverider, standing so close to each other she only has to lean forward a step to touch her forehead to his chest, where she can feel the rumbling of his own laughter.

“Stupid is sort of our specialty,” she says as her laughter trails off.

“You managed to summon a demon of the highest order and you didn’t succumb. Not even I have that kind of juice.”

“Yeah, well, I’m kinda amazing.”

“Now don’t be putting on airs, sweetheart, it’s unbecoming.”

He’s looking at her like he in the laundry room, dark eyes full of lust and danger. Except now the mission is over and she doesn’t have to be Captain Lance anymore. She can just be Sara. And Sara wants to continue on where they left off.

“Are you sure you feel alright there?” he says, hand poised to douse her again.

Maybe the fact that he sounds so dubious should offend her, or maybe even scare her, but she’s still riding the high of adrenaline. She can feel the magic coursing electric through her. She feels powerful, like she can take on the whole world.

“Actually, there is something,” she says as she takes the vial of holy water from him and steps right into his personal space.

John’s head tilts to one side, an eyebrow comes up in question, and then he smirks.

“The best kind of high, innit?”

“I can think of something better,” she says with a shrug.

“Is that so?”

“You have no idea,” she says and John practically growls as he finally comes at her.

He slams her against the walls of the Waverider, careful to hold on to the back of her head to cushion the impact. John's kiss is uncompromising, almost violent. It’s sloppy, wet from the get go. Sara grabs on to his hips and squirms against him, letting herself enjoy the novelty of someone matching her passion. She breaks the kiss to catch her breath and then she’s on him again, biting at the joint between ear and neck.

He smells like smoke and sulphur: black magic and hellfire. Damned, he’d said.

She feels her own darkness come alive, the bloodlust warming her from inside and for the first time, she’s not afraid of it. Not with him. It is part of her like his damnation is part of him. She lets it take over. She’s already sweating in her clothes, aching between her legs. All her nerves singing with desire.

“You got a bed here, luv?” he says, panting into her mouth, and she hauls him by the lapels of his coat and walks backwards into the hallway.

The doors to her quarters shut with a woosh and they waste no time disposing each other of their clothes in between hungry kisses, and then, finally, his hands are on her bare skin. John grabs her by the hips and walks them toward her bed. He pushes her down and she lets herself fall, content, for the moment, in letting him think he’s got control. He crawls over her body until they’re aligned hip to hip.

“How ‘bout I show you a magic trick?”

Sara smiles and then expertly flips them over until she’s on top, straddling his hips. She pins his wrists to the bed and he squirms.

“Oh, sweetheart, you’re gonna be a lot of fun.”

“John?” she says, walking on her knees until she’s hovering right over his face.

He smirks from between her legs, all lust and arrogance, eyes radiating danger. His big hands wrap around her hips and he rubs his stubbled cheeks across the soft insides of her thighs. When she shivers he laughs throatily.

“Shut up and put that smart mouth of yours to good use.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” he says and then his mouth is on her cunt.

There are no words exchanged as they kiss and bite and suck, and grip and grind, hips slamming together feeling for that perfect fit. She revels in the messiness of their fucking, the near selfish way they work each other’s bodies for pleasure. Men don’t always know what to do with her intensity, they feel threatened by it, but John seems to encourage her to go harder, to lose grip on her hard-fought-for control. It’s primal and heady, the way John obviously enjoys himself as much as she does. So much that she lets him flip them over until she’s flat on her back with her legs wrapped around his waist.

The burn of the blood lust is still there, smarting under her skin. But it doesn’t scare her. The satisfied grin on John’s face approximates a snarl and she lets the high of his pleasure carry her over the edge. Then, she sinks her teeth around his shoulder and bites down hard until his hips stutter and he comes inside her.

After the sex, he smacks a sloppy kiss on the corner of her mouth, and pants into her neck for a minute before he extricates himself from the cradle of her hips, rolls over and passes out face down on the mattress.

Typical.  

She lays there, sated and sore, breath still erratic, blood crying out for vengeance. She closes her eyes and concentrates on her breathing, like Ra’s al Ghul’s taught her. She clears her mind of all thoughts until her hands stop shaking.

She turns to look at her companion. John’s still passed out. The sight of him brings a smug smile to her face. She ruffles his sweaty hair and he comes awake with a groan.

“I’ll be right back,” she says.

She picks up John’s coat from the heap of clothes on the floor, puts it on like a robe and goes in search of booze. When she comes back with a bottle of Rip’s best whiskey, she finds John sitting up in bed, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, arguing with Gideon over the Waverider’s non-smoking policy.

He looks her up and down.

“Well, fuck me.”

Sara raises an eyebrow and says, “I don’t think you can handle me a second round.”

For a second, she sees the challenge in his eyes, like he’s going to call her out on her bluff, but he sinks into the mattress and groans instead.

“You’re not wrong about that, love. Summoning and holding a demon like Mallus really takes it out on a guy. Now, what’s that you got there?”

“Well, you prescribed a gin and tonic, but I was thinking, maybe a shot of whiskey will do.”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“Whether or not you’re gonna share.”

Sara grins and lets his coat fall to the floor at her feet. She crawls back into the narrow bed and settles next to him. He takes the bottle from her and she steals the cigarette from his mouth. He takes a drink, straight from the bottle.

“Now, that really hits the spot.”

“Rip always did have excellent taste,” she agrees and passes back the cigarette.

“The other brit in a trenchcoat, right?”

“This ship used to be his. He tried to warn us, about Mallus, but we didn’t believe him. I guess he showed us, huh?”

“Nasty demon, that one. We got away with what we did today, but let’s not go trying it again. The bastard’s strong and he doesn’t fear much. That’s how I failed, with Astra. I couldn’t admit I was way in over my head.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“Just make sure you really know what you’re doing before you do it, all right?”

“Is that John Constantine showing concern for dear old me?”

He rolls his eyes at her and blows smoke in her face.

“I just don’t wanna be blamed for your fuck ups, that’s all,” he says, and she laughs.

She finds it easy to talk to him, freeing. He’s not depending on her or waiting on her orders, or lying to her. With him, in this moment, she can just be Sara, whoever that is.

“How’d you find me really? I know you said something about some magic mumbo jumbo, but how you do even attune something to my ‘specific energy?’”

“Your soul. They’re like fingerprints, souls. No two alike. I happen to be very familiar with yours.”

If they were different people, that would have almost sounded romantic.

It’s strange to think about her soul as something real instead of metaphorical. But he’s seen it, guided it back to the feral vessel that was her body. He knows the shape of it like he’s just learned the shape of her body.

“Today I took a demon into my body so we could time travel out of 1969 via a spell, but for some reason, you talking about my soul like that is weirder to me.”

John puts his cigarette out on her bedside table. He sits crossed-legged on the bed and tells her to do the same. He grabs on to her forearm, fingers wrapping around her elbow, and she mimics the hold on his arm. He mutters an incantation under his breath and then she feels it, a sudden rush of energy all around and inside of her. It feels feisty, irreverent and playful but there’s a foreboding darkness surrounding it.

He lets go and the energy leaves her as swiftly as it entered her.

“That was you,” she says, breathless.

“New trick I picked up from a friend. You’d like her. You remind me of her, actually.”

The fondness in his voice makes Sara smile.

“I'm sorry we couldn't save Nora,” she says.

“So am I.”

“There might still be hope for grown Nora. Once we defeat Mallus, who knows?”

“Some souls don’t get to be saved.”

“I saw her, you know, when I was inside Mallus’ realm. Grown up Nora almost killed me a few weeks ago, but seeing her like that? She’s just a kid. It’s not her fault she’s her father’s daughter.”

“Right wanker he is.”

“You know him?”

“You could say that.”

“He killed my sister.”

John lets out a deep sigh.

‘I’m real sorry to hear that. I told Queen to get out while he still could. Stubborn bastard wouldn't listen.”

Sara rearranges herself until she’s leaning against the wall behind the bed. She grabs the bottle of whiskey and takes another drink.

“He’s going to come for me again, isn’t he?”

John clicks his tongue and sighs.

“It’s likely, yeah.”

“What if I’m not strong enough to hold him back without you helping me?”

“I meant what I said in that laundry room, Sara. Your fear, your pain, your guilt, they all mean something. They got you here. Trust that. Trust yourself.”

“I’m not a good person, John,” she says.

“That makes two of us, love.”

“I try, so hard, but it's a choice I have to continue to make, every single day. And everyone expects me to be perfect all the time, to have all the answers, and I’m tired.”

“Some days it’s bloody hard. People like us, all the darkness we’ve seen, we see the world for what it really is. And we know the right thing isn’t always the good thing. It takes a special kind of strength to bear that, so give yourself a little credit.”

“It gets lonely, though.”

John rolls over on the bed and straddles her body. He tucks an errant curl behind her ear, looking at her through eyes that hold so many regrets. The two of them give meaning to the word haunted.

“You’re not lonely now, are you?” he says.

The words themselves may sound like a pick up line when they’re still naked on her bed, but she feels like something real just happened between them. Not real in the sense of any permanence, or even romance. But John made her feel seen and understood in a way she hasn’t felt since Oliver and that means more to her than she can articulate to him in words, so she grabs his face between her hands and kisses him in answer.

There are parts of Sara’s past that remain amorphous and unnameable, even to herself. Like that unspeakable period where she walked undead. She remembers what her body did, but in the way one recalls a story told by someone else; an acquired memory, instead of an experienced one.

The guilt of the bloodlust, though, that has always felt decidedly her own.

Laurel asked her once, what it’d felt like to be a soulless body. Sara told her it was a little like standing behind of a glass window at night, looking out into the darkness while your reflection looks right back at you. If you unfocus your eyes after long enough, the barrier disappears and you find yourself existing somewhere in between here and there. Now imagine a room full of those glass windows.

When John asks, though, she doesn’t say that. She tells the truth. She says, “It felt like drowning.”

[yumi-michiyo]

[The Shortest Distance] - extended author’s notes and meta

Watch this space! Instead of making a whole new post for each chapter, I'll be compiling everything here as I post the chapters. [Updated 27th January 2019]

Rating: M for language and explicit sexual content. TW for mentions of eating disorders and anxiety

Genre: Slice of Life/Angst/Friendship/Humour/Hurt/Comfort/Fluff/Romance/Friends to Lovers

Couples: Marley Rose/Quinn Fabray (main), side Santana Lopez/Rachel Berry, side Finn Hudson/Brittany Pierce, side Wade "Unique" Adams/OMC

Pairings: Marley Rose/Quinn Fabray, mentioned Marley Rose/Jake Puckerman, Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray friendship, Quinn Fabray/Santana Lopez friendship, Marley Rose/Wade "Unique" Adams friendship, all the friendships okay

Summary: It starts with a friendship composed of books, lazy summer afternoons, and understanding; and blossoms into more. Slowburn Fabrose. Season 4 canon divergence!AU.

Links: FF.net | AO3

On the origins:

This. Work. Took. Too. Long.

Seriously, the plot got written, scrapped, revived and revised, scrapped, etc. far too many times to count. From being a slight supernatural!AU like For You I'd Burn the Length and Breadth of Sky, to a fic running parallel to canon, to a canon fix-it fic... I'd all but thrown in the towel on this. Most of it only existed in a scraps folder in my Google Drive, and I'd go add more unconnected scraps whenever I needed a break from other WIPs.

Eventually, the scraps accumulated such that there was some semblance of plot, and I got very fond of some long scenes; enough that there was motivation to turn it into a fic on its own.

On the writing process:

A few scraps and loose ends from my other Fabrose fic found their way inside, but quickly grew into their own thing. I think the reason why I've struggled so much with this fic is because I don't have a good handle of Marley's character. I'll be the first to admit that I don't even like many of the canon main characters, and that my headcanons are mostly derived from other fanfic, but there isn't much Marley in the first place, meaning I had to work hard lol.

Most of the actual writing took place in transit, on my weeny iPhone 6s screen, with my overworked thumbs. Not something I recommend to casual writers. I upgraded my phone! Now I have a much larger screen for on-the-go writing, and a new mechanical keyboard for editing/more stream-of-consciousness ramblings.

On the chapter titles:

A special mention! I don't think I've written much about how I choose my fic titles; I think it's because half the time it's a slapdash process, and the other half comes with a lot of thinking.

I love music, and it shows when I use plenty of song lyrics in fics and titles. My taste in music is pretty eclectic, but I can assure you that I actually like all the songs I pick for my writing, and I'm not just picking random profound-sounding lyrics off the Interwebs lol.

I do have a few criteria for picking song lyrics. One, it has to be relevant to the subject lol. Two, it has to have some depth which alludes to whatever hidden message is in the fic. Three, of course it's something I actually enjoy, as mentioned earlier. I think this is really important because I do pick up music recommendations from fanfic, and treasure them for the positive assocations brought from fic I've enjoyed. I think it's important to do the same.

Instead of linking endlessly, I've created a YouTube playlist collecting all the music used in this fic. Find it here.

Prologue: Title is from Marina and the Diamonds. I loved her first album Electra Heart and not because she was covered on Glee; Marina has this punchy, catchy style with awesome lyrics. She later released Froot, another genius work that needs a lot more attention than it's gotten.

Part One: Another Marina and the Diamonds lyric. Can I just take this opportunity to plug her album?

Part Two: Sam Smith, my love. His music always makes me want to write the angstiest, most heartbreaking things. He's one of the few artists out there now who writes the most obscure and complicated feelings into music.

Part Three: This was supposed to be the title of the entire fic, but I forgot lol. I like the Charles Bukowski quote better, but at the very least this wonderful song from Leonard Cohen gets a mention.

Part Four: Very different in tone from all the previous songs mentioned. I found the Arctic Monkeys' lyrics to be deep and intriguing, which is interesting compared to their melodies and catchy beat.

Part Five: This was a struggle! There are so many good songs out there with really great lyrics that could fit into the chapter and the themes I was going for, but in the end, I went back to Lea (as I tend to do for my fics). I wanted that aimless feeling Marley has for most of the chapter.

Part Six: I love Yellowcard. I've been a fan for more than a decade, for their excellent lyrics and wonderful melodies, their instrumentation and their creativity. Most of their songs deal with heartbreak, so it's rare that I come across a song of theirs that encapsulates so well what I wanted to convey in their early relationship.

Part Seven: One of my best buddies, IRL and in fandom, loves K-pop. She's been trying to brainwash me for years, and so far she's been having quite a lot of success; I've written a few things that are inspired by K-pop lyrics. The inspiration for this fic came from a new song from Mamamoo, which is made up of four very talented ladies.

Part Eight: I haven't been discovering music for a while, but Paramore's latest album was a pretty refreshing find. I was looking for something light that described the mood of this chapter.

Part Nine: Apparently, Vienna Teng's work has been something of a mainstay in fandom; which makes sense, with her poignant lyrics and soulful piano ballads. I discovered her through the Studio Ghibli fanfics written by Saddletank, who makes extensive use of her music with great effect.

Part Ten: I discovered the genius of Fleetwood Mac through Glee. It was the perfect time, now that I was going through things IRL that made the music relatable and meaningful. While not one of my favourite songs, the lyrics resonate best with the chapter.

Part Eleven: William Ryan Key (better known as the frontman of the pop-punk band Yellowcard) recently launched a solo career. He writes the gentlest, most profound acoustic ballads I have ever heard. Most of what I envision Marley's music to be is his work (with elements of Kina Grannis' artistry and Sara Bareilles' lyrics), and I would pay good money to hear Melissa actually perform his songs.

Part Twelve: Those who read my fics can definitely tell that I'm a massive Sara Bareilles fan. The woman is a delightful human being, and an immensely talented singer-songwriter (is it obvious I have a thing for talented people?). Again, the reasons for picking songs is really to set the mood and atmosphere for the chapter; the lyrics may or may not be directly relevant to the story.

Part Thirteen: Kina Grannis recently rose to fame performing a cover of Elvis' Can't Help Fallin' in Love With You in the movie Crazy Rich Asians. I love her style and interpretation of songs.

Part Fourteen: It's rare when canon and fanon intersect, and I'm always very happy to make a big production out of it. I loved Melissa's performance of this song, and I was actively looking for some way I could give it a nod. And so when I was writing this chapter, I listened to it on repeat.

Part Fifteen: It's always nice when things work out :) earlier I had a Marley song, and now it's Quinn's turn (conveniently ignoring Puck's part lol). While Marley's part was about taking the plunge, Quinn's was about getting over past hurts and building a stronger relationship.

Epilogue: I've used Sara Bareilles' music plenty of times in my work. Normally, I hate reusing music, but it was impossible to pass up the opportunity to use this beautiful song to wrap up a giant labour of love.

General Meta:

Prologue-Part One: These two chapters were intended to set the tone of the early relationship between canon!Marley and canon!Quinn, which then contrasts their new/old relationship when they meet again a few years later. They establish a friendship out of common interests (and a lack of anything better to do) which I think also gets them to understand each other a little better. I hope.

I took this opportunity to also set the friendship between Marley and Unique. Strong female (?) friendships are something always lacking in Glee, and I wanted to pay homage to these two awesome ladies. Also, Unique and Marley's friendship acts as a foil to the one Quinn and Marley start to forge here - because, clearly, the latter two are gonna end up together lol.

Part Two: Rachel gets introduced! Again, more comparing and contrasting: Quinn and Rachel's friendship vs Marley and Unique's, Quinn and Marley's friendship vs Quinn and Rachel's. Our girls also start to open up to each other. Recently, I've been following Chuck Palahniuk's writing advice (which I have printed out and stuck on my wall): Instead of characters knowing anything, you must now present the details that allow the reader to know them. Instead of a character wanting something, you must now describe the thing so that the reader wants it.

Part Three: A bit more background, a bit more development. In the previous chapter Marley opened up to Quinn about her eating disorder, in this one Quinn starts to open up about some of her past. It was hard writing this one mostly because Marley, unlike Rachel, wasn't privy to a lot of the things Quinn went through (this plays a big part in their relationship after they get together later down the line).

Rachel and Santana are together in this one! I would say more stuff about foils, comparing and constrasting, but by now you should've noticed it's something I do a lot. It's crucial that they're together in this fic because the girls do help our clueless pair move things along.

Also, I think y'all are pleased that I finally had Quinn dump her (off-screen) boyfriend lol.

Part Four: I loved writing this chapter. Now that we've established the friendship between our girls, I panned out a bit to cover more of the world they live in, and the people and events that shape their lives. It was a bit of a challenge since Quinn is now working, and Marley still a college student, but I hope I've done a decent job.

I get the feeling y'all hate me for putting Marley with some random man, but I think it's important. Marley is still very underdeveloped as a character herself, with loads of confused feelings. She needs to mature a little more emotionally, make decisions for herself, experience a little heartbreak, before she can be ready for an emotional minefield like Quinn Fabray.

It's not a coincidence that Quinn's ex is named Blake, and Marley's (soon to be ex?) is named Alex, by the way... Also, speaking of names, it will likely never be mentioned in the fic but Stan's full first name is Æthelstan (poor dude). Valentino is an arowana because of that fantastic expression. I headcanon that he's always judging the goings-on in that apartment.

Part Five: THEY FINALLY KISSED ALKSFHO

In which the girls take a step forward after nearly 60k+ words of slowburn - trust me, it was killing me almost as much as it was killing you guys. But I was trying to make it was organic as possible, and as y'all know Marley doesn't have much of a stable romantic background to draw from, and her closest role models are all certifiably insane.

There are a lot of challenges upcoming for them, which I will have to spend a good deal of time delineating. I am really invested in these two at this point.

Part Six: After all that slowburn, my brain kinda went into overdrive. The draft I had for this fic originally ended here, but I couldn't do that to you guys aren't you glad I didn't. So the first half came into being, with its gratituous fluff and their friends' reactions.

The second half came while I was developing Millie's reaction; I wanted to make a comparison between Millie and Judy as single moms. But to be a foil to how open Millie is, Judy had to be the bad mom. I hadn't intended her to come off as so cruel, but she's not truly evil. Quinn has to get her sharp tongue from somewhere LOL.

Also! Finn and Brittany! I gave them a brief moment in my other fic For You I'd Burn the Length and Breadth of Sky but killed Finn off uwu. I've been fond of this rarepair for a long time now, and it seemed fitting to put another rarepair into this fic. Additionally, I am such a sucker for couple angst, like the Rachel/Santana/Finn/Brittany dynamic. They really deserve a fic of their own, the poor things, but we'll see how it goes. This fic is primarily a Marley/Quinn, and will remain that way because I lack the mental capacity and patience to write a fic with two main couples without wanting to gouge my eyes out.

Some of you active and astute readers might notice a lot of mentions of stuff foreshadowed earlier in the fic, with extremely tiny throwaway moments being revisited in this chapter. I assure you this wasn't intentional, and I'm in no way the awesome and masterful writer all this makes me out to be.

Part Seven: Dear god, I was so busy with life I totally forgot to write the author's notes for this chapter... Anyway, the entire thing is about tying up loose ends. They're dealing with their problems while the shadow of Marley leaving hangs over them, and making the best of their time together.

And yes! I heard a lot of happy squeals when this fic finally earned its M rating. For those of you who are wondering about the sudden sexytimes in the middle of bigger issues, well... let's just say that it has consequences.

On a side note, I hope none of you out there were rooting for Marley to stay in NY. Don't worry, this is a romance fic, and there will be a happy ending.

Part Eight: When you don't have time to update the author's notes when you update the story... This was a pretty interesting chapter to write. Mostly because I was figuring out how they build up after the loose ends in the previous chapter have been taken care of.

Not really knowing Marley's canon character has been an obstacle in writing this fic, right from the beginning. She's also not a popular fanfic character but I do like a challenge.

Can you tell I watched La La Land as research for life in LA for this chapter? The music has been pretty stuck in my head too but none of it really fit the mood for this chapter, so I was forced to omit it. But yes, some of the bits and locales in the movie sneak into this fic.

Part Nine: Quinn's trip to LA, and the various things they get up to. Lots of indulgent fluff and smut, and a dash of plot at the end...

Part Ten: I love the friendship Marley and Santana have in this story. My headcanon for Santana is that she's the tough, worldly big sister type, and she's taken Marley under her wing. This is my attempt at advancing the plot by exploring the conflict in the long-distance relationship, with plenty of Marley-Santana-Rachel interaction (and throwing in loads of foreshadowing). Since there's so much heavy content, there's plenty of fluff to go around, padding the spaces between character development and plot. The Skype cooking idea was taken directly from my real life :)

Part Eleven: Mostly fallout from the drama in the previous chapter, and more advancement of the plot. It's intentional that there's so much drama, because it's something they both have (thanks canon) and I believe it's important for a healthy long-term relationship that they are able to resolve it. Also, Shelby is a convenient villain here, though I loved putting Beth into the mix, and having the characters react to the non-canon pairings in this fic. Doctor C makes a reappearance, as does Millie. Their growing absence from the main story is also intentional; Marley is growing into a character of her own, and she becomes less reliant on them.

Part Twelve: Initially I thought this chapter was going to be filler ahead of the big decision, but I was wrong. There was so much plot in this one ugh. I wanted Finn and Brittany to get their turn in the spotlight, but it had to be relevant to the plot as well. I wanted Marley to show us how much she'd grown over the course of the story, and from her canon self.

Part Thirteen: A lot of people thought they'd broken up in the previous chapter. I made them properly break up in this one >:) I wasn't going for a big dramatic shake-up or anything; the point was that people have relationship troubles. A lot of people have difficulty being an us, and this was supposed to be the result of the major cracks hinted at earlier, and the final part of their development as individuals before they can be in a relationship with each other. There's a lot of fluff and recovery; they have to break up to figure out how to be together, if that makes sense (but they do get their happy ending!)

Part Fourteen: The timeskip is important. It shows how far they've come, and the difference in how they now interact. While I can't show you how much Quinn's grown since this fic is from Marley's POV, I put as much of it into the story as humanly possible, and without making Marley into some mind-reading alien. Things are different now. The first break-up was necessary to put their past behind, and by getting together again, they're both prepared to work hard to grow from that. I do believe that it was absolutely necessary for them to break up to know exactly what they've lost.

Part Fifteen: The idea for this chapter came when watching Bones, and when talking to some friends. I needed to have them overcome what happened in the past, and symbolically walk forward together. Then I remembered a throwaway line about Rachel workshopping Jesse St James' musical, and the chapter pretty much wrote itself from there.

Epilogue: Not much in this one, honestly. I wanted to tie up loose ends, represent them moving forward without hesitation, and bring the story to a conclusion worthy of such a long journey. The smut was a bonus treat for everyone that's been following this.

On Marley Rose:

Confession: I don't watch Supergirl. There's only so much my poor heart can take from shipping non-canon lesbian couples who have a ton of onscreen chemistry, but who are paired off with guys. Bitter? Not I

So I take canon!Marley, pad her personality with a lot of extrapolation, add a hearty dose of logical explanation for inexplicable quirks from canon, and toss her into this fic to do a lot of growing up. If this sounds like a recipe, I think I'm too hungry.

Melissa's current turn on Broadway is inspiring a lot of the fic's direction.

On Quinn Fabray:

If it isn't already obvious that I'm in love with Quinn Fabray (and Dianna Agron for giving her so much depth), this fic should just help you reach that conclusion lol. no thanks to R*** M*****

The other Fabrose I wrote is from Quinn's POV, who basically spends the whole time sorting out her issues and stumbling into something she had never imagined could happen to her. This one is from Marley's POV, and also features her sorting out a ton of personal issues.

A lot of Quinn's character and experiences with her mother is taken from real life LOL.

[rorykillmore]

okay so i’ve also been working on ANOTHER thing that, thus far, has taken a backseat to my christmas fics, but i think now i’m as happy with it as i’m gonna be so. idk. this is basically just the result of me being salty about arrow (constant fandom mood) and black siren and the total lack of lance sister interaction.

special shoutout to @larkspear bc their character thoughts and the discussions we’ve had helped. we have a lot of fun rp stuff for these two planned but i wanted to do, like, a canon set fix-it thing for them too because my spite is JUST that real.

so this is set idk sometime after the crossover, in an au where sara stayed in star city for awhile and team arrow has black siren under lock and key again and thus gets Busted

“They aren’t going to let me out of here.”

“I wasn’t exactly planning on asking Oliver for permission.”

“You didn’t tell me.” 

Sara doesn’t usually yell when she’s angry. A cold shoulder’s a more effective approach, she usually finds -- or at least easier for her, easier to shut down what she’s feeling and keep it safely out of other people’s reach.

“None of you fucking told me.” But now? Now she’s practically seething.

“Sweetheart --” Her father begins, and he sounds tired, but Sara is bristling too much to care and he gets cut off anyway as Oliver (predictably) steps forward to take the heat. 

“I asked him not to, Sara.” He barely flinches when she turns a fierce gaze on him. “Because I knew you would come here and do this, and from what I understand, your... team has enough to deal with right now. Don’t get distracted.”

“We were gonna tell you. I swear to god, I would never have kept this from you forever,” Quentin manages to get that in before Sara can decide on the best way to kill Oliver with her bare hands. “But better for you to know once we had the situation handled. I didn’t want you to see her like this.”

He puts a hand on her shoulder, and Sara just barely refrains from shrugging him off.  Laurel - her Laurel, anyway - hadn’t given up on her when she’d been some damaged killer fresh out of the League of Assassins, or when she’d been without a soul, so whatever this is? Sara thinks she can handle it.

“Look, Sara -- you haven’t met her. You don’t get it,”  Felicity tries almost plaintively. “She’s -- she’s not Laurel. Not really. Not like we knew her.”

She feels her father’s hand tense, but he doesn’t say anything. For her own part, she doesn’t quite manage his level of restraint. “Do you even know this Laurel at all?” Sara flashes an angry look from Felicity to Oliver.  “Either of you -- did you even try? Because I don’t remember you being all that good at listening to our Laurel when she was alive.”

Felicity looks hurt, and even Oliver grimaces this time, but Sara can’t bring herself to care. She’s too angry about them keeping this from her -- and maybe, maybe it isn’t fair, but maybe a part of them hasn’t forgiven them for that year she was dead. The one when Laurel grieved and suffered alone. Mostly, she knows, if it hadn’t been for Nyssa.

“She’s dangerous,” Oliver presses on. “If you let this cloud your judgment and give her the benefit of the doubt, she will take advantage of you. Believe me.”

He seems to think he’s speaking from experience, but Sara can’t say she has much faith that he handled any attempt he might have made at reaching out to the other Laurel particularly well.

Besides that --

There’s no universe out there where Laurel is a condemnable, irredeemable person. Sara knows - knew - who she was at the very core of her person, and it just isn’t possible.

She turns to Quentin, not quite able to lash out at him with that same anger once she sees the pained look in his eyes. He’s lost enough already. She won’t let it happen again.  “Where is she?”

She feels more than sees everyone in the room hesitate.

“We’ve got her in a cell that dampens her powers,” Quentin admits finally.  “She’s a metahuman, this version of her. But we -- it’s temporary. We can’t keep her here forever.”

“STAR labs can take her again.” Felicity clears her throat unhappily. “At least until we --”

“I want to see her,” Sara interrupts, because she’ll stop trusting herself if she lets Felicity finish that thought. 

“Sara --”

“Now.”

They know well enough to leave her to it, though Oliver looks less than happy about it. His problem. Sara forgets about it almost as soon as she enters the room with the cell, because there’s -- there’s Laurel.

She wears her hair different, swept to one side in a way that her Laurel would’ve fussed with, and there’s a look in her eyes that’s grim and haunted in a way that feels unfamiliar, but it’s still --

Laurel looks up, meets Sara’s gaze, and goes utterly still. Something in the way she pales a little, or how her expression falters just for a moment, reminds Sara of someone finding themselves face to face with a ghost.

All things considered, she can’t imagine her own expression is much different.

“Well,” Laurel drawls, a second too belated to be entirely convincing. “I see they’ve brought in the cavalry.”

Sara’s not sure if she’s aware, because most people probably wouldn’t be able to tell just from the little shifts in her expression , but she looks utterly miserable. She wonders if Laurel thinks they sent her in here just to torment her.

She steels herself and approaches the cage. 

“I’m sorry,” she starts quietly, not sure what else to say. “They didn’t... tell me about you. Or I would’ve been here sooner.”

“Would you?” Laurel tries to sound disinterested, but her gaze never leaves Sara. “I’ve heard you have very important things to do, these days.”

Nothing in any universe is more important to her than her sister, but Sara doesn’t say that. Instead, she tries for something lighter. “I mean, you know. There’s some kind of all-powerful demonic bullshit threatening the universe, at the moment, but it can wait.”

Laurel looks faintly surprised, and then almost for a moment like she wants to smile, but then she catches herself.  “Well, whatever you’re looking for, you won’t find it here. I’ve already heard all the pep talks.”

“Good thing I suck at those, then.” Beneath her easy banter, Sara feels strangely hollowed out.  She tries not to let it show, but if she’s not having a hard time reading Laurel, she doesn’t imagine Laurel’s having a hard time reading her. Then again, it’s hard to say for sure. Maybe her relationship with her sister was... completely different. All Sara really knows about that is that her family’s dead now (Quentin had been kind enough to give her that heads up).

“So what do you want?” Laurel’s voice is starting to sound a little strained. “Did they send you in here to get something out of me, or are you just here to torture yourself?”

Sara hesitates, because there’s no denying that this does hurt, in a way she can’t really articulate. But it wouldn’t be fair to assume that it doesn’t hurt Laurel just as much, if not more -- does she even have anything left?  “...Do you want me to go?”

Laurel opens her mouth to say something, then swallows in a way that looks almost painful. No response comes after that.

“I mean -- I’m not gonna just leave you here,” Sara clarifies, in case that’s what she’s deliberating over.  “I’ll just -- I’ll talk to Dad, or --”  The rest of her words catch in her throat as she realizes what she’s said. There’s a choked pause, but Laurel doesn’t seem to want to linger on it.

“They aren’t going to let me out of here.”

“I wasn’t exactly planning on asking Oliver for permission.” Sara tilts her head, a touch defiant in spite of everything. Laurel blinks at her, hesitating like someone who suspects they’re being baited into a trap.

“But why would you --”  Laurel seems to struggle with this sentiment, and Sara’s heart aches for her. “I’m --”

“You’re Laurel.”  And she is, unquestionably. Sara can’t understand how anyone would doubt it.  

Her sister - not the Laurel she knew, who was irreplaceable in every way that it’s possible to be, but still her sister - grips the bars of the cage a little too tightly, her eyes a little brighter, a little more teary.  “I’m not -- who you want me to be,” she says, like it’s a question Sara’s asked, and she sounds  just a little broken. “I’m not good, like she was. You’re just going to be disappointed.”

The sentiment only makes her seem more achingly familiar. Because the thing not many people knew about the Laurel of this Earth - the worst thing - was that she never thought she was worth very much, either. Sara can still remember that Laurel standing in Thea’s club with those same tears in her eyes and begging Sara not to hate her.

As if Sara ever could.

She reaches out, pries one of Laurel’s hands away from the bars, and holds it carefully. “Speaking as the resident family disappointment of this Earth, you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

Laurel makes a choked noise that’s almost a laugh, and holds onto her a little more tightly than Sara would’ve expected her to. It makes her even more conscious of the reality of the situation:  Laurel without a family, Laurel, who’s been apparently flitting from dangerous situation to dangerous situation, who’s been locked away by the city’s heroes.

“Tell me how I can help you,” she asks more quietly.  If she has to go stab whatever big-name asshole’s been terrorizing the city this year a couple of times, she will, Oliver’s no-killing rule be damned.

A little guarded still, Laurel shrugs.  “Just get me out of here. I’ll -- leave Star City. Go somewhere else. Leave your friends alone.”

The pragmatic part of Sara wonders whether she should question whether Laurel’s telling the truth, but she suddenly sounds so exhausted that it’s difficult to doubt her.

“What about... whoever it is you’re working for?”

“I can lay low when I need to.”

Even if she can, Sara doesn’t like the idea of her spending God-knows-how-long running.  “If you want to go back to your Earth, I have some pull in Central City --”

Laurel shakes her head with a bitter, unamused smile. “It’d be worse there.”

Sara wants to ask, even though she’s certain she wouldn’t like the answer, but she figures her questions can wait until Laurel’s not sitting in a cell. Maybe Laurel senses her hesitation, because she finally, almost painfully, drops Sara’s hand.

“I’ll be fine, Sara. You’re overthinking it.”

It’s difficult to be deterred by that when it seems like not many people have given much thought to Laurel’s safety at all. She shrugs. “You could come with me.”

It’s a simple solution on the surface, because she doubts Laurel’s ‘friends’ have the means to track a timeship. But proposing it without thinking it over seems a little reckless, in retrospect.

Laurel stares at her for a moment. “What?”

“It’d still be dangerous,” Sara amends quickly, her mind racing. “I mean, the Legends aren’t exactly good at... staying out of trouble. And, you know. There’s the aforementioned demonic bullshit.”

And Damien Darhk. Sara’s blood runs cold at the idea of letting this Laurel anywhere near him. Maybe it was a stupid thing to offer, maybe she’d be putting Laurel in more danger than she ever would be here, and what room does she have to think she can help her when she couldn’t protect Stein, couldn’t keep Jax from leaving --

“I’m used to dangerous,” Laurel says slowly, interrupting Sara’s spiral of thoughts.  “I just...  maybe you should think about whether or not you and your team want me traveling with you.”

Oh -- that.

It’s a fair concern, although honestly, Sara doesn’t think the other Legends will have any particular hang-ups. Most of them didn’t even know her Laurel, and this one would hardly be their first recruit to have a spotty record (really, it’d be easier to list the team members who didn’t have a criminal history).

As far as how she herself feels about it...  

Would it be too hard? Traveling with Laurel, but not the Laurel she grew up with?

She hesitates, because her feelings are so tangled up that they’re difficult to decipher.

Laurel, meanwhile, deliberately averts her gaze.  “It’s better if we don’t stay together,” she says after a moment, her voice carefully controlled in a way that makes Sara wonder whether she really believes that or whether she’s just trying to protect herself against some kind of seemingly inevitable rejection.

“Do you really think that?” she challenges, because she’s not so sure she believes it herself. 

-- And then, the strangest thing, in the next moment: she knows she doesn’t.

Knows that if she never lets herself know this version of her sister, she’s going to wonder for the rest of her life.

That maybe the Legends aren’t good at giving a lot, but that they’d be willing to give her a family.

That Laurel can be so much better than she thinks she is if someone just gives her the chance.

“It’s always going to hurt,” Sara continues bluntly. “I mean -- with or without you, I’m always going to miss my sister. And I’m sure you feel the same way. But you and me -- all this multiversal crap aside, we’re still family.” She hesitates again, because she doesn’t know how to bear her entire soul in quite the same way as she used to do with the Laurel from this Earth. She finds she’s a little afraid to.

“...I think knowing you would make my life better, not worse,” she finishes gingerly. “But it’s your choice. You can also just... fuck off to Coast City, or something, and I won’t be offended. Promise.”

Silence hangs between them for a moment. It feels fragile. Laurel still won’t look at her, but her shoulders shake just a little, and Sara fights back the basic instinct to open the door to the cell and just hug her until she stops crying. She leans her shoulder against the bars instead, carefully composed.

When Laurel finally speaks, she still doesn’t turn around. “You know, you’re a lot like I imagined she’d be. All grown up.” Sara doesn’t have to ask who she means, barely has time to contemplate the sudden lump in her throat before Laurel brushes briefly at her eyes and finally does turn. “I don’t think I’ll make a very good hero.”

“Literally none of us do, on an average day. You’ll fit right in.” Sara offers her a rather lopsided smile, and Laurel finally, fleetingly returns it.

[coldtomyflash]

Couldn't the changes in Len's character in Legends be due to how he fell for Sara? With the one deleted scene they released it looked like it was almost love at first sight. He was kinder and more honest and open with her than anyone else including Lisa and Mick. No one saw through and understood him like she did ever before. His getting rid of Mick was more about him trying to hurt Sara than the team. And she was the one who got him to make up with Mick. It never would have happened without her

Anon, there is so much wrong here that I very strongly considered not answering because the only things I can say are to disagree with you and that’ll probably make you angry.

But, well, I was a little angry too, particularly at the line “His getting rid of Mick was more about him trying to hurt Sara than the team” but I decided not to let anger rule my thoughts. Nonetheless, I’m gonna answer because I feel it’s worth a discussion for why I think differently, and why your post struck a bit of a nerve. Sorry if this isn’t what you want to hear, but I really do feel it warrants a meta/commentary response.

First, no I don’t think all the changes in him are due to Sara and I’d say that’s an oversimplification of how and why a person changes. It strips Len of those changes being about him at all really, taking away some of his autonomy in making the changes. If you change solely for someone else and not for yourself, that’s not sustainable. Len changed for himself and through the influence of a host of different factors, and to reduce it to largely one thing misses so much of the complexity of how and why people change in reality. And I’m not saying that falling in love can’t change a person (through the different viewpoints they take on and through the trust they develop), but I also don’t read Len as having been in love with Sara. People, a single person, can help catalyze change in us even without being in love, of course, but it’s still missing some of the point to make it all about that other person. Change happens internally.  

And there are a lot of the factors that could plausibly, canonically, go into him changing. I mean, I maintain that many of the changes that bothered me (the very subtle characterization ones that tilt him more to a slytherin-hufflepuff than a slytherin-ravenclaw) are ones that came in from the writers wanting to have him work with a team and taking over his character from a different team, losing a bit in translation. But in canon, if we try to explain those changes, I really would not ever want to attribute them to solely one character.

I feel that if we explain the canonical changes in Len, we can point to a couple of major factors, and his budding friendship with Sara is one of those (because it shows him letting people in and believing that change and overcoming one’s past is actually possible, because it’s something she is doing and demonstrating). A few others are Barry’s staunch belief in Len’s goodness and his willingness to help Len, working with Lisa and Mick again and the effect that has on him, being free of his father in a final way, and working with a team of people who’s wellbeing he feels responsible for (especially Jax). I’ve made posts that talk about most of those factors in one way or another though, so I won’t delve into them here.

More specific to the points you raise, I disagree that he demonstrates anything approaching love at first sight in the deleted scene.

Honestly the only thing I read into that is that he a) is trying to get a feel for people on the team and doesn’t quite know what to make of Sara yet, except that she might be the only one aside from Mick he has anything in common with (she shuts that down with the reincarnated point), and b) that he’s a bit intrigued at her willingness to bite back, but maybe a little annoyed at how barbed she is with him. (For the record we literally never see him even glance in the direction of her ass so I don’t get where that line is from.)

I also strongly disagree that he’s “kinder and more honest and open with her than anyone else including Lisa and Mick”. I don’t even know where you get that idea, to be frank. Len loves his sister to death and would do anything for her. He would never raise a weapon to her like he does to Sara in 1x15 and there’s zero reason to suspect he’d be less honest with her than with Sara (or anyone else). If you try to raise the point that he didn’t tell her his dad kidnapped him, I’d counter by saying he didn’t really have a chance and wanted to protect her. He also happened to lie to Sara (alongside the rest of the team) about having killed Mick. 

If you want to talk about Len opening up about his past to people like his heart-to-heart with Sara while they were freezing to death, he’s even similarly expository with Ray (who I maintain he ultimately dislikes) without much prompting.

Len also lies to Sara’s face at least once or twice, particularly about Mick. “Everyone okay between you two?” “Peachy.” Even if it’s unbarbed and obvious, he’s not really being honest (with himself or with her, and they both know it). He’s not opening up to her.

With Mick, Len is admittedly not always honest, or fair. 

But that’s in part because he takes a high degree of responsibility for Mick, maybe more than Mick wants him to. He doesn’t always expect Mick to make decisions in his own best interest, and Len has a very high need for control and believes he’ll make the best decision for his friend. 

Is it okay? Not necessarily. But I don’t think he means that he’s largely dishonest with Mick or that there isn’t a huge amount of trust and understanding between them. 

Mick’s the one who knows Len’s intentions for going in the trip, knows where Len’s head is at, is the one at Len’s side who can literally finish his sentences and move in sync with him. They have one-word codes like ‘Alexa’ and ‘like that time in Chicago’ that tell them everything they need to know about a situation. 30+ years of history will do that with someone. 

Actually, the whole ‘pulling the cold gun out’ thing is neat with respect that. He pulls it on Mick, Mick pulls the heat gun out, they have a stand off for a minute. Len appears to think about it and calm down and come up with the next step for what to do, or else it gives him space to remember to be the reasonable one. Mick gets this too because he doesn’t ever pull his trigger, just waits for Len to decide to end the stand off, every time we’ve seen them have one. But with Sara, she called his bluff. She didn’t understand why he’s doing this and what he gets out of pulling out his gun and having a stand off with someone so she calls him on it (which is fair, I’m not saying she’s in the wrong). And maybe it’s all dysfunctional as hell of him, but I think it demonstrates how Mick understands Len better than Sara does. He moves along to the beats Len is playing in a way that Sara won’t (which is fine because no one needs to, but you can’t tell me that Mick doesn’t understand Len inside and out, up and down).

Which is why I so strongly shirk at the idea that Len ‘got rid of Mick’ (just that in the first place, he didn’t get rid of him), more for Sara than for anyone else. Len marooned Mick for the stated reason of worrying what would happen to his sister if Mick went back to 2016. He knows Mick has impulse control problems and anger issues. He knows that he himself acts like a check/balance on Mick, so dropping him off in 2016 could have some high-damage consequences. So it was about protecting the team, and protecting their loved ones in 2016 (particularly Lisa, the person Mick is most likely to go after because it’s more Len he wants revenge on than any of the other team members). Beyond that canonically-stated reason for marooning Mick, it could also have come down to a lot of personal shit between Len and him. 

To the extent that once he chose not to kill him, Len always planned to return for Mick (till death got in the way), he probably intended for the marooning to be a very short cool-down period for Mick before Len picked up back up and brought him home. A “okay you betrayed us you jackass and it fucking hurt and I’m pissed but I’ve had time to think about it and you’ve been stuck here to think about it for a day, so now let’s go home alright?”.

I mean, you can read a lot more into it than that with respect to their relationship, but I don’t think it’s valuable to bring anyone else into that. It was about Len and Mick, and to a lesser extent about Lisa, and then about the team as a unit. There’s no evidence it was about anyone else, and certainly no evidence that Len was worried Mick would hurt Sara if he stuck around.

As for her being the reason they made up, I agree she had a part in that, but I also think it would have happened eventually in the same way regardless. She was a catalyst though, and showed empathy and deep understanding in that situation. I think that’s highly to her credit, actually, and I’m not sure why you’d make that about Len’s character changes when it really shows her own development and insight. 

But Len and Mick have been at serious odds before, were apart for a few years even, and still manage to find their way back to one another. They always do, with or without anyone’s help, and being confined on a ship together was going to press the issue sooner rather than later. Sara didn’t convince Len to lay down his life for Mick and die if that’s what Mick wanted from him. Len’s love for Mick did that, full stop.

tl;dr - Mick and Lisa understand Len better than Sara does as per canon, and he canonically demonstrates more honesty with his sister and more mutual understanding with Mick than he does with her. There’s nothing to suggest love at first sight (intrigue, at most) and there’s nothing at all to suggest that him marooning Mick had anything to do with Sara herself. The implication Len changed solely/mostly because of her is just a large oversimplification that strips him of personal autonomy in making those changes.

[365daysofj2]

There Goes My Hero (Library AU, NC-17)

Thursday night, after Jensen finally gets off from work, Jared calls him. “Hey, Jared,” Jensen says warmly when he answers the phone. “How was your day?”

“Pretty good,” replies Jared. “How about yours?”

Jensen sighs. “Larry was in quite the mood today. He was telling Kathryn about restaurant managers he’d like to kill.”

Jared’s jaw drops. “You’re not serious. What’d you do?”

“Told him we’d have to report him to the police if he kept making threats like that,” says Jensen. “He shut up quick. Hell, Felicia even shut him down this morning. I couldn’t believe it.”

“What’d she say?” Felicia’s notorious for not standing up to anyone, even people who are actively yelling at her.

“He started to repeat himself, the way he always does, and she snapped, ‘I heard you the first time, Larry.’”

“Wow.” Jared sits down on the couch. “Did it work?”

“He seemed pretty stunned,” says Jensen. “He actually did shut up, and he wouldn’t go back to her the rest of the day.”

“Good for her,” replies Jared. “Tell her I said ‘way to go!’”

“I will.” He hears Jensen turn the phone to speaker and pour some liquid into a glass. “So, was there something you wanted?”

“Yeah,” says Jared hesitantly. “There’s something I wanted to, uh…get your opinion on.”

He hears Jensen take the phone off speaker. “If it’s something comic- or cartoon-related, I’ll do my best, but I make no promises.”

Jared shakes his head. “Not exactly. It’s just…I was wondering if you would be up for a little role-playing next time we get together.”

“Dungeons and Dragons role-playing or the fun kind of role-playing?”

Jared’s eyes widen. “You know about Dungeons and Dragons?”

“Only that my parents thought it was Satanic,” answers Jensen, and Jared can practically hear his eyes rolling. “I take it you were talking about the latter.”

Jared grins. “Sure was. I was thinking superhero and tied-up hostage.”

“Tied-up as in bondage?”

Jared swallows hard. “Light bondage. Just wrist cuffs, unless you’re up for more than that.”

“You got more than that?” Jensen sounds surprisingly intrigued and not hesitant at all.

“I’ve got ankle cuffs and a mattress kit,” replies Jared. “But that’s a little advanced.”

Jensen’s quiet for a long moment. “Yeah, just wrist cuffs to start. I can’t believe you can even bring geekdom into the bedroom.”

“I’m a man of many talents,” says Jared with a smirk. “And many costumes, as well.”

“You mean—you know what, I don’t even want to know,” says Jensen. “So, you wanna come over tomorrow night? I’ll throw some chili in the slow cooker and make some cornbread.”

Jared smiles. “That sounds awesome. Yeah, text me when you get home and I’ll come by.”

“Sure thing.” Jared hears Jensen’s jazz music turn on in the background. “Well, I’m gonna eat and have some more wine. Have a good night, and I’ll see you tomorrow after work.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jared leans back and grins. “You won’t be sorry, I promise.”

“Well, I guess I’ll just have to punish you if it doesn’t go well,” Jensen says, his voice dropping into a terribly sexy low register.

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” replies Jared.

Jensen responds in the same sexy voice. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

Jared swallows hard. He adjusts his jeans and says, “I guess you will.”

“Good night, Jared,” purrs Jensen.

“‘Night, Jensen,” says Jared in a slightly strained voice.

* * *

The next night, Jared’s knees shake slightly as he steps up to Jensen’s front door. He’s got on a Batman hoodie and black jeans, baggy enough to allow for his Batman boxer-briefs with attached cape, and the cowl his college friend Sandy knitted him is in his Batman backpack along with his wrist cuffs and fasteners. He’s also got something he bets Jensen will never wear, but he’s gonna give it a shot anyway. He’s a little embarrassed now that he’s actually contemplating explaining his fantasy life to a buttoned-up jazz-loving librarian stereotype.

It could be worse. At least he doesn’t insist on playing a Batman porno in the background. He’s perfectly fine with a custom music playlist he keeps on his phone. He got that from the same person he got Jensen’s potential costume from—Sandy’s roommate Sara, who singlehandedly put on a midnight showing of Rocky Horror every year that included students acting out the movie in front of the screen. Jared starred as Brad all four years, and kept the corset and black lace panties. He figures if they fit him in college, they should fit Jensen now. Jensen’s a lot narrower in the shoulders and hips than Jared ever has been. Sara was also a slash fanfic writer, and he’s embarrassed to admit that most of what he knows about gay sex he learned initially from her fanfic before he started experimenting on his own.

Jensen answers the door, still dressed in his library clothes, a crisp maroon button-down shirt and black pinstripe trousers. His eyes light up when he sees Jared, as if he wasn’t expecting him, which is kind of ridiculously charming. Jared grins and steps past him into the townhouse. “Hey, Jensen.”

Jensen closes the door behind him. “Hey yourself, Jared. You can throw your bag on the sofa till we head upstairs.”

Jared does as he’s told and follows Jensen to the dining room, where steaming bowls of chili and a basket of cornbread are sitting out, along with bowls of sour cream and grated cheese. Jared grabs Jensen’s belt loop and pulls him in for a kiss. “This looks great, thank you. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”

Jensen beams. “No trouble at all.” He motions to the chair that Jared has started to think of as his own. “Sit. I bought some craft beer, since that seemed better for chili than wine.”

Jared raises an eyebrow. “Have you ever bought craft beer before?”

“I went to college and grad school, you know,” replies Jensen, but Jared thinks the annoyance is feigned. “Yes, I’ve bought craft beer before. Fuck, I’ve bought kegs of Yuengling before. I’m not that much of a snob.”

Jared takes a sip of the beer. It’s a local one from the brewery at the PA Ren Faire, an oatmeal stout that’s quite possibly the best beer Jared’s ever had. “Wow,” says Jared. “This is great.”

Jensen smiles, clearly pleased. “See? I’m not totally hopeless.”

“I never said you were,” retorts Jared.

“No, but you were thinking it.”

Jared takes a bite of his chili. It’s got plenty of heat and meat, the two things Jared likes most. He dips his cornbread in it, as does Jensen. “So, you haven’t totally lost the Texas, I see.”

“No more than you have,” says Jensen. He takes a sip of his own beer. “You’re right, this is pretty damn good. I just bought it ‘cause it’s local, but it’s better than I was expecting.”

“Yeah, it’s awesome.” Jared shovels more chili into his mouth. “I swear, someday I’m going to move in here just so you can cook for me every day. This is the only place I ever get real, home-cooked food.”

Jensen’s eyes twinkle in the light of the candlesticks he’s placed in the middle of the table. “You want to move in already?”

Jared almost chokes on his food. “N-no, I was just—it was a joke!”

Jensen puts his hand over Jared’s. “Relax. I know that.” He takes a sip of his beer. “But, down the road, it’s definitely something I want to talk about.”

Jared nods. “I live in a shithole. Believe me, when you wanna talk, I’ll listen.”

Jensen goes quiet then, and the two of them eat their dinner in relative silence except for the music in the background, which Jared suddenly realizes is the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets soundtrack. “You bought new CDs?”

Jensen nods and smiles. “Yeah, after the concert. You don’t mind?”

“No, not at all!” Jared pats Jensen’s knee. “I’m glad you opened your horizons to something different.”

“Someday we’ll see the movie,” says Jensen, looking to Jared for reassurance.

“I’ll bring it next weekend,” says Jared. “We can marathon the first three. Then I’ll let you catch up in your livres des fran��ais.”

Jensen beams. “I started French lessons on Duolingo,” Jared explains.

Jensen gets up and kisses the top of Jared’s head. “You’re the best boyfriend ever.”

Jared smirks. “Hold that thought.”

They finish eating and do the dishes together. Then, Jared retrieves his bag and they head upstairs.

Jared sets the bag down on Jensen’s desk chair and pulls out the cuffs, the ties, and the “surprise.” He feels his cheeks grow hot as he hands Jensen the corset and panties. “You don’t have to wear these, but man, I’d love it if you did.”

Jensen turns them over and considers it. Just when Jared thinks he’s going to say no, he grins. “What the hell, right?” He motions towards his bathroom. “I’ll go change, and then you can tie me up.” He rubs his chin. “There’s a sentence I never anticipated saying.”

Jared lets Jensen leave and then pulls off his hoodie and jeans. He fastens the cuffs to the headboard of Jensen’s bed and waits for Jensen to come back in. He hooks his phone up to Jensen’s Bluetooth speakers and starts his playlist. Hawksley Workman’s “Striptease” starts playing and Jared starts to get hard just from the Pavlovian conditioning. He fucked almost half a dozen guys to this song during college, including a different one after each performance of Rocky Horror. The first time it was Milo Ventimiglia, the guy who played Eddie. That was probably the only pairing in the whole show that wasn’t supported by canon. Even Jared couldn’t make a compelling fanfic case for that one.

Jensen comes back wearing the black flowered corset and lace panties. Somehow it manages to make his pecs look flawless and his thighs almost obscene. Jensen takes one look at the cuffs and swallows hard. “Do your thing,” he says, his voice slightly raspy.

Jared fastens the cuffs around both of his wrists. His arms are spread out at a sixty degree angle, which he’s not going to leave him in for long. It’s too painful the first time. He turns around and says, “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Jared dons his cowl and turns off the lights, leaving only a small desk lamp lit. “Call for help,” says Jared in his normal voice.

“Help?” Jensen sounds unsure, but then he seems to get into it. “Help me! I’m trapped!”

Jared turns around. “I’m coming!” he shouts in his deep Batman voice. He sees Jensen bite back a laugh, pressing his lips firmly together.

He climbs on the end of the bed. “Where are the others? Where are they?”

“I don’t know,” replies Jensen, sounding rather convincingly terrified. Jared wonders if Jensen has some theater background he’s not aware of.

“Who did this? Did you see?”

Jensen shakes his head. “He had a mask on. Covered his whole head. And then he covered my eyes.”

Jared rolls back on his heels. “I need to search the building.”

Jensen swallows. In a shaking voice, he responds, “Do what you have to do. Just—come back soon?”

Jared reaches out and strokes Jensen’s hair. “I’ll be quick. I promise. I’m not leaving you.”

Jared jumps down and lies on his belly on the floor to hide from Jensen. On the stereo, the song switches to George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex.” He has a momentary pang of guilt thinking of the singer's posthumous status. He lets the song play through and then gets up.

Jensen’s struggling against the bonds, not hard, just for show. “Help me! Please?”

“I’ve secured the area,” rasps Jared. “But I’ll have to pick the locks. It’ll take time.”

“Just don’t leave me again,” murmurs Jensen, and he actually sounds hurt.

Jared fiddles with the cuffs. They’re only Velcro, but they’re strong, and Jensen can’t get out of them on his own. He rests a hand on Jensen’s shoulder as he pretends to fiddle with the one on Jensen’s left wrist. “I’m not leaving. I’m here. I’m taking care of you.”

“I’m scared,” Jensen says in a small voice, and those plush pink lips turn out in a pout. Jared adjusts his rapidly-hardening dick inside his briefs.

“Don’t be,” he says in his Batman voice. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Jensen leans forward and brushes his forehead against Jared’s bicep. “You’re so strong,” he simpers. “You have such big muscles.”

“Comes with the job,” he rasps. He reaches down with one hand and traces the neckline of the corset. He starts unfastening the hook-and-eye closures down the middle one by one.

Jensen’s eyebrows shoot up, like he didn’t realize they were there. But he fights it down and drops back into character. “You’re so brave. But I guess that’s part of the job too.”

“Can’t be a superhero if you’re not brave,” Jared agrees. He unhooks a few more fasteners. He trails his hand down to Jensen’s crotch and feels the damp rayon of the panties that cover Jensen’s rock-hard cock. He’s enjoying this, too. He slips a hand under the waistband and flicks the tip of his thumb over the slit. Jensen arches his back and thrusts his cock further into Jared’s grip. Jared pumps it a few times and, as a courtesy, slides off the panties. He tosses them over the side of the bed and licks a bead of precome off the slit. Then he runs the tip of his tongue underneath the sensitized head, making Jensen buck his hips and nearly hit Jared in the forehead with his pelvic bone.

Jared takes Jensen’s cock further into his mouth. He laves a thick stripe up the underside of the shaft, then releases it and slides a hand up Jensen’s pelvis to the lower hem of the corset. Jensen squirms. “Ja—I mean, Batman, please, have mercy!”

“You like that?” Jared rasps. He unfastens another couple of hooks and slides his hand over to tease at Jensen’s left nipple. He rolls it between his thumb and forefinger, coaxing it into hardness. Jensen drops his head back and moans.

Jared leaves Jensen’s wrists bound, since he doesn’t seem to be disliking or resenting the restraints. “You’re just so pretty,” he breathes, sliding his hand to Jensen’s other nipple and teasing it into hardness. “No wonder the Joker went for you. He likes the pretty ones.”

“And what do you like?” gasps Jensen.

Jared smirks at him. “The grateful ones.”

“I’ll do anything you want,” says Jensen, breathing hard.

“Anything?” Jared raises an eyebrow.

“I owe you everything,” murmurs Jensen. “I want to—to express my gratitude.”

Jared flicks open a few more hooks. “You would do anything?”

“Anything at all.” Jensen honest-to-God flutters his fucking eyelashes. “Anything for you. You’re my hero.”

Jared reaches behind Jensen’s pillow where he hid the lube. He squeezes a generous amount on his fingers and runs one around the outside of Jensen’s hole. “Let me fuck you?”

“Absolutely,” gasps Jensen.

Jared slides one slick finger into Jensen’s tight hole. Jensen’s breathing hard and it takes him a minute to relax and let Jared past the ring of muscle. Jared reaches his other hand up and cups Jensen’s chin. “Relax, baby. I gotcha.”

Jensen nods. “I know. I trust you.”

Jared slides a second finger in. Jensen tips his head back, exposing that long, freckles expanse of golden skin, and Jared presses his lips to it. Jensen moans as the warring sensations dazzle his senses. He goes boneless in Jared’s arms, completely open to Jared’s desires, and Jared’s never been so horny in his life.

He adds a third finger, scissoring open Jensen’s hole. He reaches under the pillow and retrieves a condom, then tears it open with his teeth and rolls it over his thick, straining cock. He pulls his fingers out of Jensen’s hole and spreads some lube over the condom. “You ready, babe?”

“Fuck yeah,” gasps Jensen.

Jared pushes his cock into Jensen’s slicked-up hole and Jensen groans with pleasure. He presses in as far as he can, past the ring of muscle, and Jensen just leans back and lets him in. Jared starts to thrust, establishing a rather intense rhythm, and Jensen tips his head back and lets Jared do as he pleases.

Jared captures Jensen’s hot, dry lips for a kiss as he plunders Jensen’s ass. Jensen bucks against the restraints but doesn’t complain, just gasps and moans as Jared fucks him as fast and hard as he dares. Seeing Jensen like this, totally vulnerable and yielding to Jared’s every demand, is just about the hottest goddamn thing he’s ever imagined.

Jensen breaks the kiss and tips his head back on the pillow, panting so hard that Jared falters momentarily. “I’m okay,” gasps Jensen. “Fuck, just—just like that.”

Jared continues to thrust and Jensen continues to fight against the restraints, but not in a way that indicates distress. Jared comes with a stuttering shout and spills his load into the condom. Jensen bucks his hips and Jared takes his quivering cock in one hand and jacks him through his own orgasm as he’s pulling off the condom with his other hand. Jensen comes with a hoarse groan that Jared swallows by covering Jensen’s mouth with his own. He ties off the condom and throws it away as Jensen shudders through the aftershocks. Finally, he releases Jensen’s wrists and Jensen immediately throws his arms around Jared, who collapses next to him on the mattress. “That was incredible,” breathes Jensen.

“You liked it?” Jared’s breathing hard, but he manages to smile.

“I loved it,” replies Jensen. “I kind of want to try it from the other end.”

“You gotta ask nicely.” Jared nuzzles Jensen’s temple with his nose.

“Please can I tie you up and fuck you next time?”

Jared smirks. “I’ll think about it.”

Jensen kisses his temple and rubs his wrists, even though Jared knows the cuffs don’t chafe. “That’s all I ask.”

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

4 , 9 , 17 , 18 , 24 , 26 , 31 , 32 , 20 ,

4. What’s your current NOTP?D*lena and C.lace. 

9. Do you have many ships that never got together at all?I already answered this, so I’m just gonna copy and paste, cos obviously it’s the same answer. I have a fair few. Off the top of my head, Eleven/Amy, Daryl/Beth, Dexter/Debra, Harry/Hermione, Bella/Jacob. Then there’s Emma/Regina and Bonnie/Damon, but there’s still a chance they may get together (we can hope!).

17. Talk about a pairing you’ve stopped shipping romantically.I already talked about Emma and H00k, so this time I’ll talk about Sherlock and John. I’d always been unsure about whether I shipped them romantically tbh, but it was one of those situations whereby cos the Sherlock fandom is so dominated by Johnlock fans, I kinda got sucked into it too and started shipping them. But I just realised that I don’t ship them romantically at all. Don’t get me wrong, I can see the chemistry is there, but I just see Sherlock as being so bad for John. There’s a very unhealthy dynamic to their relationship and ultimately Sherlock is always the one pulling the strings and John is forced to follow. But honestly, it’s mostly because I just see them as being friends more so than anything else. 

18. Talk about a moment which made you question an entire ship.I’d definitely have to say the TVD season 4 finale where Elena chose D*mon. Like I had complete faith all the way through season 4 that by the end of the season Elena would find her way back to Stefan because he was the love of her life, so I was actually so shocked when that happened and it made me doubt everything. Because like, her choosing to be with D*mon and loving him more than Stefan is something she said would never ever happen, so the fact that it had definitely made me question everything. There were a lot of moments are that that made me question everything too, but that’s another story haha. 

20. Talk about a ship you feel alone in shipping.Dexter and Debra. I’m pretty sure when the show as still airing and the fandom was bigger and more active, there were probably some Debster shippers, but most of them are long gone. And I remember in season 6 when Deb finally admitted she was in love with Dexter so many people were disgusted at the writers for going down that path and complaining how it was wrong for them to be together because they’re brother and sister and blah blah blah. But they’re probably one of my OTP’s and at the darker end of the spectrum on my shipping scale. I loved them for - in Deb’s words - being so fucked up. I loved that they were complicated, messy and dangerous. It was such an intriguing dynamic to me and it sucked me in. 

24. Do you mostly ship canon pairings?Definitely. There was a time when I pretty much only shipped canon pairings, because I didn’t understand the concept of non-canon ships. Like a lot of the time non-canon ships are two characters that are portrayed as being solely friends or they barely interact and I’d be thinking, “So why/how do people ship them?”. But over the last year or so I’ve opened myself up more to non-canon pairings and they can actually be so much more fun than canon pairings. The reason for that is that there’s more creativity involved. The shippers can create endless headcanons and write stories of what could/should happen in the future with the ships or create endless AUs, they can make manips, write theories on how they think the ship could be canon or why they should be canon. With non-canon ships it’s an entirely different world that is completely open and free for the shippers to do what they want and I think sometimes canon ships don’t have that, because there is a limit on the creativity and freedom because the focus is the material/scenes they’re given by the show/movie, rather than creating their own, if that makes sense. 

26. Have you noticed a pattern in your shipping? Is there a romantic dynamic you’re more drawn to?I already answered this one, too, so here’s my answer from before: I don’t think I have a pattern to my shipping. In fact, I think if you look at a list of my ships it’s very random. I’m really the kind of person where if it’s there for me it’s there. Like, your ships just choose you and it’s a hard thing to explain why or how it happens. I think that the only thing that all of my ships have in common is that they changed each other’s life in some drastic way. I think I’m generally drawn to those domesticated, loving, supportive, soul mate, vanilla type relationships where the two people are good for each other. So I’m talking about ships such as Monica/Chandler, Snow/Charming, Jane/Michael, Glenn/Maggie, Michael/Sara. But at the same time, I have a fascination with ships that are the complete opposite, ships that have an interesting, messy, complicated and sometimes even a dangerous dynamic, such as, Regina/Emma, Dexter/Debra, Chuch/Blair, Cook/Effy, Henry VIII/Anne Boleyn, Phoebe/Cole and Jax/Tara. So yeah, for me it’s all about chemistry and whether the story of the couple intrigues me or not. Whether or not I like the characters involved as individuals also has a pretty big influence. Generally, most of my ships involve two of my favourite characters.

31. Talk about one of your favorite headcanons for a ship you love.The one that really sticks out in my mind, is one I have for Eleven and Amy. When the Doctor was gone for long periods of time, Amy missed him so much that there were nights where she’d lie awake at night. She just couldn’t sleep, because every time she closed her eyes she saw his face and she was constantly straining her ears to listen out for that familiar sound of the TARDIS. So, she’d wait until Rory fell asleep, then she’d sneak downstairs, go in the freezer, grab a box of fish fingers and then go to the cupboard and reach for a can of custard. Once they were done she’d take her bowl of fish fingers and custard outside into the the back garden and perch herself on the bench. It would be bitterly cold, so she’d have a woolly blanket wrapped about her shoulders, the bowl cupped in her hands and steam rising from it. She didn’t even notice the tears streaming down her face until she lifted the bowl up to her face, inhaled the smell and noticed them dropping one by one into the bowl. Once she saw them it made her cry harder until she was sobbing. She stayed out there in the cold for a long time simply bawling, until the fish fingers and custard were cold and then she looked up at the stars and prayed for her raggedy Doctor to appear from the dark night sky. She thought back to the night she spent lying back in the grass, hand in hand with the greatest painter that ever lived and her Doctor, she wished for more nights like those. She knew she should be moving forward, living her life with Rory, but she couldn’t let go of the Doctor or the life she had with him. Even after all those years, she was still the girl who was waiting and she’d realise in those moments that she didn’t know how to stop waiting. Eventually when the tears ran dry, she’d get up, take one last look up at the stars and whisper, “Goodnight, raggedy man” and then turn to head inside the house. She’d climb into bed next to Rory and feel so guilty that she still longed for the Doctor, that she still dreamed of running away with him all over again. Eventually she’d drift off to sleep, memories of the Doctor at the forefront of her mind. In the meantime, the Doctor would just be returning to the TARDIS after yet another adventure, he’d step in, a spring in his step and a jolly grin on his face, but once the door was firmly closed behind him, the mask would slip and the sadness would return. He’d lived for nearly a thousand years, spent a majority of his life without Amy, yet the TARDIS didn’t quite feel the same without her presence. It didn’t feel like a home to him anymore. There was a deep sadness in his eyes, that no matter how hard he tried he could never hide, yet none of the people or creatures he met seemed to notice. He’d get ready for bed, change into some hideous grandad pajamas and he’d warm up a bowl of fish fingers and custard - just like he did every night - then he’d sit on his bed, eat it and finally feel like he was closer to home. Unlike Amy, he wouldn’t cry, because he knew he’d see her again soon. Instead he’d place the empty bowl at the side of his bed, turn the lights off, lie back and whisper, “See you soon, Pond”, before falling to sleep with a smile on his face and Amy in his heart

32. Share five must-read fics.I have to admit, I haven’t read many fics, so I don’t know if I can share five, but here are the ones I recommend:1. Break Me Everytime (Dexter) - honestly, no fanfiction story could ever beat this in my eyes. @six-impossible-things is such a talented writer, I could read her stuff forever.2. In the Aftermath (Dexter) - this is an addition to Break Me Everytime (above)3. There Are Rules (Dexter) - a sequel to Break Me Everytime (basically, if you like Dexter, read all of the fics Solia has dedicated to Break Me Everytime, because they’re amazing). 4. Black and Blue (Once Upon a Time) - the first (and only) Swan Queen fic that’s managed to keep my attention so far. But there are so many Swan Queen fics out there and this is only the beginning, hopefully soon I will be able to recommend a lot more. I don’t have a fifth to share. Sorry, I suck. 

send me a number…

[rorykillmore]

hmmm brambleclaw, jitterpaw, sara?

brambleclaw

apart from squirrelflight, he still considers stormfur and crowfeather his closest friends. he did not grow up with the experience a lot of the generations before him did -- having a tightly knit group of close friends in thunderclan. his and tawnypelt’s apprenticeship was of course overshadowed by the threat of tigerstar at the time, and there weren’t many other young cats in his age range to begin with.

he does, however, really like and admire dustpelt, who in many ways had to fight for the clan’s trust because of his relationship with tigerstar just as brambleclaw did. i think on denny he and leopardpool could eventually become really good friends but then i’m a sucker for leader/medicine cat relationships.

on denny, the cats who are gonna give him his nine lives will be:  bluestar (stepping in as former clan leader in place of firestar, who isn’t dead yet in brambleclaw’s timeline), redtail (tigerstar’s first murder, who would give him a life related to being able to move on from that legacy), yellowfang (who brambleclaw hardly knew but... i like the significance of it, since firestar always blamed himself for her death because he was rescuing bramblekit),  cinderpelt, frostfur, speckletail, swiftpaw (who was not only his denmate at one point but also his half-brother through goldenflower, the more you know), goldenflower herself, and feathertail.

he still grieves and misses hawkfrost sometimes, but generally feels too ashamed to talk about it.

if he’s stressed or uneasy, he sleeps curled up in a tight ball -- but otherwise his sleeping habits are kind of hilariously kitten-ish. he likes to sprawl out, and often does that Cat Thing where they roll over onto their backs and have their head at some absurd angle. poor squirrelflight tbh

speaking of, he’s not currently... quite as outraged at her as he was in canon because the context of him finding out about power of three stuff was so different: it wasn’t after years of thinking the kits he’d raised were related to him by blood, it was just kind of. all thrown at him at once. plus this version of squirrelflight didn’t even do anything yet, and with their kits on the way, it’s a lot easier to direct his anger at crowfeather and leafpool -- though there might... still be some lingering tension between them.

he actually does quite like mothwing, and wishes he had the chance to get to know her better -- she’s still his half-sister, and he sometimes wonders whether she’d be the one cat who could understand how he felt about hawkfrost.

he feels it’s a silly, pointless thing to hope for, but he wishes that tigerstar would express some regret for how his actions affected his kids, even once.

he loves snow. doesn’t like leafbare very much otherwise, but the first snowfall of the year is his favorite thing and he always lowkey desperately tries not to miss it while trying to seem like he’s not too invested.

he fears/dislikes human kids because they tend to be rough and kind of disrespectful of animal boundaries, but he would also never bite or scratch one. i hope kid!michael myers never picks him up,

jitterpaw

is basically her sister’s shadow in the figurative and aesthetic sense -- honeypaw has light, golden colored fur, jitterpaw has very dark ginger fur.

she was actually conceived to be just kind of a... side character in a plot dawnie and i had waaaay back in the day. the plot originally centered around a love/hate relationship between honeypaw and my character smokepaw, but then i also made jitterpaw to be honeypaw’s support system and kinda fell in love with her.

she would actually recognize badgerstripe, though badgerstripe wouldn’t know her. jitterpaw is from further along in badgerstripe’s era and would know her as badgerstar.

has now sworn off rabbit altogether and doesn’t care what anyone thinks; she loves fiver too much, you guys.

her primary fear is probably... getting sick, due to the way her mother died. she doesn’t take very well to even catching mild illnesses; they really stress her out.

back in the day i literally almost made her warrior name jitterbug (however i did not in fact rp her long enough to actually give her a warrior name, so, she was spared,)

once had a friend from thunderclan named rabbitpaw -- he was easygoing and goodnatured and they bantered a lot, but were mainly united in their bafflement over a pretty intense rivalry between honeypaw (jitterpaw’s sister) and smokepaw (rabbitpaw’s best friend).

her favorite sound in the world is her sister’s laugh. she missed it long before they were separated.

loves swimming but, ironically enough, hates rain. she’s just particularly sensitive to the sensation of it pouring down on her -- and also the sound of thunder really unsettles her. 

otterfrost intimidates her, but jitterpaw also looks up to her and really, really wants her approval. it’s turning her into a little bit of an overachiever tbh. 

sara

her birthday is on christmas, like, canonically. as a kid she used to hate having to share it with such a major holiday; it always felt really overshadowed. now she doesn’t... particularly care because needless to say, she’s not big into celebrating herself.

the one accessory she wears almost constantly is the necklace laurel gave her. no surprises there.

as the entire world knows, she’s bi. she has leaned into preferring women as she’s gotten older for a variety of reasons: natural preference and a growing confidence in and acceptance of that as she’s aged, but it’s also i think influenced by stuff like the fact that she’s a sexual abuse survivor and that’s something that directly influenced her involvement in the league of assassins/later her vigilantism. 

has some background in biology, genetics, and physics, but it almost never comes to light given that her more... brutal and hands-on skills are usually called for.

her ride of choice (apart from the waverider) is a motorcycle. she actually even has a license! and can kind of be a dork about showing it off to pretty girls and giving them lifts.

still sort of considers oliver her best friend - they’ll always have a special and turbulent connection - though during their time on the waverider together, kendra kind of became something like that too.

her favorite song is “love will keep us together” by captain and tennille. she once playfully, drunkenly serenaded nyssa with it. it also became something of a meme between her and snart (it was the first song they ever got into a barfight together to, after all,)

her favorite time periods to visit are probably the 1970′s and the old west, aka the ones respectively infamous for getting high and shooting people, of course.

most peg her for a super casual drinker and barhopper, but the truth is that if she drinks casually at all, it’s because she’s confident that she can hold her liquor. she almost never gets even tipsy, and actually takes issues with alcohol... pretty seriously and respectfully, due to laurel’s history with it.

on denny she’s started messing with reimagining her old sonic weapons of choice -- yep, the ones black canary is famous for. they pack quite a punch and she’s lowkey kind of itching to use them on someone.