#i thought for sure i saw miles hand duke the glass

[pippytmi]

a quick mabel + honoria ficlet based on # 23 from this Christmas prompt list: "one slipping on ice and the other's heart dropping. it's only when they laugh or see that they're okay, the other's heart picks back up again."

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Christmas at Tintagel this year saw a cold, sharp frost and a sense of melancholy in the air.

It was the first year Christmas would be hosted by the newest Duke and Duchess, but despite the joyous occasion, neither seemed to be in good humor. Nan looked different—held her head higher, smiled less—and Theo, solemn as he had been once, was particularly withdrawn and curt. A loveless marriage did not suit them, clearly, and Mabel made a point of whispering as much to Lizzy.

“Mabel,” Lizzy said sharply in response. “It’s Christmas. No such talk is allowed at Christmas.”

“The truth?” Mabel asked, but Lizzy only shook her head in warning. As such, Mabel obediently held her tongue, and reached for a drink. At the very least, she would not have to endure the festivities sober.

“I wonder when Conchita will arrive,” Lizzy remarked as they made their walkabout the room, sparing polite nods at the lords and ladies who had been fortunate enough to obtain an invitation tonight. “It’s so late already.”

“You mean Lady Conchita,” Mabel corrected with a dramatic enough flair that Lizzy rolled her eyes. “She’ll make a grand entrance. I know it.” And, Mabel thought privately, hopefully her arrival would mean that of Honoria’s. The idea was enough to make her giddy, and she stood on her tip-toes to eagerly peer through the crowds.

“Is that Miles?” Lizzy gasped, which proved to be ample distraction to Mabel’s search. “With a woman?”

“He does know women, I’m sure,” Mabel said. “From what I hear, he’s doomed to be married to one any day now.”

Lizzy gave Mabel an exasperated glare. “Honestly, Mabel, you need to tell me these things. What use is a sister if you’re not entertaining me with these scandals?”

“I don’t see how it would be a scandal. He’s marrying a woman, not a horse.”  Mabel finally managed to spot Miles herself, and he met her eye. She waved, and he raised his glass in response.

“He’s a good man,” Lizzy said decidedly, like it was a fact.

“He is,” Mabel agreed. “And you still have time to sweep him off his feet, if you’d like.”

“You—I can’t bear to be another second around you. Sisterly duty or not—”

Whatever sisterly duty might entail, it remained a mystery, for Nan had found her way to their corner of the room. “Mabel, Lizzy,” she exhaled. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you both.”

“Here,” Mabel said, and offered her drink. “You’ll be needing this.”

Nan stared at the glass for a moment and then, almost in bewilderment, said: “I haven’t had a drink all night. How have I not had a drink all night?” Without further delay, she immediately downed the last of Mabel’s drink.

“Let’s get you another,” Lizzy declared, and Nan smiled the way a bright sun might emerge from storm clouds, much more herself.

When Conchita did arrive, it was to a much-improved Duchess, though Nan nearly sobbed when Conchita embraced her for the first time. All night no one had spoken of Jinny, but her absence lingered; Mabel watched Conchita whisper into Nan’s ear and felt the urge to squeeze Lizzy’s hands between her own, just once. Just to remember she was there.

“You wouldn’t believe the carriage ride here,” Conchita sighed, once they had supplied her with a drink. “So bumpy! I thought for sure I would’ve ended up in Honoria’s lap before the night was over.”

Mabel felt her stomach dip at the mention of her love, and she tried quite hard to mask her interest as she said, “Honoria came with you?”

“Yes, she surprised us,” Conchita said thoughtfully. “I was sure she’d want to spend the night with her dreadful parents like always.” She cast a curious look over her shoulder. “I don’t know where she went. Richard must be keeping her company.”

But Mabel could see Richard in the distance, and he was deep in conversation with Miles and Miles’ wife-to-be. Honoria was, much to her disappointment, nowhere in sight. “I’m going to get another drink,” she announced, intent on seeking Honoria instead—she already had an idea of where to look.

As expected, Lady Honoria Marable was standing at the same pavilion where last Christmas Mabel had given her that fateful music box, and she was a vision to behold; a red fitted gown and matching shawl, loose tendrils of her blond hair curled prettily over her cheeks. Mabel felt herself smile before she even realized it, and she quickened her pace in excitement.

“Honoria! You’re—” 

The ground overtook her all at once, and Mabel blinked up at the sky, foiled by the ice-slicked steps leading up to the pavilion. There was a distinct wetness at her back, and the snowflakes in the air—though less plentiful now than at the start of the evening—continued to fall steadily against her skin and clothes. It was all so…so…absurd, that laughter was the only reasonable response.

“Honoria,” Mabel gasped between laughs without even knowing if she could hear, “Honoria, never tell anyone that happened.”

A moment later, Honoria was at her side, pulling at Mabel’s hands and muttering under her breath about fools and follies. Mabel fondly watched Honoria’s pinched, worried face and took great pleasure in being that fool.

“Are you alright?” Honoria asked at last. Her expression softened just so, which betrayed the extent of her distress. “You frightened me.”

“Happy Christmas to you, too,” Mabel said happily, and Honoria frowned.

“This isn’t a joke, Mabel. My heart just about stopped.”

“So did mine, when I saw you,” Mabel said, unable to stop herself from flirting just a little; Honoria only frowned deeper, unwilling to forgive so easily. “I’m fine, I swear it. Don’t be cross with me on Christmas.”

“I’m not cross.” Honoria gripped her shawl tightly as if in preparation of some continued tirade, but all she said in a terse, quiet voice was: “You shouldn’t have been so reckless.”

“I know,” Mabel said. “But if you’re going to scold me, can we get out of the snow first? If I freeze, you’re going to feel really bad.”

Honoria sighed, as if this was all one great inconvenience, and they made their way up the steps together—much slower, and much more carefully, with their hands linked together. Once they were on stable ground, Mabel did not let go; she merely pulled Honoria closer, and mindful that no one else was around, brushed a kiss to Honoria’s cold face.

“You still haven’t told me happy Christmas,” Mabel whispered into her ear, and Honoria laughed, a choked kind of laugh which seemed to vanquish any of her remaining anger.

“Happy Christmas,” Honoria said, amused, and she dared to give Mabel a quick, proper kiss before immediately stepping back. Of the two, she was far more careful to not give affection in public. Mabel was cautious as well, but in moments like these—moments where she was too overjoyed to see Honoria—she could hardly be blamed for having less tact.

“I missed you,” Mabel said, and felt it, in every fiber of her being. “I missed you since Bonfire night when we said goodbye. I missed you this morning, when I woke up too early for Christmas and had no one to wake up too. And I miss you now, because—because I know we will have to say goodbye again tonight.”

Honoria gazed back tenderly, and allowed a precious moment of swaying closer, hands taking both of Mabel’s. “The night has just begun,” she corrected. “There are no goodbyes, yet.”

“Right,” Mabel breathed, and she leaned down to rest her forehead against Honoria’s. “Why didn’t you come inside earlier? I saw your brother.”

“I assumed you would be with your friends,” Honoria said wistfully. “I didn’t want to interrupt.” She paused. “I would have done nothing but stare at you all evening, either way.”

“Well sometimes a girl wants to be stared at,” Mabel teased, and delighted in the way Honoria’s body shook with a huffy sigh the way it always did when she was too bashful. “I would’ve been staring right back at you…probably pretending that I was dancing with you.”

“I’m an awful dancer,” Honoria said, whispered like it was a secret. “My mother says so.”

Mabel pretended to consider that for a second. “No,” she said. “I’m afraid your mother is just an awful, lying cow.”

Despite herself, Honoria giggled. “You’ve never seen me dance.”

“I don’t need to,” Mabel said, and she leaned back, if only to fully ensure Honoria could see how serious she was. “You’re beautiful. Everything you do is beautiful.”

Honoria’s eyes had gone wet and sad at once, and she shook her head, though not to Mabel. Perhaps to herself. Then her gloved hands reached for Mabel’s face, frozen for a perfect moment in time, before Honoria kissed her again. This was not a stolen kiss—not a chaste kiss—no, it was a valiant attempt to undo any notions of goodbye ever again. Mabel was wild from it, hands tight on Honoria’s waist as she hungrily drew her closer, desperate and aching and practically aflame with desire.

It was, even for an instant, a sliver of forever. Mabel knew it, and so did Honoria, who looked at Mabel with so much affection even as she cried.

“Don’t cry,” Mabel said, pained. “We’re not allowed to be sad on Christmas.”

Another sob, this time, tinged with laughter. “I’m not sad,” Honoria sniffed. “I’m…happy. I’ve never been this happy.” She wiped at her eyes and smiled, smiled so brightly that Mabel’s worry instantly eased. “You make me so happy.”

“And you, Lady Honoria Marable,” Mabel said, “you make me brave.” She glanced over her shoulder, but did not see any stragglers from the night’s festivities about, which inspired her to reach her hand out. “Will you dance with me?”

“Now?” Honoria asked. “But we haven’t any music, and…”

“And?”

“And I’m afraid I really am a horrid dancer,” Honoria confessed, which only made Mabel grin.

“I think we’ve already decided that’s impossible,” Mabel reminded her, stretching her arm closer. “You’re not going to tell me no, are you? On Christmas?”

“You are being quite loose on what Christmas is about,” Honoria said. “Just so we’re clear.” And she took Mabel’s cold, expectant hand in her gloved one, squeezed so tight like any second Mabel might disappear entirely.

They swayed together like any other couple in the grand, festive ballroom of Tintagel might, but Mabel privately felt their celebration was much richer—all the grandeur in the palace could not possibly compare to Honoria’s shy, exuberant smile and the warmth of her embrace. All the grandeur in the world could not possibly compare.

“I love you,” Mabel said without thinking, and her heart hammered in her chest, screaming for a single, choked, agonizing breath before Honoria’s hand gently smoothed against Mabel’s shoulder and she replied,

“I have loved you for a long time, Mabel Elmsworth.”

Mabel’s heart relaxed, and she smiled against Honoria’s hair, her relief as profound as her love just then. “Oh. That’s…good to know,” she said, and before Honoria could poke fun, she stepped back to spin Honoria suddenly; it caused her to stumble, and they collapsed into a heap on the floor, unable to immediately untangle themselves from each other.

Honoria took one look at Mabel’s stupefied expression and promptly burst out into laughter. Slowly, Mabel could do nothing else but join in, overcome with dizzying joy—with stark surprise—with a sudden chill now that she was victim to the floor once more.

And with love, of course. So much love.

[theshampyon]

Holy shit, more Glass Onion thoughts that I have to purge from my brain. Some of these are things I saw others commenting on on other sites. Some are Shower Thoughts. (Can't believe I didn't notice the first one.) Possible SPOILERS ahead...

When we first see Miles Bron he's playing Blackbird on a white guitar. He says it's the guitar Paul McCartney wrote the song on. The guitar is right-handed. Paul McCartney plays left handed.

I think this is one of a bunch of things in the film Bron paid big money for, never knowing he was being ripped off. Blanc solves Gillian Flynn's Murder Mystery before it even begins because it's not hidden very well, but Bron isn't smart enough to realise it. The Puzzle Box features, in Blanc's words, "Children's puzzles", because the puzzle maker knew Bron wouldn't recognise a proper adult puzzle if he saw one. (So who knows, maybe that wasn't really the Mona Lisa after all.)

Everyone calls the chess puzzle an "endgame." It's not an endgame. It's a move called "The Fool's Mate," so called because it can only be achieved if the White player royally fucks up. Basically, it's the dumbest way to achieve mate. It's also not strictly speaking an endgame. But people who don't actually know chess (like myself, I confess) wouldn't know that.

The Fool's Mate is solved by... the fool's mates.

Back to Benoit calling the puzzles "children's games". They really are. None of require analytical thinking or deductive reasoning. Just recognising patterns that are familiar to their friend group and social class. Not riddles, just references.

The first being the most obvious - a Magic Eye, which some people are physically incapable of seeing and thus could never solve. And even those who can see them do not need wit or reasoning to solve it, just the ability to kinda cross their eyes a bit. In the 1990s, when these characters were teens, Magic Eye puzzles were literally sold as a child's puzzle.

And even then, they needed help. Without Duke's mother, none of them would have solved the boxes. Not even head Bron's main technology department head Lionel, who sure as shit should be able to recognise a Fibonacci sequence when he sees one. It's the kind of thing taught in High School. Yet none of these Special People, these brilliant Disruptors, saw an answer that a very pointedly normal older lady did. Because the movie is telling us right from the beginning that they're not special. All of then are in their positions due to Bron's money and influence, not their actual intellect and skill.

But Benoit didn't necessarily know that about the boxes at the time. He'd never seen the box intact, and he didn't realise Bron is actually an idiot until much later. Which makes me think Benoit said it purely to get Bron off balance. (Also, he may not have been able to solve the box if he had one intact, precisely because it's stupid. Benoit admits such simple puzzles are his Achilles' Heel, which is why he loses the Among Us game in the bathtub!)

This is all also why working class Helen can't solve them. She's smart - a better lateral thinker and riddle solver than any of the Shitheads - but she's not part of their social class. She doesn't know their rote cultural signifiers. (But I bet she would have solved the Fibonacci one.)

So she, in keeping with the Greek theme, cuts the Gordian Knot. Presented with the puzzle as barrier to a prize, most assume the solution is to solve it. Like Alexander the Great, she thinks outside the assumed constraints and simply removes the barrier.

The Greek theme, of course, including the naming of the characters. Andy a.k.a. Cassandra, who foresaw great peril but was not believed. Her sister Helen, whose coming brought about the end of an empire - "the face launched a thousand ships" (or in this case, a fleet of police boats).

I gotta rewatch this. There's bound to be a thousand more little details that I didn't catch the first time around.

[theimprobabledreamersworld]

I just about managed to get this little story written for Loceit Week! :D I enjoyed writing it, and I can't wait to write more for the rest of the week! This is for the prompt 'Hobbies' and it's a pre-romantic/confessed feelings for the pairing :)

Anyways, it was a little rushed, but I hope you enjoy it! <3

@loceitweek2021

Writing taglist: @psychedelicships @jwillowwolf @red-imeanblue @lost-in-thought-20 @the-duke-of-nuts @writerwithtoomanyships

Read on Ao3!

Crossword Confessions

Logan Sanders and Janus Sanders

Janus loved peace and quiet. His favourite hobby was to read his classic novels, but if he wanted to explore every page and embrace every word, he could only read in the company of one person. He had to constantly explain the story to Patton who would try to read over his shoulder, then he would always have to practically run away from Remus because he would try to either draw pretty… rude drawings on the pages; or rip the pages out completely. Thankfully, Roman and Virgil didn’t care enough about classic novels to bother him so at least there was that bonus.

Logan was quite literally his savior; his hobby was another silent type. Janus always smiled when he saw Logan coming to join him with the newspaper in hand. Logan was the smartest man Janus knew, and their debates over literature and philosophy was enough to make his heart pound and his head spin. So the fact that he was invested in crossword puzzles wasn’t a surprise to Janus. The sound of the pen scratching on the paper was surprisingly comforting, and Janus always knew when Logan was stuck on a clue. He laughed every time because when Janus asked if he could help, Logan would stubbornly insist that he could work it out on his own… before shuffling closer to him and placing the newspaper delicately on top of his book, silently asking for his help. The thing that Janus loved the most though was that Logan wouldn’t move away after they had worked through a clue together. In fact, they ended up sitting even closer together and Logan would take to leaning on Janus’ shoulder long after the crossword was finished. Janus happily rested his head on top of Logan’s and slowly moved the book so it was in the middle of them, and he could feel Logan’s eyes steadily reading the pages with him.

He tried to lie to himself, he didn’t have feelings for Logan… no. Absolutely not, what a ludicrous idea! He laughed to himself as he ironically got to the heartfelt confession scene in the book. So, Logan makes him smile, he makes him laugh, he makes him think more in depth about literature and philosophy, and he’s the one person who always makes time for Janus no matter how busy he is. Never mind the fact that he is the most talented, smartest and stunning guy he has ever met. So yes, no feelings at all.

Janus sighed and slammed the book on the coffee table… great. Now he couldn’t focus on his book, Logan had taken over his mind. To top it off, Logan had just walked into the room looking to see if Janus was there. He was holding his newspaper and smiled as he saw that Janus was sitting at the table with his book, he walked over and Janus’ heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t help but smile when he sat down much closer than usual.

“Well, well, well. Is there something I can help you with?” He smirked as he saw Logan smile and look down, staring at the crossword intently.

“… Yes, you can. I hate to admit it, but I can’t solve this clue… I’ve been trying for half an hour, and it’s starting to annoy me.” He had a neutral facial expression, but the tone of his voice showed a playful side with a hint of nerves that Janus couldn’t help but smile at.

“Aww you’re asking me for help? This must be an incredibly hard clue if you’re immediately asking me to assist you…” He gasped in fake surprise and shuffled even closer to Logan, he leaned over the newspaper and scanned through it trying to find the clue. Surprisingly, it was the only one left unanswered.

“Urmm, Logan? Not for nothing, but it’s only four letters… You’re practically the smartest person I know, apart from me of course… You really need my help with a four-letter answer? Are you feeling okay?” He chuckled lightly as Logan looked perplexed and titled his head to the side.

“I’m perfectly fine, but it’s an important clue that I need you to solve for me… Please?” He smiled brightly, the nerves in his voice from earlier were gone, replaced with a confidence that Janus added to his mental list of things he liked about Logan. He finally stopped gazing into Logan’s eyes and finally looked at the clue again.

‘Affection that counts for nothing at court…’

He wracked his brain trying to work out the answer, and it didn’t take long for it to manifest. He held out his hand and Logan immediately placed the pen in his palm. He felt the spark as Logan let their fingertips linger for much longer than usual. Janus missed the contact when their fingertips finally separated. He clicked the pen and slowly filled in the gaps with the letters ‘L, O, V, E’ then looked up at Logan with surprise but also hope.

“Janus, ever since we started sitting together with our separate hobbies. I knew I felt a connection between us. When I took that first step and starting the conversation about your books, which went on for hours… I couldn’t deny that I started to develop stronger feelings for you. I spend so much time making excuses to find you reading so I can join you. Being in your company makes me feel safe, calm and happy. I know that it’s not love that I feel yet, but I can’t deny how much I like you. I hope in time though, it could turn into love… That is… if you feel the same way.” Logan smiled as he placed his hand gently on top of Janus’ as he spoke in such a delicate way, as if he was talking to a piece of glass. His heart pounded a million miles a minute and he did look around quickly to make sure there was no-one around waiting to jump out declaring this some elaborate prank or something. When he was certain it was just the two of them, and only them, he knew he needed to give Logan an answer.

“You have no idea how much I was hoping that we would end up feeling the same way. I like everything about you, Logan. I enjoy talking with you and helping you solve the crossword puzzles. This. This is my favourite thing, just being here with you, sitting here and just being together. I agree with you. My feelings for you are undeniably strong, but it isn’t love yet. If we give it enough time though, I would really like it to become that.” He smiled as Logan’s shoulders relaxed at the sound of their feelings being mutual. He wrapped Janus up in a warm hug and they held each other for what felt like a lifetime.

They decided that they would go out for coffee the next day; and call that their first official date. Logan joked about bringing some crossword puzzles with him, but Janus decided that would be a great idea, and the perfect excuse to sit close to each other for the whole date.

This was not how Janus thought his day would go, but he was sure of one thing now. Thanks to Logan; crossword puzzles were his new favourite hobby.

[bbrandy2002]

Fool’s Rush In

Part 15

Book: The Royal Romance

Pairing: Liam x MC

Warnings: mild violence

Series Premise: With two weeks until Liam is to marry Madeleine – his pick during the social season – the guys throw him a bachelor party in Vegas. After a drunken night, he finds himself with more than he bargained for.

Thanks @burnsoslow​ for the beta read.

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Supposedly, the more a person suffered in the name of love, the more it showed they really cared. 

At least, that's what Riley thought. 

After nightfall of this particular evening -- when she least expected it -- she never realized how much truth that belief held. 

Or how much it would hurt to sacrifice the one person who made her believe she was worthy of love and saw who she really was on the inside.

Her dainty arm -- a delicate bronze in color, sleek, with a glittering red strap across one shoulder -- linked through the arm of the man she had grown to love more than life itself as they entered the palace ballroom. Working tirelessly over the last week to ensure everything went off without a hitch had taken its toll on her. All she could think about, as she shook hands and charmed dignitaries with a sparkle in those twinkling brown eyes, was how much sleep she planned to make up for after the ball ended.

This ball was to introduce the King and his new bride to the Cordonian court for the first time. A show of solidarity and, hopefully, strength. A way to establish that what happened in a tiny chapel 10,000 miles away weeks ago between two strangers wasn't a careless mistake, and that she could handle the duties bestowed on her as a common American woman. 

Or at least pretend she could for now.

However, for the King and the "Jewel of His Heart" whom he escorted through the curious crowd of pretentious naysayers in extravagant gowns and tuxes, with their fake smiles and tedious posturing ...

It was nothing less than fate. 

Riley was the key that unlocked that safe space deep inside Liam's heart that had been sheltered for so long, waiting for the perfect person to come along and open it. This was the place where he kept his most sacred feelings: a genuine love, never-ending laughter, joy, romance, ecstasy, and every dream he ever held for the future -- one he presumed would never exist in any form he longed for. 

But she didn't just unlock it. Riley shattered it wide open, where everything came flooding out at once and consumed him like a raging wildfire. 

And it was the most remarkable, intoxicating experience of his life. 

Liam showed her off all evening as they mingled during their rounds, danced, and conversed with the variance of nobility. She was the sexiest woman in that room, and he'd dare say the looks of envy shot in his direction from high-class men as he proudly cavorted her around didn't bother him in the least. Not that that was her only quality -- far from it. There were so many things about Riley that were special. But he couldn't help feeling a sense of pride that she was all his.

And without question, he was all hers.

Seated at the head table, Riley swallowed a morsel of the veal medallion she wanted to be served for this occasion. When given a choice between fish and lamb, the fish never stood a chance. The memory of that smelly, god-awful lunch with Regina three weeks ago was not something her palate had forgiven her for yet. As wonderful and savory as this extravagant meal, covered in a light brown mushroom sauce and served with a side of broccoli rabe, was, it couldn't hold a candle to what she craved the most: a slice of white pizza from Carmine's back in Brooklyn.

Or a slab or two of the New Yorker.

With maybe some cheesecake.

Covered in chocolate.

And a sausage rice ball. A Frito pie smothered with sour cream. Definitely a rainbow bagel from The Bagel Store. Barbecue ribs and beans from the mom-and-pop diner hidden just off the strip in Vegas. 

Of course, her grandma’s country fried steak with white gravy sounded delicious too.

For sure, a fried Twinkie like the one she ate at the New York State Fair in 2013. 

"You've outdone yourself, sweetheart," Liam marveled while wiping at the corner of his mouth with a napkin. "The meal was delicious, and our guests appear to be enjoying themselves." The others seated at the table looked up, adding their compliments.

Still dreaming about a fat slice of New York-style pizza, Riley smiled graciously back at him, until she noticed the server refilling Liam’s glass with merlot, causing her to do a double-take. 

Hot tears pooled in her eyes, and a heavy feeling of sadness swelled in her chest as she panicked. "I asked for the Pinot Noir. Not the merlot,” she rasped meekly. “You don't like merlot, Liam. And the Pinot Noir was from the 'C' place where Duke Hakim lives. He'll be so disappointed and think I'm slighting his duchy. They’ll all hate me forever and ... wait a minute." She trailed off as a realization hit her, and Riley quickly glanced down at her plate before scanning each of the dishes from those seated around her.

The anxiety intensified; she could no longer suppress the heartbroken sob that wailed out of her. "Where are all the potatoes? We were supposed to have the potatoes, Liam. They didn’t serve the potatoes. Now the whole night is completely ruined, and it’s all my fault. I'm such a failure as a queen, and you should just send me to the dungeon now and throw away the key. I apologize to all of you for my incompetence and the lack of potatoes with your meal." Riley’s red-hot face, full of tears, plunged into the palms of her hands, then quickly sprung back up as Liam hesitantly tried to place a hand on her shoulder. A strong urge to use the restroom ended her crying spell as if it never happened. “Oh, oh. I gotta pee so bad. I’ll be right back.” She gave a warm smile and excused herself as she pushed her chair back and scurried merrily toward the nearest restroom.

Liam, Regina, Leo, Maxwell, and Olivia watched with confusion as she happily took off, not knowing what to say or what to make of the sudden shift in her moods.

“What the hell was that?” Olivia scowled, her eyes fixed on Liam.

“Is she all right, dear?” a concerned Regina asked.

Liam scratched the back of his head, nearly at a loss for words. “I ... I don’t know. I’ve never seen her that upset … especially over potatoes.” He paused in thought. “She was a little on edge this morning. Still, she’s been working a lot on the preparations and everything else going on. It must have gotten to her.”

Maxwell shrugged. “Maybe she just finally snapped.” 

Leo shook his head, swallowing a forkful of beef. “Or maybe she has the premenstrual syndrome.”

“Leo!” The group admonished.

“What?” Leo bit back, taking in each of their disappointed glares. “Don’t act like it’s not true. Trust me, when I have cramps and bloating, I can go from a happy little Leo to a Bertrand, just like that.” He snapped his fingers, following it up with a frown. “It ain’t pretty, you all.”

Maxwell looked across the table at Liam and agreed, “He has a point.”

Wanting to shed his skin and slither away, Liam pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can we not discuss something so personal and private, especially while several hundred people are dining around us?”

“I’m just saying, little brother, that you need to be understanding and gentle during this special time of your wife’s 'lady business.' You should speak softly and slowly to her because Shark Week messes with a girl's mind, man. Their brains short-circuit, and there’s nothing left up there but a couple of crickets and man-eating rattlesnakes. One second, you think she’s fine, but if you’re not careful, in the next second, you’ll find yourself with two venomous fangs rattling from your nut sack, dude. She will tear you apart and spit you out like a rabid dog. You can make it through these next few days, but only if you take my advice.”

“That is the single dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Olivia spat, boring her eyes into him. “And you’ve said a lot.” She turned to Liam, whose face was slightly pale and void of expression. “Don’t listen to his sexist drivel. Why you haven’t declared him insane yet is beyond me. You should have sent him away with that filthy hairball to Valtoria you had caged earlier.”

“IT WAS MONGO!” Leo erupted, causing the dishes on the table to clatter as he jumped to his feet and hovered over the redhead. Every head in the ballroom whipped around to see what was happening, and a deafening silence filled throughout. Even the orchestra stopped playing their classical tune.

A wide-eyed Regina smiled sheepishly as she glanced out at the quiet audience who were waiting to see what all the fuss was about. She thought fast before calling out, “We were just playing a little game of … 'It was Mongo.'” The former queen snatched Maxwell’s Sunset Rum punch from his hand, thrusting the drink up at her stepson, towering beside her, and instructed in a grandmotherly tone, “Be a good lad, Leo. You lost this round. It's time to chug-a-lug, my boy.” With his face burning, Liam slid down in his seat.

“Ooooo, I wanna go next.” Maxwell bounced excitedly while the guests resumed the festivities. "How do we play?"

“I think I want to go, too,” Liam replied, straightening back up before hurling his napkin on the table. “I’m going to go find Riley.”

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

Riley exited the ladies' room, clutch in hand and a fresh dab of clear gloss gleaming on her pink lips. She stopped walking just as the door closed behind her and smiled with a look of surprise at seeing Liam leaning against the opposite wall. "What are you doing out here?"

He pushed himself off the wall, closing the distance between them and meeting her in the middle of the empty corridor. They wrapped their arms around each other, indulging in the warmth of their lovers' embrace. "Would you believe me if I told you I just missed you?" he answered, placing a tender kiss on her lips that skimmed lower to her jawline. 

"I missed you, too," she moaned with each gentle pressure of his seductive lips, suckling and nibbling along the spot that trailed behind her ear that he knew drove her crazy. "But something tells me that's not the only reason you left the ballroom."

Their gazes met simultaneously. "Leo."

Riley chuckled softly. "Do I even want to know?"

Liam sighed, smoothing back a loose hair behind her ear. "You know my brother and his wonderful words of wisdom." There was no way in hell he would tell her what they really discussed after she left; he could only imagine her embarrassment. "Everyone was just a little worried about you, that's all."

"I didn't mean to scare everyone. I just wanted tonight to be perfect. Instead, so many things went wrong. I can only assume what the court thinks about me now." She lowered her gaze to the red carpeting where they stood. "I let you down."

"I don't want to ever hear you say that again. Riley, sweetheart, you can never let me down. Do you understand that?" Liam lifted her chin; her tentative eyes stared back at him for a moment before nodding. "Good. And just so you know, our guest are used to bombings, stabbings, kidnappings, shootings, and terror plots at most of my palace events --"

"Wait. What?"

" -- I assure you, just the fact alone, that none of that took place tonight, and they're all going to leave here soon -- alive -- will be huge for them. Not having potatoes with the meal or the right wine was the least of their worries. They will consider this night a success. And a testament to their new queen. You should, too. I'm so very proud of you."

"I have so many questions about everything you just said."

Liam smiled, caressing Riley's petal-soft cheeks and lowering his head to kiss her again. "All in due time, my love.”

Riley let out a deep, drawn-out yawn she lightly covered with her palm before stretching and rolling her neck. A couple of weeks' worth of planning and endless decisions had left heavy tension in her shoulders and overwhelming exhaustion like nothing she'd felt before. None of it went unnoticed by Liam, who placed his hands on her shoulders and gingerly kneaded the taut muscles. 

"What do you say about heading back to our quarters, taking off all of your clothes, and I'll be up soon to massage this gorgeous body from head to toe? And hopefully, when I'm through, you'll massage parts of me, too … with any part of your body that you'd like." His lips curved into an inviting smile.

"Mmm, that's tempting," she purred, rubbing her hands over his ample chest. "But I can't just leave. It's the Queen's Ball. Without me, it's just ... The Ball." She chuckled, despite herself.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little panties over the ball. Just go upstairs and take them off. I’ll handle everything down here. Then … “ He squatted down to her eye level. “ … I’ll handle you.”

Her heart fluttered every time Liam spoke to her that way. The way he desired only her. She bit the corner of her lip teasingly. “I love you so much.”

Liam smiled. “You better. You’ve got one hell of a husband. I’d even venture to say you’re the luckiest woman on the whole damn planet right now.” Before Riley could respond to his jest, he put both of his hands on her cheeks to hold her head still and began placing playful, wet smooches all over her face, causing her to laugh riotously. After a few seconds of her squirming around and cackling at his antics, he paused to look at her. “You know I love you, too. Now go on up. I’ll be right behind you soon.” 

With a pat to her backside, they went their separate ways.

---------

Liam returned to the ballroom, having offered to finish what little time was left without her. He would offer his apologies for her absence, but in reality, the King couldn’t have cared less what anyone there thought. Since his bachelor party weeks ago, he had grown from a man who had no choices to one who made his own. His marriage and relationship with Riley came first. Her wellbeing was the main priority -- to hell with anyone who had a problem with that.

As Riley placed a hand on the elegant wooden handrail of the grand staircase and took the first step up, her thoughts meandered to where she had been in her life one month ago and how vastly it had changed in such a short time. For the first time in years, she was happy, and it felt so good to be in that place where she could finally let go of the past and move on. Liam was a game-changer, and she was thoroughly convinced he was the only person on the planet who could have gotten her out of her own head and to this level of blissful existence.

Rounding the corner at the top of the stairs, she reached into her clutch to pull out the key card to her quarters, exhaustion slowing her strides. Shuffling past a row of closed office doors and framed artwork, she made her way to the residential wing. 

The squeak of a door behind her and the click of heels drew her attention, causing her to stop and turn to see who was there. 

The color drained from her face as Madeleine casually stepped out, her hands behind her back and a devious, unsettling grin cemented on her face. 

It wasn't the fear that made Riley's heart pound with a sickening thud, but more shock than anything. No one had seen or spoken to the Countess since the confrontation in Las Vegas when she showed up unexpectedly after finding out Liam had married Riley the night prior. 

Now, suddenly, there she was, as if out of nowhere, a gleam in her eye, looking all too pleased to have this run-in with Riley.

"A little dramatic, don't you think?" Riley scoffed, taking one step back the closer Madeleine approached. "What are you even doing here?"

"I'm not going to hurt you, if that's what you're worried about," she answered contemptuously. Her green eyes drifted to one of the cameras mantled at each end of the hallway. Riley placed a shaky hand over her stomach, letting out a low, relieved breath, hoping that was the truth. "Not physically, anyway."

"Well, that sounds promising," Riley replied sardonically. "Now, if you don't mind ..." She turned away, wanting nothing more than to escape this conversation and make it back to her quarters. 

Madeleine reached out and grabbed the Queen by her elbow, pulling her back and harshly twisting her around so they were now face-to-face. "You're not going anywhere until I'm through with you," she hissed with an icy glare. "I told you I would make you regret what you've done."

Riley jerked her arm, trying to free herself. "Let go of my arm, Madeleine!" 

"Not until you hear what I have to say."

"I'm not interested in anything you have to say! Now LET ME GO!" Riley hoped someone heard her yell or at least witnessed what was happening on the camera. Where the hell is security?

While continuing to struggle to free herself, she reached up with her free hand in an attempt to pry off Madeleine's bony fingers that were squeezing tight grooves around her elbow, her manicured nails digging deeper into Riley's skin. "You're hurting me. I said to let me go."

"Very well, then." The woman, who had twice lost her chance at the crown, released her firm grasp, knowing that the momentum would cause Riley to stumble back as soon as she let go. 

Just as predicted, Riley planted a foot behind her for leverage before drawing her arm back as hard as she could, one last time. Her eyes grew wide, and she let out a sharp gasp that sounded well down the corridor. Riley sailed backward, tripping over herself and toppling to the ground. She finally landed with a hard blow on her backside, the rear of her head just inches from slamming to the floor.

A shockwave of pain coursed up Riley's spine from hitting so abruptly. Before she had a chance to respond or process what happened, Madeleine crouched down beside her, holding a DVD up and gaining Riley's attention. 

The pain had morphed into a throbbing ache that was soon forgotten as the Queen stared quizzically at the object displayed in front of her like a grand prize. 

"What is that?" her voice trembled.

"It's my ace in the hole," Madeleine stated, then wagged a finger. "Someone used to be a very naughty girl." 

Furrowing her brows, Riley responded. "I don't know what you mean."

"You know precisely what I mean, but just in case, please allow me to refresh your memory," Madeleine smirked before rising to her feet and prancing around as if she were having the time of her life. "I did a little digging after my brief visit to Las Vegas and came across a man who knew you very, very well at one time. I made some calls. We exchanged e-mails, a transfer of money or two. And he was all too eager to accept my offer of payment for any dirt he could give me on you."

There was no point in asking "who" -- she already knew; the thought made her nauseous. Riley closed her eyes and muttered. "Tyler?"

"Yes," Madeleine beamed, " Your ex-husband. He had a lot to say about you."

"I'm sure he did. Does it even matter to you that he's a liar and a cheat -- not to mention greedy? He would make up anything if he thought he could profit off of it."

"Oh, it matters. Personally, I don't believe a damn thing he had to say. Honestly, Riley ... even someone like you could have done better than that slime."

Riley cringed in pain as she pushed herself off the floor and turned to her oppressor. "Just get to the point, Madeleine. Clearly, he gave you something you thought was valuable enough to use against me, so just spit it already."

Madeleine smiled, "How very astute of you. You're correct. He did." She held up the disc as Riley regarded it suspiciously. "On this disk are several hours of the two of you ... together. Very graphic, if I do say so myself." Riley's jaw dropped upon hearing those words as Madeleine continued, "Now don't worry. I only watched it long enough to make sure the video was legit --"

"Give me that!" Riley reached out to snatch the DVD, but Madeleine pulled it away just out of her grasp. A burning sensation filled inside her chest and spread across her face. "You're lying. I never made videos like that."

"Oh, I think you did," the blonde countered with a mirthful tone. "You just didn't know about it. Your ex admitted as much to me ... an asshole move, for sure. But nonetheless, I purchased the copy from him for a hefty sum. And ... well ... here we are now. You're more than welcome to take this disc and see for yourself; I have it downloaded as a backup, knowing you'd want proof."

At that moment, all Riley wanted was for Liam to walk down that corridor where she now stood, pick her up in his arms, whisk her away to safety, and tell her it was all a bad dream. Not that she did anything wrong -- she was married at one time to the man, presumably on the video, and would have been a consenting adult. 

No, it was the fact that Tyler Brooks had taken intimate videos with her during their marriage, without her knowledge. Now Madeleine had possession of them.

God only knew what she planned to do with them, but Riley had a pretty good idea. "What do you want?" she whispered in defeat, afraid to hear the answer.

Madeleine grinned from ear-to-ear. "For you to leave Cordonia tonight and never return, or I release everything to the press."

Riley shook her head. "No. As much as I don't want anyone to see that video, I did nothing wrong, and I won't be blackmailed or intimidated by you so that you can get your grubby little paws on the crown."

"Is that so?" It wasn't a question so much as a remark meant to convey who was in control. 

Maintaining her position, Riley raised a brow, refusing to give in.

Madeleine was far from giving up, though; she had manipulation in her blood. "Very well, then. I'll release the video in the morning. It should be interesting to see how the world reacts to yet another scandal by this monarchy. Their Queen plastered all over the internet again, except this time, uploaded on every porn site on the web. 

"The news will run the story with your blurred-out silhouette in the background. Your father will see it, and his business will become a target.: Your friends. Family. Students. They'll all be inundated with your sexual proclivities. But the worst part will be the tribunal. The council will have no choice but to question Liam's decision-making abilities after not only squandering his pick of queen on some American nobody, but now one whose ass will be featured on the desktops of teenage boys across the world. It's a shame that he'll lose his reign, all because of you. Would you really do that to Liam? Do you genuinely believe you're worth all the trouble it will cause him?"

Riley froze. She knew Madeleine was taunting her with the people she cared about the most. The last thing she wanted was to embarrass each of them. But to possibly cause Liam to lose his legacy, his birthright, and the rulership of a country he loved so much? It was something she couldn't shake. 

Staring blankly, twisting the bands of gold that belonged to Liam's mother, she couldn't get the question Madeleine just asked out of her mind: Did Riley believe she was worth the trouble it would cost him? 

Nothing was damning on that video, aside from the fact that she never knew it existed. But she already had so much to prove; another video in the press' hand would tarnish Liam. Maybe the Countess of Fydelia was right: He would lose it all.

"Time is ticking," Madeleine reminded Riley as she tapped her watch. "What's it going to be?"

----------

@burnsoslow​ @dcbbw​ @ao719​ @hopefulmoonobject​ @jessiembruno​ @texaskitten30​ @janezillow​ @merridithsmiscellany-blog​ @mskaneko @callmeellabella​ @queenjilian @sirbeepsalot @drakexwillow @caroldxnvxrs​ @jovialyouthmusic​ @forthebrokenheartedthings​ @bebepac​ @kingliam2019​ @lovablegranny​ @cordoniaqueensworld​ @amandablink​ @liamxs-world​ @choiceskatie @iaminlovewithtrr @hopelessromanticmonie @charlotteg234 @annekebbphotography​ @txemrn​ @thecordoniandiaries @alyssalauren​ @cordonianroyalty @monsoonbloom12 @mom2000aggie​ @theroyalheirshadowhunter​ @princessleac1​ @kimmiedoo5​ @graceful-leah​ @iam-the-kind-and-thoughtful @thegreentwin​ @gkittylove99​ @cinnamonspongecake @lifeaskim @neotericthemis​ @pink-diamond13​ @walker7519 @natureblooms24​ @yourmajesty09​ @gabesmommie1130​ @sweatyrysconnoisour @kat-tia801​ @debmcg1106

Liam x MC: Cordonia-gothqueen

FRI Series Tags:   @narrytheworld​​  @queenwalton​  @cordonianprincess​        @zaffrenotes​ @zilch3​  @drrookie​ @sfb123​​

[consumeconstantly]

Those Who Are Kind

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Summary: Siblings are the last thing on Marinette’s mind as she begins her frantic search for Tikki. Really, she can’t even consider them siblings, not yet. But they’re along for the ride, whether she wants them to be or not.

Duke doesn’t know what to make of the current situation.

He’s always known that the Waynes are crazy, insane, even, but he loves them all the same, in the begrudging, cautious way he cannot shake. (This approach has served him well over the years, allowing him to avoid multiple schemes that Tim or Jason typically start up to rile up Damian. From there, everything is guaranteed to snowball. The only time things get really bad is when Cass gets involved.) To him, it’s always been a bit uncanny how similar all the brothers looked, despite the fact that none of them shared blood. All of them had the same sharp jaw, piercing blue eyes, chiselled cheekbones and defined bodies. Only Tim and Damian differed slightly, with Tim having a dancer’s figure instead of that of a body builder or demolitions expert, and Damian having green eyes instead of blue. It’s also disconcerting that everybody the Waynes are more intimately involved with have some sort of alter ego. He often joked with other members of the Justice League that heroism ran in Bruce’s blood.

With the new addition of Marinette to their family, he has to say that he’s been proven right.

A girl who had absolutely nothing to do with the Waynes in any capacity other than the fact that she and Bruce share blood becoming a hero. The leader of a team. Fighting supervillains at the age of thirteen.

He’s very, very glad that he was not adopted by or shared blood with Bruce. He doesn’t think he could have handled being a superhero at age thirteen. He can barely handle being Signal now some days, and he’s an adult. The amount of responsibility on Marinette’s shoulders is difficult to understand. To be the sole wielder of magic that can revert an entire city back to its original state. To bring people back from the dead. 

Dick is strangely quiet. A car is driving them from a pit stop near a zeta tube to Marinette’s hospital. 

Hands down, Dick is the most sane male of the Wayne family, not including Alfred. But there are times when Duke sees the weight that he carries. All the times that he refuses to talk about the burdens that he bears. Moving forward with a smile when he’s in pain. When he gets in a mood like this, he’s hard to read. But given the circumstances, it’s fairly clear exactly what’s bothering him. 

“He’s known about her this entire time,” Dick says, tinted windows allowing Duke a glance at his expression, carefully devoid of any telling emotions. “Nineteen years. He kept her a secret.”

“It’s Bruce.” The man is known for keeping secrets. 

“Yeah, but Marinette is family. She should have been, at least. And now…”

Now she’s all alone when she should be surrounded by people that love her, praising her for her victory, for how she shouldered so much responsibility at such a young age. But by bringing her to a hospital in America, she’s been cut off from her team, and any support system she should have had is gone. 

“You and her,” Duke says, looking for a way to comfort him. “You’ll get along. You’re similar, after all.” After they brought Gabriel and Lila to the a top security prison and sent Emilie to a hospital that couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, they got two files from Tim. One detailing Ladybug and all of her exploits. The second, detailing Marinette’s life. 

Duke has watched the videos. Has watched how Ladybug leads by example, comes up with the plan and begins the execution. How she shoulders more battles than she should. 

He’s seen Marinette pull people together with a smile on her face, even while she’s running on empty after a strenuous akuma attack. 

Dick and Marinette are alike. 

“We’re too much alike,” Dick says. “I suspected for a long time that Bruce had another kid that he wasn’t telling us about, but I thought that if he was keeping her away from us, then maybe she’d have a shot at leading a good life. A normal life. Not the one she got. Sabine’s— Bruce’s biological daughter shouldn’t be somebody like me. She deserves better.”

Duke is acutely aware that Dick’s parents were also murdered, but whatever relation he had with Sabine is something he’s never been willing to talk about. There are pictures in his apartment of a petite Asian woman with a soft smile standing next to him, but whenever asked about her, Dick never gives a straight answer. 

“Nobody has the ability to change the past.” Duke claps a hand on his friend’s shoulder. He sags imperceptibly under the weight. 

Well— actually, it’s not out of the realm of possibilities, given the fact that magic, aliens, and metahumans all coexisted, supplemented by the fact that multiple members of Marinette’s team do have the ability to travel back in time, but that’s another matter entirely. There’s not a lot of information on the Miraculous, and all of their knowledge is coming from Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Zatara, and even the three of them don’t know everything. 

“But you have the chance to do good by her. Be a good older brother, like I know you are.”

A thin smile appears on Dick’s face. “She’s going to need more than just one good influence on her life. And Damian is better, but you saw how he looked at her when Bruce brought her through the Zeta tubes. Tim’s not going to react well either, and Jason is a wild card. She’s not going to get the support she needs if she stays with us.”

Duke crosses his arms, knees brushing up against the back of the car seat. “The only person whose actions you’re responsible for are your own. Don’t worry about them. If they don’t like her, they’ll just avoid her.”

That’s certainly not true— all of the members of the Wayne family are notorious for going hard after all of the things they don’t like. But... it’s comforting to hear. Sometimes temporary and known lies are much nicer than harsh realities.

#

She’s gone.

All of her belongings are missing, the IV needle is hanging from the stand, the window open, and Marinette is missing from her bed.

At least she left a note?

Be back soon — Marinette

“Great,” Duke mutters under his breath. “Another incredibly vague, cryptic Wayne.”

Dick’s face turns to ash. “Her legs. Her head. She can’t go out so soon. Hold on, maybe Barbara can pull up some footage.”

“On the bright side, there’s no blood,” Duke says. 

“That’s not a bright side.”

“It is,” Duke argues. “She fell in the worst places possible, right on top of that broken glass casket. If she’s not bleeding that clearly means she didn’t pull her stitches on her mad escape out.”

When Ladybug fell, they’re not exactly sure what happened, because the screen showed Ladybug collapsing almost gracefully. When they arrived on the scene, she flickered between Ladybug and Marinette as her earrings beeped. Her legs were slashed from falling on the glass with a seemingly unnatural force— simply falling would not have garnered cuts that large— and her head was twisted at an odd angle, debris bloodied beneath her.

Somehow, the Miraculous Cure seemed to be working backwards. Not from the epicenter out, but rather from the edge of the damage, in. It worked slowly, every mile taking minutes instead of mere seconds. It hadn’t happened before in any of the battles.

It was useful in apprehending Hawkmoth and Pavona, who were still knocked out. But Marinette, even after the Miraculous Cure washed over her, didn’t get healed. Her injuries didn’t revert. There was still a gash on her stomach from Hawkmoth’s cane, still muscles exposed on the back of her legs and blood on her neck. When she was first brought in, the doctors feared that she may be permanently incapacitated. 

Good at keeping to her word at least. She came swinging through the window with worry on her face and grief in her eyes. 

“I need to go back to Paris,” she says. 

Dick will undoubtedly say no. He’s a very protective person, and Marinette is the center of his current efforts. 

But she doesn’t look injured. He eyes her stance. She’s standing with no effort, walks with no limp. No hospital dress, no blood on her neck, no bruises in all of the places he was expecting them to be. Marinette does not look like she just faced a world ending threat less than twenty four hours ago. She certainly doesn’t look like she’s permanently lost the use of her legs. There’s the familiar Wayne Brand Stubbornness in her eyes— no way she’s not Bruce’s kid— that tells him that she’s going to get to Paris one way or another, and that they’re either lucky they were even notified in the first place or that she wants to use a resource that they have that she does not have access to. It’s fairly obvious what that resource is, considering that Paris is nine hours away by any normal plane and it sounds like she wants to get there in minutes, and not hours. Duke also knows that if they don’t take what she’s offering now, she’ll use an alternative method that definitely won’t be as nice or clear cut. 

He jumps in before Dick can say anything. “We’ll take you as long as we go with you every step of the way.”

Oh, he’s going to get in so much trouble for doing this. Dick is looking at him with his Disapproving Dad glare, and he can imagine Bruce going into brooding silence when he hears that Duke allowed this to happen. 

Marinette’s lips pinch together, but she nods. “Where’s the nearest zeta tube?”

#

Barbara gets Dick’s text and sighs in frustration.

She’s already got her hands full with watching Tim, who’s spiralling trying to find information about the Miraculous, muttering under his breath in the way he does when he gets a particularly hard case to crack. He’s gone through six cups of coffee in the last hour, and he kicked off his research with a combination of 5 Hour Energy, Monster, three packets of sugar, and 10 caffeine shots. Soon, she’ll have to start limiting his caffeine intake, but right now it’s clear that any attempt to get him to stop his research now will fail spectacularly. At least she’s not in charge of Damian and Jason. Wherever they are, they’re definitely on the move and not happy.

She never thought she'd be able to say she’s happy about being paralyzed from the waist down, but she certainly doesn’t want to be chasing after one of the two hellions. Cass definitely has her hands full and whoever’s watching Jason— wait, is anybody even watching Jason? Typically Roy gets stuck with Jason-sitting duty, but he’s been out for a while. 

Barbara groans. Jason is probably on his own, wreaking havoc.

Great.

She’ll deal with that later, even though she has no doubt she’ll regret that decision, but if Marinette is gone from her room, Dick needs the footage, and somebody needs to find where she is. The nurse put in her latest report that her legs were almost healed and that she didn’t show any signs of a concussion, but Marinette was in bad shape when she got admitted to the hospital. Even though Barbara doubts that there was any misdiagnosis, given that Bruce sprung for a VIP room in one of the pricier hospitals, in a world where magic and aliens are present, who knows what’s true or not.

“Tibet!” Tim jumps up from his hunched over position for the first time in hours. “I’m going to Tibet, the closest zeta tubes are three hours by car away, but I can get somebody to loan Wayne Industries a helicopter while I’m over there.”

“Sit down, Tim.” Barbara takes her glasses off and pinches the bridge of her nose. Why can’t Bruce rein in his children? Why is she the one stuck babysitting? “Marinette left her hospital room.”

That certainly gets Tim to put the brakes on his movements towards the zeta tube in the bat cave. 

“What?”

“I said, she left her hospital room. Just sit down while I send the information over. It’s not going to do you any good to rush into things anyways.”

A quick review of the surrounding CCTV shows that Marinette didn’t travel far, just around the hospital. She’s looking for something, calling out for it, too. Barbara grabs that file and slows it down so she can read her lips. “Dickie? Do she and Dick know each other already?”

A quick text back to Dick reveals that Marinette has already returned to the room and—

Oh, hell. 

“Well,” Barbara pushes her laptop away from her, letting Tim watch the files she’s pulled up. “It looks like we’re taking a family trip to Paris.”

#

Somehow, Marinette almost manages to lose all four of them within the first four minutes of roaming around Paris.

Luckily, their family has an almost absurd amount of luck between all of them (not all of it good) and the person Barbara was half sure she could only find in prison, beating up Hawkmoth and Pavona, runs into Marinette on the streets and herds her back to them.

“Lose something?” Jason asks, arm slung around Marinette’s shoulder, the smaller, younger girl looking rather upset at having her plans thrown off.

“I told them that they could follow me,” Marinette argues without much real bite. It’s not my fault if they can’t keep up, is the clear meaning of her statement.

Again, Barbara is very impressed that the barely nineteen year old somehow managed to shake off vigilantes with decades of experience with ease. But it is, at least, partially due to her disability. Every time she goes out in her wheelchair, her heart aches a little, especially as the civilians she passes eye her with pity. Barbara doesn’t want pity. Doesn’t need pity. She shouldn’t feel anything when people look at her like she can’t keep up, because she can keep up.

Most of the time, anyways.

It doesn’t matter how she uses her tech skills to modify her wheelchair and deck it out with all the equipment she could ever need, or that she can easily get up to speeds rivalling sports cars for short periods of time before the power runs out. When she’s stuck in her wheelchair, she loses the maneuverability she had when she wasn’t paralyzed.

She couldn’t follow Marinette through the alleyways because she was stuck. Barbara was the one who noticed her escape first. If only she were more capable, she could have—

But it’s okay now. Jason ran into her. Marinette is back with them. 

“I need to search for something, and none of you can help.” She’s not intentionally being rude when she says it, and if anything, sounds apologetic. Barbara sees the similarities between Marinette and Bruce. It makes a lot of sense that the two of them are father and daughter, when the two of them are so insistent on keeping major issues to themselves. Marinette twists herself out from underneath Jason’s arm, clutching her purse. Her head doesn’t move, but her eyes are wild. 

“We can help,” soothes Duke, ever the voice of reason. “You know who we are.”

“And I’m guessing you’ve all either deduced who I am or have been told my identity,” counters Marinette. “Which means you should know why I can’t have you helping me.”

Barbara and Duke exchange pointed glances. 

“That’s not really clear to us, actually,” says Barbara. Marinette isn’t moving, but the way her shoulders tense makes her believe that the younger girl is ready to run at the drop of a hat. 

A small group of people from the parade on the streets tumbles into the alleyway they’re resting in. They smell like cheap booze and sweat. 

“What are all of you doing in this alley?” one says, after he finished vomiting up his last (very colorful) meal. “You should be out there partying with the rest of us! Celebrating Ladybug and her team.”

“Fuck Hawkmoth and Pavona,” says another solemnly, with neon face paint and pigtails with glitter string intertwined. “Their defeat should be celebrated by even the darkest souls.”

Jason, easily amused by their antics, looks very willing to join them. “Yeah Marinette, we should be celebrating Ladybug not—”

As one, everybody looks at the place where Marinette was, just moments ago. The alley is decidedly empty of a small asian girl with blue eyes and pigtails.

“Fuck,” Jason curses.

“Fuck is right,” Duke agrees, placing a hand over his temple. 

#

Marinette manages to disappear for three hours.

Three full hours.

“She’s good,” Tim says, typing into the holographic computer embedded into his sleeve. 

Paris’ CCTVs are painfully easy to hack into, though he suspects that the lack of attention to them may have to do with the fact that everybody in the city is celebrating. Policemen, politicians, artists, students, scientists—  people from all walks of life are in the streets today, screaming and shouting and being free for the first time in years.

He spies more than just a few dozen people bawling their eyes out within a few minutes. But that’s not surprising, considering how long Parisians have had to suppress their emotions for. 

Dick and Barbara are still in the midst of profiling Marinette, trying to determine the most likely places where she’d stop by, either as Ladybug or herself. All of Ladybug’s usual haunts are decidedly devoid of the young heroine, though Tim does manage to catch a good amount of footage of the other young heroes like Carapace and Rena Rouge, who are most definitely in a relationship based on their makeout session on top of the eiffel tower (one of the first places Tim checked), Viperion, who seems to be the only one from Ladybug’s team to be seeking out the crowd which seems rather atypical considering that the hero never frequented interviews or was spotted on news coverage all that frequently,  and Chat Noir and Queen Bee who Jason insisted were in a relationship as well, though the rest of them believed they were only embracing each other out of comfort— Chat Noir looks like he’s been crying for hours, and Queen Bee looks like she’s barely holding it together.

Ryuko has not shown up on camera once today. Neither has Ladybug.

The second place Tim checks is the bakery. She is not there either, though another girl is. It doesn’t seem like the girl has any ill intent, but Duke is more than happy to pull up past files to see if she’s been there before, if she has any reason to be there, and who exactly she is. 

Just as Barbara and Dick are debating the chances that Marinette would be at Le Grande Paris, she walks past one of the cameras focused on Tom & Sabine’s Boulangerie. Tim has the system rigged up so that any facial matches for Marinette automatically alerts the room. He hadn’t been able to replicate that with Ladybug’s face for some bizarre reason which is why he, Barbara, Dick, and Jason are manually combing through the areas where Dick and Barbar think she may be (magic is why, but Tim has always believed that technology can be used against and with most forms of magic) so it’s lucky that she enters as Marinette. 

“Kagami Tsurugi,” Duke says triumphantly. “She visited often when Tom and Sabine were still alive. Potential candidate to represent France or Japan for Sabre in the next Olympics. Definitely friends with Marinette.”

“Thank God,” sighs Dick. “Now let’s get over there.”

It’s truly, truly unfortunate that they set up shop quite a distance away from the bakery.

They take too long to arrive.

#

Perhaps it was a mistake, telling Kagami first.

No, not just perhaps. It was a mistake. A bad one.

But Kagami was pushing so hard, and Marinette was so tired and so alone without Tikki at her side, without the knowledge that her parents would be waiting for her. Kagami pushed and pushed and pushed about why the house felt so empty, why there was dust on the floor, why the bakery was closed for so long, and where were Tom and Sabine? Why weren’t they there for the team yesterday, when the battle was won, when they knew how important it was to be there for Adrien who had just lost all three of his parental figures? 

The moment the words fall from Marinette's lips, she knows she shouldn’t have revealed it at that moment, because Kagami draws in on herself, lips turning downwards, hands curling into fists. 

Kagami has come a long way from the girl she was in lycèe. The thrill of victory is still something she enjoys, but not something she needs to feel secure in her place in the world. She has trouble expressing her emotions, but when it comes down to it, she communicates everything necessary to understand why. 

With the news of Tom and Sabine’s death, she withdraws into herself, shifts back into that thirteen year old Marinette first met. Logic  and rationale thrown to the wind in favor of cold anger. 

It’s no secret that Ryuko, Ladybug, and Viperion are the main strategists of their team. Viperion, out of his duty of using Second Chance and his ability to keep a level head in the face of constant death. Ladybug out of necessity as her position as team leader and the power of Lucky Charm. Theoretically, the two of them should have been enough. But over the years, Kagami became Marinette's favored confidante; though Ladybug trusts all of her team to keep a tight hold on any information she gives them, Kagami is one of the few who is able to pick apart a given situation and transform the monsters they face into manageable pieces. 

Today, it is Kagami who has broken to pieces. Very angry, razor sharp shards that seek to hurt.

“You lie to the media, tell them a pretty tale of how they died due to a break in. Why do you avoid pinning their deaths on Lila as you should? To absolve a quality woman from guilt?”

Marinette can’t look Kagami in the eyes.

Her parents deserved a peaceful death. To pass on in old age, hand in hand. Not looking on as a family member died, in fear of what would happen next for their daughter. 

“The police know. The judges know,” Marinette protests weakly, but without much eight behind her words.

Kagami just scoffs. “Tom and Sabine were kind people. To not tell the media what truly happened— that’s preventing Lila from getting the full force of what’s coming to her. What happens if she gets out of prison one day? Without any real deaths to her name, she could just flee to another country to escape it all. And when another person loses their life because of her…” 

She doesn’t need to finish her sentence. If somebody else gets injured in any way, shape or form at the hands of Lila Rossi, it’s Marinette’s fault. Marinette gets what Kagami is trying to say. She thinks the same thing, after all.

“My parents would not want their death publicized in that manner.” It’s the truth, but it’s said so weakly that the words come off as little more than a weak defense, and Kagami takes the words and twists their truth.

“You know little of your parents, considering that you’re their daughter.” Kagami stands stock still, not a single extra muscle moving. “Perhaps if you spent more time with them as Marinette instead of unsuccessfully gallivanting around as Ladybug, you’d have realized that Tom and Sabine admire truth above all else, even if it is painful.”

Kagami does not ask a single question about where Marinette was last night, or how Marinette felt over the loss of her parents or when she saw all those she held dear lying still on the ground after Hawkmoth and Pavona’s final attacks. She just purses her lips and sweeps out the door.

And then she’s gone, and Marinette is alone once more. 

#

The bakery is bone-achingly quiet.

Every step Marinette takes creates such a disturbance in the peace that moving hurts. 

But she can’t stay here. She can’t stay here. She does not deserve to stay here. Kagami is right. Marinette was a bad daughter. She could have prevented their death, could have given them justice sooner, could have— 

And Marinette can’t breathe. She tries to, she tries so hard to, but she chokes.

She kneels down on the floor— Kagami is right again, the place is dusty, because Marinette couldn’t bring herself to use the living room and kitchen without her parents, could barely bring herself to sleep in her bedroom because she knew that her parents were not sleeping soundly in the bed below hers— and scrabbles at her throat, vision coming in and out.

Her legs burn. She knows that during the final battle, her legs were cut towards the end of it, and they should be healed, she should be okay now, she’s better than this, she’s— 

Somebody gathers her in their arms. They smell slightly of Lotus flowers, just like Maman, and cradle her ever so gently.

Marinette’s eyes open— black hair, greyish eyes filled with understanding and love and— 

She can breathe again.

She falls asleep.

#

“Cass?” Dick’s eyes widen at her unexpected appearance at Marinette’s home.

“I thought you were on Damian guard duty,” Barbara says, fixating on the red around Marinette’s eyes and the barely dried tear tracks on her face.

“Where’s that Kagami girl?” Jason scuffs his shoes on the hardware floor, silently marking the footprints on the floor and getting a general idea of what occurred before they were able to get here based on Marinette’s current state and the other girl’s absence. “I want to have some words with her.”

Cass inclines her head sharply, eye sparking with anger. Jason’s fists rise unconsciously— Cass rarely gets angry, and whenever she gets angry at a specific person, that means they’ve done something very, very wrong— ready to hunt down Kagami. Marinette sniffles and shifts in Cass’ one armed embrace, to which Cass places a finger over her lip and shakes her head, a universal sign to be quiet.

 Jason scowls but settles down.

They’re quiet as they wait for Marinette to wake.

@biodad-bruce-month

Maribat tag list(to be added onto this pls send me an ask/dm): @our-precipreciousss @my-dear-friend-anxiety

Who Are You (and what will you become) tag list (to be added here just comment): @anjuschiffer @theunquiet-dead @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @cresentmo0n @allulily @myazael @zalladane @rebecarojas07 @keepingupwiththemalfoys  @frieddonutsweets @all-mights-asscheeks @thornalchemist23 @trippingovermyfeet @jiso-lee @redscarlet95 @ira-sairain @screechingflapbiscuitpeach @ramos123 @cutechip @theunquiet-dead @sleep-deprived-aroace @enternalempires @lilkymilky @woe-is-me0 @officiallydarkgeek @miyla-lokidottir @queencommonsense @demonicbusiness @iamablinkmarvelarmy 

@emark7 (i will have the edited version of these on ao3 eventually but i think the link to ch 1 on this one works)

where i ended this doesn’t feel very good but ehhhhhhhhhh my writing process is summary then word vomit that barely correlates which means nothing makes sense unless i edit but looking back at my work makes me cringe so at a crossroads yayyy

also can you guys tell which prompts ive written these for because i’m curious

[leland-chapman-the-bounty-hunter]

Murder Under The Cold Moon

So, I wrote a short story for my creative writing class. Underneath the cut is like the third (?) draft of it. It sits at about 4.8k words at the moment and I think that there might be some more content that I could add to it. Other than that, I think that is it.

TW for depictions of violence-none of it graphic & mentions of underage drug use.

Duke was never one to find his place with the other children on the street. It not like he couldn't just go up to them and ask them to play. They would easily bring him into his group. But he never felt connected to any of them, honestly. The kids were a few years younger than him. Just starting first grade or kindergarten while he was nearing middle school. They were just other kids that his mom forced him to play with whenever she was in sight. But since she wasn't, he wasn't about to pretend to play with these children. The ones who really only played with him because their parents forced them to do so.

Rather, his pants were rolled up to his ankles and his sleeves pulled up to his elbows. His shoes were half a mile down the creek and his jacket a mere quarter of a mile downstream. The water neared body temperature and if you were already in the water by the time its temperature started rising, you didn't feel it at all. Duke's hands finished in the water for tadpoles. Each time he dipped them in, his hands came out as red as a tomato but only a few degrees warmer than his skin. Not too hot but just warm enough to feel a difference.

Duke rummaged around in the water for a few more minutes before he came up empty-handed again. He had heard the frogs at night, so why were there no tadpoles? Were they just too far away for him to get to them? The calls of the other children neared. His cue to pack up and leave even though he wanted to wade in the water alone for a bit more. Duke rushed back to his clothing. The mud clinging to his feet with every step he took until the mud-caked on his feet was nearly a pound of extra weight.

Duke pulled himself up the bank and to the top of the drop-off. His church jacket-a light beige in color and too thick for the weather outside-was in the place he last put it, hanging on a small oak tree branch that still had some bend to it. He stomped off the mud as best as he could, wiping what little was left of the mud onto the grass. Duke only had to walk a bit before his dress shoes came into view. Then, his house which lay on the right side of the creek a mile and a half from where Duke had been before the kids had come. Even from all the way back where he was, he could see the smiles on their still chubby cheeks. No more than four years younger than Duke right now.

"Duke," His mother chastised as he walked through the door and into the mudroom where he began stepping down to his underwear. "I thought I told you not to play in the creek today."

"No, you said not to play in the creek tomorrow. That's when Charlie is coming."

"I said Sunday, Duke. Sunday. Not Monday." His mother let out a sigh. "I'll go put out some more Sunday clothes for you but no more playing outside, do you hear me? I want you to look nice when your cousin gets here."

It wasn't like Duke needed to make a good first impression on Charlie. He had already made the first impression when the whole family had a reunion at Kings Island and he threw up on Charlie after one of those tilt-a-whirl rides. Even though he barely remembered the memory, only the stories, Charlie had still been old enough at the time that he would remember the incident with more clarity than he did.

Duke placed his dirty clothes into the washer with the rest of the clothes that waited to be washed. From there, he headed to the bathroom to wash what little mud remained on his body. His own room connected to the bathroom much like his mother and father's room was. Soon, the number of toothbrushes would go from three to four with the arrival of his cousin. He wasn't all too sure about how he felt. On one hand, he was excited to see the cousin that he had seen so long ago. On the other, he wondered if Charlie would even feel the need to come out of his room. That he really only needed to come out for mealtimes and that Duke wouldn't see him for the year that he stayed at their house. Like a ghost that they couldn't get rid of.

His father said he was a troublemaker. That he had been sent here to straighten up as a last resort before he was off to military school. Charlie could not have been that bad. The last time Duke saw him, he was still blonde-haired and blue-eyed. The spitting image of Captain America. They only really saw each other at family reunions and those stopped back when Charlie was around eight or nine. His mother and father wouldn't tell him why How bad could he have messed up in the year or two since he had last seen him? Duke knew he had been raised in nearly the same God-fearing household as Duke did.

Duke wandered into his room. His eyes fixated on the small suit that had been laid out in front of him on his bed. Duke didn't struggle with putting it on. He had spent too many Sundays he now spent putting one on for church. Ever since he could dress, he had been tasked with doing it himself. His parents are too busy to help him anymore. Even if he wanted help, he wouldn't be able to get it since there was going to be a new arrival coming to the house was so soon. His mom was portably putting

"Duke!" His mother called from somewhere in the house. "Charlie and his family just pulled up. Get to the door!"

Duke hurried to the front door. Did he look okay? He checked himself in the mirror that hung above the bench one last time before he turned to the front door. His hair did not have a single strand out of place. His hair was still gelled back from that morning's service. Would his aunt and uncle recognize him if he opened the door? They had to, right? He didn't think he had changed all that much between when they last saw him and now. The car doors slammed shut. A rush of adrenaline ran through Duke's body. Three shadows appeared in front of the frosted glass. Duke rushed to place his hand on the cool metal of the doorknob before they did. Duke flung open the door with a little more ferocity than he would have liked.

Charlie now sported long, black hair. His jeans ripped and his eyeliner muddied. The leather jacket he wore looked new as if he had just bought it. Long gone were the days of a weirdly patriotic love for America that his blue eyes and blonde hair once said. It looked like he would end up kicking a kitten while it was down instead of picking it up off of the ground and carrying it five miles to the vet as Duke had once heard about him. Charlie looked like the kind of man that Duke's mom told him to stay far away from when they walked through the city. A far cry from the stories his mother would tell him when His face hardened with the rebellious teen years that Duke was only a few years away from.

"Well hello there Duke." His aunt smiled down at him. Her hair was just as blonde as Charlie's once was. "We haven't seen you in a while, it's been what? Two years?"

Duke's mom and dad rushed in before he could answer and ushered his aunt and uncle into the living room which left only Charlie and Duke to ponder in silence while awaiting further instruction. Charlie didn't look all too rebellious. Nor did he look like he was worried about the possibility of being shipped off to military school next summer if he didn't shape up. His face was stone cold. Tired, almost. Even though the drive from his aunt and uncle's house wasn't that far. Duke's mother soon came back with a smile on her face still. Her smile was surely more painted on than real.

"Please show Charlie to the guest room. We'll have dinner at five."

Duke began his walk in the opposite direction as his parents. Charlie's footsteps followed a bit later. The guest room was right across from Duke's and had stood empty aside from a bed for as long as he could remember. Only a few months ago had there been additions of a bookshelf and a dresser. Duke flung open the door to the room with a smile painted over his face and gestured for Charlie to take a few steps inside. His suitcase landed on the bed as he passed it. His hands rested on it for a few seconds before he began flinging the clothes across the room towards the dresser.

"So you're going to be my new roommate for a while." Charlie turned towards Duke. "Or I am going to be your new roommate."

Duke forced a smile as he continued to watch Charlie unpack his only suitcase. His backpack was just as thick as his suitcase and filled with books and records. Though, he had no record player to play them on. Everything from Prince to Guns N Roses. Charlie placed them onto the desk with a smile as if they were his best friends and he hadn't seen them in a while. It was odd but Duke wasn't about to call Charlie weird for it. Duke was the one who didn't talk to the local children because he'd rather find tadpoles that were 'too icky' for him. Charlie turned back to Duke and gestured to them for Duke to flip through a few of them.

"You can take one and listen to them if you'd like." Charlie seemed so nonchalant about it. He flung the last of his clothes-all of them black in color-towards the dresser.

"Mom wouldn't like it if I listened to these. She says they're of the devil."

"So I bet she doesn't let you play one of these then, either." Duke turned to see what Charlie was talking about. He held up a Gameboy. Duke shook his head. "Well then, your parents really are no fun."

"Dinner!"

His mother's voice echoed down the hallway and towards the pair. He had lifted one to inspect it even further. Duke nearly dropped the record in that he had in his hands to the ground. Charlie jumped from his spot at the edge of the bed and crossed the room in a matter of milliseconds. He turned from the window with a speed that Duke had never seen. What? How did he move that fast? Duke had never seen someone move that fast before in his life. He didn't even think that it was possible.

"Come on, dinner is ready. Don't be late."

Duke moved towards his mother's voice. But Charlie wasn't behind him. Charlie did not leave his room. Duke didn't hear his footsteps behind him as Duke made his way into the dining room. He shrugged. Charlie would have to come out eventually since he would eventually get hungry. He would have to get hungry sometimes. Duke's mother sat down at the table after putting the finishing touches on the dinner table. The ham steamed as did the mashed potatoes and gravy. Duke didn't even think he heard his mother heat up the asparagus in the microwave. He guessed he was too busy talking to Charlie to hear anything else. He was just ready to eat but his mom outstretched his hand towards him. Duke took her hand without thinking. Now the real praying could begin. They all bowed their heads down in silent prayer.

"I knew he'd want to unpack." Duke's aunt rolled her eyes. "You'll have to excuse him. His manners have seemed to have evaded him as he's gotten older."

"He seems like a sweet enough kid. I wouldn't put it past him to just want to unpack and decompress from the car ride here."

Charlie's dad bowed his head over the food once more. His hands folded in front of him. His lips moved fast. Too fast for any

"He's definitely not sweet," Charlie's dad lifted his head from bowing it to pray over his meal since none of Duke's family had said the prayer out loud. They had all been distracted by conversation to do it. "You wanna know what the final straw was?"

"What was it?" Duke's father scooted towards the table and bowed his own head over his meal for a moment before digging in. "What are we getting into?"

"What?" Charlie's dad smiled. "The old ball and chain didn't tell you all about her nephew?"

Her nephew? Charlie was their nephew, his cousin. If his uncle was joking then Charlie certainly didn't pick up on it.

"So what did he do?" Duke's dad let out a sigh as he dug into the food and began passing it out to everyone. "What are we in for?

"He tried burning down the high school. He kept rambling on about how the students there were worthless and needed to die."

"Well, that doesn't seem so bad." Duke's mom chimed in.

"It's arson, Susan." Charlie's dad turned towards her. "He's also been investigated for kidnapping."

"Kidnapping too?" Duke's mom lifted her head. "You didn't tell me that he was being investigated for kidnapping!"

Duke wasn't as worried as his mother. Charlie was a good kid from what Duke had seen over the years. When it rained at King's Island the summer before Duke turned six, he had given Duke his jacket. He helped a young girl find her mother after she lost sight of her when she got off of the ride. There was no way that he had even been a person of interest in kidnapping cases.

"He was never charged and he was only a person of interest. You still have to take him. We're not bringing him back to town after he kicked up so much trouble there."

Charlie's father let his head fall and began making good on his food. The rest of dinner was silent. None of them spoke and the only noises were the forks and knives on the plates. Duke wasn't going to make much noise. He was ready to finish dinner and do whatever he wanted. His suit was now fitting too tight around his neck. Like it was strangling him. Charlie was a good person, he reminded himself. Charlie is a good person. He is not the reason those kids went missing.

Duke wandered back to the closed door about a dozen times between the end of dinner and now, as he walked to his bedroom. He had cleaned up the dishes and put them into the dishwasher for further cleaning. His parents and aunt and uncle had gone into the living to talk. He didn't care for his mother's gloating. He didn't care for his father's pride in his work. His aunt and uncle boasted about their own achievements as well as if none of them were proud of each other.

"Alright, I think we're going to head out. We don't want to be too tired when we go into work tomorrow." Duke's uncle's voice echoed down the hall. His figure appeared a few seconds later and waved at Duke in the hallway. "See you at Thanksgiving, Duke."

Did they make plans for Thanksgiving already? Duke waved back to his uncle with a smile. "See you then, Uncle Jim."

"See you at Thanksgiving, Charlie." Duke's aunt called down the hall.

Duke waved back at the two figures at the end of the hall before they disappeared into the front room near the front door. Charlie's own parents were now gone. Charlie would only have Duke's parents for the next few months. Duke's parents came back to the bathroom a few moments later and spent the next twenty minutes cleaning up before both their room and the bathroom light went dark. Duke went to his room but didn't feel the need to change just yet. He wanted to stay up a bit longer and changing into pajamas now meant that the day was over.

Duke turned around in his bedroom for a few moments. He waited until the snores of his parents echoed off of the bathroom walls back towards Duke's room. That's when Duke made his way to Charlie's room. He needed to know if Charlie was the one who had kidnapped those kids. If someone dangerous was living in his house. Duke raised a hand, ready to knock but the door swung open before he could even have the chance to open it himself. It was almost as if Charlie had known that he was there.

"What are you doing up so late?" Charlie asked as he leaned against the doorframe. His hair was now tied back into a ponytail and only his jeans remained. He smelled of something that Charlie could not place but had smelled many times before when passing by the bathroom stalls at school. Duke had immediately forgotten the questions he was going to ask Charlie. "Your parents went to bed like half an hour ago."

Even though it was later than Duke had stayed up on most nights reading books by flashlight or waiting long enough to sneak out of the house and look at the stars. Especially on the night before going back to school. It was only seven at night the light had faded more than Duke would have hoped. He was too scared to admit to anyone that he was still scared of the dark even though he was ten. Charlie's face was hidden mostly in shadows but Duke could still see the contours of his face. Here, he looked like one of the monsters that Duke had imagined crawling through his windows at night.

When Charlie stepped into the light of the hallway, Duke noticed how pale Charlie's skin had gotten. So pale that his white skin had seemed to turn grey. His lips had crusted over. His blue eyes had turned a deep shade of blue.

"I could ask you the same thing." Duke straightened his back as if that would make him taller.

"I was just about to go out for a walk. Do you want to come?"

Duke pondered on it for a minute. "Wouldn't mom and dad be mad at us? We're not supposed to be out past sunset."

"Well I'm going out," Charlie pushed past Duke and towards the front door. "Don't feel like you have to lie for me either."

~

Millie Report had been told to go straight home after Sunday school. That her babysitter would be waiting for her when she got home. Her parents left on a business trip Instead of picking her up all the way across town, they would just meet in the middle back at her house. After that, they would end up going to the local diner for a late dinner. Then she would be sent off to bed. She had told her parents that she was old enough to make it home. After all, she was nearly twelve years old. The town was small enough that she had eyes on her every time she passed a house and even a little bit past that.

Millie checked her County road J would soon turn into county road K. As soon as it became K, she would take an immediate right. That's what the piece of paper she had in her hands said. Even though she and her family walked to church and back every Sunday, she had never really paid attention to what kind of turns they made. She was always picking up rocks or sticks alongside the road and messing up her pastel-colored dresses. Don't you dare mess up another dress, Millie. Her mother's voice rang out in her head as she spotted another pretty rock on the ground. No. She would keep her dress clean. She would make sure that she could be seen as someone who could walk back home on her own.

The sun had already set behind Millie and the roads were getting darker behind her. The fall air whipped around her and she chastised herself for not bringing a jacket. Each footstep crunched underneath her. The gravel that her parents had told her had once made these roads had turned into dust after years and years of wear. But that was long before she had been born and long before her family had been born.

Millie kept walking on county road J for at least half a mile before someone else appeared in front of her. A dark figure that she had never seen before. She squinted into the distance and tried to make sense of what was right in front of her eyes. She paused in the middle of the road. Her eyes scanned the shadow for a moment before it eventually got close enough for her to see who it was. A young man who she had never seen before. Even in her twelve years of life, she had been introduced to every family that lived in the town. Every face had been burned into her nearly photogenic memory. Though, her way home evaded her every single time she tried to make the walk home alone. What a terrible memory she had then, she assumed.

The man-made his way towards her as if he were going to the church. Millie checked her watch. It was nearing seven at night and in the hour that it had taken her to get this close to home, she knew that it would be closed down by now. She cursed herself for staying back to help out the pastor clean up from the Sunday evening mass. Even if there weren't many children for her to help with Sunday school. A lot of people had already come and gone that morning when most of the town had service. But a lot of people came back just for the fun of it. Even if it was the same service as before.

His body was only lit up by a few lights that the townspeople had put out onto the road so that no one would end up in a ditch. His feet crunched the bits and pieces of old and dried-out wood that had covered the ground. Where could he have been going? He turned his attention to her, his face lit up in flickers by fire that had come out of his lighter. He turned his attention to Millie. His long, gangly face lit up just as much as the light that appeared to come from a lighter. She didn't get a good look at what he was wearing which wouldn't help her if he did anything suspicious.

"Well hello there." His smile had grown inhumanly large. He moved closer to her. His eyes flashed dangerously dark as he flicked the lighter off. "What's your name?"

"M-my name is Millie." Her name felt odd on her lips. She had rarely ever spoken it. Fear flushed her face. She shouldn't have given her name to a stranger."W-who are you?"

"Millie. I like that name."

The man flicked on the lighter once more.

"I asked you what your name was."

The lighter flicked off.

"The name is Charlie. But I ask the questions here."

"What do you...what do you want to ask me?" Millie's voice caught in her throat as she tried to keep her composure.

"Where you're going," Charlie said that in a more matter-of-fact tone than the tone of someone who was asking a question. "What you're doing out alone this late at night."

"I'm-I don't think I should answer any of your questions. My parents said not to speak to strangers."

"But we're not strangers." Charlie flicked on the lighter to show off his inhuman smile, now adorned with rows upon rows of sharpened teeth. Saliva dripped off of his teeth and onto his bottom lip. "We're friends."

"We-we're not friends." Millie took a few steps back. "I should get home."

"Oh no," Charlie dropped the lighter down to the ground. "You should come with me."

Millie tried going around him but he had wrapped around her quicker than she could get away. Her whole body shook as he held her close to his chest. His breath-warm, hot, and sticky-brushed against her neck. Each breath was deep and heavy. He hadn't even said a word before Millie decided that she needed to put up a fight. She kicked and screamed until her voice was raw and her legs were tired. Each kick only brought her closer to him and each scream only came to crush her lungs. Her screams echoed across the trees.

Finally, she dropped her attention down to the arms that restrained her. Her mouth opened and laid a bit down onto his arm. Charlie let out a roar. Millie sprinted off into the darkness. Her heart pounded in her chest as she made her way down to her house. The sound of her heart echoed down to her bones. Her whole body ached. Charlie's footsteps weren't far behind her.

"Don't you dare run from a friend." Charlie's voice was louder than thunder on a rainy night. "Don't you dare run from me."

The footsteps came closer and closer to Millie. Millie had nowhere to turn. Nowhere to hide. The open road is what faced both of them. Her attention was on the road ahead of her and not the road behind her. Nor the road below her. Her foot caught on a stick and she tumbled down into the earth. The dirt kicked up into her mouth. Charlie's hands wrapped around her and flipped her over. His teeth flashed in the moonlight. His face was long and garish. Millie's screams echoed throughout the night. His teeth sank into her neck.

~

"This morning is a sad day for Archbold Township as we are looking for one of our own. Millie Report has come up missing." The newscaster's perma-smile had faded. "She was last seen walking home from Sunday school at six last night. She took country road J home. She was seen in a yellow dress and a pair of white converse, freshly bought. The police have no main suspects right now but if you have any information on the whereabouts of Millie Report, please contact the police at the number below."

Duke's family always watched the morning news before they headed out for the day. During the week-only in the summer-Duke had to follow one of his parents to work. This week, he was going with his mom to her secretary job it was still too early for Duke to comprehend most of it. His backpack rested on the bench where his mom had put it the night previous. Duke flattened out his jeans a bit as he tried to wipe the sweat that had pooled on his hands. He knew Millie. She went to middle school but her younger sister was in the same class as Duke.

Charlie had been outside that night. Duke had seen him head out but he had never heard him come back inside so he had no idea how long Charlie had been out the previous night. He couldn't be the one who kidnapped Millie. He hadn't even been there a whole day. There is no way he would cause trouble that soon.

Charlie stumbled out of his room and into the living room. He wiped the sleep from his eyes. His jeans were covered in a maroon substance that only Duke noticed before Charlie rushed back to his room to change. His mother and father turned their faces towards the noise but didn't catch Charlie's form. Charlie came out a few moments later with a fresh set of clothes and a smile on his face.

"Neither of you are to leave this house until Millie Report is found, do you hear me?"

Charlie and Duke frantically nodded. Duke's mother turned back to the TV and wrung her hands in worry. Charlie turned towards Duke as he flashed him a deadly smile.

He bowed down to Duke's ear, "Maybe if you took the opportunity to come with me last night, Millie wouldn't have had to run away from me."

[cordonian-literature]

The Aftermath - Ch. 15

A Not-So-Brotherly Argument

SUMMARY: When Liam returns to the capital, Leo is waiting for him

Word Count: ~3.6k 

Warnings: Language, mention of character death

*All characters belong to Pixelberry, except those that are unique to my story (I’ve also used some characters and fictional instances from Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch”)*

Catch up here!

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✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧

- Liam - 

When Bastien informed Liam that his brother was waiting to speak to him, the words went in one ear and flew out the other. Liam was lightheaded with happiness, and he embraced it — though he was unaccustomed to the feeling, since he had gone years thinking happiness was the last thing he deserved. But now, with Riley and the children almost in Cordonia, what was there not to be excited about?

Riley’s husband had died, and it was like the family had lost a piece of their puzzle. Liam had convinced himself that he was that replacement puzzle, and if he wasn’t, he would become it. 

When he walked into his office and saw Leo waiting for him, Liam hugs his brother. When they pull apart, Leo has an eyebrow raised. 

“Everything okay?” Leo asks as they both take a seat. 

“Everything is wonderful,” Liam responds, a broad smile pulling the edges of his face, holding such deep emotion that Leo’s face falls further into confusion. 

“How’d your New York trip go?”

Liam blinks a couple times, images flashing through his mind: Riley in the hospital, Gabriel in the DNA lab, Eleanor crying in front of her brother’s room. He wondered if he should tell his brother everything. “Eventful,” Liam says plainly. He wanted to keep the news of his little family to himself for now.

Leo persists: “Really? I uh... had a conversation with Regina yesterday. She said that you weren’t coming back alone.” 

Liam’s heart freezes for a moment, and the bubbling excitement subsides as he looks at his brother. Leo’s shoulders are tense, his mouth is in a thin line, and his eyes are wide; staring profusely at Liam, waiting for him to make a move or say something. 

He clears his throat, then lets out a forced laugh. “You seem to have been talking to Regina quite often as of late.” Liam forces his facial features to tense, making himself look serious. He wasn’t going to be kind to Regina, or anyone that had anything to do with her. Not after everything she did. 

“Well, huh, yeah.” Leo runs a hand through his hair and shifts in his seat. “I did my best to be subtle when I came to the tea ceremony, but Regina caught me and we had a little chat. She told me you were abroad and then invited Katie and the kids to dinner a few days after. The dinner was last night, actually.” 

Liam raises his eyebrows. Even though Leo had been married for a long time, he had never brought back his wife or kids for Liam to visit. Liam had seen them once when he visited their home on the twins’ birthday. That was almost three years ago. “Katie and the children are here? In the capital?” he asks. 

“Yeah, we got a hotel a couple miles away. So...” Leo shifts in his seat again, then smirks at his brother. “About this other person.”

Liam chuckles. He doesn’t want to tell Leo much about Riley and the children, but Leo was his brother. He’d never kept anything from him before, why hide anything now?

In a low voice, heavy with love and longing, Liam manages, “I brought back Riley. Riley Brooks.” 

Leo’s face falls. Liam notices the expression, and his brow bends with worry. Was Leo not happy for him? Was Leo not glad that Liam finally reunited with the only woman he had ever loved? Why wasn’t his brother happy for him?

Leo rubs his chin and scoffs. The sarcastic sound sends a dagger through Liam’s heart. Why isn’t my brother glad that I’ve found my love?

“That’s great, Liam. But...” He trails off.

“But what?” Liam pushes him to continue, desperate for an explanation that would douse the fiery anger that was building within him. 

“But...” Leo stares down at the floor, carving patterns in the wood with his eyes. “Is this really the best thing for the both of you?”

“What does that mean?” 

“Liam, I’m just saying—”

“You said you spoke to Regina? Does she have anything to do with this?” 

“Yes and no. We talked last night over dinner. And then we talked again over the phone after I returned to the hotel. We did talk about you, but—” 

“Since when did you become so frank with her?” Liam chuckles, finding the prospect of Leo and Regina attempting a civilized conversation amusing. He stands and goes to pour him and his brother some scotch. 

Leo doesn’t move or laugh, waiting for his brother to retake his seat. He grabs the glass that Liam hands him and takes a sip. 

“It’s not that we’re close or anything,” Leo starts. “I was just worried and decided to ask her if she knew anything, since she sees you more often than I do.”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t ask her about situations that involve me. You’re my brother, I deny you nothing.” Liam smiles genuinely, but it falters as he continues. “That hag believes that she has my best interests at heart, but she doesn’t.”

“Woah,” Leo exclaims. He takes another sip of his drink and laughs. “Never heard you refer to Regina so brutally. I like it. What happened?” 

Liam leans back in his seat. “She pushed Riley away during Bertrand and Savannah’s wedding. Forced her onto a jet. Onto one of my jets.”

Leo raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t look at his brother. “How’d she do that?” 

“Duchess Olivia told me that Regina knew Lady Riley had visited Europe a little after the Homecoming Ball. How she knew is beyond me. Regina made her guards keep an eye in every corner.” 

Leo shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Liam stares at him. 

“Did Regina tell you she did that?” Liam asks his brother. 

Leo rubs his temple. “Nope. Didn’t tell me anything about Riley during the Duke’s wedding.” Leo stares down into his drink. Liam waits for him to continue the conversation, and the fact that they both slip into silence unnerves him. 

“So what did she tell you?” Liam asks. He felt his blood boil, thinking about his brother siding with Regina. “You both talked about me during your little dinner. What was mentioned?”

Leo sits up in his seat, leaning forward. “Liam, c’mon, don’t involve Regina in this. She has nothing to do with my opinions about Riley or your relationship with her.” 

“Really?” Liam downs the rest of his drink and goes to pour himself more. “Then what are your opinions of Riley? If they’re not filtered with Regina’s criticism, tell me.”

“Liam, calm down. I’m just trying to look out for you, okay? I know you, brother, I know you can handle whatever you’re going through. You’ve been having a hard time but you’ve kept your priorities straight, you’re a hard-working monarch—”

“Don’t...” Liam’s fist grabs the glass so tightly that his arm shakes. “Don’t change the subject, goddamnit. What the Hell did that bitch tell you about Riley?”

“For goodness sakes, Liam, calm down. She didn’t tell me anything alright?” 

“Then why on Earth are you so interested in that topic? Why are Riley and I recurring topics in your and Regina’s discussions?”

“Because I don’t think that bringing her back is the best choice for either of you! And considering that you’re the king, I just want to make sure you’re doing what’s best for Cordonia. That’s why I left our country in your hands, because I knew you would—”

“So now you confide in Regina every time you begin to worry about the country and people you left behind?” 

Leo puts his head in his hands. “Liam, please. Regina just did what she thought was best for Cordonia and for you.” 

“‘Thought was best’?” Liam scoffs. “Tell me, brother, is keeping my son away from me best?”

Leo’s eyes go wide as he leans back into his seat. “Liam, I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know, and neither did I.” A shadow falls over Liam’s eyes, and it doesn’t lift. 

“C’mon, Liam. I bet Riley had her reasons.”

Liam looks up at his brother. “What?” 

Leo pauses before continuing. “I said she must have had her reasons to keep your son away from you. Before Regina’s involvement.” 

Liam stands, a sense of shock and pain overtaking him. “Really? You believe that? Tell me, brother, if Katie had been pregnant before you married, and she had run away and you didn’t know you were a father for more than a decade, would you feel her actions were justified?”

Leo gets up from his seat so he’s at eye level with his brother. “No, because my situation with Katie and your situation with Riley is different.” 

“Then who are you to say that she had her reasons?” Liam shouts. “Who are you to say that she was justified in keeping my son away from me? Don’t you understand? He’s the heir to the throne. There is so much that is due to him but wasn’t given because his mother kept him away. And then when his mother tried to bring him back, Regina kept them both away.” Tears begin falling involuntarily down Liam’s face. “All I had ever wanted a was a family, and instead of taking my side you say she had reasons? How on Earth would you even know—”

“Goddamnit, Liam!” Leo shouts, interrupting his brother. “Because she told me her reasons, okay? She told me!” 

Liam feels his body go numb. His throat aches, but he pushes out, “What?”

Leo gives a sigh, falling back into his seat, burying his head in his hands. “Liam, I’m not here to fight with you. I’m not here to hurt you.”

Leo lifts his face to look at Liam, and finds his brother staring down at him, a wild look in his eyes. For a moment, Liam feels that he may just jump on Leo.

He begins to explain: “A couple of years ago, some time after the Homecoming Ball and all the shit with the Sons of Earth, Katie’s sister’s film won an award. There was a ceremony in Sweden, and Katie wanted to go and support her. After she got the award we went into this restaurant.”

The animal look in Liam’s eyes doesn’t falter. Leo locks eyes with his brother, trying to silently keep him calm. 

“So we were eating, talking, whatever, right? Katie’s sister’s talking about all the hard work she and her friend put in, how grateful she is, all that. Behind her, there’s a group of people eating at another table, and I notice Riley. At first I thought I was fucking hallucinating. I had a little too much to drink, so I thought I was out of it. I remembered her from your Coronation and all the bullshit with the press after. You had told me she’s disappeared, and I— I just... I didn’t really believe it could’ve been her.” 

Neither man’s gaze falls. Leo takes a breath.

“I wanted to go check it out, but she was in a small group. Two other guys, and a woman with three kids were all at the table with her. Then after a while, one of the men stands and goes to the bar. I follow him. He’s got a Russian accent when he orders a few drinks. I order something, too, then I ask him his name, what he’s doing here... I was trying to be casual, y’know, not make him suspicious. I tell him that I recognized the lady at his table, and he gets defensive. I try to tell him that it’s nothing like that, I just know her from an event we both went to, but he keeps yelling at me in Russian until the other dude comes up from the table and asks what’s going on.”

“Did you catch their names?” Liam questions. 

“The Russian guy’s name was Boris, and the other one was... Thomas? Theodore? Yeah, Theodore. So, Theodore comes up and asks what’s going on, and I tell him that I noticed Riley and thought it was a big coincidence. I was kinda shocked that Riley never came up to the bar, even though we were all yelling.”

“Then what happened?” Liam prods Leo to continue. 

“So they’re being defensive and I ask them if they know about her scandal and whatever, and Theodore tells me that he does, and they’re trying to keep her away from the royal family because she doesn’t want anything to do with them anymore. I tell them that the best thing she could do for herself was change her name, move far away, and don’t do anything or go anywhere in the public eye.”

“You bastard!” Liam screams. “Instead of telling me where she was, you help her stay away?” 

“Yes, because fucking damn it, Liam!” Leo jumps up from his seat. “I know what it’s like to want to leave the royal bullshit behind. From the moment I heard everyone’s phones go off during the Coronation, I knew some poor girl’s life was going to be ruined. This place, this court, it’s a toxic shithole.”

“So you’re connecting your position with her’s?” Liam scoffs. “Don’t. You pushed yourself into a situation that was none of your business!” 

“And how is it your business, whether she wants to stay or not?” 

“Because she was pregnant with my son!” 

“But you didn’t know that!” Leo yells. “You didn’t know! For the last ten years, you didn't know but you kept persisting! Why? You can’t be serious, Liam, you’re the fucking king. You could have any woman you want and you chose one that didn’t want anything to do with you?”

Liam stands rooted in the spot, unable to speak. 

“Don’t be naïve, Liam,” Leo tells him in a softer voice. “I know you’ve had a hard time in the love department, especially after everything with Riley, but you can’t be serious. She doesn’t love you. If she did, she would have stayed, she would have endured. Love surpasses—”

“Shut. UP!” Liam screams. “Shut your mouth! Stop talking!” 

“No, you, Liam, are the one who needs to stop!” Leo yells in Liam’s face. “You aren’t in love, you’re obsessed! Ten years, man, that’s nearly a fourth of your life that you’ve spent pining away on one woman!” 

The men take a moment to stand in silence, staring at one another. They breathe heavily after all the yelling.

Liam’s voice breaks when he continues. “Because I was in love with her. Am. I would have done anything for her, and I still would.”

Leo scoffs and sits down. 

“I’m not talking about lust, Leo.” Liam leans over his desk, trying to find the words. “It was like... like our souls were pieces of the same fabric. That everything I lacked, she was. Why can’t you understand? You said that your love for Katie was what motivated you to abdicate, to do what—”

“Stop comparing your situation to mine and Katie’s. There’s nothing similar. Stop grabbing at something that’s not even there! That’s what you did with Riley. You never got over her, yet you had every woman in Europe ready to make you feel better!” 

Liam falls back into his seat. “And you think I want other women to help me through the pain? Leo, I grieved when Riley left. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. She was the best part of me, and she disappeared like that.” He snaps his fingers. “God... and every woman that pushed herself in front of me put me deeper into the grief. None of those women would be doing such things if Riley was here. And they never would have made me feel better the way Riley could have. Whenever I thought about marriage, I thought about how happy my life would have been with Riley. Everything reminded me of her. Leo, I was ready to abdicate for her, I was ready to leave my country for her. She was the very essence that made life worth living. Every day during the social season or the Engagement Tour, whenever I saw her, the world would become a little brighter. She taught me that there was more to life than just...” Liam trails off, his heart heavy. 

After a moment, he continues, “If she had even told me that she didn’t love me, I believe I would have been fine with that. If she had married someone else but would have still allowed me to see her regularly, I would have dealt with it better.” 

They sit quietly for the next few minutes, but the tension makes it feel like hours have gone by. The air feels thick. Leo can’t bring himself to look up at his brother, while Liam feels like his skin is boiling. 

Both lean back into their seats, staring out at nothing. Leo finally glances up at his brother, looking at Liam’s red eyes. 

Liam feels his brother’s gaze, but doesn’t make eye contact. 

“So you,” Liam tries to speak through the lump in his throat. “You knew her whereabouts and asked Regina to help you in keeping her away?” 

“Liam, it wasn’t like that,” Leo tries to convince his brother. “I just wanted to help keep her safe. I didn’t know she was with child or that Regina would do something so extreme—”

Liam puts up a hand, and Leo abruptly stops talking. “Don’t continue. I don’t want to hear the excuses. Just leave.” 

“Liam don’t do this—”

“Leave.”

Leo stares at his brother, willing Liam to look up at him. But when Liam doesn’t move a muscle, he gets out of his seat and leaves. 

Liam breathes out when he hears the door close, thinking about what his brother said. Did I truly act as if I was obsessed with her? I merely grieved her, and grief is nothing like obsession... is it? 

No. It’s not obsession. Drake, Maxwell, and Hana had all felt the same way. We weren’t obsessed. We were... depressed. Our strength was Riley, and Riley had left us when we had needed her most. 

But can we blame her? Did I ever blame her? I hope not. She was in pain. She had been humiliated. She had loved me with everything in her. Did that take up so much of her energy that she couldn’t keep herself emotionally stable? Perhaps she was right to leave. Out of all the people in the world who are worthy of love, I am the most undeserving. And I especially didn’t deserve the significant amount that Riley gave me. 

The frustration burns in the back of his eyes, and in a flurry of anger, Liam pushes the piles of papers and books off of his desk. Hearing everything tumble onto the floor was satisfying, and his release of anger was interrupted by a knock on the door. 

Who has the nerve to bother me? Don’t they know I just returned from my trip?

I have to address whatever concerns they have. I’ve been away for a while. I can’t fall further behind. 

“Come in,” he allows. 

“Your Majesty,” Madeleine greets as she closes the door behind her. “Welcome back.” 

Liam internally rolls his eyes. She was the last person that he wanted around him. “What is it, Countess?” 

She begins putting down a pile of paper on his desk, pretending not to notice the mess on the floor. “Here is a proposal by some Cordonian economists about the recent economic issue in Southern territories. I’ve looked over it and found some exceptional points, but I’m sure you could change it to be better.” She pauses and stares at him. “Your Majesty, are you alright?” 

Liam doesn’t look up at her. “Yes, yes, Countess, I’m fine. Is that all?”

“Yes,” she says, and takes half a step to leave, but then turns back. “Actually, there’s also this.” She pulls out a folder that was on the bottom of the pile and opens it for Liam to see. “Lesson plans. For Lady Riley’s son, of course.”

Liam shoots up from his seat. His nose inches away from Madeleine’s. He doesn’t hesitate for a moment before spitting, “You will stay away from my son, understood?” His voice is low and thick. “If I see you interacting with him in any capacity, whether it be instructional or disrespectful, I will make the rest of your time in my country a living Hell. Stay away from my family. Understood?” 

Madeleine’s eyes go wide and she stops breathing. She takes a step back to bow. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

“Leave me.” 

She rushes out of the room. 

Liam wonders at the audacity of the woman while flipping through some of the “lesson plans.” They’re surprisingly adequate.

His phone rings and he closes the folder. Taking it out of his pocket, his heart jumps when he sees that it’s Maxwell calling. They must have landed.

“Hello?” Liam says into the phone. 

“Yeah, hi, Liam, it’s Maxwell.”

“Yes, I know, Maxwell. How was the flight? How are Riley and the kids?”

“Oh the baby blossoms are fine, yeah. Bartie rushed in to give them and Rowan a tour, but... uh...” 

“What is it Maxwell? Is Riley alright?” 

“Riley... she, uh...” Maxwell’s voice breaks a little. “I think she got overwhelmed when she got out of the car and saw everything again. She... she passed out.”

[wastelandcth]

call if you need me - cth

call if you need me (calum hood x fem!oc) || masterlist || series masterlist

summary: how the love calum has for her and his hopes that she would let that love come to life.

warnings: mentions of sex.

author’s notes: hello! this is my new series based off of vance joy’s album nation of two. please let me know what you think! 

next chapter

Calum could get used to waking up next to her. She was the last thing he saw before he had gone to bed the night before, their bodies tangled up in the sheets, hearts racing as they both came down from their highs. He loved her, he knew he loved her since their first night spent together in the darkness of her bedroom, but he wasn’t sure if she felt the same, so he kept his feelings at bay. He could her feel her shifting in bed before his eyes even opened that morning, his arms pulling her closer to his chest, not wanting to let go of her just yet. His brown eyes ached as he slowly opened them, the sunlight flooding his senses. He looked down at her frame, chuckling as he saw the mess of curls atop her head. She smiled sleepily as she heard him, looking up at him, a blush creeping up onto her cheeks. Calum could do this every day for the rest of his life, but he knew that Clementine was just looking for fun, and it seemed like he always found himself in situations like this when he was with her. His heart ready to take the plunge and dive into something new and adventurous. He felt like he had been here before, Clementine in his arms, his love ready to spill out but he bit his tongue, knowing he’d rather have her like this than not have her at all. 

She had been broken too many times. Had always worn her heart on her sleeve and dove in deep, only to have to pick up the broken pieces on her own. That was until she had met Calum. She could never find the right words to describe him, none ever perfect enough to showcase how he made her feel. They had started their arrangement a couple of months after she had broken up with her boyfriend, the cheating bastard who took her heart and stomped on it a couple of dozen times before leaving her alone in an apartment she thought she’d go crazy in.  Her friends convinced her that going out to a club would help her get over him, help her have fun for once in the entire time she had been living in LA. She remembered how he had looked that night at the club, how the darkness of the club had almost hidden him in the corner of the bar, the occasional flashing lights illuminating him, and showing off the glitter on his cheeks. She was awestruck, his smile was addicting, she couldn’t hear what he was saying but the people around him all seemed to laugh at whatever story he had been telling, he was mesmerizing. She made her way over to the bar, needing a break from all the dancing she had been doing with her friends and their partners. 

“Can I buy you a drink?” she heard a voice say, her head turning to look at where the accent was coming from, “Seem like you need something to refresh you, will all that dancing.” he nodded and chuckled a bit, raising his hand up to get the bartenders attention. She was flustered, her mind trying to process what he was saying, “Gonna have to tell me what you want to drink, sweetheart.” he had teased and let out a small laugh as he saw her try to compose herself. “Uh, beer is fine.” she finally spoke out, smiling at him, “Thanks, I’m Clementine,” she said happily. 

The pair found themselves a few hours later, stumbling into a CVS with fluorescent lights that hurt her eyes but brought his beauty into a clear view for her. She squinted as she led him through the empty aisles, thankful that he had better vision than she did at that moment. She squeezed his hand gently as she found the wine she had been talking about, her words slurred as she looked at the bottle, handing it to him and nodding. “Trust me, it’s the best thing ever.” she laughed, leaning against him tall frame, Calum nodding and chuckling as he held the wine and a couple more snacks he had grabbed on their way in. And before she knew it, she had ended up tangled in her bedsheets with the cute Australian with an addicting smile, her heart full, and her mind buzzing. 

“Flights at eight tonight,” Calum said as he leaned against the bathroom counter, his voice echoing throughout the room. He had been doing a last-minute check on his suitcase, making sure he had everything before he left for weeks on end, humming a small tune to himself. She was in the shower, her hair lathered up in his shampoo, a small smile on her lips as she looked at him through the glass walls. “Thanks again for agreeing to take Duke while I’m gone,” he mumbled, watching his lover as the sun rays coming in from the window made her skin look golden. He was conflicted, leaving for a world tour to do the thing he loved the most made him ecstatic, yet he had to leave the one person he wanted by his side behind forever. 

“That’s okay, I’m pretty sure he liked me better than you, anyway.” she teased, stepping out of the shower with a towel wrapped around her frame and one hiding her hair away, “You can Facetime me anytime you want to see him too.” she nodded and shrugged, “It is going to be weird not having you one phone call away though,” she said quietly, her statement causing Calum’s eyebrow to rise, butterflies flooding his stomach. She was going to miss him, the very feeling scaring her as she realized that she wouldn’t be seeing him until the end of the year. “Can also just call me if you need me, yeah?” she mumbled, the question coming out more like a plea, and laughed softly as she walked out of the bathroom, letting out a breath she hadn’t noticed she’d been holding. 

Clementine sat in front of her mother, two months after Calum had left for tour, two months of only small conversations and dog updates. Duke sleeping on her lap as she told her everything. She told her mom about how he was electric, how she didn’t know how she had lived before him, and how she was afraid to ruin it all. Her mother chuckled, listening to her daughter vent her feelings out to her, shaking her head a bit and taking her daughter’s hand. 

“I just don’t understand why you two aren’t together yet, it’s obvious that there are feelings there.” Clementine’s mother said as she set the plate of pasta in front of her. “You two just need to realize that if you don’t try, nothing will come of it. You can’t just try to ignore these feelings you have for him,” she said softly, “You can’t get struck by lightning if you’re not standing in the rain.” 

Clementine looked at her mother shocked, realizing that maybe all she wanted was Calum. She wanted the good parts and the bad ones too. She wanted to be the one he would call if he felt homesick on tour, wanted to be the one who could get him through the dark times. She wanted his love. She just hoped that he wanted the same. 

Calum was alone on the tour bus, his finger hovering over Clementine’s contact, he wanted to hear her voice, wanted to know how her day had been or if she had done anything fun with Duke. He had been avoiding her for the last couple of weeks, thinking that maybe it was the best way to ignore his feelings for her. But now he was sat alone on a tour bus as his friends were out exploring whatever city they were in with their partners. And he wished that he had you here with him, his arm around you as you both explored the cities he’d traveled to in the past four months. 

“Calum?” her voice was soft, a hint of relief laced into it as she picked up after the third ring, “I...Duke’s okay, he’s at the groomers still, they said they’d call once he was finished.” she mumbled. Calum was silent for a bit, trying to find the right words to say to her, to tell her how he felt. He felt lame, trying to confess his feelings for the girl he loved over the phone while she was thousands of miles away from him. “Calum?”  she repeated, frowning as she couldn’t hear his voice, “What’s going on, bub?” 

“I-I’m going home for a couple of days.” his voice finally said, coming out more like a question, “I-we have a small break between shows and I, I want to see you and Duke. I want to talk about this, about us.” he held his breath as he waited for her reply, his hands already reaching out to grab his laptop to look for the soonest flight back to her. 

“Yeah? I’ll wait for you here,” she said softly, Calum could tell she was smiling, the tone of her voice shifting which made him think that maybe she felt the same way about him. That maybe him booking a red-eye flight back to her would be worth it, that maybe the next time he flew out of LA to do what he loved, it would be with her by his side. 

[cal-puddies]

idk if your doing requests but i’ve had this idea stuck in my head for a days and i think it would be such a cute imagine. you and calum are best friends but you both like each other and after the boys finish recording best years they all invite their girlfriends into the studio to listen to it and they tell you to come because they know calum’s contribution for the song was lowkey about you and while your listening he just looks and u and omg i’m in love with this man

“Hey monkey cheeks... hi little handsome!” You greet, walking into Cal’s. Duke comes right up to you and flops on his back for a belly rub.

“Hey jerkface.” Cal greets.

“How’s the album coming?” You ask, picking Duke up so you could keep rubbing his belly.

“It’s good. I think we’re really capturing where we are right now. Luke just wrote something killer, so I’m pumped.”

“Well Luke is a great writer.” You shrug.

“Yeah... you staying tonight?” He asks, gently touching your lower back.

“Eh... undecided but you know I can be persuaded.” You smirk. “Here, back to your pops, baby Duke.” You hoist the dog into Calum’s arms.

“What’s it gonna take to get you to stay?”

“Beg? Hours of oral? Not sure yet.” You shrug.

“You know id do either.” He smirks.

“Which is why I keep coming back to your bed.” You grin. You grab yourself a glass and make a drink real quick. “Have you had dinner?”

“Nope. Was just gonna see if you wanted to eat together.” He admits.

You help yourself to his fridge and decide to cook him something. “When’s the last time you didn’t eat take out?” You ask, moving easily through his space.

“Been a bit, yeah?” He laughs.

“That’s what I thought.”

You do end up staying the night, and Cal shows his appreciation for a home cooked meal with a couple rounds of oral, and a nice and slow session chest to chest. That usually meant he was feeling some type of way about something. You’d lay next to him and he’d be there with you, holding your or your hand, but you could also feel he was far away. His hand slides up and down your back, his lips kissing the top of your head until you turn to face him.

“You ok Monkey Cheeks?” You whisper.

“Yeah, I’m ok jerkface. Glad you came over tonight, Happy you’re staying.” He whispers back, finally meeting your eyes.

“Me too.” You press your lips to his chest, and he just holds you as you fall asleep.

He takes a deep breath while he watches you sleep, letting your scent fill his nose, your presence just surround him. He can’t shake the feeling that you belong there, but he knows he can’t ask you to be there right now. He can’t be there for you the way he wants to be.

And that starts the internal argument, Luke and Michael have figured it out, and Ash is working on it. Why couldn’t he do it?

But he could, he had. He just didn’t want that for you, didn’t want you sitting alone at dinner tables, and explaining to your family that he couldn’t be there because he was on tour, didnt want you ordering drinks alone at a bar while he was out across the world.

He takes you out with Ash for coffee and breakfast in the morning, he low key pays, but doesn’t touch you in any way, and you were used to it. This is what being with Cal meant, and you accepted it.

You miss him when it’s weeks between seeing him because schedules don’t line up, and you’d never want him to feel bad so you don’t tell him you wait for him. When he’s on tour he asks who you’re dating, and you’ll make up a date or two, but ultimately no one lasts long.

And he doesn’t understand that, because he thinks you’re perfect.

You’re sprawled on your couch one afternoon when Ash sends you a text.

- we’re previewing a couple versions of some songs tonight, why don’t you come by?

You weigh your options, you’d love to see all the guys but it’s basically a guarantee that you won’t get any attention from Cal. You’d like to see him anyway, maybe you could get him to go for a drink after. Luke and Sierra would probably go.

You decide you have to go when Sierra and Crystal both text and to ask you to come and Luke calls.

So you do a little make up, put on the good jeans, and throw on a t shirt you tie up.

You let yourself into the studio Ash directed you to.

“You came!” Luke says in his larger than life way while squeezing you and picking you up. You get hugs from the girls, Ash and Michael, and Cal hugs you so it’s not horribly awkward.

Luke and Ash talk animatedly about the songs they play for your, Wildflower, Best Years, and Not In The Same Way. And there were already a couple versions of each.

You can feel everyone’s eyes on you for Wildflower, but you feel Cal’s on you during Best Years, while you watch Luke’s face as he watches Sierra.

You glance at Cal out of the corner of your eye, and you don’t recognize the look on his face, but you don’t dwell on it.

“You all never cease to amaze me.” You admit, to Luke while everyone’s mingling.

“Thank you!” Luke grins, “think Sierra and I might be going for drinks, you should come, I’m gonna ask Cal too. Michael already said no and Ash needs to go do yoga, I think he said.” He explains.

“I’d like that. I’d just be going home to be on my couch.” You chuckle.

“No cant have that, come out for a couple drinks.”

Sierra comes over, “Cal’s in!” She stands on her toes and kisses Luke’s cheek and then she turns toward you, “what about you? Drinks? Say yes! Please!” She asks, before giving you a chance.

“Yeah, I just told Luke I’d go.” You chuckle.

“Ok! Good! I’m gonna ride with Cal, we’ll see you guys there.” She kisses Luke and turns and he grabs her hand. “So he can’t change his mind.”

“Fair... you wanna follow me?” He looks at you.

“Sure.” You laugh.

Luke gets you guys in VIP, and he gets his tequila on the rocks and lets you order what you want before you guys grab a table, waiting for Sierra and Cal to show up.

Luke talks to you about how work is going for you, and catching up. You’ve been around awhile, hanging out with Cal, a couple years now. But he knows it’s more than that, he knows the way Cal’s face lights up when you come around, or he gets a text from you. He loves getting to FaceTime you. And Luke knows it’s deeper than that. All of them have walked in on you and Cal having a moment or sharing a kiss, the long hugs goodbye. Or even just noticing the little touches or the grins when you lock eyes across the room. And he wants more dirt about it without outright asking you.

But Cal and Sierra show up and Sierra tells him to sit next to you.

“Hey,” he grins at you, face softening.

You’re there for about an hour and Cal keeps touching your thigh or brushing your hands together under the table, and then Sierra is asking for you to come with her.

“Good, girls are gone. Let’s cut the shit.” Luke says, leaning closer to Cal.

Cal finds it abrupt and he’s confused. “Excuse me, brov?” He asks.

“What are you doing with her? Are you gonna date her or just keep dragging her along? She’s so good for you Cal, we all see it. And she makes you so happy. And you deserve that. But she doesn’t deserve this.”

“We’re friends.” Cal shrugs.

“Nah, mate. No one believes that. You don’t even believe that you’re just friends. I don’t know what’s holding you back from her. You’re lying to yourself. You don’t think every one of us saw the way you were looking at her tonight? Even if we all didn’t already know, we would now.”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do Luke! She deserves better than what I can give her right now, with our schedule!”

“You’ll figure it out. It might be tough but you’d do it to keep her happy... if she makes you this happy... I saw your face when you saw her here... you can’t string her along forever. Someone else is gonna give her everything you want to give her.”

Luke shuts up, because you and Sierra are coming back, and he doesn’t want you to hear this.

After another drink you look at your phone and laugh, “it’s so late. How does this always happen with you!” You accuse the table.

“Do you need to go? I’ll get an Uber with you.” Cal offers.

“Ummm...” you look at him and glance at Luke and Sierra giving you intense stares. “Yeah. I mean I can stay too, just didn’t realize it was already this late.”

“No, it’s fine, I’m ready to go.” Cal says, leaning into you.

“Yeah.. were gonna go too. You two stay safe. We’ll swing by tomorrow and bring you to get your cars.” Luke says. You grab your phone and your jacket and the four of you make your way outside.

“You coming to mine?” Cal asks, quietly, though he doesn’t know why because obviously all of his friends know about you. He pulls out his phone to get the Uber.

“Uh, no I think I just wanna go home, sleep in my own bed.” You shrug.

“Ok.” He nods. You all wait together til the cars come, hugs are shared. Cal calls Luke big fella when he wishes him goodnight and Sierra and Luke call him sweet boy. And you melt a little at that exchange. You love the way Cal is with his friends. You ride quietly to your place, only about a mile from Calum’s. He walks you to your door to make sure you make it, and he shoots you a goodnight text, which included a picture of him and Duke in bed.

And Cal can’t sleep. His mind is just going over and over what Luke said. And how you look at him, and you always come, and are always there.

And fuck, Luke’s right. You could have anyone, and he doesn’t want to chance that you’ll find that anyone while he’s gone on tour. You’d figure it out. This only doesn’t work if you don’t want him too. And he really doesn’t want to get hurt that way.

- if you aren’t already with her, go to her. Luke told me he talked to you. Sierra texts him.

He checks the time, it’s almost 3 am. You’re bound to be asleep. But he figures he’ll try anyway.

-awake? He asks.

- just barely.

-I’m coming over.

He almost waits for a response but he’s already climbing into the Uber when he gets a thumbs up from you. He lets himself in with the key he has and makes his way to your room.

“We gotta talk.” He says, slipping in your bed after taking his sweats off.

“It’s 3 am, do we really gotta talk now?” You chuckle. You lay face to face with him, because he has that serious tone.

“Yeah... I like you, a lot, probably more than like, but I don’t want to scare you, and I’m so tired of avoiding that topic just because I’m gone. It wears on me. When we were listening to Best Years earlier I just felt so strongly about that message toward you. And I know we’re comfortable doing this, but I don’t wanna hear about you with other guys and I’m happy when it’s us... and the guys know, they see through my shit. And my ‘just friends’...”

“Calum... shut up for a second.” You interrupt. You watch as he closes his mouth. You lean in and kiss him briefly on the lips. “We’ll try, I want to too. But we need to talk about it after I’ve slept, please.”

“Yeah... absolutely.” He agrees, pulling you back for another kiss.

[ashelbygirl]

Dishonorable intentions. | Thomas Shelby x Reader Imagine.

Part II.

*Sidenotes: I was inspired and some anons asked me to do the second part of dishonorable intentions, soooo here it is! I’ve decided it’ll have more parts so hope you enjoy it.

*Resume: You and Tommy go on your first date.

Thomas lit another cigarette. Feeling the smoke in his lungs gave him a sense of calmness. A feeling he really needed in that exact moment. They were counted the times that Thomas Shelby had been nervous: when Hughes kidnapped Charlie, in the tunnels when he was in the war, in the birth of Charlie and Ruby and another time: when he saw YN for the very first time. YN in the war. YN as a nurse. He hit the cigarette again. Fuck. How long was she going to make him wait?

He wasn’t going to lie, he never thought a girl like YN would accept to go on a date with him. You could tell from miles away that they were completely different from the other.

First we have Thomas. The all mighty, Thomas Shelby. The son of an Irish immigrant man and a Romani gipsy woman, born and raced in Small Heath, Birmingham, England. He was in his late 30s about to jump to the 40s. A charmer by nature and way to intelligent for his time. A man who grew up without shoes to wear or food to eat, a man who growing up only had bread and lard when he dreamt and hoped that maybe one day, he’ll be able to do and have whatever he wanted. He worked hard until he created his own empire, but Tommy knew that no amount of money allows you to pass through the steel sheets that separates one class from another. He knew it cause he had lived it. But even when he born with nothing, he became one of the most powerful men in all Europe. He was brilliant, aggressive but rational, he knew what he wanted and he didn’t ask permission, he does what he wants and takes what he needs. A genius, a womanizer, millionaire, CEO of multiples business, philanthropist, and yet, he didn’t felt worthy of dating someone like YN. He dated Greta, Grace, May, Lizzie, Tatiana, Jessie, and many more, but he never felt unworthy to have them, to be with them. Only with YN.

And then we have YN. YN Casiraghi was born and raised in London. A 22 year old Heiress of one of the most influential and wealthiest families in Europe. YN was passionate about everything that could make her feel free and liberated. She loved to travel, to read, to study, to work, to learn. Her dream was to become an independent woman who didn’t have to depend of a man. YN was a free spirit. Determinate and stubborn, yet free and playful, flirty and seductive, intelligent and fearless. Growing up YN had everything she wanted or needed, she grew up being spoiled but never being a brat or a mean girl. She was a good girl and everyone wanted to be her or be with her. YN was special. Everyone loved YN, not just because she was beautiful and smart, a popular socialite who knew everyone and ruled every place she went to. They loved her because she was sweet, because she always tried to help, because she wasn’t selfish or shallow, because she cared.

YN Casiraghi and Thomas Shelby. When black meets white. When yin meets yan. When two worlds collide.

YN closed the door behind her, and with a smile she started to walk towards Tommy. . Thomas glanced toward the entrance of her house...and his mouth dries. She’s standing on the entrance, and for a second he doesn’t realize it’s her. She looked exquisite: her hair falls in soft waves to her breast on one side, and on the other it’s pinned back so it’s easier to see her delicate jawline and the gentle curve of her slender neck. She’s wearing high heels and a tight light blue dress that accentuates her alluring figure. Wow. Her lips in her classical red lipstick. A red that could drive any man crazy, including Thomas Shelby. The closer she was to him, the more his heart skipped a beat.

-Hi.-YN chuckled. Damn. Thomas Shelby looked way more handsome than he had years before when she last saw him.

-Hello love.-Tommy spoke after extinguish the fire of his cigar by throwing it away.-So, are you ready sweetheart?-He extended his hand so she could take it and help her get to the car.

-I’m YN, not your love and surely not your sweetheart, love.-The girl smiled one last time before she started walking to the Bentley parked in front of her house. She didn’t even waited for Thomas to open the door for her. She opened herself and got in the car. Thomas didn’t took long to follow. He started the car and away they go.

The ride was pretty fast before they arrived to the Hotel Café Royal, a place that both of them knew very well. It was an hotel where everyone who was a somebody hanged out.

Winston Churchill, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Einstein, Henry Ford, George Washington, Charles Chaplin, Ernest Hemingway, Coco Chanel, you name it.

When YN got off the car, she couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. It wasn’t funny anymore, almost every guy she went out on a date with, thought it was a great idea to have a first date in that same place. Every fucking time. When Tommy got to her side he put his hand in her waist, pushing a bit so she could start walking into the hotel. And YN could’ve sworn that electricity ran through her whole body. It wasn’t normal how nervous he could make her with a simple gesture.

-Cmon lov... YN.-Tommy killed a smile that was starting to appear on his face. She was something else. She reminded him of Dangerous, one of his most loving horses, she wasn’t scared to take what she wanted, she wasn’t afraid to do whatever that would please her, cause if freedom could be a person, it would be YN.

The both entered to the Oscar Wilde salon, filled with aristocrats and important people who tried to impress each other. The hostess and a waiter took YN and Thomas to their table, the best table in the whole place. A table with a view. YN was a sucker for a killer view, but at the end of the day, it was a view she knew way to well.

-Here you go Mr. Shelby and Mrs. Casiraghi. So, can I bring you something to drink?-The young man asked with a smile, you could tell the poor thing was really nervous. He has to serve two of the most important clients of the Hotel.

-I’ll have a glass of Sancerre.-The girl spoke with confidence, after turning his gaze to the blue eyed.

-I’ll have a whiskey. Irish.-The kid left as quickly as possible, trying to bring their drinks asap. Thomas got closer to her. -You look stunning.- He said in a whisper, and kissed her cheek. Closing his eyes, Him savoring her scent; she smelled heavenly. It didn’t took long before YN started to blush, she was very used to men giving her compliments of all kind, but there was something in the way Thomas did it that drove her crazy.

-You look pretty good too, I’m glad to see you in one piece, I’ll admit that the last time I saw you, I didn’t though you’ll make it.-She spoke with clarity, something that Tommy was starting to appreciate. Tommy chuckled, even when he was pretty used to having a poker face and nothing and no one surprised him, she did. She was something different. -So how did you found me? And what took you so long?

A smile appeared on Tommy and a minute later, the drinks were in their hands.

-Well, well, you play no games, don’t you?... When I finally went back to Birmingham, where I’m from, I wasn’t the man you met. Everything changed in me. I became a different man, all my believes, my ideas, my feelings and emotions died in France, stayed in France. But, when I came back I started looking for you and to be honest, it wasn’t hard, you’re kind of a celebrity. I know that princes, dukes, ministers, rich gals, and almost every man with eyes would kill to be by your side. I know you’re well educated, you’re probably the only woman I know that went to college. I know who you are. So now tell me, would you even say hello to the man I was before I became who I am now? No YN, you wouldn’t. Cause at the end of the day I’m not a man who could’ve dated you, cause I didn’t had anything to offer you. So how was I supposed to chase a woman like you? Let’s be honest love, you’re out of my league. -Thomas sipped from his whisky, his eyes never leaving hers.- I started my company, doing bets, protecting people, doing business and everything else for two reasons, the first one is cause I always wanted to give my family everything they deserved and the second, cause I want to get myself anything I want, anything I desire, and guess what? I desire you, YN. I want you. I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you in France.- She didn’t say a word. To be honest, she was pretty amused.

The dinner went by fast. Not much talk between them but also, they couldn’t keep their gaze to themselves. They ate and have one or two laughs. Everything was going okay. It was average. But YN always wanted more than average.

-So now that you’ve tried to impress me and clearly failed, why don’t you take me to somewhere that I can actually have fun. Somewhere you actually enjoy, somewhere we can be ourselves and stop pretending. Show me where would Thomas Shelby take a girl to have a little fun?

-You won’t like it. I’m not sure you’ll like my world.

-Hmm... I’m feeling adventurous.- a smile appeared on her face, she was challenging him.

-Okay... cmon...-He stood up after leaving some cash on the table, giving the young waiter, the tip of his life. And for the first time on the whole night YN took his hand. They drove away and YN could see how the streets of London changed from the safest and prettiest ones to the dangerous and poorest. She loved to be out of her comfort zone. Thomas parked his car and she could notice a few blocks away from they parked, lights that attracted everyone.

-A pub? You brought me to a freakin pub?

-Oi! This isn’t like a pub you’ve probably been to. This is not the type of gals you interact with. This are working men, men who fought in France, men who don’t care about money or your last name... trust me, you’ll have a blast. I promise.

-And if I don’t?-She asked challenging him again. She loved to play.

-If you don’t have fun, you’ll decide where we go the next time... but if you do have fun, I’ll kiss you.

-Who says there’s going to be a second date?

-Its a feeling love... now let’s go.

Thomas couldn’t take his eyes away from her while she walked. He had been waiting for this moment all day and looked thru out the day, repeatedly at his watch. This feels like a first date, and in a way it is, but Tommy didn’t do first dates, not until her. He had never taken a prospect girl out to dinner. He had sat through interminable meetings that day, bought a business, and fired three people. Nothing He had done today, including almost killing a man, dispelled the anxiety Tommy had wrestled with all day. That power is in the hands of YN. YN made him anxious, he hadn’t even taste her but he was already addicted.

As they entered the pub fulled with men who feared, loved and respected Thomas, everything got quiet. Not a soul would dare to speak.

-Fellas. Is this a funeral or why the scary faces? Cmon! Drinks are on me today! You deserve it! -

Every man in the room cheered, but Thomas only noticed the admiring glances from those same men, and in the case of one handsome, athletic guy, overt appreciation of his date. It’s not something Tommy have dealt with before...and to be honest, he didn’t liked it. It seemed that that night, all the men only had eyes for Miss YN. They walked while Thomas gave them a withering look that send them in retreat from the room. Taking her hand, he lead her to the bar.

-Mr. Shelby! So nice to see ya again-An old man smiled to the couple.

-What would you like to drink?- Tommy is rewarded with a knowing smile as she sits down.

-I’ll have whatever you’ll have, please.

-Two whiskeys, Irish, Tom.- Tommy said to the bartender before they slide into a booth. Thomas sitting right next to her.

-So... you’re quite de celebrity aren’t you?-She smiles to him while making fun on him. YN actually was surprised of all the love Thomas Shelby received and yet, he didn’t seem to care.

They drank the whole night, she sang to him, and he danced with her. They talked, for hours. They went to the roof of the pub and watch some fireworks. YN talked about college, about art, about her favorite books, about her fears, she even talked about Alex. Tommy talked about his family, about the company, about Ruby and Charlie, he talked about his childhood, about the games he played with his brothers, about the war. It was so easy to talk to each other. It felt like they’ve always known each other. YN was everything Tommy always wanted, she wasn’t afraid of thinking for herself, she was smart and she was passionate about almost everything that intrigued her. She was fearless and a little bit reckless, yet caring and loving. And she laughed, she laughed about everything and it was really easy for her to make new friends. She loved to party and to have fun. She wasn’t scared to be herself in a world that tells you who you are supposed to be. Fuck. Thomas really liked her. And Tommy was everything YN always craved. A rational man who didn’t fear his instincts. A man who cared about his family and everyone he loved. He was powerful and a control freak, but with her he let go. He was free and wasn’t scared of anything. He does what he wants and takes what he wants. He has ambitions and damn he’s intelligent. Oh and he’s gorgeous.

They laughed and talked for hours and hours, until it was early in the morning. 5 am marked the clock, but they wanted so much of each other that time didn’t seem to care. But they had stuff to do, even if the dreamt of staying in that little booth their whole lives, real life was starting out there.

-Let’s go YN, I’ll take you home.-He took her hand and they started to walk in the still dark sky, out of the pub they acted as if they still were in their bubble.

-I don’t want this to end...-She spoke while walking before she stopped to look at Tommy.-I feel so liberated when I’m with you.

-Well did you have fun?-Thomas asked the girl while he cornered her to a wall. Her back hitting lightly the wall. Him getting closer to her. Bodies brushing into one and other.

-Are you kidding me? This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time...-She smiled to him and Tommy could’ve sworn he could feel his heart race.

-Good. That’s good. Cause know I’m going to be able to do something I’ve been wanted to do since the first time I saw you in France.-And with that being said, Thomas kissed the red lips of the girl who had been teasing him all night. And god she felt so good. She was a goddess, of that Tommy was sure. And she tasted so heavenly.

-You’re going to be the death of me love...-Thomas said in a whisper before driving YN to her house and ending their beautiful night.

[thoughts-n-paper]

Eve woke up every day with a sense of gratitude.

She thanked her fate for waking up buried in the soft linen sheets, for the luxury spread on her table every meal and for the smile she was blessed to see on her daughter's face every day. She did believe that it was her karma that her circumstances took her from the dirty and worn down roads to the desirous mansion she breathed in. It was that along with her daughter's persuasive powers, but it wasn't all for nothing like they say that suffering does, after all, builds character. And she saw the proof of that every day in the image of her step-daughter, who stood just a meek, timid and impressionable little girl. Ella and Anna, the step-daughter and her blood, even though Ella was the older one, Anna stood over her, both in stature and disposition. It was difficult for her to see Ella as a girl born in privilege and still so distant from the qualities of the rich she had been envious of in another life.

Anna, on the other hand, had taken to the elite lifestyle like fish to water. Eve was so proud of her child. Anna was always the talk of every ball they had been to ever since her debut. Every room that she walked into, she knew how to assert her dominance over the crowd. Eve's heart grew an inch every time she would hear other girls talk behind Anna's back, which meant that she had made her place, that the others were envious and that she and her daughter were on the right track. And then will follow the pitter-patter of the timid Ella, stopping to greet every low life on the street and letting the dirty children rub their hands all over the expensive silk that Eve brought for her. She tried to change Ella at first, polish her into a lady of a respectable household, but she would not listen, "My mother says to be kind to the young and respectful to the older." "My mother said not to let anyone return empty-handed from your door." "My mother this and my mother that..." Eve was tired of listening to what an angel her mother had been and had given up now. Ella was a lost cause, but she was certain Anna would be the one to outshine every other woman that walked their land.

Eve had always had faith in Anna even when they had no riches to call their own, and even though she had no education, she carried herself like a lady of a palace. Royalty was in her every demeanour but just not in her blood.

She went to Anna's room to wake her up, and on her way from the window of the corridor, she could see Ella in night clothes, feeding the local beggars, even though Eve had asked her not to a million times. She shouted from the window, "Get back inside, Ella!" and rushed downstairs to give her a piece of her mind to Ella's face.

"You wretched girl, how many times do I have to tell to stop feeding strays. Do you know what this food costs your father? Still, you insist on wasting it on lowlifes. Next time let them pay for it, or a better idea, you finish it yourself. At least I will have one less mouth to feed." She dragged Ella, by her hand, inside the house with whispers of Ella following behind, "I was just trying to help."

Eve distinctly remembers the days when she was counted among the lowlifes too, and she despised herself for it. She knew first hand what a burden these people were, how shameless they were to ask the rich for everything, nobody ever showed her mercy for it, and she didn't want them to either. Now that she is rich, she is still no one to be changing the nature of society. Eve found her way out, and others ought to too. If they cannot, it's not her fault, just her pleasure.

On the breakfast table, Eve sat admiring her daughter. "Mother, can I have pink petals in my bath today?" Anna asked her.

"Of Course. I will ask Mrs Peters to go and get some from the garden."

"But I want the one from Ella's garden."

"Of course you can."

"But..." Ella said quietly. "Only I go in there."

"WHAT?" Eve was always tired of Ella's mumbling. "Speak clearly." She shouted at her. "Lady of such a big house should be heard from miles away."

Ella stood up, "Only I can go in that garden."

"Then you can go and collect it for Anna," Eve replied and gestured with her eyes for Ella to sit down. And Ella, without any quibble, sat back in her chair. Another thing Eve despised about her, she would never rebel or revolt. Ella would do what was told to her without any objection or question. Eve would have put up a fight, and Anna would have done the same. It made her furious, "Go to your room Ella!" she said with a sigh, exhausted with trying to comprehend the girl in front of her. Ella stood up and ran out of the room sobbing.

"Ugh! She is frustrating." She said to her daughter.

"Its okay, Mother. You try so hard. Should I ask Ella to fetch the petals for your bath too?"

Eve looked at her with a smile and nodded.

Later they went into the parlour where they sat going through the magazines to find a new dress to get made. It had been their favourite thing from their earlier days when they were living shelter to shelter. They would often sit by the streets and watch rich and lavish ladies step out in their best dresses and fantasize about having them one day. Anna wanted a new dress for the dinner party they were supposed to attend when the father returned from his travels. From the corner of her eye, Eve could see Ella plucking the flowers from her garden, and with every bud, she plucked she would apologize to the plant. Eve chuckled and thought to herself, 'What a silly girl'.

She often felt guilt at shouting at her, but then she would see Ella do something like this, and she would say to herself, 'This girl needs tough love.'

Anna's sudden gasp broke her chain of thought, "Mother, the Duke's son would be attending the dinner next month." She stood up and pretended to faint, "He is so handsome! Oh, Mother, I must have the best dress and the best hair and the best shoes. He should lay his eyes on the best satin when he sees me. Oh mother, how wonderful it would be if he marries me." She took Eve's hands and pulled her into a twirl. They both laughed and fell on their respective chairs.

Although far fetched, Eve could imagine it happening. Anna wasn't the most beautiful, but what she lacked in traditional looks she made up in her talks.

They decided to go to the shops that very day to choose the fabrics. In her excitement, when Anna told Ella about the Duke's son, she just smiled and went back to tending to the garden. "You could have at least faked some happiness," Eve said to Ella as soon as Anna left.

"But I am happy, mother."

"Speak loudly, child. You are always laying there in your garden, feeding strays or cutting grass. Clean yourself up and make yourself useful. Tidy the house or fetch some groceries. Do something.", Eve said in rage and in that rage, she picked up a glass planter and dropped it on the ground. "Clean that too," she said over her shoulder while stepping out of the small metal gate.

That evening they were sitting surrounded by the linen they had bought earlier. "What did you bring for me, mother?" Ella came running into the room.

"No. Don't come here." Anna quickly pushed her away from the sheets. "Oh, mother, she will spoil them."

Eve lifted her head, and there stood Ella in a white apron covered with black clouds, the hair wrapped with a dirty scarf, and her hands had black grease all over them.

"Oh, God, Ella." Eve took her head in her hands.

"I'm sorry. I will go clean up." Ella said embarrassingly.

The next morning Ella asked Eve again, "What did you bring me yesterday?"

"Well, Ella, dear, dirty girls like you do not get pretty clothes."

"But what will I wear to dinner."

"You can wear something of your mother's. I am sure she had a lot of fancy dresses in her closet," Eve said dismissively.

Eve knew it was unfair to Ella, but she also knew that Ella had enjoyed certain luxuries all her life. She wore beautiful dresses and had been swooned over since she was a little girl.

It wasn't fair that Ella had all the toys to grow up with while Anna had to fight with other girls over a doll they found in the donation pit. It wasn't fair that Anna had to collect the money herself doing odd jobs to buy the cheap replica of a dress she saw at a big store. A little unfairness ought to give Ella some perspective.

Over the next week, as Anna would sit with the dressmaker and play with laces, Eve would catch Ella sitting in her room, trying to sew up the holes in the old fabrics. And while Anna spent her evenings reflecting on the lights coming from the expensive jewellery she was trying on, Ella would be off to the market to feed the stray animals. While Eve and Anna would go for tea parties with other socialites to measure up the competition, Ella would be playing with the cook's children in the house.

Eve was not extremely surprised with her behaviour when she first met her. Ella's father is just as naïve as her, which was why it was easy to get him to marry Eve. Eve does not want Ella to grow up like that. It is above all the responsibility of a mother to teach a girl how to be a lady.

"Mother!" The scream of Anna echoed in every room, and everyone ran at once.

"Anna, what happened?" Eve inquired.

"It does not match. None of it matches." Anna fell to the ground crying. In her hand was the dress she was to wear for the party and on the bed lied the beautiful necklace specially made for her. The dress was pink, the gems in the necklace were a lighter shade of pink. Eve understood Anna's sorrow. Eve too would have been crying had it have happened to her.

"This is not so bad," Ella said dismissively, and both Eve and Anna shot her a deadly look. "No, it is bad." Ella quickly corrected herself. "I mean, it is fixable. Is it not?"

"Go away, Ella."

Ella left the room, trying to justify her statement to herself as Eve sat by Anna, failing to console her.

They finally decided to look for other options. Before leaving for the market, Eve went to Ella's room to give her instructions for dinner. She opened the door and paused. She had to avert her eyes for a second from the light coming from the window. But as soon as her eyes adjusted, there stood a goddess-like beauty in front of her. Ella was wrapped from head to toe in gold, with enormous earing dangling from her ears, and she wore blue shoes which sparkled like diamonds while her auburn coloured hair lay lightly against the shimmer of the fabric. It took Eve a moment to realize that the princess in front of her was the same girl who was willing to touch the new material with grease-covered hands.

"How do I look, Mother?"

"No!" Eve shouted and slammed the door behind her as she walked away, flushed with anger.

Ella, in that one moment, had proved that it doesn't matter how much Eve and Anna lather themselves with expensive dresses and learn the proper etiquettes, they would never be equal to her. There was a type of light, the same one Eve had noticed in her husband, and Eve knew she would never be able to reflect that. It was something to be borne into, not something a person can acquire by marriage or adoption.

But even though Eve may not be able to grab that light, she would not let it blind her.

She turned around, walked up to Ella's room, took a deep breath and knocked.

"Anna is crying a lot. She is so sad. Ever since her father passed, this had been the happiest I had seen her." Eve lifted her hand and lightly wiped a drop from the corner of her eye. She took Ella's hand in hers and lifted her head to look her in the eyes. "I know you think it is stupid. You do not care for such superficial things. It is not a big deal to you."

Eve could see in Ella's eyes a slight hesitation. She might need a little more convincing.

"Anna has always been so disappointed. I know you cannot comprehend growing up in poverty. Everyone in our circle doesn't treat us as equals. You know where we come from, the shit hole we used to live in. People have trouble accepting us. They snark at us, talk behind our backs. This night, the party is her only chance to change that, to elevate herself. I hope you understand.", saying this Eve burst into tears. What surprised her was how genuine they turned out to be. Eve didn't think about it at the time, but as she watched her little girl twirl in shining golden circles, she realized how much of it was true.

On the day of the party, their father reached the house early in the morning. And both the girls did not leave his side since then. He always brought gifts for the girls from all over the places he visited. Beautiful scarfs and porcelain dolls, shining cutlery and perfect mantelpieces, and all the silk he could fit in his bags. He adored the three women and never shied away from showing it. After lunch, Eve and Anna went into their rooms to get ready for the party while Ella and her father went to the garden to plant the flowers he picked up from his last destination.

The garden was their sanctuary, which had brought them together when Ella's mother died, and they continued the tradition years after. Eve would often watch them from her window, and her eye would catch the light reflecting off them, and she would feel this ping of jealousy that the most expensive things would not be able to diminish.

The entrance hall was lit with the most extravagant chandelier that Eve had ever seen. Everyone was standing around with drinks in their hands, and there seemed to be a cluster of men collected at one end and a slightly bigger cluster of young women at the other. Few people were dancing, and a few stood staring and judging them. Eve's husband took her hand and directed the three of them to the cluster of women.

"Excuse me, Mr Charming." He said while making his way to the centre of the circle.

"I wanted to introduce you to my wife and daughters, Ella and Anna." He faced Eve, "I met Mr Charming in Paris. I told him that he must visit our small town."

"Well, it is a lovely place. Have you visited the lake yet? If not, my daughter would love to take you there." Eve said while handing him her hand.

"That sounds lovely." He said while kissing her hand. "Please excuse me. I must spend some time with my father's friends too."

The rest of the night, he spent a lot of time talking to Anna. Although she had to pull him away again and again from some other debutante every time she left his side, Eve could see that Anna was on the right path. She could smell the envy of every woman in the room as they stared blindingly at her dress and gasped every time she glided to another location.

At the end of the night, Eve took a breath of success as the Duke's son pulled her to a side as they were leaving.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid I must confess. I am smitten. I would love to get to know more of your daughter Ella.", this put a dagger into her heart, but she kept her smile and the sparkle in her eye intact, not to let him suspect anything.

"You see." He continued. "I have been in town for over a week, and every evening I would go to the market and around, and I am afraid I have been following Ella ever since she caught my eye. I have not been able to forget her. Your husband had been kind enough to bless me. I hope I have yours too." Eve could only nod and leave.

Anna was devastated. It took her nearly two weeks to step out of her room, and she still insisted on wearing black at all meals.

But seeing the Duke's son interact with her husband and Ella, Eve could see the light, that light, elevated. The house shone like the sun, every crystal sparkled, and every candle illuminated. The three of them would spend the evenings in Ella's garden. And watching them, Eve started to understand how to get it herself.

It was the same thing that attracted her to her now-husband, long before she knew of his wealth. That day, the baker caught her stealing a loaf of bread in front of him, and he, a stranger, bought it for her later. That was the first time Eve realized that people could light up the air around them. It was the light that made her fall in love with him. And after a while, she grew certain, that it was that light that pulled Mr Charming.

Maybe she should let Anna know about the light too.

[zoey-wades]

Honeymoon (King Liam x MC)

Rating: M (Drug Use, Substance Abuse, Violence, Self-Inflicted Violence)

Characters: Dark!Liam Rys x Dark!Lyra Frasier (MC) x Dark!Drake Walker

Summary: Fresh out of school and trying to figure things out, Lyra Frasier spends her weekdays going to a job she hates and her weekends in a drug fueled haze. And then she meets golden boy Liam. Lyra soon realizes that the violent underbelly of New York City’s elite may be more than she can handle.

Author’s Note: I haven’t updated this thing since uh......last year? I’m bad at making a writing schedule for myself. I think, the way TRR has been going as a series, I just haven’t had the motivation. But when I separate this world from that one, it helps a bit more. 

Honeymoon Series

ooo. Prologue.

oo1. Honeymoon.

oo2. Midnight City.

--x-- 

oo3. C.R.E.A.M. 

It was bad enough that Liam’s father was ill; he also had to be stubborn as fuck.

Liam winced as his ailing father lifted the shaking glass of whiskey to his lips, determined to keep drinking despite what the doctor and his wife told him about the effects on his body. Liam cleared his throat, earning a single passive glance from his father across the desk. 

“Oh come on,” Constantine groaned, licking the droplets of liquor from his chin, “Not you, too. I don’t need anymore shit about what I do in my free time.” 

Unwilling to take advice from those he deemed inexperienced, Constantine was an unwavering force in a world of deeply complicated decisions. Liam patiently rested his folded hands in his lap, training his expression to convey as much stoicism as he could in the given circumstance.

“You don’t seem to understand that this,” he motioned towards the glass, “is the reason why Sebastian Clark was able to fly under your radar for so long? What would’ve happened if Walker and I hadn’t figured him out? Who knows what he could’ve gotten away with--” 

“That rotten, coked out fucker,” Constantine spat with a wave of the hand, “Good riddance. I didn’t need him poisoning my ranks with his bullshit.” 

“That’s what I’m trying to explain,” Liam leaned forward in his seat, speaking slowly to emphasize his next point, “We don’t know that he hasn’t. And the fact that he was in your ranks for as long as he had should be worrisome. Who knows what else is going on that we don’t know about.”

“My men are loyal to me,” Constantine stated plainly, “One bad apple doesn’t always spoil the lot.”

At the age of 67, he’d been away from the action for quite some time. Evidence of a hard youth decorated his face and body in the form of scars and bones that didn’t quite heal correctly. Liam couldn’t remember a time when his father didn’t look tired. If he hadn’t seen a photo of a young Constantine with his own eyes, he’d believe the man just came into this world with a shock of white hair and bloodshot eyes. His stepmother half-joked that Liam’s older brother, Leo, caused their father to gray prematurely with his gambling and sex addictions.

On the other hand, Leo had to get it from somewhere.

Liam watched his father struggle to take another sip from his glass before averting his gaze to a family photo on his father’s desk. Teenage Justin and Liam sat side-by-side, unsmiling, with neatly pressed suits on in front of their equally serious fathers. Why Constantine kept that particular photo on his desk, Liam never understood. Nothing about it exuded warmth. 

“Did Justin ever talk about a girl around you?” Liam suddenly asked, refocusing on his father who swirled his whiskey in deep thought. 

“A girl?” He repeated in thought, “Once or twice. Usually he was asking advice on how to keep them tamed, you know?” 

Constantine attempted a conspiratorial smile that Liam didn’t reciprocate. 

“Did he mention any specific names?” Liam pressed on, “Or descriptors?” 

Constantine raised a brow and sat the sweating glass on a wooden coaster, “What is this about?”

What was this about? Liam wasn’t entirely sure. There was something about the girl, Lyra, that intrigued him. How was she able to dip in and out of their world so easily without leaving any footprints behind? Who did she know? 

After dropping her off back home the previous afternoon, Liam did some quick research into who she was. Aside from a few high school choir competition press reels, she was an otherwise ordinary woman. 

“Well I...” Liam chose his words carefully, “ran into Justin at the bar, talking to a girl. You know we never really see him with anyone. So I was just curious.”

There was a brief pause between the two men, and the grin returned to Constantine’s face, “A hot piece of ass, huh? Thinking of getting in there?” 

Liam said nothing, but fidgeted with the rings on his fingers. His father wasn’t technically wrong. But god damn if the wording didn’t make him feel like the grossest piece of shit. 

He decided to drop the subject for another time.

“Sorry to push us off topic, Dad,” Liam quickly corrected, “But, back to my original point...how do you know for sure Clark was the only shady one in the group?” 

Constantine considered this, tapping his pen on the wooden desktop, “What reason would I give them to turn their backs on me? I’ve been with these men for well over 30 years, I fed them,” he counted on his fingers, “clothed them, put their kids through school, made them dukes in their own respects. They made their names on my back, and they think they’re gonna fuck me over!” 

The sudden exclamation caused the man to cough violently into his arm and then into a handkerchief. Liam instinctively jumped to his feet, and rushed across the room to fetch a glass of water for his father. 

“I’m fine!” Constantine croaked, attempting to catch his breath, “I just got a bit overexcited.” 

Despite his protests, Constantine took the glass and sipped from it slowly. It hurt Liam to see his father deteriorating so quickly. A part of him felt like Constantine believed himself to be invincible. A smaller part of Liam felt like his father was simply just giving up. He had to put on an air of confidence, as he was at the top of the pyramid and could not show weakness. But as he grew older, cracks in the foundation began to form. Cracks that Liam had been working to seal. 

Liam loved his father. There was no doubt about that. But every day the work grew more difficult. Liam could almost envision the empire crumbling at his father’s feet, all because he was too stubborn to fix the loose bricks. 

As if reading his mind, Constantine sat the glass down and looked over his son, “You do know that I love you, right, kiddo?” 

There was a faraway look in his eyes, a look Liam saw once in a while. And he always wondered where Constantine went when that happened. 

“Yeah, I know, dad.”

Sadness darkened his father’s features, “Despite the issues that your mother and I had,” he cleared his throat, “I did love her. And I think you were the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m always going to be proud of you.” 

A pit formed in Liam’s stomach and he reached across to grab his father’s hand, “Hey, what are you not telling me?” 

And just like that, Constantine switched the darkness off, a confident grin returning to his face. It didn’t reach his eyes. 

“A man can’t tell his kid he appreciates him, anymore? Lighten up, Liam.” 

--x--

Liam sat in the garage of his apartment building to smoke and attempt at shuffling through his thoughts. Maybe it was counterproductive. An hour after leaving Constantine’s office, Liam learned of another potential fuck up in his father’s ranks. Someone was making trade deals on the low, and informing a rival company of some arms delivery pick up spots before they arrived for a cut of the profit. He passed the message along to Drake, who responded with the same concerns regarding Constantine’s failing leadership. 

Liam was only one man. Though he was sure he didn’t feel an ounce of the pressure his father did, the stress he felt nearly crippled him sometimes. He briefly allowed his mind to wander to Lyra and what she was doing. Did she know how much he envied her life? She didn’t answer to anyone, she could leave the city if she wanted to, she never had to constantly look over her shoulder. Lyra carried herself with the air of freedom he could only dream about. Clutching his phone in tatted knuckles, he almost considered texting her. But truly, what would he even say? 

“Hey, I know we only spoke once and you gave me your number because you wanted to pay me back for the gas (which you still don’t have to do). But what does freedom feel like?” 

Right now, Liam imagined she was laying across the secondhand sofa in some old college sweatshirt, watching YouTube, her mind a thousand miles away from him. He’d never even seen her apartment. But he had a feeling she had a lot of plants and a collection of decorated whiskey bottles on her kitchen counter. She seemed like the type. He caught himself chuckling at the thought and frowned. Ideally, he’d just let her go. He could never bring her into this world, she was too good for it. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he could grow to like her. 

The shrill ring of his phone cut through his thoughts, sharply pulling him from a moment of escapism he didn’t even know he needed. 

“Hello?” Liam answered, attempting to mask his disappointment. 

“Idon’tknowwhathappened! Idon’tknow!” A shrill voice cried on the other end between sobs. Liam pulled the phone from his face, and realized it was his father’s assistant, Penelope, calling from an unknown number. Alarm bells went off in Liam’s head, and he turned the ignition in his car. 

“Pen, what happened?” He asked, sitting up in his seat. 

“I just came in and he was....! I don’t know what happened, Liam! I was gone for an hour!”

“What. Happened?” Liam asked, again. His heart began to thud in his ears, and he gripped the steering wheel, “Just fucking tell me. Spit it out-”

“Constantine shot himself!”

[i-writeandread-blog]

Wonderland - Chapter 11

I’m on a roll tonight... maybe even 3 chapters if we are so lucky. Anyway authors note - going forward for a few chapters there will be talk of drug use and the like. This may be upsetting to some, so please proceed with caution.

I had a really long night at the hospital. I saw Gemma's mom Paula only once and all she could tell me is they were taking Gem to surgery. That was hours ago. I had long forgotten what patience was and paced up and down the hall a few hundred times.

Gemma was a friend whom I had seen battle her share of demons over the past seven years. She came into my life during a time when we were all experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Her situation made her experimentation a little more severe. Her stepfather had been having an affair and the woman he was seeing held her and her mother at gunpoint for reasons none of us will ever know. She had her man, what more could she have wanted?

At any rate Gemma had been through some tough shit and when we had all decided drugs were overrated she had just kept spiraling deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.

We had a strong group of friends that no matter what we always got together every weekend and hung out. Nicky was handsome and the life of the party so when he and Gemma started seeing each other it wasn't a surprise to any of us. I had had a crush on him but he was much more suited for her than me.

Nicky also had his share of trouble. When he was a baby his mother used smuggled drugs in his diaper from South America to North Carolina. One time a boyfriend of hers thought it'd be funny to prick him with a used heroin needle. He was sent to live with his grandparents at the age of three.

When we all stopped chasing highs for more suitable adult activities, Gemma and Nicky just continued doing drugs like it was normal. I had reluctantly left her behind for a life in tinsel town and I was regretting it more and more by the minute.

I stopped pacing and made my way back to the waiting area and saw a text from Jared. I had responded immediately but he hadn't responded back. I was beginning to wonder if he had changed his mind about coming. That would be okay although I really needed a good distraction.  At that moment I heard a cough or rather a clearing of the throat, I looked up to see the man I was so very much in love with.  I darted out of my seat and into his arms.

"Jared, thank God.  I need you to stop me from panicking."

"It's okay, I'm here now.  Shhh."  He said as he rubbed my hair and allowed me to nuzzle into his chest.

He suggested I get something to eat and a cup of coffee, I agreed.  We made our way downstairs to a cafe near the emergency room and he ordered our food.  To my surprise he also ordered a cup of coffee for himself.

"Rough night Jared?"

"Yeah I didn't get any sleep.  I don't imagine you did either?"

"No.  I can't sleep until I know something.  I saw Gem's mom earlier, but no news yet.  My friends Darlene and Heather are on their way.  They needed help with gas money to get here.  Silver Lake is 100 miles away.  The rest of our friends are probably coming too, but I haven't heard... sorry I'm rambling."

"It's okay.  So what exactly happened, do you know?"

I told him that they had been in a car accident but the details were unknown, except that Nicky died on impact. Then I told him about their sordid past and how drugs and alcohol probably played a part.  I weeped into my hands explaining to him how I felt like I could have prevented it if I had only stayed here and tried to convince her to get clean.

"Ali, there's no way to know that and besides, you're not they're keeper.  I had to learn that a long time ago with Shannon.  They seek help when they're ready.  Forcing them into sobriety only makes them angry and less likely to be successful."

He was right.  I had this mother hen persona and if I had inserted myself I may have pushed her away.  I finished my sandwich after he insisted I eat every bite and we started making our way back to the waiting area.  A few people stopped and stared at Jared while we waited for the elevators, but just as he was about to ask them for privacy or whatever else would be appropriate the doors opened.  Paula was inside.

"There you are dear!" Paula said as she grabbed my arm and tugged me forward.

"Is she out of surgery Mama Tate?"

"She is, the nurse came to tell me 5 minutes ago. She said the doctor would be out soon to let us know how it went.  I couldn't hear the news if it were bad, by myself."  She said as she looked Jared up and down and smiled in recognition.

"That's that actor guy... ya know the one, right. Am I right?" She said in a whisper.

"Yeah I think so Mama Tate.  You should ask for his autograph." I smirked and whispered back.

I noticed Jareds lips form a small smile, and he extended his hand to her.

"Hi, Mrs. Tate, I'm Jared Leto. Nice to meet you."

"What are you doing here at Duke Hospital?"

"Mama Tate, he's with me."

Her eyes got big as saucers and she shook her head.

"This is what you brought back from Hollywood?  I figured I'd get a snow globe or a shot glass.  But he'll do." She said jokingly.

She was in good spirits knowing her daughter made it through surgery and I was hoping that the news wouldn't be bad. If it were I know we'd both be inconsolable.

The doors to the elevator opened on the 5th floor and we stepped out into the unknown. Would Gemma be in a coma? Would she be a vegetable as they say? Would she know who we were? Or would she be bright eyed and bushy tailed awaiting us to see her?

"Oh no!"

"What is it dear?" Paula asked, as Jared became stiff next to me.

"Does... does... she..." I couldn't get the words out.

"I'm not sure, if she knows about Nicky. I'd imagine not." Paula hugged me and we both broke down in a fit of tears.

Poor Jared didn't know what to do. He just leaned against the wall while we had our moment of grieving. No matter what the drugs had turned them into, they were still two very beautiful souls just trying to find their way. They deserved a chance at happiness. Marriage, babies, growing old together. These are things Nicky will never know and it was overwhelming to acknowledge that.

I reached out for Jared's hand which he immediately responded by grabbing mine with a gentle squeeze. The electricity was still there every time I touched him and I wondered if it would ever go away. The minute he entwined our fingers together I knew it was going to be okay. As long as I had him there with me.

"Mama Tate, can I have a minute with Jared, if you don't mind?" She nodded and stepped away.

"Jared, I don't understand us. We have only..."

"Don't worry about that right now."

"No let me finish... just listen, please. I know how I feel about you. I expressed it back at Camp a couple of weeks ago. I've had years of admiration for you. Years of watching your movies, years of being a devoted Echelon. As time went on I actually fell in love with you. I knew you would be exactly who I thought you were when I would fantasize about you, but what I can't wrap my brain around is how you came into my life and so quickly every dream I had ever had would start to be realized. It's beyond too good to be true. It's almost as if this is just a dream, albeit one ripe with its share of nightmare. Anyway, the point is... you don't have to be here. I can't be the only girl you've had a connection with in the last 17 years, but I can't imagine you would have dropped everything to be with them during a time like this. As much as I do need you, I wonder if I won't end up hurt here. Your life is so full and when exactly will the ball drop and you realize this isn't the life you desire?”

Jared listened as I had asked and then carefully and calculatingly he responded, "Ali, I told you how I'm drawn to you. I don't understand it myself, but what I do know is that we are like magnets. I'm drawn to you just as you are to me. When I saw you in June, then again in August, I watched you. The way you would run your fingers through your hair, or smile at something someone was saying. I saw you that night you took a walk with one of your friends all by yourselves on the trail. It was funny watching the two of you get spooked at the deer running in the woods. I wanted to make my presence known but you weren't alone and it wasn't the right time. At first I thought it was because you were strikingly beautiful and we all know I'm a horny son of a bitch, but I couldn't stop looking for you in the crowds. I knew I needed to know why. The reason Ali, I truly think is that we are meant to be exactly here in this moment together. So what if it's happening fast? So what if people don't understand? Hell, so what if we don't understand? Let's just see how this plays out? Because I may not have dropped my life for others, but Ali, you're not other girls. Okay?"

I closed my eyes and listened to his every word. When he was done, I felt his lips on mine. My eyes opened wide as I looked around to see if there was anyone there watching us.

"Jared, what if people see you here? I mean they already have. Don't lie and say you don't care."

"Ali, I really really don't care. I have nothing to hide. Do you? Are you ashamed of me Alice LeFaye Foster?" He laughed.

"HOW do you know my middle name, Jared?"

"I saw it on the hospital papers."

"This is so embarrassing!"

"Not really, I think it's beautiful. What you should be embarrassed of is that your initials spell Alf. Maybe you're an alien?"

We both were laughing hard and forgot for a moment where we were. It was blissful to have this time with him. Reality came back when we noticed the doctor come out into the hall.

We walked a little closer to Paula but stayed back a few feet.  The doctor began explaining the severity of Gemma's wounds and I knew Paula wanted me closer.  She wrapped her arms around mine tightly and we listened.

"Gemma suffered a head wound and has a concussion.  When she was brought in our main concern was internal bleeding and the head wound.  We opened her up and it was clear that her spleen would need to be removed.  We scanned her brain and noticed nothing of concern.  Her head was sutured.  She has a broken arm, a shattered pelvis, and a broken ankle.  We had to continue surgically to set her bones and are hoping they will heal without the need for additional surgeries.  Unfortunately we can't tell how long it will be before she is able to walk again.  We are again hopeful she will recover and be on her feet very soon.  I have to tell you Mrs. Tate, an accident as badly as the one she was in, well she's very very lucky.  You should be proud of how strong she is.  She's a fighter."

All three of us blew out the air we were holding.  This was good news.  The doctor told Paula she would be able to see her in a few hours, but only family at this time.  He also told us that she wasn't aware of Nicky's death and that none of us should tell her until she was released which could be weeks.  We all agreed.

Darlene and Heather showed up about ten minutes later and texted to find out where I was.  Jared wanted to meet them, but I wasn't ready to share him with anyone else.  He stepped away to book us a hotel room for the night.  In sweet Jared fashion he booked them a room too.  I explained Gemma's situation and we all agreed to leave the hospital for the night.  Heather and Darlene insisted I ride with them to the Hilton Garden Inn.  I felt bad for Jared because he was left to take a cab, but if he only knew the kind of hell these two would give me if they saw him.  It was better he be kept a secret a little while longer.

As soon as we checked in, I made my escape with the excuse of being extremely tired, which I was.  I entered the room and was immediately attacked by Jared.

@burritoverload @branded-with-a-j @msroxyblog @nikkitasevoli @llfd1977 @snewsome756 @lolainblue @lady-grinning-soul-k @letojokerownsme

[welcometothepenumbra]

JUNO STEEL AND THE TRAIN FROM NOWHERE (PART ONE)

SOUND: DOOR OPENS, BELL RINGS, RAIN.

MUSIC: STARTS.

CONCIERGE: Ah, good evening, Traveler! Welcome to The Penumbra.

SOUND: KEYS JINGLING.

Detective Steel’s been known to keep odd company, but even by his standards his guest this week is… unexpected. On this job he’s agreed to work with Peter Nureyev, the master thief who’s betrayed him once in the past, and about whom Detective Steel holds very, let us say, volatile feelings.

But our detective has no choice, I’m afraid. There’s an even more dangerous criminal on the prowl, a woman with her eye on a very special train, and the ancient weapon that lies within it.

SOUND: THREE KNOCKS. CARDS SHUFFLING, BELL RINGING.

What luck! It sounds like he’s in. Come, Traveler. Come with me into room J-16.

SOUND: DOOR CREAKING OPEN.

Juno Steel and the Train From Nowhere.

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

***

SOUND: WIND BLOWING.

JUNO: We don’t have time for this, Nureyev.

NUREYEV: Hm.

JUNO: You said yourself we’re under the gun. As soon as your boss finds out what we’re up to, we’re sunk.

NUREYEV: Correct.

JUNO: Mind explaining why we’ve been parked in the desert for half an hour, then?

NUREYEV: We’re early.

JUNO: Early for what?

…Ahh, I should’ve known better.

NUREYEV: Than?

JUNO: To trust you. Walking into the same trap twice.

I wouldn’t be here if I had any other options, you get me?

NUREYEV: Oh, I get you, Juno.

JUNO: That’s what scares me.

How about telling me about that thing you just put in the sand over there, then? You starting a little garden out here or something?

NUREYEV: Well, telling you that would ruin the surprise, wouldn’t it?

JUNO: Surprise?! Oh, no. Not this time. I’ve had all the surprises I’m willing to take from you. You think you can show up in my apartment in the middle of the goddamn night and expect me to follow along like nothing happened? I don’t think so. You might’ve gotten your hooks in me once, Nureyev, but if you’re gonna pull this again you take your surprise and shove it right up your—

SOUND: SONIC BOOM.

…Whoa.

NUREYEV: Whoa indeed.

JUNO: What the hell was that? It went by so fast, it- it was like the sky just… blinked.

NUREYEV: That, my dear detective, was a train; and you and I are going to catch it.

MUSIC: STARTS.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The Martian desert is a cold, lonely place. You can look around for miles in every direction and never see a human footprint – never see a single sign that anyone has ever lived on this dusty rock.

My name’s Juno Steel. I’m a private eye, which means people and the footprints they leave are my element. Places like this, empty for miles around… they give me the creeps.

NUREYEV: I do apologize for the theatricality, Juno, but you have to admit, the Utgard Express delivers quite a show.

JUNO (NARRATOR): He wasn’t reassuring me any. Peter Nureyev was his name – one of them, anyway. Back when we met he’d gone by Rex Glass, and within two days he’d stolen a lotta junk from me. A key, a mask, a kiss, and…

Eh, forget it. Not this time. I wasn’t gonna fall for it this time.

NUREYEV: As I think you’ve guessed, the recent thefts of ancient Martian artifacts can all be traced back to one individual. She wants what’s on that train, and she’s paid me to procure it for her – but I am of the opinion that we’re all better off if she never receives it. We must board that train, take the artifact, and destroy it – all before she realizes I’ve left her employ.

JUNO: How long do we have?

NUREYEV: Oh, until… tomorrow, at least.

JUNO: So we plan and execute the heist of the century in one day. Sure, alright. I don’t have any plans.

MUSIC: ENDS.

SOUND: CAR ENGINE STARTS.

NUREYEV: The train runs on a very specific cycle. I know that it slows down once a week, and that is our only opportunity to board it… but why it slows and how we are to approach it even then, I’m uncertain.

JUNO: So if we don’t board it tomorrow, we’ll have to wait a week, and by then your employer will be onto us. Got it. Who is she, anyway?

NUREYEV: You wouldn’t have heard of her.

JUNO: Try me.

NUREYEV: Her name is… Miasma. She has no history in crime before these thefts, and those only began four years ago. She’s really an accomplished—

JUNO: Xenoanthropologist. Taught at Olympus U for fifty years; three lifetime achievement awards for her studies on Ancient Martian culture.

NUREYEV: I see you’ve done your homework.

JUNO: Did some research on the ancient Martians when I got into this mess. You tend to notice a name when it’s on half the articles you read. Big name in a small field, it seems like. When I saw she’d stopped publishing I assumed she was dead, but I guess she picked up a few new hobbies.

NUREYEV: I hear theft and murder are very popular these days. The new golf, they say.

JUNO: So what’s she want on the Utgard Express so badly? If this artifact is that important, wouldn’t they keep it in a vault or something?

NUREYEV: The Utgard Express is a vault – the single most secure vault on Mars. The honest fact is that with enough time and planning there isn’t a vault in the galaxy that a master thief can’t enter, which raises a challenge: how to keep the thief from ever getting to it in the first place.

JUNO: So they put the lockbox on a train and shoot it across Mars at a thousand miles an hour.

NUREYEV: Indeed. Inside that vault are some of the most precious items Mars has ever seen. The most dangerous, too.

JUNO: Dangerous?

NUREYEV: We’re not contending with Martian clothing or furniture anymore, not the junk left out on the curbside of history.

A weapon, detective. The weapon. I know very little about it other than the fact that it was the last weapon the Martians ever made… before they disappeared.

JUNO: The weapon that killed off the Martians… and Miasma wants it. The hell could she want a thing like that for?

NUREYEV: Weapons with that much destructive force are good for one thing only: power. It may masquerade as something else – money, or politics, or ideals – but power of that scope only seems justified if it rests in your hands.

JUNO: Power, maybe; but that doesn’t answer the rest of it… the mask, the key, the throne, the pill…

NUREYEV: (CHUCKLES)

JUNO: What?

NUREYEV: It’s just nice to see you gathering clues again. We make an excellent team, I think.

JUNO: (CLEARS THROAT) That’s all a fun story, Nureyev. But how do I know any of it’s true?

NUREYEV: Oh, you can’t.

JUNO: …Seriously? That’s it?

NUREYEV: There’s no point in dancing around it. I’m your only source; in my industry one is more likely to destroy evidence than to keep it on hand. You’ll just have to trust me.

JUNO: Trust you? That’s a good one.

NUREYEV: It’s not so difficult. As far as you’ve seen, I act solely in my own self-interest. Your only choice is to take my word that working with you is my interest.

JUNO (NARRATOR): I couldn’t tell if he was leaning in or if my tight little car had finally gotten the best of me, but that smell… suddenly I was wrapped up in the smell of his cologne all over again, a smell like the spices of some faraway planet. He had that same smirk on, too, like he’d just thought of some private joke that he didn’t feel the need to share…

Damn it, Steel. Not again. Not this time.

NUREYEV: Regardless, we’ve bigger business to deal with at present – and not much time in which to do it. Tell me, detective: do you like to gamble?

JUNO: I got in the car with you, didn’t I?

NUREYEV: (LAUGHS) Well, I hope you’re willing to push the stakes higher than that. We’re headed to the Oasis Casino Resort – my treat.

JUNO (NARRATOR): By the time we pulled into the Oasis, Nureyev’s plan had already been set in motion. He pointed me towards the parking garage and told me to stop the car.

NUREYEV: We’re pressed for time, so I’m going to ask you to park. I’ll check in and start looking for Engstrom.

JUNO: Engstrom? Like… Brock Engstrom? The jewel thief?!

NUREYEV: Please! Retired jewel thief. These days the only crime Engstrom’s guilty of is charging for his ridiculous “seminars in motivation.”

JUNO: The idea of hanging around at a pickpocket convention doesn’t exactly reassure me, Nureyev.

NUREYEV: I wouldn’t even give Engstrom the honor of calling him a pickpocket anymore. He did all of his best work decades ago, and now that the statute of limitations has run out he’s milked the story for every cred it’s worth… and all while being insufferably smug about it. As though he isn’t the thousandth half-rate cutpurse to think of that.

JUNO: But—

NUREYEV: Oh, and you’ll need these.

SOUND: PAPER RUSTLING.

JUNO: Registration? ID? But I already have my… Hang on, the hell kind of name is ‘Dahlia Rose’?!

NUREYEV: Yours, now. Oh, don’t make that face. Not every name can be as pretty as Juno.

SOUND: CAR DOOR OPENS.

Ta, Dahlia dearest. I’ll see you in room one-one-thirteen.

SOUND: CAR DOOR CLOSES.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The rest of it went just like Nureyev said it would. The paperwork all checked out; even the fake driver’s license he gave me went through their systems without complaint.

SOUND: CROWD CHATTER.

The Oasis was gigantic, a huge green tower in the red, red sands. It took me nearly a half an hour of dodging bookies and drunk tourists to find the room.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS, DOOR OPENS.

JUNO: Hello? …Nureyev? Glass? Whoever the hell you are today?

SOUND: DOOR CLOSES, FOOTSTEPS.

The hell is… (SIGHS) Great. Of course.

SOUND: PAPER RUSTLING.

JUNO (NARRATOR): There was a note by the phone. It read, ‘Off to find Engstrom. Will call. Miss you already. —Duke Rose.’

I knew Nureyev had written it. I’d received a note from him once before which I’d read a few… hundred times. Threw it out the window one day and nearly fell out scrambling to get it back.

The vents coughed up a breeze and a shadow rustled in the corner. I jumped, reached for a gun I didn’t have. Then I saw it was just a coat.

Nureyev’s coat.

SOUND: RUSTLING, CLINKING.

I started through the pockets. a knife; some nuts from the bar; a matchbook from the front desk. Even in the arctic air conditioning, I was sweating. Rex Glass had peeled his skin away to reveal Peter Nureyev, so how did I know Nureyev wouldn’t peel his off to reveal… who?

Christ, he kept a lot of junk in his pockets. A lockpick in a hand mirror. A camera hidden in the button. Bottomless. Endless. Hints of the man, or the mask?

Then, tucked in a hidden pocket inside the left breast, I found them.

SOUND: CRUMPLING PAPER.

Notes. Dozens of them. Crumpled into tiny little balls, diagrams and swirling scripts I’d never seen before. A code. From who?

His boss wanted me dead. How did I know they weren’t still working together? How did I know these weren’t… instructions?

SOUND: PHONE RINGS.

JUNO: (GASPS)

SOUND: BEEP.

What?

NUREYEV (FROM PHONE): Ah, Dahlia, so you found the room after all. Marvelous, marvelous!

JUNO: Yeah, sure. Marvelous.

NUREYEV (FROM PHONE): Well, dear, you can always take a few of the pills the doctor gave you if you’re feeling bloated. I told you about Mr. Engstrom? Well, he says a game has just opened up and I’ll need you down here immediately.

JUNO: You sound like you’ve got it under control. What makes this so important that I’ve got to be there?

NUREYEV (FROM PHONE): You’re my good luck charm, Dahlia. If I could do this without you, I would have left you at home.

JUNO: (GROWLS) Fine. I’m on my way. What room?

NUREYEV (FROM PHONE): Oh, one of Mr. Engstrom’s friends will be by to help you any moment now.

SOUND: KNOCKING.

Ah, that must be her. Don’t keep her waiting. Oh, and do wear that suit I love so much, will you? I hung it in the closet for you.

JUNO: You bought me clothes?!

NUREYEV (FROM PHONE): Don’t say I never get you anything. See you soon!

JUNO: Yeah, yeah, I’m comin’.

SOUND: BEEP. ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

***

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS. MUFFLED VOICES.

VOICE: Mr. Engstrom’s private room is just at the end of this hall.

JUNO: Would you mind not smoking? I got sensitive lungs.

VOICE: Me too. They don’t do so well if I’m not smoking. You learn to live with it, hon.

SOUND: DOOR OPENS.

NUREYEV: Dahlia! There you are!

JUNO: Hi… honey.

ENGSTROM: Thank you, Valencia.

Dahlia Rose. Your husband’s told me so much about you.

SOUND: DOOR CLOSES.

Have a seat, please.

JUNO (NARRATOR): It looked like Engstrom could buy quite the operation. The rings on his wrinkled, shaking fingers were weighed down by gems nearly as big as paperweights and the cigar he smoked must have cost a lot of money, because the stink was awful.

The most impressive part of the ensemble, though, was Engstrom’s ‘friend’ Valencia. She was exactly the kind of bodyguard I didn’t want to deal with because she didn’t look like a bodyguard at all. She looked like a lounge singer, all snaky neck and eyes too far apart.

And she didn’t look armed. That worried me.

ENGSTROM: Valencia, if you would.

VOICE [VALENCIA]: Yes, Mr. Engstrom.

SOUND: CARDS SHUFFLING.

ENGSTROM: The game your husband and I have agreed upon takes some time to prepare, so let’s get to know each other a bit, shall we? Drink?

JUNO: Heavily.

SOUND: LIQUID POURING.

ENGSTROM: Duke was just telling me, Dahlia, that you two lifted the Coveter’s Jewel during its museum tour in the Outer Rim.

JUNO: Sounds like Duke.

NUREYEV: I’m surprised word about the Jewel hasn’t made it to Mars. It was a very big job on the Outer Rim.

ENGSTROM: The Outer Rim is a very small pond, Rose. Your whales hardly rank for minnows here.

NUREYEV: Well, that’s just how we were feeling, Mr. Engstrom! That’s why we thought we ought to sell that rock and use the cash to go after something really exciting. And that’s when we stumbled upon… you know.

ENGSTROM: Plans to stop the Utgard Express. If you don’t mind my asking, Mr. Rose: if you can stop that train, what are you doing here? You should be out there, looting to your heart’s content.

JUNO: I was just wondering the same thing.

NUREYEV: Well, there’s the Utgard security team, isn’t there? If there’s any sign the train has stopped, within sixty seconds we’d be drowning in guards, and that’s not nearly enough time to get what we need.

But you, Mr. Engstrom – I hear you know how to get on that train without alerting security.

ENGSTROM: And so here we are. You can stop the train, but not board it; I can board the train, but can’t leave once I’ve done so. Each of us has information the other needs, but cannot allow the other to learn. This would be an impasse, were it not for our game. The most complicated game in the galaxy, they say.

JUNO: Sounds… fun?

ENGSTROM: A game of wagers where the stakes don’t come in creds, but rather… questions. Information. We call it: Rangian Street Poker.

SOUND: BELL DINGS.

VALENCIA: The game is ready, Mr. Engstrom.

JUNO: That’s the game? There’s got to be a hundred decks on this table!

NUREYEV: Could we talk our way through the first hand? Dahlia gets a little cranky when he feels left out.

ENGSTROM: If you insist.

Your Ask, Rose.

NUREYEV: Very generous of you!

So, Dahlia, one of us asks a question to start the round. Let’s start with. um… How do we get aboard the Utgard Express?

ENGSTROM: (SIGHS) The game’s not ending that quickly.

NUREYEV: Now Mr. Engstrom counters with his own question, and if I agree to it, we play a hand to see which of us gets his question answered. The counter-asker can’t refuse the question; only the asker can turn down the round.

ENGSTROM: Like so: how do I stop the Utgard Express?

NUREYEV: (CHUCKLING) I’ll pass, of course.

JUNO: So if he doesn’t like your question, he has to ask something you don’t want to answer.

ENGSTROM: Just so.

Ah, I nearly forgot. One last matter of business: in a game where each player stakes the truth, we must, of course, address the punishment for lying. And so, let us discuss your… collateral.

NUREYEV: We’re just going by Standard Variation rules, aren’t we? If I lie, you kill me; if you lie, I kill you. (LAUGHS) That’s a rule as old as human civilization, Mr. Engstrom. I think I can follow it.

ENGSTROM: How good to know I’m playing with an honest man.

Detective Steel, would you mind passing me my drink?

JUNO: Get it yours– …what did you just call me?

ENGSTROM: Oh, did I let something slip? (CHUCKLES)

NUREYEV: …Hm. I take it the game has changed, then.

ENGSTROM: Not if you’re as honest as you claim to be.

Did you really think I’d clear out my afternoon for a couple of yokels claiming they can stop the Utgard Express? These streets runneth over with people who think they’ve solved that train. Hobbyists and lunatics and liars, the Utgard Express draws them all… and usually to my doorstep.

NUREYEV: Yet you’ve made time for me.

ENGSTROM: Before I play with anyone, I have their name and address on file – the surveillance system in the front lobby takes care of that for me. Thus, should the terms of honesty within our game be violated, I know exactly where to collect my collateral. But you, Rose… we couldn’t find you anywhere. No address, no name; it’s as if you don’t exist. That interests me. I fully believe you know how to stop the Utgard Express, and what’s more, I believe that isn’t even the most valuable secret you hold. But that does still raise the question of your collateral. If I can’t find you when your lies reveal themselves, you’re hardly motivated to tell the truth.

NUREYEV: So you’ll need a life you can take. Someone you can find.

SOUND: SHIFTING IN SEATS.

JUNO: What?

Why’re you two looking at- me…

(UNDER HIS BREATH) Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.

NUREYEV: If I lie you’re going to kill him.

ENGSTROM: We know where to find him. Detective Steel could not be more visible if he were aflame.

NUREYEV: He does know how to get into trouble, doesn’t he. I’ll accept your terms.

JUNO: Anyone gonna check if I’m okay with this? Like, anybody?

ENGSTROM: Well, now that that’s settled, let’s play. It is my turn to ask.

What planet were you born on?

JUNO: Every time. Every goddamn time.

NUREYEV: I’ll counter: how do you have access to the Oasis’s security footage?

ENGSTROM: I accept. Let’s play.

SOUND: BELL DINGS, CARDS SHUFFLING.

JUNO (NARRATOR): I tried to follow the game. I didn’t stand a chance. Their hands shot across the table, flipping cards and shuffling decks. They had a lot to say about—

ENGSTROM: Rapids?

NUREYEV: Concourse.

ENGSTROM: North or South?

NUREYEV: West.

JUNO (NARRATOR): —but it was all gibberish to me until the dust settled, and Nureyev and Engstrom each had a hand of two cards.

ENGSTROM: Reveal.

JUNO (NARRATOR): Engstrom had a pair of aces. Nureyev had a two of clubs and a picture of a goat.

SOUND: BELL DINGS.

NUREYEV: There we are, then.

SOUND: PAPER RIPPING.

JUNO: Didn’t know you were such a sore loser, Rose.

NUREYEV: Nothing to be sore about. The winner always tears his hand, and the Twin Wargoats is one of the best hands in the game. I won.

JUNO: I… I give up.

ENGSTROM: My answer: I pay the Oasis generously for these private rooms. I’m retired; this is the only sport that still entertains me; they want to keep their star customer. So as long as I bring them publicity, the Casino doesn’t care how I choose my opponents.

NUREYEV: Well, ask a boring question, get a boring answer. Your Ask, Engstrom.

ENGSTROM: My Ask… hmm… What is your real name?

JUNO (NARRATOR): If Nureyev was worried, his face didn’t show it. Most of the time he just looked bored, with a half-smile like he was humoring the world, waiting for it to do something worth his attention again.

NUREYEV: How do we get on board the Utgard Express?

ENGSTROM: Very interesting. (CHUCKLES) Pass, of course.

NUREYEV: Of course. Shall we speed things up a bit, Engstrom?

ENGSTROM: I thought you would never ask.

SOUND: BELL DINGS.

JUNO (NARRATOR): Then they really started moving – cards and questions flying across the table. I tried to follow the game. The hands never made sense to me, but there was one thing I could follow well enough:

SOUND: BELL DINGS. PAPER TEARING.

NUREYEV: Your win. I’m Outer Rim, originally. Brahma.

SOUND: BELL DINGS. PAPER TEARING.

NUREYEV: Your win. No military experience.

SOUND: PAPER TEARING, BELL DINGING SEVERAL TIMES.

NUREYEV: Your win. Your win. Your win.

JUNO (NARRATOR): Nureyev was losing. Bad.

He didn’t give in, though. He’d ask his questions; he’d lose; and over and over again they’d return to the same old battleground:

NUREYEV: How do we get onto the Utgard Express?

ENGSTROM: What is your name?

NUREYEV: Pass.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The message was clear and cold as the ice in their drinks: as soon as either of those questions was answered, the game would be over. But what the hell did Engstrom expect to get out of Nureyev’s name?

Valencia stood behind us. Something about her made me nervous. Her boss was winning but her movements were jittery, impatient: she was smoking a cigarette out of one of those long, fancy holders, but she’d chewed the hell out of her end of it.

NUREYEV: I’ll hit the corners.

ENGSTROM: East to West.

JUNO: It’s Valencia, right? Mind getting me something to drink?

VALENCIA: Do I look like a waiter to you, tough guy?

JUNO: I placed an order and you looked like you wanted me to die, so yeah. Scotch, double.

VALENCIA: You can get your own drink. I’m watching the game.

JUNO (NARRATOR): She was watching pretty intently, too, her eyes flicking from card to card, deck to deck. She looked like an expert – which made it funny that she didn’t know the first goddamn thing about it.

SOUND: STRANGE HUM.

It took a second for that thought to sink in. I didn’t know how it got there, and it barely made sense. She’d set the cards up; she was watching like a hawk. But the actual rules? She knew as much about Rangian Street Poker as I did.

SOUND: STRANGE HUM STOPS.

I was sure of it. I just wasn’t sure how I was sure of it.

She bit her cigarette holder hard and glared at me.

VALENCIA: A picture would last longer, you know.

JUNO: Why don’t you sit at the table, anyway? Better view.

VALENCIA: The view is fine from back here.

JUNO: You don’t say? Maybe I’ll join you.

VALENCIA: Mr. Rose, would you mind telling your date to behave himself?

NUREYEV: Yes.

ENGSTROM: Then I’ll do it for you. Mr. Steel, you will leave my assistant alone, or you will wait outside.

JUNO: She started it.

NUREYEV: (LAUGHS) What can I say? Good luck charms come in all forms. Mine came out “petulant detective.”

ENGSTROM: (THUMPS TABLE) He cannot stand back there!

VALENCIA: Move.

JUNO: You move. I like this spot. Right behind my good pal Rose – how you feelin’, Rosey?

NUREYEV: Thoroughly entertained.

JUNO: And besides, your spot isn’t even so special, Valencia. The one thing you’ve got a really good view of is, well, Rose’s hand.

ENGSTROM: (CLEARS THROAT, COUGHS)

NUREYEV: (LAUGHS)

JUNO: Just saying, it’d be too bad if we found out your boss had an unfair edge.

ENGSTROM: Just what are you trying to imply?

JUNO: Oh, did it seem like I was implying something? Then I’ll be blunt: you are cheating. For a card shark you’ve got a pretty bad poker face, Engstrom. The second I stepped between Valencia and Rose here, you looked like you were gonna be sick.

NUREYEV: Very impressive, detective. So, Engstrom? Are you cheating?

ENGSTROM: Is- is that your question?

JUNO: Oh, no. No. No, no more questions. No more cards. And definitely no more of this dumb, dumb, stupid dumb game, either!

ENGSTROM: You’ll never know how to get on board the Utgard Express.

JUNO: Empty threat, Engstrom. We’d never learn a thing about that train playing against a cheater anyway! Let’s go, Rose.

ENGSTROM: I am not cheating!

SOUND: DULL THUMP. PAPERS FLUTTERING.

Valencia! Clean this up!

VALENCIA: Yes, sir.

NUREYEV: Not cheating, you say.

JUNO: You… liar! Y- you said if Rose lies you get to track me down and kill me! Then you just come out with that?!

ENGSTROM: I will not tolerate this, do you hear me? You have no evidence!

JUNO: Evidence?!

NUREYEV: (SIGHS) He’s right, Juno. Have a seat.

JUNO: Have you lost your goddamn mind?

NUREYEV: No, but you appear to have misplaced yours.

JUNO: Alright, that’s it. I’m callin’ a time out!

ENGSTROM: Time out? What sort of game do you think this is?

JUNO: Fine, halftime, seventh-inning stretch, whatever you want to call it. Rose, you’re comin’ with me.

NUREYEV: Excuse me, Engstrom. My private eye is acting up.

ENGSTROM: Put some drops in him, then. He’d better behave himself when you come back!

JUNO: Don’t count on it!

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

***

SOUND: DOOR CLOSES.

NUREYEV: Juno, this display is entirely unprofessional, even for—

JUNO: You want to tell me what the hell all of that was about?

NUREYEV: Well, you see, there’s a weapon, on a train—!

JUNO: You know what I mean! I- I bailed you out ten times in there and you just keep digging yourself deeper!

NUREYEV: I’m having some difficulty following this metaphor, Juno. Am I a sailor or a ditch-digger?

JUNO: Oh, quit joking around.

NUREYEV: Fine. Engstrom has backed himself into a corner, and we are in position to take advantage of that. Or we would be, if we were in there right now.

JUNO: He just admitted to cheating and you want to keep playing Go Fish?

NUREYEV: There are several games being played at that table, Juno, but I’m afraid Go Fish isn’t one of them. I am playing Rangian Street Poker as a distraction from the real game at hand. Your game.

JUNO: I’m playing a game? Didn’t you think I’d need to know about it?

NUREYEV: You do know. You’ve already made the first move.

JUNO: But—

NUREYEV: Engstrom has lied to us, Juno – and after making the punishment for lying absolutely clear!

JUNO: But you said we didn’t have any– evidence…

Ohhhhhhhhhh. You want me to find the evidence.

NUREYEV: Glad you’ve caught up. May we go back now?

JUNO: So that’s it? You play a game while I stop a con artist and save the world.

NUREYEV: I said I needed you.

JUNO: To be your stooge, maybe. It’s not like you’ve got anything on the line. Worst case scenario for you is that this game goes belly-up, and a few days from now I go belly-up, too.

NUREYEV: You’re not still whining about the collateral, are you? My God, you’re a sensitive little thing.

JUNO: You’re betting my life!

NUREYEV: I would never bet your life.

JUNO: Come on, do you seriously think I’m that much of an idiot? If you lose, you’ll make up some other name and it’ll all fall on me. You’re throwing me under again, just like you did with the Kanagawas.

NUREYEV: Like the Kanagawas? Really? You have no idea how much I did to keep the Kanagawas off you, Juno. You have no idea how much I’ve risked already. For you.

If I lose this hand… I’m telling him my name. Do you understand what that means for me?

JUNO: Just because the name’s on your birth certificate doesn’t mean it’s worth anything. You pick up a new name with your groceries every week.

SOUND: FAUCET TURNS, WATER RUNNING.

NUREYEV: A word of advice to the crass detective: it’s not kind to tell someone their gift means nothing to you.

JUNO: Hey, I, I didn’t—

NUREYEV: Of course my name is worth something. I cycle those other names out, but by now I’m skilled enough not to leave a trace with them. But my birth name… links me to things it would be best if everyone forgot.

That name is very nearly my only weakness, and I’m risking it all, here. On you.

JUNO: …First off, I don’t believe you.

NUREYEV: Your denial knows no bounds!

JUNO: I’d call it skepticism, but we’ll agree to disagree. Second, if you are telling the truth, you’re an idiot. You bet your life on me? You barely know me!

NUREYEV: This isn’t about knowing you. It’s about trust. I trusted you, didn’t I? In return for that, I only ask that you trust me. So why not? Just let go, Juno. We could do anything in arms together.

JUNO: Fine. Do I want to trust you? Sure. Hell, I want to trust Engstrom, too, and Valencia, and this whole sorry planet. I want to gather us all up in a big group hug, and kiss, and slobber, and talk about how nice it is that we can all be so honest with each other. It sounds great, sure, whatever. And it also sounds like a good way to get dead.

NUREYEV: Is it? I’m still alive, aren’t I? And I trust you.

JUNO: (SIGHS) I have no idea why you do.

NUREYEV: Oh, I have my reasons. Your eyes—

JUNO: My what?

NUREYEV: Sharpshooter’s eyes, of course. And I trust your mind: a master detective’s. And most of all because I trust your will: stubborn as a child in a supermarket.

JUNO: That all sounds nice, but is it really enough reason to trust someone you barely—

NUREYEV: And, of course, I trust you because I have researched you. Extensively.

JUNO: What?

NUREYEV: Just… an incredible amount of research.

JUNO: Quit it!

NUREYEV: (LAUGHING) That’s the cranky detective I know and… tolerate.

SOUND: KNOCKING.

VALENCIA: (THROUGH THE DOOR) Mr. Engstrom wants you all to know that he’s getting bored. Are you two done kissing in there, or should we call this game right now?

NUREYEV: Thank you, Valencia! Tell Mr. Engstrom we’ll be there in just a moment.

So, detective. Are there any other insecurities I can massage before we return to the game?

JUNO (NARRATOR): I still had the notes I’d taken from his jacket. I felt them burning in my pocket. Just one question, and I’d know. All I had to do was pull them out and ask.

JUNO: No. I’m all set.

NUREYEV: Good. I’m counting on you, you know.

JUNO: If you are, you’re an idiot. A real idiot.

NUREYEV: Well, it’s up to you to prove that either way, isn’t it? Come along. Engstrom is waiting.

ENGSTROM: It’s about time. Is everything under control?

NUREYEV: As controlled as he’ll ever be. My detective gets restless if he isn’t taken for a walk every few hours.

ENGSTROM: While you were away I received an invitation I don’t intend to decline. I can give you twenty minutes more. Enough time for a few hands; a last chance at a few big questions.

NUREYEV: Why do I get the sense you only have one question in mind?

ENGSTROM: Sit. Let’s play.

Now: what is your name?

NUREYEV: (QUIETLY) Juno. I can only hold him off for so long. This is your only opening. Are you ready?

JUNO: (QUIETLY) I’m looking, alright.

NUREYEV: (QUIETLY) Good.

(LOUDER) What is the access code to your personal bank account?

ENGSTROM: (LAUGHING) I see! Quite a defensive maneuver, Rose!

NUREYEV: Pass or play, Engstrom?

ENGSTROM: Pass, of course. I wouldn’t risk my retirement on you. And besides, you know how this game has to end.

JUNO (NARRATOR): I checked Valencia for the usual tells. Nothing. No hand motions; Engstrom wasn’t even looking at her. Whatever they were using, it was nothing I’d ever seen before.

NUREYEV: How do we board the Utgard Express?

ENGSTROM: What is your name?

NUREYEV: Pass.

JUNO (NARRATOR): We were running out of time, and Engstrom wasn’t willing to budge anymore.

ENGSTROM: What is your name?

NUREYEV: Pass.

JUNO (NARRATOR): Not a single hand was played. We were going nowhere, and I couldn’t find anything.

NUREYEV: Juno.

JUNO: I know, I know!

ENGSTROM: What is your name?

NUREYEV: Pass.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The moron had staked his entire life on me. He was about to find out just how big a mistake he’d made.

ENGSTROM: What is your name? Your name, Rose! What is your name!

JUNO (NARRATOR): Until, finally…

ENGSTROM: That’s enough, Rose. I was under the impression that you had either the courage to play or the decency to admit your cowardice. I was wrong on both accounts.

JUNO: Courage? You’re cheating.

ENGSTROM: If you levy these false accusations against me one more time, Mr. Steel!

NUREYEV: I apologize for the detective’s outburst, Mr. Engstrom. Tensions run high in a game like this.

ENGSTROM: Were the game played properly, they might. I’ve taken naps tenser than this travesty. I will give you one final chance, Rose. One last hand. After that, I’m afraid I have other obligations to which I must attend.

NUREYEV: Alright, then.

How do we board the Utgard Express?

JUNO: You’re joking. He’s cheating! He’s gonna cream you!

ENGSTROM: What is your name?

NUREYEV: Play.

SOUND: BELL DINGS.

JUNO: (QUIETLY) You’re pulling this too early! I am not ready!

NUREYEV: (QUIETLY) Our time has run out, I’m afraid. What do you have so far?

JUNO: (QUIETLY) They’re not communicating directly. Best guess is she’s got something on her.

ENGSTROM: Care to share your conversation with the rest of the table?

NUREYEV: Corners!

(QUIETLY) Is it a camera?

JUNO: (QUIETLY) No. No lenses, and both their eyes are organic. No way for the feed to get through.

NUREYEV: (QUIETLY) I don’t want to know what it isn’t, Juno.

JUNO: (QUIETLY) I know, but—

ENGSTROM: And that, my friend, is the game.

NUREYEV: Don’t be ridic– Well.

JUNO (NARRATOR): I had to look at the hands twice to shake the déjà vu. Nureyev had a pair of aces. Engstrom had a two of clubs and a picture of a goat.

ENGSTROM: Heh. I win. A fitting end, I’d say. Now, Rose. Your name.

NUREYEV: Last chance, Juno.

JUNO (NARRATOR): Valencia was clearing the table. I knew she must have the key to Engstrom’s method somewhere on her, but I didn’t know where.

My eyes met hers, and then… I saw it.

SOUND: STRANGE HUM.

It hit me all at once, a picture clearer than thought: her cigarette.

In my head, a diagram. A cutaway of her cigarette: a hidden button by her teeth, shortwave transmitter, Morse Code translation drive. I knew how it was powered, what parts it took to build it. I even heard a few words of an argument they’d had about how it needed to make smoke, about how the chips couldn’t take that kind of heat, about how they’d have to find a way to make it work.

I saw it all. I had no time to think about how I’d seen it.

SOUND: STRANGE HUM STOPS.

VALENCIA: Feeling emotional, Detective? Your nose is bleeding.

JUNO: (SNIFFS) Huh. Thanks for the tip. Mind if I bum a smoke?

VALENCIA: For the last time, hon, I– oof!

SOUND: PUNCH.

ENGSTROM: What the hell do you think you’re doing!

JUNO: Something really, really satisfying.

ENGSTROM: Put down that cigarette!

JUNO: Gladly.

SOUND: SMASH. FEEDBACK WHINE.

ENGSTROM: Ah! Damned feedback!

JUNO: Well, well. Funny blend of tobacco Valencia’s into – you ever heard of a cigarette with a wireless transmitter tucked away inside of it, Rose?

SOUND: FEEDBACK STOPS.

NUREYEV: I’m going to guess that earphone you’ve just pulled out isn’t for listening to the radio, Engstrom.

ENGSTROM: So you caught me in a lie. So what? You still don’t know how to board the Utgard Express.

NUREYEV: No, but you were very, very clear on the consequences for lying, weren’t you.

SOUND: BLADE UNSHEATHING.

Juno, turn away, please. I’m going to stab Mr. Engstrom to death now.

ENGSTROM: Kill me? You’re a fool, Rose. I told you: the Oasis rests on my notoriety. If you kill me, if you hurt their bottom line, you’ll wish you died here.

NUREYEV: Well, Juno? He raises a valid point.

JUNO: He does. But there are worse things we can do than kill him. Said so himself.

ENGSTROM: I’ve been in this business too long for empty threats to faze me.

JUNO: Don’t worry, this one’s full to bursting. I’m betting the Oasis wouldn’t like it if word gets out that their big celebrity’s a cheater. Bad publicity.

NUREYEV: And bad publicity means bad business. How did you put it, Engstrom? “If you hurt their bottom line, you’ll wish you died here?”

ENGSTROM: (GROWLS)

NUREYEV: There is an out, of course.

ENGSTROM: I’ve been after that train for half a century, Rose, and you’re going to rob it out from under me?

NUREYEV: That is the plan, yes.

ENGSTROM: This new generation of thieves hasn’t a scrap of honor. What has crime come to?

NUREYEV: Bigger and better things. Now talk.

ENGSTROM: (SIGHS) As you know, that train moves too quickly to be approached. But a lockbox is useless if one can’t put anything in it or take anything out.

JUNO: So it has to slow down to take any cargo.

ENGSTROM: It slows down once a week to intercept shipments. There’s a site out in the desert. They launch high-speed transport drones which intercept the train and drop their payloads. The next shipment is… tomorrow morning. Five o’clock.

NUREYEV: And where is that launch site?

SOUND: WRITING.

ENGSTROM: Here. The coordinates.

NUREYEV: They had most certainly better be. Wouldn’t want anyone to start asking where you get your cigarettes. Come along, Juno.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

ENGSTROM: You’ll regret crossing me, Rose. Do you hear me? You’ll remember this mistake as long as you live.

SOUND: DOOR OPENS.

NUREYEV: I doubt that. You’ve proven yourself eminently forgettable already. Ta-ta… whoever you are.

SOUND: DOOR CLOSES.

JUNO (NARRATOR): My head was swimming after that game – a panicked little one-armed doggy-paddle, going around and around, sinking with every stroke. We won. I’d created the opening, and Nureyev delivered the killing blow. We won – and we’d even done it with style. But I didn’t feel like a winner. Looking at Nureyev, thinking about those notes in his pocket, thinking about how I still had no idea who he really was… I felt like I’d just traded one con artist for another.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

NUREYEV: Why the long face, detective? We beat him!

JUNO: Don’t remind me.

NUREYEV: Oh, cheer up. You’re alive! That’s better than most people!

JUNO: Most people who work with you?

NUREYEV: No, just most people. What’s gotten into you?

JUNO: Sitting down to a death threat isn’t exactly my idea of a nice afternoon.

NUREYEV: I told you, Juno, that I was never going to let that happen.

JUNO: Because a master criminal is the poster boy for honesty, right.

SOUND: DOOR OPENS, CLOSES.

NUREYEV: If this working relationship is to be at all effective, detective, you’re going to need to at least make an attempt to trust me.

JUNO: Trust you! Why the hell should I?

NUREYEV: I’ve saved your life at least once today.

JUNO: I figured out the cigarette!

NUREYEV: Ah, yes. I’ve been meaning to ask, how did you do that, exactly?

JUNO: Look, I’ve got no reason to trust you, alright? You lied to me. You stole Grim’s Mask from me. Then you swing in out of nowhere on a beam of goddamn starlight and you expect me to just forget everything and not think it’s a little convenient?

NUREYEV: Convenient? Juno, you called me. Through Valles Vicky.

JUNO: I—! You—!

NUREYEV: If it was convenient for anyone, it was me. I have very few allies on Mars and had presented myself with a remarkably risky, not to mention extremely deadly, two-man job. I was running out of time rapidly. And then I get a call about a certain detective, who – what was your phrase? Ah: “swung in on a beam of starlight.” Convenient, certainly. But not all convenience is conspiracy.

JUNO: If you honestly believed that, Nureyev, you’d be dead.

NUREYEV: Think what you like. I have neither the time nor energy to make you believe me.

SOUND: RUSTLING, CLINKING.

JUNO: What are you doing?!

NUREYEV: Ah, this? An ancient maneuver, practiced by all the galaxy’s most powerful men and women. It’s known as ‘getting ready for sleep.’ You should try it. Immediately.

JUNO: I’m not done with you!

NUREYEV: I certainly hope not. Good night.

JUNO: I’m not going to let you gut me in my sleep!

Listen to me, damn it! Let’s see you try to explain these!

SOUND: CRUMPLING PAPER.

NUREYEV: What in the world…?

You took these from my coat pocket, didn’t you?

JUNO: I did. What do they say?

NUREYEV: Juno…

JUNO: Goddammit, what the hell do they say!

NUREYEV: These… are doodles.

JUNO: What?

NUREYEV: Even a master criminal has slow moments where he isn’t plotting to kill innocent private eyes in their sleep. So I doodle. Sometimes they end up in my pockets.

JUNO: Like I buy that!

NUREYEV: This one is a cat.

SOUND: PAPER RUSTLING.

Note the ears, the tail, the six compound eyes. And this…

SOUND: PAPER RUSTLING.

A party. Balloons, dancers, music.

SOUND: PAPER RUSTLING.

This is a star hauler… a design for a more secure safe… a zoo I once saw… a—

JUNO: Yeah, yeah. I got it.

NUREYEV: I put my livelihood in your hands, you know. My invisibility is the most precious thing I have, and I trusted you with it. Why? Because in our work, trust is not optional. I have done the labor of trusting you, and now I ask that you return the same professional courtesy.

JUNO: You must go after some pretty easy marks if you think that’s gonna work on me, Nureyev.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

NUREYEV: Where are you going?

SOUND: DOOR OPENS.

JUNO: Making a damn call. What’s it to you?

NUREYEV: Goodnight, Detective Steel.

SOUND: DOOR CLOSES. FOOTSTEPS. COMMS BEEP.

JUNO: Come on, Rita, pick up, pick up…

RITA (FROM COMMS): Hiiiiiiii!!

JUNO: Rita, I need you to—

RITA (RECORDING): This is the office of the Steel Detective Agency, soon to be called Hard-as-Steel Investigations, or maybe Mista Steel Investigations: The Best Ones There Is, or OOH, OOH, maybe Steel and Rita Detective– NO! Rita and Steel Detective Agency! YES, that’s the one, I GOT IT!

JUNO: Damn it, Rita.

RITA (RECORDING): Aaaaaanyway, the boss ain’t here right now and neither am I, so you should probably call back during our normal business hours, which are– uh-oh.

JUNO (RECORDING): Rita! You’re not messing with the answering machine again, are you?

RITA (RECORDING): Nuh-uh, boss, I wasn’t, I swear!

JUNO (RECORDING): You better not be! I told you I liked that message the way it was!

RITA (RECORDING): But Bosssss, it was sooooo boooooooring, and I just—

SOUND: BEEP.

MUSIC: STARTS.

JUNO: (SIGHS) Rita… Rita, this is Juno. I… I have no idea why I’m calling.

You want to know the truth? I’m not even sure how much I can tell you – or how much trouble I’m gonna get the both of us in trying to tell it.

The stakes are high this time, Rita. This isn’t some argument over stream timetables or cheating wives anymore. This is… everything. Giving this to me, Jesus, what was he thinking?

A guy does that for you, Rita, do you have to trust him back? Even if you aren’t sure you know who he is, even if you aren’t sure you know his real face, his real name… or what he’s really capable of doing to you?

And with this much on the line do I really have a choice?

I want you to close up the office. Take a week off. Take a month, hell. And if you don’t hear from me by then, there’s a safe underneath my desk. I want you to take—

SOUND: BEEP.

COMPUTER VOICE: End of message.

SOUND: COMMS BEEP.

JUNO: She’ll figure it out.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS. DOOR OPENS.

MUSIC: ENDS.

***

SOUND: RAIN & MUSIC.

CONCIERGE: If you’ve enjoyed this tale, please consider supporting The Penumbra on Patreon. You could receive episodes early, read our scripts, and hear commentary by our cast and crew for only a few dollars per episode. Please consider supporting the artists who make this possible. Every dollar helps. You can find that page at patreon.com/thepenumbrapodcast.

We would like to give special thanks to all who support us on Patreon, but especially to Hannah Tsim for her incredibly generous contribution per episode. Thank you, Hannah.

You can also support The Penumbra by liking us on Facebook, following us on Twitter @thepenumbrapod, following us on Tumblr @thepenumbrapodcast, telling your friends about us, telling your friends to tell their friends about us, and especially by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. Every rating, comment, and kind word spreads our stories farther and inspires us to keep creating more and better tales to come.

This tale, Juno Steel and the Train From Nowhere, was told by the following people: Joshua Ilon as Juno Steel, Noah Simes as Peter Nureyev, Emery Westlake as Brock Engstrom, Kristie Norris as Valencia, and Kate Jones as Rita.

On staff at The Penumbra: Kevin Vibert is our lead writer and recording engineer. Sophie Kaner is our director and sound designer. Grahame Turner is our script editor. Original music by Ryan Vibert.

The Penumbra is created and produced by Sophie Kaner and Kevin Vibert.

I’m so sorry you’ve been called away, dear Traveler. We eagerly await your return.

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

[shalebridge-cradle]

The Big Night Chapter 3 (Party Night)

(I just think they’re neat.)

Ugh.

Veronica hides with her head under the covers, unwilling and unable to face the world. She doesn’t have the words to describe how she’s feeling – maybe ‘cold’ or ‘weak’ would do, but it all sort of boils down to a generalized sort of… ‘ugh’.

The only useful thing she’s managed to do today (and calling it ‘useful’ is a stretch) is that she’s managed to turn off her blaring alarm and get some peace for a few minutes.

Shame she can’t do anything about the car horn, currently being used to its fullest extent outside her window.

“Goddammit, Heather,” Veronica groans into her pillow. Her parents should be well and truly up by now – why aren’t they putting their foot down? Why aren’t they going outside and doing something, anything, to let them know they heard her? Of course, the last time either of them demonstrated any sort of courage was when the paperboy broke the window in the front room, and that was five years ago.  

Mercifully, the aria of impatience ceases when Chandler gets tired of laying on the horn. Veronica hears a car door slam, the clicking of heels on asphalt, then concrete. A muted “Veronica!” sounds from outside. It’s a lot nicer than the alternative.

Veronica shuffles over to her bedroom window, still wrapped in the five blankets forming her cocoon, and opens it just a crack.

“Keep going, Heather. I’m staying home.”

Heather doesn’t skip a beat. “Window open. Get out of the way.”

Veronica obeys. One perfectly polished shoe comes flying through the window, the other knocks over Veronica’s desk lamp. After a bit of scraping and scrabbling, Chandler climbs through to examine her girlfriend.

“You look like shit.”

Ah, yes. Heather Chandler, well-known for her bedside manner.

“Aren’t you just the fucking romantic?” Veronica grumbles.

“That’s a compliment.” Is it? “You’re still beautiful. You at your lowest is still miles ahead of everyone else’s. Now…”

An arm on her shoulder, one behind her knees. Veronica squeaks as she’s lifted up off the ground and deposited back in her bed.

“You stay there,” Chandler commands, “I’ll make you soup. Don’t. Move.”

That last part is fine with Veronica – staying upright was overrated, anyway. Provided adjusting the blankets doesn’t count as moving (Christ, she’s freezing), she’s completely content in following Heather’s orders this time.

She snuggles back down into her bed, dozing off again, until she smells the scent of chicken soup placed on her bedside table, and feels a warm weight on her legs.

Okay. The soup, she expected. Not the other part.

With almost all of her remaining energy, Veronica sits up just enough to see what that is. It’s Heather, of course (Veronica should stop being surprised about this), lying down on the end of the bed, keeping Veronica’s calves pinned down.

“What are you doing?”

Heather doesn’t look over. “I’m helping.”

“How?”

“Keeping you in bed.”

There were many ways that could be a problem. Veronica focuses on just the one, though. “You need to get to school.”

“No. You’re sick.”

“Your education is more important.”

“Bullshit. You’re a better use of my time, and you know that.”

Veronica sighs. “That’s sweet, Heather, but I promise you I’m not dying. You can come back after school, and I’ll still be here.”

Chandler groans, but at least she bothers to think about it for a moment. Maybe she’s considering Duke and McNamara – while they certainly won’t be lost without her, Heather always thinks they will be.

“If you do die,” she says, looking pointedly at Veronica, “I’ll be hunting your ghost down for eternity. Got it?”

“Aye-aye, captain.”

Two hands on her shoulders, and Veronica lets herself fall back onto the pillow. Heather presses a kiss against her jaw. Veronica lets her eyes flutter close again.

“Good girl,” she mumbles.

She hears Heather pause at the window, trying to hold in a squeal. “… Just eat your soup before it gets cold.”

 -

 “You sure about this?”

This might be the first time ever that Heather hasn’t wanted Veronica at a party. They’re in Heather’s car, doing some last-minute checks on their makeup, when Heather turns off the lights and asks the question.

“I promise you, Heather,” Veronica just manage, “I’m fine. It looks like it was just… food poisoning, or something.”

At the very least, that’s what she thinks it is. She and her parents were sick as a… well, sick as a dog for three days, then up and about like nothing was ever wrong. As much as Heather worries, Veronica is telling the truth about this.

Besides, she likes parties. Once you got past the social status benchmark to be invited in the first place, they’re great. People laugh with each other, not at each other, and there’s always something wild to talk about in the days to follow. Just avoid the members of the football team who were complete jackasses, and you were golden.

Heather searches Veronica’s face for a sign of dishonesty that isn’t there. “You really sure?”

“Positive.”

Heather frowns, considering, then she leans in.

It’s a slow, languid kiss, Heather’s red velvet lips soft, undemanding. Veronica isn’t sure why this is happening, but she’s eager to reciprocate. While it seems like it could go on forever, Heather pulls back and the moment ends.

“If I get sick in the next few days,” she warns, “I’ll know you’re lying.”

“Maybe you should try again. Y’know, to make sure I’m telling the truth.”

Heather hums. “Tempting, but we’re already late. We need to get in there while we can still be fashionable about it.”

 Unsurprisingly, the place is packed when Veronica and Heather walk in. Whose house is this again? Might be Dan’s, Veronica vaguely remembers, from the Junior State of America. Generally a good host, but not destined for Congress.

She watches the sea of faces turn towards them, and it’s like a switch is flicked – the chatter, previously murmurs that came in waves, rises into a surge of sound as every single person’s decision to come is validated by Heather Chandler’s presence.

Veronica still doesn’t understand why Chandler has so much power, but goddamn does it feel good to be caught in that aura of awe.

Let’s see, who’s here tonight… ugh, Kurt Kelly is, and from the blush on his face, probably drunk already. Dennis, surprising. Some hipster dork, a dude in a trenchcoat, Country Club Kids, yeah, that made sense, but Veronica couldn’t trust herself to have a conversation with them without sarcasm …

Betty?

“So she accepted my bribe,” Heather mutters.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Veronica guesses that McNamara pounced on the chance to do a makeover once again – at the very least, she’s sure Betty wouldn’t have bought that silver dress. The makeup’s subtle, a bit of blush and a touch of eyeshadow, and the glasses were gone. Hopefully she has contacts, Veronica thinks to herself, Betty’s super short-sighted. Maybe that’s why Duke is with her. Being her guide dog that can also hold a conversation.

Just as that thought is about to go further, Veronica almost gets tackled to the floor by flying display of affection.

“You came!” McNamara exclaims as she releases her hold around Veronica’s waist. “You’re alive, and you’re here, and you came!”

“Yes, yes, and yes.  So is Betty, if my eyes don’t deceive me. Your handiwork?”

McNamara grins, an affirmation. “She’s having a lot of fun! She even had Heather’s drinks for her, what with Heather driving and all. It’s a two-drink minimum, Betty said, but that doesn’t mean Heather has to have them herself.”

“And Heather let her?”

“Uh-huh. Besides, it’s Betty first popular kid party. She should celebrate!”

Oh, Christ. Betty’s going all out for this – Veronica’s ninety-nine percent sure her old friend hasn’t even touched alcohol before tonight, then four shots all at once? Good little Betty Finn?

She glances over to Betty’s corner again. She doesn’t look drunk at all. Maybe her tolerance is higher than expected.

“Hm. Maybe I should have your drinks for you, too,” Veronica smirks.

“You know I need at least one to get through this shit,” Chandler shoots back. “Besides, you shouldn’t be having that much. It’ll… slow down your recovery, or something.”

“Whatever, Mom. I won’t drink too much if you don’t. Deal?”

Chandler sighs. “Deal, I guess. Go. Be free. I have to socialize - go spare yourself the agony.”

Veronica’s totally fine with that.

She has a thirst she needs to sate.

 --

 “So, since none of us were stupid enough to drink water out of a pawprint, there had to be another reason. Then I think back – that goth kid was making some pretty vague threats a few weeks ago, mumbling something when we walked past. Maybe that was more than just posturing to the other witch wannabes.”

Betty listens with a polite smile. Before tonight, she hadn’t even considered what type of drunk she was. Well, maybe ‘drunk’ isn’t the right word – she thinks she’s mildly tipsy, nothing more, but ‘Zen Drunk’ had a nice ring to it. She finds she does not care when she really, really should. Anyone could overhear this conversation, and yet Betty cannot bring herself to worry about anyone out of the loop catching on.

Besides, she likes seeing Duke this comfortable. Whenever Betty sees her at school, she always looks as nervous as Betty feels. Now she’s in her element, eyes bright as she goes on about something she’s confident about, and neither of them could be any happier.

Of course, that’s when they get interrupted.

Heather Chandler stands over the two of them, the dim lighting making the glare more intimidating than it has to be.

“I need to speak with you,” she says to Betty, “the designated driver can stay here.”

Duke opens her mouth, about to speak, but Betty cuts her off. “Sure. Where to?”

“Follow me.”

They clamber up the stairs, and Betty has a little time to think. She was sure she saw Veronica earlier. Good to know she was getting over her illness, but Betty can’t help but feel a twinge of hurt that she didn’t come over to chat. Later, she supposes. She’ll track Veronica down before the party’s end.

Chandler leads her to an alcove near the stairs. Again, Betty should be at least slightly concerned that this werewolf (and yes, Duke told her it’s Chandler as well) has her almost up against a wall. Cornered by a predator, not a single care given.

“What do you know about Veronica?”

Betty blinks. “A lot of things, as it happens. Why?”

“I think she’s hiding something from me. It might be a politeness thing, but there’s been something wrong with her lately, and I need to find out what it is.”

Now, Betty’s nowhere near an expert on how popular people conduct things, but this feels like a breach of privacy. Veronica seems to like Chandler, but Betty’s not so sure if it’s really reciprocated. What if Chandler’s trying to get dirt on her for some nefarious purpose? Not that she wouldn’t mind seeing Veronica more, but not at the cost of Veronica’s social life.

“You’ve apparently known her since before either of you could walk,” Chandler goes on, “and like hell I’m gonna ask her parents, I don’t wanna look at her baby pictures or anything…”

Someone, too tall and broad-shouldered to be the topic of conversation, appears at the top of the stairs.

“Heather, there’s -”

“I’m talking. How many drinks did Heather give you for you to forget the one thing you have going for you-”

Too late. Kurt Kelly, Quarterback, wraps his arms around Chandler’s waist. Chandler goes still – not tense, not like she’s afraid (Betty’s pretty sure Heather Chandler knows no fear) - almost like she’s waiting.

“Red,” he begins, full of confidence he shouldn’t have, “red is the color of… passion. ‘S the color of fire, an’… an’ heat, an’ other things that are hot. Red is the sex color, an’ you, Heather Chandler, are all those things. Yeah.” Kurt looks down at her expectantly, a lopsided grin on his face. “You into it yet? Poems are s’posed to work.”

Chandler keeps staring straight ahead. “Betty, is there anyone else behind me right now?”

Betty checks over Kurt’s shoulder, then shakes her head.

Chandler nods in understanding, face blank. Then, she whips around, shoulders hunched over in decidedly unladylike fashion, and her voice is so low and guttural that Betty can barely make out the words.

“FUCK OFF, DEADBEAT!”

Betty doesn’t know what Kurt sees, but from his expression it might have made his heart stop for a second. He forces a pathetic little scream from his mouth as he tears his arms away, before running as fast as his wobbly legs can carry him.

Chandler turns back to Betty, face as perfectly made-up as expected and with a similar air of nonchalance. “Anyway, I don’t want anything to come between us. Is there any huge life-changing secret that Veronica’s hiding from me?”

“I don’t think so,” Betty replies. “Even if I did know something, it’s a secret for a reason. If she thought it’d be a problem, she’d tell you herself.”

Chandler narrows her eyes, but manages not to tear Betty to shreds for that little slight. Then she sighs.

“I just want to do this right.”

Betty raises her eyebrows. “I’m sorry?”

“Being… I won’t say nice. Open with people,” Chandler mutters, almost lost over the voices coming from downstairs, “and since I’m not, Veronica isn’t, I think. I want her to be okay.”

“And you don’t think she is.”

Chandler nods.

Al-righty then.

There are a lot of directions this conversation could go. There’s also the problem of missing context – is this a friend thing, or something else? From this admission, it’s clear Chandler likes Veronica, but does she like-like her?

“I can’t answer those questions for you,” Betty admits, “and if Veronica isn’t telling you, it’s probably personal. She’s kind of private, I’m sure you’ve noticed. Maybe let her know how it makes you feel if it’s causing you that much pain.”

Chandler considers this for a moment, then nods again. “Thank you.”

Betty is uncertain how to feel about getting gratitude from this particular person. Luckily, she doesn’t have to respond – Duke and McNamara are coming up the stairs, walking slowly, carefully. Duke catches Betty’s eye, and Betty can see the relief wash over her.

“Hello Heather, Heather,” Betty begins, and there’s a sharp inhale as all three Heathers are caught in the act, “as you can see, I’m still in one piece. Thanks for checking up on me.”

“Why does everyone think I’m gonna murder someone?” Chandler complains.

“Are you okay?” McNamara asks, “Kurt said your face was all freaky.”

“I am physically perfect at all times, Heather, you know that. We need to find Veronica. We need to talk.”

A gasp. “Are you breaking up? No, wait, are you getting married?!”

“No, of course not. We’re gonna have a heart-to-heart.”

“Emotional vulnerability? You? So you are getting married,” Duke quips.          

“Shut up!” Duke cowers at the sound of Chandler’s snarl, but she’s still got that grin on her face. “We move. Now.”

 -

 Veronica honestly thought she was better. Now she’s not so sure – not that Chandler cares about that distinction. Maybe it’s the heat in the air, the sting of alcohol and the oppressive B.O. whenever some dudebro with no concept of personal hygiene wanders too close. It’s weird, not worrying that Chandler will be mad. Veronica’s more worried she’ll be disappointed – Veronica isn’t sure why Heather doesn’t use that tactic more often, it’s way more devastating than any scream of rage.

The bathroom’s a welcome break, though. Veronica splashes some water on her face, careful to avoid her eyes, and takes a long hard look at herself in the mirror above the sink. She supposes she’s a little pale. Just a little. Hard to tell with the makeup and all. It’s more how she feels, really, sort of… empty…

Her eyes flick to the closed door, just for a moment.

Well. That’s only half-right. Her reflection’s eyes flick to the door, Veronica herself just stared in horror.

Mirror Veronica uses her head to gesture towards the door again, raising her eyebrows in a silent request for Real Veronica to turn around.

… You know what? Fine. This might as well happen. Veronica turns, and it’s only then she notices the faint knocking at the door. With slightly shaking hands, she turns the knob and opens the door a crack.

Round, colored shades and a military jacket. Oh, yeah. Tracey, the, uh, young entrepreneur. Not a person usually seen among the popular kids, but nonetheless provides a service that gets her a place at the table. At least it’s not Heather.

Veronica opens the door all the way. “Sorry, I was just on my way out. Go on in.”

“Um, actually, could you help me for a sec? I don’t have both hands available, but I need to put a bandage on.”

“Sure thing,” Veronica says without thinking, “did Dan tell you where they were?”

“The cloth ones? Yeah.”

Tracey holds out her hand.

Oh.

Oh shit.

 --

 Honestly, Betty expected werewolves to be better at hunting.

It might be because they’re human-shaped, at the moment, sauntering down the corridor like Betty’s seen them do so many times before. Certainly not acting like there’s any urgency, can’t let people know they care about things.

Oh, wait. McNamara has stopped in front over a half-open door, eyes wide.

“I don’t think it’s anything,” she says, like a liar. “Do you smell that?”

All three of her followers sniff the air. Chandler’s brow furrows further, but Duke shakes her head.

“Nothing,” she says, “then again, not the full moon.”

“That’d be a whole other set of problems,” Chandler grumbles.

“It’s… well…”

In the bathtub, with Veronica’s jacket over her like a blanket, lies Tracey, grey and lifeless.

There’s a moment of tense, fearful silence.

“Welp, Tracey’s dead,” Chandler says, suddenly and strangely professional, “Heather, help me hide the body.”

Duke stares, alarmed. The way Heather Chandler says it, a casual tone marred by the quick, snappy way the words come out is jarring.

“This. This is why people think you murdered someone,” Betty deadpans.

Chandler ignores her. “Well? The longer we wait, the more likely someone else finds out. Move.”

McNamara steps up to the plate. Slowly. Eventually.

When Tracey’s body is about six inches off the floor, she groans. McNamara drops her, startled, and suddenly Tracey’s definitely awake and… well? No, Betty decides, that’s a reach – but she’s alive, if somewhat pale.

“Now a lotta things hurt,” she whines.

“Heather, get her a towel,” Chandler commands, “if Tracey leaves the room like this, people are gonna think she’s murdered someone.”

Betty isn’t sure who Chandler is referring to with that last bit.

“What happened?” she asks.

Tracey screws up her face, wiping off the semi-dried blood on her arms. “I remember this part. I was talking to Rachel about this party I went to, where one dude jumped from the balcony into the pool, and when I said it, I did-” she mimes slamming down, hitting her bandaged palm down onto the edge of the tub, and just manages to stop herself from screaming in pain. “There was a shot glass there. It broke when I slammed my hand onto the table.”

“Why do you have to be so violent when you tell stories?” Duke queries.

“I just get really into them, okay?! Anyway, Dan said there were bandages in the upstairs bathroom, so I went up, and Veronica was in there.”

“And she helped you.” Chandler doesn’t phrase it like a question. To be fair, it’s probably a given.

“No, she was acting all freaky. When she saw my hand, her eyes just…” Tracey places two fists on either side of her face, then spreads her fingers wide with a little ‘pchoo’ noise.

“Her eyes exploded?!”

“No! The black part, they got all wide all of a sudden. Then… I dunno. Can’t remember.”

That’s the second least encouraging thing that could possibly be said. The first would be that Veronica did something terrible to Tracey, and that she did remember. Ignorance is bliss.

“Okay,” Chandler responds after a moment, “leave, then.”

“…This room?”

“No, the state. Yes, I mean this room. Go. Git.”

Tracey looks pleadingly at Betty, hoping for someone to explain… pretty much everything at this point. But Betty doesn’t know where this is going, either, so she shrugs, and Tracey stumbles out without another word.

Silence, again.

Betty examines the three Heathers. Duke looks like she’s trying to figure something out, McNamara hasn’t had any idea what’s going on since they got into the bathroom, and Betty’s never seen Chandler look so devastated.

“So,” Duke says slowly, “vampire.”

“Vampire,” Betty echoes. Werewolves existed, she knew that. It’d be narrow-minded to presume there weren’t other supernatural creatures as well.

…How did she come to that conclusion so quickly? ‘Oh, well, my best friend’s a vampire now, I guess’ shouldn’t be Betty’s first thought on the matter, and certainly not the last.

“How?” she adds, weakly.

“Well, that depends. Has she rejected the Orthodox faith lately? Apparently that’s a trigger.”

Chandler breaks out of her funk long enough to snap, “Ninety percent of world would be vampires if that were right, Heather. Pick a reason that isn’t mind-numbingly dumb.”

“Let me think…” Duke pauses, the counts out the reasons on her hand. “Practiced sorcery, born out of wedlock, pretty much anything jumping over her open grave, eating the meat of a sheep killed by a wolf, or being a natural redhead. Any of those work for you?”

Chandler touches her hair for a moment, then shakes her head. “No. Doesn’t change my plan, really. I still have to find her, to get answers. Heather?”

McNamara perks up.  Chandler grabs the jacket, throws it a lot more gently than the last time Betty saw her do so.

“Track her.”

“What?”

Chandler sighs. “Like those bloodhounds do in cop shows. You’ve got the best nose, and time is short.”

McNamara stares.

“Sniff it, then see if you can follow the smell,” Duke explains.

“I know that part. It just feels weird. Sniffing people’s clothes. It feels wrong.”

“It’s fine if you do it for a good cause,” Betty reasons, “this is a good cause, isn’t it?”

McNamara thinks for a moment, then nods. “This a good thing. I’m good, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you’re a very good girl. Now, off you go.”

Why are they looking at her like that?

  -

 Okay.

That explains a lot.

Yeah, it’s kind of out-there as an answer, but Veronica should have never been skeptical about it. She knows there are stranger things than this out there.

Oh, fuck her sideways. What’s gonna happen to that relationship now? Don’t werewolves have this thing going on with vampires? Are they gonna hate each other now because of instinctual speciesism?

Veronica groans. She has to hide, let everything calm down a little before she jumps that hurdle. She knows Tracey was still alive when she left, but she’ll have to go back at some point to get her coat. Not now, though.

Veronica tests the handle on the first door she finds. Open. She presses her ear to the door. No noise from inside.

She opens the door. Some sort of guest bedroom, bereft of any signs of life (though someone has been in here before, the sheets are all fucked up). Bonus, some sort of closet on the far side. Perfect.

Well, if she’s… like this, now, maybe she can hide a little better.

Veronica closes her eyes, concentrates for just a moment - oh fuck this is the wrong choice -

No, no it’s fine (it’s not, none of it is, but she needs to focus more than ever). If – if she just gets on the ceiling, all of her on the ceiling…

How the fuck does this work?

 --

 Apparently, the trail leaves to what looks like a guest bedroom – at least, if the complete lack of character is any indication. The only sign the place has been used at all are the bedsheets, all twisted, hanging off the edge of the mattress like a rope. Betty wonders which one of the former occupants was trying to escape.

McNamara does a quick sweep of the room, checking under the bed, behind the curtains, in the closet.

“Not here.”

“She was in here, though. You smell her.”

McNamara nods. “She isn’t here now, though. Now it’s just bats.”

Duke stiffens.

“Bats.” Chandler repeats.

“Yep. In the closet. Bats.”

“Plural?”

“That’s why she added the ‘s’ at the end, yeah,” Duke mutters. Chandler opens her mouth, but slowly closes it again, waiting.

McNamara opens the closet door again, and points.

…Yeah, those are bats. Hundreds of the little guys, hanging off the walls, on the ceiling, chilling on the empty clothes hangers. A thousand beady black eyes watch them intently, fearfully.

“I mean, it makes sense,” Duke murmurs beside her, “conservation of mass, and all. It’s either this, or one huge bat, and that’d be worse.”

McNamara considers it for a moment, then nods. “Yeah, that’d be scary. These are cute.” She pauses. “Wait, what?”

“It’s Veronica,” Chandler says, voice hollow. Betty almost feels bad for her.

“…No, don’t like it. Too many eyes. How do we put her back together?”

“How do we get her out without anyone noticing?” Duke adds.

Both good questions. Even the heavily inebriated knew a colony of chiroptera don’t belong in some dude’s guest room. Maybe - they’re small enough that a few could go in a handbag, maybe if they take a few trips they could get her to the car… but what happens if Veronica wants to go back to normal, and half of her is outside and the other half’s in here?

Ever so slowly, Chandler reaches out and gingerly pries one of the bats off the closet wall and holds it in her palm. It gives a timid squeak, barely audible.

Chandler stares.

Then, with one careful finger, she gently pats it on the head.

Betty lets out a soft ‘oh!’ at the same time the bat squeaks in surprise.

“You’re still cute. Just in a different way,” Chandler murmurs to it, then looks up, eyes sharp. “The pillowcases. Take them off, we’ll use those.”

So many questions answered in so little time. Veronica has terrible taste in women.

Betty jumps into action – for Veronica’s sake.

 -

 Veronica comes to consciousness tucked up in a bed. Two eyes. Hands. Legs.

Something’s on her legs. That’s fine. That means they’re there.

“Heather?”

Chandler’s voice is soft, and sounds like it’s from her usual position. “Yeah?”

“Am I in your house, or Dan’s?”

“Mine. That’s what we agreed to. Heather and Heather took Betty home. They’re safe.”

Okay. That’s good. It’s all okay. Heather’s here, and everyone’s where they’re supposed to be.

“Heather, I think I had too much last night.”

Heather makes a noise Veronica’s tired mind can’t describe. It sounds nervous.

“I think… I dunno, maybe someone slipped something into my drink. I imagined some weird shit. I didn’t do anything stupid, did I?”

“…No. We… we, uh, smuggled you out of there.”

Oh. Wow. Heather Chandler, stumbling over her words. Has that ever happened before?

Veronica swings herself up, opening her eyes and regretting it when the sunlight stings her face. Heather is watching her, fidgeting with the hem of her robe.

“Veronica, I know a lot of things happened last night. Some life… life? Yeah, life-changing stuff got shoved your way. I just want you to know I still love you, and I’ll be here no matter what you are.” She goes to take both of Veronica’s hands, but decides against it after getting a glance at the left one. “No, that-that’s fine. This is fine, you’re fine.”

Veronica follows the gaze down, to the limb that Chandler’s lying about. Well, where the hand should be, anyway. Like, some of it’s there, but two of her fingers and part of her palm are just… not. There’s just a little bit of black fog keeping Veronica from seeing the inside of her hand.

Huh. So it wasn’t a bad trip. That’s a shame.

…

……

………

WHAT IN THE FLIPPITY FLAPPITY FUCK IS GOING ON WHY CAN THE TURN INTO MULTIPLE ANIMALS DOES TEN PERCENT OF HER HAVE RABIES NOW IS SHE DEAD OR UNDEAD OR WHATEVER WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN TO HER AND –

Heather grabs something off the end of the bed, shakes it. Something falls out, and she grabs it and shoves it onto Veronica’s hand. The missing digits return to their rightful place.

“I missed one,” she pants, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, it’s just they’re very small, I thought it was a crease in the pillowcase-”

Veronica cuts her off with a wordless, questioning scream.

“Yeah. Yeah, I feel that. Few questions – you can nod or shake your head if you can’t talk. Okay?”

Veronica needs a second to rein in her panic, but manages to nod.

“Okay. Thank you.” Heather clears her throat. “Are you a natural redhead?”

What? Heather knows that isn’t true, though it makes Veronica forget about her existential crisis for a moment. She shakes her head.

“And you haven’t been in a grave… were your parents married when they had you?”

Veronica nods.

“Do you feel particularly strongly about the Orthodox church?”

Shakes her head.

“Are you a sorcerer?”

“Where are you going with this, Heather?”

“We’re doing some diagnosing,” Heather explains. “Are you, though?”

“No.”

“Okay, I think this is that last one… have you eaten sheep recently?”

Veronica thinks for a moment. “We did have some lamb pâté about a week ago. It’s usually made of beef, and Mom wanted something different, but not too different. I think that’s what gave us…”

Ohhhhh. She gets it now.

Heather sets her jaw.

“The pâté,” she growls. The way that sentence is said almost demands “my mortal enemy” be tacked onto the end.

“It’s bullshit, but it makes the most sense of the options you gave me.”

“You should sue.”

“What? For vampirism? Don’t think that’ll hold up in a court of law.”

Chandler scowls, but submits to Veronica’s superior logic. Then, her face goes blank.

“Veronica?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you hate me?”

This has been a rollercoaster of a morning. It goes from calm, to panic, to jokes, to this – and Heather Chandler has looked so very worried this whole time. It’s not a face she should wear, in Veronica’s opinion.

“Of course not,” she coos, reaching out to take Heather’s hand (Heather lets it happen). “I still feel the same way about you, I promise. Do you hate me?”

“No!”

“Then it’s all okay. Well… no. Everything’s okay between us. I still have a lot to figure out about everything else.”

“I’ll help with that.”

Veronica smiles. “Thanks, Heather. For everything.”

“Expect nothing less than perfection from me. C’mere, Countess Chocula.”

Veronica lets herself be pulled forward into Heather’s arms, relaxing into the touch. The nickname would definitely need to go sooner rather than later, but they’re gonna take this whole thing slow.

One night at a time, and they’ll figure it out.

[ghoulishpencil]

Mr. Spencer laughed before he started to wheeze, unable to catch his breath. Cassian scrambled to his feet, snatching a glass he found and running to find water. When he returned, Mr. Spencer’s fit had calmed down somewhat, but he still took the water gratefully, drinking it down while Cassian held the pipe. He looked at it curiously, the bowl of it warm like some living thing, tempted to try it out himself. Before he could muster up the courage, it was taken back, the empty glass set aside. 

“Go put that kettle on and I’ll tell you everything I know about the castle.” 

When Cassian returned with two steaming mugs of tea and a tray of biscuits, Mr. Spencer was stuffing his pipe again, grumbling under his breath. At his questioning look, the old man just held out the pipe for it to be relit. “Got the goddamn thing damp.”

“Sorry about that.” He turned over the lit pipe and held his tea, warming his hands. He waited for Mr. Spencer to take a long slow drag of the pipe, holding the smoke until it began to trickle from his nose. “So, the castle. This was a grand duchy?”

“Aye, it was.” Mr. Spencer sipped at his tea, smacking his lips. “You Brits sure know your tea lass. Fine good cup.” Cassian didn’t have the heart to tell him he’d made it exceptionally weak for the older man. “Now, the castle. It was owned be the Grand Duke himself. Lucaulona I think it was. Something gaudy like that. He had a square two, three hundred miles he saw to himself before the bigger and better nations started nibbling away. Eventually he was a grand duke only in title, left to the poor bastards like some sort of bone you’d toss a broken dog.” 

Cassian couldn’t say he disliked that all too much. “Well, if the man was a duke, grand duke sorry, in name only, how could he afford that castle and staff?”

“That’s just the thing. We don’t know. Some people reckon the last Grand Duke made a deal with the fae to keep the gold mines in the mountains flowing. But one day that dried up, and then poof! They disappeared. Reckon that place is full of ghosts now.” 

“Ghosts and fae, huh?” Fairy tales, Cassian reckoned. “Stories to keep the kids in line I suppose. Does it work?” 

Mr. Spencer leaned forward, tapping his pipe on his knee. “Don’t you go saying that sort of thing around some of the old folks here. They still leave out their first cream for the fairy folk and their like. Scientific progress is all well and good until it gets broken up by magic.” 

Ah, so he believed everything he was saying. Cassian could help but grimace, though — perhaps there was a nugget of truth there. Whatever was keeping Navia citizens doing what they do every day, regardless of season, this time anomaly — might be coming from the castle. It’d be the perfect hiding spot. 

And, as he left Mr. Spencer with an extra pot of extraordinarily weak tea to tide him over until supper, Cassian realized whatever it was holding psychic control over the citizens might cause hallucinations. Hauntings, like people who didn’t realize they were breathing in poison and thought they heard footsteps from people that weren’t there. Maybe something cultivated from the abandoned mines? 

But it didn’t explain the moon. Cassian looked up reflexively, squinting against the sun. How could he explain a phenomena of nature away with gas?