#i took the sleeve from my dirk shirt and made this for her

[skeletalwordsmith]

HOMESTUCK CAT HOMESTUCK CAT

[adsosfraser]

The Stone’s Toll - Chapter Eight

Read on AO3

“Tante Jenny! There is a rider near the gate!” Fergus shouted through the front doorway and sprinted away.

His dirk was poised in his grasp, ready to protect against any danger. The mule sauntered through the archway and snorted when its rider pulled against the reins to stop. 

 Claire slid off the horse and slammed into Fergus almost immediately. She gathered his body up against hers into a hug and rested her chin over the small curls that were growing even longer than before atop his head. 

“M-milady?” He stared, dumbfounded at the sight. 

 “Oh my Fergus, I’ve missed you so much my darling boy.” She smoothed the hair at the back of his head. Her tears fell unbidden into the little brown waves and began to soak through his hair like a steady rainfall. Fergus didn’t mind, he was also soaking her dress with his own tears. 

 “You have been restored maman.” He stated, still shocked. It didn’t pass her notice what he called her.

 “I love you mon fils. Let me look at you.” She pulled back slightly from the embrace to hold onto his cheeks with her hands. She brushed the hair that was on his forehead back and noticed the subtle changes of the boy. The bones of his face were slightly more defined and he had lost more of the roundness associated with adolescence. She even spotted two hairs on his upper lip that were darker and thicker than the soft downy hairs of the rest of his face. It would be years until it would fully develop into a beard, but she could tell what a handsome man Fergus would be. He just needed to do some more growing.

 She slowly noticed the pallor of his face and the dark purple and red hues under his eyes. The way the flesh of his bone was practically nonexistent. He clearly wasn’t getting substantial meals these days. She placed the back of her hand against his forehead again and her heart skipped in fear at the blazing temperature of it. 

 “Dear God, Fergus, you're burning up.”

 “Do not worry Milady. It’s only the winter sickness.” 

 There was a bulk inside the sleeve of his shirt and she pulled back the fabric to see Jenny’s attempt to bandage him. A long deep gash split through the skin of his inner arm. The skin around the wound was red and swollen, and she could see the tell tale signs of infection from the puss oozing from the centre.

 “What on earth happened to you Fergus?” 

 “Tis simply a scratch, Milady, dinna fash.” He tried to mimic his Scottish family’s accent, and if Claire’s concern wasn’t in overdrive at the moment, she would have laughed at how cute the boy was. “Milord said I was a brave lad that day. And braw.” He beamed with confidence and pride.

 “I’m sure you were.” She hugged him tight into her side. “Come inside, I need to examine your wound.” 

 “Fergus what stray ha’ ye brought in today? We dinna need more mouths to feed, especially wi’ young Jamie in his sickbed now too.” Jenny called around the corner of the kitchen, fixated on chopping the potatoes for supper. 

 “Auntie, Milady has returned to us.” He beamed, leading her inside on his arm. “I always told you she would.”

 The knife Jenny was holding clattered onto the floor. She crossed herself as all the colour drained from her cheeks. 

 “Blessed Michael defend us.” Her hand clutched at her heart. 

 “Jenny- I.” What words could she possibly say now? “It’s so good seeing you again.” She stared down where Jenny was protectively holding her middle. “A fourth?” 

 “Thank Christ yer here. We dinna have time to waste.” And without a single inquiry over her return, Jenny dragged her up the stairs to the children’s room. 

 The children were all tucked tightly into their beds. Wee Kitty gurgled in her Bassinet. Her small breaths were interrupted by sharp whimpers of pain. Claire’s heart fell at the somber scene before her. 

 “Ian?”

 “That useless, floppy-haired nonce can bide.” 

 “Fergus go fetch some water to boil, and lots of clean cloth. Do we have deer or chicken bone to boil?”

 “Aye.”

 “Great, can you make a broth out of it with whatever vegetables we have? Oh and um-” Her brain paused, racking her memory for the proper words. “Garlic or Rosemary too. They won’t be able to stomach any solid foods for a while, so they’ll need to sip on broth to keep their strength up.” 

 Jenny left for the door but paused near Claire. She squeezed her shoulder. “I dinna ken how yer here, or where ye’ve been these past months, but I am glad to have ye back. Just know I’m going to have some choice words wi’ ye once they all heal.”

 “I’d imagine you would.” Claire smiled brightly and planted a kiss on her cheek. “I missed you too Jenny.”

 Once she had situated the children in the sick room. She brought Fergus along with her to inspect the gash across his arm. 

 “You never did tell me.” 

 “It was a bayonet, from a redcoat. I was holding wee Kitty and they thought she was a sack of grain so they lunged for me. I protected her maman.” He grinned with pride at the memory. 

 “Oh God, Fergus.” She embraced him, careful of his arm. “Though that never should have happened, I’m proud of what you did. My brave boy.” She patted his hair affectionately. “How long ago were they here?”

 “Less than a fortnight maman. A week after they were gone, les enfantés were struck with la petite vérole.” 

 “Those bastards!” They had not only brought fear, pain, and strife into her home- Jenny’s home, she corrected herself, they had brought their disease as well and the threat that carried. 

 She returned her attention to his arm and carefully cleansed it. Jenny had brought alcohol down for her and she told Fergus to be prepared for the sting. He assured her he wasn’t afraid. With the puss and dried blood removed, she carefully poked around the wound. Claire asked if any of it was painful but he immediately gritted out a non. It wasn’t healing on its own and she was concerned. She couldn’t stitch it up with the infection she assumed was waging a war inside it, so all she could do was wrap it in clean cloth every few hours with garlic paste. When Claire went up to the Laird’s room to check on Ian, her breath quickened and her hands became slick with sweat. Ian insisted he didn’t need any coddling and he didn’t want to see his wife up there until he was healthy. Jenny and her worked simultaneously together to heal young Jamie, Maggie, Kitty, their father, and Fergus. They were thankful for the snow to help bring down fever, but also cursed the season for bringing sickness in the first place. Ian sprang back instantly and returned to work on the farm the next morning. Maggie and Kitty were worried for the scars left by the smallpox lesions, but Claire assured them they wouldn’t be terrible. It had spared their faces, and only a small amount of red dots lined their arms. Jamie was proud to add more scars onto his list, and proud to say he fought the monster and won.

 When her nephew and niece's fevers began to break, Fergus took a turn for the worse. She had prayed that the smallpox would pass over him, but it came back with a vengeance. The infection from the bayonet wound and the virus coupled together, left Claire severely worried. 

 She worked tirelessly with Jenny by her side. Never once did she leave Fergus’ room and her sister had begun to worry about her as she simply stared blankly off towards the wall clutching the sickly boy’s hand in hers. Jenny had found her in such a state many times, as if her mind wandered off but she didn’t want to bring it up. When no one was looking, Claire would open the small case of vials and a syringe from her leather travel bag. Fergus didn’t notice the slight pinch of the needle to his rear and grumbled no complaint to her in his delirious state. The Reverend couldn’t smuggle much medicine, most of what he pilfered was what had been discarded behind the hospital in a dumpster. But this small amount of penicillin he had managed, made Claire want to reach out through the veil of time and kiss him in thanks. 

 The infection was healing nicely, but there was still the smallpox coursing through his body. With his body pulled between fighting two foreign enemies, his energy was quickly fading into a weakened state. 

 “Claire, it’s time. We have the certificate ready. I’ve sent the priest down from the kirk to-”

 “No! I will not give up on my son!” She yelled with such ferocity, that Jenny stumbled back a few steps. None of the anger seeped through to the limp hand of Fergus that she was holding, and she kissed it gently while her body shook with rage at the suggestion. 

 “If the lad doesna earn his last rites, dinna say it was my fault.” Jenny slipped away to care for her now rambunctious children, who had bounced back from their sickness immediately. 

 That night, she never slept, and took up her usual spot beside his bed. It would get worse, before it got better. Claire was elated at the signs that his fever would soon break. 

 “Would you like me to tell you a story?”

 “Mmm.” 

 “Well, there once was a brave knight. He found a faerie at the bottom of the standing stones, and knew right away that she was his. He loved her, and protected her fiercely. They were blessed with three beautiful brave children. Two angels, and one son of their heart.” Somehow it was easier for her to pretend she was speaking about someone else. “There was a great evil that the knight had to vanquish. It was-“ She pursed her lips in thought. “It was threatening their angel babies, so the knight had to leave his faerie and guard their daughters in heaven. The faerie returned to protect her son.”

 Fergus while laid fevered and asleep. Claire smoothed back the crusty hair from his forehead sticky with sweat. “Je t'aime mon fils. Être fort.  Je sais que vous êtes.” Fergus stirred slightly. 

 “Je t’aime maman.” His smile and voice were weak. 

 She kissed his forehead and he slumped back into his slumber. 

 Jenny stood in the doorway smiling, on the verge of tears at the sight. It felt such a personal moment between mother and son, that she didn’t want to interrupt. But when Claire lapsed into silence, she took a tentative step into the room. 

 “The worst of it is over.” Jenny said, both as statement and question. 

 “Yes.” 

 “Good, now we can talk sister.” 

 “Yes, I believe we should.” 

 “Why- why’d ye leave my brother? I’ve kent ye well over these past few years, and I’d

never imagine that you’d just give him up so willingly. Ye’d die wi’ him if it came to it.” 

 “He made me promise that- well we knew how Culloden would end up, everyone could 

feel how much of a defeat it would be. He forced me to-“ Her brain felt muddled, keeping track of all the half-truths in her mind. “board a boat to France for the safety of our child.” Tears sprung into her eyes at that admission and her hand extended from her stomach absentmindedly, as if she was holding her belly at six months, the furthest she had been in either of her pregnancies. “Red Jamie couldn’t escape the fate of Culloden but his wife the Stuart Witch could, no one would recognise me. But I- I came back for Fergus and you, Ian, your children. I know that’s what he would’ve wanted. I just wish I knew, if he really-”

 “Ye eejit he isna dead! That dunderheid is holed up in a cave somewhere on these lands, 

grieving ye terribly.”

 “He’s- he’s alive?” A lump formed in her throat. “I didn’t want to hope that-“ 

 “Why on earth would ye think he’s dead! If ye had written letters to us. To let us ken ye 

were safe, we’d tell your daft arse to come back home! But of course, ye couldna spare us that much mind.” 

 “I’m sorry Jenny, I wasn’t in a safe place to send you letters. A man wanted to marry 

me.” Yes, years ago. “After I lost- he put me in an asylum when I refused his advances. I had to escape him after I lost-“ Jenny’s expression softened and she nodded, not in understanding, but in acceptance of what she had done. It didn’t do well to dwell on the past for too long. 

 “Well ye seem dead on yer feet, I’ll go take out all this anger on Ian.” Claire chuckled 

and then kissed Jenny’s cheek. “Wi’ him out and healthy again, the Laird’s room will be free enough but I dinna want ye to be lying in that sickbed so soon.” 

 “It’s yours now.” 

 “Ye ken Jamie and ye will always be Laird and Lady to the tenants. And no, Ian and I

occupy the same room we have fer years. I just stuck him in the Laird’s room because I was irritated at him groaning and shivering in our bed.” 

 Claire laughed, but felt bad for poor Ian who had unknowingly become the subject of 

Jenny’s ire these past few days. 

 She was in the courtyard, while Jamie made his way back to Lallybroch. A deer slung over his shoulders and buckets of water weighed down his arms. He took in the sight of his wife and nearly fainted. The buckets he had carried dropped to the ground with a snap and rolled across the yard. The stiff deer slumped to the ground over the mud. 

 It was the first word he had croaked in months, “Sassenach.” The sound didn’t reach her ears but she could read off his lips the endearment she knew all too well.

 Even with Jenny’s confirmation, she couldn’t believe the apparition before her. But could she have imagined him this way? Haggard and weary from months living in a cave. A bonnet slanted across his red hair to hide the bold colour. His beard had grown considerably from the scruff she was so familiar with. But the thing she couldn’t possibly imagine in her head was the haunted look on his face. The dark circles under his eyes and the gaunt nature of his face echoed his grief.  

 “No I’m. This isn’t- the after effects of the electroshock therapy” she mumbled. 

 She felt woozy, and her head was full of fluffy clouds. She regained her balance swiftly but stared unwavering at Jamie. His heart chilled, as if she was staring straight through his soul, but couldn’t see it. 

 “Claire I dinna ken what ye’re saying lass.”

 She gasped at his hand on her forearm. “You’re real.” 

 “And so are ye. Christ when Jenny told me to get my hide back here, I dinna ken it was really true.” She fell into him and he wrapped his strong arms across her back. 

 “Oh, God. Jamie. Oh God.” Claire’s breath rattled onto his cheek. “Just hold me.”

 She trembled in his arms, months of exhaustion, fear, pain, and heartache expressing themselves. 

 “I’m sorry Jamie. I’m so sorry. I - the stones.” 

 “What’re you apologising for lass?” He choked out. “Claire -the bairn?” She couldn’t meet his eyes. 

 She felt the need to run and hide as she did in the arbor of Fontainebleau. She didn’t want to face what was before her, what was behind. How could she let Jamie forgive her when she couldn’t herself? As if she were putting a sheet of metal between her and her heart, she suddenly felt nothing. 

 “She’s dead.” She said simply, staring at a chipped stone on the ground. 

 This time Jamie did collapse, and took Claire tumbling down to his lap. They held tight to one another, and Claire was the one to comfort him now. His tears soaked the wool of her bodice as he rocked them back and forth on the steps. When his eyes couldn’t produce anymore tears, he slowly peeked out of his shell. Jamie rose slowly from his spot on the steps when the sun crawled below the horizon and carried her with him to the Laird’s room. 

 Claire stripped him down to his sark and was prepared to ask for water, when she saw someone had already completed the task. She resumed her task and shed his final layer, exposing his naked body. It was filthy and covered in scratches, but beautiful to her all the same. When she began to direct him into the washing tub, he objected and began to take off her clothes with a practiced hand. As he reached for the final string of her shift, she moved his hand away. 

 “No, tonight I bathe you.” 

 She pushed him down into the small tub and his knees poked out of the water. The ewer sat on the wooden table near the tub, and she plucked it up with her fingers. She grabbed a sponge as well, and began her ministrations, leaning over the lip of the tub to reach him. She grabbed some scissors as well, trimming the beard that had grown over the months in the woods. 

 “Can ye ever forgive me?” A dejected Jamie asked. 

 “For what?” She knew, but she wanted to hear the words coming from him. 

 “For sending you through those stones, for breaking our family.” 

 “I already have.” 

 “What did she- Was she like her sister?” 

 “I don’t know.” Claire worried at her lip. “I- um. I lost her when I went through the stones. I only know she was a girl, because I felt her presence when I came back. She said she loves us.” She began to scrub harder against Jamie’s arm with the sponge to distract herself. 

 The pang in his chest nearly brought his head below surface of the water. All the air in his lungs fled and he was left with nothing. He stopped Claire’s arm and brought her hand to his, squeezing it tight. 

 “Will you ever forgive me?” 

 “Fer what lass?”

 “Not being strong enough. Not protecting her in the one way I could. Not returning to you soon enough.” 

 “I’ve already forgiven ye for anything ye could ever possibly do. And yer not to blame for any of those.” 

 “Then you’re not either. If there is, it’s God for being a cruel bastard. You say you can forgive me for anything, but I’m not sure I can give you what we want anymore.” 

 “What I want is you by my side. Come in the water Sassenach, let me hold my wife. Let me carry this burden wi’ ye.” 

 With the dim light of the fire and candles dotting the room, she was confident he wouldn’t be able to see her body fully. She slugged out of her shift, weighed down by weeks of exhaustion and crawled in between his legs. Water splashed out of the top of the tub, but they paid it no mind. Jamie repeated the ministrations Claire had provided for him, but even more gently on her smooth skin. When she began to doze off tucked safely between his thighs in the water, they were both wrinkly like prunes. Jamie carried her body wrapped tight around his, and placed her on the fresh sheets. 

 He held her naked on their bed. The smooth skin of her back was pressed against the soft tufts of hair on his chest. They needed to talk, but for now, neither wanted to leave the warm bubble of each other’s arms. Jamie was still processing what it all meant, and so was Claire, even after months of enduring it herself. No words could repair the loss they both felt, and the heartache of time spent apart. It would just feel like a hollow repetition of events after their first born. But tonight they would just simply be. Claire looked down at her sleeping husband. For the first time in months, she felt safe. She lightly traced the skin of his face, from temple to cheek, and saw the familiar smile ghost his peaceful rest. She spread a grin in response, the first one that reached her eyes in months.

[lady-o-ren]

Underneath The Elder Tree

Chapter One /  Chapter Two                   

And for easy reading here’s the Ao3 ( X ) But I still haven’t fixed up the last two chapters so those are gonna be messy and maybe not make much sense because of some changes I’ve made in the earlier parts of the story (I mean this chapter is probably trash too but here we go).

Chapter Three

Claire dreamt she lay in a cove of trees. 

She could feel pine needles pricking the soft skin of her cheeks and tree sap matting her curls with sticky sweet gold and crushed oak leaves that twined around her fingertips. Yet the air around her was warm. Warmer than a woodfire. More enveloping than sunshine. It seemed to sink deep into her weary bones and hollowed heart, branding her like a tender kiss.

And for a moment she forgot who she was. Hoped she'd never have to wander from the haven beneath the trees as she breathed in the earthy musk that filled her lungs, knowing true peace.

But then a noise ripped Claire from her sun-dipped oasis, awakening her with an upright start, and for a span of three heartbeats she knew not where she was. Couldn't remember who had shuttered the windows that rattled from the wind or lit the fire burning slowly to embers before her. 

Nor did she remember who’d given her their bed that was big enough to fit a bear, with a quilt that wrapped around her, smelling like the sun, the earth . . .

Of kindness.

Her memory returned to her then. Of the bitter cold and her shaky breath, curled underneath that crooked old tree. And of her confrontation with that stubborn man. Jamie Fraser.

After Claire agreed that she would wait out the storm, she took his hand to stand (embarrassed that she was too weak to do so herself) and nearly toppled onto his chest.

“Sorry,” she began to say, a flustered tint to her cheeks, but Jamie shook his head and bent to pick up the quilt that had fallen, placing it back around her shoulders. Smiling a little when she sighed, grateful for it's warmth.

“There’s no need for ye to be, Sassenach,” he said, taking a tentative hold of her arm, his touch light as moth wings, lest she sway again. “Come, sit yerself back to the chair and I'll fetch ye a bit of bread and broth or maybe -”

He politely looked away, adding - " Would ye like to wash?"

The offer of food and a bath was mighty appealing but another wave of fatigue washed over her. As well as a desperate need to be alone to gather her thoughts. 

“I think I'll fall asleep mid-bite and dip if I do.”

She could see him wanting to protest, his eyes passing over the thinness of her face. But he must've felt her limbs growing heavier and seen the extra flutter of her lashes that she hoped conveyed her tiredness, for he sighed and gave his grip on her a light squeeze.

“A'right then, this way, lass.”

Inside his room, she leaned against the wall while watching Jamie light her a fire, bright as morning light. He then pulled from his drawers a clean woolen sark for her to wear but dared not meet her eye as he shyly placed it at the foot of the bed and pointed with his chin at the basin of water beside the window.

No, he was definitely not a wretch, she thought with some amusement.

Before he closed the door, Claire stopped him and very simply and gratefully said, “Thank you.” 

Jamie answered with a sweet crooked grin that crinkled his eyes and shrugged.

“Ye needn't thank me, Sassenach. Not ever. Now get yerself to bed.”

Then he wished her goodnight.

Alone now, she moved closer to the fire, shivering again, and felt a mad impulse to throw herself to the flames if only to keep her bones from clattering.

If only to keep herself from thinking about the rain.

Of where exactly she was and how far away she had been carried from where she'd lain. 

Feeling a whimper rise unbidden in her throat, Claire carefully pulled her ruined dress up over her head with a sharp intake of breath as her bare mottled flesh met the air. She took stock of her scrapes and bruises, nothing serious she could see. Though when she ran her fingers across her ribs, she found she could play a hollow tune that echoed the one carved in what was left of her heart.

Rubbing her hand across the tears fallen to her cheeks, she quickly dressed and burrowed into bed, tucking her dress beneath the pillow. Except for a sheer embroidered corner that she traced and traced until her eyes drooped.

Her last dimming thought hoped and prayed to have a dreamless night.

She hadn't of course. But it wasn't the nightmare that the rain always plagued her with. This one had been peaceful. 

Almost . . . loving. . .

Claire shook her head then left the bed to open the shutters, the light making her squint. She smoothed her hand over the foggy windowpane and saw it was still a miserable gale of wind and rain just as Jamie predicted, and weak as she was, she wouldn't have been able to withstand the weather either.

Stubborn man was right.

She would have gone on berating herself if it weren't for the sweet and eager whisper behind her.

"Claire?"

She turned around and was startled to find Willie at the door and gazing at her from a pair of sparkling dew drop eyes, caught between excitement and wonder, brimming with uncertainty.

"D'ye feel any better?" He loudly whispered, face frowned with concern as he looked her over. She blushed and tightened the neckline of her sark, a loose fit that threatened to slide off her shoulders and pool at her feet.

“I do, thanks to you, sweet lad,” said Claire in the same hushed tone as Willie (blushing at being called sweet) and sat back in bed, a blanket pulled around her. “But why must we whisper?”

Willie plopped down beside her on his knees. Hair unruly as the wind. Honey smudged on his chin.

"Da said no' tae bother ye, that ye'd come out when ye'd wake. So I came tae see if ye had and ye did, so I'm no' a bother. . . Am I?"

Claire couldn't help but smile, feeling a sudden bubble of laughter in her belly at his blather. “A bother you are not, just a surprise you were with such a tender foot even to my hearing."

Willie grinned, big and wide.

"That's what da says. He thinks I'd make a good hunter like him if only I'd quit being sae sweet tae our supper." 

And speaking of supper. . . "But there's nay worry for us feedin’ ye,” he assured. “There's food like I promised ye and I can bring ye as much as ye like, whatever ye like. Even if it's greens or the funny drink da likes."

Claire's mouth twitched, guessing what that "funny drink" was.

“You really are gallant as a knight, Willie, and a most thoughtful one too.” 

A second wave of heat crept to the tip of Willie's nose and ears as a bashful smile tugged at his mouth.

"Does that mean I have yer favor?"

Claire raised a teasing brow.

"What do you think I am, Sir Knight, a jinn?”

The wee lad shook his head with an awed expression on his face and told her exactly what he'd been imagining that made her fidget where she sat.

He thought her a faerie, maybe born in a flower's bloom.

Or was it a raindrop from heaven come down to earth?

Did she have wings like a flutterby hidden on her back? 

Or could she talk to the wee things that lived in the wood like frogs and squirrels and birds? And what of the big beasts, like the bears and wolves? 

Willie went on and on without sparing breath and would have carried on but another's voice interrupted the two curly tops.

"I seem to recall ordering a wee gomeral to leave our guest be or he'd be hung by his ankles down the privy hole where my razor currently resides."

At being reminded of the foul stenched threat due to his theft and clumsy fingers (He'd wanted his father's dirk but didn't think he'd miss the razor), Willie jolted to attention, facing his father standing at the doorway.

"Claire was awake, Da! I didna poke her or pinch her any. I just wanted tae see her and I have, and speak to her like I am. D’ye ken she maybe talks to birds?"

Jamie looked at his lad with the most baffled expression and could only nod along.

"Be that as it may, ye still dinna barge into a lasses room - for it's hers until it's not - especially when -" Jamie glanced at Claire , wrapped in the bedding, then quickly away. "did ye even think to let her dress, laddie?"

Willie looked to Claire then back at his father with a quizzical expression.

“But she is dressed, Da.”

Jamie rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed.

“A’right. Out wi’ ye.”

Willie groaned and hopped off the bed but not before telling Claire to hurry as he skipped out the room, leaving his father behind.

"Shouldn't you follow him? This lass isn't properly dressed." Claire gave Jamie a sharp look seeing his lingering stance.

"I shall,” he said, ears pinking like Willie's. “ Only - I have something for ye to help wi’ that."

It was then she noticed Jamie had something tucked under his arm, a bundle of fabric that he handed to her. She unraveled the folds and held out a simple shirt with sleeves that didn't reach her ankles, some knits and an arisaid that carried the comforting scent of woodsmoke and musk. 

"I did a quick stitch to that auld shirt of mine while ye slept. It might still fit ye troublesome but ye'll no' be swallowed by it. And though it's seen better days the arisaid will keep ye warm, better than yer dress, ripped as it is. "

She looked up at him with a touched expression as he stood shyly, hands in the pockets of his trousers.

"My modesty thanks you," she said earnestly. "I never could do much with a needle and thread. My hands are better suited to catching fish  - and don't give me that look that begs to differ or I'll regret ever thanking you." 

Jamie couldn't help but chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Then I'm happy to have pleased ye so. And that ye’re looking fair better than the night had me believe,” he added, with a gentle touch to his voice.

Claire knew what he spoke of, how she may have been as good as dead without him, but instead passed a nervous hand through her curls shooting every which way and said -

“You're far too kind and maybe a little blind. I'm sure I look a great deal worse than you say.”

Then her belly protested that had his mouth turning upward and hers a thin line of warning.

"Och, I'll see to it that we fatten ye to rival any sow this side of the mountain." He winked absurdly like an owl and she would have loved to laugh if he hadn't vexed her.

"On any other day I would take insult to being compared to a pig but I find the idea at the moment to be more than appealing. But just this once."

Jamie grinned wide.

"I shall keep it in mind, Sassenach. Now I'll fetch ye some hot water so ye can fancy yerself up and just maybe Willie will have left something from his lunch for ye.”

That took her aback. “Is it not morning?”

He cocked his head to the window. “We're a few hours shy of evening, lass.”

After Jamie filled the bedside basin with hot steaming water and left, Claire cleaned herself up and dressed, the clothes caressing her in warmth that was so like her dreams. Making a sudden flush bloomed across her face , from hunger Claire was sure, and left the room to reluctantly meet the day.

//

Just as Claire had been promised, the Fraser men had a banquet waiting for her as if they had welcomed into their home a queen. 

There was steaming rabbit stew with turnips and onions, a big loaf of bread for dipping, fat oatcakes drizzled generously with honey (by Willie of course) and bits of this and that to fill her belly for days to come.

“You weren't joking about fattening me up were you?” Marveled Claire, as she was ushered wide-eyed into a chair by Willie, who plopped down beside her, raised on his knees.

“Ye’d be growing a wee tail too it were up to the laddie,” chuckled Jamie, as he poured Claire a glass of water from the tables pitcher. “He was asking me if I could find a bear for ye to eat.”

“A bear?” Claire repeated.

”Aye,” said Willie, who took it upon himself to load her plate with food. “But da said what we had would do ye jest fine but not 'cause he's scarrit 'cause da’s not scarrit of anything. Except mebbe a skunk, aye Da?”

Jamie tore a piece of bread in his hands, giving one half to Claire and the other to Willie who's cheeks puffed like a chipmunk with each happy bite.

“I'd rather tussle with a skunk and stink for a year than come face to face wi’ a bear,” he said, and pushed a plate of butter towards Claire, looking a wee bit intimidated at the mountain of food before her. “Now let's leave the lass be so she can eat in peace lest her bread go stale and her stew go cold .”

Willie swallowed the last bit of his bread and frowned, slumping onto his bottom.

“A’right,” he mumbled.

But Claire nudged his arm, offering him a smile.

" I don't mind the company. Better than hearing the rain pelt the roof."

Willie looked up at her with a great bright smile but Jamie shook his head. “Ye asked for it, Sassenach.”

That she did. 

In the days that followed where the days were dark as night, Willie's chatter was there to distract Claire from the gloom.

The first day, after she'd eaten, Willie had taken her hand (warm and slightly sticky) and proudly showed off every corner of the cabin to his guest in a way only a little boy would.

He showed off the black spot on the floor, scorched from a fallen candlestick, when he saw a rat above his head crawling along the rafters. He then pointed at the dented copper pot hanging above the hearth that his father threw at said rat and the other battered two beside it when one lone vermin became a brood. 

(Jamie had been stricken red, adamant that there were no rats to be seen in over a year and had given his son a gaelic hush.)

Then Willie brought Claire to the cupboard he wasn't allowed to touch that kept his fathers ale and whisky. But in a secretive whisper (and with revulsion contorting his face), he told her he had in fact sipped from one of the bottles and warned against her doing the very same. 

(She would another night with Jamie. . .)

Through the window as they watched the flashes of thunder, he tried to point out where their small garden was, the bitty hen house and shed for the two goats they had. 

“The goats I like but they nibble m’hair and their shit stinks worse than hell and -”

“Willie!”

“But ye said so yerself, Da!”

But most importantly, Willie showed her the pantry where their food was stored. His favorites were the dried apples and jars of jam and had picked the fruits himself.

“Weel, the strawberries and blueberries and the raspberries I did. I had tae wait for the apples tae fall and I made sure there weren't any worms in them this time,” Willie grinned, as he proudly shared with Claire a jar, who declared she'd never tasted anything so delightful. 

(While telling herself a worm wasn't the worst thing a person could eat)

And during all this she'd catch Jamie's eye. Kind-hearted always but glinting with questions as he watched her. That had her excusing herself, feigning tiredness, much to Willie's dismay.

The second day she had slept in again, her dreams untroubled once more. As always Willie was there to pounce on her the moment he saw her face to tell of the day he had planned for them over a breakfast that had been set aside for her.

But Claire couldn't help but notice who was missing.

"Where's your father?"

Willie, munching on one of Claire's bannocks she had given to him from her plate (filled to the brim again), mumbled from a full mouth that he was outside.

"In that!" Claire moved to the window trying to see through the blur.

"In the shed I think. There's always chores tae do but he said it's his job and mine's tae keep tae ye and for God's sake to keep out of the rain and the mud or he'd tan us both and -"

"Tan us both?" Claire looked over shoulder and quirked a brow.

Willie took a sip of goat's milk that left a milky streak above his lip. "Dinna fash. Da's never done so. He just likes tae say so 'cause he's scarrit for me and now you too." 

He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "Are ye done eatin'?"

With a hand at her full belly she gave him a nod, and Claire was dragged into his room with the excitement of a lad who'd been given a puppy to play with. He showed off his collections of rocks and brambles, jars filled with acorns and snail shells, bits and bobs of twine and fishhooks and picture books that had bird feathers and flowers and leaves pressed between the pages, and -

"Did your father carve these?"

Claire twirled a skillfully carved wooden fox between her fingers that she picked up from the windowsill. It was one among many woodland figurines that could fit in her palm, each one a breath away from life.

"Aye. For games and such and so I dinna bring home another critter like a she-coon again."

"Again?" Claire half chuckled, wondering how many animals the wee lad had sweet talked into his keeping and if she counted as one.

Willie nodded. "Da didn't like her. Said she'd pluck my eyes out with her wee claws but I told him she wouldna and had tae hide her in my room but then she crept intae da's room when I slept and tried tae eat his face - at least that's what he tells me but I think she just tried tae clean him cause da's got hair all over just like her kin."

Laughing now at the scene so bluntly described, and how Willie pulled his face into funny faces with his hands mimicking it all, Claire encouraged him to tell her more about these animal encounters (and how his poor father had apparently suffered from every single one).

During the tale of the blue backed lizard who'd escaped up his father's trouser leg, the rain had softened to a light drizzle but the wind had bellowed loud and a crack of wood splintered outside. Willie leapt to his feet off his wee bed and nearly made it through the front door before Claire pulled him back by the shoulders.

She didn't know anything really about the care of children but she was sure you didn't let one out with tree branches falling around. So Claire told him to stay put and without waiting for him to argue back had crossed the threshold outside.

It was cold. 

And without a coat her bones instantly began to clatter with each step she took that sunk into the mud. But she pushed forward with her arms braced around herself as she blinked away the misty rain from her dark lashes and hollered for Jamie. He was behind the cabin and lifting a very large and heavy looking branch off the side of the goat shed, the wee animals whinging inside at being disturbed, when he turned around hearing his name, eyes blaring wide.

"Are ye mad woman!" Yelled Jamie seeing Claire. He heaved the fallen branch as if it weighed nothing at all off onto the ground, and stomped towards her with mud splashing up to his knees.

Claire rather felt like running back inside remembering what Willie had said and could see that impulse burn in the icy blue of his eyes that froze her on the spot.

"Willie and I heard a noise and he was worried about you so I came to check to see if you were alright."

If he heard her he didn't acknowledge it. Just threw an arm over her shoulder and began to pull her back towards the cabin. She opened her mouth to protest when the wind slammed against her, right into Jamie's side. Sturdy as a mountain he didn't even sway, only held to her tighter, practically picking her up from the mud’s slick grasp.

Inside, Claire untangled herself from Jamie, shivering from the damp now seeping into her clothes. While he moved his gleaming gaze to Willie, who'd been watching the whole scene from the windowsill.

“You,” he said firmly. “I told ye to keep an eye on yer lass -”

“Excuse me?” exclaimed Claire, wiping a hand against her dewed face. “ I don't belong to anyone and I certainly don't need a child to look after me.”

"Ye damn well need someone to, Sassenach. Just look at how we found ye before ye did something irrevocable.”

Jamie regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, she looked as if he'd punched her in the gut.

“Say it,” she dared him, glaring viciously. “Before I did what. . .”

Jamie drew a long breath and raked a hand through this disheveled hair, looking downward, ashamed at himself, and listened as Claire walked away to his bedroom, locking the door he was sure.

"I'm sorry, Da. I ken ye told me tae look after her. I shoulda done better."

Jamie kneeled down in front of Willie and held a hand to his cheek.

“Hush, mo chridhe. Forget what I said. I was cross is all and took it out on ye like a bastard. Forgive me?”

Willie nodded, laughing a little at his father calling himself a bastard.

"Good. There's no one I trust more than you, ye ken that right?"

"Aye, Da," said Willie, and smiled sweetly when his father kissed his mop of curls.

"Ye should tell Claire too."

Jamie tightened his jaw, glancing to the side where she disappeared to. "I dinna ken much about women but I ken when to leave them be." 

"I dinna ken much either but I think Claire will like ye more if ye say ye're sorry for being a bastard mebbe on yer knees like in the books ye read me wi' mebbe some flowers too cause girls always like them ye say -"

"Willie," Jamie squeezed him softly by the shoulders. "Never call yer father a bastard to his face even when he is one."

"What should I call ye then?"

A Dhia, he thought.

"Just say I was in the wrong and leave it at that."

Willie shrugged. "A'right. But I still think Claire will like it more if ye say ye were what ye said."

Jamie let out a heavy sigh and was quiet for a moment before he spoke. "Aye, I think so too."

Nearing the dark hours, Jamie finally heard the click of the door open and jumped to his feet, meeting Claire at the doorway of the bedroom. Before she could speak or slam the door in his face he followed Willie's advice.

"I'm sorry, Sassenach," he began, earnestly. "What I said was unforgivable. It's just when I saw ye there pale as bone and shivering so it reminded me of how you were a heartbeat away from taking yer last breath when I held you in my arms looking the verra same. It frightened me in a way I haven't felt for a long time. To have the care of someone only to lose them. But it doesna give me the right to be a bastard to ye."

"No, it doesn't, '' she agreed, wondering about the losses in this man's life that left such a scar on him to make him overreact. But knew one must be of the unspoken wife and mother missing from this home. And she felt a lurching stab of kinship with him while wishing wholeheartedly she didn't. 

"But I am sorry for giving you such a fright. Twice over." 

 "Three," said Jamie, holding up three fingers. "Ye've given me three near heart attacks since I've met you. Starting with when I first laid eyes on ye. And ye ken well why, wee swordsman."

Claire laughed, hand to her chest, feeling it swell.

"Then I forgive you if you forgive me."

His shoulders sagged with relief and smiled.

"Och, ye did it wrong, Da," said Willie, from the corner. "Ye were supposed tae get on one knee."

Claire's face went the color of her heart now bolting beneath her hand.

"On your knee for what?!"

. . .

By the third day, Willie had taken to Claire with such affection (and she, an undeniable fondness for him), he began speaking of springs and summers she would never see. Going as far as trying to teach her the different ways to mimic bird calls with his fingers fluttering like wings.

It was then Claire felt the need to remind him of her departure and how soon that would be.

They were seated by the hearth with Willie on his little stool and Claire at his knee. He'd been showing her his favorite book all about animals, with colors painted in lovely detail of creatures beautiful and strange. His chubby fingers had landed on the slicked skin of a seal, when she placed her hand over his atop the page.

"You know I'll have to leave when the storm passes Willie, don't you?"

He gripped the edges of the book that was larger than his lap, brow scrunched as he reluctantly nodded. "That's what da says, but he hopes ye stay longer."

"Your father said that to you?"

"No, I just ken so. He just wants ye safe and happy like me," 

"Why wouldn't I be?" Before she could catch herself, Claire reached a hand to brush a lock behind the boy's ear, where memory of a loving touch doing just the same to her whispered at the shell of her own. 

 "Cause you were hurt and lonesome when I found ye and I dinna ken why ye want tae be so when ye leave, " croaked Willie, eyes glossing over. 

A creak in the floor boards saved Claire from speaking a lie of a family waiting for her return, a home all her own. She looked up to see Jamie who nudged her shoulder with the back of his hand to kneel at Willie's hunched over form, where he spoke to his son soothing words that sounded of a gentle salve to more than one breaking heart.

That night, Jamie tried to cheer Claire up after putting Willie to bed (for once he did so without protest), by enticing her with a game of chess and a dram. She never played before nor had she ever taken a drink of spirits to her lips but she agreed wanting distraction.

Quickly though, Claire found she didn't care for the game.

Nor his cocky grin when he toppled her worthless rooks and knights, leaving her queen unguarded. Poor thing never had a chance to rule triumphant. Yet it kept her mind off the small lad and she found the taste of whiskey to be more than quite enjoyable.

Birdsong greeted Claire the next morning. 

And when she opened the shutters the soft glare of dawn was there to caress her face. But a smile did not touch her lips.

With a quiet step, she approached Jamie, already awake and staring out the opened door, tapping a rhythm against its frame. He looked over his shoulder, his cat-eye blues keenly taking in her solemn face, the hesitation to speak as her bottom lip was trapped between teeth. 

So he did so for her.

"Would ye care to walk wi' me, Sassenach? Tis a bonny day of sun we have for ourselves and yer wee shadow I see scowling behind ye." 

Claire followed his gaze to see Willie peeking from behind his bedroom door that quickly closed.

"And," Jamie spoke again, voice sounding softer. "We must set ye on yer path wherever that is."

//

A/N: So yeah. . . .Made some changes . . . . . .

I expanded a bit of their  time together during the storm where as before I compressed the shit out of it because I had it in my head that the story really begins after Claire stays so I shouldn’t linger in those three days . . . and I also didn’t know how to write the inbetween stuff without getting too heavy (I suckity suck at writing you guys). Like Claire’s still a guest so no ones going to reveal their deep dark secrets yet. Except Willie. Who I wish I never put in this fic!

[inkrediblegamer]

Trash Tour

Prompt: 8- Mischief Night

Trigger Warnings: Police Brutality, Homophobic Cops/Parents, automotive accident (If I’ve missed anything just DM me and I’ll add as appropriate)

Rating- PG13

               “So…” began Todd, not really sure where to take his sentence from there. “Why aren’t you allowed out on Halloween?”

               This question and all the bullshit that preceded it had taken up most of the morning and half of the day before, after a group of early trick-or-treaters dropped by the apartment wearing toilet paper and ruined sheets a whole day before convention allowed it. Dirk was the one to turn them away in the first place, but what had followed was a full twelve hours of melancholy bitching about ‘the unique and enchanting mystery that only a child, loosed from societal convention, feels when presented with Halloween and its innate call for rebellion.’ There was more to that speech, but Todd and Farah had only caught it in passing.  

               Dirk sniffed. “Why, Todd? Why aren’t I allowed out on Halloween? For the same reason I’m not allowed to do anything else normal.”

               “Ok-” Todd saw where this was going, but before he could interrupt, Dirk interrupted himself by blowing his nose. Todd coughed, tried to keep his lunch down, and put a cursory hand over his mouth to make it look like he was yawning and not grossed the fuck out. Dirk had a cold. This had turned him into a soundboard of wet and slippery punctuation, which came flying out of his nose whenever there was a break in conversation. The tissues were a gift from Farah, who was keeping her distance until the threat was eradicated. Todd couldn’t blame her; before the gifted tissues had been thrust upon him, Dirk had been using any fabric he could get his face close to instead. Including his own sheets.

               “As I was saying,” said Dirk as he regained his scant composure. “My whole life I’ve been nothing but a project for people to test and probe and pressure until I spit out something of value. It’s not like I could ever be in a school play, or play Hoop and Stick with my friends, or beg at the homes of strangers asking for loose snacks, some of which can’t be identified.”

               Todd took a seat on the couch across from Dirk’s armchair, which was going to have to be thrown away when all this was done. “What the hell are you talking about? I mean, yeah, you can’t do all the dumb shit you missed out on as a kid, but Halloween isn’t just for kids Dirk. There’s parties, movies, I mean some people just spend it vandalising shit, they call it Devil’s Night- you do plenty of that, don’t you?”

               Dirk gave Todd what might have been a withering look. It was hard to tell through the swollen rims of his eyelids. “Look, Todd, I know you’re trying to help, but I think we both know I’m not exactly a Party Boy. Man. Party Man. I’m just awkward, wrong, unbefitting. I’ve missed my chance, lost whatever grasp-”

               “You might have had on the fleeting and fickle love handle of that sweet lady, Mischief,” finished Todd. “You’ve been over that.” He paused for a moment, mouth open, ready to say his next thing but simultaneously forgetting it and thinking of a brand new, smarter thing that’d be much better to say. “What if we did a case?”

               “What?”

               It was perfect. “It’s perfect,” he said. “You wanna do something this Halloween? Just do a Dirk thing. Solve a case, follow the seam on the fabric of reality or something. Halloween’s all around us; as long as we’re doing something, that must count, right?”

               “Ok…a lot to unpack there Todd but I think the main question I’ve got is, what case? It’s not like there’s anything going on, the detective agency’s been a resounding failure; nothing but missing jewellery and affairs for the last four months-”

               “Not sure that counts as a failure but go on.”

               “Oh God, the whole thing’s a mess isn’t it?” Dirk threw himself back on the armchair. It was more tissue than leather at this point. When all this was over, Todd was going to have to take it out to the yard and shoot it. He’d lost his concept of ‘all this’ and when it’d be over a long time ago, but he held onto the concept anyway. “My agency, my life, my memories, all worthless drivel ham-fisted together by a-”

               “It doesn’t have to be a big case!” said Todd, desperately, “It could be something fun! Something simple, but fun. That’s super Halloweeny. What about, uh…” He looked around so fast he heard the joints pop in his spine. The first thing he caught sight of was, as it happens, something he’d already been meaning to bring up. So, the connection of both that, and the necessity of something bring-up-able made him vault the couch, bang his forehead on the coffee table then flail the scrap of paper in front of his roommate like a chimp presenting its testicles to a tourist. “How about this, huh? Who ever heard of a Trash Tour? No details, no social media hook-up, just an invite from a total stranger. Doesn’t that look shady to you? It’s tonight.”

               “Obviously it’s tonight Todd,” Interrupted Dirk, standing up and stuffing the pale cabbage of tissues he’d accumulated bit by bit into his sleeve. He paused for a second, took the flyer and looked it over. Yes, thought Todd to himself.

               The flyer as a shitty piece of notebook paper that’d been laminated twice to keep its shittyness intact and was covered in felt-pen doodles that just barely made up the name, location and time of what its distributor was calling a Trash Tour. It was like a logo for a pop-punk band that all wore matching school uniforms and sang about how much they hated their parents. That a tween might have scrawled the logo for in a hurry, maybe in a notebook with anarchy symbols scratched into the back and a B average report card tucked inside. Todd figured that at worst it was a case they could crack. At best it was a party. This thought was interrupted, like a lot of Todd’s other thoughts, by Dirk who on this occasion swept his assistant up in his arms and squeezed. It was a hug. Kind of. Todd was pulling his body back from the closing vice of poorliness that Dirk had recently been reduced to, so it felt more like being restrained by two elastic belts that you weren’t so hot about.

               “Thanks Todd.”

               “It’s cool,” Todd patted Dirk on the back as lightly as he could. “Go take a shower. We’ll head out at eight.”

               “Sure,” Dirk released him and scooted around the couch to the bathroom. “You know Todd,” he said as he reached the door, spinning around and slinging, in a less-great feat of chance, a string of mucus away from his nose, leaving it to dangle off his chin. “I think this is an absolutely marvellous idea. I mean, think about it- worst case scenario is that we end up at some boorish party with some drunk teenagers, get a couple of drinks down us and stagger back shit-faced and covered in sick, and best-case we get caught up in a…a seasonal conspiracy, full of subterfuge and secrets and malevolent organisations, and danger, lots of danger, and we’re in the middle of it all! Dirk on Todd, on another whirlwind adventure!” He disappeared behind the door and blew his nose so hard it shook the fillings in Todd’s back teeth.

               Todd smiled to himself, felt around in his pockets for a second for nothing in particular, and took a seat on the couch.

               “Fuck.”

*

               The Purple Nurple was like walking into the sock of a college student one week into their first semester. That smell of rum-and-cokes that you mix together with half-price own-brand diet coke of which you use maybe one, two capfuls, then drown the rest in the dregs of the last bottle of rum you could afford, and that you choke down in the hopes it’ll get you too drunk to remember what you had to drink to get drunk in the first place. It was also slippery. Not really sure why. It was like it’d been oiled. Just a little. Basted almost. And the florescent and, of course, purple lighting rebounded off the moisture so it swam over everything in sight, like a layer of film.

               A cluster of high-schoolers were gathered at the back. Todd’s spine went up. Little fireworks of anxiety went off on the surface of his skin and dispersed into a thin sweat that let him blend in well with the patrons - the Purple Nurple was super warm inside. Obviously. The embarrassment of it. How old, he thought to himself, do you have to be before groups of high-schoolers stop being so unnerving? You only had so much ammunition against teenagers. And what could you do once your threats had been ignored and they were still making fun of your squeaky voice or undescended testicles? Walk away? Impossible.

               Dirk was already sliding over there with the grace of a young Michelle Kwan. Todd managed to follow by steadying himself every couple of steps on the bar-stools and less awake barflies. It was fairly full for a Monday; some bars in the city didn’t even bother opening on this early in the week. But this was a bar in the same sense that Dirk and Todd were a Detective Agency. Meaning, by a fairly loose definition.

               The teens (there must be a different word I could use, thought Todd) were deep in conversation, backs to the rest of the bar and to Dirk. All of them were wearing white T-shirts with Trash Tour drawn on them in the same dreadful handwriting, which was the only identifier they’d bothered with. No sign or anything. There were four of them in total; one with a bomber jacket and a lit cigarette behind his ear, fizzling away unsmoked. He had the build of an athlete, maybe baseball, and he was dreamy-ish. Todd could admit that. The kid across from him was sporting a mullet and had cut the sleeves cut off his shirt, so you could tell he was…cool? Was that the look he was going for? The main thing Todd took away from the look was that it was halfway between David Bowie and a high-school bully from an eighties movie. The kind of kid who might set a nerd’s hair on fire, instead of the refined emotional bullying Todd was familiar with. The other two were your average braindead background goons. The kind of kids who stand by and laugh but don’t join in when the aforementioned testicles are getting stomped, in case they get expelled. Thing One and Thing Two, Todd would call them. And he’d only feel a little mean about it later.  

               “Excuuuuse me,” started Dirk, leaning over their conversation. “Would you be here for the Trash Tour?”

               “Read the T-Shirt, buddy.” answered Bomber Jacket Kid. His voice was dripping with a New York accent that could well have been fake. “You wanna come wit?”

               “What is that Trash Tour, for starters?” said Todd, presenting what he assumed to be their flyer. “Before we say yes, can we at least find out what this whole thing’s about?”

               “Well why would you wanna know something like that, pal?” Inquired the Mullet. “Where’s your sense of mystery?”

               “Dunno. Probably got kidnapped, cut to pieces or used in a satanic ritual by one of the other super trustworthy breakfast club rejects that hang out here. What’s the Tour about?”

               Bomber and Mullet looked at each other for a sec, didn’t change their expressions in any way. Then Bomber said, “We lead the tour around town every year. Bustin’ up mailboxes, scaring kiddies, maybe egg a couple houses…you know. Halloween stuff.”

               “Every year?” asked Dirk

               “Yeah,”

               “So, every Halloween, the four of you just…go house to house in Springsborough and wreak havoc until…?”

               Mullet sighed, “until the cops show up, stupid. Or till we get bored and go home. It’s tradition. Can’t have Halloween without somethin’ scary, otherwise it’s no different than…what was it you said earlier?” he gestured at Thing One.

               “Easter,” Thing One belched.

               “Easter, that’s it. Otherwise it’s the same as Easter, right? No presents, no time off, just candy, and kids dressed like dickheads.”

               Todd was just about ready to leave. “Ok, I think we’re gonna-”

               “Sign us up,” said Dirk, before the order could be given. “I’ve always wanted to do something like this.” He screeched a barstool over to the table and perched himself like a canary among them, beckoning for Todd to do the same.

               “Seriously?” Todd asked. Dirk was a glass vase full of bird bones compared to these kids, “I didn’t think-”

               “Oh, come on, Todd, you know I don’t respect the establishment. In fact, I think I was just saying this morning, there’s nothing better for getting rid of a bad mood like destroying the private possessions of people you don’t even know. I mean, what idiots, right?” he raised his eyebrows at Bomber, “working their whole lives just for a couple of trinkets that can be smashed to pieces in just one swoop. What sheep, am I right?” He was talking to Bomber, but his eyes kept flicking up to Todd at intervals, as if he was trying to say something in Morse code.        

And so, he took a seat, and agreed. No reason not to, right?

*

               The van swerved around a trail of pre-schoolers and Todd felt his heart and stomach smash into each other as abject horror shrivelled up any thinking power he might have used to get himself out of here. They missed the huddle by a hair and before anyone had time to look out the window (where they would have seen unscathed but horrified children crying through their parents’ painstakingly rendered face-paints and clinging to their glow-stick-covered crossing guard), they were already too far away to see anything but the vapor trail off the van’s shitty engine.

               “This isn’t very holistic,” whispered Dirk from behind him. They were standing up, bracing themselves in the back-corner of the van which was absolutely not theirs. It also didn’t have any seats except for in the front leaving Dirk Todd, and the two Things to fend for themselves as far as surviving Mullet’s driving went.

               “In my defence,” Todd whispered back. “things were going pretty well till we hit that mailbox.” The ‘we’ in that sentence was more of a courtesy, a shared responsibility for Bomber, who was leaning out of the window with a golf club which he’d so far managed to connect to three streetlamps, six passing cars and one mailbox, the mailbox that started it all. ‘It all’ meaning the terrified screeching away from said mailbox and down every side street and wide-ish alley that Mullet could make out with the one good headlight the van had left. Bomber hadn’t been too bothered and was still racking up a score with his club, but Mullet had been silent for what felt like an hour. Probably more like fifteen minutes, in the real world where time moved properly. Somewhere back there, the family of the newly deceased mailbox were probably calling the cops and reciting the plates, giving descriptions and all that jazz. The van would flag up as stolen and before nine-thirty this would be a high-speed chase.

               “Whooo!” howled Bomber, clipping the sign off a passing pizza delivery car. “Anyone else want a turn?” he swung the club toward Todd and Dirk so fast it cut the air in two, and in the teensy puff of wind it gave as it came to a halt in front of him, Todd caught a noseful of smoke and B-O.

               “I’m good,” he said.

               “Very much ok here,” agreed Dirk. He waited for Bomber to turn back. “What the fucking hell did you think you were doing!” he whispered at Todd. “we’re going to be arrested, Todd. If we don’t get run off the road and explode into a ball of fire, that is. Oh, and I do very much love the company too. Do you know, Jeremy down there has a wallet in his pocket that’s just brimming with pictures of human eyes? Just their eyes.”

               Mullet revved the engine and they shot forward a little faster. Todd’s feet slipped, and it was a couple of minutes before he could answer, bracing himself against Dirk and vice versa to untangle their legs. “Hey, you were the one who was so hot about…wait, really?”

               “What?”

               Todd jerked his head toward Thing Two, who was glowering at something on his phone. “Does that guy really just have…human eyes, in his wallet.”

               “Of course not, Todd,” said Dirk. “He does.” He gestured at Thing One. Thing One had his hands deep enough in his pockets to make Todd feel uncomfortable looking.

               “Whatever. You’re the one who got all excited about this when you saw the flyer Dirk. I just wanted to do something nice for you.”

               “Well-” They both heard it at once. “Fuck.”

               “Fuck” agreed Todd.

               “It’s the Pigs,” yelled Bomber, pulling his head back in and hucking the club over his shoulder. It clanged against the uncarpeted floor and the sound. Was. Awful. Blue and red lights strobed in through the windows and instinctively both detectives scrunched themselves down to sit on the floor. Thing Two had already appropriated the club, sadly. Wouldn’t hurt to have a weapon, Todd thought to himself. He didn’t really know who he expected to hit with it.

               “You’re fucking kidding me,” said Mullet. His voice didn’t inspire confidence. For someone who claimed to do this once a year, he didn’t seem too cosy with the idea of cops tailing him. That said, neither was Todd, and he’d been one for a little while.

               “Chill, man,” drawled Bomber, patting his friend on the shoulder. “Jus’ drive, let me take care of the fuzz.”

               “The fuzz?” Todd whispered. Dirk didn’t answer. He also hadn’t jumped into his routine of freaking the fuck out, even though they were pretty obviously boned. This was starting to smell an awful lot like a secret-keeping type situation. Dirk couldn’t usually stay quiet for this long unless he was either hiding something or having some kind of existential crisis. Suppose it could be the latter, but for all their maniacal driving you had to admit that criminal damage and a police car chase was enough to make you feel alive.

               The van squealed round a tight bend and slowed down for such a painful couple of seconds that Todd thought he might pass out. The lights got brighter, the sirens crept in behind them, so close to the door that they rattled with the vibrations off the cop car’s bumper. Or maybe Dirk was just shivering.

               “To the driver of the silver minivan, reduce speed and pull over at the side of the road,” the nearing cop cars whined. Really whined, actually, absolutely squealing with feedback. Like, Todd wouldn’t have been surprised if there were a kid in the cop’s back seat with a slide whistle, being an absolute shit while his mom or dad tried to talk down six drunk joyriders. Except they weren’t even drunk. That sucked.

               The siren wafted away from the back door and toward the side, Bomber’s side, then started closing in. Slowly but definitely Todd could feel the cars make contact, feel the shudder of two metal bodies shagging against each other, pushing the van to the side. Without a word Thing Two passed the club up to Bomber. You can guess what he did. But you don’t have to, because Todd watched this insane and Godless fucker lean out of the window wielding the club, and while his position didn’t let him witness it, the sudden and absolute disappearance of the red-and-blue haze that’d settled around them told Todd enough. In brief, they were all going to fucking jail.

               Two, three smashes later, Bomber leaned back in. Not a hair out of place. Not a sweat stain or flush or look of unease. He chucked the club back at the congregation, then rested a hand on Mullet’s shoulder. Mullet took a hand off the steering wheel, reached up, squeezed, then floored it. Hard enough that Todd felt his legs go out from under him and the sudden but impressive pain of the metal doors colliding with his skull.

Todd woke up thirty seconds later. Dirk was holding his head in his lap, staring down, teary and not at all phlegmy, which was a little weird. Probably adrenaline.

“You’re ok,” said Drik. “thank God.” His face brightened up a fraction. You probably wouldn’t have noticed it if he wasn’t so miserable already.

“Don’t thank me yet,” mumbled Todd, sitting up. He tried to find something else to focus on except the ringing-car-alarm like pain shooting off the back of his head. “wait,” he paused. The air was deader than before. Not the absolute silence you’d get after a shooting or a particularly cutting remark at a family reunion. More like when you’re in a crowd and you can hear someone in trouble, but you can’t see through all the people or make out what they’re saying, yet you know there’s danger somewhere under all that noise. A rumbling, yet consciously dire silence. “where are the cops?” the penny finally dropped.

Dirk shrugged. “Gone.”

“Fuckin’ pigs,” spat Bomber’s New York drawl from the front seat. His hand was sloping down Mullet’s arm now, though both of Mullet’s were back on the wheel. “Every year. Pussies, all of them. Right Grish?” he elbowed Mullet, who was apparently called Grish but who Todd was going to keep calling Mullet because he had so this far and didn’t want to confuse himself.

“Right Scott,” Mullet yelped back at Bomber, to whom Todd was going to apply the same logic.

“Where are we going guys?” piped Todd. “we must be out of town by now.”

Bomber called back over his shoulder. “Aw, come on! Where’s your sense of mystery?”

“Why do you keep saying that?” asked Dirk.

“What do you mean?” asked Todd, sitting up. The last time he’d heard that he’d gone from accessory to accomplice, holding back the loose wires while Mullet hotwired the tin mess they were currently stealing. “this is the Trash Tour, right? There’s nothing left to trash.”

“Look man,” Bomber leaned around his seat to face them. He was classically handsome, you might say. Blond hair flexing its even waves across the top of his head. Strong jaw. Eyes that made you feel inclined to trust him- dreamy was the right word.  “Haven’t you ever wondered what’s beyond this place? This shitty little borough?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Todd. “you can take a drive out of town any day of the week, that doesn’t mean you’ve gotta destroy half the neighbourhood and have the cops chase you out!”

“I don’t mean just visiting the next town. I mean leaving. I mean startin’ up a new life. No parents, no school, no fuckin’ judgemental pricks to…to judge you.”

“So? Go, move! You’re what, seventeen? Eighteen? Once you graduate in a couple months-”

“I’m sixteen,” said Mullet.

“Fifteen,” said Bomber, “we grow ‘em tall.”

“Ok, so you’re a little young,” Todd tried to butt his head through the interruption and get to his damn point. “It doesn’t matter, you’ll be out in a couple of years. You don’t have to run away.”

“Or do you?” interjected Dirk. “what’s happening here?” there was a pang in the way he asked. A genuity that made Todd stop, turn and look at him. It occurred to Todd that something about running away from home might resonate with someone who’s spent his whole life being pursued. Just like Dirk to have a moment of comradery with the people who were becoming, metre by metre, their kidnappers.

Now the silence was absolute. Todd could hear the shudder of Mullet’s breathing, and the air around Bomber hardened till you could almost see it. Really. Todd could swear he saw the streetlamps outside bouncing off it.

“None of your fuckin’ business,” said Bomber finally, turning back around in his seat.”

Thing one and Thing two had been painfully silent for this. Both were staring into their phones, like they were in a totally different room. Car. Car room. A separate garage altogether.

The engine took over the talking for a while after that. When there was enough noise to cover his whisper, Todd grabbed Dirk by the front of his shirt and dragged his face close to his own. “Tell me.”

“Sorry?”

               “You should be. You’re hiding something from me. Again.”

               Dirk sighed some very not healthy breath into Todd’s face. “Yes. Sorry, Todd. It’s just…”

               “What?”

               “I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

               “We travelled in time together,” Todd despair-chuckled. “try me.”

               Dirk seemed to chew the idea for a second, then took the leap and pointed a finger at Bomber, who was, again, holding Mullet’s shoulder. His finger was tracing a circle around a cluster of moles that poked out from under the jaggedly cut edges of Mullet’s sleeves.

               “I think they’re ghosts.”

               Fuck. Todd had to concede, that was one of the less difficult to accept things he’d had to consider in the last year or two. So, his reaction was just fuck. Because, appropriate to the season, it was kind of spooky. Very spooky, in fact. “What makes you think that?”

               “Well…not very much, really. More like a feeling. A hunch. A solid hunch.”

               “Well could you try to push it one way or the other?” said Todd. “there’s kind of a big difference between ‘definitely dead’ and ‘alive and capable of dying if Todd has to cave their heads in to escape whatever kidnapping bullshit they’ve dragged him into.”

               “Hm.”

               “Well?”

               “It’s just-”

               The sirens howled in through the windows like water flooding through the holes in a sinking cruise liner. They filled Todd’s ears and washed out Dirk’s mouth. Anything he was saying or tried to say just spurted out as water of another temperature, a cup of tea plinking into the ocean.

               “PIGS!” screamed Bomber, sweeping up his club. The van slammed forward, but not fast enough. The sirens were scraping off the back of the van, Dirk’s head was backlit by the runoff of the headlights just outside the doors. If they turned the noise off, you might have been able to hear the cop car licking its lips over the tasty little piece it was about to impound.

               Mullet started crying. It took Todd a second to find the noise, and he when he did he felt his heart sink and crack a little at the same time. He’s only sixteen, Todd thought to himself. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. This kid was really, really scared.

               “Mu-Grish?” Todd called. “you ok man?”

               Bomber looked back in and his own face fell, then screwed up into a red tissue, eyes disappearing behind his purpling cheeks. “No! Not this year, come on! It’s ok.” He was not an attractive crier.

               “I’m sorry, Scott,” said Mullet. “I’m sorry, I screwed up again, I grabbed the wrong car and-” the car shunted to the left and all six joyriders flew a foot over. Everyone in the back wound up crushed against the side where they could hear the wheels roll off asphalt and onto the cushioned bounce of grass, smell the balm of damp earth as it broke under their tires. By the time Todd had righted himself Mullet and Bomber were already upright again and screaming at each other, Mullet squeezing words in between wails like the intercom voice that cuts in every few seconds during a fire alarm, Scott yelling over him.

               “Not again,” yelled Bomber over the sound of someone’s bumper, probably theirs, being crushed under the wheels. “We can’t do it again. Keep driving, you can do it, I’ll-”

               “I’m so-ho-ho-ry,”

               “Don’t be sorry! Just drive!”

               “I can’t Scott, we’re gonna die if we-”

               “No, we’re not! They chase us every year, baby it’s ok,”

               “We’re gonna die, we’re gonna,”

               “Stop!”

               “We, we need to-”

               Thing One and Two were still just. Sitting there. Still looking at their phones, almost indistinguishable from each other.

               “What the fuck is going on!” screamed Todd, right before the van flipped.

               It was mostly silence after that.

*

               Until it wasn’t. Todd woke up in the sand, which was already a sentence he hadn’t expected to hear- or think- that day. It was a sandbox, he realised, when his hand grazed the faded redwood border that was serving as poor boundary between the grass and the teensy desert.

               “Dirk?” he mumbled through a mouthful of what he hoped was his own blood.

               “…Here,” wheezed the unmistakably sorry-for-himself voice, from not too far away.

               “You ok?”

               “Well…I’m not dead, I think.”

               They could work with that. “Dirk,” Todd said, rolling over and beginning the long journey to sit up. All his bones felt like they’d been hollowed out. “all things considered I should tell you, I only tried to make this a case so you’d stop bumming me out and…you know…blowing your nose on my stuff. I, uh, wasn’t that interested in a case. I just wanted a simple Halloween.”

               “You did?”

               Oh no. “Uh…yeah.” Todd angled his head and found Dirk, not two feet away, draped over the seat of a swing like a cardigan left by someone who didn’t want to get their clothes dirty from what was, markedly, a pretty shitty swing. Bruises galore, but in one piece. Still, his face was wilting. “Figured…I mean, we just almost died, so, you know.”

               “And otherwise you would have just, what? Let me believe that you, Todd, my best friend, wanted to give me a real Halloween to make up for everything I’ve missed?”

               “Look, Dirk, I-”  

               Two cop cars screeched to a halt just inches away from Todd’s face and scared the bejesus out of him. Literally. As in, the bejesus lost its shit and flew away.. Two doors opened and slammed. He didn’t get to look up in time to see their face, but a well built set of legs and smart black shoes stomped over to him and yanked the scruff of his shirt forward hard enough to drag the rest of Todd with it. He landed a good three or four feet away on damp grass, where the van groaned on its side nearby. He’d been thinking that they’d just rolled it, nothing too major if you don’t have four unbelted people in the back, but no; the whole thing was totalled. The windscreen had sneezed its fragments in a wide sharp circle in the grass, where the busted headlights lit them up like those lights you see outside movie premiers. You know the ones. The hood was coughing and smoking and stunk like a gas station; the rest was all dents, one door was torn right off and littering the jungle gym all the way across the park. Mullet, Scott and the Things were on the ground not far from Todd, looking roughed up but intact. Mullet was still crying. Scott had rolled onto his back and was saying something to the cop standing beside him that needed a lot of expletives to express. She had her gun pointed right between his eyes.

               It was a revolver. Which in and of itself wasn’t too much of a big deal, but it made Todd notice her outfit. The long sleeves on the coat, the shape of the hat, the whistle that dangled down her chest like the crucifix on a Catholic. That outfit was old. Real old. And her hair too, it was styled in this neat peroxide curve you’d feel anxious lighting a match near.

               Drik thudded passive aggressively into the dirt beside Todd. He didn’t even bother to say ‘ow’.

               “Dirk, I think you’re right- I don’t think these people are…real.”

               “Hm.”

               “Oh, come on. Are you really gonna ignore me at a time like this?” Todd’s question answered itself, sort of. A boot struck the side of his head so hard it knocked the thoughts right out onto the grass. There they were, twinkling and dribbling off the blades and oh no, wait, that was blood. His ear was bleeding. “Ow.”

               “You hayve the right to remayn silent.” Said the cop in just barely recognisable southern dialect.

               “No,” whispered Dirk. “Though I am very angry with you.”

               The cop with her gun on Scott made a sudden move and Mullet yelped. But she was just readjusting her pants, which were a size or two too big. Then she started helping Thing One to his feet.

               “What the fuck?” asked Todd, bracing himself for another kick. When it didn’t come, he continued. “why are you letting him go?”

               The lady cop ignored him and started helping up Thing Two.

               “Thaynks for the help boys.” She said, shaking Thing One’s hand. It was a pretty one-sided engagement given how engrossed he wasn’t in his surroundings. “Yewe helped us tayke down two dayngerous perverts tonite.”

               “Indeed they did. We’ll make sure these two end up where they belong boys, you get yerselves home.” Added the other one, stepping over and shaking Thing Two’s hand, unfazed by how deep in his pocket it’d been before.

               When did they cuff me? Todd wondered suddenly. He didn’t remember, but they were there. Real as anything, cutting into his wrists.

               “Fuck you,” spat Scott. ­­His eyes were bloodshot and his jacket was in tatters around his elbows, but somehow the waves in his hair just kept on waving. They didn’t have a rock to break against. “fuck both of you. Every fuckin’ year, every fuckin’ year, don’t you ever get bored? What entertainment can you possibly get out of it all? Aren’t you tired of this?”

               “No,” Thing Two’s voice boomed low. Lower than you’d think. Then he was gone. Thing One, too. Scott thrashed on the ground like a worm on the end of a hook, overlooking the bottomless ocean.

               Grish was quiet. On his side now, watching Scott wriggling around in the mud. His face was all busted up, his nose was only just about intact, and the side of his head was matted with already crusty blood. He had the beginnings of a shiner. He was almost serene, though. Just observing the events in front of him, like he wasn’t really there at all. Like it was all happening to someone else. But then the lady cop grabbed him by, you guessed it, the scruff of his neck, and all the panic from earlier came flooding back. She dragged him on his belly into the middle ground between Scott and Todd pushed a boot down on the kid’s back and pointed her gun at his head. Todd felt cold. He could feel his pupils dilating, feel the blood leave his vitals. He was panicking. Mortally. Fuck.

               “Mom, no! Please, God, no.” cried Scott.

               Oh.

               “Not now, huney,” she said over her shoulder, cool as you please. “momma’s busy.”

               “Go fuck yourself, let him go. Why are you doing this?”

               “You’re a good boy Scottie.”

               “What?”

               “You’re a good boy and I’m not gonna let you get all mixed up with a kid like this. He’s confused you, baby don’t you see that?” she wasn’t looking at him, just straight staring at the back of Grish’s head. “you don’t wanna abandon everyone you love just to…live in sin with this goddamn criminal, do you?”

               “Yeah, I fuckin’ do, ma’. I wanna do that more than any of the boring shit you’ve forced me to do in the last fifteen goddamn years.”

               I think I’m getting the picture. That was a new feeling for Todd, really. He tried to catch a glimpse of Dirk’s face to see if he was feeling it too, that feeling like a load of joints are locking into place and the mechanism’s starting to turn, but he couldn’t angle his head right. The gun cocked and the tension in the air solidified.

               “You don’t mean that baby,” said the cop. “you don’t wanna leave us. Me an’ Officer Craig here-”

               Grish’s voice sounded like it’d aged about forty years. “Officer Craig’s gonna kill your son when you’re done with me.” he tilted his head toward the cop standing behind Scott. “Ain’t ya, dad?”

               “You ain’t no son of mine.” He said, not missing a beat. “You got me an’ this good woman sneakin’ around like common criminals tryna catch you two while we still cayun. ‘fore you can turn her son into some no good-”

               “He’s gonna kill Scott the minute you put that bullet in my head Ma’m. Just wants himself some leverage, see? So you don’t chicken out and call-”

               “Call who, boy?” Snapped the officer known as Craig. “Who is she gonna call, exactly?”

               There was a silence. You could almost feel the energy seep out of the grass, feel the wind stop and freeze in place in a filmy layer over everything that made it a little slippery. Like in the Purple Nurple. Hear the sound of children playing far away getting dimmer, till you were sure you were imagining it. The sound of a fleeting thing getting farther and farther out of reach.

               “Wait,” said Todd. He didn’t actually mean to say it but said it anyway. He rolled onto his back and managed enough of a sit-up to roll his weight onto his feet and stand up. It hurt, unsurprisingly.

               “You could do that all this time?” asked Dirk.

               “Shut up, not important.” Replied Todd, realising that the other four participants in what was the least cool Halloween ever were staring at him with heightening mania. “I just- I wanna make sure I’ve got this straight. You two are in love, right? Scott and Grish?”

               “I wouldn’t use those terms,” huffed the lady cop.

               “Well I would, and I didn’t ask you, did I? Lady? No? Then Scott, Grish, you’re in love, right?”

               “Yeah,” said Grish. “I love ‘im.’

               Scott nodded. “Yeah.”

               “And you two are in some kind of… I wanna say a relationship?” Todd nodded at Craig “But you’re also in a murder pact where you’re going to- and I really do want to get this part correct, because by God is it stupid, murder this guy’s sixteen year old son, to try and stop them from being together?”

               “I love her with all mah heart,” Said Craig. “I’d hayte for such a thing to happen ‘cause of my inability to teach my son the right moral character.”

               “How does that even work?” said Todd. The mechanism in his head was churning along now, and he was slowly realising that it was just…a really stupid mechanism. “they were already running away. You were never going to see either of them again! What, lady? Did you think your son was just going to settle back in at home, meet a nice sorority girl and get over this like a bad cold? That he was what, going to thank you? Look at him!”

               “My boy is sick, I know what he-”

               “Look at him!” Todd was on the wrong side of her to see how exactly she interpreted that order. But Scott’s face was hardened into stone and he returned her gaze with nothing, admirably, nothing but neutral certainty. “You’re sick, Lady” Todd continued. “And what about you, Grish’s dad? Whatever your name is.” Todd walked a little ways towards him then stopped abruptly as his pistol rose, stopping just at the right height to pop Todd in the forehead if he felt like it.

               “You think that’s the first time I’ve had a gun pointed at me, huh? What, you’re planning to kill three people in one night and just wake up tomorrow like nothing’s changed? If you care so much about Scott, if all you wanna do is save him from your own goddamn son- by the way, really shitty job as far as dads go- then why did you run him off the road? They both could have died, it’s pure luck they didn’t.”

               “I’ve been on the force for twenty five years boy,” said Grish’s dad. “I know how to neutralise a moving target so that-”

               “Whatever, man. You guessed. You can’t perfectly calculate a car accident, you’re not a genius. Clearly. And even if you did, why are you getting her to shoot your own son? If he’s such a big problem to you, why aren’t you the one taking care of it?”

               There was a beat. One too many.

               “I wanted to-”

               “You really are going to kill Scott, aren’t you, Craig?” accused Todd. His heart was, as far as he could feel at the moment, somewhere around his ears. It was a miracle he could hear enough of Dirk’s voice to jump at the sound of it.

               “You already have.” Dirk was standing just next to Todd, grass-stained and smelling just a little of dog shit. He regarded Todd. “I…you know, stood up.”

               Todd’s brain-type machine whirred a little faster and his face lifted. “Right?”

               “I didn’t think you’d catch up so soon, Todd,” said Dirk, his narrow features all flared and aquiver with excitement. He was lighting back up. “I mean, usually I’m the one with all the theories and conjectures and you kind of lag behind broodingly, but this time around you’ve kept in step pretty well.”

               “Dirk, uh, you might want to start explaining,” said Todd, who could feel the adrenaline starting to subside within himself. Already he was struggling to make eye contact with Craig’s gun like he could before.

               “Oh yeah. Right, so, this has all been happening year after year for, judging by your clothes, about fifty to sixty years.”

               “Fifty four,” groaned Grish.

               “Thank you. You see, this has already happened. This all went down fifty four years ago, in the mid-sixties. It seems like Grish and Scott, who must have been polar opposites in the schoolyard, fell in love after being thrust together by their parents’ lukewarm romantic fling.”

               Todd chimed in, “but your parents are homophobic dickbags. They freaked out, and Grish’s dad, being a violent sixties cop, decides it’s better to kill the both of you. He convinces Grish’s mom to be his accomplice to make sure she doesn’t change her mind and turn him in, but you two catch wind of the whole deal and try to escape during Halloween night, when cops are the busiest.”

               “But there was a betrayal,” added Dirk, pointing at the space where the Things had been. “two friends who asked to come with you in your escape from Springsborough, were actually homophobic dickbags themselves, and tipped off your parents with all the details. They hunted you down to this very spot.”

               “Yes.” Snapped Scott, the only party still on the ground thanks to a helpful boot planted by Craig. “We know. Who do you think you’re explaining this to for Christ’s sakes?”

               Ah. The realisation seemed to bounce off of Todd’s chest like a hard-thrown volleyball, leaving behind it a purple bruise that he recognised as good old fashioned shame. They’d gotten too carried away. The emotional charge of the situation had kind of evaded him until then; he’d been elevated, looking down at a map where all the lines were intersecting for the first time in his life. But these were two kids, two real kids. Who died. Unfairly, and alone. With nobody to protect them. There was a pause, and in it the two detectives felt the weight of the night pressing down on all of them like a  smothering, spectral hand.

               Todd swallowed, “Sorry. Craig, Scott’s mom? This has already happened. Fifty-four times over. The, the pain you two caused your children on Halloween all those years ago, the hatred and the injustice and the uh, the anguish of it all, it’s kept all of you trapped here. You’re ghosts. Repeating the same night, once a year and every year. Your children try to escape from you, and every year their friends betray them. Every year you put them through this. And it doesn’t change a thing. I mean, like, they still love each other, they still try to escape, and they still stick by one another right until the very end.”

               “You’re not fixing anything,” agreed Dirk. “think about it. Do you remember what you did on November first last year?”

               “Don’t you talk to her,” rumbled Craig.

               Scott’s mom frowned. “We always visit my mother’s, to help clean up. She has a party, every year like clockwork.”

               “That’s your tradition,” said Todd. “but what happened last year? In twenty-seventeen? What do you remember about actually being there?”

               “I remember, she…” a hard to decipher look came over her face. “she made us dinner, pork. But no, we don’t eat pork anymore since I got…so would it have been turkey? But she doesn’t have an oven. Or does she, when did she move into the Home? But if she was in the Home, how could we have…” She was mumbling to herself now, like how a sleep-talker might, bubbling syllables off her lips and floating them off to the rest of the group.

               “You haven’t been in decades,” said Todd. “all this time, you’ve been under this…this delusion that you’re doing something important. But it’s all futile, it’s all pointless. Your sons are gay. They love each other. All you’ve ever done is cause them pain for it. You haven’t fixed them, you can’t fix them, there’s nothing wrong with them. They’re doing what they’re supposed to do. And if you thought you were saving them from some eternal damnation, looks like you fucked that up too.”

               “Irene don’t listen to ‘im,” said Craig, cocking his gun. “he jus’ wants ta confuse you.”

               Irene was starting to disintegrate. Trembling like a small dog afraid of the fireworks.

               “Irene, honey, let’s just end this an’”

               “Mom,” said Scott, beginning to struggle against Craig’s boot, trying to get some ground towards his mother. “Please. They’re tellin’ the truth. This happens every year. What happened to you? What happened to Nina and Jay after I was gone? Did they even miss me? I wanna be with them, don’t you? And I wanna be with the man I love.”

               “A-all you have to do it drop the gun, Irene,” said Grish, making an effort to roll over. She hopped back and pointed her gun back down at him and you could feel everyone’s backs being drawn up, like pulling a loose thread on a shirt and watching the cloth gather behind it. “I-I love your son. I love him more than anything else in the world. Just like you do, right? I’ve seen you do this over and over again, and it doesn’t work. My dad doesn’t even wanna save us. Not even you. He just wants us gone.”

               “Irene,” said Dirk. The woman looked dead at him, almost as if she hadn’t really noticed him before. It was like a wave of electricity had briefly, but markedly, rippled through her body. “The only way to stop all this, the only way to fix anything at this point, is to stop. Put the gun down.”

               “Don’t you tell her what to do,” snapped Craig, lifting his gun to Dirk. “She ain’t your wife.”

               “She ain’t yours either, you two-timin’ fuck,” said Scott.

               “What?” said Irene, coming back to herself a little.

               Craig pointed his gun Scott’s head.

               Irene yelped and turned hers on Grish, “if you touch my baby I’ll blow his head clean-”

               Todd and Dirk, deciding that things had escalated quite enough at this point, simultaneously and in a great feat of holistic initiative-taking, did something inadvisable to most people. Which was to run headlong, arms tied behind their backs, at two armed ghosts.

               I can’t let this happen, not again, thought Todd to himself. And besides, if these two are ghosts, maybe their bullets are too.

               Don’t shoot don’t shoot don’t shoot! thought Dirk urgently and without much more elaboration.

               Irene flailed around to see Todd coming at her, and her gun went off with its end pointed at his stomach. A moment later he smacked into her, tripped over Grish and both fell to the ground to join him among the discarded cigarette butts and fox shit.

               Dirk flew into Craig, bounced right back again, and landed flat on his back. Then Craig shot him in the kneecap.

               Craig chose this moment to turn his gun back on Scott but caught a bullet in the side of his own head before he could so much as cock it. He fell to the ground like deflating blimp, one limb at a time then finally sagging into himself and out of thin air. Irene lowered her still smoking gun, then quickly did the same.

               Todd quickly tried to remember if he’d been shot before. He didn’t think so, and thus decided the best way forward was to scream in pain while clutching at his stomach until someone who had been shot before told him what to do. As such, he wasn’t lucid enough to see Grish and Scott, free from the spectral handcuffs that had, like their owners, disappeared into the mist, hold each other. Scott kissed Grish on the forehead, the lips, the neck, anywhere that remained within a PG 13 rating. Grish just sort of held Scott’s face in his hands whenever he could. Felt it. Committed the lines to memory. It was a lovely scene that neither detective got to see very well. Dirk was too busy trying to hold his kneecap together which was just as impossible and painful as it sounds.

               “Wait,” said Grish, pulling his face out of Scott’s range. “we should probably…yeah.” He waved a hand at Todd, and just like that the pain stopped.

               “Oh shit, you’re right.” Said Scott, doing the same in Dirk’s general direction. The sensation of his kneecap reassembling itself was, in a word, shite. But it was over quickly and immediately began to disappear into the past, so that was something.  The respective bullets dropped out of each boy’s hand and into the damp grass, to be found later and eaten by whatever was stupid enough to eat them.

               “That was incredibly stupid,” said Grish, not unkindly. “you both could have died.”

               Scott couldn’t stop smiling. It was an earnest smile too. A wedding day, first baby born, random act of kindness smile.  “Thank you. Nobody’s ever done that for us before.”

               “We’re not the first people, then?” asked Dirk, lending some weight to his fresh kneecap and turning significantly less pale when it didn’t immediately shatter. “you’ve invited other people onto the…trash tour?”

               Scott turned pink. “Uh…yeah, sorry. I didn’t, uh. I just…”

               “We just wanted it to end,” said Grish. “We didn’t want anyone to get hurt. This happens every year, you know? Always the same. We hoped that if we got some more people involved that something might change, and it did. You changed it. Thank you.”

               “In my defence, I thought they’d be ghost bullets,” confessed Todd, who was still groaning a bit and hobbling over to them in only slightly exaggerated discomfort. “But it’s worth it.”

               “How many came before us then?” asked Dirk, “and what about those two guys in the van, the…?” he jutted his jaw forward and lowered his brow like a Neanderthal.

               “When we decided to run away from home, they asked to come with us,” said Scott. “they were in the next year up at high school. Carlos and…what was it, Grish?”

               “Gary,”

               “Stupid name. Anyway, they told us they were together and that they wanted to get out of town too. I mean, maybe they really did. But either way that didn’t stop them from spillin’ everything to our parents the night before. Maybe my dad was blackmailin’ them.”

               “Maybe,” agreed Grish. “But that was a long time ago. After the first couple of times we knew that they’d always do the same thing, and after that there were no surprises. And they just turned into these pieces of furniture, you know?”

               “You two were maybe the tenth group we convinced to join the tour. It’s hard to get the word out when you’re a spectre and stuff. Even then, most people just ditched out when the cops came or when we started smashin’ stuff. One got all the way to the park but ditched when the cops showed up, had weed on him or somethin’,” Scott shook his head. “Pussy.”

               “What happens now?” asked Todd. He was thinking about all the questions he desperately wanted to ask, but all of them seemed inappropriate. Asking these two what it was like to die felt similar to asking a stab victim about their attacker’s star sign.

               Grish put an arm around Scott’s shoulders. Scott was about half a foot taller than him, but he squeezed Grish’s hand and held him back all the same. “Dunno. We’ve never got this far before. Could be another cycle next year. Could not.”

               “After all this effort?” said Dirk. “No. Absolutely not.” He fumbled around in his back pocket and pulled out a folded square of plastic. Unfolded, it exposed the Trash Tour logo and the ruled paper from the flyer they’d put through his door. “If I see you two around Springsborough again, if I get one more of these through my door? Forget about it. I’ll be all over you two like…like…”

               “We’ll make it our responsibility,” finished Todd. “if you end up stuck here again. If your parents come back, or if those guys do anything to try and screw things up for you again. Just put another flyer through the door and we’ll find you.”

               Being hugged by a ghost felt an awful lot like being hugged by a person. The main difference was the weight behind it. Being hugged by a person, you feel you can lean on them for a second, take a fraction of the weight off your usually overtired feet and depend, just for a moment, on the strength of another. On a ghost you don’t have this feeling. Just the weightless sensation of their arms and chest against you, the way it feels when a cat rubs itself against your leg. An unburdened closeness. The feeling stayed with Todd for a good long minute before he realised that the boys were gone. As was the van, thankfully. He’d been quietly expecting it to explode for a while now.

               “Todd,” began Dirk.

               Todd was doing an awful lot of things that were senseless today, his next words included. “No,” he said. “I’m going to get there first. You don’t get to be mad at me. You were acting so miserable. For hours. And you were getting snot all over my stuff and you were crying and you drove Farah out of the apartment with all the germs and the blowing your nose on my stuff- real uncool by the way- and yes, I’m sorry. I grasped at straws and I dragged you into this because I wanted to get you out of the house. I didn’t care about giving you a case and I should have been honest, and I wasn’t,” he started laughing. “But Jesus, man! We just met ghosts, real proof of the afterlife! And they were in love, and they were trapped and, and we helped them! We freed them and we got shot but we’re ok, and we got to smash mailboxes…”

               “Todd,”

               “Wait, but do you think those people whose mailbox we destroyed were real or not? Maybe the real cops are after us, we should maybe talk to Sherlock, he might be able to pull some-”

               “Todd!”

               The bejesus once again left Todd. “Jesus, what?”

               “I was just going to tell you, thanks. For believing me. About the ghosts.”

               “Why wouldn’t I believe you? It makes so much sense.”

               “Because it’s ghosts, Todd. Real ghosts.”

               “I know!”

               “I know!” they lit up like a pair of fireflies hailing each other. “So, um. What now? It’s only, like…”

               Todd whipped his phone out of his back pocket. “Wow, it’s only ten. Wanna find a party to crash?” he asked. Mostly joking.

               “Sure, why not?” replied Dirk, who did not seem to be joking at all.

               “Really? You’re…wait, I forgot.”

               “Hm?”

               “Why aren’t you allowed out on Halloween? You never actually answered me before.”

               “Yes, I did, I told you-” A low siren bowled up from somewhere far away. Dirk, Todd noticed, was starting to paw at the ground. Hop from foot to foot.

               Todd felt a wave of dull resignation come over him, “Dirk.”

               Dirk recoiled affectedly, so affectedly that Todd felt a little insulted. “What?”  

               “Why aren’t you allowed out on Halloween?”

               Dirk eased his response gently into the split halfsecond he waited before sprinting away. “Last year I maybe sort-of broke into a haunted house in the next town over which maybe wasn’t actually haunted, and was perhaps housing a lovely birthday party-”                  

               “Dirk!”

               “Which subsequently led, in consideration of my past offences, to my being under curfew on Halloween night which I may have just broken.”

               “How could they know you’re out?”

               “Well, at a guess…that mailbox was probably real, wasn’t it.”

               Red and blue lights, and a very real cop car pulled into the park.

               “I fucking hate you,” laughed Todd, raising his hands above his head.

[bee-kathony]

McTavish & Beauchamp |  Blood of My Blood

Happy 275th Anniversary Jamie and Claire!

Chapter 1: Firsts | Chapter 2: Decisions | Chapter 3: On the Road | Chapter 4: Behind Closed Doors | Chapter 5: Proposals 

Chapter 6: Blood of My Blood 

Claire and Jamie’s wedding, June 16, 1743. Inspired by the book/show version. My version of Outlander. 

My first marriage had been quite spontaneous. Frank and I had been on the way to meet his parents for lunch when he stopped me in the street, turned me to the courthouse and pointed.

“What? But your parents are waiting?” I replied, not entirely put off by the idea of a court house wedding but it was all rather quick.

“So let them wait.” Frank had said, taking my hands in his. “When they meet you, I shall introduce you to them as Mrs. Frank Randall.” He smiled and I blushed.

We were married that day and I thought that was it. I thought I would be married to Frank for the rest of my life.

I suppose if you think about it I still am married to Frank or will be married…

I lay in bed thinking about my nuptials to my first husband and how in a matter of hours I would have a second husband. James McTavish. Well I still didn’t know his real name, he told me he would tell me today.

Looking over at the man laying beside me, I blushed. A Bride and Groom weren’t supposed to share their bed before the wedding, that bit was supposed to come after the vows were said. Jamie lay on his back with his arms folded across his stomach, I watched him take deep breaths in and out and couldn’t help myself as I leaned over and placed a soft kiss against his lips.

He woke slowly, his eyelashes fluttering against my cheeks as I pressed into him.

“Sassenach, I dinna think we should… ye know… before the weddin’” Jamie tried to push my body back off his but failed and I straddled his hips as he sat up, arms encircling me.

Jamie kissed me for a long while, we were in no hurry, the sun wasn’t up and I didn’t need to be dressed for hours.

I resigned to not have sex with him, a good Scottish Catholic man he still was and Jamie felt he didn’t want to disrespect God by sleeping with me before the wedding. However we had already slept together multiple times and I felt not a smidge of disrespect.

“I suppose you’re right.” I kissed his jawline. “They say it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.” I kissed the spot just under his ear and he squirmed underneath me.

“Do they?” His voice sounded distant, like his mind wasn’t really focused on a coherent conversation.

I reluctantly crawled off his lap and stood from the bed, arranging my shift so it covered me properly. Jamie almost whined from his spot on the bed.

I raised my eyebrows at him from across the room, “It’s you who said we ‘shouldna sleep together before the weddin’”. I laughed and picked up his kilt that had been left in a pile at the foot of the bed.

Jamie sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Ah Dhia, how am I supposed to wait to bed ye lass, when ye stand there and I can see right through ye’re shift.” He bit his bottom lip and squirmed uncomfortably in the bed, I just knew he had a cockstand.

“And people will know we’ve already consummated the marriage to be if you don’t get out of my room Mr. McTavish.” I smiled and hand him his kilt and shirt which he took and stood from the bed.

My eyes lingered between his legs, his cock twitched and I looked away, scared I might cause him to suddenly pounce on me. Not that I would have minded…

Once Jamie was dressed, he crossed the room to where I had been leaning against the wall watching him dress. “Sassenach,” he said, wrapping his arms around my waist, “I’m no’ marryin’ ye just to keep ye safe from Randall… but that is a big factor.”

I let my hands settle on his firm arse, giving it a gentle squeeze. “And why are you marrying me then?”

He kissed me then, his mouth warm and soft, “I have a few reasons” He grinned, “Which I shall tell ye once we’re married.” Jamie pressed his lips against mine again, I never wanted him to stop touching me. But I knew he had to leave, the next time I would see him, we would be getting married.

“Goodbye Mistress Beauchamp, I’ll see ye at the altar,” Jamie smiled and gave a small bow, turning to leave and shut the door behind him.

I sank down into the bed and put my head in my hands. Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ…. What was I going to wear?

I shoved that thought aside and lay back against the pillows. There was no point in worrying about something I couldn’t control. Dougal had told me all the arrangements, including my dress, would be dealt with before the ceremony.

The door creaked open sometime later and a large, short woman came in.

“Time to get ready lass.” She smiled, her eyes kind and comforting. In her arms she was carrying a large heap of material, what I assumed to be my wedding dress.

I stood shakily from the bed, my palms sweating as she helped dress me. First the corset, the bodice tied together with a long line of laces in the front. Then the bumroll I had grown familiar with wearing tied around my waist and next the first layer of the skirts.

There’s no telling where they found a dress like this on such short notice, the fabric was thick, a darker grey on the outside of the dress with a strip of lighter grey running down the middle. It was adorned with stitched silver leaves and vines all over the skirts and bodice and had thin white sleeves that cut off midway on my forearm.

Since my first marriage was so spontaneous, I obviously not bothered with a wedding dress, marrying Frank in the outfit I had been wearing that day.

Once the kind woman whose name she told me was Fiona, had me all tied in to the dress, I dared a glance into the mirror and found a woman staring back I didn’t at first recognise. The woman in the reflection was beautiful, her curly hair piled atop her head with loose strands curving around her face. The dress she wore fitted her nicely, showing off just enough cleavage.

The woman also looked very much in love.

I was in love with Jamie. Who knows when I would admit that to him or be able to say it out loud but in my head and in my heart I knew that I felt love for Jamie. This strange Highlander man who had been kind to me, this man whose virginity I had taken, this man that I would spend the rest of my life with.

A knock tapped on the door and before I could respond to say “Come in”, in rushed Dougal, Murtagh and Ned Gowan. They muttered their approval of my appearance and I thanked Fiona for helping me.

My heart began to race as Dougal led us downstairs, the small tavern we were staying in was quite some distance away from the church I was to be marrying Jamie in. Ned took one look at my pale face and held his hand on my elbow, holding me steady.

“Nothing to worry about my dear, this shall be over before you know it.” He smiled reassuringly and we walked to join Jamie who was already waiting at the church.

Everyone must be thinking that I didn’t want to marry Jamie… well, everyone except Dougal, whom I had actually admitted to wanting to marry Jamie.

With each step closer to the church, to Jamie, I felt as if my fate was being sealed. Now was the time I could stop this, turn back and flee to the stones. Forget this all every happened and try to move on with Frank, live a quiet normal life.

But I didn’t want a quiet and normal life. I wanted whatever life I was guaranteed to have with Jamie. With all of the chaos of the last few months I had grown quite fond of him, it wasn’t just the sex, even though that was enough to make me want to stay here in this time, it was the connection I felt to him. I felt as if I was always supposed to know Jamie, to have his heart beat with mine.

I looked up, blinking my eyes against the shining rays of the sun and found him standing there at the entrance of the church. A Highlander in full regalia is an impressive sight - no matter who the Highlander is. Jamie was breathtaking. His thick red-gold hair had been swept off his forehead and he wore a fine lawn shirt, tucked in to a brilliant crimson and black tartan that blazed against the more subdued MacKenzie green and white tartan.

The flaming wool, fastened by a silver brooch, fell from his right shoulder in a graceful drape, caught by a silver studded sword belt before continuing its sweet past neat claves clothes in woolen hose and stopping just short of the silver-buckled black leather boots. Sword, dirk and badgerskign sporran completed the rest of his regalia.

Jamie knew he looked fine, his face shining proud, he swept a deep bow, one hand over his heart, “Ye’re servant, ma’am” his eyes glinted with mischief.

“Are ye mad, man?!” Dougal spoke to Jamie, his hand pointing to his crimson kilt. “What if someone sees ye?”

Jamie grinned and cocked his brow at Dougal, “You wouldna have me insult my wife, now, would ye? Besides, I hardly think it would be legal, did I not marry in my own name. And ye want it legal, now, don’t ye Dougal?” He flashed a smile to me and I pressed my lips tightly together, forcing laughter to stay in.

I thought it sweet that Jamie had somehow managed to find a tartan of colours that represented his own clan, wanting to be properly wed.

“If ye’re quite finished,” Dougal sighed and made a movement towards the church.

Jamie wasn’t finished, he reached into his sporran and pulled out a string of white beads. He stepped forward and fastened the necklace around my neck. “They’re only Scotch pearls,” he said almost sounding apologetic, “but they look sae bonny on ye’re wee neck.” His fingers lingered on my neck and Dougal cleared his throat, making me jump slightly.

Jamie slid his hand down to my waist and guided me to the entrance of the church.

“Wait!” I stopped walking and turned to face him. “I can’t marry you.” I said and Jamie’s face was something to behold.

He gaped at me and was at a complete loss of words. Before Dougal could chime in, I finished my thought, “I don’t even know you’re real name!”

Sighs of relief came from all around me and Jamie stepped in close to me, “Oh. It’s Fraser. James Alexander Malcom MacKenzie Fraser.” He pronounced it formally, each name slow and distinct.

I blushed and idiotically stuck out my hand for him to take, “Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp”. Jamie took my hand and brought it to his lips, placing a gentle kiss against my knuckles. He tucked my hand into the crook of his elbow and turned us back to the church.

We stood face to face, my palms were slick with perspiration. When the priest said it was time for the vows, Jamie took my sweaty hands in his firm grasp, I noticed the chill of his fingers and knew that he was nervous too. I smiled weakly, overcome with emotions of disbelief that I was actually doing this and quite honestly, love. The pressure of his fingers on mine increased. I had the impression that we were holding each other up; if either of us let go, we would both fall down. Whatever we were in for, at least there were two of us.

“I take thee, Claire, to be my wife…” Jamie’s voice didn’t shake, he held my gaze, “… to love, honour and protect… for better and for worse…” the words filled my head and my heart. I felt Jamie squeeze my fingers and knew it was my turn now.

“I take thee, James… to have and to hold, from this day forth…” My voice was strong, not a trace of doubt in the mix. “’Til death do us part.” I finished and the words rang out in the quiet church with a startling finality.

The priest asked for the ring and I noticed Murtagh reach into his sporran, pulling out a silver delicate looking ring and handed it to Jamie.

I still wore Frank’s ring on my left hand, something I was not quite ready to part with but I knew the day would come that I would take it off.

Jamie held my right hand out straight, his fingers squeezing mine as he slid the ring on my finger, it fit snuggly at the base. The priest said something else but I didn’t hear, I was fully lost in Jamie’s eyes staring back at me.

I saw a mischievous glint in his eye as Jamie bent to kiss me. I knew he intended it to be brief and ceremonial, for the sake of the small crowd watching at least but his mouth was warm and familiar tasting. I had only last kissed him hours ago but every kiss felt like the first.

I was vaguely aware of Scottish whoops of enthusiasm as Jamie’s hands clasped around my waist but really noticed nothing beyond the enfolding warm solidness, my sanctuary.

We smiled nervously at each other, both thinking of all the time we had spent in bed. I saw Dougal draw his dirk and wondered why. Jamie held my gaze and turned out his right hand, palm up. I gasped as the point of the dirk cut across his wrist, leaving a dark line of blood. There wasn’t time to jerk my hand away as Dougal grabbed my own wrist and cut me in the same motion. Dougal pressed my wrist to Jamie’s and bound the two together with a strip of white linen.

Jamie gripped my waist with his free left hand, I must have looked a bit nauseous.

“Not long now lass, say the words after me.” It was a short bit of Gaelic, two or three sentences. I stuttered on a few of the more hard to pronounce words but managed to make it through to the other side. The linen was unbound and then that was it. We were married. Secretly my heart was filled with peace and joy. I had not know I wanted to be with Jamie in this way, a way so beyond the physical until this moment.

There was a buzz of exhilaration as the small crowd exited the church and stood now on the grass.

Jamie held me to him, his arm secured around my waist and I felt my knees wobble.

“Dinna faint Claire,” Jamie’s other arm came to my back and he held me up with all his strength. I stared down at my wrist and saw a fresh smear of blood soak through.

“Ach, it might’ve been that that made ye weak,” Jamie said, gently touching the white linen covering my wrist. “I should ha’ thought to warn ye about it. I didna realise ye weren’t expecting it until I saw ye’re face.”

“What was it exactly?” I asked him as he wrapped the linen more tightly.

“It’s a bit pagan, but it’s customary hereabouts to have a blood vow, along with the regular marriage vows. Some priests won’t have it, but I don’t suppose this one was likely to object to anything.”

“A blood vow? What did the words mean?” I peered up into his blue eyes staring down at me.

“It rhymes, more or less, when ye say it in English. It says:

‘Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone.

I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One.

I give ye my Spirit, ’til our Life shall be Done.”

“That’s beautiful Jamie” I smiled and stood on my toes to kiss him. The other men had left us behind and had already begun the long walk back to the tavern for a wedding celebration.

“We best get back to the others, soon they’ll be pushing us into the bed, makin’ sure everything’s official.” He attempted a wink and his hands cupped my cheeks.

“Little do they know we’ve already consummated the marriage several times.” I laughed, following in step as Jamie led us back.

We managed to scavenge a few bites of food and drink before most of it was eaten by the ravaging Highlanders. I realised I hadn’t eaten anything all day and found that was probably a contributing factor into the nausea and weakness I had felt earlier.

Shouts of encouragement from all the men followed us as Jamie led us up the stairs and quickly pushed me into the room that was now the ‘honeymoon suite’.

“Sorry Sassenach, I’m afraid they willna leave until they know it’s official.” Jamie said, closing the door and coming to stand in front of me.

“Well you can just go out there and tell them we’ve already done it then.” Grinning, I slid my hands up his chest and rested them against his shoulders.

He leaned down to kiss me, alone at last. Now we could have sex without the guilt or fear of being caught. Although, there wasn’t much guilt involved whenever he took me, only pleasure.

Before our clothes landed in a pile on the floor, Jamie pulled back from the kiss.

“Claire… I want ye so much I can scarcely breathe. And to have ye now as my wife,” a low growl escaped his chest and I felt my insides quiver.

“But?” I squeaked out.

Jamie sighed, pressing his forehead to mine, “I canna help but feel that now we’re married… we should perhaps get to know one another… besides how well I know ye’re body.” He patted my bum and I jerked my hips reflexively into his crotch.

“You said it yourself, they won’t leave until they know we’ve consummated the marriage.” I nodded my head to the door, “I don’t particularly want them waiting outside our door all night Mr. Fraser.” I grinned as I said his name, my name.

He quirked a ruddy brow at me and flashed me a wicked grin. “I suppose ye’re right.” His hands now on the ties of my skirt. “We will have plenty of time to get to know each other…” his mouth pressed against my neck, “after we consummate the marriage.” Jamie’s fingers worked quickly, now well skilled in the art of undressing me, he had the first layer of my dress off.

I turned so he could remove the second layer and bumroll. My legs shook as he turned me around to face him. Why was I so nervous all of a sudden? This man had seen me naked several times and been inside of my most intimate places.

Perhaps it was the finality of the day, we were husband and wife, we had made a vow and in Jamie’s eyes and I suppose mine as well, that binded us for life, there was no escaping.

“Let me get the laces” he said quietly, his large hands touching the tops of my swelling breasts. We both giggled as he undid the laces of my corset, the pressure off my chest was almost enough to make me climax right then.

My breath hitched in my throat when the corset fell and the weight was replaced by the warmth of his hand on my breast. Jamie cupped my breast, his touch was tender. I stood in my shift, the remnants of my wedding dress now puddled around my feet.

“My turn.” I said just before he kissed me again. My hands found his belt and pulled it from around his waist, it fell with a clang to the ground.

Jamie’s hands continued to roam over my body, exploring what was now his. I told him to lift his arms and he moaned but I pulled the shirt up and over his head, exposing his bare chest. I couldn’t help but slide my fingers across the expanse of his skin, the coppery curls tickling my own.

“Jamie” I whispered, my nerves clenching my throat. His hands left my body to tug at the kilt still hanging on his hips. His cock sprang free of the heavy tartan, I could see the veins pulsing and wanted to reach for it but Jamie squatted and found the hem of my shift.

Jamie inched up the shift and placed kisses along my pale skin. My calves, my knees, then my thighs. As more of my skin was exposed I felt more of my heart being given to Jamie. He moved to his knees while his hands bunched the shift around my waist, my pussy now level with his mouth.

“Jamie,” I whispered again and he looked up at me then through hooded eyes.

“Sassenach,” he smiled and then pressed his face forward against me. My knees gave slightly as his wet lips met the wetness between my thighs. It took all of what was left of my concentration to hold my body upright. Jamie must have felt this as his hands came behind me and attached themselves to the backs of my thighs.

His curls were soft in my hands as I gripped onto him. My mouth parted but no sound came out as his tongue slid into me. Jamie moved his tongue in quick strokes, flicking it with precision.

“Oh my God, Jamie!” I cried out suddenly, looking down to where he was fast at work. I watched his head move in between my thighs, my orgasm rippling throughout my body, spasms shook me and Jamie gave one last lick before he pulled me down to my knees to join him.

His arms quickly pulled my shift off over my head and he held me close, burying his face into the side of my neck. “Mo nighean donn,” he wound his fingers through my hair, planting kisses along my neck and down to my collarbones. His cock rolled between our stomachs, he was breathless and moaning. He was mine.

“I need ye Sassenach.” Jamie gathered me into his arms and stood, carrying me to the bed, he laid me out, spread eagled.

He looked at my body, his eyes trailing across my flesh, bringing heat to my cheeks and belly.

“Come to me.” I reached out both hands to him and he crawled on the bed above me. “My husband.” I smiled against his mouth as he kissed me, my lips parting in a gasp as he slid home inside of me.

Jamie did not move at first, simply enjoying the feeling of me but when I ran my hands down his back and dug my fingernails into his arse he started to rock into me. A steady back and forth movement, his cock entering me deeper than he ever had before. “Jamie.” I panted his name, desperate to know every part of him.

“Claire.” He moaned my name, one hand reaching up to cup my breast as he rammed harder, faster and deeper.

“Uhhhh Christ!” I let go, my legs shaking, my heart pounding, my head spinning. Jamie now owned every part of me, body and soul. I heard Jamie moan Gaelic curses in my ear, his body collapsing on top of me, his chest slick with exertion.

We lay together, still joined, for some time. My hands began a pattern of slow circles against the small of his back where his spine dipped. Jamie’s breath was warm against my face, his body heat making me clammy but I didn’t want to move.

I heard my stomach growl and so did Jamie. He roused with a laugh, placing a kiss on my nose and rose lazily from me. “I’ll get ye somethin’ to eat Sassenach, dinna leave this room.” He grinned as he stood and picked up his shirt, throwing it on and crossing the room. I brought a blanket up to cover my body before he opened the door, just in case there were any peeping Tom’s wanting to get a look at the new bride and groom.

A loud thunderous applause echoed through the tavern as Jamie stepped out of our room. I blushed and grinned stupidly, burying my face into the pillow beside me. Everyone certainly knew now that the marriage was legal. God.

I was drifting to sleep, a dream of horse riding on the edge of my subconscious, when Jamie came to sit beside me on the bed, a bowl of fruit and a plate of cheese and bread in his lap.

“Mmmm I’m ravished.” I smiled, sitting up and letting the blanket fall. Jamie’s gaze left the food and went to my breasts. He was quite fond of them, to make him forget about food, he must really love them.

That thought made me laugh and I grabbed a piece of bread and cheese and nibbled on it.

“What’s sae funny Sassenach?” Jamie asked me, reaching beside the bed to grab a glass of wine, taking a sip then offering the glass to me.

“Oh nothing,” I took the offered glass, “Just thinking about how much you must like my breasts is all.”

His cheeks turned bright red and his eyes flicked down to my chest. “Och, they’re bonny. I canna get over how they feel so soft in my hands and when I kiss ye’re wee nipples, how they turn so hard.” As he talked about that part of my anatomy, my ‘wee’ nipples grew hard and I brought the blanket up to cover them, suddenly self-conscious.

“No.” Jamie put his hand over mine and pushed down the blanket, “I dinna mean to make ye nervous, I do like them Claire but only because they are a part of ye.” He smiled so sweetly, I leaned over and kissed him.

“Sassenach… if I tell ye somethin’, ye promise no’ to laugh?” He smoothed my hair back behind my ear.

“Promise.” What was he going to tell me, I wondered.

He got a sheepish look on his face, “I didna realise that ye did it face to face. I thought ye must do it the back way, like; horses, ye ken.” It was a struggle to keep my promise but I managed only a small giggle.

“And you only just now brought this up?” I pressed my thumb against his cheek and felt the two day old stubble.

“Well the first time, I didna have time to even think about what we were even doin’ and the other times, ye were so… in charge, I just followed ye. I ken now, especially after those times we lay together that’s no’ how it’s done.” He laughed, moving the food to the table beside the bed and then gathering me in his arms.

“It can be done that way Jamie.” I turned my face to look up at him, seeing the curious look in his eyes. “It can be rather enjoyable in that position.” I felt his cock twitch underneath me and counted the seconds it would take him to have me flipped over on the edge of the bed but he didn’t move. He squeezed me tighter and kissed my forehead. “Later, mo nighean donn, I dinna have the strength just now.”

“What does that mean?” I asked him.

“What does what mean? What I called ye?” I nodded and he moved his hand to grab a piece of my hair in between his fingers. “Mo nighean donn, my brown haired lass.”

“I always thought brown a dull colour.” I almost went crossed eyed trying to look at the curl he held out in front of my face.

“Nah, not dull at all. It’s like the water in a bern,” he twisted the curl, “the way it ruffles down the rocks. Dark in the wavy spots, with wee bits of auburn where the sun touches it.” It touched my heart to know that Jamie had noticed the colour of my hair in the sun, the little details he had picked up on.

“Will you tell me about your family Jamie?” He let the curl drop against my shoulder, his blue eyes staring back into mine.

“Aye, Sassenach. As long as ye tell me about yer’s. There’s one thing I ask of ye Claire… now that we’re married.”

I nodded, “What’s that?”

Jamie held my hand in his and he readjusted my body on his lap, “Honesty. I ken there are things ye maybe canna tell me, I’ll not press ye about it either, ever, but when ye do tell me somethin’ Claire, let it be the truth. I promise ye the same. We have nothin’ between us - save respect and I think that respect has maybe room for secrets but no’ for lies. Do ye agree?”

“I agree Jamie. No lies.” There were things I knew I could not tell him, maybe with time I could but I would not lie to him, about anything.

“Good. Now Sassenach, what would ye like to know about my family?” Jamie settled his chin on top of my mass of curls and laid back against the pillows, my back cradled in his strong arms.

“Everything I guess. Tell me about your Mother and Father.” I laid my head against his chest as he spoke of his family, how his parents met, how he grew up in a place called Lallybroch. He told me stories of his sister Jenny, of his older brother Willie and how he had died. Jamie spoke with such adoration about his family, a family I was now a part of. He was a born storyteller, regaining tales from his childhood and about his time spent in France.

I returned the favour and told him about growing up with my Uncle Lambert. I had to edit a few details out of course, the time difference being a major secret that I was keeping from him but managed to get the major points across. My parents had died when I was very young, leaving my Uncle to raise me. He was an archaeologist and I spent my childhood and early teens traveling with him.

At one point while I listened to a story of Jamie’s I must have dozed off because the next thing I remember was him tucking a blanket around me and pulling my body back against his.

We came to each other hours later, hands seeking and finding. This time we joined in a slow passionate embrace, we lay on our sides as he slid his cock into me, our legs intertwined. Our bodies rocked back and forth, hips moving.

There was a current of electricity that ran between us. An energy that pulled me to him and him to me. As I held my new husband in my arms, his body connected to mine, I knew that this was it for me. If I died tomorrow, I would die happy. For I have loved a man such as Jamie Fraser and he has loved me in return.

[corvid-knight]

A Quick Lesson In Saying Goodbye

Dave has a dream about someone long dead. 

(Read it on ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12824328) 

I only know that I’m done dreaming when I feel a hand on my shoulder, shaking me too gently to be Karkat. Even  before I’m all the way awake, I can feel wetness on my face…fuck. Crying in my sleep again, not that it’s a surprise. My mind’s still half-in the dream, too—until I force myself to open my eyes, all I can see is Bro’s last grin, amused but still so fucking heartbreaking.

The sense of disconnect gets worse for a second when I do open my eyes, because the face frowning down at me is only a little different from the one in my head, and the hand on my shoulder is wearing those shitty fingerless gloves. It’s not him, though. Well…maybe a little. Biologically yes, but no in every way that matters.

"You all right?“ Dirk asks.

It’s weird. My voice sticks in my throat. I nod anyway, sitting up on the couch and swiping one sleeve across my face to get rid of the tears. Too bad my eyes haven’t gotten the message to stop dripping yet… "Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” I halfway don’t want to look at him—falling asleep halfway through a party is stupid and having him wake me up after the thing’s over because I’m crying is fucking lame—but on another level I need to stare at him, satisfy myself that he’s not dead. Not Bro and not dead. I end up rubbing my eyes like a little kid, trying to stare at him without being all that obvious. “I’m okay.”

He’s not wearing his shades; normally that’d help to get the weird déjà vu to dissipate, but not this time. Right now all it means is that I can tell when he’s looking at me, and he does for a couple seconds before sitting down on the couch next to me, leaning over to pick up my shades off the floor. “Nightmares.” He doesn’t make it a question, more of an open-ended statement. For once, though, I do want to talk.

"Not really.“ I take the shades, setting them on my lap and rubbing the last of the wetness out of my eyes. "A dream, yeah, maybe a bad one. But…just sad. Not shit to be afraid of.”

"Even the sad ones suck, though…and I’m guessing it’s worse for you.“ Dirk frowns, blinks, and adds, "The Time stuff, I mean. I know you probably went through more bad shit than any of us.”

"Maybe. Sometimes.“ I dream about the doomed timelines a lot; it scares the shit out of Karkat when it happens. Those nightmares are horrible. "This wasn’t about that, though. It wasn’t a dreambubble either.”

"You still get those?“

"Not that often anymore, but yeah.” I never know how to feel about the bubbles. They hurt, sometimes, but talking to ghosts isn’t something I really want to stop doing. “I just…this wasn’t memories, wasn���t dreambubbles, wasn’t even meaningless random shit. I don’t know.” I put my shades on. Apparently I might not be done crying, because they fog up more or less immediately; I take them off and start polishing them with my shirt. “You ever get dreams that you know shouldn’t mean anything, but you think they do anyway?”

Dirk considers for a minute, then shrugs. “I dream about the game a lot,” he says, “about all the ways I could’ve fucked up, or being back on Earth and never meeting another human, being the only one left in an empty session with no door out, taking a metaphysical wrong turn somewhere and ending up as one of the versions of me that're even worse than who I am. Or just meaningless random shit, like you said.” "Different versions of you. Bro?“

"That’s one of the scary ones, yeah.”

"That’s who I was dreaming about.“ My shades are clean; I really don’t need to keep wiping at them but I do need a reason not to look at him. It’s blatantly obvious avoidance tactics, but I do need an excuse to not look at him as I talk. "Bro.” My eyes itch.

Dirk’s looking at me. I don’t have to look at him to know it; I can feel it. “You okay?” Does he know how much his voice reminds me of Bro sometimes? I hope not.

"I’m okay.“

"You want to talk?”

Fuck yes, please. “If you’re okay with listening, yeah.”

I look up at him as he nods. I can’t stop fidgeting with my shades as I start talking. The whole dream’s so fucking clear in my memory, easy to drag out—there are things that actually happened that I don’t remember half this well.

**********

The roof. I’d spent a lot of time here, once. Not that it used to look like this—the rest of the city gone dark, chunks of the skyline missing where something made impact with the ground, smashing buildings like toys. It was barely recognisable, actually.

And the sky…that, I recognised, but it was still wrong. No stars, but brighter than if there was. The sky, the actual fabric of reality, was cracked open in spiderweb fractures from horizon to horizon, spectrums of color coruscating where the void wasn’t.

I have no clue how long I just sat there with my legs hanging off the edge, watching the colors change and thinking about the fact that this was our fault. Well, maybe that wasn’t what I meant…but we, me and people I knew, were the reason that the sky was broken. We’d set into motion events that changed the structure of reality. Destroyed it a bit, maybe.

I wasn’t sure what to think about that, so as much as I could, I didn’t think. About anything. If time was passing, I couldn’t sense it, and for awhile nothing changed but the sky.

"Hey, lil’ man.“

He almost made me jump. Almost. Instead, I just turned my head. "Didn’t you die?” Had he been there the whole time, lying back with his hands behind his head and watching the sky? “You look like shit.”

Bro rolled his eyes at me—fuck, when was the last time I’d seen him without his shades?—and grinned, pushing himself up onto his elbows.“Wrong on the first count, but I ain’t gonna argue on the second.” Any other time, the amount of blood on him would have made me dizzy, but right now? Just made me achingly sad. Maybe confused as to how he was functioning at all—there was a wet stain in the center of his chest, and although I didn’t want to look all that closely, I was pretty sure his throat had been cut, from the amount of blood there. “Don’t worry, though. You’ll be right on both counts in a little while.”

"You’re dying.“ Fuck. Again.

Bro nodded, still smiling. "Yep. But hey, you’re not. Means I did my job right, huh?”

"Fuck no you didn’t.“ I said it and knew I shouldn’t be saying it, but him thinking he did any part of raising me right—other than not actually killing me or getting me killed—sent a spike of half-blinding anger into my head. "What part are you saying you did right? Beating the shit out of me? Taking off for months, letting me fend for myself? Fuckin’ Cal, are you calling that shit right? It wasn’t, none of it was, and you fuckin’ know it.”

He let me finish without stopping me, without even losing his faint smile, and even waited a couple seconds to be sure I was done. “You’re alive, though. Stay that way, kid.” And her reached across with one hand, trying to ruffle my hair.

The fact that I could dodge him that easily drove home the point that yeah, he was dying. Most of my anger evaporated—what was the point? “Fuck you, Bro.” And because I wouldn’t get another chance, and I was still pissed: “You know I hated you, right?”

"Really.“ I’d expected some kind of reaction from him—anger, maybe, or scorn. Something other than him just looking up at the sky for another moment before sitting all the way up and turning to me. "You know I cared about you, right?”

There was absolutely nothing about him that suggested he was lying. He believed that shit, and I shook my head. “Like fuck you did.”

"No, really. Everything I did was to give you a better chance, keep you alive in this damn thing. You’re a good kid, y'know? Would’ve sucked if I spent that much time on you and you went and got yourself creamed in your fuckin’ game.“

"Fuck you.” I’d said that once already, but he didn’t seem to be getting the message. Might as well repeat it. “You did what you did ‘cause it was easier to kick my ass and fuck my head up than to teach me shit like a fuckin’ normal person. You were a bastard then and you’re an asshole now, and you don’t get to turn it around and call it what was best for me.” I was getting angry again, somehow without losing any of the sadness. God, but this was pointless—it couldn’t change anything that’d happened, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be changing. “You—fuck. Fuck you.”

If he’d gotten angry, I would’ve been okay. Scared, but okay. Instead he just shrugged, staring at me as if he’d never bothered to take a good look before. Come to think of it, maybe he hadn’t. “You said you hated me,” he said quietly.

"Damn straight.“

"Nah, you said 'hated.’ Past tense. You hate me right now, lil’ man?”

"I—" I could’ve lied, easy. Except I really couldn’t. “No.” He was my Bro, and the awful thing was that he’d been a good brother sometimes. Maybe not often, maybe not for a long time, but hey. I didn’t forget the good shit. And he was dying, and as stupid as it was, my eyes were getting blurry. “F-fuck you, alright?”

He tilted his head, and I don’t think I’d ever seen that expression on his face before. “Aw, hell, kid.” This time when he reached for me he moved slower than before. I was still too fucking tired to dodge, even though I could see blood on his hand and I didn’t exactly want that touching me. “You’re cryin’, lil’ man.”

His fingers felt damp against my face, but when he took his hand away and I went to wipe at where he’d touched, my fingers came away clean. “Stupid.”

"Nah.“ Pity. Maybe that was what that look was. Or regret. Either way, something I’d never gotten out of him. "That ain’t stupid, just human. Least someone’s gonna remember me.” He sighed, slumping a little and looking down at the mess of what used to be Houston. “For what it’s worth, I think I did my best. I loved you, kid. Love you now. If I wasn’t on my way out—”

"Just shut up.“ It came out a hell of a lot harsher than I’d meant it to. He was telling the truth. That was the horrible thing. He did think he hadn’t done anything wrong, and I knew he was wrong. And in the end, it didn’t matter. "I don’t hate you. Not all the time. It’s not worth it.” I’d already said most of the pointless things I could to him, but I still had at least one more. “Fuck, Bro, why’d you get yourself killed like this?”

My voice cracked halfway through the sentence. I think that the moment I knew it was a dream was when Bro stared at me, shrugged, and reached over to wrap his arms around me. He’d never done that, he would never do that, and for a second I was fully aware that none of this was even a little real, and I could’ve broken out of it. Instead, I just hugged him. Forgot about the reality or lack thereof of all this, forgot about the blood, forgot about all the stupid pointless shit for some length of time that I didn’t bother trying to keep track of.

However long it was, it wasn’t long enough before he winced and let me go, pushing me back gently. God, I almost wished he wasn’t being gentle. That’d make shit easier. “You gonna be alright, lil’ man?”

Good fucking question. “Yeah.” I was shaking my head even as I said it, wiping at my eyes with my sleeve. “I—fuck, I miss you. I’m pissed at you, I hate you, and I fuckin’ hate you. And it just—it gets worse, 'cause I hate myself for caring about you 'n I feel like shit for hating you when you’re gone because of me, it’s so—so fucking stupid—”

"Shh.“ He shook his head, glancing out at the ruined city, folding one arm across his chest and grimacing before looking back at me. "I know. I know, kid, it sucks.” He reached over with his free hand, lacing his fingers through mine and giving them a quick squeeze before letting go. “If it was my choice, I’d make you forget me. Everything about me—good shit, bad shit, the whole shebang. You’re a good kid…wish I didn’t have to leave you.” One more look out at the skyline, his hand coming up to rub at the cut around his neck. “My time’s just about up…the guardian’s almost here. Can you give me a hand up, kid?”

"Yeah.“ I got to my feet, grabbing his hand and trying to pull him up. If I’d been able to get ahold of both of his hands it would’ve been a piece of cake, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t take his other arm away from where it was pressed against his chest. In the end, I pulled his arm across my shoulders, dragging him to his feet and letting him lean against me. "What’s the guardian, Bro?”

For a second he didn’t answer, breathing heavy and leaning on me for support. He might not have been hurting before, but now he sure as hell was now. “The one that’s coming to get me…it’ll be whatever I deserve.” He’d been looking out at the skyline, eyes half-focused; now he glanced at me again, smiling a little. “Probably an animal, that’s what I think…what d'you think it’ll be?”

I didn’t think about it. “Eagle.” Didn’t know why I picked it, either, but Bro laughed, a genuinely amused grin spreading across his face. "Never been that brave, kid.“ He pulled out of my grip, and even though I didn’t want to let go, I didn’t have a choice. "Never been that innocent, either.” This time when he reached out to ruffle my hair, I didn’t dodge it. “I’m sorry.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it again. There’s no fucking answer to that, you know? Not, “it’s okay,” because it isn’t, not “you should be,” even though that’s the truth. Nothing. Maybe the fact that my eyes were so blurry I could barely see him was some kind of answer in itself, I don’t know, but when he took his hand away I had to close my eyes, blink away some of the tears, and wipe at my face for a second.

When I opened my eyes again, he wasn’t looking at me anymore, and the cracks in the sky weren’t the brightest thing there.

The guardian wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before, but when I looked at it I still felt like it was familiar—an animal, not quite a wolf and not quite a lion but a little like both, faceless and covered in pure white fur that could have been soft or could have been made out of a thousand million tiny needles, standing calmly on the air just past the edge of the roof with its long tail switching back and forth. Next to it, Bro looked like a kid. An amazed, terrified, hurt kid. Reminded me of myself, from some time before now, and fuck but that hurt.

"Bro…“ My voice cracked and almost quit, but I forced one more sentence out. "I don’t want you to go.”

I got a glance back from him, and a shrug, and a grin that spoke of some painful (but still amusing) cosmic joke that I was missing out on. “Sorry, Dave…”

And he took two steps forward, staggering before he stepped off the edge and catching himself on the guardian, wrapping his arms around its neck and burying his face in its fur. I blinked, and the bloodstains on his clothes and skin faded away. Blinked again, and I was the only thing alive in that place.

**********

"After that,“ I say, not looking at anything except my hands in my lap—definitely not at Dirk— "I think I just cried until you woke me up.” I’m just thankful he let me talk through the whole thing. He hasn’t asked questions, hasn’t done anything other than listen and, when I started crying again, reached over to put a hand on my shoulder. “Which…fuck, I didn’t cry this much when he really died, it’s so fucking stupid..."

I want to be able to not be crying. That isn’t happening.

"I don’t think it’s stupid,“ Dirk says quietly. "Shit takes time to sink in, you start to forget the aspects of him that were worth hating…you can’t always say goodbye at the right time. There isn’t a wrong way to feel about his being gone, you know?”

"Wish it didn’t hurt.“ When I put my shades on they don’t fog up, thank god, and I can finally look up at Dirk. "Wish he was—fuck, I don’t know…my mind wants him to have been like you are, worth having as a brother, worth mourning and missing and whatever, but he’s not.”

Dirk blinks. Several times. “I don’t know what went wrong that he wasn’t,” he says. “I’m glad you think I’m better than he was. I’m sorry he wasn’t better.”

"Not your fault.“ I sigh, and lean against him. "He sucked, but you…you make up for it…thanks, man.”

He’s smiling. Just a little. “No problem, Dave.”

[mergays]

i’m late but here’s my contribution to @dirkjohnweek

prompt: AU

basically a quality AU involving a hypothetical fire in the building john lives in during the middle of fucking december and the weaboo neighbor that offers to let him use his jacket

enjoy!

It was thirty five degrees fahrenheit outside when the fire alarm in the apartment complex went off.

John was startled out of his bed, and he rolled off of it onto the floor in a panic to pull on a T-shirt over his pajama pants. The room was dark except for a faint blue light streaming in on his door from his window. Droning on, the alarm continued blaring, and he reluctantly dragged himself with a groan, scrambling on his bedside table for his phone and his keys before jogging out.

Once in the living room, he wasted no time tugging on his boots and running out of his apartment, glancing around at his scared neighbors as they too hurried for the stairs. Resisting the urge to push old Mrs. Jenkins down as she took her sweet time blocking the way, John just bounced on his heels, praying that the fire was at least above the third floor.

The lights of the alarms flashed in his face as the crowd hurried down, loudly talking amongst themselves as they each struggled not to be the ones to freak out. John took the stairs two at a time whenever he could, using his height to squeeze inbetween the taller escapees. He pushed out onto the street and immediately shivered, wrapping his arms around himself as he hurried away from the building. A sizeable crowd was forming by this point, most of them looking angry or scared or just plain annoyed, not unlike John himself.

He rubbed his arms frantically, watching his neighbors enviously those who had thought of bringing jackets. For a few seconds he just stood, waiting for a sign of smoke of flames to appear and show an actual fire.

“Hey.”

John didn’t think the voice was talking to him at first, and so he ignored it until he felt a light touch on the top of his shoulder. He turned around to see a taller man, with long hair hanging in his face, and sharp sunglasses sitting on the back edge of his nose. He didn’t look that much like he had rolled out of bed, but as John watched, the other shrugged out of his orange jacket and held it out in offering, revealing a purple sweater with a big knitted penis underneath.

First John looked at the sweater, and then the jacket being offered, before giving the man a look. No matter how hard he squinted, though, the other’s face didn’t deign to change.

“Is this the jacket from that anime Naruto?” John crossed his arms, refusing to give in. A single dark eyebrow arched over the others shades, and he gave a slow shrug, offering it again.

“Yeah.” Is all he finally responded. John couldn’t believe his ears.

What kind of complete lack of shame was this? But suddenly a freezing breeze blasted through his thin shirt, and he snatched the old-school weaboo jacket from the other man.

“I like your shirt.” The man commented, and John looked down, resisting the urge to let out an embarrassed groan. Out of all the shirts cast out on his floor, somehow he had grabbed the joke one Rose had gotten him for his birthday, that read the following:

BORN THIS GAY

He continued looking at the shirt for a long second before pulling on the thick orange jacket, which was surprisingly heavy and warm. The collar just barely brushed the ends of his shaggy hair, reaffirming that he needed to cut it.

“We can’t all knit dick sweaters.” He responded, giving the one in front of him a nod, and the man actually gave a quiet snort.

“My friend made this for me.” The guy explained, holding out his hand. “My name is Dirk.”

For a few seconds John didn’t respond, trying to decide if he wanted to be friends with this weird guy or not. Finally he gave in, shaking the hand in return and giving a little shrug. “John. Do you think the building is actually burning?”

If he hadn’t have been watching so closely, there’s no way he would have seen the sudden shift in Dirk’s demeanor, almost looking sheepish as he looked at all the people lining the empty street.

“Dirk…?”

“Hypothetically, I didn’t mean for the welding torch to catch the whole robot on fire.”

John stared in horror at him for a few long seconds, looking around anxiously at the people surrounding before leaning in to whisper.

“You started the fire? ...Did you put it out?!”

“Yeah, it’s all good. But I came down while they searched so that they wouldn’t find the evidence.”

At the word evidence, John looked at Dirk closely, trying to see any pieces of metal poking out of his skinny jeans or sweater.

And then it hit him.

“The jacket??” He hissed incredulously, feeling at the lumpy pockets and resisting the urge to tear it off.

“Yep.” John could have sworn that he saw the corner of Dirk’s mouth twitch up slightly in a subtle smirk once he had figured it out, and he pulled the jacket tighter to himself, stepping closer as he looked around.

“You know, you could get in a lot of trouble for this. They probably send arsonists to like, jail.”

“I’m not an arsonist,” he stated defensively. “I just like building things, and I made a mistake.” Dirk reached up to try and push up his limp, dyed bangs.

John just shook his head. He took note of the dark circles under the other’s eyes, as well as the chipped off nailpolish he wore. They stood in silence for a few moments together before John half heartedly nudged his fist against Dirk’s shoulder. The other looked up in confusion.

“That’s for waking me up, asshole. And scaring everybody in the building half to death.”

This time Dirk really was smiling slightly, and John felt his face heat up slightly, looking back at the main entrance.

He punched Dirk’s arm harder, and this time the other really did wince.

“And for trying to fucking frame me with the jacket. Who does that? You’re lucky I’m warm.”

Dirk gave him a look.

“The odds of the police actually searching anyone would be incredibly low. But I guess it kind of slipped my mind when I offered it to you.”

John pulls the shitty orange fabric tighter to his body, squinting intently through his large black frames.

“Bullshit.”

A huff of air escaped Dirk as he chuckled silently, making little white puffs in the freezing, lamp-lit air. John felt the small tickle of butterflies alight in his chest at making the asshole laugh, and he shook his head hard, trying to ignore the persistent fluttery feeling.

“You know, if you’re really so ready to pay me back for my crimes, you should come bother me at work sometime. The Walmart off the closest highway, I’m assuming you know which one it is?”

“You work at a Walmart?” John felt stupid for clarifying, but he couldn’t help but eye Dirk in a mix of admiration and disgust.

If anything he had expected some kind of gaming store, or maybe a Hot Topic type place. Spencers? John shuddered to himself, stiffening up when he felt a very awkward and unwelcome hand placing itself on his shoulder.

Quickly he shrugged it off, stepping about a yard away to watch a blank-faced Dirk drop his sympathetic (and warm) hand back down to his leg.

“Yeah.” Dirk replied after a few seconds, seemingly oblivious to the awkward preceding silence. John held back a groan and just wrinkled his nose up, not even trying to hide his obvious discomfort and distaste.

Dirk opened his mouth after a few seconds, likely to weird John out with something else, but just then their landlord stepped out of the building, calling out the massive all-clear.

Feeling his shoulders sag in relief, John moved forwards with the rest of the crowd, trying to escape the uncomfortable situation behind him. Surprisingly, Dirk didn’t seem to follow him, and it wasn’t until he was upstairs at his door that John remembered that he was still wearing the other’s jacket.

With a sigh, he pulled it off, eyeing the now obvious grease-stains on the sleeves with annoyance. What a weirdo.

The pocket clinked again, announcing the presence of the ‘robot parts’ which had caused the whole fiasco, and John found himself instinctively reaching inside to pull them out, determined to witness the root of the problem himself.

His hand closed around a few metal plates that held no significance to him, but as he tugged them from the soft pocket, an inked wisp of paper fluttered out, landing face-down on the floor. John let go of the metal and knelt to pick it up, flipping the tiny scrap over and just staring.

Apartment 32B.

Aka: John’s place.

Silently, John pulled out his phone, and began to pull up Google Maps. It appeared that tomorrow he was going to have to stop by a certain Walmart.

Tapping the button for bookmarks, John shrugged off the jacket and set it down on his table, with his phone on top. He slunk from the living room to his own room, sliding off his pants and into his sheets, sighing at how cool they had become in his short-absence. Tossing his glasses on his bedstand, John snuggled his face into his pillow, finally settling down to sleep.

It was then, of course, that for the second time that night, the piercing wail of a fire alarm went off.

Turning his head, John pressed his mouth into his pillow and screamed.

[cagedbirdsong]

Finally, part four of To Build a Home! This one is broken up into a few different parts, and is a touch slow, but will serve as a springboard for the rest of the plot! 

If you’ve missed anything, you can catch up with part three here!

As always, feedback is welcome, encouraged, and appreciated!

Part Four

Lallybroch, Summer 1744

To say that things were alright after that would have been a lie, but they were better; at least as much as they could be. Claire took to food and drink again, and ventured tentatively around the house as the days passed, busying herself with whatever was available. She went back to the grave often, every day in the beginning, and for as much pain as it caused, Jamie suspected it did her some sort of good.

He never went back.

He passed the grave often, heading out into the fields to work, or even just walking on a cool evening, but he made sure always to steer clear of the sight of that makeshift cairn. It was something he had vowed the night he had buried Brigid, and a vow he had broken only for the sake of saving his wife, but now that they seemed to be mending themselves, he never wanted to see the damnable thing again.

He spared a glance in the general direction now, watching the limbs of the willow tree sway for a moment in the breeze, and crossed himself involuntarily.

While Claire coped by occupying her mind, pouring over her medicine box and notes she had jotted down, Jamie distracted himself in more physical ways. He spent most of his days out in the fields, doing what he could to keep his hands, and thus his mind, busy. Consequently, when the end evening rolled around, he was passed pleasantly exhausted, and capable of little more than basic trains of thought. Tonight was no different.

He stepped into the bedroom and set down his belt with a small thud, stifling a yawn. Claire looked up briefly from where she was perched on the window sill, a book in hand and her lip clasped between her teeth, and managed a small twitch of a smile in his direction. He gave her one in return, and her eyes lit briefly. For just a moment, she looked like herself again. It made a small lump rise suddenly in the back of Jamie’s throat, and he turned his head away.

She had been getting better, that much was evident. Her face was still narrower than usual, and the bones of hand and shoulder stood out prominent beneath ivory skin, but the pallor in her face had seemed to fade, replaced again with a more suitable flush of life. She seemed to be healing, at least physically, but there was a look about her eyes that troubled him deeply. It was something foreign and unfamiliar, this unrequited pain of a mother without a child, and it disquieted his spirit to wonder what was going on in her head.

Wanting suddenly to get as far away from the topic of childless mothers as possible, he stepped over to stand next to Claire, dropping a quick kiss to the crown of her head. “What are ye reading tonight, Sassenach?” He moved away to begin undressing and settling down for the night, but spared a glance over his shoulder as she swung her legs down and closed the book, which sported a plain leather cover.

 “Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Ned Gowan sent it, along with a few small articles and things on medicinals. Jenny had one of the staff fetch it up to me earlier in the afternoon.” She set the book down on the small table housing her box and tools, and folded her arms, turning to watch him. “Now that you know that I spent my afternoon in fair Verona, where were you all day? I didn’t even see you at lunch.”

“Hmm? Oh, I was out in the fields wi’ Ian and some o’ the men again. There was a problem with the wheels on one of the wagons, so we had to stop and fix it and the tilling ran late.” He spared a glance out the window into the front path, where the tool in question sat, waiting for further repair, and shrugged as he undid the buttons on his sleeves. “He that is strucken blind cannot forget the precious treasure of his eyesight lost. Ye dinna realize how much the damned thing makes the going quicker til ye’ve one wheel stuck in the mud and the other wi’ broken spokes.”

Claire’s face split momentarily into a true smile, and she arched one eyebrow, crossing the room to step into his arms as he shrugged out of his shirt. “I didn’t know you read Shakespeare.”

Jamie smiled as well, and settled his arms around her shoulders. “Och, well, I did go to school once. We had a headmaster who insisted we ought to. Ye can ask Ian about it. I dinna think any other kid we’d ever met had heard o’ it, let alone read it, and there we were.”

Claire gave a small hum, leaning her cheek against his chest, still warm and ruddy from the sun. “A regular Romeo and his Mercutio.” Jamie gave a derisive snort, and she smiled, stepping away from him to go about her own evening preparations. “Have you eaten?”

“Aye, Mrs. Crook gave me a bite to eat when I came inside.” He tugged on a clean linen shirt for sleeping with another tremendous yawn, and stretched so that the bones in his lower back popped pleasantly and his knuckles brushed the smoke darkened beams of the ceiling. “Christ, I’m tired.” He dropped unceremoniously on the bed, face down in the pillow, with a small groan.

“I’m sure,” Claire remarked, finishing running a brush through her hair before coming over to get in bed as well. She leaned to blow out the candle, and then scooted down beneath the sheets, gravitating towards Jamie for the sake of sharing body heat. He rolled slightly onto his side, allowing her to tuck herself up under him, and sighed pleasantly, burying his nose in her hair.

“Tha gaol agam ort, Sassenach.” He felt one hand tighten in his shirtfront.

There seemed to come with each new day a sort of tense unease, bordering on awkwardness. It was evident, of course, from where it came. Jenny, still very much pregnant, did her best to avoid Claire, but the crossing of paths throughout the day was inevitable. The entire household seemed to be a ticking time bomb, a live nerve ending, exposed and quivering. One touch, and the whole body would be cast into chaos. As a result, everyone seemed to be perpetually tiptoeing around one another. For the time being, it worked well enough, but in just a few short weeks Jenny’s bairn would be born, and Jamie knew there would be no avoiding the pain then.

To Castle Leoch then, he had decided. They would spend the next few months here, with Jamie helping to finish the early summer harvesting. By the time Jenny gave birth, he hoped Claire would be able, and willing, to offer what help she could, and then the two would be on their way. He hated to leave, of course, but the pain of being around a newborn so soon after they had lost their own child would be too much for either of them to stomach staying at Lallybroch.

He glanced unconsciously back at the bed where Claire lay, curled on his half of the bed and still sound asleep. Would she agree, he wondered, to leave so soon after they had begun to make a life for themselves among his family and people? Likely she would understand his desire to go, but there was also an equal chance that she would swallow her own discomfort to stay and help his sister, the oath she had taken as a healer stronger even than her own inhibitions. He had seen it before.

She stirred, stretching herself out on the sheets, and her shift fell off one shoulder, exposing the pale expanse of neck and breast, and doing well to catch his attention. His cock twitched in response, and Jamie swallowed, standing and gathering his things for the day. They had not been intimate since before Brigid’s birth, and his balls ached something wretched for it, to say nothing of his heart. He longed to be with her again, though he had made no advances towards Claire, not wanting to hurt her, nor press her beyond her limits. She, in turn, had made no moves towards him either. While the need to draw strength from one another after they lost the child had fostered some healing between them, Jamie still did not know the extent to which their relationship had been damaged, nor yet when - or if - they would be able to mend it.

Claire stirred further as he finished securing his belt and dirk around his waist, and sat up in bed now, watching him despite still being half asleep. “Morning,” she murmured, blinking lazily and catlike, gold eyes flashing.

“Mmm, good morning, Sassenach,” he smiled, coming over to stoop and press a kiss to her head. She reached up to cup her hand to his cheek, and hummed pleasantly as he drew back.

“How did you sleep?”

He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug, smiling. “Och, like-” he stopped abruptly, swallowing down the like the dead that so naturally came to him, and frowned. “Like a cow that’s got his head in the keg, aye? I dinna think a stampede o’ horses coulda roused me.”

Claire chuckled slightly at that, swinging her legs out of bed. “Hm, I’m inclined to agree. I thought I’d have to fetch Ian and one of the lads to get you up for breakfast.”

“Well, I can assure ye I am fully restored to consciousness, mo ghraidh, though I do wish I didna have ta be going so soon. Ne’ertheless, the wagon will no’ be fixing itself.” He reached to finish tying his stock at his throat, and glanced out the window, catching sight briefly of Ian’s head, already bent to look at the axis.

“Right, on with you, then. Wouldn’t want to miss all the fun.” She flashed him another smile as he slipped out the door, and something in Jamie’s belly squirmed.

Wee Katherine Murray was born a month later, pink faced and screaming. Her arrival was, on the whole, greeted with an air of celebration by the tenants of Lallybroch, desperate for a bit of happiness after the learned death of the Laird and Lady’s only child. Beneath the general atmosphere of cheer and wishes of good health, however, there was still the underlying sensation of nervousness. Jamie could see it in Mrs. Crook’s face, in the way Ian carefully schooled his excitement when around him. Jenny especially worked vigilantly to keep the joys of motherhood confined to privacy.

The gesture did not go unnoticed, though it was not entirely appreciated by the intended party.

“God, they act like- like-” Claire curled her hands into fists, beating them on the table in frustration. “Like we’ll both keel over if they so much as breathe around us! Dammit, we lost our baby, not our fucking minds!” She huffed in annoyance and stood up, pacing, arms locked across her chest.

Jamie sat on the bed, elbows on his knees, and watched her with a small sigh, opening his mouth as if to speak, but Claire continued on.

“Did you know your sister didn’t even want me to touch the baby after she was born? I could see it on her face! She didn’t think I should even be in the room, and then was making eyes at the midwife the entire time, trying to get her to shoo me away like some pestering fly!” She whirled, throwing her hands into the air in exasperation, and shot a fiery glance at the door, chest heaving. “And what if something had happened? If there had been some complication? Would she have insisted I leave the room then? The nerve of that woman!” Exhausted, she dropped down on the bed next to him, muttering under her breath.

Jamie’s mouth twitched, a muscle in his jaw jumping, and he reached out a hand to rub her back gently. “I ken it, Sassenach,” he murmured, though his words had the opposite of the desired effect. Claire stiffened.

“Oh, you know, do you?” She stood up again, letting his hand thump back to the bed, and angrily stomped back and forth. “You know what it’s like? To have people treat you like you’ll break if they so much as look at you?” He arched one eyebrow, and she huffed, deflating. “Right,” she swallowed, remembering back to the events of the winter, “sorry,” she breathed, coming back over to sit down again. “I just-” she let her hands fall into her lap, scowling intensely. “I’m sick and tired of being doted on. I’m fine. I’m not going to go insane. You should see how everyone winces the second the baby makes any noise.” Some of the fight seemed to have gone out of her, and she leaned against Jamie’s side. “Poor little Kitty, being ignored by everyone. She can’t understand it.”

Jamie settled his arm around her shoulders, his thumb rubbing her skin absently, and rested his cheek against the top of her head, taking a deep breath. “They mean well, but they’re maybe no’ going about it the right way.” Claire just ‘harrumphed’ in agreement.

“I mean, really, Jamie. I wish they’d all just act normal. They don’t have to make it so bloody obvious that they pity us.” She had taken up a fold of his kilt, pleating it back and forth between her fingers nervously, and sniffed once, trying to keep her composure.

Somewhere in his chest, Jamie’s heart tightened, and he shifted to gather her more firmly into his arms. She dissolved into quiet tears, sniffling now and again as her nose and eyes watered, and pressed her face into his shoulder, hands curling now in the front of his jacket. They had come up to the bedroom after a particularly awkward supper that ended in Katherine fussing over a wet diaper and Jenny urgently shushing her and casting sidelong glances at both him and Claire. She had undressed, feverish with anger, and he had sat and watched, not bothering to take off his own clothes from the day.

He rubbed a hand down her back comfortingly, murmuring soft, soothing things in Gaelic, and Claire eventually subsided, lifting her head but not drawing back from the warmth of his embrace. He looked down at her, eyebrows furrowed, and she sniffed once with finality, nodding her head as she wiped at her nose. “I’m alright,” she said after a moment, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes. “I’m alright. Let’s just go to bed.”

She reached out for him some time during the night, hurt and lonely and seeking to be made whole, and he made love to her tenderly but thoroughly, a potter carefully reshaping, molding her like clay until she took life beneath his hands. In the end, she arched against him, gasping, and he felt the thrum of her heartbeat around and in him, pulsing through his veins until it reached his own heart. They lay trembling, breathing in tandem, and their souls conversed under the cover of night as the wounds of the last two months bled freely, and then began to heal.

continue reading here! 

[blatherkatt]

Title: The Calm Is Terrifying When The Storm Is All You Know [Homestuck]

Chapter 10: Disconnect

Summary: There were two kinds of trolls who went to Earth: rich shitheads with too much money and free time, and desperate assholes who couldn’t survive on Alternia, even with the best efforts of the young Condesce. Karkat hated the planet almost immediately, but with his home planet too dangerous for mutants, he really didn’t have any choice but to hide out on this weird little diurnal planet. At least he’d be safe. Or so he thought, right before blundering his way into an accidental friendship with the son of an anti-troll terrorist.

Rating: M

Chapter Warnings: Alcohol abuse, for once thats really about it like theres maybe some implications of abuse but nothing that any of the POV characters pick up on; Illustrated

FIRST | PREVIOUS | NEXT

Kanaya was awoken by the sound of crashing coming from another part of the building, and for a moment, she was confused; this wasn’t her block, where was she? It took a moment (filled with a great deal more crashing) to recall the previous day’s events, that she and Karkat were now staying in New York with some humans, and that this was a “guest room,” which she had heard from Porrim was a Thing That Some Humans Did. She hadn’t really believed Porrim at the time — humans couldn’t possibly be that friendly, that they would have an extra room around just in case someone needed a place to stay, would they? And yet, here she was, in a pastel-pink guest room decorated with the visage of strange bearded men in great flowing robes (which, if memory served, was true of the majority of the hive, for some reason???).  

More crashing. Kanaya sighed and rolled off of the sleeping platform, stumbling toward the door and peering out. She spotted Karkat looking similarly confused, if a great deal more awake (knowing his sleeping habits, she doubted he’d done a great deal of sleeping). He shrugged at her, and both made for the stairs.  

Rose was down in the meal block bickering with Rachel, who was trying to handle some heavy cookware and, judging by the way she wobbled a bit, was already partaking in the soporifics Terezi had mentioned. Delightful. Karkat and Kanaya watched Rose desperately try to wrangle the pan away from Rachel for several minutes, to little avail, until Dirk appeared seemingly out of nowhere and gently tugged the pan out of Rachel’s hand.

“Mom, how about I deal with the eggs, and you take toast duty?” Dirk said. “That way, we can get both that and the eggs going at once, and we’ll have everything ready sooner.”

This argument seemed to satisfy Rachel, who blinked, wobbled, and nodded, scuffling over toward the thermal hull. Rose rolled her eyes and strode across to the trolls.

“Sorry about that,” Rose said, calmly adjusting her (very cute, Kanaya had to admit) nightgown. “Mother insists that today is a big special occasion, since we have both Dave home and two guests present, and in her mind that means it’s time for some drunken attempt at making  breakfast. Nevermind that the woman can barely cook sober. No stopping the ironic housewife routine, I suppose.” Rose’s voice turned bitter as she shot a glare over her shoulder. “In any case, it shouldn’t be long.”

(Kanaya wasn’t sure she fully agreed with Rose’s assessment of her mother’s behavior — quite frankly, the woman seemed too inebriated to be capable of anything inauthentic. She seemed quite genuinely intent on celebrating, if a bit wobbly.)

“Where’s Dave?” said Karkat.

“Upstairs in his room still, I’d imagine,” Rose said. “I was about to go fetch him. Honestly, I’m surprised all that noise didn’t get him out of bed, as well. I can’t for the life of me remember if he was a deep sleeper or not, but he did mention he was tired last night, I suppose.”

“I didn’t know sleeping was a thing he actually did,” Karkat grumbled. “He sure as fuck didn’t do anything I’d call sleeping in the entire time I was trapped in his fucked up hiveblock.”

“Hmm,” Rose said, her eyes thoughtful. “Well, regardless, I’ll go check on him.” She whisked away up the stairs at that. Kanaya glanced around for some place to sit down and found none in the kitchen itself, but there were those lovely couches nearby, she supposed. She nearly sat upon a tiny, furry creature, which had been curled up on the couch in a tight black ball.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kanaya said, stepping away from the offended looking creature. “You must be the meowbeast, hello!” Karkat perked up and walked toward Kanaya, looking curious. The cat sat up and shook his head, and Kanaya gasped gently. “Oh, my goodness, what an adorable little suit you have on,” she whispered.

“He really is tiny,” Karkat said, peering over the couch. The cat stared at Karkat, meowed, and bounded off the couch, tail held high. Rose stepped back off the stairs, looking a bit frustrated, and the cat leapt lightly onto her shoulders.

“Dave says he isn’t hungry,” Rose announced. “Yes, hello, Jaspers, it’s good to see you, too. I’ll feed you in a little while, I promise,” she cooed to the cat. Jaspers purred and hopped back down, disappearing down a hallway.

Rachel, upon learning that Dave wouldn’t be coming, went up the stairs herself and tried to get Dave to come down; she could be heard faintly at the door asking what was wrong, was Dave not feeling well, what was the matter? Rose rolled her eyes and helped Dirk distribute food between several plates, including one which was covered in a clear wrap and placed in the thermal hull.  

“Do you have any idea why he isn’t coming down?” Kanaya whispered to Karkat.

Karkat shrugged. “He’s probably fucking overwhelmed. This place is a lot different than how he was living before, he’s going to need more than one fucking night to adjust.”

That made sense, Kanaya supposed. It seemed a little rude, and she could see why Rose seemed annoyed (and why Rachel seemed actively hurt, when she came back downstairs), but she remembered how disoriented she had been when she’d first come to Earth. And that had been the case even though she had chosen to come here of her own volition.

Breakfast passed amiably enough; the food was plain, but good, and Kanaya got a better read on the humans she’d be living with. Dirk was largely quiet for most of the meal, with Rose doing most of the talking, not counting the various slurred additions by Rachel. Rose seemed very bright, but tended to veil everything in a layer of sarcasm that Kanaya was finding very hard to pierce. She was…frustrating, and yet fascinating at the same time.

Watching her talk circles around Karkat was rather amusing, Kanaya had to admit.

After eating, and once the humans had all cleaned up, Rose and Rachel departed the hive to find some clothes for Dave, since he apparently had none at the house that would fit; Kanaya considered going with them, but decided against it — she didn’t want to leave Karkat alone with Dirk and Dave, and she really didn’t know Dave well enough to be able to guess what kind of clothing would suit him, anyway.  She instead set up her husktop and got in touch with Porrim, giving her an update and asking about whether she needed to start working on any designs yet. Karkat disappeared upstairs to check on Dave after about an hour of reading, having taken note of where Dave’s room was the day before; he returned almost immediately, looking vaguely concerned but saying nothing.  Kanaya shot him a pointed look, and he scowled.

“It’s not like that, fuck off. He’s just…I think he’s really freaked out, Kanaya,” he said. “He’s too fucking stuck up the ass of his dumb cool guy persona to admit it, but he’s really fucking scared.”

“Are you sure you aren’t projecting a little?” Kanaya asked. “I know you were pretty nervous when you arrived on Earth, and that you see a lot of similarities in your situations, but —”

“I’m not fucking projecting, Kanaya,” he grumbled. “He’s hiding in his block exactly like he did when he was living with Strider, and he did that because leaving his block meant getting beaten up. Get it? He’s scared, I know he is.”

“All the more reason to leave him be, then,” Kanaya said, as gently as she could manage. “He may just need some time and space to himself. A bit of quiet while he calms down enough to realize he’s safe now.”

Karkat grunted in response.

It wasn’t until much later that day, after Rachel and Rose had returned, that Dave himself made an appearance. Kanaya had wound up talking to Rose about what life was like back on Alternia, a conversation Rose seemed very interested in (and perhaps a bit frustrated at Karkat’s unwillingness to participate in the conversation), and Dave ended up creeping down the stairs so quietly that neither Kanaya nor Rose noticed him until he gently cleared his throat.

He was dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a short sleeved shirt that was far too big for him (Dirk’s, perhaps?), and Kanaya could see white scars similar to the one on his cheek, one across his collar bone that likely was normally out of sight beneath a better fitting shirt, and a great many crisscrossing across his arms. He shifted his weight slightly before speaking, his voice flat and hard to read. “So, like,” he said, “Seeing as y’all said this house is way the fuck far away from civilization, and all, what exactly am I supposed to get something to eat around here?”

“Well,” Rose said, her voice teasing, “I suppose you might scavenge the wilderness for what bounties it may have. The river might possible yield some fish, if you are in luck. Or, if you were truly desperate, you might check the kitchen.”

Dave opened and closed his mouth, his cheeks visibly reddening beneath the sunglasses. “Oh,” he said. “Right, that’s. That’s what it’s for. Right. Stupid question, sorry.” He turned toward the meal block on his heel, perhaps a bit more quickly than was necessary.

“We saved you some breakfast,” Rose called out. “It’s in the fridge. You’ll need to microwave it. Oh, and Mother and I did go shopping, the bags on the counter are for you. One of the shirts we got has short sleeves, which I know you didn’t want, but it was something I thought you would like regardless.”

Dave mumbled something in response that Kanaya didn’t fully understand. She watched with a confused interest as Dave very cautiously opened the thermal hull, stepping back from it into a defensive stance as the door swung harmlessly open. She felt Rose stifle a snort of laughter at the odd little display.

Dave didn’t stick around for very long, simply heating his food and grabbing the bags off the counter before departing back upstairs, his cheeks still dusted with pink.

Rose rolled her eyes. “Well, it was good to see him while it lasted,” she muttered darkly.

The first few days having Dave finally home again were…a bit surreal, Rose thought. In a good way, certainly, but surreal nonetheless. It was…such a bizarre feeling, to wake up each day, fearing that his return would turn out to have been a particularly cruel dream, but, no, the trolls were still here, and therefore so was Dave.

Not that Dave made much of an effort to make his own presence known. Unfortunately, the disappearing act he began on his first full day home continued into the next several days which followed. About the only time Rose ever really saw him was when she brought meals up to him — that was certainly the only occasion in which he bothered to open his door, at least. She spent most of the day at school, but when she was home, she tried her best to coax him out. She succeeded once, on the second day, but he was…frustratingly unhelpful the entire time. He had said nothing of substance, despite her best efforts to strike up conversation, and the only significant result of his being out and about was an unfortunate encounter with the cat.

He’d been rambling some mumbled mess about the house having higher ceilings than he was used to, when Jaspers had hopped up onto the back of one of the couches. Dave had stretched out his hand to pet the cat, and Jaspers had reacted as he often did to strangers — with a hiss.

“Wow, okay,” Dave said, pulling his hand away quickly, “Fuck you too, then.”

He’d seemed to lose all interest in conversation, then, as if offended by the cat’s mistrust, and shortly after disappeared back into his room. The cat’s rejection would have seemed almost like an omen, Rose supposed, if Dave’s refusal to participate in the household didn’t feel so relentlessly petty.

Things weren’t all bad, at least. Kanaya and Karkat both were very interesting people. A bit of a routine was forming with the new additions to the house — Rose would arrive home from school to both trolls on the couches, Karkat watching a movie on his strange little foreign computer or reading, and Kanaya hard at work. She worked for a seamstress, apparently, and designed clothing for her; she’d been quite pleased to find out that Rose enjoyed knitting. Karkat had, to Rose’s great amusement, aggressively ignored the conversation, except to make very pointed comments about his own disdain for the very concept of fashion.  

Both trolls seemed to enjoy reading a great deal, as well, albeit very different genres. Regardless, it was another topic to explore with them. Rose had not managed to coax any information about why Karkat was so keen on sticking close to her brother out of the ornery troll, but he’d been eager to explain the concepts of troll romance, which was quite intriguing, in Rose’s opinion. Rose found herself frequently wondering if she might be able to trade reading materials with them, although Karkat’s books seemed to be written in Alternian, which she had no idea how to read. Still, it was a thought.

These commonalities did not prevent Rose from having her own personal difficulties with the trolls’ presence, however. Especially, for admittedly petty reasons, in the case of Karkat.

For some reason, he seemed to be the only person who could get Dave to be remotely social, to Rose’s endless frustration. It wasn’t exceptionally blatant, for the most part, but sometimes in conversation Karkat would mention Dave having said something, and Rose wasn’t sure if these conversations happened before or after Dave had been brought back. As loathe as she was to admit it, as unfair and unkind as it sounded, the fact that an alien was here, acting as if he knew her own twin better than she did (and, worse still, that she feared he might be right) — it burned.  

The final straw came on Friday of that first week. Rose arrived home from school to a surprise — the trolls in their usual places, but with Dave perched on the couch next to Karkat. The two looked to be mid-argument — mid-word, in Dave’s case — but Dave froze as soon as Rose opened the door.  

“Fancy seeing you here,” Rose teased, stifling a smile. Well, he was out of the room, and that was something.

Or so she thought. The notion turned out to be a foolishly optimistic assumption. Dave, rather than respond to Rose directly, instead chose to mumble something to Karkat and scuttle up the stairs. Both trolls watched him leave, traces of concern on their faces (especially Karkat’s).

That was about enough of that, Rose decided. No more of this. He’d been nothing but evasive and antisocial this entire time, and, well. Rose knew he’d been unwilling to leave Texas, but that was no reason for him to be so stubborn with this spiteful act of isolation, and she’d had her fill.

Rose followed him up the stairs, tapped on the door, and said, “Dave, whatever it is you were doing, you don’t have to stop just because I’m home.”

“Nah, I’m about done anyway,” came Dave’s muffled voice.

Rose could almost physically feel the elastic band of her patience snapping. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Rose spat, teeth gritted, “Would you stop with this obstinate grudge you’re holding, already? I get it, you didn’t want to come back. I don’t understand why, but, whatever, fine, if that’s really how you feel. But I’ve been trying my best to offer you an olive branch, here, and all you’ve done is slap it back in my face!”

“What? I— no, nonono, that’s not —” Dave stumbled over his words, surprisingly enough. Rose heard the sound of something dragging across the floor, and then his door swung open. “Rose, no, that’s not what’s going on here, fuck, I’m not — I’m not mad, or whatever, I’m just,” he said, pausing, like he couldn’t find the right word.

“What, then?” Rose said. “Why are you sequestering yourself away from us?”

“There’s just…a lot, okay?” Dave said. “There’s a lot…to think about, I guess, and to take in. A lot of shit is different, and it’s all gotten different so fast, and I’m…I just need some time, okay?” He swallowed, angled his face toward the floor, ran a hand through his hair, groaned, and started up again. “I’m not…I’m not used to this, like, at all. Everything’s so different here from how it was with Bro-shit, I mean, uh, Dad, I guess, and. I’m…” He was choking on some word, it seemed. Rose wondered if it was that he couldn’t think of what to say, or if he was simply unable to bring himself to admit it.

“Overwhelmed?” she offered. It didn’t make a great deal of sense to her — sure, their mother could be overwhelming, but otherwise it was just a quiet, calm house. What could be so overwhelming about that? Still, it was the only thing other than spite that seemed at all reasonable to her.

Some of the tension slid out of Dave’s shoulders. Rose hadn’t even noticed he was tense until just then.

“Sure, that works,” Dave said softly.

“Okay, you’re overwhelmed, then,” Rose said. “What do you need us to do in order for that to stop being the case? How do we help you?”

Dave shifted his weight on his feet. “I don’t…Nothing, it’s not your problem, it’s my problem,” he said. “I’ll get used to this shit, I will, I’ve adapted to shit before, it’s just gonna, y’know, take me a little while, okay?”

“…You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” Dave said, uncertainly. “For what it’s worth, though, sis,” he said, “I do, uh, appreciate your…olive branches, or whatever. I mean, I’m…I’m not ready to deal with…everything all at once, but it’s. It’s nice to at least know I’m invited, you know?”

“So I should keep inviting you in the hopes that one day you’ll decide to maybe grace us with your presence?” Rose said. Dave flinched slightly at the bitterness in her voice. “No, that was…that was meaner than I meant it to be, I apologize,” she said. “I just…it’s been ten years, Dave, and it feels like you’re still not here. We missed you.”

Dave shrugged, and mumbled, “I missed you guys, too, it’s just…I’m working on it, I promise, Rose. I just…I need more time.” Again he shuffled his feet, his head tilting off toward the side slightly. “I can, uh. I can try coming out more, though, I guess? Kinda figured y’all’d want me to stay out of your way, ’n shit.”

Rose blinked. She wasn’t sure where exactly Dave had gotten that idea, but, more importantly…

“I’m sorry, what was that contraction you just used? ‘Y’all’d’?”

Dave groaned. “Okay, if you’re just gonna make fun of my fuckin’ accent, I’m closing this fuckin’ door.”

“Oh, I’ve no problems with your accent, but I will not stand for you taking such extensive liberties with the English language. Dave, please. English is bastardized enough as is.”

“Yep, we’re done here,” said Dave.  

“I’ll  be seeing you soon?” Rose said hopefully.

Dave paused for a long moment, door half closed, before simply saying, “Yeah.”

Rose smiled, and nodded, satisfied. The door clicked shut.

Dirk sat back in his chair and heaved a deep breath. It was three in the morning, and he really should have been in bed, but…

Nah. Still had work he could be doing. He’d be fine, just had to grab a coffee in the morning or something. It was a Tuesday, his class schedule wasn’t that bad; he’d live.

He was out of soda, though. Needed his sugar fix to keep going.

Halfway up the stairs out of the basement (where he’d moved his room to back in high school, to have more room for the various projects he got into), he heard a floorboard creak that didn’t sound like it came from the stairs. That was…weird. The only person who was usually up at this hour besides Dirk himself was the cat, and he didn’t tend to make much noise while moving around. Slowing down and focusing harder, Dirk listened intently as he carefully crept toward the front of the house. He heard a few more very quiet creaks as he did, but no sounds of footsteps.

Peering out from the hall, he spotted Dave. He had his back to Dirk, and was…doing something. He would step carefully in front of him, as if expecting the floor to crumble beneath his feet, and very slowly place his weight on that foot fully; Dirk watched Dave take several steps like this and freeze at the sound of another creaking floorboard, this time lifting his foot back up and moving it slightly to the side.

Dirk cleared his throat.

Dave froze, his shoulders stiffening, but didn’t turn around.

“What exactly are you doing, Dave?” Dirk asked.

“Uh,” said Dave.

Silence stretched out almost painfully. Dirk shifted his weight and folded his arms.

“…Sleepwalking?” Dave said.

“Hmm,” Dirk said. “Well, just be careful not to trip on the furniture.” He turned toward the kitchen, and as soon as he pulled the fridge open, Dave jolted as if a spell was broken.

“I’m, uh,” he said, finally turning to face Dirk, “I’m just. Gonna go back upstairs.”

“You do that,” Dirk said. Dave nodded once, gestured oddly, as if trying to brush something off his face, sifted his weight, shook his head, and made a hurried exit. Dirk watched him go, fighting to keep from laughing.

“Goodnight,” Dirk called out, gently, as Dave’s door swung closed.

[darkhymns-fic]

A Fashion Disaster

Is having a poor choice in clothing hereditary or learned? Kratos isn't entirely sure.

Fandom: Tales of Symphonia Characters: Lloyd Irving, Kratos Aurion, Dirk, Colette Brunel Rating: G Mirror Links: AO3, FF.net Notes: I dunno I thought this would be funny.

Kratos felt a tugging at his waistband. He looked down to see a one-year old child latching onto him.

“Lloyd?” He bent down to be as close to eye-level with his young son, but the boy ignored him, keeping his tiny hands firmly around one of the leather belts that made up Kratos’ outfit.

“So, you are interested in my accessories.”

Little Lloyd pointed at the belt, then to himself – or more accurately, at his clothes.

“You would like some belts of your own?”

Lloyd nodded.

“I do not think your mother would approve.”

Lloyd then proceeded to chew on said belt vigorously. Probably something he had picked up from Noishe.

With a barely perceptible smile, Kratos gently extracted Lloyd from his clothes. “Come on. We promised your mother we would meet up with her in the market.” He hefted Lloyd up, seating him atop his shoulders so he could hold onto his legs. Lloyd’s hands grabbed at Kratos’ spiky hair, pulling at it excitedly until, when he grew bored of that activity, he went on to try eating the hair instead. He mouthed around Kratos’ scalp, getting saliva everywhere.

Kratos didn’t reprimand him, instead following down the cobblestone path of the village they had stayed at today, ignoring some of the smiles and laughs from the people around him. I suppose I could order Lloyd an outfit similar to mine, he thought wistfully, and with some pride. Though he still wore the trappings of Cruxis, he had come up with the design himself, and was almost disappointed that he would have to do away with it in order to blend in with the Sylvarant population. He wondered if his son would want the straps on the sleeves of his own outfit as well, to match his father’s. The boy is observant. It’s good to know he will have a proper sense about things as well.

When young Lloyd ripped out a patch of his hair, Kratos barely reacted. He was already imagining what else Lloyd would learn from him.

“Dad! Dad!”

“Boy, I’m right here. Ya don’t need to be yelling my ear off.”

The eight-year old slammed his palms on the table, staring hard at the dwarf’s back as he worked on his project, cooling some freshly-molded steel. “I want a really cool outfit!” He brought his hands up to the air, fists clenched. “A really cool outfit that heroes wear!”

“Well, if that’s what ya want, I can’t argue.” Despite Dirk’s main talent in metal-working and wood-crafting, he was well-versed in many other areas, such as cooking, reading and writing, and tailoring. It was in the Dwarven vows that a man must learn to be self-sufficient, a lesson he had trouble teaching his adopted son. “I’ll give ya an outfit like mind! Be just like your old man!”

Lloyd shook his head. “But I want something…” He visibly struggled for the right word. “I want something way cooler! Like people have to see it, and know that I’m a hero!”

Dirk would have to tell him later that it was dangerous to be a sword-wielding hero nowadays, but maybe the boy would grow out of it. And what harm could there be in making a silly outfit for him? “So, you need to choose a heroic color then. One that can be seen for miles around.”

Lloyd’s eyes were wide. “Red!” he shouted. He jumped on the table with his dirty shoes. “I choose red!”

“Lloyd, get yer feet off the table! We eat there!”

The boy complied, only to rush over to the dwarf. “And! And belts! Lots of belts!”

Well, that came out of nowhere. “Why belts?”

“Because…” Here, Lloyd concentrated on the thought, his forehead scrunched. “Um, I dunno. It just seems like something heroes would wear. Right?”

Dirk wasn’t sure, but he then nodded his head – to humor the boy’s fantasies. “Of course. But, well, we don’t have to go overboard with the belts. Just have them on your pants like most people.”

Lloyd frowned. “But that’s boring! I should, like, have belts on my arms, and like,” he made frantic motions with his hands, “around my chest and all that!”

“Now, Lloyd, I have the next best thing..” Dirk went over to a corner, retreating something from a pile of junk. He then pulled out what looked like straps, much longer than a regular belt would be.

“A real man wears suspenders! They’re like belts, but meant for your upper body, so you can look sensible, but still heroic.”

Lloyd stared at the proffered suspenders, his own body draped in an overly-large shirt and loose trousers – hand me downs from the dwarf. Then his eyes sparkled, and his mouth grinned wide.

“Yeah, that’s perfect!”

“…And that’s how I got my outfit!” Lloyd concluded, crossing his arms over his chest, nodding proudly.

Colette was clapping her hands excitedly, seated next to him on the log. “Wow, that’s great, Lloyd!”

Genis, cross-legged on the sand, was less than impressed. “Colette, we already know this. He always tells us this story every month.”

“But it gets better every time!”

Lloyd shot a fist in the air at her praise. “Yeah, it totally does!”

“Children, that’s enough for now. Time to sleep.” Raine walked over, dragging her little brother by the arm to send him to bed, ignoring his whines. “Kratos will be taking the first watch, so there’s no excuse for any of you to be staying up.”

“Ahh, but I can’t sleep now..”

“Lloyd, do you think your father would make me a cool outfit, too?”

“Hey, yeah! We can dye it red just like mine!” Lloyd turned around to face Colette fully, his eyes bright. “We can have matching belts and everything!”

As Kratos walked towards a sleeping Noishe, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the Chosen and her very loud, very brightly-dressed friend.

He had denied the possibility of Lloyd’s origins for a while now, but once both him and Genis caught up to them in the Triet Desert, he had to come to terms with his knowledge. This was his and Anna’s son – he even shared her last name. Features that echoed familiarity were not lost upon him. And even if that weren’t enough, both the sight of Anna’s gravestone and Noishe’s existence drove home the fact that his son was alive, happy, and well.

And that he had a terrible fashion sense.

It was such a selfish notion, but Kratos always indulged in his self-pity. A vital failing of him, he knew. Still, the delightful ideas he had harbored once, that Lloyd would one day share Kratos’ clothing choices, came crashing to the ground.

Suspenders…he thought in non-belief. Is this what happens when one is raised by a dwarf?

“I’m going on a journey,” Lloyd told him. “I’m going to collect all the Exspheres remaining in this land. So that no one can ever abuse them again.”

With both of them standing in the ruins of the Tower, Kratos nodded to that plan. “And I will discard all of Cruxis’ Exspheres into space… I’ve dragged you into this until the very end.”

“That’s okay,” Lloyd responded, his voice sincere.

Kratos knew he should be embarking soon to Derris-Kharlan. It was useless to drag out farewells, but his selfishness peaked again, making him search for other avenues of conversation that he could share with his son. It would be the last memory he would have of him, he needed to make it worthwhile. Perhaps he could give him some advice?

“The journey will no doubt be difficult, especially as there will be those who refuse to part with their Exspheres.”

“I know,” Lloyd agreed. Then he smiled wide. “But I won’t be alone. Colette’s coming along, too!”

“Oh?” Kratos raised an eyebrow, noting the air of happiness that surrounded Lloyd. It set his old heart at ease. “That is good to hear. So you are both prepared?”

“Yeah! She’s already at my, um, Dad’s,” here Lloyd paused, as if afraid Kratos would take offense. No, Dirk had every right to be Lloyd’s father. Maybe more. “And she’s helping getting things ready, like our food and clothes and – oh yeah! Since we’re going on another adventure, we got her a new outfit, too!”

“A new outfit?”

“Yeah, yeah! She wanted a cool hero outfit like mine!” Lloyd was practically bouncing on his feet. He had apparently been very eager to share the news. “So I gave her one of my sets!”

Kratos felt uneasy suddenly. “Yours…”

“Now when people see us, they’re gonna see double the heroes!” Lloyd nodded with utmost conviction. “Colette actually has my old set. She seems to like it a lot for some reason.”

“Your old set?”

“Oh, well at one point, she fell into the river by my house, so I just gave her mine. I mean, uh, I guess it was weird for me to just strip in front of her like that now that I think about.”

Kratos had no words.

“But yeah! She likes the outfit a lot now. Dad says it’s too baggy on her, but she wants to keep it. And um, I think she looks really good in it!”

Kratos struggled to say something else. But it took too much of his mental power to process his son’s words. Now Colette would be wearing… bright red… with suspenders. And it was an old, worn-out version of the outfit as well.

I’m sorry, Lloyd… it’s because I wasn’t there to raise you…

“Hey, did I say something wrong?”

“No, not at all,” Kratos quickly replied. “Only… you are very fortunate to have someone like Colette help you on your journey.” And he truly did mean that.

Lloyd reflexively scratched behind his ear, his expression a bit more somber, but still content. “Yeah. I’m really glad to have her.”

After a few more encouraging words, Kratos finally deigned it was time for him to go. With a final look at his son, he took in the image of the young man that he knew would succeed in what he set out to do, no matter the odds.

And that he would do so in the most glaring outfit possible, with Colette mirroring his choices. (Multiple buttons that went nowhere, with two useless neck ribbons that only helped the enemy by giving them something to grab onto, and of course, the suspenders). They would be like two bright red robins fluttering through the forests.

Yet even then, it made him smile.

Lloyd, with a wave that brought to mind the excitable child that Kratos had once carried on his shoulders, shouted one last farewell. “Goodbye… Dad!”

He trusted Lloyd to make the right choices, no matter what they were. He was content in that knowledge.

Still…he mused once he was back on Derris-Kharlan. I can send a message to Yuan later… Perhaps he could give Lloyd some advice on color-coordination at the very least…

[3one3]

The Sequel - 839

Status Change

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“Herro?”

“Hallo Prinzessin,” André barely got out before finding himself overcome by an extreme yawn.

“Hiiii. Did you just get up?”

“Yeah, it’s too hot this time of day to do anything but nap. I set an alarm so I could call you before your grand prix. How are you? How is Dirk? How are my little rats? How is Mausi? My mom all of a sudden never calls me.”

“Everyone is good. I just Face Timed with Luke a little while ago. He is completely in love with being a big cousin. Mel has him holding the bottle for the baby. How are you? What are you doing tonight?” Christina was sitting at a long and packed table in the riders’ tent, knees folded up and calves actually resting against the table, with a giant citrus and melon smoothie in a plastic cup between her thighs. The last class of the Cannes round of the Tour didn’t start until 10pm, and dinner was at 6. She wanted to make sure she didn’t experience an energy drought if there was a jump off at almost midnight.

“Dinner and some nightclub. I’m going to try not to fall back asleep right now though so I can watch you ride. How did the Champions League thing go?”

“We finished fourth overall. Calvin was good though. I’m proud of him for being such a good boy in these late classes. Tonight he jumped a little after 7 and that was the earliest of the three nights. Normally he struggles for a couple of shows when we transition to summer and he has to show at night.” The rider swirled her straw around in the cup and watched it move the icy orange drink around. She found it difficult to look at Juan, sitting beside her, when she was catching up with her husband. Her eyes could be on the Spaniard but she just saw flashbacks in her head to whatever she’d done with him the night before.

“Because of the dark?”

“No, because of his dinner. At home they’re used to having dinner and then being done for the night. They either get tucked in with hay and the lights go out, or they get turned out and left alone. Calvasaurus can be uncooperative and unfocussed if you ask him to work after dinner,” she explained.

“I bet he likes snoozing in his stall there by the water during the day. It’s probably more calming than being at some of the other venues, yeah?” André suggested, thinking back to his experience in Cannes the year before. The horses were in a tiny park, away from shops and apartments, where there was nothing but beach, two restaurants on the beach, and half of the marina.

“Definitely.”

“What about you? Did you spend the day snoozing on the boat? I tried calling when I got up but I got your voicemail.”

“No! Stefanie was showing all day, so I was busy. I slept in this morning though. The puppies made me do it. They wouldn’t let me out of the bed.”

“Did you end up going out last night or no?”

“Yeah we went to a party at this restaurant/nightclub since we could walk there from the boat. It was fun. I made Juan dance,” Christina smiled, glancing up from her smoothie to the other player sitting at her side. He raised a questioning brow at her, having heard his name but not the context. She just winked.

“I’m sure it was riveting,” her partner yawned. He went out the night before too. He didn’t do any dancing though. The guys just drank a lot and watched girls dance. They also drank with some girls, and flirted with some girls. Unlike his wife, André didn’t go to bed with someone other than the person he was married to, however. It wasn’t that difficult to pretend, in conversation at least, that Christina didn’t either. He didn’t ask her what extracurricular activities she got up to with his ex-teammate, and she didn’t offer up any of the details. Her mood seemed generally good each time they talked, and to him that meant she was having a great week in Cannes, but not so great that it made her feel guilty, or made her worry about the future. If she were having some significant experience there, he expected he would be able to hear it in her voice when she called- that she would sound conflicted, or weighed down by something. Her Instagram posts were a mix of silly and sexy, and that seemed normal too. The only thing he worried about was that Juan had too positive an effect on her riding. Dirk and Calvin were going really, really well, and her reports about them were glowing, and confident, and in no way rueful. It was almost like old times. André was just a little bit afraid that it had something to do with Juan being there with her.

In any case, he missed her, and looked forward to meeting up with her and Lukas, whom he also missed a great deal. Miami was fun, and very relaxing, and hanging with his boys was a nice break from the female-and-child-dictated world at home. It was just hard to hear her talk so positively about her horse show and not be there with her, to share it. The BVB man wished he could give her congratulatory hugs, and flirt with her over celebratory cocktails. Plus, based on those Instagram posts, he was missing out on some truly sexy swimwear. His girl was near peak hotness, in his opinion, in terms of weight, tone, tan, and vibe. He could see in the pictures that she was feeling good, and maybe even feeling relieved from the stress of her anxiety and anticipation about a number of things having to do with the future. André waited a long time to see that. He didn’t want to miss it. And Marco was getting on his nerves. The Dortmund co-captain was still high from winning his big trophy. He had too much energy- too much will to go out and do things, even in a knee brace. His friend needed a nap that afternoon just to further recover from the previous night’s Marco-steered adventure and to prepare for the next one. They went out every night, slept in, laid by the pool, worked out, napped in their rooms during the hottest part of the day, walked around to “see sights” in the evening, went to dinner somewhere hip and expensive and highly recommended by their elite hostess, and then went to a club or lounge with said hostess. He was looking forward to not having a schedule like that, not going to bed alone every night, and not having to reach a consensus among 5 guys before deciding on anything.

“It was. Also Daniel carried me on his shoulders from the outside part of the restaurant to the inside-outside part and I was so tall up there that I smashed my head into the canopy thing. It was so embarrassing,” Christina recalled.

“Why were you on his shoulders?”

“I took my shoes off to stand in the sand when I...err...had a cigarette, and then I didn’t want to put my shoes back on because why did I wear 4” heels out after riding all night and not icing my ankle. Daniel gave me a lift back to our table so I wouldn’t have to put them back on.”

“Oh.”

“Mhm.”

“What else is going on?”

“Not much. I’m gonna walk the course soon and get on D-Money.”

“Okay. Good luck, pretty girl. Have fun with your boy. Like I said, I’ll try to watch,” André yawned. “Call me when you’re finished with your winner’s presser or whatever.”

“There isn’t one, since it’ll be so late. I’ll call you anyway though,” Christina smiled, deliberately declining to call attention to his assumption that she would win, or at least finish in the top three, as the press conference was usually for everyone on the podium. “Love you.”

“Love you too, Prinzessin. Ciao, ciao.”

After she put her phone down on the table, the top qualified rider for the Grand Prix tipped over onto her friend’s shoulder and expelled a combination grunt/sigh.

“I’m tiiiiiired.”

“I told you we shouldn’t stay out until 3 in the morning,” he reminded her. He was eating cocktail shrimp with avocado and lime mayo, because he had nothing to do all night but watch her ride and hold her stuff. He didn’t have to have dinner at 6.

“But it was fun, and seemed like a good idea at the time,” Christina meekly protested. Her phone vibrated against the empty plate in front of her, and she pulled a face like it was a massive inconvenience to have to reach for it and see who wanted her for something. I’m looking forward to jumping a big course with Dirkmeister but I could also totally just go back to the boat and go to sleep. I could nap on this wonderful dude for a couple of hours and then wake him up to make out with me and let me give him a- What the fuck. “Babe,” she started  questioningly, and purely by accident. There was a startling photo on her iPhone and she tilted it so he could see. He took it from her. She put the smoothie down.

“Who sent it?” He was already tapping on the screen to minimize the image. It was of the two friends sharing an intimate kiss on a lounger at the rear of Lilly XO. It had been enhanced to show them more clearly in the dark, and it was kind of grainy, but there was no doubt it was them.

“That’s a French number, right?” The rider sat up straight and put her feet on the floor. Her stomach felt tight, and her long-sleeve show shirt became stuffy even though she’d only moments earlier been glad that she had it on because temperature went down as the hour got later, and her drink was frozen fruit-based.

“Yes. This was Thursday...” Juan kept looking at the message. There was no text with it. It was just the photo. It wasn’t the first time someone was potentially trying to extort them for something based on images of them together, but it was definitely the first time the image was actually incriminating. The others needed a narrative to imply something untoward was going on. The picture in his hand was self-explanatory, and there was no way it could have been a friendly thing. “I wish it were better quality.”

“What?” Christina hissed, glancing around suspiciously. Is whoever sent this watching right now to see if I’m freaking out? Because I’m freaking out, she thought. I can’t explain this. It’s a disaster if this gets published somewhere. How much is this mystery French-phone-having photographer going to demand to make sure that doesn’t happen?

“I like it. I would like to have it if it weren’t so grainy.”

“Dude!”

“What? Look how sweet you look,” the player replied, his voice low and private. Everyone else at their table was too busy socializing to notice Christina’s freak-out.

“That is not the point!”

“What’s the point? That you have no self-control?” he chuckled.

“No, that we’re in big trouble.”

“Why? Who cares? André knows. You don’t have to answer to anyone else. Just because something goes on a website or in a tweet doesn’t mean you have to give an explanation. Ignore this, cariña. Some paparazzo is looking for a payoff. He’s not getting from me.” The Chelsea man shook his head dismissively and gave her the device back. “These things only become big stories when you react to them and try to change the narrative. Just ignore.”

“But everyone is gonna write about it! It’ll be all the old shit all over again. I’m cheating on him, our marriage is fake, I’m ruining my child’s life, you’re completely innocent, etc. and so on and so forth.” Christina held her hands up in frustration and anger, mostly at herself, for being so impulsive. I just had to have that kiss. I just had to ignore that anybody could have seen. Pfft. Great job, Chris. Great job.

“Calm down. We know those things aren’t true and so does André. What difference does it make what anyone else thinks? If there are no problems, no one has anything to write except “look at this picture”. Ignore it. Focus on what you’re doing tonight. That’s something that matters. This isn’t.” Juan pointed and nodded at the iPhone and then picked up another shrimp. He was more bothered by her being bothered than he was by what was bothering her. The rider didn’t know what to do about it. She tapped her spurs together under her chair and tried to figure out if she should at least warn her husband. The other midfielder in her life clearly meant she should do none of the other things that occurred to her, like immediately posting some photo of her and André looking madly in love with each other and writing a caption about how much she missed him, or perhaps staging a kiss photo with Juan and then posting it with some kind of joke, to ruin the game before the photographer could publish the stolen moment. She thought of getting Tim to deal with it too. That was what he was there for. He’d helped with similar situations before. Doing nothing was harder than doing something.

“Should I tell Schü?” she asked, helpless, as she noticed some of her colleagues getting up around the tent. The guys in the ring were just putting finishing touches on their newly built course.

“No. If you ignore the message, maybe the picture never even comes out. If whoever took it thinks you don’t care enough to respond, he could think it’s not worth selling.”

“Yeah right.”

“Fine. Tell him if you want to start a fight before you ride. Don’t complain after you lose that you were too distracted.”

“Juanin,” Christina sighed plaintively. “Don’t be so...”I know better than you”. I’m just trying to do the right thing. I don’t want him blindsided, and I didn’t choose to have this pop up right now. You’re making it sound like I want drama to ruin my night. I didn’t-” Two hands landing on her shoulders shut her up. They were Marcus’.

“Kleine Königin, lass uns gehen,” he said, jovial. They were supposed to walk the course together. He was still helping her for the classes of consequence. He helped make her plan in the ring, and then kept an eye on her warm up to remind her of anything she seemed to forget. She ignored him standing behind her, for the time being.

“Should I tell him?”

“Tell me what?”

“Not you.”

“I wouldn’t,” the footballer shrugged. “You want me to go with you or wait here?” His question posed an interesting question for her. She was a little annoyed at him for his reaction, and a little upset with him for talking to her like she was being stupid. That was an always-open nerve for her when it came to him, even when she was sure he didn’t pluck at it on purpose. It would have been very easy for her to snub him and punish him for not hyperventilating over the damaging photo the way she was instinctively inclined. He’d been so good to her for days, though, and she felt as if she was stood on some kind of tipping point where she could go backward into the unhappy place she was stuck in before or lean forward to stay in the newfound positivity.

“Yeah, come with us.”

“Can I bring my shrimp?” he smiled, glancing from sitting rider to standing rider.

“Yeah, bring the shrimp,” Marcus nodded. “Bring the champagne, perhaps a bread basket for her if she gets hungry in the combination.”

“You’re all so mean to me. I’m taking the shrimp.” Christina grabbed the plate and tried to push her chair out at the same time. All she managed to do was hit Marcus in the knees and dump the food on the floor. Half the table stopped talking to laugh at her.

Can I just cry and stamp my feet for 20 seconds? The last few minutes of my life have not gone to plan at all. What the fuck, man, she complained inside. I have runny green mayonnaise dripping down my boot. Rather than pitching a proper tantrum, she just quietly mumbled that “everything sucks”, with her eyes on the spill, and her shoulders slumped.

“Don’t cry over shrimp on the floor, angel,” Juan joked before leaning over to plant a huge kiss on her cheek- huge in stature, not in physical size- in meaning, not in skin involved. His ex-girlfriend froze. It was the kind of kiss a partner administers when his girl is upset, and it was close to the corner of her mouth. And he called her “angel” out loud, in front of everybody. The whole thing said “boyfriend”, not “friend”, and she could feel it- she could sense that he did it on purpose- that he was done hiding. Even Marcus appeared uncomfortable just looking on, and Daniel’s wife was watching with some confusion in her eyebrows. Christina expected her own brows showed some confusion too. What is he doing? This isn’t him. He isn’t the one who does this kind of thing. He hates making public waves. He didn’t even kiss me like that in public when we were publically a couple! Could we fit ANY more drama into these 5 minutes?

“Do you still want to eat them?” she muttered instead of addressing the discomfort all around her. “They haven’t been on the ground that long.”

“I think I’ll be all right without them.”

“Okay.” The forlorn equestrian awkwardly maneuvered her feet out from the table in avoidance of the lost seafood, and then got up and headed for the exit. Marcus and Juan followed her. The path between tables was only 1.5 people wide, and she crossed the more open area between the tables and the stairs down to the schooling/staging area more quickly than either man could catch up to walk beside her. Isandro and Dirk were just off to the right, waiting for her. Juan diverted to stand with them instead of turning left, to the ring. There was no point in him walking the course with the riders. They would be busy discussing it, not explaining it to him.

She was disappointed in him. He’d only just told her to focus on the Grand Prix, and not get distracted by the drama of the photograph anonymously deposited in her inbox, or by telling André about it and inviting him to blow up about it and upset her further and further draw her mind and attention and capacity away from her riding. And then he went a planted the seed for an even greater distraction- a seed sown in more than just her garden, no less. It was an invitation to distract other people too.

“Are you and him...” Marcus asked, demonstrating that concept almost as soon as they passed through the gap into the show ring. His question trailed off like he wasn’t entirely sure how to ask it.

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” Christina shook her head and abruptly stopped her march toward fence 1, a vertical with white, light blue, and dark blue striped rails on top and a double helix style plank in the middle. The uprights featured rudimentary French sailors, with berets and striped shirts. “Can you keep a secret? It might only be a secret short term. Everyone might know soon.”

“Of course,” he nodded immediately. He looks pretty sincere, she decided, scrutinizing his eyes for honesty, or really, for guile. Her instinct was not to trust anyone, so naturally she looked for evidence that someone was lying when they offered her their strict confidence. And he’s always done right by me. Always. Especially when I told him I was having an existential crisis in London.

“So...” She stopped to make sure no one else in the ring was close enough to hear, and to make sure she really wanted to tell yet another person the truth of the nature of her relationship with Juan Mata. “Juan and I are...like...slightly more than friends. André knows, and is fine with it. It was his idea, actually. We keep it private because, well, obviously it’s hard to explain. I don’t know of any athletes that are publically in a relationship like that. I don’t think people would be very understanding, or mind their own business. Normally he isn’t like that- like what he just did. Someone got a picture of us kissing on the boat the other night and sent it to me just now, presumably so I’d offer to buy it, but he doesn’t want to do anything about it, so I guess he’s cool with everyone knowing now and that’s why he just did that. But I’m still not cool with it, and André doesn’t even know there’s a picture, and he’s going to flip out, and-“

“Take a breath, Chris.” Germany’s team anchor clamped his hands on the country’s most exciting rider’s shoulders and ducked his head down just enough to look intensely into her eyes. “You’re losing it. Breathe.”

“I’m just worried that everything is about to get crazy. I just got my shit together. I just put a couple of good shows together. I just started to feel good about everything.” She looked back pleadingly and wished Marcus Ehning were as renowned a psychologist as he was a show jumper.  

“Why should someone wanting the world to know he loves you be a bad thing?” he asked with a friendly smile. “It isn’t your problem if other people don’t like it. You’re not breaking any laws, or hearts for that matter. I have said to you for months and months now- be yourself and do what feels right. That is true in everything, not just in riding boots. Let’s forget this now,” he advised, calm in his voice and calm in his loosening grip on her shoulders. “Let’s figure out what to do with Dirk. That is much simpler, I think, and you’ll feel better about the other things once you get into it with him.”

Marcus was correct. Christina did feel better when she get her feet in the stirrups. Her stallion’s vivacious energy was contagious as ever. He delighted her with what he offered in terms of willingness to experiment and ability to anticipate her thoughts before she converted them into actual actions. His movement was lofty beneath her and his mouth soft and light in her hands in the schooling ring, but his hooves made the pleasingly heavy sounds in the dirt that his rider was accustomed to hearing as a backing track for her favorite moments in life. It was a little bit harder to feel good when she was finished preparing and just waiting her turn in the arena with Isandro and Juan.

The Spaniard’s wanting the world to know he loved her wasn’t the problem. It was the unilateral decision he might have made to do it. The girl in the gray jacket was cross with the guy in the gray sweater. The sweater was part of the problem. It was the half-zip kind, and he looked really cozy and cuddly in it standing around with her water bottle and the gloves she didn’t feel like wearing. He was tan, and his hair was beginning to lighten from the sun, and he shaved that day. His Vans were cute. And we was chewing gum and watching the other riders sort of intensely, as if he were actually part of the whole horse show circus and knew what he was looking at- just another part of her team. He fit into it on Saturday night in a way he hadn’t on Thursday or Friday, when he looked like a glamorous spectator or investor. Christina liked that he didn’t dress up for the Grand Prix. He had denim shorts on. The player fit into the scene more than André did. With a few extreme-temperature-related situations, André always looked very much the non-horse-person husband, or guest, or friend coming to watch. He was far more comfortable with the horses than Juan, but never looked like he was meant to be there, or that it was a natural habitat for him. The obviousness of that difference between the two begged a question. Christina wondered if Juan was just supposed to be there- supposed to be part of her horse show routine, her support team, and her facilitator. Unsolicited photo text aside, the entire event had gone so well, and felt so much more normal than many preceding it, that the girl in the middle of all the associated orbits had to ask herself if it was all down to Juan. That was really not an ideal question to grapple with while standing in the on-deck spot before a €300,000 1.60m grand prix.