#if you think about it i've only had this database for what. less than four years? and then all of my changes were overwritten

[coquelicoq]

wow i am now attempting to edit the crosswords i wrote a week and a half ago and tested last week and they are. bad. i've already completely refilled one of them, refilled about half of another, and at the top of a third i had just written "too hard + boring" so will likely need to refill much of that one too. and when i'm done refilling i will still have to write new clues...i was not on my game in late february apparently! at least the rewriting process has been going okay. i'm so much more efficient at this than i used to be, which means i can be a lot pickier about quality now. so that's a good feeling, though obviously i would prefer to just...do better from the outset lol.

[alexanderlightweight]

How about one where Alec’s siblings try to give him an ultimatum after he and Magnus start dating. Like it’s him or us kind of thing?

Hey! Thanks for prompt!! Hope you enjoy 💜

—

“Do you even think before you spew shit out?” Alec asks, having perfectly thought out what he himself was going to say. “No—“ he holds up a hand. “Don’t actually try to answer that, I have no faith in whatever you’re about to say. So tell me one thing, just one thing. Did the four of you—“ Alec pauses and gives Simon what he knows the vampire calls his ‘disappointed assassin!dad look’. He goes even paler under his death pallor and Alec sighs. “Did you even consider how dangerous what you're asking could be for Magnus?”

“Magnus is more than powerful enough, we all know that now.” Clary explains, like that makes it better.

It doesn’t.

“It’s not about if he’s capable. Obviously he’s powerful enough. It’s about whether or not even the slightest risk to Magnus’ safety is worth the outcome you’re trying to get. And it’s not. I’ve run the risk and it’s not an acceptable one.”

“You’re seriously going to choose your boyfriend over the mission?” Jace asks and Alec sends him a dry, unimpressed look at the hypocrisy.

“At least he is my boyfriend.” Alec murmurs, because Jace didn’t even have an official relationship to blame for his actions regarding Clary for a long time.

“Okay.” And Alec settles in his chair and clears his throat. “So here’s what we’re not going to do. We’re not going to do the ‘you’re picking Magnus over the mission. Or ‘you’re picking Magnus over me’.” And here he gives them all a tired look.

“It’s going to be yes, obviously I’m going to pick Magnus. I've lost Magnus three times now and each time the likelihood of getting him back became less and less each time. Magnus is my husband. I don’t care who it is. You could be bleeding out, begging me with your whole soul to do something that would put him even just a little bit of harm's way, and I’d say no.

“Because it’s not Magnus’ job or responsibility to do such a thing. And as your superior, I’m telling you right now, that no one will argue with me. Because every single Institute in this realm knows that Magnus Bane has a very protective, possessive asshole of a boyfriend. One who legally jacked up the price of every single magical and mundane service Magnus offers to the clave. And currently, the New York Institute doesn’t have the funds to pay his rates. Because we’re still paying off the debt you four — and yes Simon you are included in that thanks to Clary and Izzy — all racked up, calling Magnus like you had a stack of quarters and he’s an arcade.”

Alec takes a weary breath and ignores Simon murmuring, “how does he know what an arcade is?”

And Izzy’s quick and quiet, “Magnus took him and Madzie to one.”

It’s only Alec’s business if he enjoys showing off the knowledge he learns at Magnus’ side.

“So you three are going off duty. Turn your phones in to Andrew. You can go through our databases and see if there’s a warlock who would be willing to work with you in our pay grade. Simon, leave.”

“You can’t take our phones!” Clary protests and while Alec doesn’t actively hate her anymore, his glare still stops her in her tracks.

Alec will assign her ichor duty if she shows insubordination and she knows it.

“If I leave you your phones, you’re just going to call every single downworlder you know starting with Magnus.” Alec knows exactly how this plays out. “You’ll interrupt the valuable time of people who have frankly, more important things to do than save you some time and brain power.

“And even if one of them, maybe Maia, is willing to help you out, she’s a mixologist learning to be a marine biologist. She’s not going to know shit about the kind of abilities you need. So you’d just be wasting her time twice over

“So look through the database, ignore any clave bias in the portfolios and be respectful when you call. You’re making a request, not a demand.”

Alec is very pleased with himself, even if the group is looking at him with varying degrees of confusion and irritation. And then he hears a noise and looks over them to see Magnus.

Magnus is watching him with his gold eyes melting into amber the longer their gazes stay connected.

“We are gonna just go.” Simon mutters, “right now. Immediately, we should definitely go. I will leave. Text me when you’re not grounded and get your cell phones back okay?”

“We’re not grounded.” Clary quietly protests but Jace clamps a hand over her mouth, probably recognizing the look on their faces from his ill-fated stay at the loft.

“Uh, assassin-daddy-vibes over there definitely grounded you. And because my life might be at stake—“ Simon waggles his brows and ignores the groans. “I am definitely obeying his house rules. And also I think I might be either mentally scarred for life or forced to confront parts of me I am not prepared for if I have to watch them jump each other.”

Alec ignores them.

This is the reason why he lets them keep Simon around, he’s like a little Shetland sheepdog desperately trying to keep his incredibly reckless ponies together.

“That all sounded very familiar.” Magnus says quietly as he steps past them, shutting the door behind him as. There is something soft and almost uncertain when he asks.

“I try to listen when you talk.” Alec admits and shrugs his shoulders, “sometimes it’s hard when I’m tired. Or if it’s something frustrating because I don’t understand. But I figure if I don’t understand it I just need to listen harder.”

“Even my clave hating rants at six am when you’re covered in ichor and passing out on me in the shower?”

Alec shrugs again, “sometimes those are the most important ones. You got hurt and we were separated because the clave summoned us to two different battles. Because your safety isn’t a priority for them. It’s why I put so many new protocols in place. The only one I can trust to protect your back is me.” Alec believes it wholeheartedly.

He trusts no single other person to put Magnus’ well being above the world. Because even Cat now has Madzie and they lost Ragnor. And one night; when Magnus had taken Madzie out for a movie, Cat had come over to talk.

Because she could not handle not having the assurance of someone who would put Magnus first. And she didn’t trust Alec, not until he spilled his blood and swore a secret vow.

And so the two of them; they’d promised each other. That Cat would always put the little girl the three of them loved first.

And Alec would always put Magnus before anything. Even above the survival of their realm.

Alec will cut out his own heart if it means Magnus’ still beats and Cat watched him swear that vow on his runes and divinity and had finally known some peace. Because Alec is also willing to lose a piece of his soul if it means keeping Magnus safe; and Cat knows that too.

“My darling,” Magnus murmurs and Alec will always endeavor to put that look on his face. “And you’d choose me over any of them.”

Magnus says it wonderingly, like it’s a deep shock and his hands are cupping Alec’s face and he wants to meld into them as he nods.

And Alec knows Magnus won’t entirely believe him, and it’s not Magnus’ fault that he can’t yet.

But Alec is going to spend every day of the rest of his life proving that he will always and forever put Magnus first.

Like he should have done from the start.

“I’m a selfish man.” Alec admits softly, “how can I not put you first, when you’re the very heart of me?”

[venusmelody]

jyn & cassian, i've got fireflies where my caution should be... (for the meme)

where my caution should be. all ages. 1.2k words.After Scarif, some attachments aren’t so easily left behind, even when they’re inconvenient. In a war, that has consequences.

Prompt: I think I’ve got fireflies where my caution should be. (Instead of slowing down, I just shine brighter.)

{read at ao3}

His last glimpse of Jyn for a very long time is the incoming light playing in her hair, strands escaping in the rising wind. She smells of the standard soap on Yavin Four, sea salt, and singed plastic. The copper tang of blood lurks beneath, but that’s easy to ignore. He holds her tighter. He holds her as if the light will not tear him away, scattering his particles across the world.

I am glad you’re here with me, he says, or she says, or both. Their hearts beat in time, slow and restful.

The plans stream across countless stars. He chooses to believe, because she does, that somewhere, someone listens to the greatest difference he has ever made to the galaxy. Their names will turn to dust like their bodies, but this legacy will live on.

“Thank you,” he whispers into her ear. Her fire forged the last bricks on this path. He will not forget, for what remains of his life.

+

The rest of his life is longer than he thinks.

+

She joins the Pathfinders and leaves Yavin 4 before he wakes fully from his coma. Someone sits by his side while he dreams, waiting for the swelling in his brain to subside. He remembers her touch, on his hand, on his cheek, across his lips, but she is gone before he opens his eyes.

He goes through the databases once he can walk, and does not try to fool himself around why. It takes effort through his pounding headache, and a stain on his record afterwards, but he tracks her footprints across the galaxy.

A liberation in Kessel. Three factories on Sullust razed to the ground. A prison demolition on Wobani, and a stay on Chandrila afterwards, treated for electrical burns and chemical poisoning. He doesn’t need to think long about the cause of both.

She has been busy, these past two months. There are commendations and incident reports alike attached to her file, a significant number of each. One mentions her initiative. The other, her recklessness. The only difference, it seems, is the name attached, of the person who was leading.

+

He spends the next six months recruiting, in the wake of the decisive Alliance victory, and sends away local information on the side. His scattered identities require longer to bulk, before he can go undercover.

It is not the safest of missions, recruiting, even on sympathetic planets. There are fewer Stormtroopers, and usually no Deathtroopers at all, but those stationed there are battle-worn, veterans, and weary. They have seen bloodshed without a blink.

Cassian does not have many scars, and even fewer are new. He gets another after a moment of impossibility, when a highly respected engineer agrees to meet. His recruit flees, and joins the Alliance that week.

Cassian takes longer, and his heart still beats on his return only because the Pathfinders chose to target a factory in that very city.

+

This time, she is on base when he wakes up. Bruises bloom along her cheeks, curving against the paleness of regrown skin. There are similar marks across her record. Jyn pays attention to neither.

She had raced in to save him.

“Reckless,” he tells her, brushing his lips against her split knuckles.

“Full of initiative,” she retorts, and leans in to kiss him. “And you’re hardly one to talk. I walk into danger with three weapons. You walk with only one.”

It surprises him that she opens her heart as easily as her arms, though maybe it shouldn’t. He checks her mission logs each return to base, and breaks though security if records are sealed. It is attachment when he should have none outside the Rebellion, a tilt in the world no less than hers.

He thinks he should maybe turn back. Nothing safe lies down this path, and Cassian was, once, nothing but cautious.

But nothing safe lies down any path he takes, and he is too far gone. He has been too far gone since the light played in her hair, since she prayed to that crystal, since they circled one another like twins stars and made unhidden promises of home.

“I’m not worth it,” he tries, because maybe he can spare her this, at least.

Her reply is just for him. “You are to me.”

+

“Don’t you dare die without me,” she demands when they part, and he responds:

“Don’t you dare die at all.”

+

She spends little time on base. After his identities are as water-tight as they ever will be, he doesn’t either. In the moments their paths intersect, they don’t waste time dreaming of the future. It is difficult, imagining one even exists.

Sometimes, her flesh is caked with blood, and they scrub it off together. Sometimes, her body curves around his, like a momentary shelter from the cold past.

Sometimes, she cannot wait long enough, and is gone by the time he returns. Sometimes, many times, he waits in the darkness, to find her unit was redirected.

News filters back about cities taken under siege, and the base fills up with recruits. Her name is written, equally, in blood and in the awe of civilians saved. His is a reference to an alias at the bottom of a mission report.

+

Only once do their missions intersect in the same city again, and he saves her only after she saves him.

“What did you tell them?” he asks, and falters, because it’s her grinning painfully from the table.

“What would you?” she rasps though a mouth full of blood. Not in general, he knows but this situation precisely. If she were undercover, and a word would betray her.

Three years earlier, he would take the lullaby pill and sleep forever. Now, he might hold on until he could see her again. Either way, he would not breathe a sound, no matter what torment resulted from his defiance.

He lowers his blaster as she closes her eyes, her breath a slow exhale. Her whimper of pain arrows through his chest.

“I’m here,” he murmurs into her hair.

“I know. I’m glad you’re here with me.”

The smart, logical, sane thing would be to break this before it breaks them.

He doesn’t.

+

His last glimpse of Jyn very a long time is the moonlight playing in her hair, charging her gun for battle. There is not much use for spies on the forest floor, but he can shoot. There is a use for bodies.

“Ready?” he asks, watching her hands, watching her face.

“Always.”

They kneel together, and her forehead touches his.

“For them,” she murmurs, because certain names will never cross her lips easily. And then, more quietly, “For us.”

His lips touch the curve of her earlobe, and she exhales, slow and shaky. A dark moon rises in the sky.

Somehow, it feels right that they will see the destruction of this one, to make up for missing the destruction of the first.

+

“Don’t you dare die without me,” she says when they part, and he responds:

“I won’t.”

+

She doesn’t return from Endor.

Her name is scrawled across every history lesson of the war, and she is not there to protest. She doesn’t return from Endor.

His name is a footnote on reports quietly wiped, but he isn’t around to care.

He does not return from Endor either.

+

(I am glad, she whispers against his cooling cheek on the forest floor, that you are here with me.)

+

fin