#it's about my grandfathers friend who grabbed my ass when I was 12

[mildlylesbian]

I'm a petty bitch who won't talk to you if I dislike you. You can literally speak to me, ask me questions, follow me around for hours, you ain't getting a response. I have been doing this to my mother for the past 2 and a half years, do not test my resolve.

[dykefight]

I want to share some of the experiences of my loved ones and myself that started leading me to radical feminism

One of my best friends (currently a 19 year old college student) used to have an onlyfans and currently sells underwear online. She says that the most humiliating moments of her life happened on onlyfans and similar websites. She had guys ask things like would she have sex with her brother, could she cry on camera, or if she would piss herself for them. There were two men she encountered that still make me sick to think about. The worst one was a man who regularly paid for videos of her pretending like she was being raped by him without a condom. She would beg for him to stop, not to impregnate her, and she cried and screamed. She was not allowed to get any pleasure from it or she wouldn’t get paid. The man only found pleasure in the idea of a teenage girl being traumatized and abused. The other man paid her to dominate him over the phone. He wanted her to control every aspect of his life. He was nearly 30 at the time while she was 18. The worst part of this ordeal was that they knew each other from when she was around twelve or thirteen. During this time I watched her mental health rapidly decline. Her poor mental health ended up causing her to quit less than a year after starting her account. Now she sells underwear and the conditions are no better. She’s been asked to sell worn underwear, underwear she’s pissed in, underwear with her period blood in it, and underwear she’s worn while masturbating. She has been masturbating so frequently that her skin over her clit has begun peeling. The idea that this is empowering her as a woman makes me sick. It’s basically a form of self harm. Anytime I mention that she might need to slow down she explodes, ranting about how she loves doing it, how it’s good money, and that it’s her choice. No woman should be brainwashed into that mindset.

Two of my other friends have been coerced by their boyfriends into sex that they didn’t want. One of them was guilt tripped into having anal sex by her boyfriend. She didn’t want to have sex until marriage, which he already knew prior. She said he looked so disappointed that she felt like she had to let him do anal. She also said this was easily one of the most painful experiences of her life. She ended up being pressured into vaginal sex only a few weeks later. Another friend was VERY adamant about saving any kind of sex until marriage. Her boyfriend pretended like this was totally fine until around a year into their relationship. He starting persuading her into giving him handjobs and blowjobs, insisting that they were meaningless acts and no big deal. She complied but still wouldn’t let him do anything sexual to her. Eventually he got impatient and decided to touch her while she was asleep on a school trip. She admits to being scarred from this, but insists that he didn’t mean any harm and that he wouldn’t do it again. In March, they were at a party together and had a fight. My friend is known for being a lightweight. While she was furious and drunk, her boyfriend was barely tipsy. He apparently decided that the best way for her to get over it was to push her into a room and have sex even though she was fully unable to consent. At some point, someone walked into the room, saw them, and told everyone at the party about it, including complete strangers. People still bring it up to her like it’s some funny story. Neither of my friends see anything wrong with their boyfriends or their actions. I, along with mutual friends, have tried to bring it up but they insist that it was a one time thing, their boyfriends didn’t know any better, and that we’re being over dramatic. It hurts me to know that they’re just one of many girls who dismiss sexual assault just because they’ve never been told what is wrong in a sexual relationship.

My mom was raped by my father while they were dating. My mom was raised in a very religious family so she saw premarital sex as one of the ultimate sins. She was okay with everything except penetrative sex. At some point, they were naked together and he saw that as an invitation. She froze up and couldn’t bring herself to stop him. That was how she lost her virginity. It wasn’t until she told me that she realized he raped her and that was only because I told her. She didn’t know she was raped until over 30 years later. She said she always thought she asked for it since she was naked around him and let him get close enough for it. She didn’t know that there are multiple types of rape until much later in life, so she never connected the dots. If she had known, she might’ve been able to save herself from the abusive marriage that followed.

Speaking of my mother and her marriage, she was also taught that getting a divorce was a sin in the eyes of god, especially if the wife initiates it. My mom couldn’t bring herself to divorce him in the beginning and then once she had kids she couldn’t divorce him until she made sure he wouldn’t get joint custody of us. She suffered through 35 years of abuse all because of some bullshit she had forced upon her since she was young. My grandma on my moms side experienced the same thing and wouldn’t divorce my grandfather who cheated on her and had a child with another woman.

These last ones are my own personal experiences. I, like many women, have faced sexual assault multiple times. The first time was when I was 12 and sexually assaulted by my long time family friend who was 15. He was best friends with my cousin who I am very close to so he also became a friend of mine. We also went to the same school. One day the three of us were at my cousins house and I was sharing a blanket with the friend. Under the blanket, he began to brush his hand along my ass which I thought was an accident since we were on a small couch sharing a blanket meant for one person. It soon escalated to him grabbing my ass under my jeans and through my underwear and then cupping my boobs. This was all while my cousin sat five feet away. When I finally got the courage to get out I got a text from the guy begging me not to tell my cousin. It took me nearly a month to tell my family and the school. My family said they would cut all contact with his family and the school said they would make sure I never had to be around him in a school setting. However, almost immediately, my family went back to being friends with his family and my school went back on their promise. Even though the guy confessed and I had the texts as evidence, he faced no real repercussions. Another guy continually harassed me over the course of our freshman, sophomore, and junior year. He’d do things like grab me, slap my ass, stick his hand down my uniform, grind against me during class while I was bent over, and he always found new ways to contact me after being blocked. When I finally told a teacher mid junior year, the way the school “punished” him was by having his football coach talk to him. This is the same football coach that’s known to indirectly slut shame girls in front of everyone. The guys behavior towards me didn’t change so I just gave up. I was never taken seriously when these incidents came to light. Everyone just assumed it was something to brush off. That it’d go away after a gentle scolding. Even my peers who say they’re all about protecting and defending women basically responded with “that sucks” and moved on.

I turned to radical feminism because it’s given me a place to be heard. I can speak my mind. Even if someone doesn’t agree with me, they’ll have a civilized discussion or simply move on rather than start an argument.

[icerosecrystal]

Marijon - My Secret Older Sister

Her name is Marinette Amani Al-Ghul. Marinette is the first grandchild of the demon-head and the daughter of Talia Al-Ghul. She is also the older sister of Damian Al-Ghul by two years. Despite what others may think, both she and her brother came from the same man. Bruce Wayne. Although Damian has no idea who his father is, Marinette has known for eight years. Despite the young age of 12, she was an incredibly smart girl. She also possessed the ability to be happy and feel love. But not in front of anyone but her brother and sometimes her mother. She and her brother had a great relationship. They were always there for each other. Damian was there for Marinette when her grandfather Ra's would sometimes beat her for not doing well on a mission. And he would base it solely on her gender. Marinette was there for Damian the first time Damian had to kill someone. It disgusted him, but he continued doing it for the sake of his title.  

Then the day the League fell came. Slade had attacked when Ra's was showing the whole League to Damian and explaining that it would all one day be his. Marinette was standing behind them next to her mother. Ra's had told her mother to grab both of them and run. Marinette protected her brother throughout it all when suddenly, Marinette got shot in the stomach. She collapsed in pain. She saw her mother running back to them, so Marinette let go of Damian, who was looking at her worriedly, "Damian, my akhi, go run, save yourself. Tell Mother to take you to Father. I'll be fine."

Damian was crying now, "NO, I won't leave you, you have to come with me. Please don't leave me, ukhti."

Marinette smiled sadly. She then hugged Damian and kissed him on the cheek, "I love you. And I promise I will find you one day." She let go of his hand as Talia quickly grabbed his arm and lead him to the docks, glancing at Marinette once in worry.

Marinette was lying still for a little bit before she heard a voice say, "Tom, I found her!" Marinette turned her head to the side and saw her godmother, Sabine Cheng recently Dupain-Cheng, hurrying over to her, with her godfather Tom not too far behind.

When they reached her, they gasped at the wound in her stomach. Tom picked her up and quickly walked to the docks with Sabine following. "Where we going?" Marinette said her voiced slurring, herself only half-conscious due to the blood loss.

Sabine answered, "We're going to Paris. We had a house there just in case we ever had to escape the League."

Marinette nodded in turn before she closed her eyes, letting the exhaustion take over. "Good night," she heard before she was fully asleep.  

Marinette woke up to an unfamiliar scene. She tensed, but when she caught sight of her godparents, she relaxed, "So what's the plan?"

Sabine was the one who answered", Well, you aren't allowed to act like the devil in disguise." Marinette scoffed, but she didn't argue, knowing Sabine was right. She may be sweet with her family, but with strangers and acquaintances, she wasn't the nicest. "Also, you are going to be Marinette Dupain-Cheng. You are the daughter of two bakers, Tom and I, and you are a designer. You will also be clumsy and stutter a lot."

Marinette nodded in understanding, "Okay, but what about Damian?"

Sabine sighed, "You're just going to have to hope that one day you find each other again."

Marinette nodded in understanding. She then went up to her new room, ready to put on a mask for the rest of the world to see.

(Time Skip)

It was now the start of the tenth grade for Marinette. She was now thirteen-years-old, and she was ready to play her part of the clumsy baker's daughter. She took some macaroons for her new classmates and then walked outside. While she waited to cross the street, she caught sight of a man crossing the street. A car was heading right to him. Regardless of who she was pretending to be, she wasn't going to let a man get hurt. She ran and quickly pulled him to the sidewalk, effectively using it as an excuse to trip over her feet. She handed the man a macaroon and then ran to school.

At school, she sat down quietly in her seat. When a dark girl, with brown hair and auburn highlights, picked a fight with a blonde girl. The blonde girl was supposedly bullying Marinette. Marinette and the blonde girl exchanged looks, acknowledging that the girl before them was a load of bull. Marinette then found out that the blonde girl's name was Chloe, and she was a bully, and the other girl was Alya.

Marinette looked around the classroom, analyzing everybody.

She then heard a voice scream, "Kim!"

She looked behind her to see a big, burly blonde kid, look like he wanted to beat up somebody. The teacher then asked him, "Ivan, what is going on?"

The blonde kid replied, "It's Kim! I'm so going to get..."

The teacher then pointed to the door and shouted, "Ivan, go to the principal's office."

Before Ivan could stomp off angrily, Marinette spoke up, quite surprised by the way the teacher was handling things, "With all due respect Miss, you didn't even listen to Ivan's side of the story. It could be Kim that's bullying Ivan, but you're rather playing favoritism."

The teacher sputtered, not knowing how to react, "Who gave you the authority to question my teaching skills?"

Marinette smirked, replying, " Common sense."

Mrs. Bustier walked out of the classroom to calm down, pure fury clear on her face. That day she turned into Zombispect. When she kissed them, they would automatically obey and respect her. That was also the day Lady Spots and Chat Noir resided in Paris.

While Lady Spots was a great superhero, Chat Noir was an incompetent fool. Marinette hated him. He would always flirt with her and never get anything done. And in many cases, if he didn't get what he wanted, he would either threaten to quit or sit out. Marinette never told him, but she honestly thought that she did better in battle when he wasn't around.

In terms of her civilian life, Alya convinced herself that she was Marinette's best friend and that Marinette had a crush on Adrien. In actuality, Marinette's best friend was and is her brother, Damian, and Chloe. While Chloe was spoiled, she was also neglected by her parents, which made her act rather bitchy at times. And she for sure did not have a crush on the spineless Adrien Agreste. No one in the class knew anything about the real her. But her godparents and even Chloe, who knew a bit about her. But, the one person that Marinette wanted to talk to was her precious little brother. She needed to hug him, spoil him, and talk with him about everything. But most of all, she wanted to know that he was still alive and happy somewhere.

Marinette would cry herself to bed every day, hoping that one day she would see him again. Thankfully, Tikki was on her side.

(Time Skip of one year. This is after Volpina, but before Chameleon)

It has been two years since Marinette last saw her brother. Alya was still going strong, coming up with ridiculous plans for her to date Adrien. She was still a "clumsy" baker girl. And while designing was her supposed hobby, after about a month, she really got into it. What pissed Marinette off the most was that she had to wear pink, have her room pink, and wear pigtails. Why? Because it strengthened the fact that she was an innocent, little, naive girl. While it did help people underestimate her, it annoyed the heck out of her. She actually ranted to her godparents one day about how bad her appearance was, "How can one color be so bright?! How could anyone like looking at it?! Why the hell do these pigtails make me look like a short-ass baby?! I look like a fucking moron! Where the hell is Damian when you need him?!" It was about three days later when her question was answered.

Marinette had been walking around town when suddenly someone bumped into Marinette.  Marinette caught herself and caught the person she bumped into. But the words that came out of the person's mouth had her reeling, "Tt, what type of imbecile are you to be bumping into people on the street?" Marinette would know that voice anywhere. And sure enough, when she actually looked at the person that she bumped into, she was staring into the face of her brother. When he realized who she was, he let out a timid, "Marinette," that had Marinette practically sobbing.

When she found that her face was wet, she realized that she was sobbing, but she didn't care. Damian was alive. She strangled him with a hug, cooing softly into his ear once he too started crying. They stayed like that for a while before they released each other. It was then that Marinette saw the boy standing behind Damian.

She blushed when she noticed his features, black hair like her own, the bluest, purest eyes she had ever seen. He was wearing glasses that gave him a nerdy look, but his body begged to differ. He was very tall, probably 5ft 11, and had huge muscles that gave off more of a jock look. He had so many characteristics that Marinette felt insanely attracted. She snapped out of her thoughts and offered the boy a hand, "Marinette Dupain-Cheng, or Marinette Al-Ghul, Damien's older sister by two years."

He gave her a blinding smile that could rival the sun and then kissed her hand, "Jonathan Kent, Jon for short. It's nice to meet the sister of my best friend." The more she studied him, the more she realized that he looked familiar. It was then that she realized he was Superboy, the superhero Alya had been raving about last week.

Marinette blushed at him kissing her hand. She then decided to let her inner devil come out to play. Leaning closer, she whispered, "It's nice to meet you too. I hope that you have been nice to my brother. Because if I found out you haven't, I might get my katana and skin you. I know that you might be invincible, but with the kryptonite, which I do have, you would be weakened within a second. So make your decisions carefully." She then leaned back and watched how his expression changed. His face went from happy, to confused, to shocked, to scared, and the surprisingly, love.

He smirked, "Well, you are better than I expected." He then pulled out a piece of paper and wrote his phone number. "Call me, you're hot and a little devil, I like it." He then winked and gave it to her.

They both heard Damian scream, "KENT! Stay away from my sister before I skin you!"

Marinette giggled and took the piece of paper from him. She then asked, "You look to be about my age. Why are you with Damian?"

Jon replied, "I'm 15-years-old. So one year older than you. (I know that Jon is actually three years younger in Super Sons, but for this to work, Jon is three older, not younger. If you have any problems with that, fight me.) And Damian and I work together a lot. We're considered the Super Sons, so we're best friends."

Marinette nodded in understanding before suggesting that they all go to a coffee shop to talk. Damian and Jon agreed. Damian told Marinette all about their father, their brothers, and sisters, him being Robin. He told her everything. She offered him support and asked questions about their family.

When it was her turn, she explained how Tom and Sabine saved her and how she came to Paris. And how she is pretending to be a clumsy sweet girl who likes pink. (She wasn't totally over the whole pink thing along with the pigtails.)  That coaxed a laugh out of both Damian and Jon. But when she got to the part about Alya, Damian wanted to skin Alya. He was Marinette's best friend, not some dumb harlot. When she explained how she was Lady Spots, and Chat Noir had some major failings as a partner, it took both Jon and Marinette to hold him back. He continued trying to escape while shouting, "LET ME AT HIM, HE DARE FLIRT WITH MY SISTER!!! I'LL SKIN HIS SORRY ASS BEFORE RIPPING HIM INTO SHREDS AND DUMPING HIM IN A RIVER!" He then continued to explain exactly how he would kill Chat Noir. Marinette knew that he was capable of going through with his plan, so she distracted him by asking for his phone number so that they could stay in contact. Damian calmed down enough to give it to her.

When she realized how late it was, she gave a hug and promised to meet up with him for the rest of the week. She also promised that once he left Paris, she would stay in contact. She wasn't going to leave her brother again. She then went up to Jon and kissed his cheek before saying goodbye. She then turned around and went home. If she had stayed a second longer, she would have seen Jon blush and then touch the cheek that she kissed with his fingertips, a goofy smile adorning his lips. Although Damian wanted to keep Jon away from his sister, he supposed Jon was better than the mangy cat or the spineless model.

For the rest of the week, the three met up every day and did different activities. One day they went to the Lourve, another an arcade, the day after that a carnival, and so on. On their last day, they went to the park and then went for Andre's ice cream. When they arrived, Andre greeted Marinette, "Bonjour Marinette! Would you like a sweetheart ice cream."

"Oui Andre. This is my brother Damian, and his friend Jon." She then turned to the boys, "Andre is the sweetheart's ice cream maker. He essentially gives you icecream based on the characteristics of your soul mate. Damian, how about you go first."

Damian stepped in front of the cart, "Ah, Damian, one scoop of violet and honey for her eyes, coconut ash for her hair, and cherry for her mysterious and complicated past. Here you are." (There is actually such a thing as black ice cream. It's made with coconut ash that people sometimes flavor with burnt honey vanilla.)

Damian took the ice cream and looked at it. He then realized that it looked like Raven, his crush. He blushed. "Ah, I see the love fair and true. I suppose you know who is right for you?" Damian nodded and started eating his ice cream, a small smile gracing his lips. He then paid attention to his sister and his best friend. They were now getting their ice cream.

Andre looked at the two and said, "Ah, but here's the truth, the two of you are the right match. You complete each other just like one, so come, let Andre supply you with love." Marinette and Jon were both surprised by the turn of events. But they both just blushed and agreed. Andre then said, "Blueberry for both your eyes, strawberry for her lips, cherry for his secret, and cotton candy for your personalities. Enjoy!"

Jon and Marinette waved goodbye and then ate their ice cream. They were still surprised about the turn of events. Neither knew what to say to the other until picked up some courage and asked, "Would you like to be my girlfriend?"

Marinette was surprised but agreed. They shared a chaste kiss. They then heard Damian gagging in the background. They broke apart, and Jon raised an eyebrow, "You're one to talk. I saw your ice cream. It really represented, mmph." Damian covered Jon's mouth before he could blurt out the name of his sweetheart.

"Kent looks like it's time to go! By the way, if you hurt my sister, I won't hesitate to kill you." He then dragged Jon off, leaving Marinette to chuckle to herself. The next day, she said goodbye to Damian and Jon. She gave them both a quick hug along with an extra kiss for Jon. She was so happy that she had found her brother again.

(Time Skip of three years)

It has been three years since Marinette bumped into Damian and Jon in Paris. The two visited whenever they could, the same with Marinette. But they never told their families. Marinette didn't tell her family because they didn't know she was Ladybug. Damian didn't tell because he wanted his sister to himself. Jon didn't tell because the other two didn't. Jon's and Marinette's relationship was still going strong. They loved each other very much. Jon loved how playful and happy Marinette could be, but she wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone. She was his little devil. Marinette loved Jon because of how pure and sunshiny he was. She loved how he cared for her and was always there for her no matter what. Damian actually started a relationship with Rachel Roth otherwise known as Raven as Andre's ice cream had indicated all those years ago.

During the three years, many things had changed, though. A girl named Lila came and turned everyone against her except Chloe. Marinette pretended that she was sad, but really she was ecstatic that she didn't have to hang out with morons anymore. She found Lila quite pathetic. Lila let others do her dirty work for her. She hid behind lies and morons. Marinette never found her as a threat.

She also defeated Hawkmoth a year ago, but it was because he surrendered. So, she didn't take him to jail, she made him donate thousands of dollars to people who needed therapy from the akumas and do community service. He agreed, so she let him go. She was glad that Gabriel Agreste had learned his lesson.

Yeah, for the most part, everything was going fine, she wasn't stuck with morons, and she had her brother and boyfriend. Until her brother and significant idiot forgot that her bio family didn't know about her.

It was the end of another shitty day for Marinette. She collapsed on her chaise. She looked at the time and realized that it was time for her's and Damian's video calls. She groaned before getting up and getting her phone. She dialed his number before waiting for him to pick up. Once he did, she saw that Jon was with him. They all talked together animatedly. What Damian and Jon forgot to do, was make sure that the Bat-family didn't come back from patrol while they were still on the call. But naturally, the two idiots forgot.

So, two hours later, when the three were still talking, they didn't realize when Jason came into the room. They only did when Jason screamed, "Demon Spawn and Supes Junior are talking to a girl on the phone!" This alerted the rest of the Waynes, so they all ran into Damian's room. When they entered, they were met with quite a sight. A confused Jason was watching a small pixie-like girl screaming at Jon and Damian in what seemed to be Arabic, Urdu, Russian, English, French, Spanish, Romanian, and Greek.

Once she calmed down, although she was still glaring at the two boys, she introduced herself, "Hi, my name is Marinette."

Dick asked her, "What's your last name?"

Marinette replied, "It depends on who your asking. Here in France, I would be Marinette Dupain-Cheng. In the league, I would be Marinette Al-Ghul. But, my real name would most likely be Marinette Wayne."

Jason yelled, "Your married to Demon Spawn!"

Marinette scowled, "No, Tt, are you always this incompetent? I am Damian's older sister by two years. I am also Jon's girlfriend of three years."

Bruce took a deep breath and pinched his nose, "And the reason none of you said anything was because?" He looked directly at Damian when asking the question.

Damian snapped, "I didn't want to share my beloved sister. She is too good for you imbeciles. She is also too good for Kent. But Kent is better than the mangy cat or the ugly model."

Everyone looked at Marinette confused except for Damian and Jon. She quickly shook her head, "Don't ask. If you want to ask me some questions, I'll be there in a minute."

Damian realizing that she was going to use the horse miraculous to transport to Gotham quickly said, "Wait, no, don't!" But she had already ended the call making Damian curse in Arabic.

Seconds later a portal appeared and a girl stepped out. She then spoke, "Kaalki, dismount." A flash appeared around her and they then saw the same girl on the phone now in front of them.

This left Wayne's gaping, while Alfred asked, "Mistress Marinette, would Kaalki I assume, need anything?"

Marinette replied, "Oui, she prefers sugar cubes to recharge. Merci, Alfred."

Then Jon got up and shouted, "My little devil!"

"Sunshine", Marinette exclaimed in joy before kissing him with full force. He kissed her back passionately. She placed her arm on his shoulders while he held her waist and lifted her a little off the ground. After a little bit, there was an awkward cough that reminded them that there were others in the room. They gave each other one more peck, before reluctantly pulling away. Although, Jon's arm was still around her waist. Marinette tried to not focus on the aching in her chest that was telling her to pounce on Jon and smother him in love and kisses while he did the same to her.

Marinette sighed and tried to focus on the situation at hand, "It's nice to meet all of you. My name is Marinette Al-Ghul Wayne, and I am Damian's sister as mentioned."

They all stared at her strangely until Tim asked, "Are you sure you grew up with Damian, or that your mother is Talia Al-Ghul? You seem a lot more different from Demon Spawn."

She smirked at them viciously, "First of all, I am for sure Damian's biological sister. Second of all, I may seem like an angel, but I'm the devil in disguise, hence Jon's nickname for me. Third of all, I'm not as arrogant as Damian because Ra's was always abusing me since I was a girl. So, I am a lot worse than Damian, I just don't show it."

No one knew what to do with this information. Sure Damian already knew about the beatings, but no one else did. They stared at her in worry, but she just waved them off, "Don't worry about me. Ra's is dead, I'm living with my godparents, and I'm happy."

Damian then rose an eyebrow, "What about your moronic classmates?"

"Oh, I didn't tell you. This pathetic girl who threatened to take my friends away, made it so that no one talks to me anymore. So, yay! Oooh, also I should probably explain my life to you?" She then went on to talk about everything, how her life was at the league, what happened when Slade attacked,  her life in Paris and when she became Lady Spots, how she met Damian and Jon, what happened after that.

By the end of her story, everyone looked like they wanted to kill her classmates and Chat Noir. Well, almost everyone. Bruce was on the ground muttering to himself, "Why, why, why? I just wanted one of my kids to not be a superhero. Is that too much to ask for?"

While Bruce had his breakdown, Tim asked her, "Did you defeat Hawkmoth?"

"Yeah, I did. He surrendered, so I let him off with some requirements in place. I actually was thinking of doing something to expose Lila. As much as I hate the morons, their future will be horrible if they keep on listening to that pathetic bitch."

Damian looked at her curiously, "What were you thinking?

"You are going to invite my class to the Wayne Gala. There we are going to introduce the whole family, including me. Damian, you are going to bring Raven. I'll bring Jon obviously. If we disprove that she knows the Waynes, the rest of her lies will come crashing down." Everyone smiled obviously pleased with the idea.

So they spent the next month getting the gala together. They organized a contest that Bustier's class won. During the month, the Waynes got to know Marinette. While Damian did have a problem with sharing her, everyone still go to know her. They were officially scared of her after she won after sparing against everyone and then cussing at Damian in many languages. It made Jon fall more in love with her though.

Another problem was that the Waynes would walk into Jon's and Marinette's make-out sessions all the time. Once, Jon, had Marinette pushed up against a wall and he was kissing her passionately. Marinette had her hands in his hair, one of them playing with the ends of his hair. She had taken off his shirt and was kissing down his neck. Jon had groaned and had stopped her so he could kiss her neck as well making her moan in want. He was whispering about what he wanted to do with her at the same time. Through dazed eyes, Marinette looked up and finally saw her family looking at her, both Damian and Bruce had their jaws clenched. When Jon noticed them, he quickly let go of her. Dick, Jason, and Tim started laughing, cooing, and teasing them, making Marinette hide her head in his chest. This made Damian launch himself at Jon, but before he could, Marinette had already disarmed him. She screamed, "Don't hurt my boyfriend, Damian." He just huffed, but let it go. From then on, they made sure to lock the door.

It was finally the day of the gala. Marinette saw all of her classmates. They mostly looked nice, but Lila was wearing an incredibly revealing dress.

It was then time for the reveal. Bruce went up to the stage and announced, "Good evening, everybody. I am pleased that you could all attend. Today, I would like to introduce all of my children along with their significant other. To start, my oldest son Richard Grayson, also known as Dick Grayson along with his wife Kori Grayson."

(Bruce's suit)

(Dick's Suit)

(Kori's Dress)

"My son Jason Todd."

(Jason's suit)

"My son Tim Drake."

(Tim's suit)

"My son Damian Wayne with his girlfriend Rachel Roth."

(Damien's suit)

(Rachel's dress)

"Finally, my new found daughter, also Damian's biological older sister Marinette Wayne. With her date Jon Kent."

(Marinette's dress) 

(Jon's suit)

When her classmates saw Marinette they started screaming insults. She just raised an eyebrow at them, "Is there a problem?"

Alya yelled, "Yeah there is. You're not a Wayne, you never told me that you were."

Marinette replied, "We were never best friends so I was under no obligation to tell you anything. I am a Wayne. I just lived with my godparents in Paris until my dad found out about me. I am dating my handsome boyfriend, Jonathan Kent. I have given you so much proof. How about you question Lila. She claimed that she was dating Damian. Damian is two years younger than her and he is dating Rachel. She isn't close to the Waynes, I am. So, stop questioning me and question her."

Everyone looked at Lila, but she was incredibly pale. That showed everyone that she was lying. They started yelling at her. Bruce then spoke up, "Security, escort this class out of the gala." As security did so, no one stopped yelling at Lila.

Marinette and Jon then turned to the reporters and Marinette said, "Five questions go."

She pointed to one reporter, "Where do you live?"

"Paris like I mentioned earlier."

She pointed to another, "How old are you?"

"I am 17-years-old, almost 18."

She pointed to a third one, "Were you surprised about being a Wayne?"

"No, I knew that I was a Wayne my whole life. But I was sent to my godparents instead of my dad like Damian. But I still knew." She pointed to her family, "They were surprised about my existence."

She pointed to a fourth reporter, "How do you like being a Wayne?"

"I really enjoy it. They are so nice to me. I really cherish them and we all have a lot of fun together. "

She pointed to a final reporter, "Do you like being Jonathan Kent's girlfriend and how did you meet?"

"We met when I bumped into him and my brother in Paris. We spent the week together. We got this thing called sweethearts ice cream. The ice cream tells you who your soulmate is. The guy who runs it Andre said that we were meant to be together. Jon asked me to be his girlfriend after. We have been a couple for three years. I love Jon a lot. He's really sweet and considerate. I wouldn't trade him for the world." Everyone awed.

Jon then picked her up bridal style, "Now that this is over, we'll be going home to have some fun." He winked at everyone.

Marinette blushed at the implications, "JON!" But, Jon silenced her with a passionate kiss, carrying her off the stage.

As Marinette kissed him back, she felt so happy. She had a loving family and boyfriend. They accepted her and cherished her.

She didn't know that the league was going to be attacked, but it helped her grow as a person and escape abuse. She didn't know that she would get a boyfriend. She didn't know she would ever meet her little brother ever again or meet her family. She didn't know what the future had in store for her. But she did know that she was going to spend it with her boyfriend and her family, and nothing was going to stop her.

(Sorry for the pictures smack in the middle of everything!)

[jeonjk1998]

Before Us | Jungkook

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Genre: college!au fuckboy!au bestfriends!au friendswithbenefit!au director!au tattoo!au piercing!au fluff!au smut!au angst!au

Wordcount: 4518 words

Summary: You and Jungkook has been best friends ever since the both of you were just a kid but you never expected to fall in love with him

Notes: I hope you like this fic! I know it’s clichè but I can’t help it haha, anyways I was hoping to write this into a fic someday but since I’m not good at writing, I’ll just leave it here as a draft

Masterlist

You were five years old when you first met him

You remember it was one summer when your parents brought you on a vacation along with their business partners’ family and that is where you met Jeon Jungkook

To be honest, you didn’t like him at all when you first met him, he was so full of himself and annoying sometimes

It’s not surprising that he’s acting like a spoiled child since his family are one of the richest family in the country and he literally can have anything he wants if he just names it

But that wasn’t just it, he and his friends, Jimin and Taehyung would always find a wat to prank you whenever your parents were not around

Despite all of that, you tried your best to make amends with him but it was no use, you ended up hating him even more

You honestly have no idea why would he keep bothering you or why is he always so rude around you

You just assume maybe because you were the only girl around here and he just didn’t want to hang out with you

But what you didn’t know is that Jungkook has the fattest crush on you and he just wanted your attention

Eventually, you got tired and stopped trying and that’s when things starting to get better

You even got along with the boys and surprisingly, your relationship with Jungkook has gotten so much better

You remember you even cried when you thought you didn’t enroll into the same high school as Jungkook

Sometimes your parents would even question if the both of you were in a relationship but you and Jungkook knew very well that it would never happen

You wouldn’t say that you’re not attracted to him, it was impossible to ignore that gorgeous boy and the fact that he has tons of admirer waiting in line for him

You never had a crush on him, you thought you did at one point but it turns out that you only find him attractive

You never told him before but you admired him a lot, especially when it comes to his passion, you respected how much effort he puts in towards the things he loves

You remember it was on his 12 years old birthday when his Grandfather gave him a video camera as his birthday present and ever since then, he would bring it along with him wherever he goes

Jungkook loves filming a lot, he’d even put you in his videos just so he could make it into a documentary, at least that’s what he said

He even attended classes so that he could improve his filming and editing skills

But before you could witness it, the both of you somehow just got drifted away from each other, it’s not like the both of you stopped hanging out with each other, you guys just have a different group of friends to be with

Jungkook became more popular and started to get involved with stuff like parties and sex but you weren’t surprised since he’s always so socially involved and outgoing

Just when you thought that Jungkook couldn’t get any more attractive, he became so much hotter

He started to go to the gym more often and he started to get more tattoos on his body or you just assume it’s because he became more cocky and confident

It wasn’t a lie that Jungkook was undoubtedly hot and gorgeous, even you couldn’t deny that he was hot as fuck

Sometimes you’d even catch yourself staring at his biceps while he was working out, it was no doubt that Jungkook has a great body

Although, you never know why he never dated before since girls would normally just throw themselves to him

He only said he didn’t like commitments and that it’s easier to just have sex and even though he can be a dick sometimes but he was also a genuinely nice guy

It was no different with you, you used to be this cute little girl that Jungkook used to have a crush on but for somewhat reason, puberty hit you like a truck and you got hot

You’d even caught Jungkook checking your ass out sometimes, all thanks to the pilates classes you took with your roommate

You’d be lying if you said you never thought about sleeping with your best friend before, anyone with eyes can see how attractive he is but you never did make a move and neither does he

God, if only you knew how much Jungkook wanted you that way

Ever since he started to get involved with sex, he has been thinking what would it be like to have you under him, screaming his name

It was obvious enough that the both of you were attracted to each other sexually but nothing ever happens

The both of you knew so well that your friendship was way too important to mess around with

You have to admit, it’s hard to hold back when you’re best friend is so damn attractive

Right now, you were trying so hard not to stare at the way Jungkook’s bicep is flexing while he was holding the huge camcorder in his hand

It reminded you back to the day when he told you that he got recruited into one of the most famous entertainment industry and now he’s working here

You were so happy for him and honestly, he deserves it, Jungkook was very talented in the things he does, especially when it comes to video production

As much as you love seeing him with his camcorder, you and Jungkook were supposed to be at Jimin’s party right now but you’ve been waiting for him for almost an hour and he’s still hasn’t done yet

God, your feet were killing you from wearing the Jimmy Choo heels that Jungkook bought for you on your birthday and you really don’t feel like waiting anymore

It didn’t take him long to wrap everything up when he saw how annoyed you get

To be honest, if it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t be working for an extra hour

You have been distracting him the whole evening with that tight dress you’re wearing, wrapping around your ass so perfectly

When both of you arrived at Jimin’s place, he was already half-drunk

He then pulls you in for a drink before he grabs you in to play beer pong with him

You were sitting on the table beside the boys while watching them playing when Taehyung suddenly suggested that he wanted to play truth or dare

You never really like the game but since everyone is playing, you have not much of a choice but to say yes

Like always, you choose truth and it was Jimin’s turn to ask you “Who do you most want to sleep with, out of everyone here?”

He smirks at the question while he asks as he knew exactly what your answer will be but he just wanted to tease you

You then saw Jungkook was staring at you and you knew exactly what he was thinking since he already knew who was on your mind

Thanks to all the alcohol in your system, you didn’t hesitate as you blurted his name “Easy, Jungkook”

The boys cheered loudly at your answer and you saw Jungkook was smirking at you and god, you wanted so bad to wipe that cocky smirk off of his face

When you thought things couldn’t get any worst, it was then Jungkook’s turn and of course, he’d choose dare

You then saw Jimin whispered something to Jhope before he could give the dare, making him smile as he then blurted out “Make out with Y/N for 3 minutes”

Your heart instantly races at the thought of it when you saw Jungkook walks over to you

God, just when you thought Jimin couldn’t get anymore devious, here he is smirking at you, waiting to see the both of his friends eating each other out

The boys started wooing and cheering around as soon as Jungkook’s lips crash on yours

He hungrily kisses you as he pulls you closer to him, grabbing your thigh while giving it a tight squeeze which made you moan into the kiss

You then started rubbing yourself onto him when you felt his dick poking on your thigh

You almost forgot that there were still people around, watching the both of you making out until you heard people started murmuring around

You then quickly pull yourself away from him as you can feel how fast your heart is beating and how warm your cheeks were

Jungkook then smirks at you when he saw how tense you look

God, you wanted so bad to wipe off that cocky smirks from his face but why does it turn you on so much

You knew you’d eventually give in and there is no way you could hold it back, at least not after what just happened

You ended up fucking your best friend in the car and boy, it felt so good

You almost lost your shit when he turns you around, thrusting into you ruthlessly

He was stretching you out so nicely, you still couldn’t believe how you manage to stuff that huge cock inside you

Jungkook never thought he’d get to see you like this, to have you under him, screaming his name with his balls deep inside you

God, it’s still hard to believe that he’d get to fuck you like this, his favorite girl

He knows that things aren’t going to be the same after this but right now you’re the only thing he can think of

You thought things would be awkward after that night but it turns out you have nothing to worry about

You and Jungkook decided that it’ll be easier if the both of you become fuckbuddies

Although, it was quite awkward to do this when you weren’t drunk but you decided that you’ll make the first move and that’s when everything started to change

The both of you then became more and more comfortable around each other and started to have more frequent sex than usual

Like now, you were supposed to do some researching in the library but instead, you were hoisted up against the wall by Jungkook as he fucks you mercilessly

“You like that baby? You like my cock deep inside you?” You were trying to hold back your moans by biting on your lips when Jungkook rubbed his thumbs on your clit

You then slide your hand down to his back as you rake onto his broad shoulder, feeling how his muscle-flexing with every thrust he takes

“Jungkook I can’t, I have to go” You whine helplessly when he tries to convince you to get on with him for another round

“C’mon, I promise I’ll make you feel so good” God, it’s like no matter how many times you guys fuck, he just can’t seem to get enough of you

Honestly, the whole friends with benefits thing were starting to worry him

He was afraid that he might fall for you, he even thought of pushing you away, just like how he did when the both of you were still in high school but he can’t afford to lose you anymore

You were the most precious thing to him, you were everything to him

You have always been there for him throughout his toughest time and he couldn’t possibly ruin what the both of you already had

But little did he know, he has already fallen in love with you long before he knew it

Your friends weren’t blind, they knew what was going on between the both of you and they have been teasing you for so long about how you and Jungkook were head over heels for each other but you knew that wasn’t possible

Jungkook hated commitments more than anything and there is no way he would give up all the sex only to be with one girl

Although, you have to admit that you’ve been acting strangely around him ever since you caught your roommate sucking his dick

And seeing all those pretty girls that he works with trying to get Jungkook to dick them down didn't help at all and you really didn’t want to see any more of that

You were so done waiting for him, he was supposed to be at the gala right now since his parents were having a celebration tonight but as usual, his works keep him away so you had no choice but to go with him

God, you can’t look at him anymore and since he was so busy flirting around, you then decided that you’ll leave first

Jungkook was so confused when he saw you were leaving

Something was off with you, he didn’t know why are you so annoyed at him over these past few days and it’s starting to bother him a lot

God, it’s like there’s something wrong with you, you knew you’ve been acting like a brat around him lately but you just can’t help it

Of course, Jungkook wouldn’t let you go just like that, he’s been keeping up with your shit for days and he wanted to know why

“You sure you wanna keep acting like a brat baby girl?” You knew Jungkook was starting to get annoyed by your bratty attitude and you sure gave him a huge headache since you’ve been acting like a bitch

“Just leave me alone” You tried to shove him away but he’s not having any of that

“Only if you stop giving me that attitude” God, you’ve already had so much on your mind and he’s sure is starting to get on your nerves

“Make me” Your heart immediately races when you felt Jungkook lips crash on yours, kissing you roughly while he grabs onto your thigh, carries you up before throwing you on the bed

“I’m gonna fuck you so hard until you stop giving me that fucking attitude” You already know how this was gonna end and it’s not going to look pretty

God, he wasn’t lying, you can’t even remember how many times he made you came tonight

“Mum, don’t worry, we’ll be there soon, I promise” You can’t believe Jungkook would actually pick up the phone while he’s rutting into you

You then saw a smirk curve upon Jungkook’s lips when he saw how hard you’re biting your lip while trying to hold back your moans

Tears well up in your eyes when he speeds up his pace, thrusting into you faster

God, he’s fucking you so good that you kept cumming around his cock

Thank god your parents had already left for the gala, it was just you and Jungkook in the house

You can’t believe how late it already is when the both of you arrived at the gala

You then glared at Jungkook when you caught him smiling like it wasn’t a big deal

But you, on the other hand, was not even though you knew his parents wouldn’t mind at all since they were both very fond of you, they even said that they would love to have you to be their daughter-in-law

You were surprised when you saw your brother, Seokjin was here too since you didn’t expect him to be home anytime soon

God, you missed bim, it’s been such a long time since you last saw him

“Why are you wearing that ridiculous dress?” Was the first thing he said, you then ignore all the snickers from the guy and pouted at him

You knew your dress was quite revealing but truth to be told, your brother was just way too overprotective over you

“Hey hyung” Jungkook went in to hug him when he saw him, so does the rest of the guys

Just when you thought Jungkook would drop the conversation that the both of you had earlier this evening, he then brought it up again

“What’s going on?” You know he would never drop it if you don’t talk to him and you really didn’t want to have that conversation now

“Look, it’s not that big of a deal, I just... I accidentally walk in on you and Jinny when you guys were... “

“You know what? Forget about it, it’s not like you’re not allowed to sleep with anyone you want so...” God, you’ve never sounded so ridiculous before

Smiling at your response, he knew he was damned, he only hoped you didn’t hear how fast his heart is racing

How did he not realized that he was already falling for his best friend

He thought sleeping with other people would get you off his mind, but it didn’t

You were all he could think of when he’s with other girls

Ever since that night, you and Jungkook gotten more intimate with each other

He’d casually hold your hands in public and he’d showers you with lots of kisses and hugs just because he feels like it

Of course, you were aware of your feelings for him but you never wanted to talk to him about it, you were scared that he might just end things with you if you confess

But you were getting tired of it, girls would flirt with him whenever the both of you went out and they would ask if he’s your boyfriend and you hated it when you say no

What’s bothering you, even more, is there was this girl, Ivy, she works with Jungkook and they’ve been spending a lot of time together

She’s super pretty and nice, it’s hard to not like her even if you don’t want to but you had to admit that you didn’t like seeing them together

It’s obvious that Ivy has a crush on Jungkook and he knew it too

Sometimes you’d wonder if Jungkook likes her since he’s been telling you about how cool the girl is and how the both of them hit it off so well with each other

“Do you like her? Ivy?” It took you a lot of courage but you had to ask

“Yeah, she’s cool and fun, it’s hard not to like her I guess” You were trying so hard to fight back your tears when you heard what Jungkook said

“Let’s not do this anymore, us being fuckbuddies” You finally said it, although it hurts but it’s the right thing to do

“What? What are you saying? Is this about Tae? I know both of you have been hanging out a lot these days but you can’t tell me that you like the guy?”

You and Tae have indeed been hanging out a lot these past few days but it’s because he knows about your feelings towards Jungkook

What you didn’t expect is for Jungkook to react this way

“Why are you acting up? I thought you said you like Ivy?” Jungkook was confused, how can you not know that he’s in love with you, he was so obvious

“Are you serious right now? I can’t believe you would think that I like Ivy, I only meant it as a platonic way, for god’s sake, I’m in love with you, how can you not see that?”

You were taken aback by Jungkook’s confessions as you didn’t expect to hear him say that or that he’s in love with you

“Look, I thought you knew about it if I knew you hadn’t known I wouldn’t have-” You didn’t let him finish before you crashes your lips onto his when he grabbed the back of your neck to deepen the kiss

“God, you don’t know just how hard it is to not be in love with you” He murmurs out in the kiss which made you blushed

“Well, you’re not the only one who feels that way” Your heart races when you saw he was gazing at you with all smiles

God, you really do love the guy

Honestly, Jungkook was everything you could ever ask for, he’s been there for you for your whole life as your family, your friend and now your boyfriend

Things couldn’t turn out better than you hoped

Of course, you’ve dated before but nothing ever felt like him

Sure, both of you had your ups and downs but Jungkook was always the one who made it up to you even though it wasn’t his fault

To be honest, you thought it wasn’t possible to be able to love someone so much but he made that happen

“Five years old me could’ve been so proud of myself” It still gets you every time to think that Jungkook had a crush on you when you were four

You were supposed to meet up with your friends today but because of your clumsy boyfriend, you’re late

You can’t believe that he actually thought baking muffins would be fun, he even messes up the sugar and salt and made a mess in the kitchen

You know he just wanted to hang out with you since the both of you haven’t been able to spend much time together lately and he misses you

Even though you really wanted to hang out with your boyfriend longer but your friends would kill you if you bail on them since you’ve already made your promise that you’d come

Jungkook has been busy with work these past few weeks and sometimes you don’t even get to see him for days

You just assume that maybe he has a lot of work to do but it started to bother when he doesn’t even have the time for you anymore

You didn’t want to overthink but you’ve been seeing him with Ivy together a lot

Even though you know that they work together but you just can’t stop thinking about it

You remember there was this one time when you saw Ivy texted him while the both of you were watching a movie at his apartment and he just left, saying that he still has some unfinished work to do

You tried not to let it get into your head but it eventually came to a point where you couldn’t stand it anymore

You need to talk to him

You then decided that it’ll be much easier to go to his apartment and talk to him but you lost it when you saw Ivy there

Tears started to form in your eyes when you saw Jungkook came out from his room, almost half-naked while tugging down his shirt

“No... Baby, please listen to me” You ran away before Jungkook could even get a hold of you

He knew, he knew how much you dislike the girl and yet she’s there, in his apartment

You know you were being unreasonable right now but you just need to get out of there

It broke his heart to have to see you like this

The last thing he ever wanted is to see you cry

God, you weren’t supposed to be here, he was going to ask you to come over tonight so he could celebrate your birthday with you and now you’re not even answering your phone

He has been preparing for this for so long, he was so busy over these past few weeks because he wanted to give you a surprise

He literally spent a whole month making the video for you, it was your birthday gift

It was all the videos that he has been taking of you for all those years ever since he got his first camcorder

You practically sums up his whole life

God, and now he blew it

If only you knew Ivy was just there to help him out with the video

The guys were also there as well, they were at the rooftop helping Jungkook to set up the projector and the screen and some of the stuff that he bought from Ikea

He knew how much you like these kinds of things, you said it’s romantic

He just hoped that your friends would help him to get you over here tonight

You were supposed to be with Jungkook tonight but since you were too stubborn, your friends decided that instead, they’ll bring you out to celebrate your birthday and hopefully you’ll stop sulking

You were distracted the whole night as you couldn’t stop looking at your phone, hoping that you’ll at least get a message from him

Did he finally got tired of you?

The thoughts were slowly eating you up as you felt your tears starting to stream down your cheeks

“Oh god Y/N, please don’t cry” Your friends started to get nervous when they saw you were crying again

They were supposed to help Jungkook to surprise you but now you were asking for him

You weren’t supposed to see him now but you were crying so much and they have no choice but to bring you over, seeing how upset you are

“Baby why are here?” You couldn’t hold back your tears the moment you saw Jungkook and went in for a hug

“Hey, it’s okay” Jungkook then slowly pulls away from you, wiping your tears away “You’re okay” He then places a soft kiss on your forehead while caressing your face

“Come on, there’s something I want to show you” You were confused when Jungkook brought you up to the rooftop as you have no idea what is going on

You were soon in awe when you saw the rooftop was romantically decorated into a movie theatre

“Happy Birthday baby” Fireworks started launching in the sky as soon as Jungkook wishes you while he snakes his veiny arm around your waist

“Come here” Jungkook then held your hand as he led you towards the couch and pulls you down beside him before he turns on the projector

You couldn’t believe your eyes when you saw the video that Jungkook made for you, you thought those videos were far gone but you didn’t expect that Jungkook would keep it

“Why don’t you hate me?” Guilt starting to fill you up as you couldn’t believe how badly you’ve been behaving over these past few weeks only because Jungkook was so busy with your birthday surprise

“Where is this coming from? I thought I was going to get a kiss after this” Jungkook tries to joke with you as he didn’t want to see you looking like that

“You are... I just felt so bad for always lashing it out on you” Jungkook only chuckle at your response “I’m serious!” You whine only to make him smile at how adorable you are

“Baby, I’m your boyfriend, not a stranger, and can I please get a kiss already?” You smile at his response as you then lean in for a kiss

Jungkook then took his chance as he pulls you closer to him before you could run away

Honestly, it has always felt like this with him, you thought maybe, just maybe, you had already fallen for him long before you knew it

[365days365movies]

March 1, 2021: The Hobbit (1977) (Part 1)

In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit.

When I was 9, my school let us read a very special book, originally meant for kids, but beloved by everyone. My folks and I went to Borders Books (FUCK ME, I miss Borders), and we got an illustrated copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. I can’t find that book, but if I ever find it again, Imma buy it IMMEDIATELY, I tell you what. And...oh shit, it’s on Amazon for $12? 

Well. I just made that purchase, I guess. But yeah, I loved that book when I was a kid, and this was during the same year that Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy began, with Fellowship, of course. And I wouldn’t end up watching those until a few years later, but I loved those too when I saw them. And I’ve NEVER seen the abridged version, by the way, I’ve only ever seen the extended editions.

Although, I can’t call myself a hardcore fan. I’ve never read the Silmarillion, for example. Although, weirdly, I wanted it as a kid at some point, so I was almost there. But no, I ended up getting into comic books hardcore instead, so I can’t tell you the history of Tom Bombadil, but I can tell you about at least one of the fuckin’ 87 tieles that the Legion of Super-Heroes has been involved in. I’m not gonna like it though.

...Yes, I will, who am I kidding, I love the Legion. Anyway, I’ve still always been a fan of the franchise, and I was extremely excited when Jackson announced that he’d be doing an adaptation of The Hobbit! Seriously, I WAS FUCKING PUMPED, you have no idea. I re-read the book, I was super-excited...and then Harry Potter changed EVERYTHING. Kind of.

See, Harry Potter’s development as a two films made from one book seemed to kick off a trend. Breaking Dawn and Mockingjay are the two that immediately come to mind, as does this film. However, to be fair...that’s probably a coincidence. Yeah, this film was originally developed as two parts, WAY before Deathly Hallows got that treatment. And even then, Jackson and Del Toro had difficulty breaking it up into two parts, and three ended up being easier. Still...the change from two-to-three does feel a little connected to that trend.

Anyway, in celebration of that decision, I’m gonna break this review into three parts! Yes. Really. I want to see if it works. And so, let’s talk about the other most famous adaptation of this book by talking about its creators.

Yup. Rankin-Bass did 2D-animated cartoons, too! And this was one of their most famous ones, dating back to 1977. But wait! There’s more! This was followed by Ralph Bakshi’s version of Lord of the Rings by a different studio. You know, this one?

Yeah, that one. It was only based on the first two books, Fellowship and Towers. But it was technically unconnected to the Rankin-Bass version. Which is why it was REALLY weird when Rankin-Bass came out with an adaptation of the third book, Return of the King, right afterwards!

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. Because both of Rankin-Bass’ specials were animated by a Japanese studio called Topcraft, who’d actually worked with Rankin-Bass for years. But then, they went bankrupt a few years later, and was bought by Isao Takahata, Toshio Suzuki, and...Hayao Miyazaki. And it was renamed as...

So, this is a Hobbit adaptation produced by the Rudolph people and animated by the people who would eventually become Studio Ghibli. Well, uh...holy fucking shit. Let’s DO THIS BABY. SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/3)

As we’re wont to do in this story, we head to Hobbiton in the Shire, where we meet Bilbo Baggins (Orson Bean). A simple Hobbit in a simple home, with a happy and simple life. But one day, he’s approached by Gandalf (John Huston), who seeks a burglar to help with the mission of a group of dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield (Hans Conried).

We also immediately start off with two songs from the original book, and I have to say that I like them a but better in the Jackson movies, but they’re still well performed here. Anyway, after dinner, the true goal of their quest is given. Beneath Lonely Mountain, the ancestral home of the Dwarves, there was a kingdom ruled by the King Under the Mountain, Thorin’s grandfather.

Through reading the lyrics of the song “Far over the Misty Mountains,” Thorin tells the tale of the takeover of the Dwarves’ great golden hoard by the dragon Smaug. Bilbo is tasked to help the Dwarves steal back the treasure stolen from them. And, while he’s extremely reluctant to be a part of all this, Gandalf basically forces him to, the pushy bastard. And Bilbo’s Greatest Adventure now lies ahead!

Speaking of, here’s the song “The Greatest Adventure”, sung by Glenn Yarborough, who is the living personification of vibrato. Fuckin’ seriously, this guy’s voice is ridiculous, but I love it so much. As the night passes underneath Glenn Yarborough’s hypnotically shaky voice, and uncertain, Bilbo stares out at the moon. Once it’s over, we’re on our way to the Misty Mountains.

Bilbo’s having a tough time with the long journey and rough weather, and it doesn’t get much better when they encounter a trio of trolls. They send out Bilbo to try and steal some mutton from them, but he’s IMMEDIATELY a failure, and also manages to tell the trolls that the dwarves are present. Nice one, Bilbo. The trolls catch all of the dwarves, although Bilbo manages to escape. 

The trolls argue about how to cook the dwarves, but before they get to do anything, Gandalf shows up and summons the dawn, turning the trolls into stone and saving the dwarves. While they’re initially quite frustrated by Bilbo’s failure, he makes it up by discovering a horde of goods and weapons stolen by the trolls. This is also where Bilbo gets his classic weapon, Sting.

Gandalf, cheeky bastard that he is, suddenly reveals a map that he’s kept secret from Thorin, its rightful owner. Bilbo, a classic cartomaniac, is able to interpret the map. But there are also runes that they can’t quite read. And so, Gandalf brings them to his friend, Elrond (), who’s wearing a sick-ass glittery tiara that’s hovering off his head. How come Hugo Weaving didn’t have that?

Anyway, Elrond identifies the swords that Thorin and Gandalf grabbed as Orcrist, the Goblin-Cleaver and Glamdring, the Foe-Hammer, because FUCK YEAH, BABY, those are some fuckin’ NAMES! WHOOOOOO!

Anyway, he also points them in the direction of the mountain, and shows them hidden features to the map. They head through the mountains after this, and rest in a cave. Unfortunately, this cave is on Goblin territory, and the group (sans Gandalf, who’s disappeared to make out with Cate Blanchett or whatever) is quickly ambushed by a group of now-horned Goblins, who chant their song as they go “Down, Down, to Goblin-Town”. Which is a song that I love, unironically. It compels me to sing along.

The Goblins nearly kill them when they discover Orcrist in Thorin’s possession, but they’re saved by the sudden appearance of Gandalf with the glowing sword Glamdring. He kills the Great Goblin, and the group run out with the Goblins in hot pursuit. Well, except for Bilbo.

Yeah, Bilbo falls into a cavern below the mountain, and the dwarves think him gone for good. However, he’s miraculously safe on the ground, having landed in an underground aquifer, in which lives THE GREATEST CHARACTER IN THE MIDDLE-EARTH FRANCHISE FUCKIN’ AT ME I DARE YOU

And just so we’re clear, I’m not talking about the film version only, I’m talking about Gollum/Smeagol in general. Granted, I don’t want a film starring him or anything (coughCruellacoughcoughMaleficentcoughcoughClaricecoughcough), but I love this dissociative little dude so much. He’s one of my favorite fantasy characters in general, and is also maybe the best example of a sympathetic villain, in film at least.

OK, to be fair, I love Andy Serkis’ version of the character a LOT, like a LOT a lot, and it’s a great version of the character. OK, so what do I think of this version? He’s...interesting, actually. If I’m honest, I kinda like him. This is similar to how I always pictured Gollum when I was a kid.

I mean, listen to this description from the book, yeah?

Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature. I don't know where he came from, nor who or what he was. He was Gollum - as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face...He was looking out of his pale lamp-like eyes for blind fish, which he grabbed with his long fingers as quick as thinking.

I dunno, that does sound more like this version of Gollum to me, just saying. Anyway, while Gollum is off fishing in the water, Bilbo gets up on the shore, where he finds a little golden ring Not important, just a ring, definitely means nothing at all, NOTHING AT ALL, NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

The hungry Gollum (Brother Theodore) happens upon Bilbo, precious, wonders if Bilbo would taste good, and is basically about to kill him for his sweet hobbit meat, before Bilbo takes out Sting. Now afraid, Gollum offers a game of riddles. The two make a deal: if Bilbo wins at a game of riddles, Gollum will show him the  way out. But if Gollum wins, precious will eat him raaaaaaaw and wrrrrrrrrrriggling!

The riddles commence, in a super-fuckin’-classic moment, and also ends with maybe the most bullshit moment in all of fantasy lore. After clever riddles with answers involving eggs, wind, and time, Bilbo’s last riddle is “What’s in my pocket?” The fuck, Bilbo, that’s absolute BULLSHIT!

Not that it matters. Bilbo wins, but Gollum goes to find his ring to show it to Bilbo before he takes him away. Thing is, though, that’s what was in Bilbo’s pocket, which Gollum quickly figures out, my precious. He’s about to kill Bilbo to get back his birthday present, precious, but Bilbo discovers the secret trick of the ring: it turns the wearer invisible, AND THAT WILL NEVER BE A BAD THING EVER.

Gollum thinks that Bilbo’s escaped and runs after him toward the exit. This, of course, leads Bilbo towards the exit inadvertently, and he follows Gollum, then jumps over him to get back. To which Gollum screams the following:

Thief! Thief! Baggins! We hates it! Hates it! Forever!

I hear you, buddy. I hear you. Well, once Bilbo escapes, he reconvenes with the rest, and shares his adventure in the cave, but leaves out the ring. And Gandalf seems to know, based on his dialogue. And I checked, and he figured it out in the book and Jackson movie, too. And I gotta say...WHAT THE FUCK GANDALF

I mean...DUDE. CHECK UP on that shit. Do you wizard job, man! If you’d been like, “Dude...you didn’t find a magic ring that turns you invisible, ight, because we’re FUCKED if you did”, NONE OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS WOULD’VE HAPPENED, AND BOROMIR WOULD STILL BE ALIVE

Everybody talks about the fuckin’ eagles, but WHY DO I NEVER HEAR ANYONE MENTION THIS SHIT? Gandalf the Grey: Middle-Earth’s most irresponsible asshole, I swear...

This seems like a good place to pause, actually. See you in the next part!

[afraschatz]

Leverage: The 12 Steps Job

It‘s been a while since I‘ve done one of these, but I‘m rewatching Leverage yet again (SHOW, I MISSED YOU) and here are plenty of things I love about ‚The 12 Step Job‘: I love…

… The montage of Hurley in the car and how he walks into his office. Man, that is one NEAT character introduction because when you first watch this, of course he could pass as an absolute jerk and the baddie of the week – despite the client‘s description of him as enthusiastic and sweet. But at the same time this is just how he is later on in this ep and when he returns in The Boys‘ Night Out Job: An absolute slob and a complete mess but also very congenial (how much he knows about all his co-workers? Sweet) and with his heart in the right place.

… Nate being a complete dick and so fucking in denial about his alcohol problem here. I haven‘t watched season one in a while and it‘s so interesting how his and Sophie‘s relationship is so different here (the biggest shift of course being between s2 and s3 where Nate decides to take a vacation in prison and Sophie runs the crew in the meantime – this changes things forever). But it‘s so cool how Gina‘s acting walks the thin line between being the one who is absolutely in the right here and being just that bit annoying that allows Nate to justify implying that she‘s overly dramatic

… Eliot‘s hair is ON FIRE in that episode, wow and that blue shirt *chef‘s kiss*

… how the team works together in figuring out where Hurley might be. Yes, it‘s season one and Nate is very much calling the shots – and he is the one narrowing it down here – but Eliot and Hardison specifically absolutely pitch in.

… Sophie‘s and Eliot‘s little eyeroll at Hardison‘s dropping strip club knowledge

… ‘if Billy was a drunken sex fiend’ – hahaha, Parker, spot on as always – and Eliot‘s and Hardison‘s responding expressions. Come on, boys, don‘t deny it, you‘re in love with her already.

… that look on Nate‘s face when he figures out how to find Hurley. His whole expression changes, his gaze focusses, he leans forward and that drunken haze is gone for the moment

… how Eliot and Hardison constantly share the same frame <3

… Eliot‘s little DELIGHTED smile. Okay, his and Hardison‘s delight in strip joints doesn‘t quite fit later seasons, so we all can just agree that Hardison asking for change for 100 in singles is just because they really want to tip generously for the chicken wings there or something :)

… Eliot‘s and Hardison‘s synchronized walk off

… ‘Don‘t get mad, Eliot, I may have spilled slushie in your car’ and his badly acted expression of contrition hahaha, no one is buying that, Hardison

… Eliot and Hardison being extremely sexy in sitting in Eliot’s car (and as so often, look at the perfect way that shot is lit! Hardison’s and Eliot’s faces both fricking glow)

… very smartly dressed random thugs

… the messy way the fight scene is shot – close ups and very wobbly camera moves, and how you can still tell how efficiently Eliot fights and how… well not all that efficiently Hardison is. And yes, again, it’s season one, so Hardison grabs the gun and shoots it, too, instead of just sitting back and chilling while he watches Eliot beat people up (which is way better than the strip joint idea anyway)

… Eliot being annoyed with Hardison

… ‘Is he sleeping?’ LOL, yes, Sophie, that’s why Hurley is using the air bag as a pillow

… Nate looking progressively more like the absolute mess he is as the episode progresses

… - how confusing is it that Sterling’s Theme is used and Sterling isn’t immediately around the next corner? That is SO cool because yes, he shows up later, or rather: withdrawal!Nate hallucinates him; and so his theme music this early in the episode is almost like foreshadowing

… everyone in group therapy apparently understanding Sam perfectly well aside from Nate

… Parker having to read from the cheat sheet she wrote onto her lower arm to get her three-sentence-character-intro right

… Hurley’s massive list of addiction, with the climax of “Tacos”

… “Uh-huh” - and Sophie and Nate having another fight while everyone else in the group is already tired of it. Especially Parker, if one were to judge by her VERY subtle expressions.

… Parker aggressively chewing on the meds the doctor gave her. I absolutely LOVE the way she constantly gives other people this uncensored WTF-look in season one

… Eliot being smart in the parking lot. I have so much love and respect for how that’s played here again – Eliot is the one who has to have 360 vision, it’s his job to anticipate problems in all forms and sizes

… Hardison’s bricks-on-the-seat plan. That’s so great because he might be the smartest guy Eliot knows TM, but he is fucking afraid here and panicking and that’s not conducive to coming up with super clever plans, is it?

… Hardison and Eliot working together while bitching at one another - “Yes, there are a lot of wires! It’s a Com-Pu-Ter!!”

… Hardison’s brain rebooting as he figures out that it’s a computer bomb and the system needs to be re-booted

… Eliot trusting Hardison’s knowledge, and Christian’s acting here – knowing Hardison is right, being low key annoyed by it, being just a bit unsettled (that lip quiver!) “Run that sack of bricks by me again...” - “Are you ready?” - “NO!”  and his trembling hand - he is so good at rapidly changing expressions and tones

… “I’m gonna go and freshen up a little bit. Maybe cry a little”

… Hardison thinking on his feet and that sweet Jamaican accent – Eliot thinking that is sexy, and backing him up with a bomb

… and again, Kane’s acting – that beat and that look before he says “Sure” when Hardison asks whether he’d have saved him as well

… Nate’s withdrawal. So well done. Over all, the show is SO good at showing that alcoholism is a sickness and a serious problem, even if (especially if!) Nate doesn’t acknowledge it

… HARDISON AND ELIOT’S DATE AT THE RECEPTION DESK. - So, while in the scene before, Hardison takes the lead in acting their way out of the situation, here it’s Eliot by shamelessly flirting with the receptionist. And Hardison’s FACE throughout this. Like, bro, do we have time for this? DO WE? - And then “I’m with him”. And Eliot trying so hard not to burst into laughter, especially when Hardison is doing that thing he is famous for which is shamelessly over-acting just to piss Eliot off. - The ringing of the reception bell and “Bring yo ass”. And none of that even being mentioned in the next scene. - So much quality content in this episode.

… Sophie taking over for Nate when Nate very obviously can’t, and her tone of voice changing to what we’ll get to know from season three Sophie

… Parker coming up with a believable story and selling it. Up to the point where her make believe parents found gold under their trailer…

… Nate’s withdrawal getting worse, Tim’s acting is brilliant here.

… Sophie talking differently to Nate than before. Yes, she still seems to focus on Nate and how Nate is being a dick to them and particularly her, but her voice is different and she uses the real emotion between her and Nate’s exchange to get what they need from Hurley; the list of people he wronged. Brilliant little twist here, because of course Sophie is focused on the con and on helping their client, especially now that Nate is threatening to lose his focus entirely

… that Genesis? Veeeeery subtle product placement, Leverage hahaha

… “I checked your notes - he seems like a deeply troubled man” - Thank you, doctor, yeah. Nate IS a deeply troubled man. And again: Nate’s withdrawal getting much worse, and the con threatening to get out of hand. I said it before, and I’ll say it again: It’s really great how they used this episode to focus so much on Nate’s alcoholism. It’s something so important not only for later seasons but also for the upcoming s1 finale, and we’ve watched enough episodes at this point that we understand WHY this happened to him. And this episode doesn’t offer an easy fix, nor do the following seasons. “Just give me something to do” is what Nate says here, and Sophie has to decide whether or not this is really the right thing to do

… “He is an addict, he knows how to manipulate people, my father was an addict, my grandfather was an addict, I know how these people operate” - yes, Nate, we know who you’re talking about. And so does Sophie

… Sterling as the one Nate hallucinates. Because Sterling knows him, because they used to be friends, because Sterling is as ruthless as Nate is (well, nearly), because Nate is still projecting and in denial that he is in fact talking about himself. So what does he do? He imagines his former friend who is now on the other side, chasing him. - I’m not too big a fan of Sterling in later seasons but this is such a STELLAR use of his character, and Mark’s acting is brilliant here, and so is, of course, Tim’s.

… “Knocking on heaven’s door” - ouch

… Nate’s aggression towards Hurley, first in a physical form and that is scary but also less dangerous because it’s unfocused; and then when his mind has something to focus on, that sharp sharp focus – fuck, he’s one scary dude indeed, it’s rather disconcerting that one is looking at Hurley for emotional reassurance in this scene…

… Parker’s strange walk because of her meds and the return on her focus when her thief-self kicks back in

… “If you’re doing it to help someone, doesn’t that make it okay?” Good question, Hurley. Your answer, Nate?

… Nate shoving Hurley in the hallway rather than explaining what’s going on. Funny, and sliiiightly sloppy, Mr Ford

...Tacos :)

… Eliot and Hardison sharing the same level of annoyance and then acceptance. So in tune in this episode, these two

… re-using that bomb. Everyone does their part in sustainability and careful usage of resources ;)

… the thugs thinking the bomb thing was done by the Jamaicans, aka Hardison and Eliot

… Eliot’s and Hardison’s reservations in the flashback. “Uh---why?” from Hardison and Eliot’s emphatic headshake

… the cash in the tire. Very practical choice, Hurley

… HURLEY JUST WANTS A HUG

… Hardison going the extra mile with Hurley’s new identity by getting him a gym membership

… Parker’s brilliant drawing!!!

… Parker smelling the Sharpie

… Parker running, PARKER HUGGING ELIOT AND HARDISON!!!! OT3!!!

… and that song, that is a variation of “What shall we do with the drunken sailor”, right?

Seriously, this is such a dark episode for Leverage standards because of that focus on Nate’s addiction, and yet, it’s counterbalanced by so much Hardison/Eliot fun and competence porn, by Sophie’s strength and by the fact that the villain of the week has a redemption arc. I love this show so much and this mix shows why again; such a delicate balance, so beautifully handled

[fandomrewrites]

Season 2; Episode 2: Shape Shifted

Hello all! I’m going to be updating every Monday starting the 17! I’m going on vacation the 5-12 which is the only reason why I will not be updating next week. If I have time I may post episode 3 tomorrow but I still have a lot to do before I leave on Wednesday. I hope you all enjoy this chapter and as always constructive criticism is appreciated!

Season 2; Episode 2: Shape Shifted

Pairings: Scott McCall x Twin Sister, Lydia Martin x Best Friend

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2,143

Season 2 Masterlist

Allison volunteered to pick Lydia and I up for school this morning. I sat in the backseat zoning out of the girl’s conversation. My mind was racing a mile a minute. I was ecstatic that my best friend was here and safe but I couldn’t shake the feeling that in the next few days a lot of bad things were going to happen.

“(Y/N/N)? (Y/N)!” I quickly whip my head around and make eye contact with Allison. “We’re here. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, sorry. Just thinking.” Allison nodded, then we opened the doors and stepped out.

As we were walking to the school entrance Allison asked Lydia, “You really don’t remember anything?”

“They called it a fugue state. Which is basically a way of saying ‘we have no idea why you can’t remember running around the woods naked for two days’. Personally, I don’t care. I lost nine pounds.”

I smile at my best friend’s confidence, “Well, I’m glad that you’re okay.”

We all pause at the entrance, “You ready for this?” Allison asks.

“Please. It’s not like my aunt was a serial killer.” My eyes widen at Lydia’s words. I quickly look at Allison and mouth ‘sorry’ before following Lydia through the open door.

As the heavy door falls shut behind us, the whole corridor becomes silent to stare at us. Allison awkwardly leans closer to us and whispers, “Maybe it’s the nine pounds.”

Lydia whips her hair around then with her head held high walks through the crowd, Allison and I by her side.

*_*_*_*_*_*

I sat next to Danny in Mr. Harris’ chemistry class, Scott and Stiles were in front of us, whispering as always. As I’m copying the notes that Harris is writing on the board Stiles leans back to ask Danny and I a question.

“Do either of you know where Jackson is?”

“I saw him heading to the Principal’s office with your dad.” I reply.

“What? Why?”

“Maybe because he lives right across the street from Isaac.” Danny replies.

Danny’s attention goes back to the board once Stiles turns around but I continue to focus on Scott and Stiles wondering why they are curious about Jackson’s whereabouts.

“Okay, everyone please turn to page-” Harris gets cut off as a crumpled up paper hits him on the back of the head. He turns around, glaring at the class, “Who the hell did that?”

Scott and Stiles point to each other, “Both of you go to the Principal’s office, Now!” I watch as they gather their bags and rush out the door. The minute the door is closed, I make a rash decision.

I quickly stand up and rush after the two boys, “Miss McCall!”

“Sorry, I need to pee!” I cringe at my lame and embarrassing excuse as I swing the door open and rush out before Harris can say anything else.

I catch up with the two boys before we reach the office. “Hey! What the hell is going on?”

Scott and Stiles jump at the sound of my voice, “Why are you-” I cut Scott off before he can finish.

“It doesn’t matter. Just tell me what’s going on.”

Scott sighs but answers, “Isaac’s dad was found dead. They think he was murdered. And Isaac is a werewolf.”

My mouth forms in ‘o’ as I take in the information.

We quickly make it to the office and wait outside for the conversation between the Sheriff and Jackson to be over.

Scott listens in and quietly tells us what’s happening. “Jackson knew that Isaac’s dad was abusing him.”

I instantly frown hearing this, poor Isaac. I never really talked to him but he always seemed so sweet. He didn’t deserve that.

“Isaac and his dad were arguing the night he was murdered.” Scott continues.

He straightens up when the conversation ends. Stiles quickly grabs a magazine and holds it up in front of his face, unsuccessfully hiding from his father.

“Hey there, Scott. (Y/N).” Sheriff Stilinski greets my brother and I.

We both smile and wave, watching as he walks away. I was about to follow after him, since I technically wasn’t supposed to be there but before I could move a voice stopped me, “Boys. Miss.”

My head turns towards the voice, Allison’s grandfather. I hover above the chair, halfway out of my seat. “I thought it was only the boys that got sent down. But if you’re skipping class I should probably talk to you too. Why don’t you wait out here?”

I awkwardly smile and sit back down as Scott and Stiles stand up to go into his office.

*_*_*_*_*_*

About ten minutes later, the door opens back up and Scott and Stiles exit. “He said you can go in.” Stiles says. Then he whispers, “Good luck.”

I stand and move to enter Gerard’s office, “Please shut the door.”

I do as he says then suck in a breath as I sit down in front of his desk. “What’s your name?”

“(Y/N) McCall.” I quietly answer.

“Scott’s your brother? And you’re friends with my granddaughter Allison, if I remember correctly.”

“Yeah,” I nod quickly. Just wishing this conversation would be over.

“So, (Y/N). Why were you skipping class?” He asks this as he’s digging through files. He finally pulls one out and before I can answer he continues, “You have good grades. Never really get into trouble. Why start now?”

“I was worried about my brother. I wanted to know what was going on.”

“You’re protective of him?”

I shrug, “I guess. I mean, he’s my twin. I would do anything for him.”

“I don’t want to be the enemy, Miss McCall. And since you don’t get in much trouble, I’ll let you off with a warning. But I don’t want to see you skipping class again.”

“I won’t. Thank you, Principal Argent.” I stand up and quickly walk out the door before he change his mind.

After I quickly left his office I checked the time realizing that there was only about ten minutes left of class. So rather than spending that time in Chemistry I decided to wander around the school until the next period.

*_*_*_*_*_*

After school I went to Lydia’s so we could work on homework together. “So tell me, how are you really feeling after everything?” I asked as we lay on her bed, a bowl of fruit between us.

Lydia hums before answering, “I don’t know. I’m glad that I’m back and that you and Allison are still treating me the same. It just feels like everyone else thinks I’m so freak.”

“You’re Lydia Martin. Don’t let other people’s unimportant opinions bother you. The people who really care about you know that you’re amazing and that you’re just going through a lot right now.”

Lydia lightly smiles at me, showing her vulnerable side that she only ever shares with me. We both turn back to our homework, but not even a minute later the strawberry blonde speaks once more, “I talked to Jackson today.”

“Yeah?” I ask, “What about?”

“I just wanted to thank him. The doctors said if it wasn’t for him finding me and carrying me back I would have died that night.”

I nod, “What did he say?

Lydia scoffed, “He’s an ass. I just- I still love him and I hate that I do.”

I bit my lip, “I know that feeling.” Lydia turns her head at my words. Both of us study the others face trying to read our emotions, “But hey, we’ll always have each other. And with you by my side, I know I can get thorough anything.”

Lydia’s smile grows as she lightly shoves my shoulder, a laugh falling through her lips, “Damn right, (Y/N/N).”

*_*_*_*_*_*

“Hey, Stiles just picked me up. Do you know what’s going on?” I asked Allison as I put her on speaker so Stiles could hear.

“They were asking me all these questions about Lydia and how she was bitten by Peter. And then they sent this guy out,” Stiles quickly interrupts her.

“What guy?”

“He was dressed as a Sheriff’s Deputy.”

“They’re sending him to the station for Isaac.” I say more to Stiles then Allison.

“He was also carrying this box and there was something on it. Like a carving.”

“Do you know what the carving was?”

“Hold on. It’s in one of the books. I’m taking a picture.”

I look at my phone waiting for the picture to load, Stiles keeps glancing down to see the picture too, “Wolfsbane.” We say together.

“What does it mean?” Allison asks, not understanding.

“It means they’re going to kill him.” Stiles sighs as I sink back into the passenger seat.

We hang up with Allison, she has a plan to hopefully slow down the hunter. As she does this, we quickly head to Isaac’s to pick up Derek.

*_*_*_*_*_*

Now in the backseat of the jeep, I eagerly wait for Allison to call me. Phone in hand, the loud ringtone makes me jump. I quickly answer with shaking hands, once again putting her on speaker, “Did you slow him down?”

“You could say that.”

“Okay, we’re headed to the station.”

“Where’s Scott?”

“Isaac’s.”

“Does he have a plan?”

I exchange a look with Stiles before I can decide what to say he answers, “Yeah. But not a very good one. And unfortunately, we don’t have time to come up with anything better.” Once again we hang up with the young hunter.

Finally approaching the police station, Derek, Stiles and I look through the windshield forming a plan. “The keys to every cell are in a password-protected lock box in my father’s office.” Stiles explains.

“How are you getting in the lock box?” Derek asks.

“My father’s got two passwords. My birthday and my mom’s birthday. The problem is getting past the front desk.”

“I’ll distract her.” Derek nods.

Not liking this idea Stiles starts to protest, “Woah, woah, you? You can’t go in there.”

“I was exonerated.”

“You’re still a person of interest.”

“An innocent person.”

“You? Yeah, right.” I instantly punched Stiles’ arm. He glares at me before bringing his attention once more to the Alpha who starts talking again.

“You’re not getting in there without me.”

“Okay. What’s your plan?”

“To distract her.” Derek says once more.

“How? By punching her in the face?” I roll my eyes at Stiles. This is taking too long.

“By talking to her.”

“Oh, obviously. Because when I think of diverting conversation or stimulating banter I think of Derek Hale.”

Derek glares at him. “At least give me a sample. What are you going to open with?” Derek stays silent and continues to glare.

Before Stiles can continue his rant I interrupt, “He’s obviously going to flirt with her.”

Both guys turn to look at me, Derek with raised eyebrows and Stiles with a puzzled look. “What?” I turn my attention to Derek, “You’re an attractive guy, it will work. Now can we go? We’re wasting time.”

*_*_*_*_*_*

Derek makes his way into the station first to distract the deputy. Stiles and I inch our way past the front desk as quickly and quietly as possible. Once we make it into his dad’s office Stiles punches in the password to open the lock box.

“The keys are gone.”

“What?” I turn, confused.

“The keys. They’re not here.” I rush to Stiles side to look into the lock box, seeing that it is empty. We make our way out to the hall, Stiles points toward the left, “You go that way, I’ll go the other. Meet here in 10 minutes.”

I nod and we take off. I quietly make my way through the seemingly empty halls of the station, trying to find Sheriff Stilinski. I turn a corner and crash into a strong chest, “Sorry!” I squeak, glancing up to see Derek, “Oh, it’s just you.”

“Where’s Stiles?”

“The keys were gone. We split up to find his dad or whoever took the keys.” I started walking back the way I came so we could find Stiles. Just as we pass the Sheriff’s office, the fire alarm starts blaring. Derek and I share a look then rush to find Stiles.

Derek leads the way using his heightened werewolf sense to pinpoint exactly where he is. As we turn the corner, Derek lightly pushes me behind him, “Stay here.”

Of course I don’t listen, I slowly make my way into the room to see Stiles cowering on the floor and a deputy knocked out. Derek howls at Isaac, effectively making the teenager change back into a normal boy.

I look on in amazement as Stiles asks, “How’d you do that?”

“I’m the Alpha.” 

[somekind0fmagic]

Chapter 1. The Bringing of The Line

I do not own Harry Potter or the characters made by J.K. Rowling

I also added Anneliese's siblings names, ages, how old they’ll be turning next & when (plus a little bit about them if they’re older)

(Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14 )

Chapter 1. The Bringing of the Line

Albus looked out of the window of the moving train, the words his dad spoke to him before echoing in his head. He had to get away from his family, they were being overbearing as usual. The door of the compartment opened, he looked over and saw a boy with messy dirty blonde hair and grey-blue eyes. "Oh, s-sorry! I didn't realize it was occupied, I'll go somewhere else." The boy spoke in surprise.

Albus smiled, "It's fine, you can sit in here. I don't really care." There was something about him that seemed familiar to Albus.

"Oh, okay, thanks." He sat down in front of Albus and said, "I'm Scorpius, of course you already know that."

That was why he looked familiar! He's Scorpius Malfoy, Draco Malfoy's son. "I'm Albus and don't worry, took me till you said your name to figure out why you looked familiar."

Scorpius looked surprised, "You-you don't care? I mean, you're a Potter and you don't care, I'm a Malfoy?"

Albus shook his head, "I know we aren't like our parents, besides your dad has changed for the good. No matter what the Prophet says."

Scorpius was about to say something, but the door opened again and a girl with short black hair and purple glasses looked in. "There you are Scor! Valerie and I were getting worried. But like, I don't blame you for getting out." She looked over at Albus and smiled, "Hi! Sorry, I was just looking for him, but um...do you mind if I stay here? The good ole Potter-Weasley clan are being pains." She studied Albus for a second before gasping, "Oh my god! I'm so sorry, I didn't realize you were Albus Potter."

Albus shrugged, "I don't mind and it's okay. My family can be overbearing at times. That's why I'm in here."

She nodded, "Makes since," She sat down next to Scorpius and held her hand out to Albus, "I'm Anneliese Green."

Albus shook her hand, "Nice to meet you Anneliese."

"So, you excited for Hogwarts, Albus?" She asked softly.

"I don't know really. I'm just gonna miss my little sister, Lily." He replied, he really was gonna miss Lils, they were the two biggest troublemakers ever.

"She was the one that was standing next to your parents and was upset because she couldn't go, right?" Albus gave her a surprised look since she has gotten all correct, "I'm observant. I think I'm gonna get into Ravenclaw, but then again, all my family is in Slytherin. So, the likelihood of me being a Slytherin is high. Well, besides my mum, she went to Durmstrang instead."

Scorpius laughed lightly, “You’re rambling again. But still, if I'm not in Slytherin I think my grandfather would disown me." Scorpius replied.

“Scorp, your grandfather is Lucius Malfoy, the man who thinks if you’re not a Slytherin then you’re a disgrace to the wizarding world. It’s not think he would, it’s just that he just would. No thinking, just knowing.” Anneliese told him with a bored look.

"Oh, wow, I think the only house, even though my dad says otherwise, that I would be disowned if I was put in would be Slytherin. But honestly, him and my mother don’t care." Albus replied.

The conversation just went from there. They only stopped when the trolly came around and they got some sweets. It was dark and the train was finally slowing down until it came to a full stop. They stood up and walked out of the compartment and off of the train. "Promise to be friends even if we're Slytherins and you're a Gryffindor?" Scorpius asked.

"Promise." Albus replied. He went to find Rose while Anneliese and Scorpius went to find Robyn, Rohyn, Holly and others.

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

The doors to the great hall opened and everyone walked in. Scorpius and Anneliese overheard Rose Granger-Weasley talking about the ceiling and rolled their eyes, but still looked around in wonder. Albus noticed Anneliese give a tiny wave towards the Slytherin table. They stopped and looked at Professor Longbottom, "Before we start Professor McGonagall would like to say a few words."

Everyone looked over at the lady standing in the middle of the table, "I would like to note for the first years that the Dark Forest is forbidden to go to unless it is for Care of Magical Creatures. That is a class you can choose to take in your third year. Thank you." She sat back down and motioned for Professor Longbottom to begin.

"Now, when I call your name please come up to the sorting hat to be sorted into your house." He looked at the list and said, "Avery, Holly!"

The hat was put on top of his head and yelled, "Slytherin!" Quickly. The Slytherin table was yelling loudly and someone said, "Another Avery! Hell yes!"

More names were yelled, including Robyn and Rohyn Goyle (who were in Slytherin). “Malfoy, Scorpius!” The room went almost dead silent. People began to whisper. ‘Malfoy?’ ‘I’m surprised they’re allowing someone like him in.’ ‘His father was a death eater. He comes from a family of deatheaters’ As well as other much harsher things being said. Of course it was known what house Scorpius was going to be in according to stereotypes. And of course stereotypes didn’t disappoint. He got Slytherin, and of course, the house screamed for him.

More names were called and people went to their houses. And, just like when Scorpius’s name was called, the room went almost dead silent when Albus’s. Most of them were praises, ‘He looks just like his father!’ ‘Omg, he’s real.’ ‘Surprised that he’s allowed to come, the Potters shield him and his sister all the time.’ Of course there were some bad ones, but they were few and far between, mostly just from the Slytherin table. But Albus ignored them and walked up to the hat. 

“Ah, a Potter,” Albus jumped slightly, the voice echoing through his head, “Much like your father, but you have much more ambition. Want to be separated from being known as just Harry Potter’s son. Willing to risk anything to be something. Better be, SLYTHERIN!” The hat was taken off of his head and the whispers picked up again. ‘A Potter in Slytherin?’ ‘Wonder what dear ole James is gonna take of that.’ 

“Take that Potter! We got your younger brother!” A tall, dark skinned girl with short and curly bright purple hair, her eyes greatly contrasting against her skin as they were being an icy blue.

There were yells coming from the Gryffindor table. They didn’t stop until McGonagall yelled for silence. Many had a look of fear, well, only about 50 didn’t. Those 20 belonged to the Either a Weasley, Potter, or a Slytherin. 

Albus was sitting next to Scorpius. Nothing was said. Rose got into Gryffindor, but of course that was no surprise. “Let the feast, begin.” McGonagall lifted her arms and the food appeared. Everyone began to grab as much as they could. 

“Congrats sis, you got in. I’m surprised. Figured you’d be in Ravenclaw.”

“Yeah, at least father and grandfather won’t try and disown you.”

Anneliese rolled her eyes, “Oh shut the heck up you two! Besides, father wouldn’t disown me. You know that. We don’t even talk about what grandfather would do.”

“Awe, c’mon-”

“You know you love us.”

“Dom! Antonio and Derek are being mean to me!”

Albus looked over to where she was, he was looking at an older guy, who he assumed was probably a 7th year with unruly dirty blonde hair and deep emerald green eyes,  looked over at her. “Anneliese, don’t make me write to mum about you being a little brat.”

“I hate you.” She muttered slamming her fork onto the plate.

“Love you too sis.”

Albus looked over when he heard a girl laugh, “Stop being a git Dominick. You wouldn’t dare write to mum because she’s still mad at you for your incident.”

“Shut the hell up Genevieve. She’s still mad at you for trying to cover it up.” 

“Would you both shut up? My god, never in my life did I think I would be happy that this is my last year.”

“Fuck off Aidan.” The two siblings grumbled.

“Sorry ‘bout them, they’re my siblings.” Anneliese sighed and ran a hand through her short hair.

He looked over at her, “It’s alright. Since I have like, fifty family members it just reminds me of Christmas.”

She smiled softly, “Good.”

“You should see them at Christmas, it’s horrible. Them, plus the seven younger ones, plus all of the other Slytherin families.” Scorpius added with a laugh.

Anneliese picked at her potatoes, “Albus I have 14 siblings. 7 older and 7 younger. 7 sisters and 7 brothers. 6 older brothers, 1 younger. 6 younger sisters and 1 older. Aidan, the one with short light brown hair and dark ass blue eyes, is the oldest. He’s 17, 18 in like 8 days, and Headboy.  Then there’s Antonio and Derek they’re 16, they’ll be 17 in May. Derek, the one with long black hair and hazel eyes, is always in detention while Antonio, the one with short dirty blonde hair and dark green eyes is usually studying and is usually fairly quiet. He’s probably only being a dick tonight because he hasn’t eaten since breakfast at 7 am. Dominick is the next in line, he’s 15, will be 16 in April and he always brags about something stupid, thinks his shit doesn’t stink and that he was the best seeker ever, he also got prefect and hasn’t stopped bragging since he got the letter,”

Genevieve laughed, “Mum and dad were proud of him, until he broke the urn that our great-great grandmother was in.”

Anneliese laughed too, “Mum threatened to write to McGonagall to make someone else the 5th year Slytherin Prefect.” 

Albus laughed too, “That sounds like how my Uncle Percy apparently was when he got Gryffindor Prefect, as well as Headboy. According to mum, Uncle Ron, Uncle George, and Uncle Percy himself, he didn’t shut up about it and brought it up all the time.”

“That amazing, but anyways, next is the second set of twins, Liam and Randolph, they’re 13 and will be 14 in October, basically a modern day Fred and George Weasley, always playing pranks and rarely getting caught. We can barely tell them apart, well, I can because Liam is two inches taller at 5’8, plus he talks a bit faster. Then there was Genevieve who is only a year older-”

“10 months sis, 10 months.”

She rolled her eyes, “Fine, 10 months older than me. She’ll be 13 in December.” 

“If I didn’t know that I could easily assume she was the same age as my little sister, Lily, she’s only 9.”

“Ha! You just got compared to a 9 year old!” One of the twins said, “I’m Randolph by the way.” He reached his hand out to Albus, “Pleasure to meet you Albus Potter. A bunch of us are surprised that you were even allowed to go to Hogwarts. Your parents keep you out of the spotlight so much. Even more than your brother.”

Albus shook his hand, “Yeah, mum and dad wanted all of us out of the spotlight as much as possible. Lily and I are faster at running and better at hiding than James. He loves the attention.” It was too obvious that Albus was trying to hide his eye roll.

“Can tell. We all got a kick out of him getting knocked out at his first game last year.” Albus looked at the other twin, “I’m Liam by the way.”

“Oh wow, you’re not wrong Anneliese, Liam does speak faster.” Liam and Randolph laughed.

“Told ya so. But I still have 7 people to tell you about, if you want?”

“Just give me the ages and when they’ll be starting.”

She laughed, “Alright. So Alexa and Liana are 10, 11 in November, they start next year. Clara is 8, 9 in October, she starts in 2020. Odette is 7, 8 in like 14 days, she starts in 2021. Elina is 5, 6 next July, she starts in 2023. Eden is 3, 4 in 10 days, she starts in 2025, and Nicholas is 1, 2 in October, he starts in 2027.”

“Wow, I could never imagine that many siblings.”

“Try being in the middle of it all. It gets annoying how often I’m overlooked.” She rolled her eyes, “Of course you’re technically in the middle of your siblings.” Albus nodded.

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

“5th year Prefects, show the 1st years to your common room. Everyone head up to your common room, classes start on Monday, but I still expect to see you all tomorrow. Goodnight.” Everyone stood up when McGonagall spoke. 1st years unsure of where to go they just followed where the 5th years were telling to go.

“I am Dominick Green, I am your 5th year Prefect.”

“I am Elizabeth Boles, your other 5th year Prefect. The Headboy is Aidan Green, he is also the 7th year Slytherin Prefect. Castanova Way is the other 7th year Prefect, and she is Headgirl. Lorene Pansy and Jerimiah Ecerson are your 6th year Prefects for Slytherin house.”

They followed as the two of them gave random facts and rules until they stopped at the end of a corridor in the dungeons. “Here is our common room. Yes, it is in the dungeons. If you ever get lost you may find one of us, another Slytherin, or go to our head of house, Professor Slughorn, he is the potions professor as well. Now, it is protected by a password and that password is prone to change, if it does, it will be posted on the bulletin board. But for now the password is Alchemy.” As Dominick spoke the words the wall moved to the side and they walked in.

“Here is the common room, we can hang out, do our homework, or just relax in here. Now, to the left is the girls dormitory and to the right is the guys. Girls can go into the guys but the guys cannot go into the girls. You all have a curfew of 6. So don’t be out that late.” Elizabeth smirked before continuing, “Or just don’t get caught.”

Dominick sent her an obvious glare, “Or just don't be out. But that is it. Do whatever you feel comfortable. Goodnight.”

They left and the crowd dispersed. But Scorpius, Albus, and Anneliese stayed together. “Well, I’m going to bed you two. Goodnight.” She walked up the stairs and to the 1st year girls dorm.

Albus and Scorpius looked at each other, “You tired?”

Albus shook his head, “Not really, but let’s just head up and hang up there.” Scorpius nodded and they went up. Neither went to sleep until 1 am.

[unchartedterritoria]

Dangerous (Sam Drake x OC) - Chapter 29

*NEW CHAPTER*

Previous Chapters: Chapter 1 * Chapter 2 * Chapter 3 * Chapter 4 * Chapter 5* Chapter 6 * Chapter 7 * Chapter 8 * Chapter 9 * Chapter 10 * Chapter 11 * Chapter 12 * Chapter 13 * Chapter 14 * Chapter 15 * Chapter 16 * Chapter 17 * Chapter 18 * Chapter 19 * Chapter 20 * Chapter 21 * Chapter 22 * Chapter 23* Chapter 24 * Chapter 25 * Chapter 26 * Chapter 27 * Chapter 28

As always, you can read the story thus far on A03  HERE

Tags: @jodiereedus22, @shambhalala, @missdictatorme

Reviews and comments are always appreciated!

A hard knock on the door of the motel room announced Sully's arrival. Still cautious, Sam hastily threw the garish, flowery comforter over the assortment of weapons he had gotten from the Ricker brothers just an hour earlier. He gave a quick glance through the crack between the heavy drawn drapes, enough to see the casual short-sleeved style button-down that Sully always preferred.

"It's me, open the door," Sully's gruff voice came from behind the door as he noticed the slight rustle of the window coverings.

Sam closed his eyes and sighed, running a hand through his hair, feeling the dark cloud of inevitable guilt-laden ass-chewing that lay behind the door in the form of Victor Sullivan.

Sam undid the flimsy chain lock and deadbolt, opening the door. Before he could begin to argue and explain his actions in vain, pain ricocheted through his head, the unexpected punch to the nose, making him stumble backward. Tripping awkwardly over his own feet, he landed square on his ass next to the bed.

Sully strode through the doorway, looking the rather imposing figure despite the cane in his right hand, which he used to slam the door closed behind him.

A few drops of blood caught on Sam's upper lip. He wiped it away gingerly with the back of his hand, careful not to touch his nose.

"I deserve that," He said, getting to his feet after a moment, sure that the bleeding had stopped and that his nose wasn't broken.

“You deserve a lot more than that,” Sully threatened.

“I know I do.”

“What kind of shitstorm have you gotten her into?”

Oh good, getting right into things.

"Something a lot bigger than I thought it was," Sam sighed sourly, leaning back against the door. His hand reached up occasionally to touch his nose while Sully paced elliptical patterns through the tiny motel room Sam and Faith shared. "Sit down before you fall down old man, you're looking a little pekid," He told Sully. Taking his own advice, he pulled out a chair and sat down at the small table.

"Don't tell me to sit down! I'm just fine," He said defiantly. Sully took a few more obstinant strides around the room. A layer of perspiration shone on his pale face before finally, he resigned himself to the chair across from Sam, muffling a gruff groan as he sat.

“How's the leg doing?” Sam asked.

“We'll talk about me later,” Victor answered quickly, shutting down Sam's meager attempt at small talk, “Now tell me what's going on.”

Sam took a readying breath. “How much did you find out from Nathan?”

“The high points. Lincoln's treasure. Springfield. Something about a goddamn barrel here in the Keys... Remy St. James,” He added the name of their fallen friend last. A stoic sadness in his dull green eyes, it was the hardened gaze of a man experienced with death and loss. “Damn shame. He was a good kid.” Sully reflected.

"That he was," Sam said, his face guilty and ashen as he shook a cigarette out of the pack next to the half-full ashtray on the table.

"Well, if that was the highlights, they don't tell me squat. Give me the play by play," Sully asked, adjusting his injured leg under the table.

Sam spent the next half hour chain-smoking and retelling the events of the last 67 days. The activities and finds in Springfield, the horrible and harrowing situation that had unfolded in the basement of the abandoned Edwards house, the previous three weeks of searching for any clues and finally finding a lead at the Martello Museum. Sam made the decision to keep what brought them to the museum, treasure hunter pillow talk that morning after Mother's Day, to himself.

“And that's when he grabbed her?” Sully asked.

“Yeah.”

“And you are absolutely sure it was Jasper?”

“Oh, I know it was him. Son of a bitch even left me a goddamn note,” Sam said bitterly, stubbing out the butt of his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. Anxious, he pushed himself away from the table and strode around the space.

“A note?”

"Oh yeah, 'I've taken your queen, your move,'" He mocked in a thick Georgia accent. Sully frowned.

“Your queen?”

"Yeah, like it's a fuckin' chess match. You wanna see my move, Jasper? You wanna see my move?" Sam ranted to the warm air, giving the bed a kick with his boot, it made the weapons of his makeshift armory clack together. "Yeah, I'm gonna take these guns, shove them up your ass and leave a giant fuckin' divot where you stand. How's that for a fucking move?" Sam snatched the comforter from the bed, leaving it in a crumpled heap as he started to stuff the weapons in black duffel bags.

Your queen. Sully turned the line over in his brain. He scanned the room, his greying eyebrows furrowed.

With Sam having stowed his small arsenal away, Sully could see the large, singular dip in the middle of the mattress. The dip one could always find in the beds of an old married couple.

Samuel, please tell me you didn't, he thought, looking around the room again for another sign. The small pile of clothes that looked haphazardly thrown to the ground included Sam's t-shirt with a shiny aqua bra strap poking out from beneath it. That was all he needed to see.

“Samuel, I asked you two things, keep her safe and keep your hands to yourself.”

“Huh?” Sam poked his head up.

"I told you, I warned you, and you still couldn't do either!

"Alright, you know what, Victor?" Sam huffed, hastily zipping closed the last bag, and throwing it next to the door. "You got to ask your questions, now you're gonna answer mine. Who is Faith, and why is she so goddamn important to you?"

“Sam-” Sully said quietly, staring blankly at the table.

“No,” Sam interrupted. “No, this who time all I've gotten out of you is keep her safe and keep her out of my bed. I wanna know why.”

Victor silently drummed his fingers on the worn Formica. "You don't know," He said softly, the hint of sympathy in his voice made Sam cross his arms in confusion.

“Should I?”

"Where do you keep your whiskey?"

Sam went to the single cupboard above their sink/stove/fridge combination and drew out a bottle of Jameson and a glass. He put them both in front of Sully and sat back down in his chair. Sully grabbed the bottle and poured a third of a glass of amber liquid. He slid it in front of Sam.

“You're gonna want this boyo.”

Sam eyed the old man guardedly. “Is she your kid, Victor?” He asked, finally getting out the question that had been floating in his head for weeks.

“What?”

"You've never given two shits about who I fool around with, and now suddenly, you're acting like you're gonna chop my balls off if I touch here. Something like that, it's a dad thing to do; So I gotta ask, is Faith, your daughter?" Sam challenged.

“No, she is not my daughter,” Sully said with a mirthless chuckle.

“Is she your granddaughter?”

"No, now be quiet for a minute, and I'll tell you," Sully huffed with some annoyance before he continued. "Faith's grandfather was a fellow squid. We served together in the war. During one tour, our ship took two torpedoes in the side. I got knocked around pretty good, and Hank, that's Faith's grandpa, made sure I got my bruised, broken, and bleeding ass off that rig. Fella saved my life."

Sam leaned back in his chair, his head cocked to the side in interest. Victor Sullivan rarely spoke about his time in the Navy and his time during the war specifically.

"Hank was a hell of a guy. After we got out of the service, we'd get together a couple times a year and knock back a few. Talk about the old days, catch up. On one of these visits, he asks me for a favor. His daughter and her husband were looking to go on vacation. Somewhere that wasn't too touristy, but that was still a nice place to visit. He knew that I traveled a lot for my work and asked if I could hook him up with something nice for Sussi and her husband. Hank had never asked me for more than a quarter in almost 40 years, not to mention I owed him my goddamn life. So I took care of it for him."

Sully stopped for a moment. He rubbed his mustache and let out a deep sigh. Sam began to wonder with some annoyance where this story was going and when Victor would get to some concrete answers.

“I took care of all of it for him. I even had a place in mind when he'd asked. I'd just been down there, doing a little recon for you, Nate...and Rafe Adler.”

Sam's chest tightened at the mention of Rafe's name.

“Two full weeks in a king suite. Beachfront. In Panama. 18 years ago.”

Sam gripped the glass in front of him with both hands to steady the tremors that rolled through his body.

"You ever really get a good look at Faith's eyes? I swear they're the exact same as her mothers," Sully added after a moment, not sure if he should continue ripping the scab off the double decades' old wound that still oozed and throbbed for Sam in the night.

Sam could picture Faith's face perfectly. Her high, full cheeks. The small upturned nose that she called her ski jump. And her warm brown eyes that had stared right through him just that morning as they lay naked together quietly. Her eyes always seemed familiar to him, as if he had seen her his whole life somewhere.

Disbelief and denial crashed over him as he, at last, realized where he'd seen them. In his dreams. In his nightmares.

“You can really see it when she's angry,” Sully added quietly. The last nail hammering the truth home. The loud bang of the spike bringing on the memory of the night Sam had met Faith Spencer 68 days ago. When she had gotten in his face about family, her eyes ablaze with anger.

The same eyes of the woman that had called him a fucking animal those 18 years ago.

Sully smoothed the tops of his tan slacks with his sweat heavy palms. “I didn't have a clue until I dropped in on Hank two months later and found Sussi sitting at his kitchen table feeding Faith's father his dinner through a straw.”

Saliva flooded Sam's mouth as the bile rose in the back of his throat. He swallowed it back hard.

"I asked if they'd caught the guy," Sully continued. "When she told me he'd died in an escape attempt with two other men, I put two and two together." He sat back in his chair, his hands folded across the slightly bulging belly that had come with his old age. "I'd created this perfect clusterfuck of a storm, and of course, I blamed myself. Hank and Sussi, even Everett forgave me. Never blamed me in the first place cause that's the kind of people they were. Good people. Still didn't stop the guilt, it turned my visits from every couple of months to every couple of years."

Sully sighed, his lips tight together, but the heaviness that was in his eyes was gone, the burden of keeping this information to himself lifted.

"And this wasn't just about keeping Faith from finding out; it was about keeping it from you too."

Sam's jaw clenched, his head lowering in anger. None of it gone unnoticed.

"Before you go flying off the handle, let me finish. There was no sense dredging up the past and its accompanying bullshit. Not for you. I know you still have nightmares, Samuel. I've heard you wake up yelling in the middle of the night enough times to know that."

Sam dropped his head, unable to hold Sully's gaze as a rush of unnecessary shame shaded his neck red. Unaware of what he did in his sleep, he had always tried to keep his nightmares private. He figured, no info, no questions; No autopsy, no foul.

"I thought that if I could just keep a distance between the two of you, I could keep the past in the past." Sully leaned forward and grabbed the untouched glass from in front of Sam. "Guess we both failed pretty spectacularly, eh?" He muttered sarcastically before taking a swallow.

The seconds past. Sam still sat motionless, staring blankly at a random fixed point on the chipped table. The silence eventually proved too heavy for Sully to take.

“Christ, will you say something?”

"I'm leaving at 6AM. Be ready by then," Sam uttered in an emotionless monotone as he stood and strode out the door, closing it behind him quietly, leaving Sully and his cigarettes sitting at the table.

[kainefloyd]

{ KJ APA . CIS MALE .  23 . HE/HIM }  did you see that { KAINE ‘KAI’ FLOYD } just pulled up in hidden hills with { LORENA RAMOS } sitting next to them in the passengers seat - isn’t that cute ! you know, for a { NBA PLAYER - LAKERS }, i’ve heard they’re really { INDECISIVE }, but that they make up for it by being so { CHARMING }. i see them all the time on snapchat && yesterday in US WEEKLY i read that they { HAVE } 2 sons - can you believe that ?!

some basics;

Kaine ‘Kai’ Floyd is originally from Hawaii. He is Samoan & Hawaiian.

Goes by the nickname K-9 in the NBA for his name and number.

Born August 19th

Most of his friends back home call him Kai.

There’s over 100 people in his immediate family. At this rate, he has lost count.

Oldest of 9 siblings.

Has the two most cutest, adorable baby boys with Lorena.

He’s a starting point guard for the LA Lakers

Attended UCLA for college where he got drafted out of. Never finished his degree.

Works with lots of children organizations and likes to give back to kids however he can.

Has endorsement deals with top athletic brands, drinks and his own branch/line off of everything he partakes in.

Him and Lorena were on basketball wives. They have a huge fan base of their relationship on social media thanks to the reality show.

Lives HERE currently

as a dad;

Father of Two Sons; Tide Alexander and Evian Reign.

Tide’s nickname  are Ty, Ty Guy, My Ty. And Evian’s are Evy but Tide calls him baby Evy

He wants as many kids as Lo will give him. He’s huge into family, loves being a dad and is very careful when it comes to sex. His goal is to only have one baby mama in life that he’s in love with, can spoil and get to tie down/be a stay at home mom which can be an argument/disagreement point that we can work on.

Tide and Evian are his parents first grandkids, his grandparents first great grands and he has a sister who is four. His parents were young when they had him and now only 45 & 44. and his grandparents are in their 60′s and 70′s.

He’s such a push over, his kids pouts and when they wrap their arms around his neck or want to be held makes him melt.

They literally are the light of his life. Nothing means more to him than those two little boys.

Has a play room for them that is extreme, full out little kid basketball court, swing set inside, slides, arts and craft sections, all the toys, everything.

Tells bad dad jokes sometimes. Okay most of the time.

Has their names tattoo’d over his heart

Kaine will also be there to babysit, help out single moms and do whatever whenever. He’s super caring and loves friends that can turn into family. There’s nothing more that this guy loves than throwing down a huge bbq for everyone, being behind the grill and when the kids go to bed, turning up with all the drinks.

lorena;

Love of his life.

Her smile and laugh are everything. Making her blush and their size difference. Huge turn ons.

They have an on again, off again relationship since Evy. which he hates for him and his sons but knows he is an ass and they have to figure their shit out before having another kid.

Kaine can be super romantic at times, makes sure to include things she enjoys like candles and pays attention to the little things she loves in life.

Still keeps her closet open at his place, buying her things to have there to try and get her to spend the night.

Compares every girl in his life to her.

Flirts around sometimes but that’s mostly his personality when they’re off cause she’s kinda hot when jealous?

Downfall is Kaine. entirely. they are set for life with money and their family’s shares in ebay, then the millions he makes from the nba, his endorsement deals, reality tv and all of that so he expects lo to want to be a stay at home mom?

He’s a dumb dumb but literally is the type to grab up on her butt and kiss her neck, very affectionate with her is his personality no matter what.

Expresses his appreciation and admiration for her frequently for their family, their sons and her, etc.

Wants to always provide for her, in lots of ways.

Never gives up hope they’ll be together forever. that’s why he hasn’t really laid down roots in his place? because he has his own ideas.

Wants to build an empire with her.

Knows how lucky he is and like, admits it but has big jerk energy sometimes when it comes to pride and needs to recognize her dreams matter too? like she is an amazing mom and wifey type. 100 percent. but she should get to live out what she wants to do just like he does.

His father is the terrible influence he learned things from and his mom really needs to speak to him about all of this.

his hawaiian family life;

His father was super unfaithful and always stepping out on his mom. They had a very toxic relationship, but in the culture, his mom was pretty much left to deal with it.

Christianity and church is an important aspect in Hawaii so is their image.

They are Hawaii’s most famous family.

Kaine is the oldest of 8 kids that he knows of? would love a half sibling.

Kaine’s Tutu and Tuma (what he calls his paternal grandparents) are the matriarchs of the family and own acres and acres of land. They are beyond rich and created their own compound beachside where they had custom homes built for their children.

Kaine’s paternal grandfather and father are part owners of ebay and billionaires.

Kaine’s mother, Maria came from nothing. She was a model in New York City when she met Kaine’s father, Elei - EJ for short who was there for business. Her parents didn’t approve of her running off to marry him, but it wasn’t a question in her eyes. It was what she wanted to do and thought he was going to provide her with a life of luxury that allowed her to continue to stay in the modeling world.

All of his brother’s and sisters carry on the Hawaiian tradition with strong, Hawaiian names that came from ‘dreams’.

Maria is always in town as often as she can to visit, stays usually at Kaine’s and brings some of his siblings. Her family is estranged and she is struggling with trying to reconnect with them after all of these years.

kaine’s personal life;

Super loaded & knows what he likes and doesn’t in this world.

Is pretty private about things, not super flashy. Isn’t one for suits and stuff like that, even on game day. He does dress up during the playoffs though.

He’s into surfing, skateboarding, the island life and living, four wheeling, going on adventures, tanning and living more relaxed when he can.

His home is super open planned which he fixes and gates up accordingly when he has his kids, don’t worry.

Loves a good beer, chilling outdoors, going to the beach or having a bonfire on a Friday night.

Listens to all kinds of music.

His party habits are kind of wild when he does go out, though.

Dark Liquor has him crazy, tequila makes him super duper horny.

Def sends Lo risky texts when he’s drunk and you can tell by the look on his face when it’s time for him to go home.

Kaine is into working out, very dedicated to his ab life, has a home gym and a half basketball court at his house outside but also a personal trainer he visits and has over. His work is never done.

Very strict with his diet and has a chef that cooks for him weekly, prepares meals and stacks his fridge and freezer.

Tattoos are life. Has 12 currently and his artist on speed dial.

Has a huge man cave, collects old school vintage band and sports memorabilia.

Also into buying arcade games for his home to play at any time.

Is best friends with lots of top named players in the league and has a close, big brother/big brother relationship with Lebron James. Kobe was his idol.

Cars. This boy has 8 in Hidden Hills alone.

The house he owns is massive, but hates living in it without Lo.

Family owns a few private jets.

Wants to get dogs, he has some back in Hawaii that are his family dogs but for now he’s waiting until him and Lorena lay grounds better? Plus, he knows she loves her pup and doesn’t want to try and one up her.

connections;

in between on and off times with his baby mama, he has had some dating flings featured in the tabloids. not all are true, some are just friendships.

he knows that people could use him easily for fame and clout, so he is protective of himself and who he lets in his life.

no one random their sons ever. he’s extremely protective of them and his privacy, but is trying to make sure to branch out more and make more parent buddies.

as for friends, he’s a guy’s guy. loves saturdays being for the boys. would love all the friendships.

you can count on kaine to show up and come through with helping you whenever you’re in need. he’s a good listener, doesn’t care much about drama so you don’t have to worry about him repeating anything.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z Movie 12:  Fusion Reborn (3/6)

So Janemba’s messing with King Yemma, cutting off his authority over the boundary between the living and dead.  Yemma knew this would have dire consequences for the universe, and we see that manifest on Earth, where dead people are suddenly back from the grave.   For example, this family is at a cemetary to visit their grandfather’s grave, only to find him alive and well in his burial clothes no less.    He’s not a ghost or any other sort of apparition either; he has feet and everything.

Elsewhere, an older man named Romeo has a similar experience at the grave of his deceased lover, Juliano.   Or Julianne?    I don’t know.    You’d think they would have called her “Juliet” to play in with Romeo, except in the play they both died young.    Here, Romeo survived, and he’s and old man.

But Julianne hasn’t aged at all in the past sixty years since her death.   It kind of makes for an awkward reunion.   

Incidentally, Romeo has a crucifix, so this marks the first official appearance of Jesus Christ in Dragon Ball.  We’ve seen crosses and the name “Jesus Christ”, but this is an actual image of the Son of God Himself.    “But Lord, why are there no footprints in the sand during the most difficult parts of the journey?”  “Because that was when I Instant Transmissioned you, lol.”

Speaking of crosses, here’s Dracula, and I guess he was dead, until he came back today.   But he still has a wooden stake in his heart, which... okay why does he want it removed if it’s not killing him?  Why can’t he just take it out himself? Also, if Janemba’s powers are causing dead people to come back to life, shouldn’t Dracula turn back into a human?   

Meanwhile, some horde of invaders on horseback marches through traffic.    I think these are supposed to be Mongols, but I dunno.

They kind of get their thunder stolen when a second army of tanks shows up, let by Adolf Hitler.  I mean, it’s not quite Hitler.  His uniform is bright purple, and the real Hitler wouldn’t be leading a battalion of tanks into action.  But this movie never bothers to give him a satirical name, like “Dunkoff Shitler” or “Adenoid Hynkel” or whatever.   So I just refer to this guy as Hitler.   Same as that vampire from a minute ago.  

In any event, this guy’s obvious resemblance to Hitler is why his scenes were edited out in several countries, which have laws against depicting Nazi imagery.  For what it’s worth, the movie doesn’t really lose much with these scenes taken out.

Also, there’s just straight up zombies running around, which I don’t really understand, since Hitler and Julianne are fully alive.  But that’s the chaos of Janemba for you.  He’s not purposely doing any of this.   This is just the result of him cutting off King Yemma’s power to regulate the dead.

But don’t worry, folks, Gohan’s here and he’ll save the day, right after he finishes eating.

Goku may be dead, but his legacy lives on in his sons, Gohan and Goten.   Chi-Chi doesn’t mind doing all the dishes from the boys’ meals, but she does miss her husband at times like these.

So Videl offers to help with the dishes, but Chi-Chi’s like, no way, you’re a guest in this house.

But somehow we end up with Videl doing the dishes in the next scene.   This is one of my favorite animations in this movie.   With the sound effects, I could watch a loop of this all day. 

Chi-Chi is impressed, so she tells Videl that she’ll make a fine wife.  

And Videl’s all “Marriage?  Gawrsh!”   This is adorable.  She’s so worked up that she drops a dish.

But Chi-Chi doesn’t mind, because she still thinks Videl is cut out for married life.  In the manga, Chi-Chi wants Videl to marry Gohan so she can get a chunk of that sweet, sweet Mr. Satan fortune, but in this movie, I almost feel like she’s proposing to marry Videl herself.   “Marry me, Videl, so I may never have to wash a dish again!”  “Wh-what about Gohan?”  “What about Gohan?”

Then Videl breaks more dishes, but before she can clean them up, she gets a call from the Satan City Police, who inform her that the dead have risen and are overrunning the town.   Also, they ask her to contact Great Saiyaman.  Videl’s like “No problem, I’m at his house now.   I think his mom is coming on to me.”

“Stay away from my mom, Videl.”

Meanwhile, in Otherworld, Goku and Pikkon’s championship match is interrupted when a giant crystal sprouts out of the ring.

The Grand Kai believes the disturbance is coming from King Yemma’s domain, and he sends Pikkon to investigate.   But Goku doesn’t want him to go, since that would mean he’d win the tournament by forfeit.   So the Grand Kai orders Goku to go with Pikkon, and that works out, since Goku can teleport there.

When they arrive, they find everything all messed up.

Yemma somehow contacts them from within the barrier around his domain, and he points out Janemba on the roof.

Pikkon tries to ask Janemba to cut the shit, but Janemba either won’t cooperarte or he can’t understand him.   When Pikkon loses his patience, Big J flicks him into one of those floating jellybeans he made.

This catches Goku’s interest, and now he’s happy that they left the tournament for this, since Janemba seems like an even greater challenge.

Janemba seems to agree to tangling with Goku, so he suggests that Pikkon see to Yemma while Goku lures Janemba to hell, where he’ll be out of the way.

I’m not sure if there were already jellybeans in hell, or if Janemba brought a bunch down with him.  

Otherwise, Hell has experienced its own bizarre changes.  I’m not entirely sure what’s changed, since we only saw it twice in the entire run of the anime up until now, but I’m pretty sure all those humanoid-looking figures weren’t there before.

Janemba grabs a few and turns them into mini-clones of himself.

Goku thinks they look cute until they all start ganging up on him.

Fortunately, Goku can just beat them away with a few roundhouse kicks, and they all vanish.   The bad news is that the big Janemba won’t be that easy.

Back on Earth, Gohan’s having tons of fun clobbering zombies. 

Videl’s doing pretty well against them too, but the real question is: Why is this happening, and how do they stop it?   Gohan isn’t sure, but he’s confident that it’ll all work out with the two of them together. 

Videl’s charmed by his answer, but then--

Some jagoff intrudes on their moment.

Oh look, it’s this asshole.   Yeah, Frieza’s back and he’s in this movie too, along with Dracula, Hitler, and Jesus.  For those of you keeping score, that means Steel Ball Run, Hellsing, and Resurrection F were all inspired by this movie.

Frieza is surprised that anyone on Earth knows him by name, so Gohan unmasks to reveal that he was the kid with the bowl-haircut on Namek.        

Videl’s completely smitten here.   “Wow, he’s wayyy dreamier than his mom!”

So Frieza’s decided to kill Gohan as revenge for Goku defeating him.   You’d think he’d be mad about Future Trunks killing him, but he was friends with Gohan too, so it still works.   The part that doesn’t work is this punk-ass bitch running around in Movie 12 like it’s still Movie 3. 

So Frieza sics a surprise army of henchmen on Gohan to soften him up.  Of course, it makes perfect sense that all the top Frieza soldiers would be here, and that they’d still be loyal to Frieza, but there’s also a lot of Movie 1-5 henchmen too, and most of them don’t even know Frieza.  Still it’s not hard to believe that they could be persuaded to join his side.

But Bojack seems pretty hard to swallow.   Out of everyone in this scene, he’s definitely stronger than Frieza ever was, so why isn’t he calling the shots here?

Anyway, waves of henchmen, Frieza’s invincible, what will Gohan do now? 

FREE-ZA FREE-ZA FREE-ZA FREE-ZA

Hadou ooana GALAXY Yudan wana PARASITE

FREE-ZA FREE-ZA FREE-ZA FREE-ZA

Obienaku wa warera min

DIE!DIE!DIE!

So yeah, everyone sees Gohan END Frieza with one fraggin’ punch, and they all turn chickenshit and run away.  Even Bjoack, I guess, which only makes sense, because Gohan punched a hole through him in Movie 9. 

Videl’s like “Wow, it’s kind of weird how all of these dead people came back to life, and presumably we can’t kill them again because they’d just come back, and yet Frieza was the only jerk in this whole movie who got exploded and stayed dead from all of this.”

Then Gohan does his victory poses, and Videl swoons off-screen.  In the dub, they changed the ending dialogue to suggest that Gohan and Videl made out shortly after this scene, and Goten and Trunks saw it.   It’s not in the Japanese script, but come on.  How was Videl not al over this dude after this?  We know it happened.  

Meanwhile, Mr. Satan is punching zombies someplace else, and he’s pretty pleased with how well he’s doing, except there’s no one around to watch him in action, so he moves on to find his grateful public.

Fortunately, he won’t run out of zombies anytime soon.  

Meanwhile, Goten and Trunks are helping out by gathering the Dragon Balls,   They find the seventh one on a golf course.

But Goten gets hit with a golf ball while he’s there.   Irritated, he decides to hide the ball to get payback on whoever sent it his way.

But he hides it in the hole, so the golfer thinks he made a hole-in-one and he’s sobbing with joy.   This doesn’t have much to do with the movie, but what’s great about Fusion Reborn is that you can expand on almost any scene and make it part of the wider story.   Maybe this guy’s a dead Frieza Soldier who got the call to mobilize and he said “Fuck that, if I’m alive, I’m gonna hit the links one last time.”  Or maybe he’s just a regular dude, but the lady there is his dead wife, who’s come back to tell him that the accident wasn’t his fault, and it’s okay for him to move on with his life.    Or they’re both alive, but the golf course gets destroyed by Cell during his epic battle with Tiencha.

Back at Capsule Corp.  Gohan summons Shenron.  For some reason,  in the dub, she tells him he’s “the only one who can,” and I’ve never understood that.   Maybe she means that Gohan’s the only one who understands the crisis well enough to make the right wish to Shenron, but she could still call the Dragon.   She’s done it before several times.

It’s funny how this is the first time Goten and Trunks have seen Shenron, even though the plot of Movie 10 was them gathering Dragon Balls specifically to see Shenron.  That’s how big a disappointment Movie 10 was.  Meanwhile, Movie 12 is so awesome that it pays off ideas from other movies.    

Videl might have wished for a handsome BMF with cool shades...

But Shenron can’t grant a wish that’s already come true.  Let’s just pause here to drink in this majestic shot of Casual Friday Great Saiyaman.   

...

...

...

Nice.

I’m just gonna put it here again.  It’s great.   

So Gohan explains the situation to Shenron and asks him to put all the dead people back where they belong, which Shenron says is a simple task. 

But then he says he can’t do it after all.  Goten complains, and Trunks silences him before Shenron can take offense.

Now, in the dub, Shenron gives a more thorough explanation.   He can move the dead back where they belong, but with King Yemma out of commission, there’s nothing to stop them from simply coming back.  I think that logic is strongly implied in the subtitles, but it’s not quite so clear.    In any case, this is beyond Shenron’s power.  It wouldn’t be if Yemma were on the board, but if that were the case, there’d be no need to involve Shenron in the first place.   

So that leaves everyone feeling pretty dejected.   The problem lies in Otherworld, and if Shenron and Gohan can’t fix it, then they’re out of options.  

And while they ponder what to do next...

...Shenron awkwardly asks if there’s anything else he could do for them while he’s here.

[secondhand-sheep-shack]

So, very accurate.

My sincerest apologies for being mostly absent from posting. Mental health and being a good human to myself took a long slide in the wrong direction.

Self care means taking your meds and turning off the phone.

I've also been trying to make sure 3rd noob gets some actual training. Though I learned tonight that he knows everything. So no amount of help will get him past his belief in his abilities being far superior to what is reality.

Plus i had a guy at work pull a prank on me. I already didn't like the guy. After the prank, I value him less than I did. Who the fuck goes to a coworker you don't know very well,tell them you quit, wave, grab your stuff and leave...as a motherfucking prank?

"He was just joking."

"Yeah. Real fucking funny."

I spent 25 minutes having a full blown panic attack in the isolation of the bathroom. I'd already had a long ass week,worked 4 - 10hr shifts, had almost no sleep and creepy guy thinks he's funny.

Then he tried to apologize for the joke by BLAMING his mental illness. "I have really bad social anxiety disorder and really bad generalized anxiety disorder. But it's okay, I don't rely on the crutch of medication. I am the practical joker, but nobody here knows me well enough to know that."

Dude blamed his dumbass behavior on his illness for which he's not medicated...

That's what sent my anxious ass into a panic attack. Because he had to mention the 'crutch of medication.' I'd already got called out for snapping at an older female coworker who is nosy as shit. I'd been doing good with my meds and then she started commenting that I am too young to need "all those drugs."

I asked her what age is old enough to need those meds, in her expert opinion. "How about the friend whose 3 month old has stage 4 neuroblastoma?" "How about a friend I had growing up with epilepsy and EDS?" "How about my grandfather at 102 who didn't need anything?" "How about you mind your own health and stop withe ageism when it comes to chronic illness or disease?" I laid out the meds and told her what each is for.

Iron - I'm anemic - I don't absorb from food in large enough quantities.

B12 - I'm slightly deficient.

Flomax - I have chronic kidney stones.

Gabapentin - I have neuralgia in my arms and hands. Working here doesn't help.

Tylenol - this is what I use for pain.

Wellbutrin XL - seasonal (and) general depression

Buspar - anxiety - from worrying about busybodies and my job.

Vistaril - anxiety (for attacks more than maintenance) and allergies - because it's the precursor to Zyrtec.

Magnesium chelate - because I'm deficient.

Folate - because I'm deficient

Vitamin C - because it helps me absorb the iron.

Calcium - because I'm very deficient

Tramadol - for days when tylenol isn't enough.

Mobic - because I've had open joint knee surgery and I have numerous issues with various joints.

Things I carry but don't take daily - Toradol (kidney stone pain help) Percocet or norco (pain - kidney stone passage help), zofran (anti-nausea) Benzonatate (cough suppressant)

Tell me again which ones I DON'T need.

She complained to our boss that I was rude. I told him that her telling me I'm too young to need medications is what's rude. She is in her 60s. She doesn't take anything. Great for her. I don't have that luxury. She's since been placed on medical leave for slipping and breaking her leg. She's apparently in a lot of pain. Gee.

So yeah and I had to sort shit every day for the last 12 working days.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Witches, Chapter 12: the one you’ve been waiting for, where three lawyers, a detective, and their fae chaperone who’s also a nun try to punch a yokai. Plus, some interesting tidbits about some interesting people.

I guess 12k chapters are just a thing that happens sometimes, and this one is getting dropped at 10pm EST on a Tuesday because I have less control over this fic and my life than I intend.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

If it wasn’t dark enough for Tenma Taro to emerge from hiding when they started, it must be by the time they get everything squared away and rein in the tangents. Sebastian mentions the large, stolen magatama (“How big was it?” Iris asks, and Kay says probably a loaf of bread or a football, and Athena asks American or European, and Kay says she didn’t know those were the only two kinds of bread) and the mayor’s face darkens and Phoenix and Iris exchange a silent look that plainly tells Apollo to worry. “Yes,” Phoenix says finally, after several moments of that silence, “it probably did steal that in the hopes that there would be power within for it to tap into.”

Phoenix (sitting hunched on the stairs with his his gargoyle posture, which Iris is hilariously correct about because Apollo has never seen him sitting with two feet on the ground at the same time) will stay with Jinxie and Mayor Tenma ward the Forbidden Chamber with enough of Jinxie’s charms, and anything more they can, so that if the Chamber is re-opened in the future, the yokai still won’t be able to escape. For the rest of them, in their pursuit, Kay has a bag full of a worrying amount of flashlights and headlamps. “Ready to go?” she asks as she doles them out with very little apparent concern. Apollo somehow ends up with two flashlights and no headlamp, but Trucy, who has two headlamps, has put both of them on. “Sebby, ready to lead the way?”

He doesn’t answer. Kay ushers them all out the doors into the night. The lights at the front of the manor illuminate the garden, making visible half a dozen black birds that sit perched on the nine-tails flower bushes. One opens its beak and lets out a croaking caw; Athena lets out a small shriek, grabbing Trucy’s arm and jostling her into Apollo. “Are those Tenma Taro’s minions?” she asks. “He’s kinda like a crow, right?”

“Yeah, but these crows work for us,” Kay says, elbowing Sebastian. “We asked them to tell us where to find a giant bird monster. They’ll get us in the vicinity, and then I guess we wait for Tenma Taro to sniff us out? Or just kinda yell, ‘hey, yo, yokai guy, there’s only room for one bird person around here and we’re fighting you for it!’”

Athena turns to Apollo in confusion. He shrugs. Does that mean Sebastian, witch with a crow familiar? Is that what he is? It’s all presumption on Apollo’s part, really, Klavier’s mention of his coworker the witch and spying crows back-to-back. Kay doesn’t offer to explain, and Apollo doesn’t know enough to explain - he’s guessing, he’s always guessing.

“I didn’t know Pearl had a sister,” Trucy says, at no more than a whisper to Iris. “But that’s what Daddy and you said? How’s she doing? It’s been ages since I’ve seen her!”

“She’s as well as ever,” Iris replies. She speaks just as quietly, and even that disturbs the still, empty night. “Though it would not surprise me if soon she were to simply barrel back into the human world. She does seem to miss it rather often.”

“I feel like this is all our faults,” Athena whispers, slowing her pace, lagging even further behind Apollo, and he matches her steps. The beams of their flashlights still hit the backs of the others ahead of them; they aren’t separated enough to be in danger. “That this is actually kind of dangerous, and everybody’s got to be involved because we didn’t get the job right the first time.”

“I mean.” Apollo doesn’t actually know what he means. He folds his arms across his chest to try and block out the damp night chill and the only sound is their feet shuffling through the grass. The tightness in his chest returns in an instant. “Even if Filch had said it, we’d still - Tenma Taro would still be loose no matter what got said in court. And maybe we’d still be out here but it’d be…”

“Some weird volunteer work for the town,” Athena says. “Lock the demon up, keep everyone safe. Not fixing our own case, and then Detective Faraday and Prosecutor Debeste wouldn’t have to be involved—”

“What?” Kay says. With a jolt of horror Apollo realizes that the group has slowed down to let him and Athena catch up, and their voices carry with nothing else around but their bodies to absorb the sound. “Of course we would be! Friends don’t let friends take on monsters alone, especially when one’s interfering with justice and the truth! We’ve got an obligation to kick its ass and set the record straight.”

“Just for the sake of arguing,” Apollo says, “because I’m a lawyer, wouldn’t it at least in some regard be the fault of the defense attorneys doing the cross examination, and the witness?”

Sebastian stops entirely; Trucy runs into him, and Iris doesn’t quite seem to change her trajectory at all to step to the side of them, but then she is there, stepped back further, almost to give them space to have a conversation. Her movement lacks continuity, a flow, in the way Vongole’s has at times. She’s less human than Apollo remembers, or maybe now she isn’t trying to keep up appearances. In the beams of the lights, she doesn’t cast a shadow.

“Like, technically, I guess,” Kay says, dragging every word out into a doubtful drawl, and beginning to walk backwards to properly glare at Apollo and Athena while they keep moving. “But when I actually think about it, it’s not that much different than a witness being threatened into silence, or a judge being blackmailed into a particular verdict, or any version of that we’ve dealt with.” The dismissive wave of her hand doesn’t answer anything but she barrels on without giving time for those last several words to be absorbed. “Some outside force putting pressure in. Whatever you do in a trial like that’s rough, because there’s just only so much you can do when people are threatened and scared. And your witness was, legitimately, scared to talk! That isn’t your fault you can’t crack it. You’ve gotta handle the other thing, too.”

“He wasn’t afraid enough to tell us after,” Apollo says irritably. He doesn’t think Kay is wrong, exactly, but he - they - Phoenix - someone - should have figured out that there was this other thing in the way of getting the cleanest verdict. Why didn’t they know? 

“You understand the reason you call us by euphemisms,” Iris says softly, but her words command respect enough that even the breeze slows. “The Fair Folk. The Gentry. Complimentary, for fear of what is listening. And the louder you speak, to the more ears you speak - something is always listening.”

Not someone, either. Something. “That is terrifying to hear that described like that,” Sebastian says. “But you, ah, probably mean for it to sound like that. I’m not crit - critiquing your choices or anything. And Justine says something similar, that you guys just kinda, uh, know. I’ll stop saying anything now.”

Iris tilts her head to the side; she appears curious, not aggrieved, and her voice is as level as ever as she continues. “You might know that saying, that two can keep a secret if one is dead. To announce in court the fiend’s escape - even if most of the gallery would not believe the tanuki, even if the prosecution would not - there are that many more people listening. There would have been that many more ways for Tenma Taro to hear that its escape has been noticed, that it will be pursued. The tanuki was right to be afraid.”

“My grandfather taught me something like that, too,” Trucy says, folding her arms tightly around herself. When was the last time she has ever brought up Magnifi? “Be careful about what you say or else you might call it to you. That’s - that’s how we worked. The Troupe, I mean. Call for ‘Gramarye’ and we’d be there. Which that all means that we, personally, probably, should not be standing here saying ‘Tenma Taro’ a whole bunch.”

“No,” Apollo agrees. This is a grave they continue to dig, and maybe he’s been in the woods to fall in a faery ring and find a lost soul, and burn a different faery ring, but those were all ghosts, and past. This is present and alive. “These aren’t wise choices.”

“Yeah, but that’s what friends are for,” Kay says. “Make the mess worse with you, then help you back out of it and set everything right. It’s just like a court case like that.”

“Implying you make a mess out of all your cases?” Athena ventures, wincing as she says it, knowing what a terrible question it is and being too curious anyway. Apollo knows this because he is wondering just as well; he wouldn’t have asked, but he wants to know too. “Whoops!” Widget chimes, like any of them really needed assistance figuring out what emotions Athena is cycling through. 

“Not all of them,” Kay says. “But shit happens.”

“And we have important jobs to do so we can’t just sweep it under the carpet,” Sebastian says. “We have to dust for help and ask ourselves - ask for help and dust ourselves off and get back up again."

They sound rehearsed, but sincere, like these are things they’ve pondered for a long time, or talked about before, or heard from someone else. Wisdom for the ages passed on after personal experience. Reassurance, enough to set Apollo’s stomach at ease even as trees rise up around them and they venture on to find a monster. If he dies, it’s not going to be with people who are angry with him for fucking up. Because they aren’t angry, and he - well, still screwed up a little, got too carried away, too confident, didn’t doubt enough, but he’s far from the only one. He’s not the worst one.

“Even,” Kay adds, prodding Apollo in the shoulder, “if sometimes you’re supposed to be working the other side from the person you’re asking help from.” Her shoulder slams into a tree and finally her attention turns to what’s in the direction she is moving in.

“There’s a value in a friend who knows when to stand with a different bench and badge for the sake of the truth,” Iris says. “Or simply for the sake of a friend.”

“What kind of trials do you have with people switching benches?” Athena asks.

Kay shrugs. “Oh, you know,” she says. Apollo does not know. “Sometimes in the course of an investigation—” “Shh!” Athena hisses, and Widget, its chirp at odds with its words, adds, “Shut up!”

“I was answering your question—”

“Shh!” Athena moves to maybe slap a hand over Kay’s mouth and ends up grabbing her shoulder instead. “I heard something!”

A twig cracks under Apollo’s foot. Athena glares at him next. Iris tugs the hem of her robe out of a bush and steps away from their little cluster of people, her hand ghosting along Apollo’s shoulder, never making contact but still a tug, pulling and urging him back. Her other arm is raised, doing the same to Trucy, spreading them out so that if something strikes, they aren’t all one target. “Are you sure?” Sebastian whispers. “I don’t hear anything.”

“I know there’s something,” Athena says. “Hey!” she calls in a furious stage whisper. “Tenma Taro! I’m not afraid of you!” 

“I am!” Sebastian says. 

And then Apollo can hear something, right near him, a loud gush of air and a crackling, joined with light, fiercer than their weary flashlights and momentarily blinding. He blinks and sees spots of orange against his eyelids, and opening them again the orange is still flickering, off of Sebastian’s fingertips. Fire, from the bare skin of his hands, the bits ungloved, flames that beat back the forest’s chill that had so slowly, almost unnoticeably, swallowed them. He stretches one hand out and up, toward the trees, illuminating the gashs cut in the bark above their heads, claw marks, evenly spaced just like in the shop. “Can you get some more flashlights on that for a clear picture?” Athena asks, tapping Widget, and its bright mechanical lights sharply contrast all else around them. “This could be useful evidence for the trial tomorrow.”

“I’ll remember that we have to counter that,” Kay says. “Seb, remind me when we’re driving home?” 

“What, you’re actually coming in the car with me?”

“Yeah, ‘cause we’ve gotta talk strats without the defense around!”

“Wait,” Athena says. Widget’s lights blink out, its scan completed. “Seriously, does no one hear—”

And Apollo does hear it, then, and it takes him a moment to even understand what the sound is; it first registers in his brain as a flag being whipped and pulled about by a strong storm. But this is a forest and the air is still and cold with no heavy sheets of fabric about. It’s flapping, and a different kind. Wings flapping, loudly, loud enough that it doesn’t make sense, because a bird shouldn’t be that big, that close—

It’s not a fucking bird, is why. Should be the first thing on his mind and isn’t, not until Kay shrieks, “Scatter!” and the bobbing shine of flashlight and flame land on two yellow-skinned legs with long, dark, protruding talons that sweep overhead and would have clawed Apollo apart if the wind from its wings weren’t like a wave crashing down, knocking him over. The dead leaves coating the forest floor scratch at his face and he pushes them away to see Trucy, also on the ground, pushing herself up to her knees and throwing out a hand. A wispy glow, shimmering pink and blue, dances up her arm and doesn’t draw Apollo’s eyes the way it usually does whenever Trucy wants to torment him.

But Tenma Taro, its talons sinking deep into the ground, wings spread wide, swings its head about, pointing its sharp beak in the wake of the bobbing light. Trucy’s wisp darts off, weaving into the trees, and the monster, flexing the talons on its hands, lunges after it. “Misdirection, a magician’s best trick,” Trucy whispers, crawling forward and grabbing Apollo’s hand and tugging for him to follow her. “And we’re not gonna be useful here anymore.”

The ground beneath them slopes away from Tenma Taro, an unstable decline on the ever-shifting patchwork carpet of leaves. “Athena?” Apollo hisses into the darkness, more concerned by the second that she’s going to attempt being useful by throwing down with a yokai. “Athena!” 

Flashlights abandoned haphazardly on the ground cast faint light and wild shadows in every direction, nothing discernable; Sebastian’s orange flames hang scattered in the air like giant fireflies. Everyone’s voices scramble together into indistinguishable chatter, and then, above it all, a horrid, gargling, roar: “You think you can distract me, little girl? You’d better run!”

“Oh,” Trucy breathes, barely audible over the leaves crunching beneath them. “It realized. It saw through it.” She scrambles awkwardly to her feet, remaining hunched as she does, and she waves her hand at Apollo, as though to shoo him back to the group. “Other way, Polly, go!” 

“And what do you think you’re doing?” he hisses. Every movement makes too much noise, the leaves and twigs loud as gunfire in his ears, his voice a scream, the very air acting as a megaphone to draw the hunter back to them.

“Bait!” Trucy starts to run, but most of her motion is sliding, her hands flung out and easing herself down the hill so as to not entirely wipe out. “It’s after me!” 

“I’m not—” Forget Athena, then; forget Kay and Sebastian, and Apollo nearly falls back over on his way after her, nearly slips and knocks them both over. “Trucy!” 

“Stop following—” Her feet slip out from under her and her descent turns into a slide. That’s got to be easier, honestly. Less focus on not falling, because he’s choosing to fall over at the start, means he can better scan the sky, the black ragged canopy of leaves against the deep dark blue for Tenma Taro coming after them.

“What do you mean, it ‘saw through it’?”

Trucy catches hold of a tree and rights herself. “One of Daddy’s friends, Maya, she says it’s not that hard for her or any fae to tear her eyes off a will o’ the wisp. Guess yokai are like that too.” She glances back up the hill, where they can still see spots of flame, and when her headlamp isn’t shining directly into his eyes Apollo can see she looks scared. In the dark, she drops her mask, and somewhere above them, Tenma Taro’s throaty screeching resumes.

“Do you think we can outrun it?” Apollo asks.

“We’re small,” Trucy says, but without much confidence. “And maybe Mr Tenma is on the way—?”

“I can smell you!” the yokai shrieks. Its voice is nothing like the one that Filch did while in the costume; it shakes Apollo straight to the core. The splintering of trees that follows is worse, because while Apollo can’t see it, he can still picture clearly those huge claws splitting apart wood, and just as easily flesh and bone.

They run, snagged by trees and brush and twigs, all like brown skeletal hands reaching to slow them, drag them to the ground, into the grave, to lie and rot among the rest of the leaves. Tenma Taro has no constraints, shredding everything that lies ahead of it, everything that sooner and sooner might come to include Apollo and Trucy.

In an instant, the air ices over, their gasping breaths forming fog, Apollo’s teeth clattering together. As Tenma Taro, now visible, bears down on them, Iris stands in between, still as if her hair and robes were carved from marble though a vortex of snow spins about her. Light from a source Apollo can’t see illuminates her, makes plainly visible even her pitch-black hair, a ghostly aura that might be emanating out from within her. Her head turns just slightly to glance back at them over her shoulder, and out of the night, her eyes gleam - not like a cat’s eyes, the way they bounce back the light in hazy circles. Her eyes are the lights themselves, sharp as lasers, two teardrop-shaped red spots, red as and redder than fresh blood. Above the inner corners are two smaller red pinpricks, just as bright.

There are two monsters in the woods tonight. 

“Out of my way!” Tenma Taro snarls, its tongue lolling from its beak as it launches itself into the air, its wings battering aside the branches above it. Then it drops, legs-first, talons splayed wide, and Apollo doesn’t have a chance to scream for Iris to move before it hits her – and keeps going, through her, to strike a tree behind her with a loud crack. It wrenches its talons free of the wood and wheels about, its three yellow eyes passing over and dismissing Apollo and Trucy. “Coward! Stand and fight fair!”

“No thank you.” Iris reappears to the side of Tenma Taro, brushing her hair back behind her shoulder with a disdainful flick of her hand. A second Iris appears up the hill, identical down to the snow swirling around her shoulders. Neither leave a shadow on the ground. “I’d rather not. A fight is only fair if I know I’ll win.”

“You’ve fallen a long way to be running errands for the Nine-Tailed Fox,” Tenma Taro hisses, curling the talons on its hands. “Where’s your pride, Mystic?”

It’s trying to goad her into a fight, and what better way than to strike at a fae’s petty pride? Apollo doesn’t know which Iris to watch for a reaction. They don’t move in tandem, as far as he can tell from frantically looking back and forth between them. The one on the hill blinks and the tiny red spots above her eyes blink out too. The one closer to them has a hand on her chin, apparently on deep thought. “I am not here to help the Fox,” she answers. “I have a different debt.”

Fire bursts from overhead, further up the hill, in puffs like quick exhales. Tenma Taro twists its head and presses low to the ground, hunched in a way that reminds of Vongole shying away from the burning ring of flowers. Those of the Winter Court don’t like fire. And Iris standing beneath the path of the flames doesn’t stir, but the other Iris shifts back half a step, a slight motion, but enough. Tenma Taro assesses her, tilting its head back and forth and back, tongue lolling from its beak.

And several things happen all at once.

Sebastian stumbles into view, unsteady on his feet, but the breath of flames that bursts forth from his fingertips doesn’t waver or falter. He directs it lower, skimming right over Tenma Taro’s head, forcing it to crouch closer and closer to the ground to avoid being burned. And Iris lunges, not toward Tenma Taro, but to Apollo and Trucy, as Tenma Taro does the same, skittering low beneath the ceiling of fire. 

“Run!” Trucy grabs Apollo’s arm; Apollo tries to push her behind him, out of Tenma Taro’s path. Before it reaches them it flaps its wings, shrieking as it does, embers catching alight on the tips of its feathers, and the force of the wind pushes them to the ground again. Like a nightmare, the one where he’s drowning and can’t move his limbs and there’s no one to save him, or the one where he’s just weighted down and can’t get up fast enough - adrenaline might get his heart moving but nothing else matches its pace. His cheek stings from scraping up against a fallen branch on landing. Tenma Taro looms above them, as big as the statue in the Forbidden Chamber and far too alive, its wings still flailing and churning up the air trying to put the fire out. Trying to keep its prey down. 

It drives both of its taloned hands down toward their heads. Apollo closes his eyes, doesn’t mean to but prays that the pain will be quick, and he only opens them when the pain doesn’t come, when instead his ears are ringing with a loud crack. A sheet of ice slopes up from the ground, in toward and over his head; the tips of Tenma Taro’s talons poke through. The ground is coated in frost, white with it, and it burns on Apollo’s bare hands like he’s pressed his skin directly against ice cubes. He staggers to his feet, helping Trucy up, or maybe she’s the one picking him up. 

The woods are lit up by a wall of fire pressing nearly against Tenma Taro’s back. Each time it tries to yank itself free, it recoils into the flames and howls. Apollo almost feels sorry for it, if its triangle of yellow eyes weren’t fixed on him, if it weren’t leaning forward with its tongue rolling loose, the closest to drooling in anticipation a bird monster can get. It pecks at the ice, causing cracks to slowly widen, slowly working itself free. “Better run again, fool little illusionist,” it hisses. Apollo pushes Trucy behind him, for what little good he could do standing against it. “I don’t like being tricked. I’ll eat you first and then your little witch who thinks he’s so strong—”

Abruptly, the fire vanishes, leaving them in darkness, bright spots flashing in Apollo’s eyes. Tenma Taro is a darker, hulking mass still illuminated in the white glow of the magic ice, and by that light Apollo can just barely see the aggressively-screaming figure that hurtles out of the air - was she up a tree? - to land on the yokai’s back. It flails, its wings wheeling about, evidently throwing its attacker its off when there is a yelp and the crunch of leaves and bushes. “Warding charms, bitch!” Kay shouts from wherever she landed. Sebastian lights up the night again, resuming the flames now that Kay is clear of them. When it flaps its wings again, it doesn’t crush them to the ground. 

But it batters at the ice with its beak and surges forward when the ice splinters - doesn’t get far before the frost on the ground lights up into a white glow, and faintly above it like a mist, a pale ghostly blue. And Iris steps forward. 

She doesn’t look like Iris anymore - doesn’t look human, either, but Vera still looks like Vera when she doesn’t look human. Iris doesn’t have a trace of Iris left. Blazing crimson, her hair billows out like grasping tentacles of some unholy horror, only held flat against her scalp where two twisted horns lay close along her skull, risen out of her forehead. Her skin is the color of ashes, of asphalt, of a shadow, just a few shades lighter than what her hair used to be - than what her eyes, when there were only two of them and not four glowing spots, used to be. The magatama from her necklace floats in front of her chest, lit a luminous pink that shimmers out into the air. Apollo would swear he’s seen that shade before. 

Iris raises one hand, her fingertips that end in bone-white hooks twitching; the other arm she stretches out in front of Apollo and Trucy. A motion for them to step back, a gesture that she is here to do what is asked of her, to protect Phoenix’s daughter. “If you touch,” she says to Tenma Taro, her head tilted back to threaten the beast twice her height, “what is my family’s” - each word is soft, calm, venomous - “I will tear out your tongue and your eyes.”

(There are two monsters in the woods tonight, and Apollo knows which he’d rather have as an enemy.)

“You think you could?” Tenma Taro sneers. 

“I know I would,” Iris says. 

Tenma Taro twists its head around almost the whole way, more owlish than crow, assessing the situation behind it: the patchy wall and ceiling of flames courtesy of Sebastian, and Kay somewhere out of sight with more warding charms. Is Athena, wherever she’s ended up, still a factor in play? Apollo hopes she’s all right. The sick twisting in his stomach tightens even further knowing he just abandoned her. 

Its decision made, Tenma Taro throws itself backwards into the flames, shrieking bitterly as it does and furiously, frantically, flapping its wings. The breeze it creates gently stirs the few bushes that aren’t frozen over, but as it continues, the air begins churning, battering against them. Was it the warding charm that kept them momentarily safe - did it burn the warding charms off? Apollo leans against a tree to stay on his feet; Trucy latches onto his arm. Sebastian’s flames waver, wobble, as he probably is wobbling, and flare up into the trees, catching several branches alight. Iris stands firm, unflinching, her hair and robes swirling from a wind contained to her alone.

“I didn’t want to do this,” she says. Not a threat, but a warning, just a few moments in advance, and Apollo doesn’t think - though he can’t say for sure - that she’s being sarcastic or snide. She does sound genuinely mournful. But not enough. Of course not enough, not when Tenma Taro, beak wide and screeching, talons outstretched, hurtles forward. Iris flicks her wrist like she’s throwing something and only after the motion does it appear: a widening glob of what looks like rotten, diseased blood, dark sickly red blackening in spots. It makes impact at the back of Tenma Taro’s throat, splattering up into its eyes. 

The yokai falls sideways, crashing to the ground along with the trees that it toppled into and brought down with its weight. There’s no time for silence. “Kay?” Sebastian calls. “Kay, where are—”

“I’m o-Kay,” she says, appearing from around another tree and immediately plopping to the ground at its base, holding her head. “Maybe concussed? It’s cool.”

“Where’s Athena?” Apollo asks. Frozen leaves crunch beneath his shoes as he cautiously advances forward, around Iris who has sunk to her knees, and around the huge sharp feet of Tenma Taro. It’s snowing now, scattered fat flakes drifting gently out of the sky, but where it lands on his skin it doesn’t melt, just stays cold until he brushes it off. “Athena?”

“I’m here!” Athena slides the rest of the way into view, signs evident that she’s had a rough time traversing the woods, too. Her knees are scraped and her tights torn up in several places. “Prosecutor Best here didn’t even let me try and tackle it.”

“That’s because that was the best option for your safety,” Sebastian retorts. 

“Yeah, and the detective here went all, whatever.”

“Cowabunga,” Kay says with a worrying, uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm. Maybe she really is concussed after that fall. “But that’s because I’m a responsible adult and if I die I die but you’re like, twelve.”

“I’m eighteen,” Athena says. “Thank you very much! I’m eighteen!”

“Oh my god you’re like a baby,” Kay says. “You’re older than I was when I started doing dumb shit but you’re a baby.”

Athena is ready to protest again, her fists balled up in rage, but her eyes drift past Kay to the hulking feathered beast collapsed in the ice, snowflakes settling among its dark feathers. “Is - is Tenma Taro dead?” she asks nervously. 

“No,” Iris says. Her head is bowed, her hair falling straight like a heavy shroud around her face, and the scarlet is bleeding from it, black returning from the roots down. “It merely sleeps. Were it so easy to kill, the Nine-Tailed Fox would have done so long ago.”

“Are you all right?” Trucy asks, bending over, trying to get a glimpse of Iris’ face. “And are, um - are the - the Fair Folk like you, are you that hard to kill?”

(Mia was murdered, wasn’t she.)

“That’s a bold question to ask, dear little firebird,” Iris says. She shakes her head, tossing her black hair over her shoulder. She still has horns, faintly lighter than her hair, and those glowing eyes and the spots above them; still fae, still mostly unglamoured. “But no. We are not. We are people and we die, are killed, are executed. A guilty verdict and death sentence are contracts and we do not break contracts.” She sweeps her hair back with a clawed hand. “You did not ask that. This valley has always been especially unstable, and magic and belief make real. Tenma Taro was born of gold and greed and a well-meant but foolhardy and cruelly-executed deal to create something that would protect the villagers from their gold and their greed; it is a spirit, less than alive but much more than a ghost.” She exhales heavily and laboriously clambers to her feet, brushing leaves and dirt from her robes.

“So when L’Belle said that Tenma Taro was just a story to keep people away from the gold,” Apollo says, “that’s - not true, because it’s more than a story, but it is all because of the gold.”

Iris nods. “Yes. It is because of the gold.”

“The gold, and one of you ff - Fair Folk, dicking around and fulfilling a deal in the meanest way possible,” Trucy says. She isn’t bold enough to name the fae plainly in front of one who just dropped a monster like a stone, but she is angry enough - about this specific situation? In general? On behalf of her mother? A boiling point, and finally one of the fae in front of her - to try and spark a confrontation. Like Tenma Taro mocking Iris’ pride, and she didn’t rise to it. 

“What you get in any deal depends on who you make it with,” Iris replies evenly, calmly, and not the deadly calm of minutes ago. “An accused hires your father knowing that defense will be a tumultuous, messy one, but that he is clever at the turnabout and never, ever will give up faith.” Trucy frowns and folds her arms across her chest. Iris blinks, an action obvious in the dark when the red lights go out and return, and adds, “A different defense attorney has a different method. The devil might ask you to pay a piece of your soul, literally or metaphorically, for the perfect evidence to set you free.” There are no pupils in her eyes, no way to know precisely where she is looking, but Apollo would swear that her gaze has moved to him on that sentence. “Likewise, when you ask us for help, you get our methods.”

Trucy’s shoulders barely slump, but Apollo sees the fight drain from her all the same. He has questions he wants to ask, if it’s the culture of the Court that makes everything a game or if growing up magic in a place of magic twists something in them, if they feel guilt, if she would have killed Tenma Taro if she could, if it were easy. And he remembers the curses staining Phoenix’s neck and he decided he doesn’t want to know that badly. He’ll extrapolate from the data he already has, guess if Vera is the changeling outlier or Kristoph is. 

“Um, so uh, we should probably deal with this big thing,” Kay says, pointing at Tenma Taro with her foot. “Like before the philosophy discussions.” She sounds just a little frantic trying to redirect - to distract Iris, to save Trucy. “Before it wakes up. How long’s it gonna be out for?”

“Hm.” Iris drums her knuckles against her face, keeping her claws away. “I would say - from the time of year, and its strength, and that I am far weaker than my sister - a month? Perhaps two.”

“Oh,” Kay says, no longer hurried. “Yeah, that’s not sleeping at this point. That’s a coma.”

“Ah. So it is.” She seems in no way concerned with these particulars of semantics and looks instead over to Sebastian. “Is there something you mean to ask, dear witch? You’ve been staring.”

“Ah! No - or I am staring but I don’t - I was just thinking that oh this is what you look like and—” Sebastian tries to smooth down the curls on the top of his head and does not succeed. “I’m quiet now please don’t kill me.”

“I would never,” Iris replies.

“Seb,” Kay groans. “You have the - you could have just looked earlier to See what she looks like!”

“But that feels - invasive - intrusive?” Sebastian’s mouth twists. “Wait, both those words work, don’t they.”

“Yeah,” Kay says. “Both work. You should totes talk to Gavin about that. He’d way disagree with you and it might be funny.”

“Please,” Sebastian says. “I’ve only just gotten over the feeling that he hated me. I’m not gonna start a fight telling him he’s rude or paranoid or—”

“Does anyone know the way back to town?” Athena asks. “We should’ve left a trail of bread crumbs back.”

“There are several folk stories about why that does not work,” Iris says. 

“I’m just gonna call Jinxie and tell her to send her dad to find us,” Trucy says. “Still got a bit of cell service out here.”

Iris steps over Tenma Taro’s splayed wing and approaches its head that lays twisted to the side, beak flopped open. She inhales, hiking up her shoulders, and closes her eyes, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyelids. And then, as Apollo is about to ask what she is doing, she drops to her knees and plunges her arm down its throat. 

“Uh,” Apollo says, looking around, and he’s the only one watching Iris; Athena has a branch over her shoulder like a baseball bat and is saying something to Kay and Sebastian and Trucy is still on the phone and staring up at the sky as though waiting for the Amazing Nine-Tails to crash down in their midst at any moment. Which he might. 

Iris turns her head and that in itself seems birdlike, like she’s twisting her neck just a little further than a human would be able to. “Why,” she asks, and he gets the feeling she’s not really addressing him in particular, “would anyone swallow a—” She wrenches her arm free and holds up for Apollo to see a large magatama, maybe about the length of her head, that has the faintest golden shine to it.

“It ate the magatama?” Apollo asks. He knows he sounds stupid. She pulled the magatama out through its mouth, and that suggests that yes, the damn bird-monster swallowed the magic rock. It also suggests that either the magic rock got wedged right at the top of his throat, or the length of her arms is not what it seems.

“There are so many better ways,” she says wearily, wiping off the magatama with her other sleeve.

Mayor Tenma, in the form of the Amazing Nine-Tails, arrives on the scene a few minutes later, surveying the downed trees beneath Tenma Taro, the frost and ice that have flattened the brush and leaves to the ground. “Did you not say,” he asks, hefting Tenma Taro up over his head with an ease that makes the beast appear weightless, though even with his arms raised high its feet dangle nearly to the ground, “that you, Iris, would be the least destructive of your sisters?”

It is not a subtle slight. Iris assesses the man in front of her, something between human and fox spirit, someone who tonight stands on the same side as her, for the same ends. “Of myself, my cousin” - she puts stress on that - “and my little sister, yes, I assure you that either of them would have caused much more damage here tonight.”

A thin layer of snow has firmly settled on the tree branches high above. It would be beautiful if it weren’t May, if Apollo didn’t know how unnatural it is. “Very well,” the mayor says, and in two bounds he has leaped out of sight, over and through the trees, but golden light trails behind him, flowing from his tails and sinking like it has physical weight to the ground, leaving a bright path to follow home.

“There’s our bread crumbs,” Kay says.

The hike back is quieter; all of their conversation came from nervous energy, Apollo realizes, and now that they have without a doubt survived, the thought of court in the morning has gained weight. And school, too, for Trucy, he supposes, given the way she begins to lag as they finally reach the tree line and break free into the empty fields that surround Nine-Tails Vale. Apollo slows to stick with her (and also avoid Athena up ahead where he hears her challenging Kay and Sebastian to a race) but he can’t understand the look she gives him, the expression on her face. Frustration, almost, and fear, and he’s not sure if he should be offended but Iris has halted to wait for them and Trucy turns that hesitant glare on her instead.

“Ms Iris?” She keeps her voice so soft that it cracks hoarsely on just two words. 

“You don’t need to call me that,” Iris replies. Her eyes are dark, and only hair lays against her head - she has braids where the horns were. But the breeze doesn’t ruffle her hair and when it sways with her own movement, it still flashes red underneath. Even if they hadn’t seen her fighting Tenma Taro, she still can’t feign humanity well enough that Apollo would ever risk dropping the honorific. “What is it?”

“You came out here because Maya told you to,” Trucy says. “But what Maya told you to do was protect my dad, and he wasn’t going into danger, so he asked you to look after us. And you did, so that’s a deal, you held your half, and now he has to pay you back. That’s how it works.”

Iris is silent but not still. She turns the large magatama over in her hands. “See, I know you’re friends or something,” Trucy continues, clasping her hands behind her back and standing tense, stretched as tall as she can, though Iris isn’t especially tall either. “Since Daddy always calls Maya his friend too.” She inhales forcefully. “But Grandpappy was family, not friend, and he still took my mother’s soul and buried it in a box so it’s not like it’s simple that I can trust that you won’t collect your half by asking for something that Daddy can’t pay back.”

“Something he can’t pay back,” Iris repeats. “Humans often say such a thing, that we have asked for something they will never be able to return.” She shakes her head. “Usually what they mean is that they owe us something that they do not want to give.”

“Yeah,” Trucy says, her voice rising in pitch now that Athena and the others are out of sight, “but I don’t want to lose another parent to the likes of you! You and Mr Gavin and my grandfather and—” With a shuddering inhale, she falters.

“I don’t want, and I have never wanted, to hurt your father,” Iris says.

And she’s fae, so that’s true, of course, but—

“That doesn’t mean you haven’t ever hurt him, or that you couldn’t,” Trucy says. “I’ve grown up with witches and fae and lawyers. I know how you talk when you’re trying to hide something.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Iris agrees softly.

“So I just—” Trucy sounds close to tears now and Apollo steps up to her side so that he’s at her shoulder, the most support he can offer when he doesn’t know what she’s about to say next. “Whatever you - whatever you’re asking him to pay, I’ll pay it.”

(And if Apollo did have an idea that was what she would say, his support would be to slap a hand over her mouth.)

Iris’s lips part and then close again. She stares for far too long without blinking. “So what’s he owe?” Trucy asks, forcefully, defiantly, like to cover up the fear she must be feeling, because Apollo knows he’s damn terrified. “What’ll I owe? What do you want?”

“You don’t think that would hurt him more than anything I could do, for him to learn you tried to take up a debt for him?” Iris asks. 

And Trucy is the one to go quiet then. “Darling, let me tell you this as plainly as I can,” Iris adds. “Your father owes me nothing and never will owe me anything.”

“Wh-what?” Trucy turns to Apollo. Why’s she expect him to have any more idea what this means? He doesn’t know Iris any better than she does, and Trucy has the advantage because she knows Phoenix better. “But - he - don’t tell me you’re just being nice! That’s not how this works!”

“And why couldn’t it be?” Iris asks. “You are a magician, little firebird - you got your gifts for free. Blessings are for free.”

“Well - yeah. But - but you don’t ask for a blessing. This was - my dad asked you to keep us safe. That’s a deal, that’s an exchange! Even asking Maya or Pearl for something little, we’ve always got to make a payment back! Even if that’s just dinner or movie recommendations or going shopping or - or - it has to be something!”

“It was a deal and the debt is still mine,” Iris says. “I owe something I cannot repay.”

Trucy’s eyes narrow. “You just said that most of the time, people can pay back and it’s just a steep, terrible price. How do you - what did you do?” 

Iris shakes her head. “It was something I didn’t. Tell me, do you think there is fair repayment for a life one could and should have saved, but didn’t?”

“Um.” Again Trucy looks to Apollo for help. He doesn’t think there’s an objective answer. He’s not sure if Iris wants them to answer at all. But she’s definitely made the point.

“I know what I am and the sins that I need to pay for. Weigh my heart against anything your father would ask and mine is the heavier every time. He knows this too.”

Is this guilt? Could one of the fae let herself come out the loser on a contract? Surely they can fail, and there are stories of them being tricked (unwise though it might be to attempt), but this sounds like guilt. Some sins to pay for. That’s not the language of deals.

“Oh,” Trucy says, and nothing more. No follow-up questions; no further accusation. She must at least know, if not the circumstances of what Iris refers to, then the gap where it fits, some thing or another that Phoenix conspicuously doesn’t talk about. (A lot of things, he conspicuously doesn’t talk about, but Apollo can sympathize here.)

Iris has a hand raised, absently tracing her thumb along the base of her neck, above her collarbone. The same location as one of the ugly curses branded on Phoenix. (A question Iris, or Phoenix, surely would not have answered even if Apollo dared ask: is Phoenix’s the life she could not save?)

“We should return you both to him,” she says. “He’ll doubtlessly wonder why the others have arrived back but not you two.”

And they’re silent as the Nine-Tails’ golden pathway fades out behind them, ushering them back into the brightly-lit manor garden. Kay and Athena chatter away animatedly at - is that Prosecutor Edgeworth? Yes, the chief prosecutor himself here to manage the situation himself, or maybe looking at him, it doesn’t much seem that he’s managing anything. More like he’s the beleaguered uncomfortable onlooker, which is how Apollo still tends to think of himself despite all evidence to the contrary saying that he’s irrevocably involved in this madness. Phoenix stands at the edge of the edge of the garden, nearly in the darkness, and he jogs the rest of the way over to meet them. 

“I figured if you’d all died,” he says, and Trucy careens straight into him and throws her arms around him and he drapes one over her shoulder, “then everyone wouldn’t be so cheerful, but they didn’t know where you’d gone, either. Everyone all in one piece? You good, Truce?” She tilts her head back and nods. “Apollo, are you all right? You’re a bit scraped up.”

His cheek does still sting, now that he thinks about it. “Yeah,” he says, rubbing at it and then examining his fingertips when they step back into the light to make sure he isn’t bleeding. “We did a lot of tripping and falling.”

“There was just something I wanted to ask Ms Iris,” Trucy says. Over her head, Phoenix raises his eyebrows, seeming more concerned than questioning. “But it’s all good, so!” She ducks out from under Phoenix’s arm and waves. “Hi, Mr Edgeworth! I didn’t think you’d get out here!”

“I - no, I was not quite sure.” His gaze turns into a glare as it moves from Trucy to Phoenix. “Though seeing in person that beast makes me wonder what on earth you were thinking letting your daughter come out here.”

“More or less the same thing I thought when I talked to Apollo and Athena about this, which was, ‘they’re tough kids who’ve seen some shit, they’ll be fine’. You wanna worry about anyone particular, it should be Athena. She’s seen less shit than them.”

“Polly and I are ride-or-die now,” Trucy announces. “So I had to be here!”

“Please not the dying part,” Apollo says. 

Edgeworth’s thunderous expression doesn’t change in the slightest, but this bears all the markers of an argument that’s been had before and hasn’t gone anywhere then either. So instead he says, even more tersely, “Iris.”

Kay’s head snaps around so fast that her hair slaps Sebastian in the face. 

Iris bows low at the waist and her head remains ducked even when she straightens back up. Kay hisses something at Sebastian and he plants an elbow in her ribs and whispers back. Iris doesn’t look at them and they keep tittering under their breath; Athena, failing to do so casually, tilts her entire body in toward them to even more closely listen.  “Prosecutor,” Iris says. Not hostile, but no real emotion, either. 

“Chief prosecutor now,” Phoenix says, sounding smug and proud as though he’s bragging about a promotion that was his own, not Edgeworth’s.

“Oh!” Iris startles, a surprised hand rising to her face. “Congratulations!” And she beams, an open-mouthed grin showing teeth just barely too pointed. Apollo wouldn’t notice if he weren’t looking for the details that are wrong about her. “I can’t imagine someone better suited for the position.”

“I - well.” There is no one here more uncomfortable than Edgeworth, but his discomfort is contagious and Apollo already wants to flee the area. “But you can hardly know that many prosecutors, either.” Apollo doesn’t want to read too deeply into it, though reading too deeply into everything is the only defense strategy Phoenix ever taught him, and he could guess that Edgeworth expected a reception of equal antagonism from Iris as he gave her. And now that isn’t how she’s responding, at all, and his only script for the situation is rendered useless. 

“Of course not,” Iris says. “But if we should hope to lead the legal world to caring more about seeking justice and the truth than rivalries and win records, how could there be better than a prosecutor who so intimately understands how it is for those at the other bench, as well.”

“Ah,” Edgeworth says. 

“And I think - wait.” Iris’ head snaps up toward the second floor of the manor. “Did you feel that?”

“Nope.” Phoenix’s quick answer makes some sense - if they have to ask they haven’t felt it - but Iris still levels a dirty look at him. He shrugs exaggeratedly in return and her glare tapers out. 

“I think the Forbidden Chamber was sealed again,” she says, tilting her head back to look at the looming mountainside the manor sits against. “I felt a shift in the air. We should make sure that was something good.” She drifts more than walks to the doors, and when she extends a hand to the doors, they part just before she touches a handle.

No one else moves even after the doors boom closed behind her. “You didn’t mention she was going to be here,” Edgeworth says, his face pinched tight though he sounds more confused than anything else.

“I didn’t know,” Phoenix says. “Maya sent her over and you think Maya’s ever warned me in advance of anything before?”

“Of course not,” Edgeworth pinches the bridge of his nose. “Of course, not even if it’s your—”

“Back in October she sent Iris over with some messages when she and Pearls were too busy to drop by themselves,” Phoenix says, loudly on the first few words and then dropping back into a normal tone, but it makes conspicuous the fact that he was cutting off Edgeworth before he could say - something. Anything more about Iris. About what she is to Phoenix. “She said she’s more or less their messenger now, and probably only more that I’ve asked Maya and Pearls to look into some things for me.”

“You’re okay with this?” Edgeworth asks. 

“She’s less likely to start shit with any random person on the street, so probably better her running around than the alternatives.” Phoenix yanks open the manor doors. Their actual physical weight is obvious now, unlike Iris opening them with a mere gesture. Apollo isn’t quite sure that Phoenix answered the question. “Besides,” he adds over his shoulder at Edgeworth, “you know I can only keep one grudge going at a time and there’s always some new bastard doing worse for me to be pissed at.”

Implying that there could be reason to be, and stay, angry at Iris. (I know what I am and the sins that I need to pay for. He knows this too.)

“I’d expected you to have learned to multitask by now,” Edgeworth says, following him. No one else moves; Kay and Sebastian have their heads conspiratorially close together, and Athena still leaning in toward them. Trucy is rooted to the spot.

“And rid myself of one of my few remaining virtues? Please. Do you like me better when I’m an asshole, is that it...?”

Silence follows the slam of the doors. “What were you whispering about?” Trucy asks immediately. Apollo would like to take a moment to unpack everything that was just being said, but apparently there’s too much happening and they’re just going with that part.

“Iris,” Kay says. “And Mr Edgeworth. She bowed to him. That’s like—”

“I mean sure they’re people like we’re people,” Sebastian says, “but generally getting their respect as an equal is super hard enough, and this was - um, defense? Def - deference, that’s the word, deference, yeah, sorry.”

“And sure yeah it’s weird that she bowed to Mr Wright too, but he’s like—” Kay waves her hand around in the air. “Weird. He’s the one that you’re like yeah, of course he’s had this happen to him. But Mr Edgeworth definitely doesn’t ever let the fae owe him anything, just ‘cause, you never know how they’re gonna decide is good to replay you, so it’s like, what’d he do? How’s he know her too?”

“We met her before, me and Trucy,” Apollo says. “It sounded like she knew Mr Wright from his college years, so did Prosecutor Edgeworth also…?”

Kay and Sebastian look at each other. Then they look at Trucy. Everyone is looking at Trucy. “No, I think they only met again once Daddy was a lawyer too,” Trucy says. “He and Mr Edgeworth, I mean. Polly’s right about Ms Iris; that’s what we’re guessing.”

“Some college ex-girlfriend?” Kay asks dryly. “That’d explain why they’re all weird with each other.”

“Daddy said he didn’t date her, though,” Trucy says. “We asked.” Her expression darkens further and she glances at Apollo from the corner of narrowed eyes, like she’s trying to remember exactly what Phoenix’s words were, where the trick was for him to sneak the truth past their eyes. 

“And why would Prosecutor Edgeworth know Mr Wright’s ex if they didn’t go to college together?” Athena asks. 

“Opposition research,” Kay says. “But then why’s she know him well enough that she’s—” She huffs in annoyance. It’s a riddle, not a crime but a truth to be revealed, and she wants at it. “And you shouldn’t date the fae in the first place. Like everyone knows that.” 

“Do I?” Athena asks. 

“Now you do,” Sebastian says. 

Athena slaps at a mosquito, causing the rest of them to realize they are also undergoing harassment, and all of them beat a hasty retreat inside the manor. “Do you mind if I ask you something?” Athena says, after her crestfallen realization that the pizza boxes have all been piled up on the trash can. 

“Um, maybe?” Sebastian says. “Depends.”

“How’d you become a witch?”

So Athena’s the one bold enough to ask. It’s not like Apollo hasn’t wanted to know ever since meeting Sebastian, but he also knows from Klavier that magic’s truths aren’t always pretty. Even a witch, a deal that should be made as a choice - the Folk aren’t fair, and Phoenix told Apollo and Trucy the story of his friend Larry who accidentally became a witch. Every kind of magical gain has the potential to have come out of horrible loss. 

“Don’t do it,” Sebastian says. 

“Huh?”

“Wait, were you asking how to become a witch? Or why I did?”

“I don’t want to be a witch,” Athena says. “I was just wondering about you.”

“Oh.” Sebastian’s shoulders hunch forward. “But don’t do it, guys, seriously. You don’t quite get magic just like that” - he snaps his fingers and a few sparks snap off of them and he flinches like he didn’t expect that from himself - “you’ve gotta practice and work at it and it’s - I had to pick, I guess, I realized. I could dedicate myself to being a witch, or being a good prosecutor, and I wanted to be a good prosecutor. Like - like Prosecutor Edgeworth. So I’m not a particularly talented witch. I don’t know why Mr Wright thought that I’d be able to stand up to Tenma Taro. I could’ve burnt the whole forest down.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t,” Kay says. “And that’s what really matters.”

“If I’d had to do more than herd it into Iris—”

“Shoosh.” Kay flings her arm around Sebastian’s neck and ruffles his hair. “You did good.”

“I guess that makes sense you’d have to train at it,” Athena says. “But if you know you don’t have time to be a witch, why did you make that deal in the first place? Seems like a lot of risk for less gain.”

“Well,” Sebastian says, with a tremble to his voice, to his hands, his eyes darting at Kay, who leans a little heavier on his shoulder. “Yeah. It’s not - it wouldn’t have been a smart deal for me to make, no.”

Meaning he made it when he was young and too stupid to know better, to borrow some of Phoenix’s words, or it wasn’t something that he consciously chose. “Oh,” Athena says, very soft and very sad, as Widget cycles through yellow surprise to blue despair. Which of the possibilities does she hear in his voice?

“It’s—” Sebastian shrugs, twisting his hands together. Kay slides off of his shoulder. “It’s what it is now, I guess. Comes in handy at times which is why I don’t break the contract, even though Justine’s willing to let me at no cost.”

“Comes in handy whenever I remind you to check something out with the Sight,” Kay says. “Since you forget.”

“I don’t forget! Not all the time anyway. It’s rude!”

“How is anything you See admissible evidence?” Athena asks. “Like, no one else can - I mean, what are the odds of two people with the Sight working the same case to be able to corroborate it?”

“It’s not admissible at all,” Sebastian says. “But sometimes you might be able to guess at what’s going on by something you saw.”

“How so?” Trucy asks.

“Uh,” Sebastian says. “Admittedly we’ve personally never really run into that, and then my only example is from Justine and it’s a really long story that—”

“It’s fine, it’s fine!” Athena says hastily, a little frantically, at the way Sebastian’s voice begins to wobble again. “Um, so Justine is the, your ‘patron’ then? She’s the one who gives you magic fire powers?”

“I borrow them, more like,” Sebastian answers. “But I’m lucky that it’s her, because she’s kind, and fair by our standards. Basically, since the contract’s ongoing, I’m borrowing magic from her, and so she could borrow something of mine in return. And by ‘something’ I mean ‘anything’.”

“Anything?” Athena echoes.

Trucy is the one to answer. “Anything,” she repeats firmly. “There’s no sense of scale. They can leverage a tiny favor to mean you owe your soul for it, if they want it, and you can’t refuse.”

“And for a witch it’s a constant give-and-take,” Sebastian adds. “So the patron is constantly - what’s the word I’m looking for, uh, accruing favors that the witch owes in return. And unless you were thinking well enough ahead to put in your initial contract things you wouldn’t give, or do - it’s very not good.”

“Oh,” Athena says, eyes downcast. “You don’t pick your patron?”

“How many people actually know one of the Fair Folk to ask?” Kay says. “Besides Mr Wright. And us now. But like, otherwise, if you wanna make a deal you’re just screaming to whoever’s listening.”

“Or nearest,” Sebastian adds. “Or likes what you’re offering the most, or is already interested in you for some other reason.”

“Hm,” Athena says. “Okay. And what happens if your patron dies? What then?” 

Trucy sits down on the floor as Athena’s interrogation shows no sign of ceasing. Didn’t Athena ask this particular question of Phoenix already? “Then you lose all your powers,” Sebastian says. “Well, they fade away over a couple weeks, is what I hear.”

“And your powers - do you pick the kind you have? Like if you wanted lightning instead? Or did your patron decide you look like a fire person? I don’t see it, personally.”

“You have a lot of questions for someone who says she doesn’t want to become a witch,” Kay says, squinting suspiciously at her.

“I don’t! But a giant bird-monster tried to eat Apollo and Trucy and then Mr Wright’s college ex turned into some kinda demon to fight it, and this is the first time in my life I’m ever seeing this stuff, so of course I have questions.” Athena, bouncing on her heels, abruptly stops. A frown creases her face. Widget again goes dark blue. “And there’s the rumors about Prosecutor Blackquill. Y’know, that he’s a witch. And I asked Mr Wright some about it, but you’re an actual witch.”

“Mr Wright probably knows more than I do, still,” Sebastian says. “I’d heard that about Prosecutor Blackquill too but I don’t really know him. What was it you asked? Powers, they’re what you end up with; I didn’t pick it and she definitely didn’t - the Fair Folk don’t really like fire.”

“It’s a grab bag?” Athena asks. “A roll of the dice?”

Sebastian hesitates before answering. “I think it does gravitate toward something that does suit specifically you. But that’s just a guess based on me.”

Blackquill’s invisible knives answer nothing more about him - he’s a murderer, he’s a samurai/ninja type, they knew that already - and Athena is right that Sebastian doesn’t look like someone who would be, of all the potentially limitless possibilities, fire. 

“Witches can have familiars, right?” Apollo asks. Sebastian nods and doesn’t say anything more detailed. Nothing about crows; go figure. But if Blackquill really is a witch, and not something more complicated, then that answers that question about that damned bird. Or maybe Taka is something like Vongole. And maybe the Prosecutors Office is a nightmare. No, definitely.

“I think I’ve run out of questions,” Athena announces. She sits down in the doorway of Filch’s office, grabbing a box of tissues from within and dabbing at the scrapes on her legs. “For now, anyway. Maybe I’ll shout something at you in the middle of the trial tomorrow as I come up with it.”

“Please don’t,” Sebastian says. “Leave it for after.”

“Oh, god,” Kay says. “Speaking of the trial tomorrow. Seb. Sebby. I don’t think we have a case.”

“Yeah, we found the stolen goods eaten by a yokai,” Athena says. They probably could come up with a way to work around that, but for once there’s something in the defense’s favor.

“Maybe we can argue that the defendant is Tenma Taro,” Kay muses. “Or she’s possessed.”

“Don’t,” Apollo says. “That’s what happened last time. Don’t do that to us again.” If they want to go that route he can’t actually stop them but they’re on friendly enough terms that he’s still going to grumble about the prospect. He’s going to relish not being afraid that the prosecution is going to murder him. 

A door thuds closed upstairs and the murmur of voices drifts down. Athena tilts and swivels her head, a radar dish adjusting to get the signal. “Mr Wright just suggested dynamiting the mountain to get the chamber to collapse on Tenma Taro and bury it,” she says. “And - Mayor Tenma says there’s historical and cultural importance of the manor to the town and they can’t just - Mr Edgeworth just interrupted to say Mr Wright is an idiot.”

Kay snickers. Athena props her chin on her hand. “Is it really that bad of a concept though?” Trucy asks. “Make sure no one lets it out again?”

She has a point. For the sake of the town, bury its monster, and maybe then people will stop believing in it. And maybe if they stop believing, it will stop being. One could hope. 

Iris holds the magatama when the group of them - Phoenix rolling his eyes at Edgeworth, Jinxie hanging off of her father’s arm with a charm in her hand raised threateningly at Iris - appear around the corner of the stairs. She ponders it for a few seconds before she raises up her other hand and the shimmering outline of a magatama of equal size appears above it, solidifying until it drops into her palm. Its color is slightly duller and sicklier; this magatama, she offers to the mayor. His expression is stern, more or less always is, and from his face alone it’s impossible to read what he is thinking. “There’s no catch,” Iris says. “No debt to me; it’s an exchange. Your shop-owner gets back something close to her stolen stone, without the chance that anyone unscrupulous will again barge in seeking its power.”

“And you get that power yourself,” the mayor says, but he takes it from her nonetheless. Edgeworth’s frown deepens further.

“Are we pretending that one is the one we recovered and just pretending we didn’t see this exchange?” Kay asks. “You couldn’t have done that thirty seconds ago and given us deniability?”

“Ah,” Iris says. “I should have. Forgive me.” She sighs. “I should be off now. I did promise Sister Bikini assistance with the night’s chores.” A smile spreads across her face, one with a wicked edge, and her twinkling eyes turn on Phoenix and Edgeworth as she adds, “I’ll tell her you both say hello.”

“Sister Biki…?” Edgeworth falters and looks to Phoenix, who grins mischievously, a mirror and an echo of Iris’ expression. 

“What, you don’t remember her?” Phoenix asks. “Head nun at Hazakura Temple. Short, had a booming laugh, kept hitting on you during the cross-examination - wait, that’s why you don’t remember her! All the older women who’ve hit on you from the witness stand probably just merge into one conglomerate in your memory, huh?”

“Heavens forbid they should combine in real life,” Iris says, starting to drift away from them, where Apollo can see a spat forming. “A truly Lovecraftian entity that would be.”

“I - I don’t—” Edgeworth’s sputtering doesn’t form a full sentence. 

Phoenix’s grin doesn’t lapse. “At least I don’t have to deal with the curse of being handsome, on top of everything else,” he says. Kay lets out a laugh that sounds more like one of Tenma Taro’s squawks. Iris presses her lips together and stretches her eyebrows as high as they will go. “Someone was supposed to object to that,” Phoenix adds after another half a second. 

Trucy pats him on the arm. “You’re very handsome, Daddy,” she says. 

Athena slaps her hands over Widget and feigns a cough to drown out whatever it has vocalized. 

“Now that you’ve remembered how to shave,” Edgeworth mutters. 

“I’ve told you,” Phoenix protests, and the way Edgeworth immediately rolls his eyes shows that yes, yes they have gone through this before, “nobody was gonna take me seriously as a pro poker player with my clean-shaven baby face.”

Edgeworth scoffs. “You don’t have a baby face, Wright.”

“Speaking as someone who does, he doesn’t,” Sebastian mutters. Kay snickers.

“I don’t know,” Iris says. Sebastian and Kay step out of her way, parting like a stream against a stone, and she eyes the corner caretaker’s office and then Athena sitting there in the doorway. “He does, a little. We could put it to vote.”

“Okay, I don’t think we need to talk about my face that much.” Phoenix holds up his hands in mock surrender, turning from Edgeworth to Iris. “I heard everything I needed when - Iris are you eating garbage?”

She flinches at her name, and with that flinch, her eyes and hair flicker red, and some of the skin on her face turns that deep shadowy ashen gray. Her shoulders and arms collapse into herself as all eyes turn to her and she shrinks toward the trash bin piled full of pizza boxes like she’ll disappear behind or into it. And Phoenix freezes a moment before, a little less spirited, he adds, “I can’t believe Maya’s turned you into a trash gremlin too.”

“I haven’t had pizza in at least twelve years,” Iris says, and now that she uncoils herself from looking like a snake about to strike, Apollo sees in her unclawed hands that she holds a piece of pizza crust. “Let me have this.” She bites into it forcefully, showing off her dagger teeth, and then she reaches to the open boxes balanced on each other, filled with greasy napkins, and retrieves another scrap of crust, her eyes narrowed, daring anyone to say anything. “Besides,” she adds, still not confident enough in her trash-gremlin ways to not keep justifying herself, “I need some energy to get back to Hazakurain.”

“Your new magatama isn’t enough?” Phoenix asks, nodding at the stone tucked under her arm.

She crunches louder on the crust. “Someone, if perhaps not me, will be in touch if we learn anything new,” she says to Phoenix, very pointedly ignoring his question. Whatever they’re talking about, it isn’t Tenma Taro anymore, but they’re on the same page. “My cousin may seize on that excuse, or perhaps none at all.”

“I look forward to it,” Phoenix says.

Iris spins, her robes whirling around her, her hair splayed about, its colors and the colors of her skin shifting and twisting together. A snowy vortex swirls at her feet, rising up and swallowing her and once it passes her feet, her legs, they are simply gone, and with a puff of frigid air she and the snow vanish entirely, leaving a circle of flowers on the carpet where she stood.

Jinxie leans out from behind her father and drops a charm in the center of the ring. 

“What kind of flowers are those?” Kay asks, leaning down to investigate. When she does, her hair tumbles over in messy waves, still with a few pieces of leaf tangled up in it. She looks real; Athena with her scraped knees and Sebastian with dirt smudged on his face look real. Apollo has stared at Iris so much, trying to figure her out, noticing every way that the world doesn’t work right around her, and now the subtle motions - not even the tics he watches witnesses for - of people being people are remarkable.

“Do the flowers matter?” Athena asks. “Does it mean something?”

Apollo is glad to see that the flowers aren’t rooted into the carpet. They’re just scattered on the ground, stems cut diagonal at the ends, as though the contents of a vase were poured out in an even, perfect circle. “No, not really,” Sebastian says. “Well, a little? Justine’s are lion lilies, which mean something to her, but like abstractly they don’t really have to mean anything about - um, those are probably irises, anyway. Those flowers.” He pulls his phone from his pocket and starts typing something, probably a search to check on what iris flowers look like.

“An iris is a flower?” Phoenix asks blankly. Trucy presses her hands over her eyes and groans. “What? Why was I supposed to know that?” Edgeworth sighs deeply.

“Oh,” Sebastian says, frowning at his phone. “I guess those aren’t irises.”

“They’re kinda weird-looking flowers aren’t they?” Kay asks, leaning over Sebastian’s arm to also examine what his screen displays. “Kinda droopy petals on the outside there.”

There’s nothing Apollo would describe as droopy about these flowers circled on the floor. They’re round and the size of his palm, dozens and dozens of little petals stacked around each other. Most are a pale soft pink, but a few dark flowers, their petals as black as pitch, are interspersed among the rest. “It was a decent hypothesis,” Sebastian sighs. 

“Whatever they are, they do not belong in this manor,” Mayor Tenma says. “Mr Wright, you will know the best way to get rid of these without causing offense, yes?”

“Just toss ‘em out the window,” Phoenix says, and as half a dozen people gape at him, he adds, “That’s less offense than setting them on fire or throwing them in with the trash.”

“I’m still not touching those,” Sebastian says. “Not after seeing her fight a yokai. Sorry, Mr Wright, but she’s terrifying.”

“That’s fine,” Phoenix says, stooping and gathering up a large handful of flowers, crushing them together with no real regard for them. Athena springs up and throws the window open for him to dump the first ones out. “I’m used to being the one cleaning up fae messes.”

Remarkable, really, how the words should surely be passive-aggressive, how even Phoenix’s cheery tone should be sarcastic - but as much as the man can be a mystery, Apollo is certain if there’s anger, it isn’t at any of them still here in the foyer.

-

Athena gives him a lift home; Kay and Sebastian go together to talk strategy before the case tomorrow, and Phoenix and Trucy go with Edgeworth. Apollo has more than a dozen texts from Clay, the first three asking why he’s still out so late, the rest proposing increasingly implausible - but still nowhere near as batshit as the truth - scenarios as to what he’s up to. “You’re a popular guy, huh?” Athena asks, watching Apollo scroll through the messages as they walk to her car.

Apollo snorts. “Nah. These are all from my roommate, trying to guess if I’m still alive or if being a lawyer for Mr Wright has finally killed me. And I hadn’t even told him that we were going to actually fight a yokai today, either.”

“Would he have believed you?” Athena asks. “‘Cause two weeks ago I wouldn’t have believed you either.”

“He’s the most superstitious person I know who hasn’t been tangled up in this kind of thing,” Apollo says. Klavier is more paranoid, but personal experience gave him more than enough reason to be. Clay is just… Clay. “Is it even superstition when we know it’s true?”

“I guess it isn’t,” Athena says. “It’s definitely not the kinda thing I thought I’d come home to.”

“But you knew Mr Wright, though.”

“Oui, and I wouldn’t change meeting him for the world” - would Apollo? No, he wouldn’t either, he’s sure of that now - “but I thought he was - kinda the only one, I guess. And then I’m here and there’s - there’s this, and then there’s Prosecutor Blackquill, and I - I don’t know.”

“Welcome to the Wright Anything Agency,” Apollo says. 

She laughs. “Happy to be here, actually!” Widget beams green; despite everything, she still means it. 

“I think we’re glad to have you here, too.”

-

“So what took this investigation so long?” Clay asks. Apollo kicks his shoes off into the middle of the living room and decides that’s a good enough place for them to be tonight. 

“You don’t want to know,” Apollo says. 

“I’m sure I don’t,” Clay says. “Cavorting with the prosecution? Got stuck in a wormhole and lost about five hours without knowing it?”

So Apollo tells him, and he isn’t even halfway through the story before Clay starts shaking salt onto Apollo’s head. 

[viosoul]

Where Are You

(The rest of the story under the cut due to length.)

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

Elliot stared at his phone, waiting for a response from Harper. His hand shook as he typed out his latest text to her, and pressed send, the message joining about 8 messages that had gone unanswered. He looked at the clock and sighed. It's already 12:30 AM, there's no way Harper would be gone this long for an errand or a prank… His phone suddenly beeped with a message alert. He pounced on it as fast as he could, but to his dismay, it was only from Imogen.

Imogen: I haven't heard from her

Imogen: haven't seen her around Downtown. Did she reply to you yet?

Elliot groaned in disappointment. Nevertheless, he typed out a reply.

Elliot: not yet

He looked up and saw three mugs on the table. Two other people were sitting there, one mug each in front of them. His grandfather motioned for him to sit down, which he refused to until Robbie spoke.

"It's hot chocolate." He said as calmly as he could, trying not to show his worry to keep his boyfriend as calm as possible. Despite this, he added: "Harper's not the type to go down that easily." He moved the chair for Elliot, and the worried brother sat down.

"Your boyfriend's right. Your sister isn't one to be underestimated." His grandfather said. "She's proven that firsthand two months ago." He nudged the hot drink towards his grandson, who slowly moved to take it. "She'll be fine."

Elliot didn't think that his grandfather fully believed his own words, but he decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and drank his cocoa carefully.

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

Meanwhile, while Imogen had no luck searching downtown, Tom hadn't had any luck himself looking in the wooded area of Pine Springs. He shone his flashlight around the area yet again, worry and fear gripping at him. There was no way Harper would just up and vanish like this. There was no way his girlfriend would do that. She wouldn't leave them high and dry. Especially Elliot. If there was one thing their time together taught him about her, it was that her brother, despite being half-siblings, was very important to her. In fact, he and Elliot had struck up a friendship of their own already because of her. She was their common ground. He opened his phone and typed out a text to her.

Tom: where are you?

Tom: Why aren't you answering your phone?

Tom: Everyone's getting worried

Tom: Hope you're getting these

Tom: When you see these please respond

He tucked his phone back in his pocket, and suddenly saw a rustle in the bushes. He stopped in his tracks for a brief second before rushing towards it, hoping it was Harper. To his disappointment, it was only a raccoon. He watched it scamper away before rubbing his eyes and sighing.

Harper, where are you?

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

A sigh came out of the mouth of the new police chief of Pine Springs as he checked his phone again to find one new text, with the same content as the previous ones: their friend still hadn't been found. He was currently in the residential area of the town, hoping to find someone who had even seen where Harper had gone. So far, he had no luck. It was like she vanished into thin air. But in the short time he knew her, she had never been one to just up and go.

The entire thing had definitely put a bad taste in Parker Shaw's mouth.

He raised his radio and spoke into it. "Any sign of her?"

The radio crackled with static before a voice on the other end replied. "No one's seen her. You sure she didn't skip town? I mean, it's a possibility, what with the trauma and all-"

"Save it." Parker said, agitated. He caught himself and took a deep breath. "Sorry, sorry. It's just that… If she was traumatized and that was her reason to leave, wouldn't she have left earlier than now? Wouldn't she have left already?" He voiced out loud. "Update me if you find anything."

"Yes chief."

With that affirmation, Parker put down his radio and sighed again, checking his watch. It was 1:30 in the morning, and they had been searching since 9:00 that evening.

We're not giving up on you, Harper. So don't give up on us.

He returned to searching.

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

Meanwhile, Danni was down by the docks with her trusty camera, looking for any sign of Harper. She figured that since it was her last day in town for a while, she would go somewhere to reminisce on everything that had happened. Harper didn't seem like the kind of person to go reflecting about paranormal troubles at 1:45 in the morning, but Danni figured hey, you never know.

She fought back a yawn, refusing to admit she was tired. She didn't want to believe this was turning into a wild goose chase, but they would have found their friend by now.

Stop it, Asturias. She should be nearby. She reasoned with herself. It's not like she just decided "hey, I'll just go and leave without saying goodbye, leaving my friends, boyfriend, grandfather, and especially my brother who I worried so much over two months ago when he was kidnapped by my vengeful ghost grandma behind." She wouldn't, even if this town's done a number on her psyche-

Suddenly, she stopped. Was it her, or did she see movement just now?

She rushed towards the movement, camera at the ready in case it wasn't Harper. She hoped it was though. That way everyone would know she was fine.

No such luck.

Instead, she witnessed a tall robed figure running away from the docks, wet with water. Without thinking, she snapped a photo of her target, which only inspired them to run faster.

Danni gave chase, her glare focused on the person in front of her. He ran through the marina, diving in and out of view, never looking back all the while. Suddenly, just when Danni thought she had her suspect cornered, the robed figure knocked some barrels over, blocking her path and escaping as they fell.

Damn it! Danni angrily chided herself as she recovered from the sudden surprise. As if remembering, she took her new photo in hand, and went to a more lit area to wait for it to develop. As it came into view, she squinted at the person.

Was it just her, or was the figure wearing a blue robe? And didn't that symbol look familiar?

She had a bad feeling about this.

She quickly shot a text to the group chat, telling them to get to the docks ASAP, as in "this-is-extremely-urgent, get-your-asses-over-here-NOW." In the meantime, she retraced their steps, looking at the ground. The closer she got to the water, the more visible the footsteps leading away from it were. Taking photos, she followed them to the water, where she found a boat that, judging by the water inside it, was recently used.

Before she could get into the boat to look inside it further, the red and blue siren lights appeared, and along with them the other three members of their Scooby Doo gang.

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

Arthur groaned. He finally managed to convince Elliot to at least take a nap, and even then, it took Robbie saying he would stay with him in order to convince him. The old man made a mental note to thank him properly later. He took a look at the clock, which now read 2:15 AM. If this had been two months ago, he would have grounded Harper for life by now, if her grandmother hadn't gotten to her first. Now, he was more frightened. After all, Josie- Josephine, was gone. His granddaughter banished her herself. He didn't know whether he preferred having one clear theory to not having any ideas as to where his grandkid was at all.

He sat down yet again at the dining table, tired but refusing to sleep until he had news about Harper. In the meantime, he thought about the past two months.

He hadn't expected to become the legal guardian of his grandkids, especially after the murder of his daughter and her husband. He hadn't expected his granddaughter to go around Pine Springs, snooping around and poking her nose where it was extremely dangerous. He didn't expect her, his employee, and a ground of other people to form a gang all working towards uncovering the truth of the town. He didn't expect to be found out, controlled, and jailed. And there was no way he had ever expected that Josephine would meet Harper the way she did, and what happened afterwards was included in that entire last chunk.

Just as he stood up to grab blankets for Elliot and Robbie, the phone rang, waking the two boys. Arthur made it to the phone first.

"Arthur here."

Elliot and Robbie watched him, the latter holding onto his boyfriend protectively. They watched the old man's face fall into shock before he dropped the phone.

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

"So you saw a guy in the cult's robes running away from the water? Didn't Josephine kill the entire cult except for Arthur?"

Parker was asking Danni questions as the two of them, along with Imogen and Tom, rode in a boat together while the rest of Pine Springs' police force followed them in separate boats. Imogen was looking out, while Tom was calling out Harper's name over and over. Tom's voice was sounding scratchy already, which told Imogen that he had been out the whole time looking for Harper, just like the rest of them. She looked out, hoping to spot something, anything…

And that's when she saw it.

Her jaw dropped as she pointed to a coffin barely floating on the surface of the water. It looked like it had some of its seams burst, allowing water to get in, which would explain how come part of it was underwater. But that wasn't what bothered her. It was the fact that there was a coffin in the water in the first place. As far as everything she knew went, none of the victims were buried in the lake. Their bodies were all brought ashore and were given proper funerals.

She couldn't gather the ability to say anything, but Tom had noticed her pointing, so he did the talking.

"Guys! Look!"

The next few minutes went by quickly for the group. They were the closest to it, and they had the police chief on their boat, so while Parker and Tom swam out to the coffin to get it, Imogen flashed a light to guide them back. Danni held her breath unconsciously, hoping that this was just an overlooked coffin, that the theory forming in her head wasn't true, that Parker and Tom bringing the coffin aboard wasn't signaling the end of the search despite her mentally begging it to be over earlier…

With the help of a crowbar Parker had brought on board, "just in case", he had said, he pried the lid off.

Parker blinked multiple times, trying to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. Imogen was beginning to hyperventilate. Danni began to wish more than ever in her life that she was wrong. And Tom, having helped Parker move the lid off, was the last person to see inside the coffin, and was now numbly staring at the body inside.

Harper's eyes were shut, her mouth slightly open and her head tilted back. Her wrists were bound behind her back, and there seemed to be blood at the bottom of the coffin. Her hair stuck to her forehead, and what was worse, she wasn't breathing or moving at all.

Silence reigned within the group on the boat for what seemed like forever, though it was only a minute. That silence of shock, horror, and heartbreak was broken first by Imogen's agonized scream. Then came Danni's sobs, followed by Parker shakily speaking on his radio to the rest of the force. Finally, Tom silently and numbly fell on his knees, unable to take his eyes off his dead girlfriend.

Harper… no… you can't be…

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

His grandfather suddenly dropping the phone with an expression of horror and shock on his face did not mean anything good.

It didn't help that he was deliberately not looking at them at all. Within seconds, Elliot saw his grandfather fall to the floor, looking clearly like he was holding back tears.

While he went to help his grandfather, Robbie rushed to the phone, where he heard the voice of Parker Shaw. Robbie quickly asked what had happened, what did he say that got his Elliot and Harper's grandfather so shaken up. The moment he finished his question, Parker could be heard trying to breathe over the receiver.

After a long minute of this, Robbie was beginning to panic himself. "I'm so sorry to sound like this officer, but what the hell happened?! What did you tell Elliot and Harper's grandfather?!" His now raised and worried voice was sharpened, and Parker finally got the strength to repeat the words. Immediately, Robbie's eyes went wide with disbelief. It couldn't be true. There was no way. And yet, it was too late for practical jokes. And no one would joke about a friend's death to their elderly grandparent. At least, he didn't think Parker would.

"What is it?!" Elliot asked, getting terrified. "What happened?!"

"… I'm so sorry, Elliot… I'm so sorry… You have no idea, I am so sorry-"

"Robbie you're scaring me!" Elliot practically screamed. Both people around him were suddenly acting weird, to say the absolute least. "Who's on the phone, what did they say?!"

"… Elliot, I-"

"I can take it, Robbie, just give me the phone!"

As Elliot switched places with Robbie and spoke into the phone, he heard Parker take a sharp, deep breath, as though he would be the hardest person to explain to. At last, Parker told Elliot the news. And the words Elliot never wanted to hear finally came out of Parker's mouth.

"We- The four of us… I'm so sorry, Elliot… Harper's not coming home. She- She can't… She drowned. It was most likely murder."

Unlike his grandfather, Elliot managed to keep hold of the phone as everything just froze and muted around him. He felt like he was having a nightmare that felt all too real, his vision hazy as though he was in a dream. He wanted to scream to Parker over the phone that he must be joking, that he could cut the prank out and put his sister on the line, but hearing Imogen and Danni crying over the phone made it all horrifically real. He could hear absolutely nothing from Tom, which only cemented the news.

He shakily thanked Parker and hung up, then felt his body go on autopilot as his grandfather managed to move to him and hug him tightly, accompanied by Robbie, all three with tears streaming down their faces. Elliot couldn't feel anything though. It was too much. He couldn't bear to repeat the thought to himself, but he somehow did.

Harper's dead, and she's never coming home.

[theycallmebeccawrites]

One Shot: Crossing Lines

With Tumblr holding my original writing blog @beccaheartschrisevans captive (aka flagged as explicit), I have made a secondary writing blog and may end up closing the other all together. In the meantime, I am reposting all of my stories on my new blog.

Title: Crossing Lines

Pairing: Chris x reader

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: language, descriptive sex scenes

Summary: Chris’s best friend comes over to his place following an awful, ended early, first date

Disclaimer: This work of fiction is not to be reposted, used or translated without my permission.

18+ Disclaimer: This work contains sexual material that is for those over the age of 18. By clicking the keep reading link below, you are agreeing that you are over the age of 18 and are not offended by sexual content.

This story can also be read on AO3

You’re bored out of your mind as you sit across the table from another awful date; this time with a guy you met on a dating site. You’d found him funny online, but there is nothing funny about the cocky asshole now.

“Excuse me,” you say, standing up, suddenly. “I need to visit the lady’s.”

You tuck your wallet purse under your arm and make your way across the restaurant to where the restrooms are. That’s when you run into her; a woman dressed in all black and wearing large black sunglasses the hide her eyes.

“You should leave,” she says, stepping in front of you. “That man you’re with is my husband.”

“What?” You’re taken aback by her words, but then you realize it gives you an out from the worst date of them all. “Sorry, he didn’t say anything. Consider me gone.”

You pass her and go into the kitchen, hoping the fact that the owner’s cousin is one of your best friends will allow you to slip out through the alley. You bypass the dish pit and are almost to the alley door when the owner of the restaurant calls your name.

Turning around, you expect him to be mad, but instead he is holding a pizza in a to go box. “You looked miserable out there,” he says, holding out the pizza box. “I don’t blame you for ditching him.”

“Thanks,” you reply, not wanting to reveal the real reason you’re sneaking out through the kitchen. Judging by the loud voices and a sudden sound of breaking dishes from the dining room, he’ll figure it all out soon enough.

While he leaves to find out what’s going on, you exit the restaurant and walk around the block to your car, very glad you hadn’t taken the asshole up on his offer to pick you up for your date.

After getting into the car and starting it, you tell Siri to call Chris.

“Hello?” his voice greets you seconds later.

“You busy tonight?” you ask, thankful once again for the Bluetooth enabled stereo he’d given you for Christmas last year.

“I thought you had a date.”

“Ugh, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Just tell me,” he says. “You went to my cousin’s place, right? I’ll hear about it anyway.”

“I’m certain you will,” you reply with a sigh. “Fine. The short version is his wife showed up.”

“What the fuck! That bastard was married!”

“And boring as hell,” you reply. “I left the table to go to the bathroom and his wife met me in the hallway to tell me to get lost.”

“Fuck,” he says again. “This is why you shouldn’t go on those stupid dating sites.”

“How the hell do you suggest I meet guys then?” you ask. “The guys in Boston won’t date me, my dad, my brother and my grandfather are all cops.”

“Maybe you should add that to your profile then.”

You choose to ignore his suggestion and return to your original question, “So, are you busy tonight?”

“Nope. Just hanging out in my apartment.”

“Can I come over? Your cousin gave me a pizza.”

“I’ve got a fridge full of beer and other stuff.”

“I’ll be there in five,” you reply then hit the ‘end call’ button.

A few minutes later, you arrive at his building and take the parking spot of someone leaving. You grab the pizza box and then head up to his apartment, where he is waiting for you in the doorway.

“You look hot tonight,” he says not even trying to hide the fact he is checking you out.

“You’re looking pretty good yourself,” you reply, taking in his relaxed look of a black t-shirt and a pair of dark wash jeans.

He takes the pizza box from you and then leads you into the large, loft apartment that he owns even though he usually spends his time in Boston at his mom’s house.

“So how did I get lucky and find you here tonight?” you ask as you kick off the heels you’d worn.

“My oldest nephew is having a sleepover,” he replies. “I was there earlier, but it was just too much for me and I told my mom I was staying here tonight.”

“Just wait until your niece is old enough to have sleepovers,” you tease.

“I grew up with sisters, I plan to be far, far, far away when that happens,” he states as he puts the pizza box on a kitchen counter. “I have no interest in being tied to a chair so girls can give me a makeover. Been there, done that, don’t need to do it again.”

“Your mom would have pictures of that hidden away somewhere, wouldn’t she?” you ask innocently as you open the box and grab a slice of pizza.

“Probably, but she won’t share them,” he says giving you a ‘don’t even think about it’ glare before opening the fridge and grabbing two beers.

“Maybe not with a stranger, but I’ve been your best friend for -”

You stop talking when you find yourself pressed into the counter by his hard body. Your lick your lips and swallow as your eyes move up his chest and to his handsome face.

“We’ve crossed certain lines in our twenty-five year friendship,” he says, his voice lowering in tone. “But there are still others that shouldn’t be crossed.”

“You’re right,” you say, trying hard to ignore the hardness that is pressed against your lower belly.

He remains pressed against you for another second before he backs off and grabs the pizza box.

You follow him over to the black leather couch and take a seat. He puts the pizza box on the coffee table then drops into the spot next to you. He grabs the bottle opener off the coffee table and pulls the lids off both beers then holds one out to you.

You finish your first slice of pizza and grab a second as he turns on his TV and quickly navigates through different menus. You don’t pay much attention until you see him hit play on “Pretty Woman”, one of your favorite movies.

“We can watch something else,” you tell him.

“You’ve had a shitty night,” he replies as he leans forward and grabs two slices of pizza then stacks them on top of each other.

Having had your fill of pizza, you lean against him and smile when he wraps one of his arms around you. You stay interested in the movie until the scene where Julia Roberts’ character goes down on Richard Gere’s character. It is then that you feel the heat of Chris behind you, feel the way his body feels against yours and remember the hardiness you felt in the kitchen.

“Are you dating or almost dating anyone?” you ask, turning your head to look at him.

His eyes meet yours and he shakes his head then verbally answers, “No. No one.”

That’s all the invitation you need since you two had decided last Christmas that you could handle being friends who occasionally fucked. No longer interested in the movie, you turn your body towards him and bite your lower lip before leaning in to him.

His mouth meets yours halfway and he wraps his arms around you, pulling you into his lap. You love kissing him, because he treats it as an artform; one in which he is well-skilled, or rather, well-practiced because, if you’re being honest, the first kiss the pair of you shared at age 12 was a sloppy mess.

You feel his large hands slide down your back to grab hold of your ass and you allow him to guide the slow, rocking movements of your lower body into his. Then his fingers grab the bottom hem of your dress and pull it up so you’re panty covered sex is pressed directly into the rough denim covering his hard cock.

Pulling away from him, you lean back and locked your eyes to his as you take control of the movements of your hips. He smiles back at you with dilated pupils before shifting without any warning.

You find yourself on your back and staring up at him as he pulls his t-shirt over his head, exposing his sculpted torso to your hungry eyes. You can’t help but reach out to touch him, but quickly find your hands being guided, by his, down to the fastenings of his jeans. You quickly undo them then watch as he pulls them down, freeing his hard cock in the process.

As he stands up to remove his jeans, you hurriedly take off your dress and drop it onto the floor, leaving yourself in a black push-up bra and lacy black panties. Your eyes meet his as he lowers himself onto the couch and you bite your lower lip as you undo the front clasp on your bra. His eyes drop to your breasts as you unveil them to him. He licks his lips and then leans down over you.

You arch your back, offering your breasts to him as his mouth finds one and his large hand finds the other. The little hairs of his beard tickle your sensitive skin and his velvety tongue quickly soothes the occasional irritation. He proves his mouth and tongue are skilled in more than just kissing as he makes his way from one breast to the other, showering the skin of your chest and torso with the same attention he does your nipples and breasts.

Heat pools between your legs as he continues his journey down your body and you ache to feel him buried inside of you, but you know he’s going to make you wait. You jump as his fingers touch your through the fabric of your panties and you press your body against him. You glare at him as he smirks back at you while teasing your through the lacy material.

Finally, you feel his fingers on the waistband of your panties and you lift your hips to allow him to remove them. Your eyes follow his hand as he drops the offending fabric on to the floor and then you cock your eyebrow as he grabs the edge of the coffee table and pulls it your direction. Then he places one of your feet on the table, effectively opening your most intimate parts for his viewing.

And view he does. His eyes study your folds and you blush. He licks his lips and then bounces his eyes up to yours to wink at you. Then he begins with delicate, irritatingly deliberate touches to your inner thighs, teasing you.

“Chrisssssss,” you whine.

He teases a little longer before those long, slender fingers finally touch you where you need it the most. Your eyes close as he works you over, slipping his digits through your folds and you arch you back as one of his fingers, slickened by your juices, slides into your sex. Your hips naturally rise and fall in sync with the movements of his hands and you cry out in disbelief when he pulls out.

Then his mouth is on you and your grab hold of his strong, muscular shoulder as his tongue becomes intimate with your sex. Your cries fill the loft as he brings you to the edge of your release and then over the edge, leaving you panting and jello-limbed.

You open you eyes and see him smiling cockily at you as he licks his lips. He’s leaning back on his knees and palming his hard cock, his intentions clear. He gives you another minute to regain your composure before he moves his pointer finger in a circle motion, signalling for you to roll over.

Smiling, you lower your leg from the table and then sit up. You slide your bra off your shoulders, dropping it onto the floor and then you turn around, positioning your knees on the edge of the couch and facing the back of the couch.

You feel one of his hands grab your waist as his other guides his cock into your folds in a single thrust. He gives you a moment to adjust to his girth before his other hand grabs your waist. Your hands cling to the back of the couch as he slides in and out of you, each thrust increasing with speed.

At some point his hands end up on your ass, clinging to your soft cheeks as he slams into you repeatedly. His grunts mingle with your cries and you find yourself biting the throw blanket that is draped over the back of the couch as another orgasm tears through your body. You feel him stiffen behind you and his body jerk as he cums inside of you.

Weak kneed, he pulls out of you and collapses on to the couch, pulling you into his arms in the process.

You wake up sometime later and find yourself enveloped in his arms. The TV has long since turned itself off and at some point Chris has covered you both with the blanket. You snuggle yourself into his chest and breath in his scent that both turns you on and makes you feel at peace and, most importantly, at home.

With your ear pressed against his chest, you can feel his heartbeat and you can’t help but wish that the two of you couldn’t change your “friends with benefits” status into a boyfriend/girlfriend one. You’re not sure when it happened, but you’ve fallen in love with your best friend.

“You think too loud.” His low tone sends vibrations through your body. “Go back to sleep, we’ll talk in the morning.”

You’re not sure you can go back to sleep and then you feel it, his hand on the small of your back. You feel one of his fingers drawing something, but you can’t tell what it is at first. Then he repeats it.

He draws a horizontal line then a vertical line and followed by a second horizontal line.

The letter “I”, you realize.

Your heart pounds as he redraws the second object and you quickly recognize as a heart.

Then he draws a horse shoe like shape that you interpret as the letter “U”.

Then he draws on final thing, two vertical lines in rapid succession. It takes you a minute and then you realize he’s drawn the Roman numeral for the number 2.

“I love you, too,” you whisper.

You pull your head away from his chest and look up at him. He stares back at you and then winks at you before closing his eyes. You resettle yourself against his chest, doubting that sleep will come, but you find yourself drifting off as you listen to his breathing slow.

Want to find me off tumblr? I’m @beccatheycallme on twitter. I also post my stories on AO3.

My tag list is always open, just let me know if you’d like to be added!

[carmenlire]

Oh jesus, I sure would cry if SOMEONE, like my FAVOURITE author *cough* you *cough*, would write a christmas prompt for my birthday that's coincidentally on DECEMBER 12TH, 12 days before CHRISTMAS, I'm just thinking out loud here

It is midnight in Germany so Happy 18th Birthday Julia!!! You are so amazing and I am so glad that we are friends and I just want you to know that you’re super lovely and I am so happy to have you in my life

read on ao3

“And what are we supposed to be doing here?”

Sighing exasperatedly, Magnus wraps his scarf around his neck. It’s a little hideous– a mishmash of patterns and swirling colors courtesy of Madzie– but it was a gift and Magnus makes it work, wearing an austere black coat to really let the riot of colors pop.

He meets Alec’s eyes in the mirror. “We’re going to the Christmas Fair downtown. We’re supposed to be having fun. Nothing serious, no business or worry of demonic sightings.”

Turning around, he takes the few steps over to Alec, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s shoulders. “We’ll browse around the shopping booths and eat something sweet and freeze our asses off.”

Alec smiles and leans in to kiss him only to pull back abruptly. “You have different chap stick on,” he says accusingly.

“Peppermint,” Magnus confirms, placing a smacking kiss on Alec’s cheek and trying not to coo and the vaguely disgusted look Alec throws him. “I thought it only appropriate. Tis the season, after all.”

Alec shakes his head but he’s hiding a smile. Magnus will take it as a win.

The two of them leave the loft and Magnus doesn’t try to hide his smile when Alec immediately reaches over and grabs his hand, thumb sweeping over his palm. They take the subway– yes, Alexander, I was taking the subway before your grandfather was even born– and get off at the stop that leads to Midtown Manhattan, close to Rockefeller Center. It’s two weeks before Christmas and the sidewalks are jam-packed with tourists and stressed shoppers.

Magnus doesn’t mind, though. There’s something about the very air in December that’s achingly sentimental. While he’s never been one to practice Christianity, Christmas is something that he’s celebrated for the past couple centuries, ever since he first landed in Europe.

Still, New York City at Christmastime is another beast altogether. They pass a dozen vendors selling Christmas trees and Magnus is paying far more attention to Alec than he is to his surroundings.

Doing his best to keep his fondness under wraps, Magnus internally rolls his eyes at Alec’s expression. He’s trying to look unaffected at the crowd of people and the miles of lights and garland and decorations. They’re rounding the corner when Alec stops in his tracks and Magnus grins as Alec’s eyes light up.

“Still aren’t sure what you’re supposed to do,” Magnus teases.

Alec doesn’t even spare him a glance as he takes in the crowds of people milling about in barely organized chaos. This Christmas Fair has been going on in the city every December 12th for over a hundred years and it’s gained quite a following.

Families are milling about, kids racing by with cookies and toys. Magnus looks around and breathes in the scent of balsam and toasted marshmallow and feels something settle into place.

For the millionth time, he wonders at how Christmas could be so much more than a simple day.

He startles, though, as Alec pulls him toward the closest booth.

“Are you looking for anything in particular,” Alec absently asks, paying close attention to the boxes of artisan chocolates on display.

Humming, Magnus thinks for a minute before shaking his head. “Not really, I’m afraid. I usually end up buying whatever catches my eye. What about you?”

He eyes a box of peppermint bark, debating, while he waits for Alec’s answer.

No,” Alec finally says. “You know that we don’t really celebrate Christmas. While I know more than other shadowhunters, I can still be pretty clueless. Izzy, Jace, and I usually exchanged gifts and snuck out of the Institute to eat dinner but that’s about it.”

“I still don’t know how even shadowhunters keep their heads in the sand about Christmas, especially in New York. Signs of it are literally everywhere, darling.”

Alec shrugs. “You’re forgetting that we spend most of December at the Academy until we graduate. Idris has their own holidays. Though none that mean unlimited gingerbread,” Alec ends distractedly.

Magnus looks up from the chocolate and sees that Alec’s moved on to the next booth– homemade gingerbread cookies.

“I didn’t know you liked gingerbread,” he says, amused.

“It’s never come up.”

Alec looks over at him, considering, and Magnus grins as he moves on without buying the peppermint bark. Laying an arm around Alec’s back, Magnus looks between Alec and the gingerbread, bemused.

“Alexander, you’re about to start drooling.”

Glaring, Alec just asks, “Do you want one?”

Magnus makes a show of thinking before finally suggesting, tongue in cheek, “We could share one?”

He bites back his laughter at the incredulous look Alec shoots him. “I don’t share my gingerbread,” Alec says firmly.

Magnus sighs dejectedly, gently bumping his hip against his boyfriend’s. “Very well,” he says sadly. “I thought it would be romantic to share but I forgot my boyfriend is possessive over his sweets.”

“Frosting or no frosting?” Alec doesn’t even deign to acknowledge Magnus and Magnus tucks a hand into Alec’s back pocket as he murmurs, “Surprise me, darling.”

Alec pays for the cookies and immediately bites the head off his frosted gingerbread Santa, meeting Magnus’s scandalized eyes without expression. “It’s the best part,” is all he offers and Magnus laughs as he shakes his head, nudging them to keep going.

The two of them make their way through dozens of booths. There are wood cutouts and photography booths and they pass enough food vendors that Magnus starts to wonder if Alec’s stomach isn’t both bottomless and made of cast iron.

He’s long known that his boyfriend has a sweet tooth to rival the Cookie Monster’s but it’s something else entirely to see Alec in his element.

There are quite a few toy booths, and Magnus finds himself in quite a few heated debates with Alec over the best present for kids. Magnus discovers– much to his surprise– that Alec’s a fan of classic toys. Magnus himself very much prefers toys that light up and make obnoxious noises and all around look fun.

Alec, by contrast, likes toy soldiers and spinning tops and toys that look more suited to what a character in a Dickens novel would have salivated over.

As he watches Alec absolutely lose his shit at a rather terrifying Jack in the Box, Magnus wonders who their kids will take back after. He doesn’t voice the sudden direction of his thinking and he’s quietly surprised to realize that the thought doesn’t make his heart squeeze in his chest painfully. No instead, it settles something in him.

Magnus can’t help but look over at Alec– his boyfriend, perhaps even his husband one day– and see the decades unfold. He can’t think of anything more adorable than a son with Alec’s stoic mannerisms or a daughter that loves potions and cooking as much as he does.

He blames Christmas for the sudden yearning that overtakes him and clears his throat when Alec looks back up at him. “I wish I’d had something like this when I was a kid,” he says and Magnus looks at the jack-in-the-box with suspicion.

“Out of all the toys you could pick, you want something that’s meant to scare people?”

“It’s colorful and a surprise and plays music. Really, hits all the requirements for a successful children’s toy.”

Magnus just eyes the toy warily and gently but inexorably guides Alec away from the toy booth. Alec lets him with a small smile and Magnus hides his grin in Alec’s shirt when he throws an arm over his shoulder, pulling him close.

They run into a row of ornament vendors and spend quite a while looking through ornaments of all shapes and sizes and materials.

“I had fun decorating the loft with you last week.”

Magnus looks up from where he’d been mulling over a stethoscope ornament for Catarina to see Alec gently lift a glass-blown orb from its hook. Taking the stethoscope with him, Magnus wanders over to Alec, replying, “I’m glad to hear that. It was fun trimming the tree with you, darling. I usually enjoy decorating by myself with one of my jazz records and a glass of wine but maybe I just needed to find the right helper,” he teases with a grin.

Alec laughs but most of his attention is still on the ornament. Coming to stand next to Alec, Magnus takes in the script on the front and his smile widens.

“Today only, we’re offering free engraving on all ornaments,” comes a voice behind them and Magnus turns around to see one of the employees approaching them. They’re dressed in holiday cheer with red bow earrings and an elf’s hat.

“Free engraving,” Alec repeats.

Taking the ornament gently from Alec’s hands, the staff member nods. “It’s usually a dollar a word but since it’s the first day of the fair, it’s our promotion.” She takes a second to read the ornament before looking back up at them with a smile. “Are you interesting in personalizing it?”

To his surprise, Alec speaks first. “Yeah, let’s add our names to it,” he says and looks to Magnus for confirmation.

Magnus looks over at Alec and sees that Alec’s already watching him with that damned look in his eye– like all he sees is Magnus.

“I think it only right that we have a memento of our first Christmas together, don’t you,” he asks softly.

He watches Alec’s eyes light up before he’s following the vendor to the engraving station to fill out an order form.

Magnus checks out with another employee in the meantime and meets Alec at the front of the shop just a few minutes later.

“Julia said that it’ll take about an hour to finish ours and we should come back later to pick it up.”

“Julia,” Magnus asks with a raised brow. “Don’t tell me you made a friend, Alexander.”

“Shut up” Alec mutters. “She was nice and mentioned that she had bought the same ornament for her girlfriend last week.”

Smiling, Magnus doesn’t say anything and the two of them wander around the market, though Magnus’s gaze zeroes in on a booth further up the thoroughfare. He comes to a stop in line and Alec shoots him a curious smile.

“Hot chocolate?”

Magnus hums, reading over the menu. “I only drink hot chocolate in December and this particular booth has the best cup I’ve ever had– and their marshmallows are in the shape of reindeer. Do you want some?”

“No, I think I’m going to head over to the mulled wine booth across from here.”

Magnus looks up as Alec steps away from him. “You’re choosing wine over hot cocoa? Over marshmallows and enough sugar to fell an elephant? You don’t even like alcohol,” Magnus says accusingly.

Laughing, Alec takes another step back. “The only alcohol I’ve ever enjoyed is mulled red wine. With the cinnamon stick? It’s like juice that makes me want to take a nap,” he says sheepishly.

“Very well, then. Leave and go get your nap juice. I’ll just be waiting for my dessert in a mug.”

Magnus sees Alec grin before he’s turning away to get his own drink. The line for the hot chocolate is long, though, and Alec sidles up to him just as he’s placed his order.

“Back so soon,” Magnus sniffs. “Maybe that’s a sign that hot chocolate is definitely the most popular Christmas drink.”

Alec just takes a sip of his wine, humming in satisfaction.

The sun has officially set by the time they make it back to the ornament stand and pick up their purchase. Magnus shivers a little in his coat, burying his nose in his scarf a little deeper.

Alec looks adorable with a red nose and ruddy cheeks and Magnus pauses at the edges of the fair to throw away his empty cup.

Before they can continue, though, he steps up to Alec and unwinds part of his scarf around Alec’s neck. For his part, Alec stands unmoving with a faint grin.

“You know we can’t walk like this,” he says dryly.

Magnus arches a brow. “I’m getting tired of you ruining all of my romantic gestures.”

Alec huffs out a laugh as he shakes his head. “I love your romantic gestures, just not when they get in the way of my food or when they become a tripping hazard.”

“And the say romance is dead,” Magnus mutters. Before he can say anything else, Alec is kissing him. It’s lingering and soft and when it ends Magnus doesn’t want to open his eyes.

“I have to keep you on your toes somehow, babe.”

Opening his eyes, Magnus grins at Alec before unwinding the rest of his scarf and looping it around Alec’s neck, hushing his protests.

“You look like an icicle, Alexander. I won’t have you catching a cold and ruining my plans in a few days.”

“Oh? And what are these plans you have that are more important that a potentially sick boyfriend?”

Narrowing his eyes, Magnus takes his hand and they start the walk back to the subway station. “I’ll have you know that I need to wrap your presents and I can’t do that if you’re in the apartment with me, now can I?”

“I guess,” Alec sighs dramatically though his lips are twitching at the corners.

The commute back to the loft is pleasant as it can be, considering they’ve taken the subway. Magnus immediately leaves his bags by the foyer and makes his way to their bedroom, Alec right behind him.

Changing into comfortable pajamas, they return to the living room, though Magnus grows confused when Alec goes to their bags.

“Leave that, darling. We can go through everything in the morning.”

Alec doesn’t listen and after a few minutes of rummaging, he pulls out the box, going right to the tree and turning it on before placing the ornament right in the middle.

Magnus walks over to him and studies the tree. While most assumed that Magnus would have an elegant Christmas tree with a classic theme, the truth was that he loved the chaotic potential of such a statement piece. He had ornaments from friends stretching back decades and there was popcorn string and multicolored lights and tinsel. Each and every thing on the tree was a memory for Magnus and his heart clutches a little at Alec’s new addition.

“Perfect,” he says, kissing Alec with the heat of the fire at his back.

“It’s our first Christmas living together,” Alec says as he looks over the tree, the colorful lights playing over his face.

“The first of many.”

Turning to the living room proper, Magnus stops Alec when he goes to sit on the couch.

With a wave of his hand, a dozen pillows and a mountain of blankets fall to the ground in front of the couch. Alec smiles but doesn’t protest and they settle onto the floor with the fireplace below the television providing them with a little extra warmth.

“What do you want to do for the rest of the evening, babe?”

Shifting closer to Alec, Magnus lays his head on his chest. “We could watch a movie if you–”

“Rudolph?”

Magnus tilts his head up to see Alec looking at him. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear there was a pleading note in his voice.

“You want to watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer? The children’s movie? With that horrendous claymation?”

Alec scoffs. “Claymation is a gift that just just keeps on giving and it’s my favorite Christmas movie,” he admits.

“I had no idea you knew any Christmas movies, let alone animated ones.”

Magnus climbs to his feet and the dvd appears in his hand. He makes his way to the tv and places the disc in the player before returning to Alec who’s delightfully warm.

“It was on the television at the restaurant we went to that first Christmas, when we snuck out.” Alec shrugs and Magnus trails a hand over his chest as he continues, “It looked fun. It was silly and that dentist elf– Hermey– was weird but endearing?”

“Well, then, let’s watch it.”

Magnus settles over Alec again, relaxing into his boyfriend as Alec’s arm wraps around him, sweeping over his back.

The watch a cheesy movie and order in takeout and share a bottle of wine.

The perfect day, Magnus thinks with a drowsy smile.

The Christmas Fair was a staple for Magnus– he’d been going since the very first one all those years ago. As he lets himself fall asleep to the sound of Alec’s breathing, Magnus knows that he’s found that missing piece that makes this time of year all the more special.

Love. Alexander.

Magnus and AlexanderOur First Christmas2018