#ive been thinking about him a lot lately since ive been writing from his POV so much

[youngpettyqueen]

I totally agree with your latest update on your post about Charles. I saw this meme earlier and it definitely made me think of him. I won’t comment on who I think the first part applies to.

so glad you agree ok cause I am a Charles defender first and human second

and to elaborate on that sentiment like. yes Charles is rude and pretentious and arrogant, he's got flaws, but that's not all he is! boiling him down to just his negative traits no matter any context is just a disservice to his character, both as he comes right from the get-go and the growth he goes through over the course of the series. he's just as complex and layered as anyone else!

honestly after a rewatch im far more sympathetic towards him earlier on than I was on first watch. like, the arrogance and pretentiousness aside, because those are separate- his anger at being at the 4077 is completely justified. he has every right to be angry. this colonel literally sent him near the front of the line because he was a petty asshole who was pissed off about losing bridge. im not saying Charles was behaving particularly sportsman-ly but the colonel was absolutely wrong for that. and like, I get that they needed another surgeon at the 4077 with Frank gone, but Charles also had every right to be angry with Potter for keeping him there. it was fucked up!

but to switch gears to his virtues- not all of Charles' kindness was part of his character development I dont think. him defending the kid with the stutter comes to mind immediately, because we know he felt so passionately about that kid because Honoria has a stutter. there's also Yessir, That's Our Baby- he gets MAD on behalf of the injustice that baby faces! that's big brother instinct, but thats also just. kindness and care. oh, and the patient who loses mobility in his hand and is distraught because he's a pianist, and Charles goes out of his way to get him music he can play with only one hand? his whole speech about how he always wanted to play, but never had the gift? he's so passionate in that one! and of course we cant forget his family's tradition of anonymously donating to people in need around the holidays- for all his family's flaws, ive always loved that detail, and ive always loved that he tried to do it even in Korea. those are just examples off the top of my head, there's absolutely more

and then there's the kindness and care he exhibits as he grows as a character. when Potter reveals to everyone he's the last one of his old friend group still alive, Charles CRIES with them! he's emotional during Millie Carpenter's funeral and Hawkeye's eulogy! just the entirety of Sons and Bowlers, dont even get me started- he stays with Hawkeye the entire time, even when Hawkeye doesnt want him to and tries to chase him off, talks with him and comforts him and opens up to him and is vulnerable with him. the entirety of GFA and his arc there

like yeah Charles isnt always nice he has flaws he's not perfect but he's capable of so much kindness, he's so passionate, and he just cares SO much. he just doesnt show it often! he'll move a mountain for someone even if he would never admit to it! reducing him to just his negative traits is again just such a disservice to his character he's so much more than that

[dirtybitfic]

So wrong yet so right part 4

contains- smutt , Dom matt, sub y/n, rouuuuugh, hairpulling, chocking, spanking, dirty talk, praise kink, degradation , use of names like~ baby, slut, sweetheart , good girl. (not proofread )

Y/n pov-

I wake up early today and went to a water fall with some friends since it so nice outside and we all wanted to have some chill time .

We smoked a bit and just listened to some music .

after a couple hours I had to head home so I could be ready for class tonight. All my friends tried to convince me to skip and hang out longer but I told them that if I skip this class id have to retake it next semester which is the truth but just not all of it .

The full truth is i'm way to excited to see Matt , I haven't stopped thinking about the way he made me feel and how good he looked between my legs . Ive had wet dream about it every night and the build up to seeing him in class today has been eating me alive.

I showered once I got home and threw on a cute but comfortable outfit.

I hopped in my car and sped to class since I didn't realize I had taken such a long shower and am gonna be late for class.

i'm gonna be honest i'm still kind of high from the waterfall earlier. I smoke with friends but my tolerance isn't super high so my highs tend to last longer than my friends.

I grab my bag and speed walk into the building and into the lecture hall . Matt is sitting at his desk as all the students are typing away at their computers .

I sit down a couple rows down closer to the middle of the room and take out my computer .

my phone buzzes in my pocket startling me a bit since the room is so quiet other than keys clicking .

I take it out and check it seeing its a text from matt

I look up at him before I look back down at my phone and open the text

"late to my class thats a call for punishment" it reads my face heats up as I gulp and look at him his eyes study me as his brows furrow .

"are you high right now y/n" my eyes widen . I didn't think it would be noticeable but I guess I was wrong.

I decide to text back and tell the truth .

"just a little bit i'm sorry for being late I lost track of time "

I look back up at him as he stares coldly at me and sets his phone down and looks back at the work on his desk .

I sigh as I start to write my next story.

i'm so entranced by what i'm writing I don't realize Matt is talking .

ms y/l/n I hear a stern voice snap .

my eyes snap up from my computer and I see Matt looking at me I slump in my seat feeling awkward

sorry I say before he starts talking again

so as I was saying class next Tuesday is cancelled so have two stores ready and submitted on Friday the deadline for turn in will be 11:30 okay have a good weekend guys ill be checking my email over the weekend if you guys have question or need help .

he says as everyone packs up and heads out . I sit at my desk about to pack up when I get a text from matt.

"stay in here I want to talk too you"

I sigh as I set it back down and wait for everyone to leave before I get up and head down to where hes standing.

so y/n would you like to tell me why you came to my class not only late but also high he says stepping closer so I have to look up at him.

I- well I went to a waterfall with some friends earlier and we smoked and it lasted a lot longer than expected so I lost track of time in the shower I got here as fast as I could I try to explain but he has an unimpressed look on his face.

hmm well your coming home with me so grab your stuff he says as he goes to his desk packing up his things.

I gulp

w-what why I -

he cuts me off

don't talk back just do as your told he looks at me with a stern look on his face and I instantly make my way but up the steps to pack my things.

he walks up the stairs as I finish packing my stuff and walk over to him and follow him out of the lecture hall .

we make it outside and he leads me to his car . My jaw actually drops .

his car is actually a fucking motorcycle . I never thought he'd be the type to ride a motorcycle but it makes him even more attractive .

you ever ridden one before he ask turning back to me with a helmet in his hands .

I shake my head no as he steps closer slipping the helmet over my head and fastening it tightly .

well don't be nervous you'll be safe I promise he says as he smiles at me .

he throws his helmet on and puts his bag in a compartment he has attached to the back of the bike .

he gets on first and turns to me

okay step up on this part and hold onto my shoulders and swing your leg over so your sitting on this part he says patting the leather seat on the upper back part .

I nod my head and do exactly what he said as I situate myself on the seat.

okay when were actually riding wrap your arms around my waist tightly okay he says as he looks back at me and I nod slowly wrapping my arms around his waste and locking my hands together against his stomach.

he starts up the bike kicking up the stands and pulls out of the spot.

we hit a stop light as we sit waiting for it to turn green I move my hand to his chest gently rubbing up and down feeling his muscles under his black dress shirt.

he groans and leans his head back for a second before looking back at the light .

after a second it turns green and we're off again .

we reach the backroads after about 10 minutes and I hold on tighter as we take the dark windy roads.

I always thought riding a bike would be scary but its actually very calming . The warm breeze feels nice as I blows over us .

I rest my head on his back as I watch the trees blow by .

we reach the turn into his long driveway and we make our way up the hill and reach there front of the house.

He reaches into his pocket and clicks something that opens up his garage as he rides in and comes to a stop turning off the bike .

he puts the kick stand down then helps me off safely and then gets off himself then takes off his helmet then helps me with mine.

so how did you like that he asks smiling as he smooths out my hair

its was actually pretty nice I say smiling up at him

yeah! not so scary as it seems huh

no not at all

good now lets go inside he says as he takes my hand leading me into the door from the garage.

We make our way into the kitchen and he grabs us both a water before handing mine to me and opening his chugging it .

I take a couple sips of mine before setting it on the counter .

soo... why exactly am I here I ask a little confused because I wasn't prepared to be coming here tonight let alone leaving my car on campus.

well I thought it'd be nice to spend time together he says smiling at me

oh I say as a smile creeps onto my face

is that okay

yeah more thank okay I say as he steps closer

good he says before leaning down capturing my lips with his in a sweet slow kiss

he pulls away smiling down at me

so wanna watch a movie he asks with raised brows

yeah sure I beam with a smile on my face .

he takes my hand leading me into a theater room with nice recliner chairs . This house is so nice there is no way the university pays him enough to afford this .

if you don't mind me asking is teaching the only job you have or do you have others cause this house is reallyyyy nice

I teach but I also own a business with my 2 brothers he says smiling at me as he looks through movies trying to pick the right one.

oh cool what's the business I ask as I sit down in one of the chairs .

um well we own 5 hotels , 4 apartment building a couple restaurants and some office buildings.he says nonchalantly like its no big deal.

wow thats... impressive I say as I smile at him

yeah its nice I guess I mean I wouldn't be able to own this house if all I did was teach

I hum in response.

so do your bothers live around here I asks as I lean back in the chair

yeah they have houses close by but they travel around for work so they are back and forth a lot he says as he pops a movie into the player and it displays on the screen.

I gasp when I see he's put 50 shades of grey on . Ive watched it many times but never in the company of anyone else for obvious reasons.

do you have any siblings? he asks as he comes over to me standing in front of me

yeah I have a brother he's around your age

oh nice you guys close?

mmm somewhat we don't talk that much but were as close as brother sister pairs usually are I answer as I look up at him

stand up real quick he says as I borrow my brows but do what he says

he sits down on the chair and pats his lap

sit he demands and I do .

I get comfortable as I lean back into his chest and he reclines the chair back and the movie starts.

halfway through I start to wiggle around getting comfortable but also from slight arousal setting in when the first sex scene plays.

mat groans as he grabs my hips stifling my movements .

Stop moving so much he grumbles into my ear. His voice so low and gravely it has me clenching my thighs.

sorry I say apologetically as I settle back against him .

as the movie goes on the more turned on i'm getting and sitting in his lap is driving me crazy. I shift back as I spread my legs over his own getting comfortable.

his hand moves to my thigh rubbing up and down gently causing me to sigh and lean my head back on his shoulder.

he nuzzles his face in my hair as his hand slides up closer to where I want him most.

doing okay he asks in a tone that tells me he's smirking

mhm I hum as his hand slides up even higher as his fingers graze my clothed pussy.

his hand moves up to my waistband and slides underneath as his hand reaches my soaked pussy.

I whimper quietly and he chuckles a little at my reaction

so wet he says as his hand slides into my underwear and he starts rubbing small circles on my clit

I whine and squirm on his lap as he slides two fingers into me and I cant help the loud moan that escapes my mouth. His fingers speed up pace as i'm panting into his neck .

f-fuck feels so good

yeah am I making you feel good he says in a cocky tone as his other hands goes to pull off my pants and underwear.

mhhhmm I whine as I sick off my pants and spread my legs wider.

he curls his fingers hitting the perfect spot that drives me crazy

f-fuck m-matt oh god I whine as squelching sounds fill my ear signaling i'm close.

yeah that feel good baby he whisper in my ear as he places a kiss on my exposed neck .

s-so good mmm I moan as he keeps moving his fingers expertly

f-fuck im go-gonna cum I moan out as I feel the pressure close to breaking.

you got it baby come on he whispers to me in a husky voice that has the pressure instantly breaking and my juices to squirt out all over the chair , his lap and hand and my thighs.

fuck thats so hot he groans as he works me through my orgasm

je-jesus christ I whine as I come down and he stops his movements pulling his fingers out .

be a good girl and clean them off for me he says placing them on my lips I open my mouth and such my juices off of them with a moan.

stand up he orders and I do . He pulls my top off then his own shirt and pants.

he sits and pulls me onto his lap as his large hard on pulses under me

I pull him to me by his hair into a hot and needy make-out . His hands move to my ass making me grind onto him making us both groan into the kiss.

The pressure his dick is putting on my clit has me whining into the kiss since i'm sensitive from my last orgasm.

we both pull away panting .

think you can handle riding me sweetheart he asks in a sickly sweet voice .

I nod and pull myself up so he can slide his boxers down

he slides then down as his dick slides out slapping his lower stomach as mine drops from the size of him. He's thick and pretty lengthy a lot bigger than anyone i've had in the past which makes me a bit nervous.

what's the matter he ask as his hands move to his base

n-nothing your just really big I say as I look into his eyes

he smirks at me as his eyes glisten with lust

I know you can take it baby come on he says as he spits down onto his dick and spreads it around then lines the tip to my entrance .

I slowly slide down with a hiss as I stretch around him . He groans as his grip on my hips tightens.

fuck your so tight he says as I whimper when I slide down over the thickest part . Im still shocked he isn't fully in yet given I already feel so full but after a couple more second I reach his base and gasp.

f-fuck I whine as I try and move my hips but the stretching pain still hasn't settled yet

its okay baby take your time he says as he rubs softly on my hips soothing me a bit.

I stay still for about a minute before I start slowly bouncing and the pain is gone and all I feel is pure pleasure

fuck so deep I moan as I bounce harder and skin slapping together can be heard

fuck just like that doing so good for me he groans as his hands move to my ass slapping it adding more pleasure .

I continue bouncing on him as I feel my orgasm rushing in and the pressure builds in my stomach.

fu-fuck im so close I whine as my hips stutter and my breathing execrates the closer I get.

yeah feels good fucking yourself on my cock like a good little girl he asks in a gravely voice that has me getting even closer as my legs start to shake .

so good fuck so fucking good oh god I moan as I lift off and my juices squirt out of me all over his dick and down my thighs .

good girl fuck cumming already he teases in a low voice .

I whine as I sit back down on his soaked lap .

legs tired sweetheart he asks as he tilts his head and smiles .

I nod my head and he picks me up and walks to to the door opening it then making his way down the hall to stairs leading up .

he walks carefully up the stairs then reaches another hall leading to double doors . Opening them it enters into a master bedroom .

he walks over to the bed laying me down on my back and pulling me so my ass in right on the edge .

He slaps his dick on my pussy causing me to moan .

He slides back in slowly before slamming himself into me deep and rough causing me to scream.

J-JESUS CHRIST

he smiles down at me as he pounds into me hitting my spot every time .

such a little slut taking my cock so well he says as he leans down to suck on my tits.

I feel myself getting close to squirting again and try to warn him but no words come out just desperate whines and moans.

I grasp his arm tightly as I feel my juices pour out of me and he groans

such a slut squirting all over my dick like that he mewls as he lifts my legs over his shoulders hitting even deeper .

FUCK - I-C-CANT YOUR TOO DEEP I scream out as he continues slamming into me so hard you can see a bulge in my stomach . I try and push him way by his chest but he just grabs my arms and pins them down easily overpowering me .

nah uh your gonna fucking take it like a good girl until i'm filling up this pretty pussy he growls as I moan and whine under him and my legs begin to shake before I release all over him again.

good girl keep fucking cumming only makes me wanna fill you up more he groans as he drops my legs and pulls out flipping me over so im laying flat on the bed he comes behind me slamming back in as he grabs my hair pulling my head up.

im moaning and whining unable to speak as overstimulation settles over me and tears well in my eyes.

who's pussy is this he groans into my ear as his thrusts get harder.

y-yours FUCK MATT -all yours I moan / scream out as he hits deeper and my ass presses back into him.

mmm that fucking right your all mine he groans as his hips art to loose rhythm and he smalls into me a couple more times before filling me up.

he pulls out groaning at the sight off his cum spilling out of me

you did so good baby he says before kissing my head and walking to the bathroom and coming back with a rag to clean me up.

you okay he asks as he cleans my legs off

mhm im great I say with a smile . He chuckles before he stands back up and throws the rag In his laundry .

he comes back and lays down pulling me into his chest .

tired sweetheart he asks in a sweet and soft voice .

yeah exhausted I say as I nuzzle into his chest .

lets get some sleep well shower in the morning he says before he shuts off the lights by the bed and we drift off to sleep.

tags~

@sophia-77n @riasturns @milasturniolo @junnniiieee07 @blahbel668 @sturnsjtop @skyslondon

[fictionfixations]

book 7 exploration stuff

book 7 part 4 spoilers

the game makes you wait (unless you want to spend gems) to continue the story so be prepared for posts every now and then about this of me screenshotting things i think are interesting or funny

okay. listen. i still maintain the 'the ironclads and the fae have a HUGE misunderstanding' idea, BUT that doesnt mean everyone has good intentions... and i mean some people think that if they're their enemy, then nothings fof limits right? (to be fair when we run off the ironclads we also steal like their supplies.. but like... geez... these ones ARENT fighters, you're attacking civilians!)

ohh more backstory

its the black shadow-y thing back from before in the other dreams that tried to bring us to a deeper sleep

malleus?

LMFAO

OH DAMN what is with this game and kicks. if i had a nickel for every time someone kicked another person to get them to move, id have two nickels. which isnt a lot but its weird it happened twice (bro in book 6 in one of the PTMs riddle kicked azul to get him out of the way. with his HEELED BOOT by the way, OW?)

gAH (i know im supposed to be supportive of the 'good guys' but haha no. godd i really cant wait for people to write fics about this ive had a hankering for diasomnia fics lately, especially from silver and/or sebek pov)

wow thats some dark imagery. although i cant be surprised... (yknow what? i actually wonder what people think of them in those clothes. like. idk. any weird 'what are you wearing'??? do we have any items on ourselves like a phone or something to get the dreamer really confused and make them realize 'wait a second...'????)

im a third of the way there (im still at the beginning area lMFAO)

aww. family bonding.

what else can we introduce to them though to make them horribly confused or shocked or amazed since we come from a different time period entirely?? (we shocked them with good food, in a bigger quantity then even the nobles have too, idk if it counts but sebek and silver have their training from lilia, which knocked his mask off and made him surprised that a human could get him...)

i wonder. what if there were spells that exist now that are way more convenient with little magic cost. but before it wasnt nearly as tested so its more difficult and stuff to magic??

in any case i think fae are magic so like. doubt. (we barely beat him anyway. well i didnt i used a retry ticket because i struggled so bad)

then again

how to make up for us basically time traveling (without it being permanent though since its a dream)? by making our only knowledgeable party members (silver and sebek) not having as much knowledge. cause like. they know things happened and stuff but its never been written or spoken about what happened. so all of its new to them. like i mean

they know the end result but how they got there is lost. especially the details.

..people are going to make such cool works out of book seven and i am PUMPED.

[thisfanisgonesorry]

I'd love to request some Junkrat dreaming about his parents, especially his Mum

And how proud they are of him

Give me the feels!

started writing this fic the second u sent it (sorry tf2 fans) cos ive been brainrotting on my sweet boy augh anyway, made this junkrat/you fic just so i could work it into my sleepy time fics and also cos .. youll see

tags: fluff, light angst, sleepy time fic number 3, comfort,, heavily based off shit i grew up w as a kid in australia, paranormal ghost shii, genderneutral reader, open interpretation,, weird pov thing oops

heavily inspired by these 3 clips just in case ur interested :-) (spoiler warnings obv)

[game of tones] [bobs burgers] [tf2 comic #5, old wounds]

<3<3<3

He woke up in his childhood home, he furrowed his eyes at the surroundings and sat up, confused at how he fell asleep on the couch, and the TV buzzed from the heat. The kids channel was inactive as it tended to be late at night. He was remembering things that he hadn’t seen in years. He sat up and went to wobble his way around the building before both feet landed on the carpet.

He paused, noticing both legs in tact, then realising his arm was too. “It’s a dream.” He said plainly, realising what was happening. He began to make his way towards the kitchen, the bright light seeping down the hallway and into the dark lounge room.

“Jamison!” The tall blonde woman called out to him.

“...Ma?” He looked at her confused and she handed him a plate full of meat and vegetables.

“I was wondering when you’d wake up, tea was about to go cold.” She smiled warmly at him, all he could really do was smile weakly back. “Something the matter?”

“Uh.. Nah, nah.” He hesitated.

He’d dreamed of his mother before but not quite to this much extent. Not this much detail, it was uncanny how real it felt. 

“Dinner looks good.”

She placed her plate of food on the bench and put a hand on his face. “You look so grown up.” She frowned at him slightly.

“What?” He was taken back and put his plate on the bench too.

“How long has it been?”

He froze for a minute. “Close to fifteen years.” She kept rubbing her thumb over his cheek before he pulled her hand away.

“That’s a long time.” She laughed softly. “What’s happened?”

He furrowed his eyebrows and shrugged casually. “Not much.. Lost my leg.. Lost my arm.. Survived the Omnic Crisis.”

She grabbed his now in-tact amputated arm and ran her hands over his forearm. “That must’ve been hard.”

“It was.” 

He was a little uneasy about how she somehow knew which arm was gone. They just stood there in silence for a long period of time.

“Is this real?” Jamie laughed awkwardly. “It’s just a dream, right?”

She looked up at him and a moment’s silence passed over them and a sense of knowing filled the air. 

“I’ve missed you.” She said softly.

“I’ve missed you too but how.. How are you..?”

“I bet you’ve done great things since I’ve been gone.”

He pressed his lip into a fine line at her changing the topic but then frowned at the knowledge that she would not be proud of her son if she knew of all the awful things he’s done.

“I don’t know about that..”

“What have you been up to?” She responded casually, as if making small talk with a friend you see once a month.

“I’m a criminal now.” He shrugged with a nervous laugh. “I make a lot of money and.. It makes me happy, I’ve met a lot of good people through it. I’ve travelled the world.” He rambled a little, almost like he was trying to sell a product.

“If it makes you happy, then I’m proud of you.” She sounded faintly disappointed yet still felt genuinely proud of him for finding what makes him happy and finding people that he loved.

“You’re not.. Upset?”

“I think I can understand why things happened the way they did.” She placed a reassuring hand on his arm. “You’ll always be my baby, no matter what. I don’t think it makes you a bad person for trying to survive.”

There’s another long gap of silence, both not sure what to say next.

“Tell me about your friends.”

“Ah, my friends?” He hesitated. “Where do I even start?”

“Tell me about the big one.” She smiled.

“Roadhog? His names Mako but he don’t like when we call him that. He’s my best friend, he’s basically like a brother. He’s been there for almost everything, thick and thin, y'know? He's the only person who I can really count on.”

“And the other one?”

“Y/n.. They’re.. Well. I'm lucky to have ‘em, I think you'd love ‘em too. Y’know, in a strange way, they remind me a lot of you. They’re both really important to me and I’m grateful to have them.”

Silence lingers in the air once again, an awkward stillness of uncertainty. What do you even say in this situation? What could you possibly talk about?”

“So.. There’s an afterlife?” She stayed silent. “Why’d it take you so long to visit? Why are you suddenly visiting me now?”

“I think you know why.” A lot of ideas raced through his head, so many possibilities on why. She spoke plainly with a slight sentiment of sadness at the end of her words. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

She wrapped her arms around his torso and pulled him into a tight embrace. He hesitated but hugged her back, savouring the moment.

“I think it’s time for you to wake up.” She said softly.

“I don’t want to yet.” He said as she pulled out of the hug and kissed his forehead.

He jumped awake with a loud gasp. I was leaning over him with my hand resting on his shoulder. “Jamie? Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

“You’re crying.”

He wiped his face in a hurry with his hand and attempted to with his bicep. 

“I’m fine just.. Realising some stuff.” He smiled up at me warmly though it was clear something happened to upset him.

“You can talk to me, you know?”

“I know.” He continued to smile. I handed him a water bottle and smiled back at him. “I’ll tell you about it later. Just gotta think on it.”

[dramatic-shitpost-poet]

🦌(deercervidae): (hai im the same one who sent a few anon asks prior. youve prolly seen the username before and im on twitter and instagram) anyway

i love love love the idea of revs being born on Valentines Day (it fits the depressing nature of the show lol). he gets no bitches and he’s been lonely for about 6 decades and sometimes he thinks he was destined to be lonely since he was a baby until his death. but thanks to people like stephanie and orel in his life, it starts to change his pov on life a bit. sure, he’s still depressed, but hes glad hes got a two-person friend group to ease his loneliness and lonely heart.

iil think at some point his heart problems would be at an all time high and would develop a heart attack and be sent to the hospital to get some kind of cardio surgery. i hc him absolutely Hating hospitals and anything medical related so hed be terrified by the thought of having it. Or he would have cardiac arrest when he gets super old and dies from that

- he could die from a broken heart from being lonely forever and being born in Valentines Day (oh the irony)

and back to the ibs thing i saw that IBS is linked to appendicitis so he could get that at some point idk

and since putty hates hospitals stephanie would be there to comfort him and give him company and food when he recovers from whatever operations he has <33

ive also had a medical fixation as well in my younger teen years eeeee

that’s all i got for now for hc/story stuffs

Omg hey!!! I do recognize you. Might reach out on insta later if I have the energy.

Thank you for replying and giving HC, I need this shitttt.

I love your wording on this btw (might steal some to write fanfic if I have it in me). Revs probably only really saw love as romantic love as he chases after that constantly and I don't think he had the best sense of family love. I HC that his father was serving in WW1 or WW2 and away a lot. He either died in combat or returned home being a very distant person. His mother was more strict, constantly working, and not the best at being a parent. I also know he has siblings, but I see him as a middle child or older of some sorts and still very distant. I see Rod moving out asap so he doesn't have the best connection with family love which may also explain his complicated relationship with Stephanie and Orel. He had no role models and is just trying his best.

He constantly chased after romantic love as platonic is only now more so getting talked about and all the media since the beginning of time says that romantic love is a goal for everyone and it'll fix everything!! It's a weird subject but Revs bought into it and as a result, constantly felt like a failure and probably developed rejection sensitive dysphoria from how he was treated too.

It makes ALL the sense of Revs to eventually die of a broken heart as it matches with the story themes of Moral Orel and general physical health. I may be obsessing over this HC..

On the terms of what you are saying, I see him reaching a peak at around 70s or late 60s, after Moral Orel would end or close to the original ending of it timeline wise. He just ages and while he has family love more so now, he still lacks consistency (as both Steph and Orel have other families to go home too and I know Revs would like to *live* with someone constantly for consistency and to not feel alone). He also feels like he failed in many aspects due to depression, his age, etc.

This is a pile up of issues that he barely works on mentally that is combined with kinda a shitty diet and he also smokes, not making his organ issues better at all. It's not sudden, it builds up. I see him either having chest pains at his house or at church and calling Stephanie in a panic. Stephanie would take him to the hospital despite his protests because I think he would majorly have a fear of them (and needles specifically). He gets looked at immediately and probably grts surgery the same night because it's a legit emergency, if he waited he would have died, and low population yada yada. He would be glad Stephanie took him in but be grumpy about it and grumble, saying if God wanted him out he should of went. That and feeling like even MORE of a failure for having health issuss and feeling guilty for making his kid go through this. Stephanie would get mad at the God comment but be more gentle and reassuring for the others. I bet she wouldn't work for at least a week to watch over Revs.

Also, I know for a damn well fact Revs would be stubborn as hell, so Stephanie would have to FORCE him to lay on his back, not move or pick at anything, and take his meds.

After about a month, Stephanie would let Revs have some days where she isn't there again but she still checks on him more often.

I could very much do a fanfic idea with reader taking Stephanie's place as a caregiver after he has surgery. Either way, sweet. But canon, it would be Stephanie caring for him.

Also Orel would visit and be a questioning little autistic child which might make Revs feel insecure because of how personal the questions get, but Stephanie can guide the conversations and everything.

... one final note is I think Revs would be very grumpy and shy about his scars from surgery but dear god I wanna kiss them if he has them and make him a blushy shy mess. Old grumpy Reverend needs more love. Kiss him over his heart too for another personal touch💜

[zzokks]

talk to you // eddie munson x reader

hi guys! this is my first fanfic that ive written for an audience to see (i have tons of self-indulgent ones in my drive 🫣) this is also a fanfic in celebration of @loveronlineee gaining 10k followers! they make really good fics, so make sure to follow them 🫶

prompt: talk to you by ricky montgomery; I wish I could talk to you. Pull my chair right up there next to you and talk to you. You're in my head more often than I want. More often than I wanna tell you.

notes: fem!reader, reader is 2 years younger than eddie, ooc eddie maybe??, reader is also friends with steve, upside down exists but doesnt affect story

also sorry if theres errors where i switch to third person! i normally write in that POV. also sorry if the formatting is weird, i had to post this on my phone

Eddie was loud and confident. Always had been. But when it came to you, all of that was thrown out the window.

He'd met you in his freshman year, when you went over to Gareths house for some English project. You were going to leave to let their band practice, but Gareth insisted you stay. Eddie had been a mess the whole practice, distracted by the very pretty girl sat right in front of him. But you'd still clapped and whooped, praising their performance and Eddie was smitten.

He hadnt talked to you since that day. He didnt think you'd want to. When he saw you in your freshman year, he was prepared to go over and say hello but then Steve Harrington appeared out of nowhere and you both walked off.

Ever since, he'd resigned himself to watching you around school. Not in a creepy way. More like 'I wish I could talk to you, but Im too nervous' kind of way. He watched when you punched that guy harassing one of your friends. When you had spilled chocolate pudding all over your white shoes. When you'd dumped beer over Billy Hargroves head at a Halloween party. And he loved it. He loved you.

When he found out his freshest trio of sheep knew you, he was over the moon. Now he actually had an excuse to talk to you. The day after he met Dustin, Mike and Lucas, he saw them all talking to you next to your locker. He had just braced himself for walking over, when the bell rang and the hallway was swarmed with people. He cursed and trudged outside to his car in defeat.

Eddie clapped Dustin on the back as they all left the theatre room. Another successful campaign. Dustin had rolled the winning dice and defeated their opponent for the night.

"Now we can finally get past," Mike exclaimed alongside the two boys.

Dustin puffed his collar with a smug grin. "All thanks to me."

Eddie rolled his eyes at the kids ego as they left the building. There were only two cars in the parking lot; yours and Eddies. He saw you leaning against your car, arms crossed from the night air.

"Hey Y/N," Dustin called as they got closer to your car.

"You guys are 10 seconds late!" you said sarcastically.

Mike laughed and punched Dustins shoulder, calling shotgun. Dustin hadnt even registered his words before Mike was already sliding into the front seat.

"Hey!" Dustin called to him.

Eddie had been standing there silent throughout the whole conversation. This was the first time in a couple of years he had been close enough to talk to you. But he wasnt saying anytjing. His mouth was closed and his eyes were wide. He barely even heard you when you spoke.

"Good campaign?" you asked him, tilting your head.

"Uh, yeah. Great campaign," Eddie grinned.

You glanced down towards the boys in the car before smiling back at Eddie.

"You know, thanks for doing all this with them. Heaven knows they could have a normal school year for once," you chuckled, patting the door behind you.

Eddie made a puzzled expression, which made you change the subject.

"It feels like we've met before."

Eddies mind stopped working for a bit. He'd been thinking about you for years, assuming you didnt even remember his name. But here you were. Acting as though you'd met only the day before.

"Yeah. Yeah, we have actually," Eddie ran a hand through his hair, the smile on his face unable to be hidden. "We met through Gareth. You had a project with him and you came when we had band practice."

Your eyes lit up from the mention of Gareths name; obviously you'd forgotten the minor details.

"Oh my god!" you exclaimed, "You're the one with the buzzcut. Buzz yeah?"

"The one and only."

You laughed and his heart soared. It entered his ears so politely and he didnt want to forget the sound ever.

"Well, thanks anyway. I'll see you around Eds."

He watched you open the car door and get in, turning on the ignition. You hadnt just remembered your first meeting, but even his name. And you'd even given him a nickname. Eds. Before your car reversed, he gripped onto your open window.

"Hang out with me!" he blurted out, sounding almost completely desperate.

You laughed again and hung your arms out of your window. "Pick me up for school tomorrow and we can go to the diner after."

Eddies eyes and smile widened at your answer and he nodded viciously. He had to admit, his question was a bit brash and unexpected. Your answer was also unexpected to be fair.

"Yes! I'll be there," he exclaimed. "Thank you."

"Eddie!" Dustin yelled, poking his head through the car window. "Stop flirting with Y/N so we can go home."

Eddie flushed red and frowned at Dustin, his features softening when he heard you chuckle.

"Calm down little man, you'll be able to see your mommy soon."

Dustin rolled his eyes and ducked back into the car. You smiled up at Eddie, said goodbye and rolled out of the parking lot. Once he knew he was alone, Eddie pumped his fists and exclaimed loudly into the night. He stamped his feet in excitement before practically jumping to his van and sighing happily into the drivers seat.

He'd finally done it. His wish had come true.

He'd finally talked to you.

[spaceyflowerswriting]

hello!! I love your writing, the soft vibes are exactly what this fandom needs after seeing all the horrific shit that's happened in the recent chapters. I saw your requests are open so may I ask for a gun x reader where they're just relaxing together? maybe a teeny tiny bit suggestive?? no pressure though, I know he can be difficult to characterize. thank you and have a good day <33

nighttime (gun park x reader)

details: oneshot, gender neutral reader but written in 2nd pov, general canon au, you and gun have been dating for a while already, i guess you both live in a house together ?? idk dont think too hard about it its only briefly mentioned in beginning

warnings: suggestive; sorry i think i went over mild because the ending has a heavy implication of how the night ended 🙏

summary: gun gets a day off tomorrow and tells you about it. also, he spends the night with you.

a/n: thank u for the request!! and sjdhshd im glad my writing's helping u cope(?) 😭😭 ngl im not caught up on latest ch since i read from webtoon only but ive seen some vague spoilers and yeah things arent looking too good 💔 especially gun's fashion LMAO

i'd agree gun is a bit difficult to characterize;; for me tho i just try to follow canon him but like... slightly more normal ??? i hope it works for u/isnt too ooc in ur eyes so this oneshot can still be enjoyable !! also i hope u have a good day too <33

btw shoutout to this post ; listening to the song they associated with gun helped me write this ^_^

×

Gun was more than happy to return home to you with the good news that he had no work for tomorrow. And once he told you, he was pleased to see your shared excitement.

"We should plan a date for tomorrow," he suggested, "What would you like to do?"

He listened intently as you described the activities you had in mind. Whether they were staying at home all day or venturing off into the city, he didn't care as long as it was quality time spent with you. He couldn't wait to devote himself fully to you tomorrow, but for now he had other ideas.

Before he could say anything, you lead him right to it by asking, "What about you? Anything you want to do tomorrow?"

"No, your plans sound just fine. But, I was thinking that for tonight we do what I had planned ever since I got the news that I'm having tomorrow off."

"And that would be...?"

Gun held up a keyring with his car keys, dangling them. "A late night drive around sound good to you?"

"Why not?" His smile reflected yours as he began to lead you out of the house.

~

Dirving around Seoul and seeing all the night lights was beautiful. The hushed bustling compared to the loudness during the day was also refreshing. Not to mention, the general dark blanket that came with nighttime--it was all relaxing to Gun, and even more so with you by his side.

Not much talking happened throughout the ride, but it wasn't awkward at all. Just a peaceful silence as you both enjoyed the cool air that breezed through the open windows of the car. Of course, the occasional conversations did take place but they were more like lighthearted smalltalk if anything.

While driving, Gun didn't have a fixed destination in mind, but when his random turns lead you both to a quieter part of Seoul, he slowed down and looked for a place to park. It ended up being the parking lot of some abandoned store, or at least it looked like it.

"Late night drive over?" You turned to him as he finished up parking.

He nodded. "Let's stargaze."

"On what grass? I'm not laying on the asphalt floor," you semi-joked, looking around at the street.

Gun just rolled his eyes in amusement. "Who said we're even leaving the car?" He got up with a bent back as to not bump his head on the car's roof before stepping over the car's controls. He then sat down on the second row seats and reached an arm up, grabbing a handle on the roof and pulling it back to reveal a glass roof.

Your jaw dropped momentarily.

"Come on." He waved you over and watched as you moved from your seat to join him in the second row. Once you did, he adjusted the seats so they laid parallel to the floor and you both flopped down at the same time. The two of you glanced at each other for a moment before softly laughing together.

After that came more peaceful silence as you both stared up at the stars. At some point, Gun moved his attention from the sky to you, and he was reminded of another reason why he preferred nighttime over daytime--it was the way moonlight shined on you, the way it added a special charm that highlighted your features.

"I want to show them my appreciation," he thought, hands suddenly aching to touch you. If he wasn't showing you love through gifts, it was definitely through his touch. He figured he might as well express the latter since there were no gifts around to give. Plus he was going to be free tomorrow anyway, why not stay up a little later with his lover?

Gun turned to lay on his side and put an arm over your abdomen, hand resting on your hip. "Hey."

"Mm?" You didn't turn to look at him, too busy admiring the stars. Not for long though, because the words he whispered in your ear made you jerk your head his direction and made your cheeks hotter than the sun. "Gun, we're in public," you practically hissed.

"This is a pretty secluded area. And I don't see anyone around. Do you?" He smirked when you couldn't reply. It only widened when you didn't stop him from sliding his hand up your shirt. "I need your vocal consent before I continue, dear."

Your breath hitched, and slowly you murmured, "By all means, Gun."

~

Nighttime sure was alluring to Gun, but not as much as you.

[writingsfromhome]

Bad Timing IV

A/N: To all the soft hearted crybabies requesting it: here’s part 4 to dry your tears from part 3. Thanks for all the interaction with this series, you guys are the best! <3<3<3<3

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

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

I take my coffee to the little patio in the backyard of my childhood home, breathing deeply. It was a couple weeks since the traumatic incident at the bank, the one where I nearly died and found a way to live again. The higher ups practically begged me to take paid leave, I had a feeling they just didn’t want me to take anything to court. I’d told them I would take the month, and knew I would hand in my resignation thereafter. I enjoyed my job as much as the next person but it was too much for me. It felt like closing a door on a chapter of my life that I wanted to move on from.

And now, I could truly relax, I wasn’t running away from anything for the first time in my life. After everything that happened in that small restroom at the back of the bank, Harry and I came to a peace. And I’d only moved on from there.

“You’re up early,” my dad comes into view, a cup of tea in hand. “Your flight doesn’t leave until tonight right?”

“Yeah, just thought I would appreciate the views before I go back to a city,” I move my feet off the chair so he could sit.

“You can come here anytime.”

“I know,” I wrap my hands around my mug. “Coming here it just...reminds me of mum. And it’s hard...”

“This is how I stay connected to her,” he pats the table between us. “She loved this place, her garden and those darn birds she fed all the time.”

“You feed them now,” I look to the birdfeeder filled lovingly to the brim with seeds.

“I do it because...” he says quietly. “It’s what she would want.”

I think about my mum, what she would want. It hurt when I thought about how she left me, married and happy in love. And then how much hurt I went through, always wishing she was there. In some way I know she knew--wherever she was. But I wish I could hear her, I wish I could have a love like she had.

“So, when do I get to meet this new boy of yours?” My dad asks.

“Dad, you know his name’s Alec.”

“I would if I met him, put a face to the name.”

I roll my eyes, my dad was a bit overprotective after everything that’s happened in my life. I think he felt guilty in a small way, him and Harry always got on--we teased them about their bromance. He was just as blindsided as me. But I’d told my dad everything that happened the first night I came over. He hadn’t judged, just listened, hugged me tightly, and left to make me a cup of tea. That was the most expressive my dad got.

After Alec took me back from from the hospital, I asked him to stay. And he had stayed since, making it official from casual to dating. It was scary but life was too short to hold back I had learned. I had to hold onto a good thing when I had one.

As for Harry, he hadn’t called me since that day he visited me. I’d left him a couple texts--when I was discharged home, and again to ask him how he was doing a week later. He’d sent a thumbs up and that was it. I thought we were okay, but he blew me off even when I tried to call him. It hurt a little, but I’d been so busy packing and getting on, that I let him be for now. I would wait until after visiting my sister to find out where his head was at.

H’s POV

It’s been nearly a month since I walked out of Y/N’s hospital room, and we’d just about tied all the lose ends from the case. The only thing about it all that lingered on my mind was Y/N. I missed her more than I had all these years apart, but I sat in the ache of wanting. It was time I catch up to the consequences of my past actions. I turned to writing, starting again after years of thinking I no longer had a passion for it. It felt freeing.

She’d texted me, called me too. I tried not to respond even though everything in me wanted to pick up the phone and ask her out to dinner, invite her over for a movie, ask her if she wanted to take my car and drive out somewhere like we used to after exams in uni. But I let her be, imagining that she was happy somewhere. With Alec, or whoever she wanted to be with.

The last thing I expect, is for her to be standing outside my station late Thursday night.

“Y/N?” I almost don’t recognise her. Gone was her stern bun and smart suit. Strands of her hair frame her face, like a piece of art on display. She has on a loose jumper and tights, a bum bag strapped across her chest that she roots through for something.

“Harry!” she drops her hands. “I’ve only been waiting here for...20 minutes, when your receptionist said your shift ended?”

“I had to finish up some paperwork. Why didn’t you call me?.”

“It’s not like you would’ve answered.” her hands on her hips, attitude dripping from every inch of her. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“You look different,” I dodge the topic.

“I know,” she zips up her bag. “I had the month off, officially resigned today. I have absolutely nowhere to be. So I’m looking the part.”

“It looks good,” I say truthfully. She looked relaxed, like the Y/N I used to know. “You quit your job?”

“I had enough of that bank,” she shrugs. “I went to see my dad for a bit, and visited my sister. She’s doing well.”

“Ah,” I was glad she’d taken a break. She was glowing. “Seriously Y/N, you look really good.”

“You,” she points her finger at me. “Are not allowed to say things like that after ghosting me. I thought we...came to an understanding. You left me again.”

I open my mouth to say something, but her words hit me. She was right, I’d left her again. Fuck.

“Yeah,” she crosses her arms when I go speechless. “You admitted to your mistakes, apologized, and then left me. How do you think that’s made me feel?”

“I thought it was best if I left you alone,” I walk out of the way from the entrance and she follows me to my car, parked in the lot. “I just wanted to give you space--a chance at being happy.”

She scoffs, leaning against the driver’s side door. “Thought it was best for who, Harry? Who are you to define my happiness? It would’ve been nice just to hear you were doing okay!”

“I’m sorry!” I stumble for another excuse but I come up with none. “The truth is, seeing you with Alec that day I...it was hard for me. I couldn’t be around you like that.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I...” I look at her, looking at me expectantly. She was a woman with an agenda, she had come here looking for answers and wasn’t going to leave until I gave them to her. “I want you to be happy, all that shite. You can’t do that with me around. And it’s hard for me seeing you with someone else...I can’t stand to be in your life like that. Where I’m just...your ex.”

“So you’re saying, it took me nearly dying for you to realize?” Her eyebrow quirks up.

“In a way,” I huff. “It just, took me being around you to remember what I left, when we ended things. It also made me realize the mess I left behind-”

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for yourself,” she calls me out like nobody else could. It makes me laugh nervously and she takes it the wrong way. “Don’t laugh, I’m serious! I’ve felt sorry enough for the both of us for years. And maybe Y/N from a month ago would’ve wanted you to suffer a little bit, but not anymore. This last month...I’ve just felt so free and happy Harry. I get what you mean now, I get it. And I’m alright.”

“That’s great, I’m happy for you Y/N.”

“Yeah, I mean I get it, but you did go about it in the worst possible way-”

“I know.”

“I’m not done,” she pushes my shoulder. “Anyway, just because you did some shitty stuff, you don’t deserve to suffer okay? Move on. Onward. Not backwards.”

I’m taken aback again when she pushes herself off my car and wraps her arms around my shoulders. I slowly envelop her into me, savoring the feel of holding her even if it’s just for a moment.

“You deserve happiness,” she says in my ear. “If that means ghosting me, I won’t fight it. You just...have to let me know.”

“That’s not called ghosting,” I say as she separates herself from me. I want to pull her back but I stuff my hands in my pockets.

“Potato potato,” she waves her hand. “I should go. Just...take care of yourself Harry.”

Y POV (1 year later):

“That’s wonderful news,” I smile at my client who gathers their materials back into their portfolio. “I’ll have my assistant forward the contract over tonight. I look forward to working with your team.”

I shake hands and watch them leave the room before collapsing into my chair. I knew starting your own business was hard, but this last year was a bumpy road. I’d started my own consultation business, and only had two clients. This was my first big-deal contract I’d signed; I was promised two whole years with this team!

I reach for my phone to tell Alec, but I remember we weren’t talking. Well, I wasn’t speaking to him--he’d told me last night before my big meeting that he’d been offered a promotion at work. But the catch was it was in the Edinburgh offices “which works out perfectly for us! Your sister lives there, we can visit them often...what do you think?”

I’d been so angry then. Firstly, he’d sprung the news on me the night before a big day, and second he’d already made the decision for us. I was so angry I’d just gone quiet, and told him I had a big meeting the next morning.

My fingers itch though, to tell someone. My fingers hover over Harry’s name.

Every since I confronted him last year at work, he disappeared again but not completely. He texted me a few times, once on my birthday, another during a heat wave in the city asking me if I wanted to grab drinks. I wasn’t available and he hadn’t really texted me since. I knew he was a phone call away, and he knew the same of me. Yet neither of us ever picked up the phone to call each other. I wasn’t sure why, but we were still giving each other space.

Well fuck it, I think. I call him and he picks up on the fourth ring.

“Y/N?”

“Hey, are you busy?”

“Uh no--hold up, wait. Not you...Sorry Y/N give me a second.”

I bite my lip, he could be at work, I should’ve texted him.

“Hey,” Harry’s tone is different now, softer and the background noises quiet to almost nothing. “Sorry it was so loud in there, we’re celebrating a birthday--Serena, the receptionist you remember?”

“Oh yeah,” I have a vague picture of her in my head. “Don’t let me keep you from the festivities-”

“Why did you call? S’no big deal, I’m not a big cake person anyway.”

“Ooh, cake? Eat a slice for me, I don’t get enough sweets living with a health nut...” I trail off realizing who I was talking to.

“I’ll save you one if you swing by?” Harry suggests after a beat of awkward silence. Another second passes as I consider what he’s asking: he wanted to see me.

“Uh, okay! You don’t have to ask me twice,” I grin, a strange bubble of excitement making it’s way through me. “My office is actually not too far from your station. I’ll walk it.”

“Your office? Where are you these days?” Harry asks as I slip my bag over my body and head out the door. I was exactly an 8 minute walk from his station--I’d mapped it when I found the place cheap online.

“I’m renting a whole office! It’s all very professional--I mean it’s like, one and a half rooms..oh and I have to share the toilets with the whole floor-”

“That’s good, so there’s no way you’ll be caught dead in there if you’re sharing it with the floor,” I hear the laugh in his voice.

“That’s a very insensitive thing to say,” I scold him.

“It’s been a year, c’mon Y/N.”

“We almost died!”

“We weren’t going to die. You’re alive right now!”

“Thanks to a really bad detective and a toilet seat,” I say and relish at the sound of Harry’s laugh on the other end of the line.

“That’s not how you thank someone who saved your life,” Harry finally says when he’s done laughing.

“You didn’t save my life, I was never going to die in the first place remember?”

“Touche,” he laughs. “Get over here faster, I want to see your face.”

“I’m trying!” I speed up. The background noise grows louder on his side again and he apologises. “S’alright. Anyway I just called cuz I had good news and nobody to share it with immediately.”

“Tell me.”

“Long story short, I started my own consulting firm! Finance advice--stuff like that, and I signed my first long-term contract! With an actual client not just for like, a project! I’m-” I squeal, I couldn’t help it. “It’s such a big deal for me I’ve been struggling just breaking ever since I started up.”

“Y/N I’m getting you the whole bloody cake for that,” Harry says. I finally turn the corner to his station, nearly jogging at this point.

“Only if Serena doesn’t mind.” I joke.

“In that dress, who would mind,” he says. I pause on the street, he could see me. I squint but he’s nowhere in sight. And then there, he steps out from the steps and waves. I don’t bother taming the smile on my face and neither does he.

“I see you Detective,” I shout.

“I saw you first!” He shouts.

In an instant we’re rushing towards each other, bodies crashing as I wrap my arms around his neck and squeeze hard. It felt like a reunion.

“How did we go this long without seeing each other,” I say when we pull apart. “I’ve actually missed you.” With the closure between us and no baggage weighing our memories down, I’d actually begun to feel nostalgic about Harry every time I thought about us--usually the friendship, not quite the marriage.

“I don’t know,” Harry pulls me close to him again. “I think we gave each other too much space this time around. We’ve got to find a better middleground.”

“I think we’re standing on it.” I joke.

“Hey, Styles!” A voice calls from the entrance. “Stop snogging your girl and come back in here. Serena’s wondering why you’re running away from her big day.”

“I’m not snogging anybody,” Harry calls back. “And I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Bring her with ya, we’ve got plenty of cake!”

Harry looks down at me and I raise an eyebrow. “You think they’ll let me have more than a slice?”

“I’m their commanding officer, I can tell them to let you have as many as you want.”

“Lead the way,” I grin, half excited to see Harry and half excited for the baked goods. Harry grabs my hand and leads me in. Unfortunately, enough people recognize me from the bank heist that Harry has to explain we’ve known each other for a while. Fortunately, enough people remember me to ply me with sweets to make up for Harry screwing up my case. I have zero complaints and celebrate the day with free cake.

H’s POV

My phone vibrates with Y/N’s text, she was here for lunch. Ever since she called me a couple weeks ago and we decided we couldn’t live without staying in contact, we tried to pop over for lunch whenever we could. It felt like old times. Being Y/N’s friend again was what I was missing out on. I was finally living the version of my life that felt right. I had a bounce in my step, I felt happy when I woke up. Even my officers teased me, trying to allude that I was getting some until I threatened them with paperwork. But I was brighter at work too.

I text Y/N that I would be a few minutes more, and when I finally go into the lobby to meet her she’s having a conversation with Serena.

“Man of the hour,” Serena says as I walk up. “Your girl’s here.”

“I can see that, thank you.” Serena insisted on calling Y/N that despite telling her multiple times we weren’t together.

“Serena was just telling me all the wild things she got up to for her sixty-fifth,” Y/N winks at Serena. I didn’t want to be part of that conversation so I drag her by the arm out of the station.

We walk in silence towards a small sandwich shop around the corner from us. I grab her swinging hand to catch her attention, and she gives me a small smile before turning away. But she keeps her hand in mine.

She’s unusually quiet, and I wait until after we’ve ordered to broach the subject. Before I could, she blurts out: “Alec's got to give his final answer today.” I nearly choke on my sandwich. She’s told me her predicament last week when I noticed she looked upset and wouldn’t let her be until she told me. I was gutted, but it didn’t seem like she wanted to go.

“I...that means, hm.” I gather my thoughts--and all my emotions too. “Have you decided if you’re...moving with him?”

“I dunno, this is an amazing job offer. I could be closer to my sister too but...I just don’t know. My life’s in London, my new practice too. How can I leave it all?”

“That’s tricky,” I say even though deep inside I was relieved it sounded like she wasn’t going. “Couldn’t you just move your practice there? Travel to London when you had meetings? You could always stay with me if you needed.”

She huffs, there was more she wanted to say but she keeps it in. I push her to open up. “It’s just, he sprang this on me a couple weeks ago and he just expected me to follow him. I love him, I do. But that’s asking a lot! It’s only been a year or so, and it’s nice to know he’s serious enough about me to want me to go with him. I just...”

“And we only just reconnected again,” I try to sound lighthearted but when she looks at me I can tell she knows I feel more than I’m letting on.

“Can you imagine?” She raises her eyebrow. “If I told him I’m staying because I just reconnected again with my ex...”

“Ex-husband makes us sound older than we are.”

“We are old,” she puts her sandwich down and sighs. “You wear orthopedic shoes Harry.”

“I won’t take offense to that,” I look down at my shoes. They were comfortable on the job. “So...I’m not factored into your decision at all? Whether you want to stay or not?”

I see the emotion in her eyes; she was conflicted. “I dunno,” she finally says.

“Don’t let me hold you back,” I say even though I wanted to beg her to stay. “You love him right? Maybe you should...”

She stares ahead, her face falling. I knew Y/N’s face before a cry, so I reach my hand out and clasp hers over the table. She squeezes my hand once before removing it, I felt like I did something wrong.

“Anyway,” her face brightens up again, though the look in her eyes stays. “I watched that new movie you recommended and it was awful...”

She changes the subject swiftly, and I don’t object. I didn’t know how to tell her to stay without being selfish, and I didn’t know how to tell her it was okay to go and act like I was telling her the truth.

But near the end of my shift, the evening receptionist buzzes me she was letting my girlfriend through. I don’t bother correcting her.

“Hey Y/N!” one of my officers calls out to her when she walks into the floor. “We’re all planning on throwing you a party.”

“For what?” She stops by his desk. I notice Detective Cole eyeing her, before joining in.

“He actually has a life now, he’s usually a lot more bossy with us.”

Y/N turns to me, eyebrow raised. “I’m afraid the party’s a little premature. But I’d never say no to cake.”

My heart sinks, she was going. I watch her walk towards me and she notices my expression, the smile is gone from her face by the time she reaches me.

“I told Alec I would try it out, 6 months. See how it goes...I can see my sister more often, help her out with my niece...” It sounds like she’s coming up with excuses to justify herself to me.

“That’s...” my words get stuck in my throat, the lie was too big to get out. “Your sister will love that.” I settle with. I take her hand and walk her out to a more private hallway. “When do you leave.”

“Two weeks,” she bites her lip. “I-I’m gonna miss you Harry. We just got into a flow and-”

“We’ll still talk.” I pull her in, I couldn’t bear to watch her face fall apart in front of me. And I didn’t want her to see my own face crumbling. I tuck her under my chin, “We’ve got phones, and you’ll be in London sometimes for work right? We won’t be like before, we’ll still talk.”

I know she can feel my heart racing, and I want her to know what she was doing to me because my mouth can’t seem to tell her. I hold her for a little longer, and when she goes, I know my unit won’t be throwing any parties for her in a while.

Three Months Later:

I’m in bum mode by 8pm that Friday. I’d had a long week, a tough case with no breaks and finally had an evening off so I changed into sweats the second I got home, taken a hot shower and washed the week off.

The knock on the door surprises me. The peephole doesn’t distinguish who’s outside, a hood covering their face. I decide to open the door, to find a teary Y/N hundreds of miles from home.

“Y/N-”

“I wanted you to tell me to stay.” she says to me immediately. Her tears continue dripping onto her cheeks. I stare in confusion, wondering for a moment if my lack of sleep had caused me to hallucinate her.

“Wha-”

“When I told you about the move...you told me I should go. I wanted you to tell me to stay Harry! I thought you would’ve told me to stay.”

I move aside silently, so we weren’t having a conversation where my neighbours could hear.

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“I don’t know!” she throws her bag, coat, and phone down on the floor in a heap. “You just were! I thought when I told you, you would say-”

“I didn’t want to tell you what to do with your life based on what I wanted! I thought I already established that!” Suddenly we’re arguing.

“You never had an issue before!”

“Well look where it lead us,” I move away from the door and back to where I was previously relaxing on the couch.

“A country apart!” She’s hot on my heels. “Didn’t you want me to stay?”

Some part of me is still completely confused what was going on, but Y/N’s fiery frustration overflows into my cup and an invisible force pours it down my throat.

“Yes. Yeah! Of course I wanted you to stay!”

“So why didn’t you say that?” She cries.

“I was trying not to be selfish!”

“Well you just pick the worst times to be selfish!”

“I never said I was good with my timing.” I mumble.

“Don’t treat me like-like some fragile porcelain Harry!” Y/N gets right into my face. “I’m not! I’m different, I’ve grown from that fragile place. I don’t need you walking on eggshells around me, I just want you to be honest!”

“When am I not honest?” I shout back.

“You haven’t been honest with me for months! Just say what you feel Harry, stop bloody holding back all the time! I just want the real you!”

“Fine!” I explode. “I love you Y/N! I love you so much it physically hurts me to be near you and not be able to hold you. I want to be able to kiss you like I used to, I want to go back in time and warn myself to get it right! I want to tell you how amazing you are and how sorry I am every day. I can’t! We’ve both got our own lives! I’m not being dishonest I just don’t want to fuck with your life again! I’ve accepted that I’m nothing more than an ex and your best friend!”

That stops her in her tracks. Her chest heaves as she swipes at her cheeks, and then she pushes her hands into my chest. I stumble but catch myself. She pushes me again, big tears rolling down her cheeks, and I stumble onto the couch. She turns and paces to the door and back.

“What are you even doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in Edinburgh?” I finally ask the question I should’ve asked the second I saw her.

“Sure,” she throws herself onto the seat next to me and buries her face in her hands. “I...I didn’t want to be there. I just had to leave, and I couldn’t stand my sister going on about what a catch Alec was. How I should feel lucky. I had to get away. I never should’ve left London...I just thought maybe Alec was my chance at a fresh happy future, and you told me to go so I thought you didn’t want me to stay. But I fucked up there too, and I just had to go. And I came here with nowhere else--I can’t even live in my own home for three more months...”

She trails off. It was a lot of information to process. I don’t know how long we stay on the couch like that, a foot apart in silence.

“Everyone I know will probably think I’m just an idiot for coming here of all places, but this was the only place that made sense because I--Harry I think I...” She glances at me. “I...”

“I know,” I say after she struggles to say what she wanted to say. But I knew.

“But I feel so guilty, I’m doing to him what you did to me...it’s not fair.”

I didn’t think about it like that, I realise. But this situation was more complicated than that, I tell her. We had history, she’d moved to a whole new country for him, he must know somewhere Y/N didn’t actually want to move. But the parallels between her situation and ours are clear as day. I don’t know what to say.

“Stay the night,” I put a hand on her thigh. She doesn’t move it off. “Get some sleep, when you wake up tomorrow, make your decision. You know how I feel...and you know how you feel.”

“You’re right,” she lays her hand on top of mine. I thread my fingers through hers and hold on. Her puppy eyes tear me apart, I want to gather her in my arms and kiss her misery away. But I don’t want to add to her guilt.

“Let me get you something to eat, you’re probably hungry.” holding her hand was getting painful. I leave her alone in the living room, so she could collect herself. If someone told Harry three years ago this was where I would end up, he would’ve laughed in their face.

Y POV:

I couldn’t believe I did that, I think as I sit on the 5 hour ride back to Edinburgh. I felt untethered yesterday, after arguing with Alec all week because I was just miserable when I wasn’t in London. My sister’s pressure to be happy with what I had, I felt like I had no one to turn to who would understand me. And that had driven me into Harry’s arms, the train ride there fueling my frustration and anger. It had accidentally exploded in Harry’s direction when I got to his place but I was glad for it. He’d told me how he felt. And it was complicated as hell for me but somewhere deep inside, I knew where this was leading.

When I get back home to a worried Alec, we sit down and have a hard conversation. It breaks my heart leaving him, but after one last night together I pack most of my things and head to my sisters. The irony isn’t lost of me, hers was exactly where I went to when Harry and I split.

My sister tries to be supportive but I by the time the three months are over, I feel suffocated with her overprotective nature, and the full house she lived in.

“You’re just going to do what you want to do aren’t you?” She asks the day she drops me back off to the station. I’d spent the rest of the three months at hers--I couldn’t go back home to my house anyway and something about going back to London for another man felt wrong. I’d seen Alec a few times in those months. The last time was last night, we’d shared a few drinks and maybe some kisses. But it was a final goodbye last night, heavy but final.

“I don’t want to be a bad person,” I say. “I just don’t want to feel stuck somewhere because I feel bad.”

“You’re not a bad person,” my sister brushes my hair behind my shoulder as she hugs me tight. “I love you. Mum would be so proud of you for following your heart, you always did play it too safe.”

“I guess my rebellious phase just came a little late.”

“Ever since you met that Harry guy, you quit your stable job and haven’t been the same since,” she wags her finger at me like a stern maternal figure. She breaks character when she laughs and hugs me again. “M’gonna miss having you here. The kids loved having their aunt around.”

“I’m sure they’re happier having their play room back.” I joke to cover up how sad I felt leaving them too. Even though most days felt like we were walking all over each other, it felt like growing up in our small childhood home again; a nice reset before I headed back to London.

The train ride goes by quickly, and I settle back into my home over the weekend, getting my furniture out of storage and cleaning up after the last tenants. I’d been gone only 6 months but the second I walked through the door, I knew I was home again.

Letting Harry know I was back makes me nervous so I put it off for the week. I show up at his flat the following Saturday, wringing my hands as I wait for him to answer. I didn’t even know if he was home.

“Y/N,” a shocked voice says as I turn to walk away. Harry studies me as I stand awkwardly in his hall. “You’re back.”

I hear what he doesn’t say: you never called me after you showed up three months ago. and what happened to you?

“Hey,” I brush past him into his flat, fiddling with my jacket as he locks the door. “I’m back in London.”

“I can see that.” He eyes me. “Alone?” He asks, and again I hear the words he doesn’t say.

“Alone,” I smile. “I just needed...time to figure things out. I’ve been staying with my sister.”

“Full house?” He says, knowing it before I had to say it.

“So full,” I laugh, and just like that everything is okay. He takes my jacket from me and hangs it in his closet, like he knew I was going to stay a while. “There were too many mornings when I woke up to my niece just staring at me, waiting for me to wake.”

“Aw, they must miss you now.”

“Yeah,” I follow him through to his living room. I remember the last time I was here, sort of embarrassing looking back. “I was missing London though. And...you.”

He looks up. “Are you-”

“Harry,” I swallow what I need to say. His gaze is laser-sharp and it’s slightly intimidating to admit something like this. I’d given my heart to him before, and here I was giving it again after I’d spent years healing from what he did to it. It felt right, but also foolish. I guess love would always feel a little foolish.

“Y/N,” he says after I don’t say anything.

“So,” I walk up to where he stands near the window, the afternoon sun illuminates his handsome face. I reach up to touch it, no longer able to keep my hands to myself when he was so close. My breath catches as he closes his eyes against my palm, his lashes casting shadows on his cheeks.

“Y/N,” he keeps his eyes closed, like I would disappear if he opened them.

“I’m finally home,” I tell him, feeling the familiar lump in my throat as my eyes tear up. He opens his eyes then, they’re also pooling with unshed tears. It makes me laugh; he arches a brow. “We’re both here, in each other’s arms finally and...we’re crying.”

“We’re not a very typical pair, are we?”

“Nothing typical about us.” I say and he chuckles, kissing my wrist. My heart stutters in my chest.

“You’re either crazy or just incredibly forgiving, giving me a second chance at this.” Harry says outright.

“It’s us I’m giving a second chance to,” I slide my hands up, locking them around his neck.

“D’you think we’ll get the timing right this time?” He whispers as he lowers his face.

“We better,” I keep my eyes on his mouth, the one I’ve thought about kissing for the last three months. And then, finally, his lips are on mine and I nearly cry out of relief having him in my arms. Harry, being my Harry again.

His hands clench the fabric around my waist as he pulls me closer to him, his lips leave mine and he kisses my cheek, my jaw, my temple, before he crushes me to him.

“Harry I-” I couldn’t breathe, but my strained voice gives that away and he lets me go. I’m surprised to see the tears now trailing down his face. “You’re crying,” I swipe at the fallen tears.

“I’m just so happy,” he takes my hands off his cheeks and clasps them against his chest. “Y/N I’ve only dreamed of this, I didn’t think the universe cared enough about me to let me have this reality.”

“You and your poetry,” I smile.

“I guess you’re my muse,” He pulls me back to him, this time in a sweeter kiss that lingers. Tears pool in my own eyes as my heart tries to process the enormity of emotions I was feeling. “C’mere, I just want to hold you.”

He leads me to the couch and I lay down next to him. We take in each other, face to face, the grins reflected on both of us is impossible to wipe off.

“I love you Y/N, to the sun and back.”

“Isn’t it the moon and back?” I ask.

“Sun’s further out,” he smiles like he was expecting the question. I laugh, he kisses the tip of my nose and pulls my leg over his, his arm snaking around my waist so I’m snug against him.

“What am I gonna do with you Styles,” I brush one of his curls back.

“You’ve got forever to figure that out,” he says simply. My heart races at the thought. We’d bungled the first round we spent together, but after all these years apart I had a feeling that we really would have forever this time around.

With all the emotions fluttering inside of me, all the baggage unpacked and out of sight, and Harry’s loving expression looking back at me; I believed in us.

1.5 Years Later (H’s POV):

The house is quiet when I get in--it was half past 11 and I knew Y/N was probably asleep. I texted her a couple hours ago I would be home soon but time had slipped away as I worked. I hoped she wasn’t upset.

I move stealthily through the hall, eventually making my way to our bedroom where she lays sleeping. She’d left the lamp on beside her, and I move around to her side so I can close it. I notice the open book beside her--she fell asleep while reading it again. I set it down on the drawers and tuck her hand into the covers, the subtle diamonds on her finger glows yellow under the soft lamp light. Just looking at the engagement ring sparks a rush of love for the woman before me.

Y/N had surprised me a couple months ago when she proposed to me. We’d were dating again for almost a year and a half--this time it really felt like we’d gotten the timing right on our relationship. We were happier and more in love than we’d ever been. During a candlelit dinner one night, she had pulled a chair up beside me and presented me with the ring and an ultimatum.

Apparently she’d noticed that I was always on edge--like I was waiting for her to realize that she didn’t actually forgive me for all the awful things I put her through. And she was right, but it wasn’t until she said it out loud that I realized it was an anxiety I had. I was waiting for her to realize she could do better than me--leave me the way I left her. But she proposed to show me she wasn’t going anywhere, and she showed me her own ring her father gave her--her mum’s ring. 

I was blown away by her observant love, again, how she knew me better than I knew myself. I reassured her I wasn’t going anywhere either, not now or ever. And we decided we didn’t want to set any dates, we were taking it slow. Being engaged was a promise and that was all for now. I wanted to live up to Y/N’s standard, give her and her family a reason to trust me again--not only would they kill me if I ever did anything to her, but I’m pretty sure my own family would kill me too. They were over the moon when they found out we were giving it another go.

“Harry?” Y/N mumbles as I slip under the covers a little while later.

“Sorry for coming home so late,” I whisper. “I got a bit carried away with the case.”

“What’s new,” she shifts to face me, the moonlight from the windows barely illuminating her face. “M’just glad you’re home.”

“Me too,” I pull her towards me. Home, it was this house we’d moved into last year. But mostly, it was this beautiful woman in my arms who opened her heart to me despite everything. I don’t know how I got so lucky. I tell her that.

“S’not luck,” she mumbles. “The universe--our stars are finally aligned.”

“My star was pretty dim, I’m surprised yours found it.” I tuck her hair behind her ear and kiss her temple. “You found it by luck.”

“No. Your star’s always burned the brightest in my universe,” she tucks her face into my neck. “Even when I didn’t want it to be, it was still noticeable.”

“You outshine me in every way in mine,” I lean away so I can hold her face close, resting my forehead on hers. “I love you so much.”

She smiles in the dark, and leaves a kiss on the corner of my mouth. “I love you, and I’d love you more if you came home on time.”

I chuckle, “I’ll try. Tomorrow.”

“Mhm,” she says sleepily. I’d let her sleep, I think as I pull her leg over mine and hold her against my chest. Even though I hated coming home by the time she was asleep, finding her in our little safe space, and being able to hold her close as we fell asleep was my favourite part of the day.

***

The day is nearly over but the paperwork on my desk says otherwise. I sigh and slump in my chair, this was the worst part of my job.

I begin filling it out, and I’m not even halfway through when the phone rings. Serena’s on the other line, “Styles, your patient fiancee is here for you. I don’t think she’s staying patient for long though.”

I tell her I’d be out, smiling as I put down the phone. Y/N was making sure I kept my word from last night, and I would. For her, I would get in extra early tomorrow just to be sure I had the evening with her tonight.

“So when do I get the invitation to the wedding?” I hear Serena say as I walk out to the lobby. She’s putting on her coat to leave and Y/N’s bundled up herself. “And then when do I get to see the mini Styles’? I better be around to see them!”

Not many would, but I notice the slight tension in Y/N’s shoulders at the sensitive topic. I step in.

“You’re worse than my mum,” I tell her. “And she’s actually going to be the grandmother.”

“We just want to see our babies’ babies before we bite the bullet!” Serena shrugs, walking out from behind the counter. “I’ll see you tomorrow Harry, Y/N it was lovely seeing you as always.”

We wave her off, and then I wrap my arm around Y/N and we walk out to my car.

“That’s the first question everyone continues to ask me,” Y/N says as we walk. “When the date is.”

“Does that bother you?” I check in.

“A little, but only because it leads to even more questions when I say we haven’t set a date.”

We get into the car, and I ask her the other question I wanted to know: “And the baby thing? Does that...bother you?”

She turns her body to look at me, tilting her head as she tries to read me. “It doesn’t...does it bother you?”

“No,” I say honestly. “I’m happy where we are. All that stuff can...come after. I’m just-I’m happy with you.”

“Good talk then,” she grins. I can’t help but lean over for a kiss then.

“Well I don’t mind the baby making part,” I tell her. “But I think the actual babies can wait.”

She pushes me away as her cheeks flush like we hadn’t been dating and married and dating again for over ten years. “Sometimes I think you’ve just got one thing on your mind.”

“Yeah,” I say as I start the car. “That’s you.”

“Is that what distracted you so bad when you were working on my case? Because you were totally distracted and we almost died-”

“We were never going to die!” I say over her--this was a common topic of conversation between us.

“I was going to bleed out and die!” She tries to speak over me.

“Oh now you were going to bleed out? You were never dying!” I shout even louder. And we keep going for most of the way home until Y/N catches sight of a dog at a crosswalk and begins to coo at it through the window.

“Maybe we should get a dog,” she starts on another of our reoccurring topics. I sigh, ready to launch into why we should wait. And that’s how the rest of the ride home goes. Not that I minded, I could discuss the same topics with her over and over for eternity.

“You’re just threatened by a dog,” Y/N continues as we park and head up to our front door. “Because then my love would be split between both of you.”

“Yeah sure, that’s it.” I roll my eyes at her silly reasoning. But I still grab her hand in mine and kiss it as we walk in. My stomach flutters when she gazes at me as the door closes behind her.

“I’m going to wear you down soon,” she says as she takes my coat from me. I take them both out of her hands and leave them in a heap on the staircase, kissing her so she stops talking. She smiles against my lips, knowing that she was wearing me down, and I’d give her anything she asked for. Anything to make her happy. I loved her infinitely.

[bookwyrminspiration]

Do you think that anyone is going to die in Book 9? We haven't had a death in a while from the "good guys." (I believe the last one was Forkle 1) The only people I can think of could die would be Dex, Linh, (Maybe that explains the short POV), or maybe Amy. idk, I feel like Sophie is gonna have a hard time in the next book, with the way that the last book left off. But, Shannon might not have time, so I have no idea.

[Image: Screenshot of an anonymous ask. In all caps, it reads: "Sandor will most definitely die at the end of the series I don't want him too but ive been going thru the books and there is so much evidence it will happen." End description.]

I hope you two don't mind me combining these asks, they're just so similar and my thoughts cover both of them!! Because Sandor dying is one of the one's I feel is most plausible in the coming books, rather than talking about it in two different places it's easier to mesh both your asks!

The last death we had was, you're right, Mr. Forkle in Lodestar, but that was in book five and we're coming up on nine, so it's been a considerable length of time. It doesn't feel like we can keep going at this rate and have everyone consistently come out alive at the end of the day. You know all those kids games like Pie Face and Don't Break the Ice? it's like that. the longer things go on, the more the anxiety build because with each passing turn, the game gets more risky and you have a lower chance of escaping unharmed. In the same way, we've been moving along without incident through the series and we're just waiting for everything to blow up in our faces.

First, I'll discuss a few of the characters the first ask brought up! Dex is an interesting one; I could see there being an aspect of "he could only cheat death once" in reference to the time he was presumed dead. I think his death, based on how he's incorporated into the story right now, would serve as a way to make Sophie feel guilty and responsible because she wasn't paying enough attention to him. I don't think it would be a satisfying conclusion to his story, though. There's an element in writing when a character dies, generally you want it to be because it's an appropriate ending to that characters journey and story, a culmination of their triumphs and losses and their past. We had this in a sense with the first Forkle because all his accomplishments had led to a meeting with the leaders of the world alongside Sophie, and he had gone down protecting someone else and the future, and while part of that was for its impact on Sophie is does make enough sense with his character to be satisfying. I don't think we're quite there with Dex yet, so maybe it would take more of an approach of those sudden deaths that are meant to show that life isn't a story, that sometimes people die for no reason and you can't do anything about it. But enough about Dex, onto Linh!

Same as Sandor, who I'll talk about later, I think Linh might be more plausible as far as going down protecting her friends. We've seen in Neverseen and Nightfall that she has no problem going past some of her physical limits to ensure the safety of others, so I could see a scene where things are getting intense but she just keeps pushing herself further and further past the edge, just promising herself she'll hold on a little longer, just a little longer for her friends because they're counting on her. I think it'd be the kind of death where no one realizes what's happening to her until it's too late and she's given all she can give. Everyone would be so caught up in the fighting and just trying to survive that they wouldn't realize until a few moments later that no one can find Linh, that she hasn't said a word. I don't think she'd give any sort of final words goodbye, she'd just show her love for the people she surrounded herself with through her actions.

Amy I'm personally a little iffy on, just because we've already had so much drama with Sophie's human family that it might feel like "seriously?? you can't give them a break?" Sophie had to loose her human family, endure them being taken and tortured, then loose them again. Adding Amy's death on top of all that seems a little too close to older events to have the dramatic effect Shannon would want. There's also the matter of her being very disconnected from the elven world and all the drama, so there'd need to be a lot more connection back to her in the next book for this to be something more plausible. But! not completely off the table!

that's not to say all of these are completely improbably and can't happen at all, just that I think there might be some better options for deaths that would have a better effect on the story! But I do like all your suggestions and there's a lot I could talk about for each of them individually!!

So now, onto Sandor. Personally, he's one of the characters I can see dying the most believably. and the reason the second ask found "so much evidence it will happen" is likely because Shannon has literally admitted to planning to kill him off in every book since he's been introduced! I don't remember where exactly she said this, but I do know she shared this lovely bit of information a year or two ago. So not only have there been plans to kill him, there have been hints of those plans throughout the series.

some of my reasoning: he's a bodyguard; his line of work is literally in physical combat and protection, opening him up to a lot more opportunity for injury and disaster. I mean, he's already fallen off a cliff, and that was when he wasn't as emotionally invested in Sophie as he is now. On top of that, both Sophie and the fandom have gotten attached to him--he's been here even longer than Tam and Linh. So it would have that emotional impact and guilt from Sophie that Shannon would want to show us, same as it would have with Dex. The difference here for me, though, is that Sandor's death would be a better ending to his story than Dex's would (not that it was a bad suggestion! there's just a lot to it). In the same way I suggest Linh die protecting her friends, I think Sandor would die protecting Sophie. I simply have trouble imagining there's a more believable way for him to die.

He's been protecting her and getting hurt in her place for so long, I think it would be fitting for him to be doing the same thing he always does, but this time it's just...a little too much. A little too late. A little too bad. I think he'd be the kind to have a few final words instead of Linh, to thank Sophie for his time with her and to remind her that it isn't her fault. The little things like that.

and then jumping back to the first ask to round this out: I think we've had enough time and build up throughout the past eight and a half books that even if number nine is the last one in the series, Sandor could be killed and there would be enough time to figure all that out. he doesn't have a bunch of weird background stuff going on like Kenric or Forkle did that would draw out his death over several books, so I personally think Sandor specifically could be killed in the next book and it would make sense timing wise. All the others feel a little different though, so depending on who Shannon wants to kill, whether or not it would work out would change.

Those are just a few of my thoughts on death in the keeper universe! I don't know if it's possible to keep going and have everyone survive, but the tension has been mounting and we know Shannon is okay killing characters so there's a lot to take into consideration!

[astronomical-bagel]

Invitation to ramble about any of your stories I wanna hear abt them

(i put this under the cut bc its so LONG ahaha i like rambling if you couldnt tell sjsj)

AA SBFSJF THANK YOU 🥺🥺🥺 umm umm ummmm lemme thinkk i have so many ahaha

OH!!! there's this one ive been workign on since like. october. ive been calling it Soliloquy in my head and its the first hermitcraft/last life/anything related fic that i ever started workign on. I stopped writing it in novemebr bc i wanted to focus on shorter stories for nano but i picked it up again in december and aaaaaa im so excited for this omg its actually looking like the first installent will be done soon

okay because i dont care about spoilers i will be talking about spoilers now lol. also warning discussion of cannon suicide. anyways its a third life fic and starts during the Final Showdown w desert duo. except grian doesnt fling himself off the ledge after killing scar bc i had this thought where all the fics where it does eventually end in his suicide are really nice but also i wanted to explore what it would be like if he decided not to give in to the voices. Anyways he wanders off and is liek dissasociating out of his mind bc like. shock and all that and then he finds a little half-starved llama in the grass and :wails: here wait ill just show you a screenshot

WAILS. I JUST RLLY THINK GRIAN COULD BE GOOD W ANIMALS IF HE WANTED TO BE OKAY.

ANYWAYS its starts turning nighttime and theres this whole segment of him trying to get to safety (tango's base for Reason which you will find out later) and in it theres like weird things happening that he's too busy running for his life to question. like creepers exploding just out of reach and skeletons shooting at nothign and a lot of crazy coincenced and YOU KNOW WHY?? major spoilers here THE WHOLE GHOST GANG IS PROTECTING HIM. ISNT THAT FUCKING SWEET. and it isnt just grians old allies its like, ren and cleo and bdubs and some of them are just pretending they like fucking with the mobs BUT THEY ALL REALLY KNOW THAT THEYRE PROTECTING HIM LIKE. COME ON. Anyways none of that is shown in the first installment because the second installment will be from THEIR pov and. god im so excited.

and then grian makes it to safety and the reason its in tangos base is 100% becuase of the COWSSSSSSSSSS i really really really like cows if you couldnt tell. Grian takes cares of the cows and milks them bc dairy cows need to be milked or it could literally kill them lol and then he plays with the little baby cows and 🥺🥺 ITS LITERALLY SO CUTE and AAAAAAAA

and there's obviously like other things in it but tbh im more focused on the ghosts reaction's to what he does. he has a flashback and has a panic attack bc of it so the ghosts bring out Pizza to help calm him down. its a bit hard considering that theyre ghosts but they manage lol. and then the next day grian leaves tangos base and wanders over to monopoly moutain and he buries scar and its rllys sad BUT also rlly fruity bc as sign of. idk respect or whatever grian swaps his and scars life indicators and literally all the ghosts are like 👀👀👀 at scar BC THATS RLLY FRUITY BRO and basically the first/second installment ends on a rlly hopeful note like idk "he will try to live again" or whatever the fuck im just excited for the next installmetns bc i have the WHOLLLEEE plot figured out shshshs im SOOOO excited

anyways thank you for asking me to ramble i LOVE spoiling my fics to other people <33 also sorry this is kinda incoherent its kinda late rn

[heartofsnark]

This Is Love (Chapter Twelve): Evil Comes In Disguise

Notes: This one is shorter than others but it felt like it took me so much longer, I blame Cyberpunk 2077 for stealing my one braincell for a while. Also, I have a tendency that the longer it takes me to write something, the more insecure I feel about it, so I ended up cutting this chapter a bit shorter than I originally intended. But I think it works and I hope you enjoy!~

Word Count: 8686

Chapter Warnings: Talk of physical assault, hospitals, POV switches, Joseph visions, me trying to write police investigations/interrogations to minimal success and struggling to write Jerome for the first time properly. 

For chapter one and the warnings about this fic’s overarching themes, please click here!

For the previous chapter; click here!

And the clock ticks and ticks and ticks and ticks. Every second feels like an eternity. Every moment of silence seeming to stretch on for hours. Her nerves fray with each one, worry blooming like a flower in her chest. The tension palpable as the three deputies and Sheriff wait to hear what will become of the town pastor. Dahlia’s mouth starts running before she can stop it; to distract herself or her distraught friends, she doesn’t know. 

“How long have you all known Pastor Jerome?” 

“Oh, Jerome’s been in Hope for…fifteen years or so,” Whitehorse tells her, thinking a minute over the exact timeline. 

“He took over the Falls End church when I was thirteen,” Hudson adds, “so yeah, fifteen years.” 

“Wow,” Dahlia can’t help but exclaim, astounded by just how long they’ve all known the pastor, he’s been with the county for more than half of Hudson and Pratt’s lives. 

“St-,” Pratt swallows his words then starts again, stuttering, “still remember my mom making me give my first confession to him…I was terrified I was gonna go to hell, get kicked out of church, break my mom’s heart.” 

“What did you do?” 

“His mom caught him looking at porno mags,” Hudson rats him out, laughing. Whitehorse cracking a smile and Dahlia snickering. 

“I was eleven, shut up,” he tries to defend himself through his own laughter, “yeah, Jerome thought it was funny too, told me everything was okay and then it was.” 

Rook can just imagine it, Pratt as a kid, terrified that god’s going to smote him for looking at a tit. There’s a bittersweet quality to the four smiling and laughing at the memory; the anxiety and fear still looming but it’s a little easier to breathe. The weight crushing down on them is a little lighter than it was before. 

“If he makes it out of this, we need to go back to church,” Hudson tells Pratt after a beat of silence. 

“We do, don’t we?” 

“Officers?” A man in a doctor’s coat calls out to them, the same one who stitched her head back together before. 

“Is he okay?” 

“We stabilized him; we got the bleeding under control and it looks like we won’t have to transfer him after all, he should be fine to recover here. We’re still monitoring him, but things are looking up.” 

There’s a sigh of relief; maybe just from Whitehorse, maybe from all of them. She can’t even tell. Things are looking up, Jerome is likely to live and none of them will lose someone who clearly means so much to them. 

“What exactly is it that happened, doctor?” 

“Someone out in the valley called 911; the heard scratching at the door and when they looked he was collapsed on their front step. That’s all we know at this point, but as I told you, this was clearly an assault. The bruises, the bleeding, it all matches with brute force assault and with the severity we do believe it was multiple people who attacked him.” 

“Who the fuck would wanna hurt Jerome?” Hudson asks, more to herself than anyone else. 

“You’re all free to stay in his room, so you can question him when he wakes up, but I don’t know how reliable his memory will be with what he’s been through.” 

“Thank you, doctor.” 

 The four go into the hospital room and Dahlia clenches her jaw when she sees him. Bruises mottle and color the friendly face she’s seen around the county; a myriad of red and purples across him. One eye swollen, stitches and bandages in places where the skin broke. They were trying to kill him; that’s all Dahlia can think. This was an attempted murder, his body is hidden under a hospital gown and blankets, but she can see from his arms that the damage extends over his body. A IV gives him a steady drip of fluids to keep him stable, a heart and oxygen monitor letting the staff know he’s staying that way. 

“Jesus fuck…” Pratt whispers under his breath. 

Hospital coffee and more stories of the pastor pass the time as the four settle in; the time Jerome comforted an emotional fourteen year old Hudson when she spilled communion grape juice on her white dress. Whitehorse talks about how often he’s visited the church to talk with Jerome. 

Hours pass of the four talking, Dahlia downing five or more paper cups of coffee across the time. And then a cough sound rings out, a shift of fabric, the pastor slowly waking up. Whitehorse calls out for the nurses; the deputies shifting in their seats as he comes to. 

The nurses flood in, checking on Jerome’s vitals, ensuring he can comfortably sit up in his bed. He’s an older man, not as old as Whitehorse, but probably as old as Jacob or Joseph. Mid to late forties. With short dark textured hair and a dark beard.

“What the hell happened?” Whitehorse asks when the nurses are done checking on the Pastor. 

“John Seed,” The pastor begins, and Dahlia clenches her jaw, “he and members of Eden’s Gate kidnapped me, he tried to force a confession from me and when I didn’t comply; they beat me and left me in the woods. I tried to get help the best way I knew how, but I passed out before I could speak to anyone.” 

Dahlia doesn’t have time to think, to ruminate on what this means, what might be going on; Whitehorse telling her to grab the evidence collection kit he brought in. There’s not much to be collected, but their best bet of getting any conclusive evidence is swabbing Jerome’s fingernails. There’s nothing to get fingerprints off of, no weapon, no duct tape, no bindings. No bodily fluids exchanged, thankfully for Jerome’s sake. But, if he fought back, grabbed at his attackers, there’s a chance the blood under his fingernails could belong to them. That he managed to gouge their skin deep enough to leave a trace. 

“Sorry, this might hurt a bit,” Dahlia gives a gentle warning when she sees the broken and bloodied state of his nails, gently swabbing blood from under them, making sure to collect from each finger before dropping it into a vile. 

“I think I’ll make it,” he manages to say, a slightly dry laugh, his voice deep and resonant.

“I know you will, but still don’t wanna add to it.” 

“Jerome, you said John Seed, did you recognize anyone else?” 

“Lonny, Theodore, and Patrick were the only ones I know I saw…The way John talked he was doing it because of Joseph, that he ordered it… Eden’s Gate is getting worse every day.” 

“Don’t worry, Jerome, we’re gonna do everything we can, Hudson, take the sample back to the station to see if we can match it to anything already in our database.  Pratt, Rook, want you to start pulling the peggies in for questioning and getting DNA. Start with Lonny Stevenson, Theodore Rossi, and Patrick Michaelson. No arrests, not yet, just questioning. We’ll handle the Seeds later, alright?” 

“Understood.” 

There’s a heavy tension in the cruiser as Pratt and Dahlia climb into it. Jerome is alive,  there’s a weight to what he’s told them and to their duty to get justice for him. Pratt’s knuckles are white as he grips the steering wheel, jaw clenched, and shoulders wrought with tension. Pastor Jerome has been an important figure in his life. She can’t imagine how hard this must be for him. She thinks of how much worse she might feel if it were Lloyd or Whitehorse in that hospital bed, someone she were close to. Dahlia squeezes Pratt’s shoulder as they drive, hoping her empathy shows through the touch. Even as strangers, her stomach is in knots, though it may be because of her…connection to the accused. 

Despite their constant encroachment on boundaries, stepping on the line but never quite over it, Dahlia had maintained her hope that the Seeds and their flock were good at their core. That’s why she turned Cassie into their hands, but everyday there’s something new. And this is the worst yet. If they’ve truly done this, if they’re ordering full out assaults on people, that does a lot more than just cross the line. 

One of their three main suspects, outside of the two youngest Seed brothers, works at the Green-Busch Fertilizer Plant, an Eden’s Gate owned business. And for possibly the first time since she began working in Hope County, Dahlia is the one leading the charge as they get out of the cruiser, Pratt not trusting his own voice. 

“Patrick Michaelson,” she calls out and a man steps out, “we need to have a word with you down at the station.” 

He’s generic by Eden’s Gate standards, too long hair and a scraggly beard. His arms are covered, so she can’t check for scratches or bruises along them. 

“I in any trouble, deputies?” 

“Just need to ask some questions; Theodore Rossi or Lonny Stevenson here? We need a word with them as well.” 

“No, but I could ring ‘em for you?” 

“We’ll chat first, then you can call them from the station, alright?” 

“Whatever you say, officers.” 

The last thing she wants is for them to have a chance to put together a story and alibi before they start questioning them. They allow Patrick into the back of the cruiser, he seems to be maintaining his cool. And the tension in the car only strengthens as they take him back to the station. Dahlia watches him in the mirror along the way, waiting for some sign of anything to peek through, for a sleeve to ride up and to see scratches from Jerome’s nails, something. But nothing of the sort happens. 

Dahlia has never actually had to interrogate or question anyone, she realizes once they’re at the station and having Patrick take a seat. She doubts he’ll give them much information. If he’s innocent, he won’t have anything of interest to tell. If he’s guilty, he won’t want to tell them much of anything. Getting a DNA sample is what’s going to be the most important thing, if they get some conclusive evidence, something that links one of the Eden’s Gate members to Jerome’s assault the rest will come much easier. 

“Coffee?” She offers, as she pours black coffee into three paper cups.

Patrick murmurs a small thanks before he drinks from the cup before they start asking him questions. Hours pass of trying to ask the same questions in slightly different ways or tones. Dahlia trying to stay friendlier in her tone while Pratt is terser, due to his personal connection. But getting more than a ‘I was at home, last night,’ is like trying to get blood from a turnip. He refuses to give a DNA sample as well. 

“We about done here?” Patrick asks with a hint of annoyance in his voice. 

“Fine,” Pratt grumbles, “I’ll walk you out and you can ring Lonny and Theodore for us.” 

Dahlia taps her fingers against the table as the two men walk out, breathing a sigh of relief when Patrick leaves his coffee cup. It takes a few minutes and then Pratt comes back, he collapses into his chair and groans, she can feel the stress radiating off of him. 

“Well, that was a waste of fucking time,” he grumbles. 

“How you figure?” 

“How you figure anything else?’ He looks at her incredulously, like she’s grown a second head and breathed fire. 

“Left his cup,” Dahlia pokes at the little Styrofoam cup, “our property, we wanna swab it for DNA, our business and don’t need anyone’s consent for it.” 

“I’ll run it down to evidence, you brew another pot for the next two.” 

“On it.” 

Pratt runs that down, the cup bagged and labeled with Patrick’s name, she’s sure. Lonny and Theodore aren’t far behind. And their questioning goes much the same. They don’t give particularly direct answers and refuse to give DNA samples. Theodore avoids talking as much as he can, mostly opting to glare at the deputies after his first insistence that he has no idea why he’s here and has no obligation or desire to talk. But, he does at some point break his sourpuss expression to take a drink of coffee. Lonny is cockier, more aggressive, making snide comments but he drinks coffee at some point too; so that’s all that matters.

By the end of it all, three cups are sent down to evidence to be swabbed for DNA to be tested against the DNA found under Jerome’s fingernails. If it’s from any of them, they’ll know by hopefully the end of the day. Evidence based cases are rare around here, so the forensic team stated they can fast track it, hopefully

Pratt and Dahlia rest in the bullpen office, Hudson joining them. There’s a somber air to the entire office. Hudson’s leg bounces with nervous or angry energy, Dahlia isn’t sure which. Meanwhile, Pratt is wringing his hands until the skin rubs raw. Their worry is palpable as they wait for either more information or direction. The oppressive silence has started to weigh on Dahlia’s shoulders, she’s tapping her fingers against a table. 

“You know,” Dahlia says after too long, “you guys can go see Jerome if you want, I’ll call if any info comes in.” 

She knows they’re worried about him and want to be there to check on him. There’s no reason for them to sit here and suffer when she can just let them know when the analysis comes in. 

“We’re not gonna leave you to man the station by yourself,” Pratt dismisses her out of hand, as if the idea that she can be left alone is ridiculous. 

“I think I can manage for an evening, anything happens, I know how to reach you all.” 

“I’m going,” Hudson declares, “I trust Rook and I’m driving myself crazy here.” 

“Thank you, Hudson…” Dahlia says with soft smile, Hudson actually trusts her and isn’t acting like she’s a child. 

“You coming?” Hudson asks Pratt, looking at him expectantly. 

“I’m not leaving Rook here alone.” 

“I’m an adult, you know that, right?” 

“If Eden’s Gate was willing to attack Jerome, who knows what else they’ll do. And you’re already on their radar, were before this.” 

“What, you think they’re gonna storm the station?” 

“Who knows anymore.” 

“I don’t have time to listen to you two bicker, I’m leaving,” Hudson tells them before walking out of the station. 

Dahlia chews her lip once she’s left with Pratt. This is already a stressful day and not the time to let her wounded ego guide her behavior. But it is wounded. She’s not a child, young sure, but not a child and by no means incapable. Pratt has been coddling her and trying to limit what she does since the beginning of her job, she thought it was lessening, but… Does Pratt seriously not think she’s competent enough to be left alone for a few hours? Is she that unreliable? Incapable? Does he think that little of her? 

She doesn’t lend a voice to these insecurities or anger; not the time or place. 

“Don’t pout,” Pratt says after a few minutes.

“I’m not.” 

“You are, I can physically see you pouting.” 

“Even if I was, it’s not important.” 

“Seriously, Rook? You wanna be a brat right now?” 

“Seriously, Pratt? You wanna be a patronizing dick right now!?” Her voice is harsher than she intended. 

“Deputies?” A voice calls out, one of the workers in their piddly little forensic department poking their head into the open office. 

“Yeah?” 

“We got a match for the DNA found under Jerome’s fingernails.” 

“Who’s our guy?” 

“Patrick’s matched, we couldn’t find any traces of Lonny or Theodore’s.”

“I’ll call Whitehorse,” Pratt says before getting out his cellphone, “figure out what we’re doing next.” 

Dahlia only nods, not trusting herself after her outburst. Her fingers still tap tapping against a desk as Pratt speaks to the sheriff. She can only hear Pratt’s side of the conversation as he explains what they were just told and agrees to whatever Whitehorse is telling him, before he hangs up. 

“So, what’s our next move?” Dahlia asks, voice cracking more than she’d like. 

“Arresting Patrick and questioning the Seeds. He wants a lighter touch with John and Joseph, his words, not mine.” 

“Lighter touch meaning…?” 

“They can be questioned together if they want, given a day and the chance to come in on their own terms. Whitehorse doesn’t want us ruffling their feathers unless we get something conclusive on them.’ 

“I’ll never get why he wants to walk on eggshells around them.” 

“Because they’re nuts and got a good hundred or more people who’ll fight for them.” 

Dahlia shrugs, she gets that, she guesses. But its still hard for her to wrap her head around that the men she’s met could order an assault on someone else. A part of her is still holding onto the hope that Patrick just acted on his own, that John and Joseph had no idea. But, Jerome says John was there. And John’s not exactly a face he could confuse with someone else… 

“C’mon, let's go get Patrick.” 

He’s at his house at this late hour, knocking in the door of his little farmhouse. Patrick answers the door, face souring the moment he sees the officer. His lips are sealed, not speaking a word to the deputies as they read him his rights and bring him into the station. He refuses to speak for a long while, even as they book him and try to ask him a few more questions. 

“I wanna call my lawyer.” Is all he says after an entirely too long drag of silence. 

“John, your lawyer?” Pratt asks. 

“What of it?’ 

“We need to have a chat with him too,” Dahlia informs him, “so we’ll be happy to call him for you.” 

“Fine.” 

Dahlia stretches out her back as her and Pratt leave the interrogation room, this day has been her longest yet, but they seem to be getting somewhere. She looks over to Pratt. 

“Want me to call up John or you wanna do the honor?” 

“I will, they like you too much.” 

“Have zero idea what you mean by that, but alright.” 

Pratt grabs the station phone and rings up John’s number. Dahlia chews her fingernails as she waits, biting away at them and chipping her nail polish in the process. When she runs out of nail that goes past her fingertips, she chews at the skin. Mind racing as Pratt talks to John, she feels like her thoughts and feelings are tearing into two directions. What she wants to be true and what evidence supports. The older deputy hangs up the phone and Dahlia looks up at Pratt expectantly. 

“John says him and Joseph can be here in a few hours, chances are Jacob will be with them.” 

“What makes you say that?” 

“Anytime either of them have been questioned, Jacob’s there, just to look mean I guess.” 

She nods, thinking of what she read so far in the Book of Joseph, of the abuse in the Seed family. It doesn’t shock her at all that Jacob has a protective streak, that he wouldn’t want his younger brother’s far out of sight. She does find herself wondering why Faith isn’t following alongside her siblings as well. Her fellow deputies didn’t seem to know much of her at all, Hudson not even knowing what she looks like. Hell, the youngest sister hasn’t even been mentioned yet in the Book of Joseph. Though given the hefty age difference, perhaps she wasn’t born yet during the memory Joseph chose to open it with? 

Dahlia takes a seat while they wait for the Seed brothers, graciously accepting the cup of coffee that Pratt offers her. Her leg taps as she drinks at it, listening to the clock tick away as she waits for the Seeds. Her fellow deputy sits next to her and she can tell the day has been wearing on him. She doesn’t know why, what it is that pushes the impulse forward, but she thumps her head onto his shoulder. A soft form of contact, comfort, whether it’s an offering to him or a selfish desire of her own, she isn’t sure. 

But Pratt responds by leaning his head towards her, over top of her own. His hair tickling at her skin and his scruff scratching at her skin. She can’t help but smile and press in a little closer, just appreciating his presence in this quiet moment after such a drawn-out day. 

“Shit!” 

Pratt’s sudden yell jolts Dahlia awake, her skull knocking against his. She blinks sleep from her eyes, when did she even drift off? How long was she sleeping against his shoulder? Her hands and the bottom of her jeans are wet; the cup of coffee and it’s contents now on the floor as well as her shoes. 

“Fuck,” she curses under her breath, she must have dropped it when she fell asleep, “sorry.” 

Dahlia goes and gathers up paper towels, cleaning up the mess. She didn’t even realize she was that tired. 

“Don’t sweat it, shit has been crazy around here lately, I nearly dozed off myself.” 

“You telling me this ain’t typical.” 

“God, no, county’s usually more boring than watching paint dry. Lately, feels like county’s gone nuts.” 

“Eh,  I prefer the crazy, keeps things interesting at least.”

“Deputies,” the on shift desk worker pops their head into the room, “the Seed brothers are here.” 

“We’ll be there in a second.” 

Dahlia finishes cleaning up the mess and sighs, that weight back on her shoulders. It’s way past their usual shift hours and the day as a whole has been a lot. But they may finally be getting to the root of what happened. They’re getting some justice for Jerome, Patrick is a damn near guaranteed arrest. They just need to get to the bottom of John and Joseph’s involvement. She took this job to help people and that’s what she’s doing, Jerome has a right to feel safe in this county and as much as she hopes the Seeds are good, if they’re hurting others, it needs to be shut down and now. 

Mess cleaned; Dahlia and Pratt go out to the waiting room to greet the Seeds. John and Joseph look relatively cleaned up. Though John always looks some version of prim and proper. She’s positive she’s never seen the youngest sibling in a shirt that wasn’t a collard button up and she’s certainly never seen his hair in any state other than slicked back. His shirt of choice today is purple, no vest or trench coat, just the buttons left undone to show the sin marked across his chest and the sleeves rolled up to show the tattoos across his forearms. 

Joseph is wearing a shirt which is an accomplishment for him, a stiff white button up done up to his throat and a black blazer over it, nearly overkill in the heat of August. Perhaps he only wears clothing in extremes, either half naked or completely covered. His greasy dark hair is pulled back as usual and despite the late hour, his yellow aviators are on. 

And then there’s Jacob, black tee and jeans with his typical camo shirt tied around his waist. Dog tags, key, and rabbit’s foot hanging from a chain around his neck as they always do. 

They’re superficial observations, what the brothers wear, but she can’t help but take in the stark contrasts of the brothers. Joseph trying to look more put together and less crazy, John in that same state but every day, and Jacob genuinely not seeming to give any sort of a fuck. 

“Deputies,” John is the one to greet them, grinning and Dahlia folds her hands behind her back, trying to still her body and straighten her back to present a confident front. 

“John,” Pratt returns the acknowledgement with a nod, “I-“

“It seems you have one of our flock members contained on the bas-“  John cuts off Pratt. 

“We actually would rather speak with you and Joseph before we discuss that case,” Dahlia cuts the youngest brother off in turn, not letting him dominate the conversation or set the tone for this. 

“Is that so?” 

“Yes, I assume, you’re both comfortable with answering some questions for us?” She cocks her head to the side, trying to stay nonthreatening, not that her five feet of being could ever be threatening. 

“Of course, that would be no problem at all,” Joseph is the one to speak next, giving her a smile, eyes soft despite the circumstances. 

“Actually,” Pratt cuts in, a twitch in his jaw, “I’ll be asking those questions alone.” 

“You’ll what?” Dahlia levels a glare at her partner, ready to throw him through a window, but unable to do so. He’s pushing it, he keeps pushing it. 

“I think it’ll be best if I conduct the interrogation alone.” 

“Oh, do you?” 

“You girls need a minute, or can we get this shitshow on the road,” Jacob says, the deep rasp of his voice cutting through the spat. And she doesn’t miss the clench in Pratt’s jaw at the emasculating choice of words. 

“Come on back; sorry for the trouble,” Dahlia says, a tight lipped smile as she leads the Seed brothers to the interrogation room. She’ll deal with Pratt and his overprotective bullshit later. It’s a quick walk down the hall and she politely opens the doors for them, she thinks she sees Jacob rolling his eyes. 

“Go ahead and take a seat, we’ll be just a moment,” Dahlia tells them, giving a small nod when Joseph thanks her. She lets the door shut behind the Seeds and turns her gaze back on Pratt. 

“Rook-”

“What the actual fuck, Pratt?” She keeps her voice low, but her tone is terse, how could he try to strong arm her out of the interrogation. 

“Look, you’ve spent a lot of time with them, regardless of if you’ve wanted too or not. They’re fixated on you and you’re just too close to them to be interrogating them.” 

“You’ve known them longer than me! You’ve known them for years! This is a rural county, it’d take me longer to meet all the cows here than it would the people!” 

She wants to wring his neck, he’s entirely too protective of her and for no real reason. More now than ever she realizes she made the right call not telling anyone about the mute “angel” Eden’s Gate member who swung on her or the vandalism of her trailer. Pratt already barely wants to let her handle ticketing people and now he doesn’t want her interrogating suspects. It’s ridiculous. She’s a grown adult woman, she needs to be allowed to do her fucking job. 

Dahlia is done listening to this nonsense, she decides, and makes a beeline back to the interrogation room. Pratt isn’t going to stop her from doing her damn job. She opens the door, her coworker trailing behind her, as she steps into the interrogation room.

The Seed brothers are sat at the table. Jacob’s legs open wide, sat relaxed in his chair, completely disinterested by most appearances but he still watches the deputies from the corner of his eye. She’s reminded of a predator lulling prey into a false sense of security before it strikes. 

Joseph sits between his elder and younger sibling. His elbows on the table, hands politely folded, not a hint of anxiety in him either. Seemingly calm, but his gaze is intense on the young deputy as she enters, never straying away from her.  He never looks over at Pratt, the other deputy’s warning that they’re fixated on her ring through her mind. 

John is sitting back in his chair and his gaze is just as intense, but there’s more manic energy behind it. In him in general. Perhaps he’d look calmer, more serene like his brothers, if not for the constant bouncing of his leg, the movement starting to  shake the rickety table. 

“Sorry about that,” Dahlia starts before Pratt can find a way to force her out of the room, “would either of you like any coffee or anything before we chat?” 

“No, thank you. We’ve done this song and dance before, deputy, you can’t sneak dna off of us,” John dismisses her off with a sneer. 

“Okay then, no coffee, understood,” she rescinds her off  as she sits down at the table across from them, Pratt sitting next to her. 

“Look, let's cut the bullshit,” Pratt speaks up, “a person was attacked, beaten badly. We got evidence, won’t say what, that connects one of your church members to the attack. And its being alleged that he did so on Joseph’s order with John supervising the whole thing, and...you’re just hear for window dressing I guess.”  He gives a dismissive look to Jacob at that last part, no doubt his attempt to give a little revenge jab for his comment earlier. 

“Why I’m here ain’t any of your concern, princess.” Jacob says, voice low and the threat within it not subtle. 

“Okay…” Dahlia cuts in with a clap of her hands when she sees the way Jacob and Pratt are glaring at each other, this is an interrogation not a pissing contest, the last thing they need is Pratt trying to fight Jacob and getting his ass kicked, “this is already going off the rails, good job everyone. Now, while his wording was...abrupt, uh that is the reality of the situation. There are some heavy accusations being levied at you two, so we were hoping to ask you a few questions.” 

“This is absolutely ridiculous,” John responds, rolling his eyes, “these are completely baseless accusations.”

“We do have evidence linking one of the men, a member of your church, to the assault. Our witness and survivor is credible. At this point we have no reason to believe they’d lie about what occurred.” 

“They persecute us the same as they did the prophets before us, the faithful handed over to courts and councils, sheep sent out amongst wolves,” Joseph speaks sudden, voice intense as he stares into Dahlia’s eyes, a chill rolls up her spine, a tension pulling in her shoulders that she can’t quite shake. 

“Seriously,” Pratt scoffs and for the first time Joseph’s eyes leave Dahlia, harsher and colder at the older officer, “you really think this is about your church, that someone would make this shit up just to get at you, think they beat the shit out of themselves too just to spite you?” 

“Of course not,” John speaks next and she can’t help but notice the jolt in his body language, “I’ve yet to speak to our flock member you’ve find evidence of. But even if he’s done what he’s accused of, surely, you can’t expect us to be held responsible for the actions of every member of our church. We have hundreds of followers, you cannot reasonably expect us to be accountable for any of them who may stray from our ways.” 

“The witness specified you were there, John. Not just accountable, but physically present for assault.” 

“And there’s no evidence of that, you said so yourself, and as I’ve told you before, there are many in this county who aren’t above taking any chance to sully mine and my family’s name. Who’s to say, they didn’t see their assault as an opportunity to bring down our entire church.” 

“May I ask where you were last night?” 

“Had dinner with my family, as I always do, and stayed in for the night. Rather boring, I’m afraid.” 

“Anyone who can confirm this story?” Pratt asks and Dahlia tries not to roll her eyes; his family would be the ones who can confirm it and ...they’re mostly here and biased. 

“My brothers who are sitting right here, my sister if you feel the need to ruin her night as well.” 

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

“Then are we done here?” 

“This isn’t a formal arrest or detainment,” they don’t have anywhere near the evidence or that, “so,  you’re free to leave if you so please. Though, there’s still the issue of Patrick who requested counsel with you.” 

The brothers have made it clear they want to leave and that the deputies won’t be prying any more information from them. So, Dahlia escorts them out. 

“You two can go on home,” John tells his brothers, “I’ll call someone to get me once I’ve sorted this out.” 

“We couldn’t possibly leave you behind, we’ll wait,” Joseph squeezes John’s shoulder than looks to Dahlia, “assuming that would be okay.” 

“Of course, don’t expect you to ditch your brother.” 

“It is tempting sometimes,” Jacob mumbles under his breath, a smirk pulling at his lips when John glares at him. Rook has to press her hand to her mouth to avoid laughing at the brotherly teasing. 

“Jacob…” Joseph gently chides. 

“Regardless, you two are welcome to sit out in the waiting room, there's a vending machine if you need anything or if you’re not interested in that I’m sure Nancy can get you set up with coffee or food from our break room.” 

“Thank you, deputy.” 

“I’ll be out, shortly,” John says the final word pointedly as his brothers go to the waiting room, then turns to the deputies, “which room is my client in?” 

“Room 103, I’ll be right in, go on and get settled,” Pratt tells him and John leaves down to the room where Patrick is being held. Dahlia holds her tongue until the youngest Seed brother is out of hearing range. 

“Think we can get anything else out of them?” 

“Fuck no, he’s going to tell Patrick to keep his mouth shut, insist that there’s another explanation. Like getting blood from a turnip, we’re just going to have to deal with what we have. DNA should be enough to convict Patrick, as for the rest, we’ll have to see if Whitehorse feels we got enough to do a full investigation. But, we don’t have much.” 

“The evidence against Patrick might be enough to subpoena Joseph’s sermons, get warrants to search the church and houses?” 

“Maybe,fuck,” Pratt rubs a hand down his face, he looks exhausted and she’s sure she’s not much better, “what time is it?” 

“Nearly four in the morning.” 

“Fucks sake, okay, their foul mood makes a bit more sense.” 

“Yeah, I can take care of the talk with John and Patrick, like you said won’t be getting much from them, so you can head home or check on Jerome.” 

“No, no, absolutely not. I’ll take care of this, you go home and get some sleep.” 

“Pratt-” 

“Rook, you were the one passing out on top of me. Go home and sleep.” 

“I-” 

“Please, for once in your life, just listen to me.” 

“Okay, just this once,” she bows her head, feeling like a scolded child, “but we do need to have a serious conversation about you babying me, you know that right?” 

“I don’t baby you.” 

She blinks and widens her eyes, has he heard a single word he’s said to her all day. Refusing to let her stay at the station alone, not wanting her to call John, and not even wanting her to be involved in the interrogation. And that today alone, she can’t count the amount of times he’s told her not to be the one to issue tickets, to stay in the car during calls. She knows they’ve lost an officer in the line of duty. And she knows she’s a lot younger than Pratt or Hudson. But this is her job as much as it is theirs. 

“Okay,” Pratt scratches at the back of his neck at the incredulous look, then gently puts his hands on Dahlia’s shoulders, “serious conversations can wait until we’ve both slept, alright?” 

“Fine, I’ll go home and crash, get yourself some sleep when you finish up here, okay?” 

“Okay, will do.” 

He drops his hands from her shoulders and gives a small pat to her arm as she turns to leave. As much as she’d rather Pratt be the one going home to get some much needed sleep, she can’t say she won’t be thankful for a chance to crash. 

“And Rook,” Pratt calls out before she can get through to the waiting room, she turns to look at him, “stay away from the Seeds, please.” 

“Don’t push it.” She rolls her eyes, overprotective ass, she pushes through the doors to the waiting room. 

Dahlia gives a friendly nod of acknowledgement to Joseph and Jacob as she moves past them, looking towards Nancy. 

“I’m gonna go home and crash for the night, any news comes in, don’t hesitate to call me, alright?”  She explains to dispatch, not fully trusting Pratt to let her know if it’s up to him, throwing on her leather jacket and already searching for her pack of cigarettes. She’ll catch a smoke break before she rides home, her nerves needing the nicotine fix. 

“Alright, dear. Drive safe.” 

Dahlia waves a quick bye to both Nancy and the Seed brothers before she leaves the building. The air is cold, temperatures drop quick at night out here,  a start contrast to the hot muggy days. A dark sky hangs above her except where stars breach the abyss. Goosebumps prickle up along her neck where the air hits, she put a cigarette between her lips and lights it, breathing nicotine deep into her lungs. She tilts her head back, blowing smoke from her mouth, white billowing around her. 

“Deputy,” Joseph’s voice calls out and chills run along her spine, “you know, smoking is really a terrible habit.” 

“We all got our vices,” she says, shrugging her shoulders, making sure to blow the smoke away from Joseph. 

“That is true, I know that better than most…” 

She nods when he trails off a bit, his church seems to focus a lot on sins and vices, overcoming them she assumes. Sins marked across the skin of so many of its members. Silence falls across the two, for once Joseph breaking eye contact, a rare moment for him. 

“Is there something you wanted…? Can’t imagine you’d rather wait out here in the cold.”

“Yes, actually, I think there’s a lot we need to discuss. Faith told me you have concerns about your friend, Cassandra.” 

“Cassie, yeah,” she corrects, not sure why it bugs her so much to hear them using Cassie’s full name. 

“Yes, John always was wishing to speak with you regarding the orchard and… I’d hate for this… incident to color your opinion of me and my family.”

“I understand and I’d love to talk all this out with you, but-” 

“It’s four in the morning.” 

“Yeah, sorry,” she frowns, feeling bad about it, “its been a rough day and I just am ready to crash, I’m sure you must be exhausted too.” 

“Of course, I understand, which is why I’d like to invite you to have dinner with me and my family.” 

“Uh, what?” 

Dahlia blinks and coughs on cigarette smoke, taken aback by the sudden invitation. He’s here for an investigation, she just interrogated him, and he’s concerned with inviting her to dinner to… preserve some sort of good image? While a formal investigation isn’t opened on him or John yet, needing warrants and authority to do anything more, but one is right around the corner. 

“We try to have dinner as a family, my brothers, sister, and I, as often as possible. A luxury we couldn’t indulge in for so much of our lives, I think it’d be a wonderful opportunity for us all to speak and for you to know my family separate from church or police interrogations. So, would you like to join us for dinner tomorrow night?” 

“Uh…” 

This could be her only chance to talk to him about Cassie before a formal investigation is launched and it becomes a conflict. 

But it could already be a conflict, since they are hopefully not far away from launching that investigating. 

But, she could use it as a chance to probe around, see if she can unearth anymore evidence in the Jerome case. 

But, anything procured without a warrant wouldn’t be admittable, so the most she could do is see it and then know what to go back for once they secure a warrant. 

But, even just getting a chance to ask questions without the environment of an interrogation room, might get some truths out. As well a chance to ask about some of the other strange things going on in the county. From roadblocks to the issue of the weird “angel” that assaulted her. 

But, they could be dangerous, if they do have anything to do with Jerome’s injuries… 

But, she’s not weak and it’s not like she's looking to antagonize them. She can ask her questions and be polite. 

But, Pratt would kill her. He literally warned her to stay away from the Seed family five fucking seconds ago. 

“Sure, I’d love to,” she tells him, ultimately unable to say no to his earnest little smile. 

“That’s wonderful, our dinners are at John’s ranch house, I’m not sure I have anything to write the number down on…” 

“I can use the memo app on my phone, what is it?” 

“Oh.” He seems taken aback for a moment when she gets out her phone, but recovers to prattle off the address, Dahlia typing it in. 

“Did I get it right?” She asks, moving to stand closer to Joseph’s side, so he can see the phone screen.

“Uh, yes, that’s,” he reaches out to touch her phone and accidentally closes the memo app, pulling his hand away like it burned him, “oh.” 

Dahlia can’t help but laugh, watching the older man fumble to deal with tech. He’s older, sure, but he’s not pushing his sixties or anything. He ducks his head and she can see a very subtle flush of red flare up his cheekbones. Its the most human he’s ever seemed to her, just an older man who hates phones, embarrassed that he has no idea how to use one. 

“Don’t worry,  it saved,” she explains, pulling it back up. 

“Yes, that’s correct.” 

“Alright, see you and your family tomorrow.” 

She tucks her phone back in her pocket and waves bye again, getting on her motorcycle. Dahlia slides her helmet on and starts the journey back home, mind racing and heart heavy with the events of the day. 

Joseph sits in the passenger side of the truck, Jacob driving and John sitting in the back, as they leave the police station. It's late, nearly early enough for him to be waking up. John made a grave mistake, trying to punish Pastor Jerome for leading people astray, away from Eden. A noble intention, but he did it out of wrath and anger, letting someone else’s sin fuel his own. His impulses placed them back in the sight line of the police. They can recover from this easily enough, as frustrating as it is. The bigger issue is once again working to reign John in and working to change the junior deputy’s view of them. 

The Lamb plays a vital role in the collapse, she was chosen to be the one who brings about the end, how exactly she will do so remains to be seen. But, he’d rather she do it alongside them stepping into New Eden by their side after she helped cleanse the world, rather than doing so in spite of them with no understanding of the gift she was given. 

“What the hell were you thinking?”  Jacob scolds their younger brother, always protective of the project and them being found out by law enforcement, he’s more than a little irate about John’s mistake. 

“Jacob…” Joseph still chides him for cursing, a nasty habit his eldest brother struggles most to break. If Joseph’s being completely honest, he’s not certain Jacob is trying to break it all. 

“Pastor Jerome is a fraud, he is leading people astray and spreading lies about The Project, he had to be taught a lesson.” 

“Who cares? His people abandoned him for us, John. He can talk all he wants, no ones fuckin’ listening.” 

“Oh, so suddenly you’re above corporal punishment, are you going soft on me, Jacob? Do you allow your soldiers to say whatever they please, reward them for their insolence?” 

“Jerome’s not a soldier and unlike you, when I teach outsiders a lesson, I’m not dumb enough to let them walk away from it.” 

“Brothers, stop,” Joseph speaks over them, not yelling, but his tone stern enough to end their incessant arguing, he makes eye contact with his youngest brother through the rearview mirror “Jacob is right, John.” 

“But Joseph-” 

“You endangered The Project, our mission, our family; for the sake of satisfying your own wrath. You put all of us at risk and for what? So, you could indulge in your sins?” 

“He was spreading lies, telling people you were dangerous-” 

“And that made you angry, it made you wrathful. And so you lashed out to make yourself feel better, instead of speaking to me, instead of seeking out the word and confronting the sin inside of yourself, you sought to quell your anger through violence.” 

“I’m sorry, Joseph.” 

“I know. Righteous anger and swift justice has its place. There will be times to cut off the hands that wrong us, but this was not one of them.” 

“I understand… I already spoke with our flock members in the station, they’ll dispose of the evidence and secure Patrick’s freedom. Without it, the investigation will end and he won’t be punished for my mistakes.” 

“I knew you’d take care of it in the end,” he tells him, watching the relief flood John with the smallest amount of praise after being scolded, “I invited the junior deputy to dinner.” 

Jacob slams on the brakes on a thankfully deserted back road, causing Joseph to jerk against the seatbelt and John to slam his face against the seat in front of him. John yells out from the sudden impact and Joseph turns to look at his eldest brother in confusion. 

“God damn it, Jacob!” 

“John!” Joseph scolds when his baby brother takes the lords name in vain, he can see a bruise forming on John’s forehead already. 

“He tried to kill me!” 

“Am I the only one who understands that we’re criminals?!” 

“In the eyes of man, perhaps, but in the eye of -” 

“Eyes of man are the ones that matter, right now, Joseph! You’re inviting a fuckin’ cop into our lives, into John’s house. A cop who just interrogated us less than a fucking hour ago and you want to feed her for her trouble.” 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were scared, brother. Jacob Seed, scared of a little girl.” 

“Well, its a damn good thing you know better, or that shiner would be the least of your problems, brother,” Jacob nearly spits the word brother, glaring daggers at John. 

“Jacob,” Joseph gets his older brother’s attention, Jacob has always been the strongest willed, has always asserted his opinions even if he’d do anything for the family, “are you doubting me?” 

“No, of course not, I just don’t understand why you’re doing this?” 

“We have cops within our flock, Jacob.”

“Yes, converted cops who benefit us. This deputy can’t walk into a church without puking her guts up, she’s a problem waiting to happen.” 

“She has been making a problem out of herself, trying to keep me from purchasing the orchard, enabling the greed of this county.” 

“Look, I know it can be difficult to understand, you’ve not heard what I’ve heard. The Voice hasn’t spoken to you, as it has to me, my decisions are not without reason. Reasons that will be revealed in time, the junior deputy is important, bringing her into our flock is a priority. Understood?” 

“Of course, understood, Father,” John concedes, using Joseph’s formal title. Joseph looks to his eldest brother, who’s scarred jaw is still clenched tight. 

“Understood?” He repeats himself, he knows Jacob wouldn’t go against him, but his willful nature… something Joseph was envious of in childhood now leads to the occasional butting of heads. 

“Understood.” 

Jacob starts the car back up, driving Joseph and John back to their homes. John to his ranch house and Joseph up to his church, where he has a cot in the back of it. The sun is starting to come up when Jacob drops him off at the church compound, before driving back to Saint Francis. 

Eyelids heavy with exhaustion, Joseph is quick to return to his quarters, a headache starting to creep up along his temples. He changes for bed, then kneels before his bed, bowing his head for prayer and folding his hands together. Hands pressed together tightly, his rosary pressing into his skin. 

And he prays. 

He prays for John to find his way, to battle his sin and win the fight. 

He prays for Jacob to one day fully let go and accept the word. 

He prays for Faith not to stray from the path. 

He prays for his flock and family, he prays for their faith not to wane, he prays for them to be strong enough to weather the collapse, he prays for the persecution of his family to end, and he prays that he can save more souls; specifically the junior deputy. That he can find a way to reach her heart, help her see her gift, and learn the importance of her role before it’s too late. 

Then a sharp pain shoots from his temple across the rest of his head, like lightning shooting through his skull. The darkness of his closed eyes fades away into a new world, a vision of New Eden, a paradise he’s been shown and promised so many times he knows the sight of it by heart. The bright blooming pink flowers and modest homemade homes of a commune, a return to nature, to innocence. 

His family and flock there, older versions of themselves, dressed in more rustic handmade clothes. Less clear and less certain than last time. But he sees John, Jacob, and Faith with children clinging and playing around them. And he can’t explain the feeling, that they’re all his children but his siblings as well. 

The five year old boy with a head of dark curls and blue eyes that looks so much like Joseph as a child, the boy who called him papa. 

A girl around three with bright ginger hair, a face covered in freckles. She grins and blinks, sun in her eyes. She reminds him so much of Jacob, head held high with a crown of red. 

Maybe a year younger, another girl has straight dark brown hair and big wide blue eyes. Eyes that remind him so entirely of the young baby brother he cooed at as a child. 

The oldest of them, clings to an older Faith’s skirt. A young boy of ten maybe tweleve, so much older than the smaller children. Hair dark as pitch, olive skin, and green eyes setting him apart. He looks different from the others, perhaps his family tie not one forged by blood. 

His family, those he has now and those he will gain, the family he will be gifted. But, there’s something missing…. Pieces of the puzzle not yet in place. 

Weak clumsy fingers grab onto his bed as his vision subsides, the reality of the world he’s still in returning to him. His head pounds and throbs, agony radiating throughout it, as the collapse draws closer his visions are getting more and more frequent. He can only hope as he falls into bed that he’s keeping himself and his family on the right path to find paradise.

[ameliasdefend]

3 AM

Hey! So im new around here, and lately Ive been reading amelink fanfics, and I got inspired to start writing fanfics again after 2 years. My writing skills are reaaaallly rusty, so I dont know what this is, but I do hope you guys will enjoy it<3

Written in Maggie and Winston’s POV, set shortly after 17x06

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

Maggie Pierce’s laughter broke the silence of the deathly stillness of the night in the city of Seattle. It was 3 am, so the streets outside of the house she shared with her sisters, was awfully quiet. Her boyfriend, Winston had just cracked a joke that made her burst into a laughing fit, cracking the serenity of the atmosphere.

“You’re going to wake up the entire neighborhood!”, Winston teased, trying to hold back his own laughter but to no avail. They came from the hotel Maggie was living at temporarily to get some stuff from her room. Since the pandemic was still showing no signs of slowing down, she might have to stay at the hotel longer than expected. She was not complaining though; since Winston’s unexpected arrival, nights in the hotel were not as lonely and depressing as before.

Maggie took in deep breaths to calm herself, and her laughter eventually ceased.

Grinning at her boyfriend, she led the way onto the pavement of Meredith’s house towards the front door. “We’ll be in and out. Don’t make any noise, or you’ll wake up the kids. Amelia will kill us.” Maggie whispered in a serious tone.

“Oh, so now you want to be quiet?”

Maggie rolled her eyes and lightly slapped his shoulder, feigning annoyance. “You’re the one who made me laugh.” She said as a matter-of-factly, earning a chuckle from Winston.

“Now hushhhh.” Maggie unlocked the door, turning the knob slowly, and carefully pushing the door open. The living room was dark, as expected. It was 3 am, so everyone must be asleep.

Or....not.

A familiar sound of soft giggles floated from the brightly illuminated kitchen. Maggie turned to look over her shoulder at Winston who was arching his eyebrows— a questioning look painted his face. He then frowned his brows and started sniffing the air. “Do you smell that babe?” Maggie took a long wisp of the air, closing her eyes slowly as a sweet-smelling aroma filled her nostrils.

“Is that chocolate?” she whispered, making her way towards the source of the good smell, Winston trailing behind.

Upon entering the kitchen, she gasped. “Since when do you guys bake??” Maggie exclaimed in shocked as the scene in the kitchen unfolded in front of her eyes.

Her sister, Amelia, clad in a yellow apron, with her shoulder-length hair tied up in a messy bun, was spooning what looked like a very creamy, fudge-y chocolate cake into her boyfriend’s mouth. They stood behind the kitchen island, of which the surface was heavily powdered white with flour, occupied with baking trays, milk cartons, pieces of chocolate bars, and several other baking tools Maggie has never seen anyone use in this house.

The couple paused their movements and turned to look at Maggie, whose face was in utter disbelief.

It would have been a rather funny sight, if not for the absurdity of the whole scenario, with the spoon of cake that Amelia was holding in Link’s mouth, their chocolate smudged faces, and their puzzled expressions from being interrupted by Maggie’s dramatic entrance.

“Um... hello to you too,” Amelia said amusingly as she turns her gaze back to Link and finished feeding him the bite of cake. She took a napkin and lightly dabbed away the chocolate smudges on the corners of his mouth, smiling gently up at him before facing Maggie once again.

“What are you doing here?” Amelia let out a small laugh.

“We came to get some stuff from Maggie’s room”, Winston, who had been silently watching the sisters’ comical exchange replied.

Amelia’s eyes snapped towards him in surprise. Her attention had been focused on Maggie that she hadn’t noticed his presence.

Noting her surprised look, Winston realized that this was the first time they met in person. He offered her a smile, placing his hand across his chest and bowed slightly, the new ‘handshake’ in the Covid era. “It’s nice to finally be able to meet the two of you in person.”

Amelia smiled back; a sheepish grin etched across her face. “Likewise.” Her eyes scanned him from top to bottom, making him feel a little self-conscious and awkward. When her eyes met his again, she let out a light chuckle. “Welppp, you’re way hotter in person. It’s a wonder how Maggie could do the whole long-distance thing. I could never.” Winston wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not, so he ended making eye contact with Link.

“It’s true.” Link nodded, swallowing the cake in his mouth. “Here, wanna try some cake?” Link nodded his head towards the cake in front of him. Winston couldn’t help but smile at the easy-going nature of Amelia and Link. Although he didn’t really know them yet, he could tell that they were very warm and light-hearted people.

“Did you guys really bake that yourselves?” Maggie asked, still curious as to how this baking session came about. She rounded the kitchen table, coming to stand in between Amelia and Link, and facing the perfectly round-shaped chocolate fudge cake. She bent down so her eyes were leveled with the top of the cake. “It’s perfect...” she muttered, examining the cake closely.

“Maggie, it that shocking that we can bake?” Amelia asked her sister, pursing her lips in mocked annoyance.

Maggie straightened herself, her eyes still on the cake which looked too good to be true. “I mean, kind of.... but only because you’ve never baked before.”

“It was an impulse decision. We thought of doing something fun and since Bailey’s birthday is coming soon, baking a cake seemed like a good idea.” Amelia explained. “Want some? It’s really good.”

“No thanks”, Maggie replied, shaking her head. “I’d love some but maybe later… when the sun is up. It’s 3 am, why are you guys even baking at this time?” she asked, looking from Amelia to Link.

“The kids are asleep, so we get to do what we want without their strong tiny arms dragging us away for something.” Link told her. “They’re monsters in disguise as cute little humans,” he muttered, before spooning another bite of the cake. Amelia just nodding in agreement.

Maggie moved from between them, rounding the table again to stand next to Winston, “Well then, shouldn’t you guys be getting some sleep?”

“What even is sleep?”, Amelia and Link said flatly together. They locked eyes, amused at their synchronized answer. A small chuckle coming from both sides.

She knew her nieces and nephew can be a lot, and on top of having to care for a new-born, Amelia and Link were sleep-deprived. And yet, they were baking, and laughing at the wee hours in the morning. A-dork-able. Maggie felt a small smile crept onto her face, as she observed how happy her sister was. If she knew Amelia at all, deep down her heart was aching for Meredith and maybe her mind was spiraling with constant fear and worry. And if that was really the case, it didn’t show. At least, not at this moment. All Maggie saw was her bright smile, and loving eyes as she looked up at Link.

With the way they were looking at each other, Maggie now felt like she and Winston were third-wheeling on them. Before they could start kissing or getting all gushy feelings, Maggie turned to Winston, motioning for Winston to follow her to the stairs. “Well, we’re heading upstairs. Enjoy the cake,” she called over her shoulder, but she was certain they weren’t listening to her anymore.

As they tiptoed up the stairs, Winston whispered into her ear, “They look happy.”

“Yeah...” Maggie whispered back, a wide grin slowly forming on her lips. Her mind wandered around, thinking of how happy Amelia was…

“Do you think we’ll ever get on their level?”, Winston’s playful voice interrupted her blissful thoughts.

“Nah, I don’t think so.” She teased.

[vlogsquadssquad]

Secure 2

summary: Charlie confesses his feelings and reader has to decide if that's what she wants, or if another guy has her *attention*

a/n: i’m honestly BLOWN away at part 1′s feedback. y'all really loved it so Ive been working on this all day, I hope its everything youve been waiting for! thank you to my new followers, ive been writing for a bit for fun and no one was reading my stories but after the reaction for the last story I was so motivated to write. I have A LOT more ideas and even an idea for a part 3 with smut and maybe even reader having to tell the boy she didn't choose the bad news, who knooowwsss. send me in suggestions! 

warnings: language, alluding to smut at the end.

mood board:

-- YOUR POV

my life has been the most fun lately. ive been hanging out with David and he really gets me to let loose. he's always trying to top his last video which is so fun to be a part of. even if we wait around the house all day. tonight im alone though. I told him I needed to get some writing down for the last song of my album. I want it to be about being happy with yourself and secure with who you are. that you don't need another person to define who you are. but im having trouble putting that into words that rhyme. maybe I should just see what David is up to.

- daveyy (:

hey, I know I said I was busy but my mind is too cluttered and im curious what the vlog squad is up to 😉 >

< hahaa nothing actually. im by myself at the house tonight. really boring. watching movies ive seen dozens of times.

oh no! your friends realize they were too cool for you? >

< probably lmao. what are you up to?

trying to finish this last song but I can't think straight >

hey would you wanna come over? its ok if you're too busy being alone watching 50 first dates lol >

< how'd you know? 😅 id love to. chipotle?

- end texts -

“hey, loser” I say as he walks in with our food and... is that ice cream? “wait, did you get ice cream?” 

“yeah, I got your favorite flavor!” he says with a smile. my heart aches at the kind gesture. “wow your house is so nice” he sets the food on my counter as he glances around. 

“thank you, im really into interior design... and nice houses” i joke as i examine the ice cream David got for me. he chuckles as he gets my food out of the bag and sets it up in my living room. I put on a movie to watch but we end up muting it and just talking instead. our conversations just seem to flow. “what's a memory that stands out to you from your childhood?” I ask him. “there's so many things,” he puts his arm around the back of my couch as we sit sideways to face each other. we finished eating forever ago. “probably just all of high school. I learned so much, from my friends and my teachers. nothing academically, obviously.” he laughs. I smile to him and run my fingers through my hair. he watches my movements and for a moment its quiet.

“I think you're really smart.” I say finally. “I love how you push me, you're always there for me, and you just come up with the best ideas. you're so creative.” 

“wow. what did I do to deserve your kindness?” he asks with a slight laugh.

“I can think of a few things.” our conversation became much lighter after that. after a while we went into my home studio and he helped me write. the night was filled with jokes and endless laughing but also had serious moments too. I shared very personal details about my life. but the best thing of all was that there was no camera in sight. it was just friends being friends. no clickbait. no underlying purpose for the long stay. it was perfect.

-- next day

“hey y/n could I come over and talk?” Charlie asked over the phone.

“sure, I don't have anything planned till tonight.”

“ok be there in 20.”

“what's the sudden emergency?” I ask as he walks in the door.

“there's just something I've been wanting to confess for a really long time and i’m not sure-”

“its ok Charlie, what is it?”

“I think I'm in love with you.”

my heart dropped. Im frozen in time. I don't need a relationship right now and I sure as hell can't lose my friendship with Charlie.

“I don't know what to say...”

“say you love me too!” he moves closer to me “I know you do! you always want to be around me, have me close to you, we talk all night. I know you feel it.”

I look at him with a blank expression.

“I honestly don't. I've never thought of you that way, and I'm really enjoying being single. for once in my life I'm not letting the pressure of having someone on my arm get to me, I don't need this right now, I-”

“what..? y/n. don't do this.”

“I'm not doing anything it's just the truth.” I look to the ground as his eyes fill with tears. “I think you should go.” I say.

-- DAVIDS POV, that night

- y/n/n 😋

you're still coming to my party tonight right? >

< I wouldn't miss it! so proud of you! ❤️

tonight was my party to celebrate my new show. I haven't told the fans yet but this vlog will be my announcement. we start filming for it on Monday and I've never been more excited. its exactly what I've been dreaming of all my life.

the party started to kick off and all my friends slowly started showing up. Charlie was going to perform his unreleased song tonight and everyone was already talking about it. 

“hey have you heard anything from y/n and Charlie? are they dating?” Ilya comes up and whispers to me.

“no man, I haven't heard anything. I was with y/n all night last night and I wasn't exactly begging her to give me details but we did talk for hours about random stuff and she never brought him up or texted anyone. I don't know they might not be.” I say with hope shining through the cracks of my voice.

“I can just ask Charlie?” Ilya offers. he's such a good friend when it matters.

I nod and then head to get something to drink. y/n still wasn't here and I was getting antsy.

just then I hear Natalie let someone in. I peak around the corner and see y/n. she looks drop dead gorgeous. i’ve never seen her dressed up like that. I think she saw right through me and asked if she had something on her face. 

“no, no, I just have never seen you dressed like that. you look great.” I look to the floor. no way she and Charlie aren't an item. they both love music and they're both flawless people. they're a match made in heaven. 

“well, thank you, cowboy.” she says in a funny southern accent. she was so weird. she came in for a hug and she smelled exactly like when I first met her. I put my hand on the small of her back and for a split second I felt her push more into me. 

“so where can I get a drink?” she asked as we pulled apart.

“a drink?” I ask

“yes, i’ve had a bizarre day and I need a drink.”

Im about to ask her what she means when I hear Charlie from behind me 

“hey, babe, you're late.” he says to y/n as he pulls her into a hug. she almost looks uncomfortable. “hey Charles, how are you?” 

“i’m great, i’ve had several drinks and im thinking much clearly-er now”

“I can smell that” she chuckles

I hand her her favorite drink and ask her if she finished the song. after a short conversation Charlie pulls her to the couch where some other friends are doing karaoke. she's basically sitting on his lap and laughing. I grab my camera and record a little outside trying to not think about it.

-- YOUR POV

I honestly think drunk Charlie has forgotten about our conversation from earlier. which i’m relieved because sometimes I just need good ol Charlie and not this new one that was in love with me. sure he's a little touchy but we were always close like that. 

“alright I promised David I would perform an unreleased song tonight. come on I want you to hear it.” he grabs my hand pulls me up. I have a gut feeling I don't want to be here for it.

David set up the mic outside and everyone found a seat. David sat next to me with camera in hand. 

“alright alright” Charlie starts. “hopefully I don't forget the lyrics since i’m a little buzzed.” the audience laughed. “but this song means a lot to me, and I wrote it with someone in mind. someone who has changed my life for the better and made me a better man.”

oh god, please don't say my name 

“y/n. you are everything to me. I wouldn't be able to be who I am today without you.”

everyone looks to me as the music starts. a love song. i place my head in my hands and David nudges me. “you ok?” he whispers.

“can you please get me out of here?” he nods his head and stands up. Charlie is looking down at his guitar lost in his music. I feel bad leaving but how could he not take no as an answer? I follow David out the door and my head is down in shame. he closes the patio door and turns to me. “what is going on? I thought you guys were dating?” 

“oh god, not you too.” I groan. “just please I need to be anywhere but here right now. fast.”

“okay. let’s go.”

we go to his garage and he looks at me. 

“you said fast!” he shrugs as he opens the passenger Ferrari door for me. I laugh with my head thrown back “true. but im going to need a jacket or blanket.”

“here, use mine.” he took off his hoodie and handed it to me. I hopped in the car and we were off.

“anywhere in mind?” he asks as we pull out of the neighborhood.

“nope,” I smile. “im kinda hungry though”

“alright,” he turns the car at the light. “then we’re gonna make this worth our while. I know an overly expensive place with great burgers.” 

I laugh at him as my hair blows in the wind “yes! lets spend all your money!” I lift my arms and scream. David just laughs at me. we speed down the highways. ive never felt so free. 

we finally arrive to the place and get seated.

“so do you wanna tell me why we left my party now?”

“i’m sorry by the way. I didn't mean to drag you from your party but...” I look down and pick at my napkin “Charlie confessed his feelings for me this afternoon.” David looked at me confused. 

“isn't that a good thing?” he asked.

“not if I don't feel the same way.” I sigh and David looks surprised. “I was very clear about my feelings- or lack of. but he had been hitting on me all night and then the song. I know he was drunk but im really worried for my friendship with him.” 

“I can't believe my ears.” he said almost laughing. “you, y/f/n, don't like the guy who seems like he was sent down from the heavens for you?” 

“nope. he just isn't my type I guess, I don't know. I never really thought of him that way and I don't want to.”

“wow, no one will be up to your standards will they?” David laughs as he takes a drink.

“the right guy will be.”

perfect timing. the waitress comes over with our food. we thank her and get eating. he was right. best. burgers. ever! 

I moan as I take another bite.

David looks me up and down with his cheeks full of burger and chuckles. “okay, y/n, calm down. it isn't no Charlie puth.”

I gasp and throw a fry at him playfully, laughing. “no... no it is not!” we both laugh harder. as we finish up David pays despite my best efforts and we head to my house so he can drop me off. the car ride was fun, we listened to all the hits and sang our hearts out. we got tons of funny looks, but nothing mattered. I grabbed his vlog camera he threw to the side and recorded him singing and then popped myself into frame and had the camera aimed at both of us. our hair was crazy and the night was wearing down on us but it didn't matter. we were just happy to be alive. 

as we pulled into my driveway and David put the car in park, I looked to him. “you wanna walk me to my door?” 

“already on it.”

he came around and opened the car door for me and walked me up to my door. 

“thank you for tonight. it was like out of a movie. I really needed it.” I was talking softly now since it was the dead of the night and the only thing heard was the crickets. 

“anytime, y/n.” David also said softly. he kept looking to my lips which made my heart beat faster every time. I know I said I didn't need a guy, but he just looks too good. 

“and congrats on your show, I'm really proud of you.” I step closer. 

“thank you, congrats on staying single another night.” he joked but had his hands gently placed on my forearm. 

“its still early.” I whisper closer to his face now. I can feel his breath and he can feel mine. my heart is going a million beats a minute and the butterflies in my stomach are in a tornado.

“I can't write a song about you, but I can buy you more expensive burgers.”

I laugh leaning my head on his shoulder. “that's all a girl needs anyways.”

he laughs too but gently. I look up at him and his eyes are locked on mine. he places a hand on my cheek and then lower to my neck. I take a sharp breath in and connect our lips. his lips are soft, sweet, and gentle. I pull my arms up around his neck and deepen the kiss. I feel his hands slide down my back to just above my ass. I move my head to the side and open my mouth gently. he knows what to do and opens his mouth too. I feel his tongue dominate my mouth. he retracts and I close my mouth only to bite his bottom lip and then pull away. I let go and we put our foreheads together breathing heavily. 

“I could do that again.” he says.

“wanna come inside?” I whisper, my hands now playing with his hairs at the end of his neck.

“best party ever.” he laughs and I pull him inside. I don't know what im supposed to tell Charlie. the heart wants what it wants?

[allthebooksandcrannies]

The Father (Jack Drake fanfic)

It’s Tim’s birthday, so i figured I’d write and post this idea that’s been floating around. Jack Drake is a shitty parent but damn is his pov fun to write.

Read on AO3

The Father

Something was wrong with Tim, and Jack was getting real sick of it.

He’d been such a good kid, back when Janet had… had been around. Always so polite. Always so helpful. He had done so well in school. He’d been so excited to see Jack every time he walked through the door. He’d looked at him like he hung the moon.

Tim didn’t look at him like that anymore. Hell, his son hardly even looked at him at all these days. And when they talked it was always “Bruce Wayne this” and “Dick Grayson that.” Long gone were the days when Tim wanted to talk to Jack about school or the places Jack had visited and studied.

Jack shouldn’t have to be wishing for the days when his son was small, when they had been gone so often. His teenage years were supposed to be when Jack got to be involved in shaping the man his son grew up to be. They were supposed to be filling out college applications together and Tim would come to Jack with his questions about girls and Jack would cheer his son on at all his athletic events. They were supposed to be doing better. Wasn’t that the whole point of their second chance? Hadn’t Tim been looking forward to this as much as he had? Didn’t Tim know how lucky they were?

He had at one point, of that Jack was sure.

But, at some point, things had changed. At some point, instead of being excited to spend time with his father, Tim had begun to dread it. The bright faces when he walked into the room had been traded for hastily made excuses to leave or quickly ended phone conversations.

Rather than talking his ear off about what he and Ives had done last weekend, the only time Jack ever heard about his son’s friends these days was when Tim was trying to make an excuse for why he had to miss Jack’s most recent attempt at family bonding. It was all “Sorry, I was late. Bart and I lost track of time playing video games at his place” or “Sorry, I can’t tomorrow night. I already promised Connor I’d help him babysit his little brother.” Tim was always sorry these days. And something was always more important than spending time with his family. He would have thought that after losing his mother Tim would have had his priorities a little straighter, especially with everything they had sacrificed for him.

He wasn’t sure where Tim had gotten such a skewed sense of loyalties but he was pretty sure that Brucie was responsible. Who else would have taught his kid to value nobodies Jack hadn’t even been allowed to meet over his own father. Who else could have taught Tim to disguise his selfishness as selflessness.

And if that wasn’t bad enough. If that wasn’t enough, his grades had been steadily slipping for months. He’d been getting calls from the school about skipped classes, and now he was lying about football tryouts of all things.

Jack was done just watching his kid fall apart. Playing nice obviously wasn’t working, and no matter how many times Dana implored him to talk to him, to get him help, Jack knew it wasn’t that simple. Tim obviously didn’t mind lying to Jack, so he couldn’t trust him to be honest about what was going on. It was time to take matters into his own hands.  

He hadn’t ever seen Dana as angry as she’d been when she realized what he was doing to Tim’s room, going on about how it was his space and that he was ruining his son’s sense of security. It didn’t matter. If Dana had kids of her own she would understand that he was doing this for Tim’s security. His kid could be addicted to drugs or running guns for one of Gotham’s gangs for all Jack knew. Dana would get over it.

This was about Tim. It was. He was just doing what was best for his son. What else was a dad to do?

  But no matter how ready he thought he was to find out the truth, nothing could have prepared him to find the Robin belt in his son’s closet.

  It didn’t process right away. How could it? His child had been running around the city behind his back. How long had this been going on? Months? Years? Since the accident? Since before? Jack didn’t know and that was terrifying. How could this be happening to him? Jack was a good man. He attended charity galas. He paid his taxes, well he paid most of his taxes but who didn’t have a nest egg in the Cayman’s these days?

He just didn’t understand how his brilliant son could have done something so positively stupid.  Jack and Janet had given Tim everything. A good home. A good education. The best nannies money could buy. And this is how he repaid him? Running around with a freak in a Halloween costume.

Hadn’t he thought about what could happen? If he died, if he were hurt or unmasked, had he even thought about what would happen to Jack and Dana? Not only would their reputations be ruined but he was sure CPP would be interested in finding out how Tim’s father could have missed his son picking up such a dangerous hobby.

Wait. How had he picked it up? How had that freak found his son? Jack would be the first to admit that he apparently didn’t know his son as well as he thought, but he did know that Tim wasn’t as stupid as this belt implied. And he’d been raised right. He knew better than to just trust a stranger. And to convince Drake to go running on rooftops would surely have been a tough sell. It would have taken a lot to change his boy so completely, but Jack was from Gotham. He knew what grooming was. It was the only thing that made sense. But even still, that would have taken a lot of time and significant access to a relatively sheltered kid. Frankly, the only man he could think of who would have had the opportunity was-

“Son of a bitch…” he whispered. It made perfect sense. No wonder Tim couldn’t stop singing Wayne’s praises. They’d obviously brainwashed his perfect son into the perfect soldier, and Jack wasn’t going to stand for it. That rich, entitled man-child might think he could get away with stealing Jack’s son, but he had another thing coming. Jack was going to grab his gun, and then he was going to teach the goddamn batman what happened when you messed with a Drake. Tim was going to learn where his loyalties should belong. Jack Drake was going to save his son from himself before it was too late.

Tim Drake was never going to put that fucking costume on ever again. One day he’d thank him for it, but until then… well, tough love had never hurt anybody.

[you-are-my-neverland]

so. it’s finally time to talk about [my] nano.

i’ve kept my nano project pretty under wraps so far, mostly because it’s been out of my hands. i wasn’t actually planning on doing a for real for real nano; instead, i thought i would dedicate some time to my fanfic (spoiler alert, but i haven’t yet) or work on finishing up revising fairbone (spoiler alert: i did revise one chapter, but i still have like half of it left to go and a nov 30 deadline...rip). if that didn’t work, i thought i would pick a wip i started over the summer or one i had half developed (let’s just say the ideas note i have really boomed over the summer and like...yeah). in conclusion, there were many wips ready for me to work on them, including ash heart, which i really want to write but haven’t figured out how to.

instead i started a new wip.

well, it’s not necessarily new, persay. it’s an idea i’ve had stewing since like late september/early october and planned out a good portion of. however, deciding to start it was a last minute decision - and by last decision, i mean that on october 31st i finished developing the barebones of character development and basic plot lol and then gave it a go. it’s honestly been going crazy well. as of today (november 9th), i just hit 21.2k words. i’m hopeful about this year, while also not wanting to jinx stuff, but like...wow. but writing is has made me realize that, wow, this book is going to be crazy long probably...like i’m 21k words in and we’re still like in the exposition idk what’s going on. but hey, i finished planning out the rest of the basic plot for it today!!!

right. onto the wip details.

honestly, the only reason i haven’t introduced this wip is because a) i want actual stuff done on it and like a proven commitment, because i feel like too often i introduce wips i don’t actually go anywhere with and i hate it, b) i don’t have a set title and c) i actually have no idea how to summarize this.

the novel i’m working on right now is the first of a projected trilogy. i say projected because i have a vague idea that it belongs to a trilogy, but like not a lot of plot except some vaguely connected ideas that should happen in the future. in it, i used a lot of characters from these violent ends, which i tried to write for camp april 2020, but like just their basic barebones; i changed a lot to fit the story, of course. 

not to sound nerdy, but it is like....harry potter inspired, but ONLY in the magical boarding school sense. of course, right now all i have is magical boarding school shenanigans, which i don’t really like because i feel like it unfairly sets the book up as like fun magical stuff when it’s really about murder & politics & student activism (+ a lot of other things ending in -ism). the whole activism part came from watching the trial of the chicago 7 and i was like, bingo, this is what this story needs. 

kay but ANYWAYS. onto the story. like i said, i can’t really summarize it, but there are lots of themes of classism, feminism, the affect on youth and youth’s effect, manipulative adults, revolution, terrorism, sibling dynamics and found family vibes, like all that stuff...packaged into a magical boarding school off the coast of maine setting...recipe for disaster!

mainly i’ve been writing in ophelia’s pov, because she’s my main girl and she’s problematic, but also she’s trying her best and just having a little difficulty fitting in. some other main characters are her twin brother, sebastian, and two other boys, asriel and vincent, who have an initially animistic relationship with ophelia (& kind of each other?) but it’s like enemies to friends (to lovers?).

anyways. here are some carefully curated excerpts below the cut:

i. vincent and asriel meet on a train (ch. 1)

The boy pursed his lips together. “It’s unusual,” he said, finally. “That’s all.” But he was looking at Vincent as if he was noticing him, which meant he was lying, or at least withholding the truth about something. He added, “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Do you mean geographically?” Vincent replied, raising an eyebrow. “Because I’m from New York.”

A small glimmer of a smile appeared on the boy’s lips, though it vanished as quickly as it had come. “From the Magical World,” he clarified. 

“What gives it away?” Vincent asked sarcastically, waving a hand across his body. “My impeccable taste?”

“Among other things,” the boy said.

ii. sebastian and ophelia discuss grief on a ferry (ch.2 )

“You and mom talked?” Ophelia asked, surprised. She hadn’t exactly been keeping track of them, but she was sure she and Sebastian had spent much of the day together, as they were wont to do.

Sebastian looked at the floor. “Yeah,” he answered, hoarsely. “At least she wants to talk about Des. Dad doesn’t, and neither do you.”

Ophelia sighed, wondering why, today of all days, her sister was haunting them. Maybe it was because there should have been three people heading to Rijevduct, instead of two. Maybe Mother Magic was reminded of the loss of one of her own. 

“I’ve let her go,” she said. “You should too. We have too much of our lives ahead of us to mourn Desdemona forever.”

“I don’t mourn,” Sebastian said, words uncharacteristically sharp. “But I do grieve.”

“Isn’t that basically the same thing,” Ophelia mumbled, closing her eyes and feeling the press of a headache behind them. 

“Sorrow,” Sebastian said, the word a soft shudder. “And sad endings.”

“What?” 

“That’s what makes a good tragedy,” Sebastian answered. “I read it in a book.”

iii. headmistress alexeyev gives a speech (ch. 2)

“Eight years ago, seventy two students were slaughtered here. Some died on the very spot where you now stand today.” Ophelia glanced down at the floor, seeing the motion repeated instinctively around her as well. She looked over at Sebastian, who had closed his eyes instead, a pale flush meeting the faint color in his cheeks. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, tennis shoes scraping against stone as he toed them against the floor, as if he was shaking something only visible to him off.

“It was a tragedy,” Headmistress Alexeyev continued. “I say this because it is the truth. It was a tragedy, and not one that should never have happened.” She inhaled; Ophelia saw her chest rise, shoulders with it, in a sharp motion before she exhaled, body rearranging itself into poise once more. “I speak of this to tell you to assure you that Rijevduct is safe. I know there have been continuous doubts over the security of this school since that day eight years ago. I cannot, of course, guarantee that you will not come to any harm here. I cannot tell you that Rijevduct is the safe haven you were taught it was growing up; events have already proved that it is, in fact, not as impenetrable as one might think.”

Ophelia frowned, confused as to the line of reasoning. She had thought the whole point of the year of transition was to make sure that Rijevduct was infinitely more safer than it had been—and they had all been under the assumption that Rijevduct was virtually impenetrable until the massacre, which had led to the heightened security measures they saw today.

“I can, however, promise you that I, and everyone here today, will do anything in their power to keep you safe,” the Headmistress said. Next to Ophelia, Briar bowed her head, lowering her eyes and swallowing, the action almost a convulsion of her throat and mouth. Ophelia brushed her hand, lightly, in question, and the other girl just shook her head, looking away purposefully, so that Ophelia lost sight of her face and her sad eyes.

“These next three years will be far from easy. Gone are the sheltered lives where your parents could kiss your injuries goodbye, or sing you to sleep at night. Rijevduct is far from the cold, real world, but it is close enough when it comes to not asking you what you want first. This is an adjustment period. This is learning how to survive—and I will tell you this; surviving means many different things to many different people. You will have to decide on your own what this will mean for you, and how you will apply what you are taught here to your futures. Be wise. Be proud. Be humble. Cry. Laugh. Live. As your Headmistress, I, along with your professors, will be here throughout your time.” She raised her glass, “To the worthy,” and then drank, turning and walking back to her seat, which she lowered herself into gracefully.

iv. sebastian pov! (ch. 3)

There was a dead girl in Sebastian’s first period Magical Theory class. She was sitting diagonal from him, on the Glass side of the classroom, in an empty chair, staring straight ahead at the chalkboard. Sebastian tried not to look at her too obviously, his eyes straying from the open book in front of him to her cautiously, beneath the sleeve of his sweater.

She was sitting blankly in the chair, scraping her shoes against the ground, though they could not leave any scuff marks. Though she was the same faded shades most girls were, Sebastian could make out her pleated pale blue plaid skirt, which brushed around her knees, and the stained white blouse that might have once been spotless, but had been marred forever by the circumstances surrounding her death—objectively, that was to say, with blood. Her dark brown hair fell into loose curls around her shoulders, little silver studs glinting dimly, unable to catch the light. Her knee high socks now pooled around her calves and ankles, revealing a rotting bandaid on one of her knees. One of her tennis shoes was peeling at the toes, looking as if it had been ripped apart. 

Her fingernails had all been pulled off. Sebastian was good at analyzing ghosts by this point; he recognized the bloody flesh and bone of the nail bed. There was also blood matted across her head, trickling down her temple, with bruises covering her body; they peeked out from beneath the collar of her shirt, blackened across her cheekbones with a sunken quality in particular to one of her cheeks, as if the bone had begun to cave.

Subjectively, she was far from one of the worst that Sebastian had seen.

[richmond-rex]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!

Hello! I was thinking about which story I could give you a “director’s commentary” on, so I decided to turn this ask into a (late) Trivia Tuesday of sorts and give you some facts about Draw Your Swords! 🌹🌹 send in a ⭐ to ask for the “director’s commentary” on a story

One thing I had in mind when starting to write Elizabeth’s POV in this story was Henry and Elizabeth’s age difference, as well as their difference in terms of experience. Elizabeth was inarguably more sheltered than him at that point in history, and I started thinking about which manner of things she would have been taught to compensate for her lack of experience. 

Sorry, don’t take me wrong, at that point the last two years of her life had been quite traumatic, but I don’t think she would’ve liked very much to dwell on those days — which doesn’t mean memories from those times don’t get to intrude in her thoughts: we see her unwillingly thinking about her brother Richard taken away at sword-point, as well as about the time she and her family had prayed for both her brothers to be safe (in vain). I think Elizabeth might have taken Henry’s new rule as a fresh start (much like he himself was striving so hard to make England understand).

So about Elizabeth: we know that she was taught to be a queen consort pretty much since she was born (which might explain how successful she was?). Edward never really took her as his heir, and I think she received even less administrative training than other noble girls destined to become duchesses, countesses, etc since as a queen she would have had a council to take care of the affairs of her estates. We know that Elizabeth was taught music (and for sure she played the clavichord), dancing, horse riding (apparently she was quite good at that), and French as since Edward’s deal with Louis Elizabeth was called Madame la Dauphine at court. Other things we can imply: she probably was taught church Latin, and perhaps she knew how to read classic Latin as well. 

Elizabeth would also doubtless have been taught to be a good wife. During the Middle Ages, being a good wijf was such an important ideal sometimes the term would be applied to any respectful and virtuous woman, regardless if she was married or not. According to Candace Gregory, the conflation of the term:

[...] clearly reveals the association of a woman’s virtue and her identity, as well as the linkage of those two, with her marital status. The only good woman was a good wife; even nuns were the “brides of Christ” and incorporated a spiritual marital identity.

Being a good wife becomes even more important if you’ve been destined to be queen all your life (especially if we take into account the speculated prophecy that Edward IV received about Princess Elizabeth taking a crown). The nature of queenship was a supportive and complementary one where the queen would provide the gentler aspects of ruling in place of her husband the king. Being a successful queen meant acting in harmony with the king (not against him), which I think it is something that Elizabeth of York was probably mindful of.

This is why in the story we find Elizabeth thinking on the times she was told about what made a good wife, while in the first chapter we see Henry concerned about the broader aspects of ruling England. Elizabeth finds herself remembering that “all a man sought in marriage was a wife that was obedient to his bidding, meek, courteous and wise, amiable and good” and that “A woman should worship her husband both day and night, / To his bidding be obedient, and serve him without offence.”

She doesn’t know Henry very well at that point, and she does remember an instance in literature where a husband beats his wife: “Accordingly, a woman in no way ought to strive against her husband, nor answer him so that he take displeasure thereby, as did the wife of the burgess.” In fact, the story Elizabeth thinks about, The Book of the Knight of the Tower / of La Tour Laundry was a famous fourteenth-century manual describing, through various stories and homilies, proper female behaviour. It was written by a French nobleman, Geoffrey la Tour Landry, for the instruction of his own daughters. 

One thing that I discovered recently is that translation of this book into English, published by Caxton in 1484, was probably dedicated to Elizabeth’s own mother Queen Elizabeth Woodville! As she was technically Dame Grey at the time and no longer a queen (and out of favour with the new king, no less) it is possible that Caxton tried to allude to her in his dedication without naming her. Caxton said that the

This speculation was made by Nicholas Orme in his book From Childhood to Chivalry: The Education of the English Kings and Aristocracy 1066–1530 in case you want to check it out for yourself (I don’t own this book, unfortunately). Well, that’s Trivia Tuesday for you! :D  Thanks for sending your string of ⭐️s! It means a lot 🌹x