#logan realised that he finally found his match in every possible way

[mischievous-thunder]

How the sensual action part of their rom-com started

[just-call-me-the-intrusive-thot]

Soulmate September - Day 2

Day 2 - There is a timer that counts down to when you will meet your soulmate. 

Pairing(s): Romantic RoSleep (Roman x Remy/Sleep), background Analogical

TWs: Mild Swearing from Remy __

“No, no, no, you move my 3 O’clock to 4, my 4 O’clock to 5, then cancel it. I don’t even want to have to look at that scumbag from accounting today, babes.”

Remy kept taking on his bluetooth headset as he approached the Starbucks he’d grown so accustomed to. Normally just inhaling the scent of ground coffee, vanilla, and cinnamon spice would be enough to flood his stressed cranium with serotonin. But that wasn’t going to cut it today. 

Today he was on a mission; his soulmate timer had stopped during his visit here a week ago, and he was determined to find out who it’d stopped for. With his schedule cleared as much as possible, Remy walked into the Starbucks in his business attire, having only bothered to throw on his leather jacket when he’d left the office. Not that his outfit was unplanned, he had made a point of wearing the same white button up shirt, black waistcoat, and matching black slim cut pants he’d been wearing when he first noticed the timer had stopped. If not for making sure his soulmate recognised him, then simply because he looked damn good.

It was a gamble, assuming his soulmate would be there today, but by now he was desperate. Remy knew the rules; after exactly a week was up, his timer would disappear for good and he’d never know who his soulmate was. And he wasn’t about to let that shit fly. No sirree. 

“Now, which one of you is it?”, Remy mumbled under his breath. As he stood just about to open the door and leave, Remy had memorised the men who were present in the cafe that fateful day; eight potential men, two eliminated visually over the first two days when he noted their timers were still going. Another three all eliminated themselves the days following as they revealed themselves to be straight, in a relationship, and very straight, in that order. Remy sighed impatiently as he perused the last three men he’d narrowed things down to.

The first was a short, burly man with chestnut brown hair that tickled his button nose while he leant over to pet the outrageously cute border collie sat by his chair. His cheeks were dusted with freckles that drew attention to his mossy green eyes and sunkissed skin. The blue polo shirt and tan shorts he wore clashed with the fact he clearly worked hard labour in the outdoors. Remy guessed he worked with plants going by his scuffed and dirty boots, and the mud on his pupper’s paws. Remy dubbed him, unsurprisingly, Dog Guy.

The second, Space Cadet, was a far departure from Dog guy; his auburn hair and pale skin spoke of celtic origins while his numerous books concerning the far reaches of the universe spoke of the cosmos. Of a man who harboured an intense scientific curiosity as deep as his sapphire eyes. His black shirt hidden under a dark blue flannel shirt showed the insignia of the local museum, which Remy found fitting. In the nicest way possible, Space Cadet looked like he belonged there with his pristine glasses and tidy upkeep that bordered on neurotic.

And the third man, Anxiety Magnet, was once more a drastic change from the other two. Dark skin melted into an all black outfit consisting of a black hoodie sporting custom purple patches - perhaps he made it himself, Remy couldn’t be sure - alongside black ripped skinny jeans. His purple sneakers matched his nailpolish and eyeshadow framing heterochromic brown and green eyes. Every time Remy would scope out the young man, he’d always be anxiously biting his nails, fidgeting with his napkins, or doodling in the notebooks (Remy noted three different ones at least) he brought with him.

Remy was in for a loooong ride but hopefully today he’d finally figure out which of these lucky doofuses is his soulmate.

He walked over to the counter to order his usual drink, giving the familiar barista a nod as the man recognised him,

“Afternoon, Remy,”, the barista smiled, “The usual for our beloved fairy godmother?”

Remy rolled his eyes fondly, “Roman, babes, kindly shut up.”

Roman laughed, “Come now, wouldn’t want you turning into the Evil Queen, would we?”

“Joke’s on you, babes, I like the Evil Queen.”

Roman feigned a dramatic gasp, only returning to making Remy’s usual once he’d secured a smile from the stressed office worker. Remy twirled his lanyard in his hands; Remy Merryweather. Of all names to be cursed with around a Disney fan like the barista, it HAD to be one of the uncool ones. Okay, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if Roman hadn’t insisted on labelling his drinks with “Flora”, “Fauna”, and “Aurora” ever since. Remy didn’t dwell too long on the kindly barista though, he was a man on a mission. 

Turning his attention to his first choice, Space Cadet, Remy watched him from the table he sat at; no wedding ring, his wrist was covered from sight, and he was most certainly gay going by the pride patches sewn into the backpack under his table. Perfect, he could just be the one.

As if on cue, Space Cadet shifted his watch and frowned. Perhaps he’d get lucky-

Ah, he’s leaving. Shit. Well, there was nothing else for it, Remy carefully nudged the trashcan by his seat as the man walked past, tripping him. The man let out a yelp and hit the floor. Remy was just getting up to help him when Anxiety Magnet came hurrying over out of the blue, 

“You alright?! That looked painful....”

What the fuck. Remy was about to speak up when Space Cadet locked eyes with Anxiety Magnet and for a moment the two were silent as the latter checked his timer, prompting the former to do the same. 

Son of a bitch.

Space Cadet sat up and reached a hand out to Anxiety Magnet, revealing that his timer had just stopped.

“Logan Baird, charmed to meet you, dear soulmate.”, he smiled warmly at the anxious man who helped him to his feet.

“Likewise,”,the anxious man responded, “Virgil Peyton. Nice to know my soulmate’s so handsome.”

Ugh. Remy watched as Space Cadet and Anxiety Magnet - or Logan and Virgil as he was now painfully aware - gathered up the fallen books and left together to go be happy and in love. While Remy could only watch as they did so. 

Fantastic. Well, at least he knew who his soulmate must be now. Who knew Dog Guy would be the top dog? Admittedly, Dog Guy was Remy’s last choice in a partner, but hey, after all the trouble he went to, he wasn’t about to argue with fate. Once Roman brought him his order - an iced, Ristretto, ten shot venti, with five pumps of vanilla, seven pumps of caramel, four packs of Splenda, and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top with “Prince Phillip” written on the cup this time - Remy made his way over to the lucky fellow.

“Excuse me, mind if I sit here?”, Remy asked as he approached the Dog Guy. 

The man smiled warmly, “Oh, not at all, kiddo! Hope you don’t mind my dog or things might get ruff!“. The joke made Remy want to drive his head into the ground at mach speeds, but if they were soulmates, he’d learn to love it. Hopefully. Maybe.

“Like, no worries babes, your dog is totes cute.”, Remy noted the man’s cheerful smile. He sat down and offered his name, “I’m Remy, what about you?”.

“Ah, how rude of me! I’m Patton Fairchild! And this is Foster!”, he gestured to the collie, “It’s nice to meet you Remy!”. Maybe this guy wasn’t so bad of a choice after all; he's bubbly, friendly, gentle, and Remy truly couldn’t deny the sexy lumberjack appeal.

“Likewise, though I hope I’m not intruding on anything here. Like, I don’t wanna take up your time if you’re here on a date or-”

“Goodness no, I’m not on a date! Don’t you worry, you’re not interrupting anything!”, he assured Remy.

“That’s good, I wouldn’t wanna get in the way of you and your soulmate, sweetie.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,”, Patton stated, sending Remy’s hopes soaring before they shattered on the marble floor, “I don’t have one. I mean, I love love and all that, but I never much felt the lure of it myself!”

God. Fucking. Dammit.

Remy’s face fell. None of them were his soulmate. He stayed to talk to Dog Guy- Patton for a while so as not to make the poor guy feel awkward, then watched him leave. Another failure with not enough time left to find his soulmate. Remy sat alone, sipping the dregs of his order. He ignored the constant texts from the office as he stayed til near closing time. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have not paid attention when his timer hit zero? Maybe he deserved this; to be miserable and alone for his negligence. His soulmate probably wasn’t even missing him either. Or maybe they were and now they couldn’t find him-

“Mind if I sit here?”

Remy rolled his head towards Roman, taking in the sweet sympathy pouring from his rather lovely smile. In his hand he held a to-go cup and his work apron was replaced with a red and white letterman jacket. Great, now he was keeping the charming barista from going home. But when had Remy ever cared about not being selfish?

“Sure, take a fuckin’ seat, babes.“, he groaned, no longer caring about keeping up the facade of being more put together than he really was. Roman sat down with a concerned gaze and slowly slid the drink over to Remy.

“It’s green tea. It’s a little less extravagant than your usual tastes, but it’s good for relieving stress..”

Roman encouragingly tapped the cup lid, smiling contagiously, “And something tells me the Evil Queen has some tension she needs to release.”

Remy gave a slightly bitter laugh as he looked up from playing eye-contact-chicken with the table and noted the green tea read “Maleficent”. God, this guy’s such a dork.

“It’s more than just some tension, sweetie,”, Remy began, inhaling sharply as he sat up, “I’ve just realised I’m never going to find my soulmate. I was stupid. I wasn’t thinking and the moment I looked away, I missed him.”. The half-snort he gave came out so much more painful than intended, “I let my timer hit zero, babes, and now it’s almost been a full week. My last three chances just walked out the goddamn door. Two of them as fucking soulmates, Roman! How unfair is that?-”

Roman’s expression gave him pause. It wasn’t the sympathetic expression from before, more like he was seeing Remy for the first time. Like he’d made a cosmic realisation that was about to change his life.

“Your timer… when did yours stop exactly?”, he asked. The wording gave Remy pause as he realised. 

He hadn’t accounted for Roman. How could he have been so blind? Perhaps he couldn’t believe the charming barista could be the one. Perhaps he thought the man who smiled genuinely at him every day while he whittled down potential soulmates and greeted him with only the kindest of regards was too good for someone like him.

“It… stopped on Wednesday-”

“Around 2:15 pm? During the lunchtime rush?!”, Roman cut in excitedly. Remy was aghast as Roman pulled back the wrist of his letterman and revealed a stopped timer about as faded as Remy’s. With no hesitation, anticipation growing, Roman gently reached for Remy’s hand, which the latter offered enthusiastically. To their mutual delight, their timers disappeared, proving that they were indeed soulmates.

Both were stunned, Roman’s expression wildly happy, his brown eyes sparkling with equal elation and adoration. As Remy took in his gorgeous tanned skin, beautiful mocha hair, and that wonderful chiseled face he had the growing urge to caress and litter with kisses, all he could say in the moment was,

“Does this mean you’ll finally spell my fucking name right?”

--

This one was so much fun to write! I think this is the one piece of writing where I mostly nailed Remy’s character, so I hope this one does well TTvTT @tsshipmonth2020

[izzyfandoms]

The Colour In Your Eyes

SHIPS: Patmile

CHARACTERS: Emile Picani, Patton Sanders

WARNING: Nothing

GENERAL TAGLIST: @quillfics42 @aj-draws @phantomofthesanderssides @phlying-squirrel @sly-is-my-name-loving-is-my-game @because-were-fam-ily @imtryingthisout @a-creepycookie @emo-disaster @littlestr @spooky-scary-virgil @fuyel @mimsidoodles @soupgremlin @aroaceagenderfluid @birdsbookshiddeninrealbirdsskin @quirkalurk @gingers-trashy-stuff @iinyxtello @justaqueercactus @melodiread @mrbubbajones @glassferns @pun-master-logan @gayturtlez

Masterpost

A Series Of Soulmate AUs Masterpost

Emile was always daydreaming about colours.

He’d read as much as he could about them, memorised every little description he could find and asked anyone he knew who could see them to tell him the colours of everything around him.

He knew of the warmth of red – the way it was like sun on your skin, anger and love and everything hot and burning. He knew of the coolness of blue – like sky and water, all that was wet and cool and calm. He knew of the life of green: vegetables and vegetation and the way you could practically taste the colour on your tongue when you ate your greens.

He knew exactly how every colour felt, had a basic idea of what each of them looked like, but he had never seen one.

His vision was grey, just like everyone else who had a soulmate but had never met them. Some people were born with the colours in their eyes, but Emile was not one of them.

He was glad he had a soulmate, and he was so, so excited to meet them, but he was just as excited to finally get to see the colours: to watch all his favourite cartoons the way they were meant to be watched, to see life the way it was always meant to be seen. He couldn’t wait for the moment the world turned bright and vibrant.

So, it was strange that the moment that colours first filled his vision, he almost didn’t notice them.

He was lost in a pair of soft, grey eyes.

The prettiest eyes he’d ever seen.

But then, he noticed the pink at the corners of the whites of the eyes – a colour he’d never seen, but one he’d researched and knew the name of. The cheeks were pink, too, as were the parted lips, and the hair was light and curly and a colour that Emile assumed was blond. There was freckles across the bridge of his nose, and Emile suddenly realised that he’d leant in much closer the moment he realised that he could finally see the colours.

It was okay, though, because the other man had leant in just as much, too, so close that it would’ve only taken a slight movement for their noses to bump and their glasses to collide.

(In the past, when Emile had imagined meeting his soulmate, he’d always thought that he’d spend minutes, possibly even hours, looking around at his surroundings and taking in all of the colours. But, right now, all he could do was stare at the other man. There was nothing else he wanted to look at.)

“Wow,” the other man breathed, finally snapping Emile out of his daze and prompting him to take a step back, out of his soulmate’s space. “You’re my soulmate.”

He sounded so, so happy, which was a mood reflected exactly in Emile’s heart, and Emile couldn’t help but let out a delighted laugh and beam at him. He opened his mouth to speak, and what he’d meant to say was ‘they’re so pretty,’ referring to the colours that had blossomed in front of him, but something else came out instead.

“You’re so pretty,” he said softly, and then his eyes widened and his hand flew up to cover his mouth when he realised what he’d just said.

His soulmate blinked at him, startled, before he brought his hand up to his mouth and giggled.

Emile’s heart skipped a beat in his chest, and he suddenly felt all warm and fuzzy inside, as that laugh was now his new favourite sound.

“Gosh, you’re just- wow,” Emile’s soulmate smiled sweetly, before he held his hand out for Emile to shake. “I’m Patton,” he introduced himself. “Patton Sanders. You?”

Emile took Patton’s hand without hesitation, shaking it. “Emile Picani.”

“Emile...” Patton repeated slowly, like he was savouring the name. “That’s a pretty name.”

“Thank you.”

“So, Emile,” Patton said, smiling. “Are you doing anything today?”

“Nope, it’s my day off.”

“Great! Can I take you out, then?”

“I’d love that,” Emile said genuinely, with a soft smile that matched Patton’s exactly.

“Oh, wonderful!” Patton beamed, but when he opened his mouth to continue talking, likely about the date, he suddenly cut himself off with widened eyes when he finally took his eyes off of Emile’s face. “Oh my gosh, look at all the colours!”

That prompted Emile to do the same thing, and he was no less astonished and amazed when he took in all of the colours around them. The world had never been more vibrant, and it had never been more beautiful.

The first thing Emile looked at was the sky. The fluffy white clouds were the same as they’d always been, but this time against a backdrop of a colour he knew was named ‘blue,’ inside of grey. It was the exact same colour of the polo-shirt Patton wore, under his grey and white cat hoodie. The bricks of the nearby buildings were a warm dark colour he assumed was red. The grass and the bushes in the park across the road were a colour he knew was green. The flowers in the windows of the shop they were stood in front of were all kinds of colours, and now far more pretty than Emile had ever found them before.

He looked down at himself, and found he really liked the colour of his tie – which his brother had called pink: like red, but lighter.

“Those flowers are gorgeous!” Patton said, sounding just as breathless and amazed as Emile felt as he admire the flowers that Emile had just looked at.

Emile straightened up. “I’m going to buy you a bouquet,” he announced.

Patton turned back to him. “Aww, really?”

“Yup! Come on.”

Emile hesitated for a moment, before he held his hand out to Patton. Patton took it immediately, and Emile found that his hand was warm and soft and he never wanted to let go of it again. Emile squeezed his hand, and Patton squeezed his back.

As they pushed the store door open and stepped inside, Patton spoke up again.

“Do you like puns?” He asked.

“Of course, I like puns! Who doesn’t?”

“How about dad jokes?”

“They’re the best kind!”

“Wow, you really are my soulmate, huh?” Patton joked, and Emile laughed.

“Do you like cartoons?” Emile asked.

Patton nodded eagerly. “Of course!”

“Disney?”

“Yup! I’ve got all of their songs stuck in my head, like, all the time.”

Emile beamed. “Oh my gosh, we have got to have a movie marathon some time.”

“I’ll bring the popcorn!”

“It’s a date!”

They stopped in front of the flowers, and Emile found that they were all much prettier and more vibrant up close. They weren’t as gorgeous as Patton, of course, but Emile got the feeling that that was pretty much impossible.

“Which ones are your favourite?” He asked Patton, gesturing with his free hand.

Patton hummed, looking them over. “Gosh, I really don’t know! They’re just all so gorgeous, you know? Who knew that colours were so beautiful!”

“Yeah,” Emile nodded in agreement. “Ooh, how about these ones? They’re the most colourful.”

“Oh, they’re so pretty!” Patton agreed. “But, dang, you know, I really wish I knew the names of all these colours. They’re all so pretty!”

Emile picked up the bouquet with his free hand, looking it over. He then pointed awkwardly at one of the flowers with the hand still in Patton’s. It likely would’ve been easier to point if he let go of Patton’s hand, but he definitely didn’t want to do that.

“I think this one is blue,” he said. “It matches the sky – same as your polo-shirt.”

Patton looked down at his shirt as if he hadn’t noticed it. “Oh, you’re right. I think this is my favourite, it’s so pretty!” He then looked back up at Emile, meeting his eyes and giving him a soft smile. “And it’s the same colour as your eyes.”

Emile smiled back. “Yeah, my brother told me that.”

“Oh, you have a brother?”

“Yup! His name is Remy, he’s three years older than me and he’s gotta be the coolest person I’ve ever met. He met his soulmate, Logan, when they were twelve, so he’s been telling me about colours for a while.”

“Aww, that’s sweet. I have a brother, too. His name’s Virgil and he doesn’t have a soulmate so he’s always been able to see them. He’s my roommate, and he keeps telling me that the colours of my socks always clash, but I think I prefer them that way.”

Emile looked down at their feet, and saw that Patton’s socks were two different colours, one that he recognised as a dark blue, and the other that he didn’t know the name of, though it was bright and looked like the opposite of blue, so he assumed it was orange. The blue one had many differently-sized white spots across it, and the orange was covered with dark and light grey cat faces.

He loved them.

Emile smiled at him again. “I like them.”

Patton beamed. “And are those foxes on your socks? Where did you get them?”

“I’ll have to ask Remy, he got these for my birthday,” Emile said, before gesturing with the bouquet he still held. “So, these flowers, do you like them?”

“Oh, yes, they’re perfect.”

As the pair made their way to the checkout for Emile to pay for the flowers, Patton squeezed Emile’s hand to catch his attention.

“Hey, what do you call a girl with a frog on her head?”

“What?”

“Lily!”

Emile laughed, and Patton gave him the fondest look imaginable, seeming incredibly pleased with himself and his pun.

“Okay, okay,” Emile said. “Why did the woman not like camping?”

“Why?”

“Because she found it too in-tents!” Emile laughed at his own joke. “Get it, ‘cos you camp in tents?”

Patton giggled. “Ooh, what do you call it when two flowers start falling in love?”

“I don’t know, what do you call it?”

“A budding romance!”

“Aww, that one’s cute.”

The cashier gave them an amused look as they handed her the flowers and she scanned them.

“First date?”  

“Yeah,” Emile said. “How’d you guess?”

“You guys just have the look,” she said, as Emile handed her the money.

“Yeah, uh...” Patton gave Emile a fond look, squeezing his hand. “We’re actually soulmates. We just met.”

She smiled at them as she handed Emile the flowers. “Aww, that’s sweet. Well, I hope you have a nice date.”

“Thank you,” Emile smiled at her.

The couple walked away, and the moment they stepped out of the shop, they stopped. Emile turned to Patton, and made a show of dramatically handing him the bouquet. Patton giggled, taking them happily.

“You’re quite the gentleman, aren’t you?”

“Oh, they’re just flowers,” Emile responded. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

“Well, I can’t wait.”

Patton held the flowers up to his nose, taking a deep breath and then sighing happily.

(Emile had been smiling so much he could already feel his face start to ache. But it was impossible to stop: it was impossible to keep his immeasurable joy from bubbling up. He and Patton had only just met, but he was already excited to spend the rest of his life with him. That voice was already his favourite sound, and that smile was already his favourite sight.)

“So,” Patton squeezed his hand, and Emile automatically squeezed back. “How about ice cream?”

“Sounds great.”

“Okay! There’s a place just a few streets away, I go there basically every week. The ice cream’s just so good!”

Emile nodded, and Patton immediately began walking in the direction of the ice cream place, gently tugging Emile along. Emile went along with no complaint, and he already knew he would follow that man anywhere, to the ends of the earth.

When Patton glanced back over his shoulder to smile at him, he caught another glimpse of those pretty grey eyes, and he couldn’t help but smile back.

Emile had been daydreaming about colours since he was old enough to daydream, but never had he once considered that his favourite colour would end up being grey.

[craftypeaceturtle]

A is for Arrival...?

Summary: Remus and Janus are shopping ready for the new arrival for their family.

Note: The start of an AU and series because I’m just a sucker for any type of familiar sides. Romantic Demus and Royality.

Next Part: B is for Baby Time

.

“Hey Jay?” Remus suddenly stopped; his eyes enormous. 

“Yes, dear?” Janus put on a dramatic Victorian tone, his spine straightening with his hand frozen poised with the packet of washing up sponges. 

“Do we need to get birthday stuff?” Janus immediately scrunched his face, “No wait! Listen. You celebrate your kid’s birthday every year so surely you celebrate his first ever one ever. Right?”

Janus stared into the distance as he dropped the sponges on the floor, “Call your brother.”

“No,” Remus whined but still pulled up his phone and promptly shoved it into Janus’ chest, “He’ll only make fun of me if I ask it. If you ask it, then maybe he’ll presume he’s the stupid!”

“Did he celebrate Logan’s first ever ever birthday? What would you even call it? First day of existence?” Janus frowned as he speed dialled the number. 

“If he did, he didn’t invite me!” Remus shrugged before picking up the sponges. He immediately crowded into Janus and smooshed himself into his shoulder. 

They picked up on the second ring, Patton’s sigh answering. Something that they probably weren’t supposed to hear. “Hello Roman. We just have a quick question,” Janus chirped. 

“Hey Janus. It’s Patton by the way. Wow, another question, huh?” Patton, meanwhile, gave Roman a stern look and thrusted the phone at him again. Roman pulled a face as he shrugged and ducked back down behind the sofa. Frowning, he put it on speaker so they could both suffer, “What did you want to ask?”

“Should we celebrate our baby’s first ever day? Like a birthday but for their very very first birthday?” 

“What!” Roman shrieked before leaping back on to the sofa; ever so suddenly finding the strength to talk. 

“What do you mean ‘what’! God, he’s such a douche,” Remus muttered.

“I’m a douche, oh am I? Why would you celebrate a baby’s first ever day. It’s their first ever day in this world! They get overwhelmed and scared so easily. It’s a big scary world out there and you’re going to shove a party in their face! The baby is barely old enough to move it’s own hands! It’s a baby!” Roman complained while Patton giggled.

“To treat this seriously for a second, when you finally get your baby, the very last thing you want to do is mess around too much. After all this time, all that waiting, you finally get this tiny fragile baby. A tiny itty bitty baby. All you’ll want to do is just sit there and watch them quietly. A party is the last thing you’ll think to do. Heh, me and Roman even forgot to eat that day and only remembered hours later,” Patton spoke softly with his own memories uplifting his annoyance. Roman smiled and knocked their shoulders together. 

“...So is it worth buying like finger food in case we forget to eat?” Remus interrupted.

“Uh... yeah? I mean, yeah that would work,” Roman fumbled.

“Okay. Cheers. Bye!” Remus called out while Janus rolled his eyes, “Wow. We really need to get them something for putting up with all this.”

“Well I’m going to keep talking to them, you weirdo.” Janus ran his hand through Remus’ crazed curls but he was quickly shrugged off as Remus went to evaluate which bleach was best for their toilet, “How are you two?”

“Yeah, all’s good here! Just your typical day, what are you doing?” Patton chirped.

“Baby shopping mixed with some normal shopping. Extremely exciting, I’m sure you’re jealous,” Janus felt his voice go soft at just the mere mention of his coming baby.

“Aww! That’s so sweet,” Patton sighed, “I miss that so much about Logie. Baby clothes shopping is the only reason worth becoming a dad.”

“Oh Pat! Such slander, I’m impressed,” Janus laughed.

“Oh hush! Everyone knows that baby clothes are the best cutest things in existence. Aw, are you going to buy Halloween clothes! Me and Roman saw some adorable skeleton onesies today and I came this close to buying it for the baby.”

“Yeah, I think at this point we’ve bought him more Halloween clothes than normal baby stuff. That’s the whole reason we still have to do some shopping. There were these pumpkin shoes and socks. Oh Pat! I swear if I wasn’t so macho and cool, I would’ve cried. Baby shoes are just so tiny!” Remus raised a brow at his squealing voice. But then he also knew exactly what Janus was talking about just from his tone alone. Those shoes were actually pretty cute. 

“They are right! Aw, do you know any more about the baby?”

“Well...” Janus drawled while Remus took a breath. They agreed that Janus was going to deal with this breaking news.

“We met up with the mother yesterday.”

“Oh! My! Oh! Oh, Jayjay! That’s amazing! How was she?” Remus quickly snatched the phone and flicked it to speaker. Janus raised a brow at him but he was only met with the most mischievous smirk back. He frowned but turned back to continue talking only now with Patton’s voice squeaking out across the aisle. 

“She looked exhausted. I felt so bad for her. Meeting up for a coffee looked like the very last thing she wanted to do,” Remus said. 

“Bless her,” Janus sighed, “She was lovely.”

“Aw, that’s good. We never really got to meet our surrogate, how come yours wanted to meet?”

“Well, she apparently had a bit of a health scare. All is good! Everything is all good! But she just wanted to sit down with us and actually go through everything that happened. So we sat and talked about the health of the baby. Again, all is good obviously. But... so... we may or may not have found out our baby’s gender,” Janus winced once the squeal erupted over the phone. Remus cackled at the amount of people who turned to look at them with dirty looks before he turned the speaker off again. Ah, yes wouldn’t be a trip to the shops if Remus couldn’t spread some mild chaos. 

“What’s their gender!” Patton screamed before launching up from the sofa. Roman was giggling as Patton jumped up and down and spun him around. 

“We’re having a boy!” Janus smiled. He would deny the glow in his chest for this rest of his life but he couldn’t help but grab Remus’ hand. Remus smiled, thankfully, and squeezed his hand with his own lovesick smile. Their baby boy.

“Oh a boy!” Patton squealed high enough for dogs. 

“Typical, not one girl in this entire family,” Roman chuckled. 

“Oh congrats guys! When’s the due date again?” Patton sighed.

“10th of December. I almost feel bad for the boy. He’s going to have to put up with the whole Christmas birthday combination.”

“I’m still upset that he wasn’t a Halloween baby,” Remus frowned. 

They chatted for a few more minutes before Janus finally hung up. They were still holding hands- they would look exactly like a couple from a lovey film if they actually dressed like normal people rather than Disney villains. All they needed to do now grab was some more normal baby outfits. A very simple easy task. Just look at some clothes and chose some cute functional clothes.

But every single time... every single time, they would find the most abnormal baby outfits possible. That and they always spent a good ten solid minutes of staring at the tiny shoes. They looked like build-a-bear shoes. They didn’t even look real. 

“I can’t wait until he arrives,” Remus mumbled as he picked up a hideous orange dinosaur patterned jumper set. Janus tried to hide the smile but he quickly placed his head on his shoulder as they stood there. 

“Neither can I. He can’t come soon enough. Just like how you can’t put back that gross set soon enough.”

“You don’t like it! I think it’s cute.” Remus tilted his head as if that made it cuter. 

“He’s so not going to be an orange baby.”

“You don’t know that! Does he even need a colour?”

“You’ve got green, I like yellow. He also needs a colour. While we can still have control over what he wears at least,” Janus stated like Remus was a toddler trying to argue that the sky was green. 

“So we both have our ugly colours. Then he also needs an ugly colour too! Orange is a disgusting colour!” Remus thrusted the jumper in his face. 

“Oh totally exactly, dear,” Janus rolled his eyes before he then felt the passion erupt from him, “Okay. Firstly, for your information, yellow is a beautiful colour thank you very much. You’re the one that chose the grossest colour of green to embrace. He can have purple,” Janus winced as he guided Remus’ hand back down to the shelf. 

“Purple?” 

“Yes. A beautiful colour. Not only does it screw over superfluous ridiculous gender roles, it also is close enough to match our dress senses,” Janus stated with a proud look. Remus opened his mouth but then snapping it shut with a respectful nod. Yep, that sounded like a plan.  

They eventually found some normal tiny eeny weeny pair of jeans and they used all of their collective strength to stay clear of all the Halloween clothes and bought some presentable jumpers. Janus was finally starting to get fed up with standing around in a shop before he realised that Remus’ eyes kept flicking to a shelf behind them. 

He never made any move to actually go look at whatever it was and he never mentioned it. Janus found every reason to keep looking at the same pairs of stripey socks to give him time but he still said nothing. It was so uncommon that Remus felt shy about suggesting something. What could be the harm? “What you looking at?” Janus asked while exaggeratedly turning around.

“Um... I just noticed...” Remus drawled off. It was just a discount shelf. It was stacked with just random broken items that clearly no one ever take any interest in. Remus shyly sulked up to it and pushed aside the chipped mugs and torn notebooks without any hesitation. He pulled up a baby blanket. 

It was the exact same incredibly soft material all baby stuff was made from. The stuff where your hand magnetised to its softness. It was a quilted baby blanket in a pastel lilac. It was cute but it wouldn’t be on a discounted shelf without reason. There was a large smudge of black marker on its corner. But as Remus held it up, Janus laughed. It wasn’t quilted. It was sewn to be a spider web pattern around the blanket. Clearly an old Halloween gimmick. 

He turned to ask if Remus was all ready to go then and was immediately punched in the stomach. Remus was all teary eyed and awkwardly looking anywhere but him. His fingers brushed through the blanket over and over again. 

“Oh Reem,” Janus cooed and tugged the blanket from his grasp but he didn’t let go.

“I don’t even know why I’m tearing up!” Remus pressed his arms against his face. Janus felt himself tearing up as well. Something about how Remus’ voice would go all wobbly and pitchy when he was on the edge of tears just always got to him, “Just... oh this is so fucking stupid.”

“Well you’ve got us both crying in a shop at 9 in the morning. I’d say it sounds pretty dumb,” Janus smiled.

“Just... he could be our little spider. Just like how I’m your octopus and you’re my snake,” Remus’ voice was practically crumbling away. Janus felt a disgusting childish tear slip down his face.

“Oh Reem.” Janus hugged him, only so he didn’t have to experience the embarrassment of people seeing his husband’s gross taste in blankets of course. 

“How much spider stuff have we bought him! Like that would be perfect. And this is purple and spider!” Remus felt a tear escape his control too but he just buried his nose in Janus’ hair. 

“Oh you are such a nightmare of a husband. I’m taking you back to the husband shop and refunding you,” Janus groaned, he broke away and snatched the blanket from his grasp and shoved it into their trolley. At least it was cheap. Plus they would probably end up staining it with gross new born baby vomit anyway. 

[nightingaletrash]

Hey! Can I ask you Doggo, Brother and Sweetheart from the Fable 3 ask? Thank you! I really love these :)

Thank you!! I answered Doggo and Brother already, so I’ll copy-paste those below the cut so you don’t have to dig for them ^^

--

In my personal canon, Elliot and Elise both exist and are twins. They were orphaned at a young age and taken on by Aya as wards, and so they were raised alongside Lorna as her closest friends. And both their lives were on the line in the throne room.

As they were her best friends, Lorna just couldn’t bring herself to sentence them both to death. Logan literally reached ‘one’ in his countdown when she panicked and made the split second decision for the protesters to be executed, a choice that has haunted her ever since. It’s what motivates her to be better, to live up to her ideals of what a Hero should be, and to never be so weak again.

After they managed to escape the castle themselves, the twins ended up in Bowerstone Industrial, trying to find some absolution for having survived the throne room and they began to work with Lazlo at the shelter. Elliot ended up falling for him, thanks to his now very complicated feelings towards Lorna, and they ended up engaged. So when Lorna showed up to rescue them from Ferret, nearly a year after the events of the throne room, it was a little awkward.

Ultimately Lorna and Elliot didn’t rekindle their relationship - they’d both changed too much, they’d moved on with their lives, and Lazlo was simply a better match in the end. It wouldn’t be fair to come between them, so Lorna wished them well.

But Elise wasn’t quite so ready to move on with her life. She’d always been the more fiery of the pair, despite playing the part of the gentle, delicate lady, and she wanted to help stop Logan however she could. As far as she was concerned, he was the one responsible for what happened in the throne room, not Lorna. She all but begged to be allowed to be part of the revolution, so Lorna brought her to the Bowerstone Resistance. She coordinated with Page, providing everything she knew about Albion’s nobles and the castle’s secret passageways that she, her brother and Lorna had discovered as children. Anything that could give the revolution an edge in the battles to come.

Elliot and Lazlo focused on keeping the people of Bowerstone alive and cared for, while Elise and Page focused on giving them a future to believe in.

--

Logan and Lorna were super close growing up despite the eight year age gap. Wherever Logan went, Lorna wasn’t usually far behind, and he was always willing to indulge his little sister when she wanted to play with him. If she had a bad dream or something spooked her, he was the first port of call and he always did his best to be there for her.

Things changed when Sparrow passed away and Logan became King, because he was so busy running Albion, and Lorna found herself having to rely on other people over her big brother. He did try to make time for his sister, but it was hard, bless him. The work-life balance didn’t come to him as easily as it did Sparrow, and he didn’t always have the energy to keep up with his sister.

When he planned to go to Aurora, Lorna was furious and spent her time either trying to convince him to stay or just giving him the cold shoulder. So to try and make it up to her, and to give her a companion she could always count on being there without fail, Logan started making some inquiries into getting her a puppy so that she might feel less lonely.

When he returned there was a very stark shift in their relationship. While he tried to keep up appearances and tried to be the same big brother he’d always been, he just couldn’t. He needed to protect his sister no matter what, and so he eventually began to hold her at arm’s length, kept her safely cloistered in the castle and worked tirelessly to try and prepare Albion for the Crawler. For a long time, Lorna made excuses for him and his behaviour. Walter told her just enough about what he knew to have happened - that he’d lost every soldier who had accompanied him - and that he was responding to that trauma, so she tried not to take things too personally. But the first time he lost his temper with her marked their relationship and she realised that maybe he’d changed forever.

She genuinely believed she could talk to him though, on the day of the protest. She thought she could get through to him and see that what he was doing was wrong. It was a huge shock when she realised that she didn’t know him anymore, and she knew she had to do something about it. She couldn’t ignore what he’d become anymore.

And then she goes to Aurora, fights through the Darkness, nearly loses herself and Walter to it, only to survive and learn that Logan had gone through the same thing, except he’d emerged from the experience alone. He’d lost everyone. And she realises then why he’d changed, because she feels changed herself. The question she still has is why he’d made the choices he had, and why he’d done such awful things to their own people. And she decides she’s doing to get that answer, one way or another.

Ultimately she did spare Logan. In part because of his own experience as king and with the Darkness - he’s fought and survived it, they’re going to need him - but because he’s her brother. She had always known there was a real possibility that she might have to order his execution, she even spent a long time trying not to think of him as her brother so that she’d be able to do just that, but in the end she can’t do it. And she knows it’s wrong. Because no matter how justified his execution his might be, it just sets her to walk the same path as him. If she executes him, she could one day justify the executions of civilians just as he had.

So she spares him, adds him to her war council, and appoints him as an Advisor because she needs his insight and experience. It’s a few months before they’re able to move beyond professionalism, but as they finally begin to open up about the things in their heads and the things they’ve been through, they begin to mend their bridges and the wounds begin to heal. After Walter’s death, Logan is appointed to the position of Royal Advisor, and they work together to try and restore Albion as their mother would have wished to see it.

–

As mentioned above, Lorna’s dog was a gift from Logan before he departed for Aurora. He’d reached out to several breeders in Albion - he looked for border collies specifically because he believed they’d have the energy to keep up with Lorna - and found one in Brightwall who had a new litter of puppies that were looking for homes once they were old enough.

He was able to procure Lorna the pick of the litter, and when the pups were ready to leave their mother, he took her to Brightwall under the pretense of having a surprise for her. She was still sulking about him going away and thought that he was just making a trip to the Academy so she could pick out some books or something, so you can imagine the sheer delight when she was introduced to the litter and told that she could pick whichever puppy she liked.

She named her puppy Lexel after a character in a book she’d been reading, and they became the very best of friends. Jasper did try to have a ‘no dogs on furniture’ rule, but found himself swiftly overruled because of course he was, and Lorna brought Lexel with her everywhere. She learned to train him herself using some books from the library and with a bit of help from Walter, and she was able to teach him to search for buried things like her mother’s dog. Combat training came along a little later, which Walter insisted on as a precaution.

All in all, Lexel is a very good boy.

[novelnerdqueers]

Tell Me To Stay - Chapter 5

Summary :  Logan's birthday comes around and he's shocked to find out that this year someone actually not only remembered but also got him a gift.

CW: Brief mentions of nightmares, unhealthy habits

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Chapter 5:  Dinner?... Just The Two Of Us?

They drove in silence for most of the way. Now and again they would exchange glances. They drove up to the building where Logan's condo was. "This is my stop."

"Right, of course. Would you like me to walk you up to your apartment, or are you okay from here?" Roman offered.

"Um well I mean it's not like I really need help finding my place," Logan started. Obviously, he could get back home fine from here. He thought he felt Roman shrink back a little at this. It then hit him that that question probably had subtext. Of course Roman would know he was fine on his own, yet here he was wanting to spend as much time as possible with him. "But," he continued, "I'm not against the company."

Roman smiled and then climbed out of the car, walking over to where Logan was. They started walking, their footsteps matching each other. "Hey, Logan?" Roman asked quietly as he looked around the small area they were walking in absent-mindedly. "Why did you move to our department from your last one?"

"Oh well um... let's just say that not all jobs at the CSI are esteemed in the same fashion. I was the head supervisor of the archives, but no one cares about you here unless you do something on the field or closely related to the field. No matter what I did, or what I accomplished, all I was to everyone was just a pencil pusher. Which hurt because I really truly felt like I could contribute more, but no one ever took me seriously." Logan was starting to get worked up as he continued speaking. "I've been told many times to stop playing Sherlock Holmes and leave the work to the real detectives." Logan stopped walking at this point, they were standing in front of his door now.

Roman watched Logan carefully, listening to him with a thoughtful expression. "Hey," he said gently once Logan had finished speaking. His voice was low and calming as he took Logan's hand and squeezed it, gently soothing him with the grounding touch. "Look... I don't say these things to people often, but actually, you’re a pretty good investigator... A real detective would encourage others to follow in their footsteps, they clearly weren't that great if all they could do was make fun of you. You are a great person to work with and be around... it hasn't been as bad as I thought..." He was very close as he held Logan's cool hands in his own. Logan could smell his musky, sweet-smelling cologne and his comforting expression was at least doing something to ease his mind.

"Why are you telling me this... why do you care so much?" Logan couldn't help but ask. His mind was reeling from Roman's words, his heart was pounding. He'd never felt so... so... valued before, it was jarring to him. His hands felt clammy and yet Roman was still holding them.

"I care about you, Logan," Roman said. "You're a good friend. Though I do believe we got off on the wrong foot. You are a good partner; I feel like I'm not doing all the work for once. It's nice to know there's someone I can work with who I can trust with a job and know it will be done well and with a good amount of effort put into it. You'll try to get it as good as it can be, I appreciate that. You also seem to...balance me out quite well. I suppose this is my way of saying thank you." He smiled, hoping he correctly put his thoughts into words.

Logan managed to offer a small smile back, he was truly touched by Roman’s words. “Thank you, Roman… it means a lot to me to hear you say that.” Finally, he pulled his hands away, the ongoing touch was starting to feel a little too awkward. He looked down for a moment before returning his gaze to Roman’s. “I also really have grown to appreciate having you as a partner. It’s nice to feel like what I do actually matters, without having to change who I am or how I do things for all that.” An understanding seemed to pass between the two of them. “Well, goodnight I guess,” Logan spoke as he took out his keys to unlock the door, “See you tomorrow.”

Roman nodded, "Have a nice evening, Logan." He smiled, waving to him as he headed back to his car.

……………

Over the next couple of weeks, Roman found himself becoming more and more fond of Logan's presence and appreciated his sense of logic in certain situations where his enthusiasm did admittedly become a little too much. It was nice to have a friend who understood and got him the way Logan did. He tried to push away the more troubling thoughts of when he seemed to stare at Logan when he wasn't looking or some of their eye contact that lingered a little bit too long. He didn't want or need to think about that.

Never before had Logan looked forward to going to work each morning. Not that he hadn’t enjoyed the other jobs he’d had before, but he finally felt like he’d found his place within the team. He also had to admit that he really truly enjoyed working with Roman, they made a great team and that was something he’d never really experienced before.

Roman found that every day he was talking to Logan that much more and wasn't even slightly objecting to it, it was great. He felt himself smiling more, being generally happier and found his days a little brighter. The usually long days didn't feel as tedious and he found himself wanting to stay at work with Logan because home for him had a lonely feel to it that he didn't want to think about for fear that he already knew its origin. The loneliness ate away at him, attacking him during the nights. By morning, he was able to brush it off and he had the motivation to take care of himself a little better, it was a very welcome change of pace.

Logan had begun to notice a gradual change in his overall mood. He didn’t feel nearly so anxious all the time when at work and with the others, especially with Roman. Where before he would have happily rushed home the moment his day was done, he found himself hanging back to chat with Roman at the end of work. While not entirely becoming all that much more sociable, he didn’t mind the interactions nearly so much as he used to. He felt more relaxed, more upbeat, Roman’s optimistic energy was contagious and strangely attractive to him. There were even times where he found himself alone at home almost missing that feeling.

…..............

Roman walked into the office. It was a normal Friday morning for anyone else, but Roman couldn't say the same. He wore a barely noticeable frown on his face. The night before, he'd spoken to an old friend and they'd asked him about some sensitive topics. He hadn't realised at the moment, but talking about it as if everything was okay had dug up some things he'd long since buried. It didn't help that when he'd said he'd rather not talk about it, they got offended and asked if Roman still trusted them which made Roman feel bad so he'd given in and told him. As a result, he'd gotten a few hours of sleep, broken up in small intervals of the night because of the nightmares and general uneasiness that loomed over him. He was exhausted.

Logan was already busy on something when Roman arrived that day. As he heard him arrive he instinctively felt his head lift to look up at him. “Hey,” he started cheerily, Roman giving him a smile and a nod. Logan immediately felt that something was off. He’d unwittingly learned Roman’s usual mannerisms and this wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t anything huge, but still, enough that it left him with an odd suspicious feeling, he tried to brush it off. They got to work and the feeling stayed with Logan throughout the morning. Once it got around to early afternoon he just couldn’t take it anymore. He looked over at Roman to see that he seemed lost in thought, his gaze fixed on the wall. “Hey, Roman… I hope I’m not overstepping here but… are you okay?” His words seemed to startle Roman out of his stupor.

"Hmm?" he hummed, looking up at Logan. "Oh, right, uh... I'm okay, I guess, just tired. I had a rather sleepless night." He frowned, his unfocused gaze shifting from his work to look at Logan completely. "I had to have a...difficult conversation with an old friend that I didn't really want to be a part of. I suppose I didn't think it would affect me this way," he shrugged, running a hand across his face and sighing in defeat.

“Oh..” Logan wasn’t quite sure how to respond. He wasn’t exactly very good at being the comforting type. “I’m sorry to hear that. I get it though,” he mused thoughtfully. Tough conversations were a thing he’d, unfortunately, had a lot of experience with. He knew that often they were necessary, but they also left him feeling rather out of it. “I’m guessing the outcome of the conversation wasn’t exactly what you hoped for?”

"I guess you could say that," Roman hummed, taking a sip of water and skimming through his paperwork. It was a summary of the most recent crime scene they'd been to and he was struggling so much more than he usually would be. As Logan made quick work of several piles of papers, he was still stuck on the first few pages and it was almost painful.

Logan could see that Roman’s mind was just not in it today. “Do you want some help with that?” he offered, genuinely concerned at this point.

"Actually, yeah, I'd appreciate that," he smiled gratefully, letting out a yawn as Logan made his way over to his desk and stood behind him.

Logan began looking over the neglected and poor quality work, or at least poor compared to Roman's usual standard of work. Roman knew Logan didn't think lowly of his work because of his mistakes like he did, but Roman always found difficulty in actually giving himself credit when it was due.

While not being terrible, Logan could definitely tell this wasn’t Roman’s best work. “Your ideas are a little all over the place,” he spoke as he cocked his head, trying to see how the elements could be organised. “Do you mind if I take a go at rearranging a few things?”

“Yeah, of course, go for it,” Roman said, letting out a tired sigh and shifting so Logan could stand over his work. Logan then inspected the sheet in front of him, his eyes scanned over the notes. He picked up a pen and grabbed a loose sheet of paper, writing down some numbers, drawing arrows and several small notes for organizing his ideas.

Roman hadn’t quite realised, but in his tired frame of mind, he’d lost focus and was staring at Logan rather than the papers, watching the way his lips moved as he spoke, but not quite computing what he was saying. Noticing the way he held the pen, elegantly moving his hand to jot down a general summary of what he was explaining, but not quite picking up on the words that he actually wrote, being unable to focus on them.

“So yeah it’s up to you in the end, but this might help you give a better sense of direction to your notes,” Logan finished saying as he raised his head. It was at that moment that he noticed Roman staring at him. He couldn’t tell whether he was just spaced out or if he had been intently staring at him. “Hello, earth to Roman,” he spoke, hoping to break his trance. “You okay there?” At these words, Roman seemed to realize what he was doing and his cheeks flushed a light shade of pink.

Roman shook his head, trying to pull himself out of the daze he’d somehow fallen into. “Gosh, I’m sorry, Logan, I’m really not able to concentrate at all today.” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “I really appreciate the help. I’m usually better with my notes, but the reorganisation will really help me to find what I'm looking for faster.”

“Alright then, always happy to help.” Logan strode back to his chair to continue his work. Before doing so he glanced back up towards Roman one last time. “You know, if ever you need some more help, don’t hesitate to ask okay.” He offered him a warm smile then turned back to the papers on his desk.

Roman smiled over at him. “Okay, I won't, thank you, Logan,” he said, looking back at his work. A gentle smile stuck on his face every time he looked over at Logan or thought about his notes or the way he smiled at him. It was nice to know that there was someone like Logan that he could truly rely on.

...............................

Logan’s first few months at the precinct had flown by without him noticing. Before he knew it autumn was rolling around. It was mid-October when he walked into the office one day to a package on his desk. He strode over to his chair, utterly confused as to what it was doing there. Roman was at his desk already working. “Uh Roman, what’s this on my desk for?”

“Oh, you don’t know?” Roman smiled, standing up and walking over to Logan’s desk, a certain spring in his step which was easily recognizable. “It’s your birthday, Lo,” he beamed. “I looked into the files because I remembered seeing your birthday was at some point in October and I wanted to get you something,” he explained, leaning against Logan’s desk.

For a moment Logan was dumbstruck, somehow he’d managed to forget his own birthday. In his defense, he never really did anything for his birthday so it generally didn’t feel different from any other day. He never told anyone about it because he didn’t care for that kind of attention and was never really close to any of his coworkers for it to actually matter. “Oh um, thank you…” Logan could feel himself blushing, he was oddly touched by this attention of Roman’s.

Roman grinned, “You’re very welcome, Logan.” It was obvious now that Roman was waiting for Logan to open his present as he made his way back over to his own desk.

Roman hovered just behind him excitedly, as he slowly took back the wrapping paper which was a simple navy blue. Behind that, neatly placed wrapping paper was a book with drawings, photographs, illustrations and theories about space. Quotes from different astronomers and astrophysicists lined almost every page and it was just a very beautiful gift. He was looking for one online but couldn’t find anything he knew Logan would like. He wanted to be accurate with something Logan would actually appreciate so he’d put one together himself. He’d gotten the idea because his coworker seemed to be obsessed with space, so this gift idea was too perfect to pass up.

Logan was stunned by the present, for something that was clearly handmade it was remarkably well done. He was taken aback at how thoughtful the gift was, he was flattered but wasn’t entirely sure what to think of it. “Wow Roman, I-... thank you.” Logan looked up at him and smiled, “This must have taken you quite some time and it’s pretty good too.” He flipped through the pages, carefully running his fingers over the different images and quotes. The attention to detail was pretty spot on and he could appreciate that. “How did you know that I was such a space nerd?” Logan was slightly confused as to how Roman had known this in the first place.

Roman fought the urge to be slightly disappointed at Logan's reaction. By now, Roman was aware that his partner just expressed feelings differently than he did and Logan did say he liked it...in his own way, which was a plus. He just didn't react the way Roman imagined or was used to when he made something for one of his friends. "Oh, um, there are a few things on your desk that are space-related and you've mentioned something along those lines a few times. Since you seem like the type of person to talk about things you find interesting very rarely I figured it must be important to you."

“Oh, right, yes.” Logan looked towards his desk and had to acknowledge that he did indeed have incriminating evidence of his special interest in space. “I guess I don’t usually notice that kind of stuff.” He had a small moment of guilt at realizing that he wouldn’t have really been able to say what Roman was interested in, despite their being coworkers for a while now. He put the book down and turned to his work.

Roman nodded, with the type of person that Logan was he didn’t expect that kind of thing to be extremely noticeable to him. Roman himself, had always been the type of person to pick up on small things about a person, even very soon after meeting them. However, he could understand that not everyone did that and it was more difficult for some, which he assumed was the case with Logan. As he sat in his chair, finishing the rest of his work, he tried not to feel disappointed at the lack of reaction and instead focused on the fact that he’d still done it. It had actually been fun to learn and teach himself about the topic to get accurate facts.

As they continued on their work for the day, Logan would now and again glance at his bag where he’d placed the book Roman had gifted him. As much as he wasn’t surprised that this was the sort of thing Roman did for people, he hadn’t thought they were close enough to warrant such a personalised gift. The day went on and when the end of the day rolled around Logan gathered his things to go home. “So see you tomorrow Roman.”

Roman smiled, he'd been thinking and throughout the day he decided that a birthday dinner might be more Logan's speed. They could talk and get to know each other a little better, which was something Roman wanted to do since Logan was such an interesting and mysterious person to him. "Uh wait up, Logan," he called, picking up his bag and slinging it onto his shoulder, a slight spring in his step as he hurried to catch up to him. "Would you like to go out for dinner, maybe? You know, because it's your birthday and all?" he beamed, doing up the clasp on the side of his bag and looking back up at Logan, a goofy smile on his face.

Logan stopped abruptly, a blank look on his face. This was a first and he wasn’t exactly sure how to respond. “Um, yeah I, uh, sure ok,” he stuttered out, feeling rather flustered by the prospect. He’d never gone out for dinner with a colleague, much less for his birthday. His mind was in social panic mode but he tried his best not to seem rude, he really did appreciate Roman after all.

At this, Roman's smile softened, his hand going to the cuff of his sleeve to arrange it as he turned to Logan. "Hey, don't worry. There's a small low-tone café nearby, it's nice and I just thought you might like to go out for your birthday rather than staying in. Not that I'm assuming you don't already have plans. You don't have to though, it's just an offer," he smiled warmly. "You're my friend, or at least I like to think we're relatively close, and I'd hate for you to have to spend your birthday alone." he finished, pulling his phone out and checking through it, noticing a text from Patton and a few emails.

Logan would have wanted to be able to protest, but the truth was that he indeed had no plans. He still wasn’t entirely sure why Roman was being so chummy, he really wasn’t the most interesting person to be around. In the end, he really didn’t have anything better to do, so he might as well go along. It would give him something to tell his therapist to get him off his back for not being social enough. “Well thank you, I don’t usually do stuff like this, but I guess it could be fun.”

"It's no pressure, honestly, everyone needs to have fun once in a while," Roman grinned, reaching up and pushing the hair from his own face before continuing to speak. "It isn't like this is a date, Logan," he smiled, lifting his head from his phone and looking over at him.

An immediate flush came across Logan’s cheeks at this remark, he looked away from Roman nervously. Why did he have to say that? Logan had struggled with his sexuality for a long time and he still was rather uncomfortable talking about it. At this point, it was pretty clear where Roman stood on the matter, but he had yet to say anything in that respect. “Um.. yeah.. sure ok,” Logan attempted to chuckle but it was rather half-hearted. Nonetheless, he followed Roman to his car.

**This story is part of the LLF Comment Project, (https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject) which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including: short comments, long comments, questions/theories, constructive criticism, reader-reader interaction.

*** Tag list (let us know if you would like to be added or removed): @crossiantgay

[1-1snailxd-art]

The Shield to your Sword

Masterlist ———- Chapter 3

Warnings: swearing, minor injury (please message me if more need to be added)

word count: 4483

Tag Support Team - Thank you for your support 💜

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Summary: Virgil and Roman spend some time in their secluded hideaway in the Queen’s gardens. The hedges shield them from prying eyes….right? .

______________________________

Chapter 4: Not-so-Secret Garden

The chirps of insects and rustling leaves in the garden were disturbed every few moments as Virgil sucked in a shaky breath; working to control the sobs that shook his core. Roman’s hands had been careful to not put pressure on Virgil’s injured arm; unsure of how healed the wound was. Instead, one arm secured the sobbing man in his lap, while the other held his shoulder and his thumb shifted up and down with his breathing; encouraging Virgil to breathe in time with the movement.

Leaning his head back, Roman stared at the wall opposite them. If he got closer, he was sure he would see their names scratched into the stone along with runes for friendship and forever. The boys had often escaped the outside world by sneaking into their little hideaway. It was the closest they got to an escape before Roman could request trips out to the town or the forest beyond the city’s outer barrier. A smile crept onto his face as he recalled the time he stole a whole cake from the kitchen and Adara had chased him and Virgil all through the castle, only to lose them in the maze of his mother’s garden. They had  feasted in the hollow oak until their stomachs ached. In his mind, this was a place just for the two of them; free from expectations and watching eyes. A place he and Virgil could be equals. A place he could admit his struggles with writing and reading runes. A place to just be.

 Glancing down, Roman saw Virgil’s eyes sit half open as his breathing finally seemed to steady and move in time with his own.

“I know you can’t recall your nightmares,” Roman kept his voice soft;  thumb still keeping the  pace for their breathing, “but you should know you are not alone. I have them too; nothing like yours obviously, but nightmares all the same.”

Virgil didn’t respond, eyes unmoving as he kept his gaze locked on the scene before him. Roman sighed and continued talking, needing to get his own thoughts out.

“I had a nightmare last night. It was so real I swore I was awake and facing the dark sorcerer in my chambers. He looked like half his face had merged with a snake and claimed I would die or meet the same fate as my brother or something crazy like that. I threw a knife at him and nothing happen. He just stood there with a knife in his head like it was nothing.”

“You don’t have a brother.”

Calm washed over Roman at Virgil’s response. Talking was the first step in him ‘waking up’ after a nightmare.

“That’s what I said. He claimed it was a message from the fates, but, A, I don’t believe in them, and B, I have no siblings.”

“Sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

“It’s ok, sleepyhead,” he shifted his body slightly as Virgil’s weight started to make his legs go to sleep, “you’re here now.”

“I’m meant to help  you, not the other way around.”

“Says who?”

“Your-“ Virgil cut himself off, almost letting the truth slide from his mouth like melted butter. “Says everyone.”

“Not me.” Virgil tilted his head to look up at Roman; taking in his hazel eyes with gold flecks ringing his pupil. “I would never say that, nor do I believe it to be true. We help each other. Regardless of what others think, you don’t have to do anything for me. Heck, if you wanted to leave, I wouldn’t stop you.”

“Really?”

“Really, really. I mean, it’s not like I own you or anything.”

Virgil’s eyes widened and Roman found himself lost in their smoky design; a mix of blue-grey and a golden brown. It was almost impossible to truly describe their colour and being so close he took in every change in pigmentation. Virgil stared back with a similar intensity, mind holding onto Roman’s words and trying to force Rupert’s cruel comments aside.

 “I… I don’t want to leave.” Virgil finally managed to make his mouth move, becoming aware of just how long they had been staring at each other in silence. A dull ache crept into his chest as the potion started to wear off and his heart raced with the emotional intensity of the situation.

“I don’t want you to either,” absently Roman’s hand repositioned on Virgil’s shoulder and slowly shifted down towards his wound. “Though I would love to leave the city more often. Would you join me if I did?”

“That’s a stupid question. You know I wou-“ Virgil hissed and snapped his eyes shut as Roman instinctively pulled him closer and pressed his wound.

“Crap, sorry.” Roman reacted as though he had just burnt himself, quickly pulling his hand away. “I’m sorry. Shit, I got you bad, didn’t I?”

“It’s fine, Princey.” Shifting off Roman’s lap, Virgil carefully moved his arm as the pain radiated back to the source. He silently wished he had more magic to spare so he could reduce his discomfort.

 “Can I see?”  The question left them both with reddening cheeks; Roman quickly averting his gaze. "I-I just thought, I could, maybe, well, help? I did cause it."

Nodding, Virgil slowly removed his vest before slipping the deep violet fabric over his head; exposing his pale frame. It always confused Roman how someone so thin and frail in appearance, could be so strong and nimble. Roman’s broad shoulders and solid figure were never overlooked; while many visiting fighters had learnt the hard way to not judge a book by its cover when it came to his smaller friend.

It made it hard for Roman to see his arm a flurry of colour as he pulled the basic bandage away, though the gash itself was barely visible now; sutures completely faded away.

 “I didn’t realise I got you that deep,” Roman looked down; even more aware of how his actions had affected his friend.

“It’s fine,” Virgil assured, fingers gently running along the fine scar line. “I was tired and used more magic than I should have. This wouldn’t have even been an issue if I had been more cautious with my own magic. You are not to blame.”

The lie caused his heart to ache and throat to tighten. Part of Virgil desperately wanted to admit the trauma King Rupert had afforded him, while the other wanted to scream at Roman for being an idiot and not keeping his guard up.

 “It was foolish of me to act so rashly to impress my father.”

Virgil’s head snapped up, “Roman, no. Don’t-”

“It’s the truth though,” crossing his legs, Roman tucked clenched fists into his lap and kept his gaze locked on the ground. “I should have held back a bit. I knew you were tired. It wasn’t fair.”

Virgil scoffed and reached out a hand to grip the prince’s shoulder.

 “Life isn’t fair, Ro.” Roman looked up, hair just obstructing his vision as he met Virgil’s eyes. “The real world won’t hold back. This just means that we need to keep training so I - no - we, can protect each other.”

Scooping his hair back, Roman mimicked the half smile on Virgil’s face and nodded. “Two Together?”

“Four forever.”

They both chuckled at their childish saying as Roman reached for his satchel and pulled out a round container; unscrewing it to reveal a clear waxy substance.

“Put that away, Roman.” Virgil whined as the Prince shifted closer. “You shouldn’t waste your healing gels on this.”

“Does it look like I really care?” He replied; moving to Virgil’s side and carefully cradling his arm in one hand while the other used two fingers to massage the ointment into his skin.

Virgil scrunched his face up at the action before he felt Roman’s soul magic penetrating his skin and soothing the throbbing in his arm. Eyes closing, Virgil focused on feeling every move Roman made; picturing golden strings of magic weaving through his muscles and blood vessels to restore them to their normal state. His magic was different to Logan and Haefen’s; it was warm and made his skin tingle with electricity.

Roman’s brow furrowed as he barely sensed Virgil’s magic at all. “You weren’t kidding about overdoing the magic, huh?”

“Would I lie?” Virgil opened his eyes and glanced to the side lazily.

“No.” That hit Virgil harder than the weight to his chest; blood chilling instantly. “I guess this means we won’t be going outside the city this afternoon.”

It took a moment for Virgil to generate enough saliva to soothe his dry throat and get his words out. “I-I didn’t know we – ahem –  had an outing booked.”

“Oh, there’s none of that anymore,” Virgil’s widening eyes matched the beam that spread across Roman’s face. “Father has finally approved my request to travel freely and take on missions further afield. We’ve got our freedom, Virgil.”

 On the outside, Virgil joined Roman in expressing their excitement for traveling and taking on bandits and invaders; but his true feelings were kept under wraps. Sure, the watchful knights that followed them were judgmental and rude to him whenever Roman’s back was turned, but they were their safety net. Any trouble they came across, the knights stepped in and took majority of the heat of battle. Without them, Virgil would need to defend the Prince solo. Colour seemed to drain from the world as he was overwhelmed with thoughts of what could possibly happen while out alone.

“Virgil? Hey, Virgil?”

Snapping fingers brought the world back into focus and Virgil shook his head to clear his thoughts.

“You okay? You’re looking paler than usual.”

“I’m fine.” Rustling leaves drew Virgil’s attention to the shifting shadows. “The afternoon is slipping away.”

“And?” Satisfied with his efforts, Roman offered Virgil his shirt; bandage obviously no longer required.

“We should be at the training ground or,” he slipped his shirt back on, “crafting, or visiting the kitchens or something-.”

Virgil went to stand, but Roman grabbed his hand and fixed him with a stern look. “Uh-ah; We are staying right here.”

“But-“

“I felt your magic, Virge. We’re taking the afternoon off.”

As the Prince laid down on the fallen leaves, Virgil sighed. “Can we get food at least?”

“Got ya covered,” he gestured to the satchel and Virgil reached inside to retrieved two apples. “Lay with me, Vee. Adventure can wait for another day.”

 The sloping ground in the hollow, paired with the layer of leaf litter, made the firm ground bearable to lay on. Side by side, they munched on their apples; Roman rambling about all the places he wanted to visit, the people he imagined meeting and the eventual unit he and Virgil would construct. It seemed nothing was going to deter him; a fact the pleased and terrified Virgil all at once. He did his best to keep his mind focused on Roman, but he couldn’t stop his thoughts from straying down a negative path on occasion. As exhaustion took hold, he focused solely on the sound of Roman’s voice; not the words, just the sound, until his eyes slid shut and he was asleep. Roman paused mid-sentence as he heard a sigh from beside him and couldn’t help but smile at the peace on his friend’s face. Words failed to describe the pleasant feeling that sat on his chest as he shuffled closer until he could slip his hand into Virgil’s; instinct allowing their fingers to intertwine.

“I’ll always protect you,” Roman whispered, allowing his own eyes to slowly close. “I promise.”

 *click here to see art from this scene* 

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 Perched on the stone wall, a crow stared down at the unlikely pair. It watched the frail one cry. It heard the taller one speak. It examined their reactions as a shirt was removed and continued to stare until the pair were asleep and content. The wind ruffled its black feathers; wings opening to use the draft to quickly take flight. After a final circling of the hidden pair, the crow took off towards the eastern side of the city; sunlight revealing deep green runes patterning its wings.

Swooping down, the crow nipped at some villagers’ hats before crashing through reeds that covered an already broken window. The man inside snatched a blade from his dressing table and thrust it towards the chair the crow had perched itself on; surprise quickly replaced by annoyance.

“What do you want?” He reached for a red cloak with white banding and the guards crest and began fastening it around his shoulders. “Haven’t you broken enough of my stuff already?”

The animal appeared to almost smile, tilting its head with a soft caw before flying over to the guards table and pecking at a stained wooden box.

“Piss off.” Slamming his blade down, the guard turned away and  began securing his belt around his waist. “Fly yourself home, I’ve got too many shifts to be wasting my magic on you.”

Not liking the guard’s tone, the crow flew over to the table and sat on their sword handle.

“Hey!” As the guard waved the bird off, it revealed the mess of droppings it had left on the hilt and table. “Fucking little shit!”

Cawing in delight, the crow avoided the guards waving hands until the man’s eyes glowed and a surge of air forced it to the ground. Strong hands pinned the bird’s wings to its sides as the guard collected it from the floor.

“Look who’s laughing now,” he beamed.

The moment of victory was short lived as the crow pecked his ungloved hands, causing blood to quickly well from the cuts its beak had caused. Letting the crow go, the man hissed and shook his hand before inspecting the long thin cuts.

“Fine, I’ll send you back.” Grabbing a cloth, he wrapped it around his hand and turned to the table; the crow quickly returning to peck at the wooden box again. “This is the last time though.”

Bowing its head, the crow cawed softly before looking back up as the man retrieved a complex rune on fresh parchment from the box. The paper looked frail and brittle; the material not suited to holding such a large amount of magic from the rune cast to it. Taking a small scroll from the box as well, the guard  secured it to the bird’s leg before it carefully hopped onto the runes centre.

“If I see your face again,” the man growled as he braced his hands on the papers edge, “I won’t hesitate to gut you.”

The crow let out a final caw before the guard activated the rune, causing the bird to vanish before the paper burst into a puff of smoke.

  Coughing and gasping, the guard slipped to the ground; spent from using the large quantity of magic in one burst. Though they appeared to not be beyond their twenties; in truth they were nearing their ninetieth birthday. Both a blessing and a curse of being a sorcerer, a youthful look that took longer to fade.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The front door of the house shook with the force of the knocks from the other side.

“You ready yet, Damien?” Came a stern feminine voice from the other side. “The King is conducting assessments this evening and I’m not showing up solo.”

Damien carefully stood and dusted off his uniform. “Just a moment, Angelica.”

“Hurry up.”

 Damien looked in the mirror at his tired eyes; sunken and darkening from his sudden exhaustion. Regardless of how his body felt, his heart had a weight lifted. His debt was paid. His secret was safe. He would have at least a few more years in the city before needing to move into solitude as his body would inevitably shift rapidly to match his true age. The sorcerer ban had been tough for the man to endure, but he was one of few to accept it as a natural order of the kingdom. It meant he kept his life; be it a tough one pretending to have limited magic.

 Exiting his house, Damien walked with his partner through the city streets towards the castle. He wondered what information the crow had gathered this time and how the information would be used. After three years of being harassed by the creature, he still questioned what its masters end goal was. No action against the kingdom had been taken in three years, which seemed odd considering the amount of information he was sure the bird had recovered over that time.

“Did you take on an extra patrol or something?” Angelica questioned, slightly annoyed with Damien’s slowing pace.

“Not an official one,” he lied, pushing his legs to move faster and catch up to his partner.

“You better wake up by the time the King comes around. I can’t afford a pay cut because you got greedy.”

“Don’t worry. The assessment will be a piece of cake.”

The two guards continued in silence; both minds now focused on the assessment and how the King would choose to test them that afternoon.

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 The sun was beginning to speed up its descent when Virgil stirred and slowly slid his eyes open, turning his head to see Roman sleeping next to him. It took a moment for him to realise they were holding hands and he resisted the urge to pull away in fear. It wasn’t that he didn’t have feelings for the Prince; it felt like he always had, but he knew it wasn’t an option. The King would never allow their relationship to be anything more than what it already was; he’d made that very clear to Virgil directly, and with the many young royals that were invited to visit the castle since Roman turned 16. It was almost comical to stand by and watch ladies, lords and non-binary royalty try and win his Prince over. Roman was an absolute flirt during all meals and planned outings, but the moment guards were out of earshot he set them straight. He had no interest in marriage for the sake of kingdom relations, and nothing was going to come from a three-day visit and the offer of an alliance or treasures. Honestly, a small part of Virgil relished every suitor Roman turned down; while the rest of him feared what King Rupert would do if the Prince continued to deny the advances of young royals.

 Hands still entwined, Virgil savoured the moment of tranquillity before rational thought returned and he attempted to pull away.

“Uh-ah,” Roman squeezed Virgil’s hand and smiled over at his friend, “don’t try and sneak away now.”

“I wasn’t sneaking away.” As he sat up, Virgil was pleasantly surprised to find his chest didn’t protest the movement at all.

“Then what were you planning?” Roman questioned, sitting up and refusing to release the others hand.

“I was only going to get some dirt to rub on your face. Would be a major improvement.”

Laughing, Roman stood up before carefully pulling Virgil onto his feet; hands never letting go. “Jealous of what you don’t have?”

“Thankful is more like it.”

Roman grasped at his chest like he had been struck by an arrow. “Oh, you wound me, Virgil.”

“Save the dramatics for your suitors, Princey.” Finally pulling his hand free, Virgil searched the area for his satchel. “We should get back and get ready for dinner. Where’s my bag?”

“You didn’t have one.”

Virgil scraped his hand down his face and groaned, “I must have left it at Haefen’s.”

“Why the long face?” Roman questioned, pulling his satchel over his shoulder and following Virgil towards the bushes that concealed them.

“Nothing. Let’s just go. I’m starving.”

Virgil held the bushes aside for Roman this time and they quickly hurried towards the physician’s quarters before they started to lose light.

 .

.

. 

A smile pulled at Alexandra’s cheeks as she spotted her two boys weaving through the garden from the window in her chambers. Chest slightly looser thanks to Clara’s meticulous work and consistent care throughout the past few weeks. Guilt pulled at her heart strings as she watched them disappear from view, and she tried to catch a glimpse from the other window.

“Is everything alright, your highness?” Clara stepped back into the room with a tray of  bowls and set them down onto a nearby table.

“Fine thank you, Clara.” Realising the boys were out of sight, the Queen moved to sit in the padded chair by the table. “I just saw Roman and Virgil in the garden, is all. I haven’t been able to see them in a while; especially Virgil. He looks like he’s grown.”

“Children do grow fast.” The maid commented, helping the Queen loosen her gown to expose her chest. “My Logan has certainly turned into a fine young physician and I swear they are different every time I have a chance to be with them.”

Alexandra nodded and sat patiently as Clara stuck a rune parchment to one side of her chest, which had a fine thread that ran from that parchment to a second rune submerged in a warm bowl of liquid. A similar set up occurred on her other side, only the stringed rune sat in an empty bowl.

“My heart just longs to be with them again, Clara.” Leaning back, Alexandra sighed deeply and tucked a loose brown curl behind her ear. “I know Rupert is more protective these days, but I’m beginning to feel like a prisoner in my own castle.”

 Clara kept her gaze down as she mixed herbs into a cup of warm water and passed it to the Queen. In truth, Rupert had given orders for no unnecessary visitors to the chambers and Clara was instructed to not give the Queen permission to leave unless she was certain of her health. With her family at risk, she had taken no chances in letting the Queen out; but looking at the sad woman before her, she couldn’t keep her locked up any longer.

 “Why don’t we see how this treatment goes,” Clara offered. “If you feel up to it, you can attend dinner with your family.”

The joy that shone in the woman’s eyes was worth the risk, as she accepted and thanked her maid repeatedly. As the runes started to glow with Clara’s soul magic, the Queen relaxed into her chair; runes pulling the warm solution from the bowl to clear building mucus from her lungs. By the time the procedure was over, the once empty bowl was full of a yellowing liquid; thankfully it was paler than Clara expected, and she was happy to note there seemed to be less than their previous treatment.

“Some positive signs here, your majesty.” Alexandra was quick to redress herself while Clara packed up. “Seems you are on the mend.”

“That is brilliant news,” she beamed, meeting Clara’s eyes with a request obvious in her own.

Sighing, Clara gave her a knowing nod. “I’ll inform the King and kitchen of your attendance to dinner. Rest for now and I’ll return to help you change.”

  As the room filled with the soft glow of sunset, Alexandra rested soundly on her bed. Clothes for the evening were laid out in preparation and Clara hurried home to prepare a wax for burning in the dining room to keep the air clear. The maze of inner halls were well worn by Clara and she reached home in record time, panting slightly as she hurried inside.

“What is it this-” Logan turned from their position at the mixing table, half expecting it to be Virgil bursting in again, only to be shocked by their mother’s breathless entrance. “Mother? Is everything alright?”

“I need a cleansing wax,” she moved forward and placed a greeting kiss on their cheek. “Do you have any made?”

Twisting their lips to the side, Logan glanced around their mass of cupboards and calculated current supplies in their head. “We have one full candle and enough supplies for  three more.”

“I should only require two for tonight, but if you have the time to spare, I would appreciate the extra being made.”

Nodding, Logan tidied their current project for the frost lilies and set about retrieving supplies for mixing the healing candles. It was rare their mother returned home so early in the evening; Logan often retiring to bed before her return. They relished in the moment to work together, even if it was rushed and mostly silent.

As their mother slowly stirred the liquid wax, strands of greying hair framing her face, Logan held out a mug of tea.

“I can finish it off, mother. Savour the opportunity to take a break.”

“You are a blessing, Logan.” She willingly took up the mug and stepped aside for Logan to take over; tired eyes filled with gratitude. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around much lately. The Queen has required constant attention.”

“No need to apologise for completing your duties,” they smiled and gestured towards a waiting chair. “Now, please, sit and rest while you can.”

 The ageing woman complied and sipped silently at her tea as she watched her child work, in awe of just how skilled they had become. A stumbling child they were no more, now a capable adult and a physician growing in skill. Pouring the wax into a prepared mould, Logan set the candle onto a cooling rune to quicken the setting process.

“It shall be ready in a few minutes, and you can return to the Queens side.”

“Thank you, my dear.” Standing, Clara pulled Logan into a tight hug; suddenly aware of her much shorter stature as she rested her head on their chest. “Words cannot express my love and adoration for you.”

“Your actions speak volumes, Mother. You needn’t worry.”

 Haefen opened the front door and was pleasantly surprised to see his family in an affectionate embrace.

“Well isn’t this a pleasant scene to return home to.”

Logan laughed and extended an arm. “Care to complete the picture?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” He chuckled and wrapped his own arms around his family, planting a gentle kiss atop his wife’s head.

 The love the physicians shared was without description. Each parent passing their strengths and wisdom onto their child and watching in awe as they grew beyond their own skill levels. Logan didn’t quite understand why, but they had a feeling moments such as this would be even harder to come by soon. It unsettled them greatly and made letting their parents go even harder; but Clara had a job to return to and they had more items to craft. Watching their mother collect the candles, Logan hated the feeling sitting heavily in their gut. They committed the farewell kiss and goodbye from their mother to memory; still unsure as to why they felt moments like this wouldn’t happen again.

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End Note:

Oh, hello again. Nice to see you. Hope your day/night has been pleasant. I was going to add more to this chapter, but then I remembered I wasn’t going to make this a long one and quickly cut back. It was nice to give the boys a happy moment together; all be it only a brief moment.

So, I’m looking to get some more art done because the Remy and Patton one just turned out so well. I’m looking forward to working with an artist again to bring the commission to life (just had to fight the internet bank lords first before I said “hey, can you please bring this cute scene to life.”) 

As per usual, I won’t give an exact timeline on the next chapter. I’ve got Father’s Day this coming weekend (might get to see my fam) and then I may be preoccupied with work stuff (or I will procrastinate from work by writing more of this. Who really knows?).

Anyway, happy timezone friends 💜🐌

Next chapter 

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What else has Snail done?

The Perfect Ring (oneshot -analogical proposal)

You Promised (oneshot - prinxiety angst/injury/near death)

Sides of a Hero (Completed Fic - sides are fusions of impulses and aspects of Thomas. Virgil has a depressing past that he is forced to face thanks to Deceit and Rage. Was canon compliant at the time of completion)

Libraries are for Meetings (ongoing WIP - Human/University au with Royality and developing Analogical. Slow burn and heavily focused on a grieving group of friends that Virgil slowly becomes a part of to better himself.)

Check out my other blog for random fandom reblogs and stuff @snail-giggles . Always happy to interact and chat on that blog too 💜🐌

[nekoabiwrites]

Of Princes and Potions 2 - Chapter 4

I return from America! Excited to get back into this after being starved of a creative outlet for the past two weeks!

AU: Royal/Fantasy Pairing: Logince Words: 2358 Warnings: Sympathetic Deceit, injury, mention of past war, mention of scaring, mention of pain, Deceit’s whole backstory is here and it’s sad af. Anything else, please let me know!

Summary: Logan and Demitri attempt to find their way back into the castle while avoiding heading back through town. Having this amount of time alone with the only other person they know who understand their situations seems to break down Demitri and he talks about his mysterious past.

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Word spread fast amongst the townspeople, so much so that the injured pair were forced to avoid entering town at all. The fear they held for what the townspeople may do in response to their secret being revealed was forefront and so they attempted to find another way back to safety of the castle. As they approached a spot where the walls of the castle grounds were visible to them, Logan noticed a familiar speck heading in their direction. By some divine happenstance, Strix was flying about and… coming right for them? Logan squinted harder, it looked as though she had something in her talons.

After dropping the items to the ground at her owner’s feet, she landed upon his shoulder and Logan couldn’t help but smile. “Thank goodness you found us, Strix.” He scratched her softly in praise, while Demitri knelt down to grab the discarded items.

The animal handler still winced when he moved his hands, but it was a necessary evil for now. “This owl of yours… How did it know?” Demitri asked, gaining Logan’s attention as he held up the piece of parchment and tiny bottle of ink.

Logan could only let out a soft chuckle, “She is incredibly smart. Somehow, she always knows what I need and when.”

Demitri had so many questions, but he decided to leave them for the moment. “Well, would you mind?” He held the items up towards the mage, “I would, of course, be happy to write something, but it would be quite painful in my… current condition.”

“Oh, of course.” Logan took the parchment and unrolled it, using his leg as a resting point. It was only then that he realised what he’d need to do. He turned to Strix, who was watching him carefully. Before Logan had even taken a breath to ask her, she turned and plucked a feather from her wing. She dropped it down into his lap. Both men were speechless.

“How the fuck.” Demitri muttered, looking at the owl curiously.

“I have stopped questioning her, quite honestly. I don’t think I’ll ever truly understand how she is able to simply know everything.” Logan spoke plainly, quickly scrawling out a short note to inform the king of what had happened as well as their general location.

That didn’t deter Demitri who was now engaged in a staring match with Strix, who was almost as interested in him as he was her. However, it had to be broken up before a victor could be named as Logan had finished the note and needed Strix to take it back up to the castle immediately.

“I have let them know where we are, so we should wait right here.” Logan said with a sigh, clearly exhausted as he sat back down after letting Strix go. His back still ached, and it stung with most every movement, but that was unimportant in this moment. He just needed to get back into the castle. Both of them did. Once that was done, then he could let his injury truly affect him.

Demitri had remained seated the entire time and was wistfully watching the owl fly off into the distance. He looked at his hands, seeing not only the deep cuts left by the creature’s horns but also the glimmering scales resting upon the backs of his hands. He turned to Logan, “I feel like I should be apologising to you…” His tone was amused and almost regretful.

“What for?”

“For bringing you out there. Had I not asked for your assistance, we wouldn’t have been found out, or did you forget that detail?”

Logan huffed, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, “While that it is true that this event could have been avoided for the two of us had you not brought me out here, the fact still remains that you could not have dealt with that creature on your own without getting significantly more injured. Especially when we consider your age.”

That prompted Demitri to glare at the mage, “My age has little to do with this.” Logan made a sarcastic noise of agreement, “That prince is rubbing off on you…”

They fell back into a silence, simply waiting. Then Demitri heard Logan let out a gentle laugh and turned to see the mage staring up at the sky, uncharacteristically wistful and seemingly sad.

“To think, we would both be found out at the same time…” Logan muttered.

The animal handler ruefully smiled, “Such an odd turn of events.”

“And after all you did to try and stop me from getting found out as well. I feel I should be the one apologising to you.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed to it.”

Logan gave a half-hearted glare in the other man’s direction. “Hush. Your limitations to my movement in and around the castle as well as your talk of horrifying consequences scarred me as a child! Even now, I still feel the effects of such manipulation.”

“I was simply doing what was done for me, Logan. The only difference was that I was kept outside, in the same room I still reside in. Almost as if… I were one of the animals…” Demitri trailed off, his eyes turning back to the castle walls. “It was all I knew, past the small amount I could remember from before I…”

The mage watched his companion carefully, seeing the way he tensed. Not once had they spoken in great detail about their situations, their pasts. They had known from the moment they’d been introduced about their shared heritage. In fact, it was the sole reason they were introduced at all. Logan had been picked up off of the streets after the king had found him being terrorised by some locals, despite him doing nothing wrong. Meanwhile, Demitri was still a mystery. He was a very young boy back then, likely around the age Logan was when he was brought to the castle. Yet he’d never spoken about it. Not to anyone besides Patton.

However, right here, in the presence of another who knew how hard it was, it seemed like Demitri’s walls were finally giving in. He sucked in a heavy breath before letting his body entirely collapse in on itself. “It was during the massacre. I remember being so young, I couldn’t do anything. All the screaming and crying of people around me, it was terrifying. My mother had taken me somewhere she thought to be safe and she apologised with tears in her eyes. She said it was for my sake, that it would keep me out of harms way. Then she pulled them all out…” His hand ran down the scarred portion of his face, “It hurt. It was the most pain I’d ever felt. I must have tried to scream and cry, but my mother managed to calm me and keep me quiet. She was crying as much as I was. Once she was done, she made me promise. Promise I would never let them grow again, that I would do that and stay where I was, no matter what. And I promised. She went back out, I don’t know why, but that… was the last I remember. I sat there, silently. Listening to all the horrifying things happening around me. Then it stopped. I must have been there for days, unmoving. I was so hungry, still in pain, so tired. I had started to cry, I barely remember making a sound. But I must have as another child heard me and came to find me. He stood in the gap that my mother had left through. He looked so confused as he stared at me. I heard him call for someone, but I was… so weak. I somehow must have passed out. Next thing I knew, I was in the castle infirmary.”

Demitri continued. He spoke of how the previous king came to visit him personally in the infirmary, how he promised to keep him safe, how he promised to never let him come to harm. In return for a place to stay and all the protection possible, the young Demitri had to promise the king that he would never go out of the castle grounds. But he still was far from free of trauma.

“I routinely had nightmares. I still do.” Demitri confessed, staring down at the grass below them, “They only got worse once I overheard a conversation between the old knights. I heard about how the captain had said awful things about me, what he would do if I wasn’t under the king’s protection, how he would make a spectacle of me. It was terrifying. But, just as I thought I had no one, the king summoned me and introduced me to the one who’d saved my life. Instantly, Patton became a close friend. He never looked down upon me, even once he learned of what I was. He wanted to play, like children do. He wanted to be a friend to me, and I cherish that sentiment everyday… even if the ache in my heart doesn’t want me to.”

There was a slight pause. Demitri looked a little unsure of himself and so Logan tried to press him, “Why does it ache?”

Demitri laughed hollowly, “Never speak a word of this to him, but, as time went on… I found myself loving him. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, as I was a child. But, once I knew, it was hard to ignore. Though the timing could not have been worse. Everything became far more complicated once Patton was forced to take over the throne due to his parents’ deaths and even more so once he was married.” The animal handler looked back over to the castle, a gentle sad smile on his face, “I have never mentioned it. I never will. It’s far too late now. I still owe him my life and it is not my place to even consider such thoughts. I’ve fooled myself for long enough now, I can continue doing that for the rest of my life if necessary.”

Another silence. This time, Logan had nothing else to press on. Considering that Demitri was around twice Logan’s own age, that meant this had all been weighing solely on his shoulders for quite some time. No one in the castle was close enough to him, besides the king, that they would have a single clue about any of this. He stewed over the information in his head, trying desperately to come up with something to say, anything that could be considered comforting or helpful. But Logan was coming up entirely blank. A soft grip on his shoulder brought him out of his thoughts.

“You don’t need to think so hard. It’s not like you could change anything.” The scarred man said, lingering sadness coating his voice.

Taking Demitri’s words to heart, Logan acted without much thought. He leant over and circled the elder man with his arms, hugging him loosely. It was awkward and Logan’s injured back was protesting, but he wanted to do this. No, he felt he needed to do this for the man who’d acted as his father figure in the early years of his life, the man who’d looked after him in his own way for many years, the man who’d gone through such hardships and heartbreak for so long. The only person in this world who could truly understand Logan. He deserved this much.

It was almost hesitant the way that Demitri returned the embrace. Not only was this a complete surprise from the usually stoic mage, but the man was clearly badly injured and Demitri didn’t want to cause any further discomfort. As the seconds passed, he found himself relaxing more and more. The physical comfort was something he’d rejected for such a long time, but it was really helping him in this moment. He rested his head down against the mage’s shoulder as all the repressed emotions bubbled up to the surface and, for the first time in years, Demitri began to cry. Tears spilled from his eyes in a rush, he began to sob, and he gripped the man before him tight. It was almost as if the fear he’d felt all those years ago was back. He was scared he’d be alone again, that he’d be abandoned and left for dead. Despite that now, as an adult, Demitri understood why his mother did what she did, it still didn’t rid him of the fear of abandonment he’d held close to his chest for all these years.

The two men stayed in the embrace for a while. Logan, despite the sharp stinging pain and slight awkwardness, wasn’t about to let Demitri slip from his grasp while he was in such a vulnerable state. He had nothing to say but Logan presumed that it wasn’t to be an issue considering the fact that the animal handler was sobbing loudly into his shoulder. They had no idea how much time passed, but the approaching sound of beating wings had Logan looking up from his current position on the ground.

Allegria touched down just beside them and Roman dropped down off of her back in a flash, falling to his knees beside the two men, “What happened to you both?! Logan, your back is-”

“I know, Roman. It’s okay. We just need to get back to the castle as soon as possible. We would have come back through the town, but we feared the worst.” Logan cut their story short. Despite Roman’s protesting and constant questioning, Logan refused to give anymore details until they were back behind the safety of the castle walls.

The pegasus was none too pleased to have to carry Demitri along with her rider, but she allowed it only at Roman’s request. The prince pressed a kiss to Logan’s hand, promising he’d be back to pick him up before he knew it. Logan felt a soft warmth spread through his system at the touch, quelling a small amount of the lingering fear that had settled into Logan’s chest. Perhaps everything would be fine.

---

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[thealphabetmurders]

Incompetent Competition

Pairings: Prinxiety and background Logicality

Word Count: 4116

Summary: After months of flirty back and forth, Virgil and Roman's relationship comes to a tee during a particularly competitive game of volleyball.

Triggers: Blood, Injury, Broken Bones, Crying

Authors Note: This is my first Prinxiety fic and I am incredibly proud of the result. I do hope you enjoy reading this. 

Read on AO3

If there was any place Virgil hoped and prayed that he would never go back to after he graduated, it was the high school gym locker room. The sweaty cesspool of teen angst and hormones made for a humidity that was indescribable to anyone who was not privy to the experience. Sinks were running high and metal was slamming against metal as gym lockers opened and closed harshly for the teens to change into their gym uniforms.

There were very few seniors who had to take a class for gym, seeing as most got it out of the way in their underclass years. Nevertheless, Virgil was in his last semester of school and has to spend an hour and a half in Sports and Leisure for 2 days out of the week. According to his best friend Logan (who is also taking the class with him), leisure is defined as “use of free time for enjoyment”, and not a day has gone by that Virgil has enjoyed Sports and Leisure.

Logan and Virgil begrudgingly made their way into the locker room, already packed with those a few years behind them. It felt a tad awkward being one of the oldest people in the class, however the class size was rather large, so nothing too anxiety inducing.

“What do you think Coach has planned for us today?” Virgil asked, spinning the combination on his locker.

Logan shrugged, taking off his glasses and then his shirt, “I am not sure. She mentioned last week that we would be doing football on the field, yet it is 10 degrees outside, so I do not believe she is even allowed to take us outside,”

Virgil opened his locker forcefully, the red door swinging wide hitting the metal behind it, “If she makes us play basketball again, I am going to kill myself,”

Logan chuckled and shook his head, putting back on his glasses with the uniform shirt on, “If I remember correctly, you were quite good at basketball. Coach let us out early after you dunked a basket,”

Virgil scoffed, kicked off his shoes and then jeans, “Yea, I am good because I am 6’1 and this class is co-ed. I work out as much as you do, Logan,”

Logan shrugged, copying Virgil’s motions, “That is true. Your hand eye coordination could use a bit of work, though, and you seemed to gravely misunderstand what “double dribbling” means and-”

“Just because you played basketball for 4 years, doesn’t mean you have to show off, L,” Virgil cut him off, he smacked the waistband of his gym shorts against his hips.

“Irregardless,” Logan sat down on one of the benches and pulled on a beat up pair of Adidas high tops, “You could at least pretend to care. Coach grades on participation and attitude. You do not want your GPA to slip because of gym ,”

Virgil sighed, shaking his head. He knew that Logan was right, seeing as he has given this speech to Virgil many times before. Yet, it never seems to properly stick in his brain and stay there as a lesson, which frustrates Logan to no end.

Logan “try hards” in every class he is in, including gym, despite that not being one of his strong suits. Normally, Virgil can at least stay on the same track as his best friend, but with gym, Logan is going 175 in the left lane and Virgil is texting and driving.

“Fine. I will try in gym today. Instead of 1% effort, I will give 45%,” Virgil yanked off his graphic t-shirt in one fluid motion as Logan groaned in frustration.

“That is not- That is still a failing grade, V,”

Virgil shrugged, looking for his uniform, “Still, that is 44% more effort than I-”

Virgil’s protests to Logan were cut off by a whistle from the other end of their locker nook, “Ow! Looking good today, Virgil. Lookin’ good to-day,”

Virgil rolled his eyes and groaned and the smirking figure leaning against a wall 20 paces away, “Fuck outta here, Princey,” Virgil grabbed one of his shoes on the ground and threw it in Roman Prince’s direction. He missed terribly and it hit the wall next to where Roman was leaning. The other looked completely unfazed; he just smirked and winked at Virgil, ruffling his perfect brown locks as he waltzed away.

Virgil’s look of annoyance quickly dissipated and a bright red blush spread across Virgil’s pale cheeks. He shrunk in on himself slightly and a sheepish grin spread across his face.

The flirty back and forth banter began between Roman and Virgil sometime a few months ago as their Coach had them explore different sports during their class. In one of their first weeks, they did wrestling and Virgil was paired with Roman to fight. The two never really noticed each other, Roman mainly hanging out with other Thespians and Virgil hanging around Logan and some other design students. Their paths never had a reason to cross before now.

Despite Virgil having half an inch to an inch on Roman height wise, Virgil quickly found himself on the ground with Roman straddling his waist and both of Virgil’s hands pinned above his head. Indeed, it was a very compromising position that allowed Virgil to finally study the figure and face of his opponent, who now Virgil realised looked like he was sculpted by Michelangelo. Roman, ever the empath, must have sensed the ardor coming from Virgil, and allowed Virgil to escape the situation and take victory over Roman in that match.

Virgil may have won the battle, but he was getting brutally destroyed in the war. Ever since that incident, Roman has had no problem giving Virgil longing looks (that no man can call just ‘friendly’), accidental subtle touches, and not so subtle comments, always leaving Virgil a flustered and blushing mess.

“Y’know,” Logan’s voice made Virgil jump slightly and removed him from his reverie, “Maybe if you do a good job in class today, you will impress Roman,”

Virgil went to protest, but the words choked and died in his mouth, leaving him with incoherent sound and protests.

Logan clapped and hand on Virgil shoulder and made his way out to the gym floor. Virgil, still shirtless, quickly finished getting dressed and tugged on his shoes, following the other. He sat next to Logan on the crappy plastic bleachers as their Coach took attendance to begin the day.

“So today we are not going outside because it is too cold and I frankly would not want to go out in this weather anyway,” She looked at her clipboard and back at the class. “Today we will be playing volleyball. You will be divided into 4 teams that I will choose-” The class groaned collectively, “I do not care if you are not with your friends. Team A is Freshman and Sophomores, last name A through L. Team B is Freshman and Sophmores, M through Z. Team C is Juniors and Seniors, A through L. Team D is Juniors and Seniors, M through Z. We will warm up with partners first and our first game will be A versus B, C versus D.”

Coach blew her whistle and the group quickly scrambled away to their respective sides of the court. Thankfully, Logan and Virgil's last names fell into the same category, so they partnered up doing basic drills like setting and bumping.

“Now, remember if you can spike the ball over the net,” Coach yelled out to the teens, “Doesn't mean you should. We do not want any injuries today,”

“But can we spike the ball, Coach?” Roman's partner, Patton, tentatively raised his hand and spoke.

Coach pondered this before sighing, “Just don't hurt anyone or yourself,”

Patton beamed and began bumping the ball to just himself while Roman watched and laughed.

“Hey, Patton,” Logan called out to the other. Patton let the ball fall mid-air and ran over to Logan, standing on the other side of the net, “Your last name is Foster, shouldn't you be on our team?”

Patton's eyes widened a bit behind his round glasses. He looked over at Coach, preoccupied with some underclassmen before putting a finger to his lips and slowly walking away from Logan.

Logan groaned, casually tossing the ball that was on his hip back to Virgil, “If Patton can spike then we stand no chance of winning. We do not exactly have the most athletically inclined group,” Logan said, dejectedly as his eyes trailed over their teammates.

Virgil shrugged and began setting the ball to himself out of boredom, “Who cares, it is just a dumb game,”

“Yes, one that I wish to perform well in and win,”

“You hold no stake in this,” Virgil said, thinking of what Logan said earlier, “It is not like you are trying to impress anyone here,”

Virgil had to strain his ears to hear Logan mutter, “I wouldn’t say that,”

Logan put his hands in his pockets and looked off into the distance. Virgil placed the ball on his hip and followed Logan’s line of sight towards Roman and Patton. Patton giggling, trying to toss the ball up as high as possible while Roman interfering. The same type of high school shenanigans that Logan looked down on so often were the same that was giving him a longing, misty look in his eye.

Before Virgil could say, Coach blew her whistle to begin the games. Everyone except one person from each game put away their volleyballs while Virgil was still standing, rooted to the ground, holding his on his hip. Not wanting to make the effort to walk to the metal container where they were kept, he shot the ball like a basketball into the container a decent distance away. The ball landed directly into the container, and Virgil smiled, impressed with his dexterity.

“Nice shot, V,”

Virgil turned around and saw Roman standing on the other side of the court, his hands on his hips and grinning and Virgil. He gave him a quick thumbs up before making his way to the corner of his side of the court, where he would presumably be serving first. Virgil made eye contact with Logan who smirked at him and mouthed a quick, “Told you so,” before getting into position.

“Huh,” Virgil thought, “Maybe I am going to have to try hard volleyball,”

****

The game was not going well for Virgil’s team. The score was 7-13 in favor of Roman’s team, and it doesn’t look like they are letting up either. Roman had muscles for days, allowing him to serve the ball quickly over the net, barely giving any time for their ragtag team of misfits to react. 5 out of the 7 points that had been earned were from Logan using fake out techniques to confuse the opponents in the front. Virgil had earned zero points, seeing as he was placed in the back center, never touching the ball.

“Prince!” Coach called out, silently tweeting her whistle, “Have you been serving this whole time?” He heard her yelled at Roman, slightly cringing in on the white ball.

“Is- er- is that bad?”

Coach blew the whistle loudly, gesturing to the teams, “Everyone rotate! Back, come up front, front, go to the back,” She blew her whistle twice more for good measure as everyone dragged their feet to their new position.

Roman came up in front of the net and touched it, pulling down slightly on the strings, “Fancy seeing you here, Wonder-emo,” He quirked up an eyebrow, “You come here often?”

“To class?”

Roman sighed, staring off into the distance, “I do not know how you are going to cope with such a massive loss on your part. Despite the hiccup of us having to “rotate”, we are still going to wipe the floor with your team,”

Virgil rolled his eyes, “I honestly don't care that much. Save the trash talking for my buddy Logan, he’ll be happy to engage,”

Roman put both his hands on the net now, “You better watch out, because now you may become victim to one of my awesome spikes. Wouldn’t wanna ruin that pretty face,” Roman bit his lip and winked.

Virgil took slowly, calculating breaths to keep him from blushing or making a fool of himself, “Please Princey, I can get it up just as well as you can,”

Roman’s face split into a shit-eating grin, “That’s what she said,”

Virgil had to stop himself from screaming. Instead, he opted for another, more petty alternative.

“It’s our ball!” Virgil yelled out, “Rule violation: No one can be touching the net,” Virgil looked at Roman dead in the eyes before catching the flying ball without breaking eye contact, Roman’s eyes filled with disgust and betrayal, snapping his hands back to his sides and off the net.

Virgil lowered his voice once more so only Roman could hear, “Revenge is a dish best served cold,”

The game continued and Roman’s team’s success went from guaranteed to fleeting, as their new server hit the net multiple times and Roman’s ball spiking was easily intercepted by a junior whose name escaped Virgil. Each time Virgil’s team got a point, his grin would just get wider and wider. Eventually, it was a tie game, both teams quickly reaching 14-14. Virgil was beaming now while Roman practically had steam coming out of his ears.

“Okay!” Coach yelled out and blew her whistle, “In just about 3 minutes we are going to switch and A will go against D and C will go against B,”

“Huh,” Virgil said and looked at Roman, “It looks like my team may just take the victory after all,”

Roman huffed and crossed his arms, “That’s a funny joke, Macabre, calling it ‘your team’. You have not even scored a point,”

“I set it to her and she-”

“An assist is not a success, Leonardo DiCraprio,” Roman told him, definitively, and walked away as the round began.

Virgil was not bad at sports, he is more muscular than the average high school senior, hell, he had dunked 2 basketballs before. He knew that he could score a point just to shove it back into Roman beautiful face, they just have to give him a chance.

His eyes ping-ponged back and forth at the exchange of the ball over the net to both sides. At one point, Roman rushed from the other side of the court to directly in front of Virgil to hit the ball that a distracted junior was going to miss. He hits it to the far right corner with impressive speed and then moves to the center of the court.

“Mine!” Logan yelled, skidding forward to hit the ball (Virgil still very impressed with his reaction skills). The ball once again was vollied to the other side of the court.

“Mine!” A cheery voice called out. Patton slid to the center of the court next to Roman and hit the ball to the left hand side of the court. He smacked the ball with imposing velocity and was heading in the space between Virgil and another teammate.

With a sudden burst of confidence, the words of Roman ringing in his ears, Virgil shouts, “Mine!” and leaps to the center where the white ball was hurtling.

Virgil knew that time was all relative to human perception and technically was not real. Nevertheless, his surrounds slowly moved to a near halt as he had to make a decision on what to do. He could hear the screams of his teammates in anticipation, as the ball was slowly rolling towards Virgil, and would not be stopped unless he did something.

He was just going to bump it. That is all he wanted to do. Bump the ball and keep their thrilling volley going. Just simply bump the ball, maybe even set it. However, Virgil legs must have hated that idea, as his fight-or-flight response kicked in and they made him jump to a height he did not think he was capable of. He knew he only had one shot at this, so he closed his eyes and smacked the ball downward as hard as possible. The rubber bladder of the ball burned as he hit it with all his might, but he couldn’t help but think about how similar it is to dunking a basketball as he had done previously, unmitigated.

Virgil’s ankles ached as he hit the ground once again and his ears were roaring from doing such a physical act so suddenly. He opened his eyes and heard his teammates cheering. The senior next to him held up his hand and Virgil high fived him back, suddenly filled with energy. He looked on the other side of the court, and immediately felt his stomach plummet when he saw 3 teenagers circling a body on the ground.

Virgil rushed to the crowd, standing next to Patton who was mid-conversation, “- just keep your head tilted forward and keep pinching your nose- no, not there Roman,”

Anyone would have cringed at the sight in the center of the group, but it made Virgil sick to his stomach. In the thick of it all was Roman; perfect, beautiful, incredible Roman, holding his nose and his mouth for dear life as bright red blood quickly dribbled down his hand and onto his shirt.

“Holy shit,” Virgil cried, “What the hell happened,”

Roman looked at him with a fiery intensity. A different intensity than on average, this was filled with malice and anger, “You hit me in the nose with your spike, you freaking punk!” Roman whimpered, tears pricking his eyes. He inhaled sharply and groaned, the tears were now spilling from his eyes, “Oh God, I think it’s broken,”

Any shot Virgil had with Roman broke as soon as he cracked his nose. He covered his hand to his mouth, feeling so incredibly guilty for what he did. Stupid, stupid, stupid Virgil. Apologies weren’t enough, nothing was enough. Yet, he had to say something, anything. But, instead, he opted for staying silent instead. Saying nothing. Covering his mouth so no one could hear the dry sobs he was keeping back from his acquaintances.

“Roman, here, let me walk you to the Nurse,” Patton held out a hand and Roman took it, his hand still covering half of his face. Roman eyed Virgil the entire way out, using the shorter man as a crutch, and Virgil was rooted to the spot, frozen in a position of sobbing at almost any moment.

Once the gym doors closed loudly, signalling the pair had left, all eyes turned to Virgil, widen and with shock.

“Too much attention, too much attention, no no no,” And now Virgil did something he should have done with the volleyball: flee. He ran towards the locker room doors, he feet failing him and causing him to stumble a few times. Tears were leaking out of the corners of his eyes as he threw open the doors to the room, vaguely processing the desperate cries of his best friend behind him.

***

Virgil hummed contentedly as he was putting his books in his locker. After the incidents of yesterday, Logan calmed Virgil down and they talked calmly and rationally about the incidents that unfolded. He also attempted to make Virgil feel better by discussing his infatuation with Patton; any talk of emotions involving Logan was odd to hear but extremely intriguing (and distracted him from his own issues). They sat on the floor, talking until the end of the period and then moving the conversation to chatting for hours in Logan’s car. He may claim to not understand emotions, but Logan has a way of making Virgil feel better, no matter the situation.

Nevertheless, Virgil rationally chalked the incident up to an accident. It was easy to do so, seeing as he doesn’t have to see Roman for a while and was probably remembering it injury as worse than it really was. It was Friday, so Virgil will have the whole weekend to compartmentalize the incident and everyone will forget about it by then. Well, that was the plan. Virgil was almost finished putting his books away when a hand harshly closed his locker for him. Virgil squeaked as he saw who it was.

Roman Prince, looking as godly as ever in his signature red bomber jacket and chocolate locks, stood imposingly over Virgil (despite Virgil technically being taller, he does slouch quite a lot). Roman’s big white cloth bandage was the first thing you would see when looking at the other, the tape to hold it down also moved onto his cheeks. Virgil winced a bit more when he noticed there was also dark bruising around Roman’s eyes as well. No, the injury was worse than what he remembered.

The pair had never talked outside of gym, but here he was, a little over 24 hours since Virgil had destroyed Roman’s face, turning him from statue by Michelangelo to a painting by Picasso.

“Hey… Roman,” Calling the other by his real name felt foreign on his tongue, but calling him Princey during this moment felt inappropriate.

The awkwardness was thick in the air as Roman said nothing back. His fingers twitched slightly as he leaned an arm against the locker doors and he bit his lip, eyes trailing down at the floor, not wanting to make eye contact with Virgil.

“I went to the doctor, my nose is broken, confirmed,” Roman stated simply, the dramatics in his voice were replaced by a dead and broken kind of disinterest.

Virgil swallowed thickly, “Roman… You have to know how sorry I am. Logan was getting in my head about being competitive and… You kind of egged me on to score a point,” Roman eyes shot up to look at Virgil, shocked, “I take that back, it was all Logan,” He quickly finished, “I will do anything to make this better, do you want me to pay for your doctor bills, I can,”

He cannot, but thankfully, Virgil did not have to worry about that as Roman waved him off, “I have pretty fabulous insurance, it was not too much, do not worry about it,”

Virgil nodded, sadly smiling.

“However,” Roman continued, his usual stupor seemed to be returning slowly, “If you do want to do something for me, you could allow me to take you out for coffee,”

“Take… you out?” Virgil repeated back, slowly. His brain and the words we were hearing were still disconnected.

Roman chuckled, “Yes, that is what one typically does on a first date,”

Virgil mind went to a screeching halt as Roman said those words. His heart was not beating anymore, it was vibrating from nerves and pent up emotions. Confused as to why a man Virgil had injured so greatly could still be possibly interested in him in any fashion. The stars were not aligned for this to work out; they had already collapsed in on themselves and become black holes, sucking up everything in their path. Yet, somehow, in someway, Roman was standing in front of him with love in his eyes, willing to look past that. With every compliment Roman gave, Virgil would retort with a biting comment, how did Roman still keep his affections? Virgil would completely shutting down at any sign of physical affection and yet, here, standing before him, an angel walking on Earth was asking him to coffee. He could not understand how or why Roman could want that. How does one articulate these worries? How can Virgil express his fears to Roman without it seeming like an outright objection, because he want to be with him so badly?

“I broke your nose,” He responded flatly, dumbly, and cringing in on himself because that was the wrong things to say.

Roman sighed, ruffling his hair, “Yes, I do realise that that was a most unfortunate instance for both of us. But, it made me realise that our back and forth had gone on too long, and will only spur even more injuries if not sedated,”

Virgil blinked rapidly, his mouth had gone dry and his heart was beating out of his chest as he stared at Roman, “I demolished your face, and you still want to go out with me?”

Roman bowed dramatically, holding out his hand. Virgil flushed pink and awkwardly picked at the loose strings on his backpack. Roman looked up at Virgil through his eyelashes smirking, “I do, if you’ll have me,”

Virgil held onto his hand, their fingers and palms coming together nicely, and Virgil smiled once more, “How can I say no to that?”

[endoftheroad1983]

Who do you work for? Steve Rogers x Reader

Wednesday

Who do you work for?

Steve Rogers x Reader

You were already awake and reading a book when the knob to your door began to turn. You grew still and waited for whoever to step through. And sure enough a man in a purple shirt and glasses came in. You relax when you realised that he was not the enemy but at the same time you didn't like having a stranger walk in on you.

“Ms. Y/L/N? Ah, your awake.” He broke into a smile as he saw that you were sitting up already. His eyes dropped down to a chart board that he had in his hands.

“My name is Bruce Banner. I came to see if you want or need any medical assistance.” Bruce remain by the door as he explain the situation. Your shoulders relaxed as you faintly remember him form the night before. He was the one that took care of you. He was sweet and polite and you felt complete comfortable around him unlike Tony Stark.

You put the book to the side and sat up without the support of the bed.

“Thank you Bruce, but I am 100 percent better and will not require the help. But I would be very thankful if I had permission to leave this room.” You smile as you waited a response.

“Of course.” Bruce took a pen out his pocket and approach you.

“If you can just sign this release form everything will be squared away.” Before Bruce could make it to your bedside you had thrown the covers off and met him half way.  Shocked pour onto Bruce's face but only for a second when he realised that you are fully dressed. Taking the pen you quickly jot down your name and went for the closet.

There you pulled out your night bag. You had collected all your belongings a few hours before.

“Thank you, Mr. Banner. Could you tell me if the cafeteria is still serving breakfast?” You asked with a lopsided grin. Your stomach was beginning to hurt. Your power kicked back in overnight that was like working over time and your body was starving for something with cheese and eggs and maybe bacon. Your mind began pondering on all the breakfast possibilities.

“Uh, I believe that it's all day.” He answered as he continue writing on another paper. You thanked him again and left the room. “This place is awesome!” You thought to yourself as you walked the maze to the café. At the mansion everything was a schedule which included the meals.

Finally you went around the corner and saw the entrance to the food. Once inside you scan the area. Call it a force of habit  from Scott and Logan. The place was empty except for a few restaurant employees out on their break. You gave a thank you pray as you really weren't ready to run into anybody just yet. So you set out to find someone to help you.

The employees were very helpful and friendly and you can tell that they love there job. Unlike  some of the other places were the people look miserable. After you got your order in, you found a table in the corner that was out of the way and back away from everyone. You grabbed the morning paper from a stand and waited for your meal. The world of New York was terrifying to you as you went through three pages of  murders that had only happen this past week. Shivers ran down your spine and you pushed the paper away. You pushed the deaths out of your mind and pulled out the little book that Ms. Hill had provided. You looked up to see that the daily meeting with Stark was pushed back till nine that evening.

“Well Hello, I see that you are feeling a hell of a lot better.” Just as your mind spoke his name there stood  Stark  standing before you.

“Ah yes, I just got done talking to Mr. Banner. I'm perfectly fine now. Thank you.” Tony let out one of his handsome and very dangerous smiles. You can see the gears working hard behind his eyes.

“Yes and I can't wait to talk you about that.” He point back behind him as to mention the medic bay.” But unfortunately for the both of us it will have to be later. I have to met with some people from Hong Kong. So I have to bid you a farewell.” You were shock even though you shouldn't have been. That he wasn't the type to beat around the bush. But you didn't think he was this straight forward. You nodded your good-byes and watch him turn to leave.

“Try the French Toast it is amazing here.” He called over his should to you. You sat straight up. Your food had yet to arrive and he was throwing more breakfast items your way. He must have talk to Bruce Banner. You quickly made a mental note about being very careful about what you say around here.

The meal turn out to be fabulous that and the library was good enough reason to stay here forever but you were missing the kids and teachers back at the mansion. So for the next part of your day, you decided that some time mediating outside will be next on your list. It was time to reconnect with nature and see what the hell has been happening to you these last days. Why were your powers being faulty and why has the wind been so hard to find you? These questions burn in your head.

The day was nice and the sun was shining down on the track field. You don't know why you made your way there to meditate but you were drawn in anyway. Your cheeks blush at the thought of Steve racing Sam here the other day. Today it was empty and  you found a spot in the middle of the track that was covered in grass.

An hour? Or was it two?,  was when you began to feel yourself getting pulled from your peaceful trance. Someone was watching you, their eyes felt like fire. You kept still and waited nothing much more happen next. As you were finishing up your train of thought, you whisper to the wind. You wanted to know who was watching you and you needed to see if you and the wind were on the same page again. And like a giddy puppy, the wind took off over to where the heated staring source was talking place. You stay very still, just listening to any and every possible sound.

“Ugh!” You heard a low voice call out. Your head whipped around to see Steve standing in the middle of the track with papers floating all around him. In a split second you were on your feet and helping him collect the papers. You were careful not to look at the papers for too long. The wind blew past you once more. “Sorry” It whispered as it past your ears. You looked back over to Steve and put the two together.

“Wow that gust of wind came out of nowhere.” Steve stumbled over his words as you handed him the last of the papers.  You looked around and hide a small grin, Yea something was up with your powers. The wind has never crashed into anybody when scouting for you. You made a mental note to talk again to Scott and Jean.

“I can see.” You lightly joke which brought Steve's attention back to you.

“I'm sorry, I saw you through the window and want to ask you something but I didn't want to interrupt, Which I just did.” he shuffled the papers back to a beige folder. His face was adorable when in was scrunched up in guilt mode.

“No, that's quite alright I was finishing up anyway.” All the doubts about your powers being faulty melted away as soon as Steve let out a very bright smile.

“Good to hear, It's a very nice day out today.” Steve commented on the weather. You were dying inside just to know what he was going to ask you.

“Yes, and it should be a nice evening as well.” You answered as you look up to the sky.

Reds and Oranges took over the blue sky and it felt like a summer back home for you. It got you thinking about your friends at home. Carrying a conversation with Steve was surprisingly easy, just like with them.

“Would you like to go to dinner with me tonight?” Steve blurted out quickly. The question took you off guard and you needed a moment to think. He had totally side tracked you with the evening sky.

“I want to make up for the coffee and shopping date that got cancelled.” He raised his eyebrows on the word cancel. Your heart jumped into your throat. Did your ears hear right? He called yesterday's hang out a date. A bubbly feeling started in your stomach but you were to excited to notice.

“I would love too.” You finally found your voice. You couldn't believe that he was standing there in front of you asking you on another date. Steve let out a short chuckle. All his stress about asking you was blown away.

“I hope you don't mind if it's an early date. I don't want to rush through it just for Tony's stupid meeting.” Steve quickly shut his mouth, “I'm sorry the meeting with you and the others it's not stupid it's just....”

“We could have the negotiation and come to an agreement over a weekend?” You ended his sentence. That's what you were feeling at the beginning of this trip. But after meeting Steve, you weren't minding the week long trip.

“Yes, but it just means we will have more get to know each other.” Steve's face went red just as you started to blush. “I mean if you want.” That's when the guilty smile of his appeared on his face. That made your heart melt into a puddle.

“I think that would be nice.” You agreed.

“Excellent, then I will pick you up at your room at 5, ok?” You nodded as your Y/E/C eyes got caught up in his blue ones. They were dancing with excitement as he look down at you.

“Then I will see you soon, Y/N.” He nodded his head and began heading back into the building. He had excuse himself to finish up his paperwork before the date. You watched him disappear before looking on your phone for the time. It was a little past three-thirty which gave you enough time to shower and change.

You were sitting at the desk in your room reading some post on Tumblr when a familiar set of knocking raise from the door. You couldn't contain your smile as you already knew it was Steve. Shivers spilled down your spine as you thought of why he was here. You were going to dinner with him. Did you think you will ever get over your giddiness around him? You prayed that you wouldn't it was becoming one of the best thing about being around him.  You then let out a silent pray about the outfit you choose, Y/F/C sundress with black leggings with matching flats, was ok seeing how he never said where you guys were going.

The thought vanished however, when your eyes met his. He was wearing a blue dress shirt with fine fitting blue jeans. The blue of the fabric made his eyes shine brighter.

“You look beautiful.” Steve complemented, His eyes sparkled as thought this was the first time he had seen you all day. The giddiness return too your stomach.

“You look amazing yourself.” You return the favour but still no comment could describe what you were really feeling about him.

“This is for you.” Steve finally got you to break from his eyes.

“Huh?” You mental slapped your brain for that wonderful response. You didn't notice that his hand was behind his back.

When you look down. Steve took it as a cue and pulled a single Y/F/F from behind and handled to you.

“It's beautiful.” You gasp as you gently took it from him. Your fingers brushed lightly over his and a teasing sensation shot through  out your body. You quickly put the flower in a cup full of water as you didn't want him to see your blushing face. You calmed yourself and began your date.

The evening in the city was a lot chillier then you had thought it would be.  The sun still beaming off of the tallest building. But it was fun walking with Steve, who didn't hide his identity this time. He was quick to doge a lot of the people as he reassured you that dinner was going to be private.

About fifteen minutes later, he was pulling open a side door. And you found yourself standing in the back of a restaurant's kitchen. You stood still letting Steve take over the date. He was quick to find the head chief. After a few moments Steve gave his attention back to you as he lead you to the dinning room. He pasted all the customers at their tables and head for a private room. You were surprise that the room was decked out for just the two you.  

He pulled out your chair being the gentlemen that he was. Once you were settled he join you by your side.

“I hope this is okay. It was last minute for me as well.” He admitted before taking a sip of his water.

“Ok? I wasn't explicating something this extravagant. You really shouldn't have.” The lighting in the room was dimmed down and you were thankful as your cheeks rose with heat.

“Yes, I did.” Steve answer stubbornly. “Yesterday, I almost got you killed.” He revealed.

You sighed slightly in your mind. This was the real reason he was beating himself up.

“You didn't place the bomb in the store, Steve. So it wasn't your fault.” The mood was dropping quite so you ended with a joke. “And if you didn't want hang out with me then a simple no would surprise instead of blowing of your favourite place.” A smile escaped his lips at your small joke. He raised his head as a waiter came in.

Dinner was just as wonderful as the conversation with Steve. It was how you imagined if the morning date had went as plan. You two were careful about bringing of work related things except for a story here and there. You had let it slip about the training day that you broke Logan's nose. Steve laughed as well as you did. Logan's nose was complete healed by the time you two walk out of the training room.  You, on the other hand, didn't go unscathed as Logan had landed a strong punch into your  right thigh. Which turned into a nasty haematoma that lasts near three days. Laughter rose between you two and it was like this was meant to happen. Everything you and Steve had shared was magic and you felt right around him.

Soon you two left the restaurant the way you came in. The sun had set and the sky was beautiful blue twilight.

“We still have plenty of time before the meeting, Would you let to take a walk around Central Park?” You perked up at the idea. You had never been to the park before and couldn't wait to see the green, lushest trees. So Steve hailed a cab and they were off to the park.

Out of all the horrors stories that had taken place in Central Park it was very peaceful walking with Steve. The night air had dropped again and being the ever gentlemen, Steve offered his jacket. His body heat linger in the fabric as you were about two seconds from clattering your teeth. You two made your way over to a bench that was under a yellow street lamp. The conversation didn't slow there as the two of you couldn't stop talking to each other.

“It's very nice out here.” You commented the moment a peaceful gap opened up. The black sky was like a curtain and the street lights echoing in the trees make them appear larger then what they were. You were at a state of peace.

“I had fun tonight with you.” Steve confession brought you back to see that Steve's eyes were glue to you. Your heart fluttered as you saw all the signs for a kiss from all the romantic movies you had ever seen growing up.

Once your eyes were lock. Steve began to lean in and you did the same. Your lips touched softly for the first few seconds. You raise your hand to his chest as he wrapped an arm around your waist pulling you closer. The kiss deepen as you could feel the sparks grow the more you kept touching. You two pulled away breathless. You had never been kissed like that before and from the look on Steve's face he had never kiss anyone like that before.

“Wow...” The words escaped your mouth in a whisper before you could stop it. Steve chuckled as he pull you closer to his side.

“I agree.”  He whispered into your ears.

But the dream date was shattered by a woman with dark hair screaming as she ran down the path.

“Help! They took her! They took her!” Steve and you jumped up immediately and met up with the frantic woman. The lady collided into Steve and began rambling about what happen.

“We were leaving the theatre and they snatch Jenny up. They took her into that alleyway.”

“Stay here with her, I will go check it out.” A disgusted feeling rose in your throat.

“Steve, is that a good idea? Remember what happen last time?” You called out, but it was either too late or Steve had chosen not to listen to you for he was already at the alleyway.

“Ok everything is going to be fine. Steve will solve everything and everyone be fine.” You stumbled over the words to use. You were not one for comforting people that were distress. Their energy eventually would take over your own.

“Are you sure?” The woman whimpered as you were still staring after Steve.

“Of Course, You have Captain America on your case.” WATCH OUT, SHE GOING TO GET YOU!

The sudden cry of the wind made your head snap back to the lady that was now replace by a thug dressed in black and he was throwing a punch your way. Your instincts kicked in and you were able to block the attack. You didn't waste any time retailing by shoving your palm up into his chin. He collapse to the ground knocked out.

You scan the area for the any more threats that were coming your way. You spun around to see the woman who was calling for help was also missing. What the hell was going on? You called the wind for some kind of answer or clues.  Getting jumped was a very close call that shouldn't have happen in the first place.

“What is happening?” You called out to the air. The trees began to stir as a very power gust came crashing down you. Leaves and debris flew all around you but you were unfathomed by the power. Instead you closed your eyes and listen.

Bad guys..... everywhere......Steve.....you must hurry! Even the strongest gust of wind was having a hard time communicating to you. What were you to do? Last time you went looking for Steve you were blown  back into the bathroom.

But the training that you had gone many years with Scott, Jean, and Logan kicked in. You then made a mad dash over to the alleyway the woman had told Steve about. The night was silent except for the pounding of your feet on the concrete path. You had made it over to the ally and everything was still. She quietly made your way into a dark corner letting the shadows cover you in camouflage. You scan the area but couldn't find another person around you. Everything was eerie quiet as you thought of your next move.

Jean, You collected all your thoughts and send a message to Jean. There was no way in hell that you were going to get yourself lost in New York City trying to find Steve. A few minutes later and still nothing.

Jean, you called again with a little more strength.  This time you got something back from her and you quickly explain what you needed. You told her the short version of the story. Jean agreed and before long you were running down the alleyway looking for Steve or that mystery woman. But to no avail.

It must have been another hour of you combing the cities streets to find Steve when Jean message you to find a street and wait for them. You did just that. Your legs were exhausted and you were sick with worry about Steve. The time read fifteen past eight. What a night this was turning out to be.

A yellow taxi pulled up and Scott got out of the car.

“Y/N? Are you alright what happened?” You nodded your head as you went into his arms for a hug. You quickly gave the run-down again to them in the taxi. “Well that's odd.” Jean's brow cease up. She was looking rather puzzled at Steve’s disappearance like that, “We'll head back to the base and tell the others. I'm sure Sam will know what to do.” Jean rubbed your back trying to comfort you. You nodded your head in response. Jean was usually right about this things. But something stir in your gut,it was saying the opposite. Something was wrong.

Pulling up to the base seem to take forever. You were out of the car a second before the wheels stop moving.

“Y/N. Hey slow down!” Scott called back to you as he fumble with the Taxi driver's money.” As soon as you enter the building you were looking for anyone that was familiar. But the place was pretty empty by this time of night. By then Jean and Scott had caught up with you. Jean lead you to the meeting room. Sam was the first that you spotted.

“Sam! Steve he's in trouble, I try looking for him on the streets but couldn't find him.”

“Whoa slow down girl and tell me what happen.” Annoyed that this was the third time you had to explain what happen to you and Steve that you were out winded. You sat down as the fatigue and the worring was beginning it's toll on you.  You looked up to see what Sam was going to say. He looked even more confused then ever.

“I don't understand. Steve came back hours ago. I didn't realise you two were together.”

dun dun dun. Cliffhanger...

sorry so late

I'm also working on a book...

thanks for reading and I love you kittens...

[yourslovinglecter]

The Duchess - Part 5

Summary: She hated him, for everything he had done to them, the damage he had caused, the suffering and pain he had left behind. She hated him… Didn’t she? Emilia comes face to face with the leader of the Saviours and is confronted with his true nature, which in turn has her questioning her own.

Warning/s: Eventual smut, slow burner, profanity/swearing, graphic descriptions of violence.

Pairing: Negan/OC

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

No gifs are made by me unless otherwise stated. All credit goes to the original creators.

Alexandria

The days seemed as though they passed too quickly and reaped too little in the way of rewards for them. The outlying areas had already been picked clean and each time they ventured out it was a little farther. Today it was her turn and usually she would have been accompanied by Daryl…

Rick had tried to persuade her to take someone else, but in the end what it boiled down to was that she just didn’t trust anyone else to have her back. Michonne was off doing whatever it was she did nowadays, Rick was needed at the compound and Carol had vanished. She was just fine with Logan trotting along at her side, she trusted him with her life and she was used to it being just them. They worked better alone.

Daryl had fit right in with them, he was so quiet when they scavenged that it had barely felt like he was there. With Logan to her right and Daryl to her left she’d felt safe… She wasn’t prepared to let anyone else try to bond with Logan so that they could scavenge together.

He didn’t exactly like strangers.

She snorted to herself as they worked their way through the undergrowth. That was the understatement of the year. He was damn unsociable was what he was. He hated strangers, men especially.

He would tolerate woman, but barely. Most of the Alexandrians found him intimidating, which was why she had the house furthest away from the others, alone, with a very large garden. They felt much safer knowing he was there as opposed to roaming around their picture perfect suburb.

Daryl and Logan had come to an understanding, they stayed out of each others way, respected each other, and Logan tolerated him because he kept Emilia safe. Rick… Well Logan didn’t like Rick too much, growled at him quite often, most likely because of his unpredictable emotions. But Rick trusted the beast with his infant daughter-who Logan had taken to immediately. He knew when someone needed protecting and no one was more vulnerable than Judith.

She’d been stunned herself when he’d taken the protective stance over her the first time, when the psychopaths with W’s carved in their foreheads had stormed the compound. He’d ripped a few throats out of the living that day and even she had been impressed when they’d found him surrounded by bodies with Judith playing in the centre.

Rick had trusted him ever since.

They didn’t get on, but she didn’t think Logan would ever actually like another male. Especially around her, he was protective to the extreme and refused to allow men near her for the fear of fighting for her affection.

She didn’t mind. If anything she was grateful, It had kept her alive.

She heard him panting somewhere to her right and the soft snapping of twigs under his paws. She couldn’t see him but she knew he was there, flanking her should she need him. She didn’t have a vehicle with her because he wasn’t after a big haul, she had gone on foot because today was about walkers and the loot they carried.

Everyone in todays world had weapons on them and that’s what they needed. She figured that out of every 10 walkers she killed at least one should have a knife. Something they could use to replenish the stores Negan and his men had ransacked.

Her bow was slung over her shoulders, the makeshift arrows sticking out of her backpack. She’d done archery as a child and quickly realised the most easily resourced and replenish-able weapon was one which solely relied on nature to create. She’d had a crappy handmade bow when she’d met Rick’s group. It wasn’t anything spectacular, it had been thrown together in haste from a dead ash tree branch which she’d whittled down with a hunting knife and some knotted string. It had done the job but certainly could have been improved upon.

Then she’d met Daryl, he’d shared her affinity for arrows but she disliked the crossbow, preferring instead to use her longbow. That was until Daryl had one day presented her with the weapon she favoured now.

He’d tried to give her some bullshit about how he’d happened to find it, but she knew full well he must have travelled over a hundred miles to the old abandoned hunting lodge she herself had passed on her way to Alexandria. She hadn’t dared enter it because it seemed someone had shut a whole load of walkers in there, she wasn’t about to let them out and face twenty on her own… But she was sure that’s what Daryl had done to get her the bow she now had.

It was a thing of beauty really, and as her shot had improved she’d outgrown the last one. He’d even found 6 accompanying arrows in the lodge, which she recovered and reused where possible, just as he did. This was a black compound bow, lightweight and deadly and she adored it. She had even been thinking of naming it… That was until Negan had come along swinging Lucille and ruining that thought for her.

She paused as she heard a shuffling noise ahead and crouched low, she instinctively sensed that Logan had stopped too as they listened. She knew what it was before she heard the gurgle because Logan had started his low pitched warning growl, the type of noise that if directed at you would set every nerve ending on your body alight with fear.

“Shh.” She whispered and he stopped immediately, accepting the signal for what it was. She would take this one. If Negan’s visit had proven anything to her, it was that she had lost her edge behind those tall walls, she needed the practice.

She shifted her bow from over her back and held it gently in her hands, knocking an arrow she held it with her forefinger as she looked through the trees, waiting for her target to appear as the noises got closer. More shuffling and simultaneous gurgles were now heard, which informed her that it wasn’t just one walker. Four maybe?

Her eyes saw movement ahead and she pulled her bow taught, the arrow beside her cheek ready to fly. She let them come closer, feeling the tension in her arm and loving the familiar ache in her shoulder, this was where she belonged.

Three, four… Six. There were six of them, one for each arrow she had. She knew Logan would be flanking them, lying in wait should she need him, so she wasn’t afraid.

She let her arrow loose and cursed as it hit the tree trunk beside the closest walkers head with a thunk. They knew she was there now and became more agitated, stumbling toward her faster, their rotting arms outstretched.

She breathed deeply as she concentrated her focus, automatically reaching behind her for arrow after arrow as they closed in around her. They fell one by one, no match for her speed until she reached behind her to grab an arrow and groped at thin air. Her eyes shot to the tree trunk where her arrow was firmly lodged and so she threw her bow over her head and one arm as she simultaneously bent toward her boot where her hunting knife was concealed.

The walker tripped over the body of one of the others and pulled itself to its uncoordinated feet. It fell toward her and its weight and stench overwhelmed her as she fought to hold it off, her hand pushed against it’s chest cavity which gave way, the rotting flesh congealing around her fingers.

Shit

Shit, shit, shit!

Skin was hanging from its exposed jaw as teeth gnashed at her and decomposing fingers stretched forward like tentacles, determined to reach her.

She heard that all too familiar growl and let out a sigh of relief as it turned to a snarl and teeth snapped as Logan leapt onto the walkers back and pulled him over, leaping off just in time and moving out of its reach. He was crouched low, his ears pressed against his skull and his lip pulled back menacingly as he snarled, drool dripping from his exposed teeth which were now coated with blood.

She didn’t waste any time and closed her hand around the handle of her knife, removing it from her boot as she lunged forward and lodged it in the walkers temple. It stilled suddenly.

“Good… Boy.” She panted, ruffling him behind the ears as he approached, licking his lips as he dropped the snarl and his ears pointed back up as the danger passed. He shook himself off and moved closer to her, accepting the hand which she placed on his neck for support.

She made her way around each of the bodies, first collecting her arrows, if for any reason she needed to run they were her priority over whatever the bodies may be carrying. Once she had dislodged the final one from the tree about 15 yards away she returned to the bodies to search them.

They were at varying stages of decomposition and unsurprisingly the oldest walkers had nothing on them of worth. There were two which looked a little more recent though and so she ran her hands over the chest of the first one, a male. Her lip curled upward in disgust but it had to be done, she found an old photograph of a young girl in his chest pocket and looked at it sadly for a moment, before returning it to its place. His pants pocket held half a pack of cigarettes and matches. She didn’t smoke but she’d bet men in Negan’s crew did. She put them in her pack and searched his other pocket which yielded a small swiss army knife. She opened each mechanism one by one to check for rust and found none, it was perfect. Almost useless against walkers of course, but she was sure Negan and his men would appreciate it. She put that in her pack too.

She patted down his legs, disappointed to feel he had nothing else on him. She rolled him over just to make doubly sure. He was heavy and the more she’d gotten used to moving bodies, the quicker she’d realised where the term ‘dead weight’ had come from. She patted down his back and smiled as his shirt rumpled over something tucked into his waistband.

“Bingo.” She whispered as she pulled the shirt up to reveal a handgun tucked into his pants, she removed it and checked for ammo, half a clip.

Elation filled her and she looked up and grinned at Logan who was watching her with interest, his head tilting sideways when she spoke.

“We got something boy.”

She placed that in her bag, making a mental note to ask Rick about it. She wasn’t good with guns, she preferred her bow and knife and as such knew very little about them. She had been at a disadvantage here when this had all began, many Americans had a working knowledge of firearms but being from England she knew next to nothing, hell she’d never even touched one before she’d arrived in the land of the free.

She considered the footwear before she moved away and decided she didn’t like the thought of his foot decomposing in them and so left them where they were and moved onto the next one.

It was female, probably not much older than her from what she could tell. Probably hadn’t been a walker for more than a week. Emilia sighed as she dropped her head in sadness, her eyes lit upon the bite mark on the woman’s shoulder, guessing that was probably how she met her end.

Which was precisely why she kept her own shoulders covered when outside the walls, her jacket wasn’t exactly army standard in material strength but it would most certainly buy her more time to kill a walker trying to take a chunk out of her shoulder than nothing at all would. Logan’s cold wet nose nudged at her neck and she let out a soft huff of laughter, appreciating his attempt at uplifting her mood.

She felt so awful doing this. Looting the dead. But as Daryl had told her, they wouldn’t be needing anything they were carrying anymore.

With this thought at the forefront of her mind she removed the gold necklace which held a wedding ring, judging by the size and thickness it had belonged to a man. Emilia glanced down at the woman’s hand and saw the matching ring on her finger. She removed that too along with the simple single jewelled engagement ring which sat behind it.

“I’m so sorry…” She whispered, shaking her head as she put the jewellery in her pocket and zipped it up.

She looked at the woman face again as she patted her down, finding nothing else of value. She wondered where she had come from, she didn’t look as though she had been dead for very long and the speed which the walkers travelled she couldn’t have come from very far… Maybe she’d had a base or a group with supplies?

Emilia looked up at the sky, she estimated she had five, maybe six hours of sunlight left. Whilst she hadn’t expected to be away from home overnight, it could pay off for them. She licked her lips and flinched as her sore wound made itself known. She had seen how The Saviours acted and that was when they had plenty of supplies to take, she didn’t want to think about what would happen if they didn’t meet Negan’s quota.

“What do you say Logie? A couple of nights out in the wild for old times sake?” She looked at her companion who woof-ed softly in agreement. She knew he couldn’t understand her, but sometimes she really felt as though he did. She smiled at him and hoisted her pack over her shoulder, slinging her bow over her head and arm so that the wire rested diagonally on her sternum.

They walked for hours, taking out every walker they crossed. Usually she wouldn’t bother, but now they were desperately scavenging any supplies they could get and every little bit mattered. She’d collected a man’s wristwatch, a large hunting knife with a serrated blade and a couple bullets. Unfortunately no other guns.

The sun was starting to hang low in the sky so she dedicated her last couple of hours before darkness fell to finding them shelter. She had been hoping for some kind of building but she wasn’t that lucky, instead when light became scarce she settled for a small clearing in the trees and set up a perimeter, using industrial strength rope she’d brought along with her to wrap around the trees in a circle at shin level. Then she repeated these steps at stomach height and again at neck height, never once did she cut the rope, instead she just repeatedly wrapped it around the trunk, using the tension and her own weight to make it taught. When she was done she wrapped the remaining around the largest trunk and tied one of the strongest knots she knew, of course taught to her by Daryl.

Most of the skills she knew now had been taught to her by him, knots, tracking, making better arrows…

She tried not to think about him.

Her rope wall wouldn’t stop regular people, but she had Logan for that. It was just enough that she could get a couple hours of shut eye without worrying her face would be chewed off in her sleep. She doubted anyone would find her out here anyway as she refused to light a fire, she didn’t need it for food as she was currently chewing on half a granola bar and she most definitely didn’t need it for heat.

She looked down in amusement at the 50kg beast who was draped over her legs, making her lose all feeling in them but also warming her with his hot belly. She was being watched with large amber doe eyes and she laughed at his expression, when drool began pooling on her leg she wrapped up her remaining granola bar and opened her pack, feeling out for the large can of dog food.

His head lifted immediately and his ears perked up as he watched her pull the can open and stick her fingers inside.

“You can’t eat the whole tin.” She warned him, holding it slightly out of his reach as she fished around for roughly a quarter serving of the can. “We don’t know how long we need this to last.”

She offered her hand out with the measly portion and his large rough tongue descended on her open palm, swallowing the offering down in almost one gulp. She wiped the drool on her jacket once he had finished licking the residue from her fingers and returned the can to her pack.

“Sorry pup.” She said as she caught his pleading eyes and placed the pack behind her to rest on. A large muzzle rested itself on her shoulder as his hot breaths tickled her ear and she knew she was forgiven. She wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes, trying to forcefully evict the image of Negan which seemed to appear there at every opportunity.

When she awoke it was to the sound of Logan’s growls, by the weight on her chest she deduced he hadn’t actually moved off her yet so she peeled one itchy eye open and tried to see through the darkness.

She raised her hand to his neck and began gently stroking his fur, calming and quietening him so that she could hear whatever it was he was growling at. His head was up and looking behind her, she couldn’t move to try and see what it was without dislodging him which would make a whole lot of noise considering his size. Almost as though he knew what she was thinking and really didn’t like it, he quietly readjusted himself to lay fully over the top of her, his head descending so that she was now laying on her back, face first into his throat and had a mouth full of fur. He was so long and large that only her shins and boots stuck out from beneath him, but in this darkness that wouldn’t be seen.

She thought about shifting him but decided against it, he had made the choice for her and was pressed against her fully, shielding her from whatever it was. She listened as carefully as she could but her hearing was somewhat muffled by the 50 kilograms of canine which sat atop her.

Then she heard it, voices.

Part 6

A/N: Thank you so much for everyone who has liked, reblogged and commented on this story so far! For something I began writing months ago to myself I’m so please others are enjoying it. 

Tag list: @negan–is–god  @negans-network @aeiflegonphoenix @monizzle96

If you would like to be tagged just drop me a comment and i’ll make sure you’re added to the list. 

[niamsuggitt]

The Ides Of June 2017

Hello there! And welcome all to this month’s ‘The Ides Of’ column, where I write just a little bit about all of the various stuff and nonsense I’ve been enjoying over the past 30 days. Yes, this instalment is late, but it’s been lovely and warm, so I haven’t had the inclination to stay indoors and write this stuff. I’ve actually been outside and I’ve even been wearing shorts! What is the world coming to?

This month is a decent one I think, there’s a lot of movies (although some are rewatches), 2 intriguing books, more great TV and I bought another Switch game! Unfortunately there’s no new music this time out, but next month will change that, with new Royal Blood and Public Service Broadcasting albums on the horizon.

So let’s do it to it!

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Movies

Lot’s of movies to talk about this time, so let’s not waste any time with preamble! First up is Prometheus (Ridley Scott 2012), which I finally actually got around to watching due to the release of it’s sequel, Alien: Covenant, which I haven’t actually seen. That’s kind of me in a nutshell really, the release of a new thing makes me realise I haven’t actually seen the old thing yet! See also Schmidt, Kimmy later on. Anyway, I mostly enjoyed Prometheus, although as the rest of the internet has already explained ad nauseum, it certainly has it’s problems and, at a bit of a remove, doesn’t really make that much sense. I like the previous Alien films, and have the Quadrilogy box-set, but wouldn’t say I was any kind of mega-fan, so I don’t have any real issues per se with Scott going back and removing some of the mystery. Especially because, every answer he gives only raises more and more questions! I came out of the film wanting to know more, so in that way, it was a success. I think the things that really stood out to me here were the visuals, because whatever you think of Ridley Scott, the man has one of the best eyes for science fiction out there, and also the fantastic performance of Michael Fassbender as the android, David. He is just superb, although his role in the plot is one that frustrates me, as it’s never really explained why David is fucking with things, he just… is. Maybe the answers are waiting for me in Covenant? I also found that frustration with Charlize Theron’s character. She’s just kind of a dick for no reason, you find out Weyland is her dad… and then she dies. There must be more to it than that, but there isn’t. A lot of the other performances are like that really, good actors doing something potentially good, but not as much as you like, Idris Elba, Race Spall and Sean Harris all deserve more I think. Especially as Noomi Rapace, who is nominally the lead, isn’t quite as interesting, at least to me. Her performance is good, particularly in the fantastic ‘abortion’ scene that’s probably the film’s highlight. Unfortunately for Rapace, in an Alien film, a female lead is always going to be compared to Sigourney Weaver, and she doesn’t quite match up! Prometheus is, I would say, not a particularly great film, but it is a very interesting one.

Next, I watched a documentary that actually uses footage from Prometheus in parts, Jodorowsky’s Dune (Frank Pavich 2013). This film tells the inside story of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failed attempt to adapt Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ novel into a movie in the 1970s, and wow, this movie that never got made is far more interesting than most ones that do make it! Jodorowsky’s ambition here was huge, and I would go as far to say a bit insane. If you’ve seen any of his actual films (I really like El Topo), you’ll know that he’s a bit out there, but this would have been something else. He wanted Salvador Dali, Orson Welles and Mick Jagger in the film, he made his young son learn to swordfight, it is mental. The film features some fascinating interview snippets not just with Jodorowsky and others who worked on the film, but also with outsiders like Nicolas Winding Refn, who once sat with Jodorowsky all night whilst he acted out the film. In the end, this is not just an intriguing look at a film that never came to be, but also a great monument to the power of creativity, and a unique creative mind. Because even in failure, Dune had a massive impact. It brought Jodorowsky together with Moebius, and they would later collaborate on the Incal comic series. It had a huge influence in so much other science fiction, including Alien (Dan O’Bannon and HR Giger worked on Dune, and some of the structures in Promethus are straight from the Dune sketchbook), Flash Gordon, Star Wars and basically… everything we nerds love today. My only complaint would be that, a lot of the interviews were in French, and there were no subtitles, so I couldn’t grasp what Michel Seydoux was saying. But other than that, highly recommended.

I wrote earlier about a Michael Fassbender performance being the best part of a movie, and whilst that’s true for Prometheus, it’s definitely the case for X-Men: Apocalypse (Bryan Singer 2016), which I found to be really quite a mess, and definitely indicative of how far behind the X-Men film franchise is lagging behind others right now (please note, I haven’t seen Logan yet). As a comics fan, I of course love the X-Men, but I must admit that I haven’t really been behind the X-Men movies in a while. X3 was the last one I saw in the cinema, and Deadpool and First Class are probably the ones I would actually say were good movies these days. I haven’t watched 1 or 2 in ages, but I fear they won’t have aged well. Apocalypse is indicative of this malaise really. The plot is incredibly perfunctory, with Apocalypse just coming back, being evil, and the X-Men stopping him. There’s barely a hint of a plan from him, which is incredibly disappointing, especially as it means the normally brilliant Oscar Isaac is just wasted under layers of Ivan Ooze make-up. The rest of the cast is actually good, I mentioned him earlier, but Fassbender is just superb as Magneto. He and James McAvoy’s Professor X basically make this period piece series work singlehandedly. I initially rolled my eyes at the film manipulating our emotions by giving Magneto a family only to immediately kill them off, but damn, Fassbender sells it. Jennifer Lawrence is once again inexplicably front and centre as Mystique. I really find it weird how they’ve insisted on making her such a big hero, obviously it caught them off-guard after First Class how big a star she became, but it just doesn’t make sense to me, especially when compared the the comics. The film re-introduces a lot of familiar faces with new actors, so we now have a teen Cyclops, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler and Storm. These young actors are fine, but they aren’t given too much to do really. It pissed me off how the film has Storm side with Apocalypse for most of it and then switch sides and tries to plays it off as a big surprise. Storm one of the most famous X-Men of all of them, everyone knows she’s a good guy, you can’t get away with silly shit like that. This film just felt a bit flat and uninspired throughout, there’s an entirely unnecessary Wolverine cameo (that I actually managed to be surprised by), a decent enough Quicksilver sequence that just feels like a poor re-tread of the one in Days Of Future Past, and just a whole heap of bad CGI and lame moments. I liked parts of it, but it in no way stands up to the MCU, and isn’t even aggressively stupid bad like Suicide Squad. I really hope the X-Men movies can improve, I know that Logan is supposed to be good, and the Legion TV show was amazing, but there needs to be another good, main franchise X-Movie. Will Dark Phoenix manage that? I have my doubts. Maybe New Mutants will be good.

Speaking of New Mutants, the future Magik, Anya Taylor-Joy, is the star of the next film on the docket, The Witch (Robert Eggers 2015). This is a very atmospheric and creepy horror film set in 17th Century America, as an isolated Puritan Family comes face to face with, well, a witch. This is my kind of horror movie, not so much made up of jump scares and gore, but instead an overall unease about it, and slow ramping up of terror until everything boils over into weirdness and a talking demon goat. There are some truly unsettling sequences in this story, and it really did keep me guessing throughout as to what was going on. One thing I really appreciated was the script, as Eggers tried to make it as period accurate as possible. At first the language seems odd, but you soon get used to it. The performances are all strong, Taylor-Joy is excellent as Thomasin, and it was great to see Leeds’ own Ralph Ineson get a starring role after being excellent on so many TV shows throughout the years. And what can you even say about  Black Phillip? A tour-de-force from that Goat. The Witch is really strong film, but it is genuinely scary, it took me about 3 months to build up the courage to watch it, and it has stuck with me!

I continued the horror by watching The Babadook (Jennifer Kent 2014), and yes, I was inspired to watch it because of the ‘Babadook as a gay icon’ meme, which is just hilarious. I didn’t find that much queer subtext in the film (although he does come out of a closet…) but I did very much enjoy it. Like The Witch, this film delivers the kind of scares I like, psychological, and lingering in the background, and most importantly, rooted in real human emotions. The Babadook might not even be real, and is probably some kind of grief manifestation. But, again, like The Witch, I enjoy the ambiguity about it. Another thing I really liked is how willing the film was to make the kid into an unlikeable dick, whilst also still allowing us to care about him. The two main characters here a very complex, and there’s a lot to unpack still. The design of the Babadook is another really cool thing about this film, it’s just iconic (gay or otherwise) and I think this character could end up in the pantheon of great monsters, it really is that effectively creepy.

I also re-watched 2 big blockbusters on Blu-Ray that I wrote about more extensively when they were in the cinema; Doctor Strange (Scott Derrickson 2016) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Gareth Edwards 2016), or as I like to call them ‘Mads Mikkelson does Disney’. Both held up on a second viewing, and I think I actually liked Doctor Strange more this time around. The visuals were amazing, and, along with Guardians Of The Galaxy 2, show that they really are willing to take the Marvel Cinematic Universe into different places. Rogue One’s tragic ending didn’t quite hit me as much this time out for obvious reasons, as I knew it was coming, but I still enjoyed it. I paid more attention to the performances, in particular Diego Luna and Ben Mendelsohn. I think Cassian Andor might be one of the most interesting characters in a Star Wars movie, I certainly would like to see more of his story, so get on it Marvel!

Television

There’s no new or returning shows this month, it’s all quick hits, and I will try and be quick!

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (FOX) wrapped up it’s season in fine form with a bunch of double-episodes. I really enjoyed Gina Gershon’s guest role, and the way the season ended, with Rosa and Jake being sent to prison was a great cliffhanger, even topping last years! As an Earwolf podcast nerd, it was of course also great to get cameos from Scott Aukerman, Kulap Vilaysack in the finale. I get a kick out of hearing those familiar voices come out of actual faces. This is now one of the most consistently funny US sitcoms out there… hell, it’s one of the few.

The ending of Better Call Saul (AMC) Season 3 was also very good, particularly the fate of Chuck, which was just shocking and tragic. When BCS is on, it’s the best drama on TV, and it certainly has the best characters. I will say though that this 3rd season has been a bit too disjointed, as those characters were too disparate. I can’t remember the last time Jimmy and Mike shared a scene (Episode 4?) and the same can really be said for Mike and Nacho. At times it felt like 2 different shows, maybe even 3, happening concurrently. Now, all of those shows were good, but it didn’t cohere as well as it might. Hopefully Season 4 will bring things closer together. Gus’ knowing look at the end seems to indicate he knows what Nacho was up to, so I can imagine the criminal element consolidating. Plus, with Chuck dead and Kim sidelined with injury, things are bound to change for Jimmy McGill, and I imagine we’re only going to get more and more of Saul Goodman. This was an odd year for the show, but it’s still excellent, and Michael McKean really should win all the awards, he was superb throughout this season, making us loathe and sympathise with Chuck all at the same time. Any awards that don't go to him should go to Odenkirk of course.

I’m basically just going to be talking about finales this month aren’t? Archer (FXX) ended it’s ‘Dreamland’ storyline with some seriously surprising violence, I couldn’t believe how far they actually took Barry’s rampage. In the end, I thought the concept of Archer being in this Noir fever dream petered out a bit, and they didn’t stick the landing. But it was still funny, with all of the voice actors on full cylinders. I do think that it might be time to end Archer though, they’ve stretched this tone and character as far as it can go. After a whole season that’s a dream, what next? Take a leaf out of the LOST podcast joke and do a zombie season?

Gotham (FOX) got even more silly and ridiculous at the end of Season 3, with the introduction of Ra’s Al Ghul and the revelation that long-time henchman extraordinaire is Butch Gilzean is actually called Cyrus Gold, and is therefore eventually going to become Solomon Grundy. As dumb as this is, I loved it. This show is best when it verges on the camp, and these last few episodes delivered, particularly as Morena Baccarin finally got to be a bit interesting when playing an ‘evil’ Leslie Tompkins. It was great fun seeing her chew the scenery. And man, that final scene, where Bruce Wayne goes out on the streets to fight crime… it’s mad that they are doing that so soon, but I don’t care at this point. Gotham needs to go full on Adam West (RIP by the way) and never look back.

I must admit to being rather disappointed by the finale of The Flash (The CW), because the fake out of it actually being HR to die instead of Iris felt way too easy, and also because HR was just the best. I’ll miss him, but I’m sure whatever the hell version of Wells Tom Cavanaugh plays in Season 4 will also be great. The real highlight of this last set of episodes was the return of Captain Cold in ‘Infantino Street’. I can’t say it enough, but Wentworth Miller is just the best in that role. The ending of the Season redeemed things for me somewhat though, with Barry disappearing into the Speed Force, in what I think is meant to be the show’s version of his ‘death’ in Crisis On Infinite Earths (a story I have actually never read). How cool would it be if Wally was the Flash for like, half of Season 4? I would dig that. But it won’t happen.

Rounding out Superhero Corner until The Defenders comes out in the summer, Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC) had a great finale to a really strong season. It’s brilliant to see how far this show has come. They managed to tie all of the separate ‘pods’ of the season together, as Ghost Rider returned to help take out Aida in a very satisfying way. I really hope they keep this up in Season 5.

Like with Better Call Saul, it really has been an odd year for The Americans (FX), as the series shifted gears and became much more of an introspective character piece, particularly when it comes to the character of Philip. It took a while to get used to, and by the finale I was still a bit let down by how little ‘happened’, but in the end, I like where we are now. The characters, who were already well rounded, are even deeper now, and things are set up for a fascinating final season. And when you think about it, these smaller stories actually show the impact of Philip and Elizabeth’s job better than big missions. That slow grind, that loss of humanity, as driving a teenage boy to attempted suicide becomes the aim of a mission. It’s the more human side, rather than just chess pieces. And that’s really what I think The Americans is about, seeing what the Cold War was like on the ground. Let’s hope that Season 6 can marry what was good about Season 5 with the previous 4, and we really do go out with a bang. You can rest assured the acting will be fantastic, because Rhys and Russell always are.

Now for some shows that I haven’t watched the end of yet! American Gods (Starz) is still rolling along very nicely indeed, and even though as I said, I don’t really remember the book all too well, it’s adapting the story well, and even in some places improving on it. What I’ve found interesting is that, in a season of only 8 episodes, they’ve had the confidence to do 2 whole episodes that didn’t feature the 2 main characters of Shadow and Wednesday at all. One of those was all about Laura Moon coming back to life, and the other told the back-story of Mad Sweeney and Essie. Both were fantastic, and that willingness to switch things up really impressed me. The visuals of this show continue to be superb, and I am excited for the finale. It’s sitting there waiting for me right now…

iZombie (The CW) is rocketing towards it’s finale by piling on storyline after storyline and mashing them all together. At times it’s felt a bit over-stuffed, what with Blaine, Harley Johns, Stacey Boss, the conspiracy about the guy committing suicide in his cell, investigating Wally’s murder and the Mayoral Election, but mostly I think it’s worked. The most recent episode in particular did a good job a streamlining things I think and the ending was great, the world now knows zombies exist? What the? The performance of Rose McIver continues to be superb, and I loved the conceit of having her, Blaine and Don E all on the same brain at the same time, it’s awesome how they can still switch things up. I’m also enjoying the arrival of Logan Echolls himself, Jason Dohring. Can we dare hope for a Kristen Bell appearance?

Silicon Valley (HBO) is still delivering consistently strong laughs and intriguing twists and turns. I think my favourite part of this run of episodes has been Haley Joel Osment as Keenan Feldspar, he’s just really funny. I am worried about the finale now that we know that T.J. Miller is leaving the show, I don’t know how they are going to write out Ehrlich, but I don’t want them to! Hopefully Bighead will return to fill the void. I swear, he hasn’t been in like, the last 5 episodes or something.

Veep (HBO) has kicked it up a notch towards the end of Season 6, as a lot of chickens came home to roost, and Selina Meyer’s secrets were leaked to the world. It was a great episode, and was a strong use of continuity. I do still think this show has gotten a bit too broad when compared to the Iannucci years, but it is still very funny and the level of profanity and meanness still at times truly shocking. I can’t wait to see how the finale up-ends things. Selina is in a good place right now with the world finally knowing that she freed Tibet, but that can’t last, we all know it.

And finally, inspired by the start of it’s third season, I finally got around to finishing off Season 2 of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix). I did the same thing with Season 1, and will probably do the same thing with this new season. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Anyway, this was another very funny, surprisingly dark season of what is a fantastic show. I loved Tina Fey’s role as Kimmy’s therapist, and the casting of Kimmy’s mother was brilliant. I also found the romance between Titus and Mikey to be surprisingly sweet, but mainly because Titus is one of the best characters on television. My only complaint would be not enough Jon Hamm, but given that cliffhanger, I’m sure that will change!

Music

As I said in the intro, no new music this month so I won’t be able to contribute to any ‘Song Of The Summer’ debate just yet. Although that’s not actually a thing and we all know it.

Books

2 books to talk about this month, and both of them are from writers linked to my one true passion, comics. First up is Norse Mythology (2017) by Neil Gaiman, which as the title would suggest, is a re-telling of the Norse myths from Gaiman. It’s pretty cool to read his take on the direct myths, as these characters have popped up throughout his work. Whether in Sandman or American Gods, Gaiman has put his stamp on the likes of Odin and Loki, and it’s interesting to see him interpret the original stories. Like Gaiman, I first encountered the Norse Gods in the pages of Marvel Comics, and whilst these versions are therefore familiar, there’s something different about them, something darker for sure. This felt like a faithful, albeit poetic adaptation of the stories, as most of them were ones I knew, whether from the comics (if you’ve never read Matt Fraction and Patrick Zircher’s series of Thor one-shots that re-tell the myths you need to rectify that) or from previous takes on the myths or even just cultural osmosis. All of the familiar Gods appear, and you get stories like when Thor dressed as a woman to kill a Frost Giant, or the old beggar who built Asgard in a year. One thing I liked is that Gaiman really gets across how these stories are part of an oral tradition, and not all of them survive, so you get intentional continuity errors and characters just disappearing. It’s clear that there were other myths back then, but not all of them have survived to today. The short chapter length means that this book would probably actually be perfect for reading aloud, and I may even listen to the audiobook if Gaiman is reading it himself. He has a fantastic voice for audiobooks, it’s how I read The Graveyard Book for the first time. One other advantage this re-telling has over the comics is that Gaiman is able to actually reach ‘Ragnarok’, the death of the Gods, and go through with it. In the Marvel Universe, even though Ragnarok has happened (a couple of times in fact) and Thor has died or been replaced even more, you still know that nothing will change, but not in this case. All of the Gods, particularly Balder and Loki, meet their eventual tragic ends. This is a very enjoyable read, especially for someone who, like me, has an interest in myths and legends. It’s clear that Gaiman has a lot of affection for these Gods (particularly Loki, who is wonderfully complex here) and stories, and he more than does them justice. I would certainly be interesting in seeing Gaiman tackle other Pantheons, I personally like Greek Myth the best, but would like to know more about Egyptian as well.

I’m currently just under half-way through Michael Chabon’s Moonglow (2016) and am very much enjoying it. This novel is styled as a memoir and sees Chabon detail the life of his grandparents, particularly his grandfather. Jumping back and forth throughout his life, Chabon allows us to see what his grandfather was like as a child, as a soldier in WW2, as a newlywed, and and as an old man. So far it’s a fascinating book, both in terms of how Chabon details the complex characters of both grandparents, and also in how he tackles the hazy nature of memory and truth. It’s never clear just how much of the book is actually true, the characters are never actually named (it’s just ‘my grandfather’ or ‘my mother’) so it could all be 100% fiction. I tend to lean into it mostly being true, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter does it? As is usual with Chabon, the writing here is very strong, with some very beautiful sentences and moments. The fact that we know that the central characters here die at the very outset makes everything, particularly the romance, bittersweet, and Chabon nails that. It’s interesting, but the book I keep comparing this to is Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Both books are about V2 rockets in WW2, but one is a weird, sprawling epic, whereas the other is an intimate character piece. It just shows how different writers can approach the same topic in completely differing ways. I don’t think Moonglow is quite as good as Kavalier and Clay, but what is? It’s still a very good book and I am excited to read the rest of it.

Games

After going months, nay, years, with no games section, I now have 2 games to write about! You wait for a bus…

Anyway, along with Zelda, I’ve now also bought Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo Switch 2017) and whilst I haven’t played it a whole lot, is a whole lot of fun, because, well, it’s Mario Kart! Those games are always fun, the more things change, the more things stay the same. They may have added a boat-load of new characters (including Link, which is weird) and added a bunch of bells and whistles and para-gliders onto the Karts, but it’s basically the same game I’ve been playing since the N64, a mad-cap race on some insane courses. I haven’t played every track yet, but I’m getting there. One thing I really appreciate about this particular version is that you can use a single Switch Joycon as a controller, so I didn’t need to shell (heh) out £60 for another controller in order to play multiplayer. I’ve always enjoyed playing against someone else who’s actually in the room over online, so that’s a huge plus, not just for Mario Kart but for the Switch in general if future games follow suit. Mario Kart is hard to really talk about critically because it’s so pure at what it is, but I do love it. And who do I play as you ask? Yoshi of course, always Yoshi. Although sometimes Toad.

As for The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild (Nintendo Switch 2017) I’ve spent most of my recent time trying in vain to capture and train horses. I’ve really been embracing the freedom the game provides to do things in whatever order I want. I haven’t even gone to Kakariko Village yet! I’m probably a bad player, but I don’t mind, I’m having a lot of fun and the game is still as beautiful and clever as ever. There’s a real romance to this game, I find it an emotional and exhilarating experience to play.

—

So that’s your lot, hope you enjoyed it. I’ll be back in about a month with some more. It’s summer, so expect there to be a lot less TV and maybe just a whole lot less of everything if this weather keeps up! Although you can take Switches outside…

[nekoabiwrites]

Ranking Up - Chapter 2

Yup, this is becoming a chapter fic, bitches! Let’s go!

In terms of the map they’re playing on, there’s an image of the map at the end of the fic :)

AU: Splatoon Pairings: None Words: 2626 Warnings: Remus and Deceit are here, fighting with ink, very brief mentions of pain, fake weapons. Let me know if there’s anything else!

Summary: Roman and Declyn’s teams face off.

---

Roman had managed to talk Thomas into doing one final match with them, as he would be having to leave by the end of the day as his responsibilities would be changing almost immediately. They found that a match was already scheduled, and, by some miracle, one team had dropped out at the last second.

After getting their weapons and appearing in their spawn point, the four inklings had a very brief discussion about their tactics. And by “discussion about their tactics”, it really meant Roman was trying to bolster their morale by loudly proclaiming various things.

“Of course, this shall be our greatest game yet! A perfect send-off for our fantastically talented teammate, who is moving on to bigger and better things!” He threw an arm around Thomas, right after they’d materialised in their human forms.

Before anyone could get a word in, the game had begun.

Patton was the first out, running along the ground with his roller. He turned off to the left almost immediately and continued off in that direction. Roman took the other side, going right, using the wide spray of his ink from the aerospray in his hands to full effect. Thomas and Logan both headed straight ahead, covering as much of the ground as they could during their descent to the lower parts of the stage. As Thomas dove off of the edge and down the ground below, assisting Patton in covering the turf on that side, Logan stayed above and took a spot in a high up area nearby, using the scope on his black and white charger to keep an eye out for the opposing team.

While Roman’s team were co-ordinated in their efforts, the other team were not exactly up to the same standard.

Remus powered ahead immediately, spam shooting out ink from his charger and just trying to get to the centre as quick as he could. Declyn followed him, only vaguely covering the turf around the path that Remus had already created for him, and it was simply to build up his special meter quickly. Remy charged up his splatling, slowly heading to the opposite side from his eager teammates. After being able to let out his full charge, he ducked into the ink and headed off to try and cover as much turf as he could. This left Virgil to pick up the slack. He stayed back and covered anything that was left uninked, staying out of the fighting as much as possible for the time being.

The match was halfway through when things started to get serious and the splats started to become more frequent.

Roman had invaded the other team’s side fairly early on and gotten a couple of good splats on Virgil, who’d always had his back to him. Sure, it was a little cowardly to take someone out from behind when they had no idea you were there, but it wasn’t like it really mattered in the grand scheme of things. At one point, after respawning from being splatted by the other team’s splatling, Roman had immediately swum towards the left side and been intent on getting back to the other team’s side. However, the same octoling he’d splatted before was standing between him and that target, so Roman knew he had to try and take him out.

He snuck up and tried to surprise him, trying to take the octoling head on, but that was foolish in hindsight. Virgil immediately yelped and let out a shot from his brella, letting the shield of it pop open and block Roman’s shots. This frustrated the aerospray user, who then attempted to get around to shoot at the opposing octoling. Virgil, however, was good at turning in just the right way to block every shot, until the brella’s shield popped off the end and headed towards the inkling. He slipped into the ink and swam out of the path of the shield. And right into a hidden ink mine just to the side of him. Which blew up in his face, administering a fair amount of damage.

The inkling winced as he was forcibly pushed back into his human form from being stuck in the enemy ink. As he attempted to escape, Virgil was able to hit him with just enough damage that it splatted him right then and there.

Roman growled upon respawning, stamping his foot like a petulant toddler before joining back into the match, “I hate brellas…” he muttered under his breath before diving back into the ink.

Patton had seen all of that go down, but from the opposite side of the water that separated the bottom halves of the map. He wasn’t thinking too much about it thought he was content to just run and paint with his roller. Patton swam up the ink to the upper level that held the opposing team’s respawn point and immediately threw his roller down once at the top. He’d not been expecting anyone to be there, let alone anyone to get splatted by it. But someone had been. Patton paused for a second, a little shocked that he’d done that.

But he didn’t have much time to think, as the unmistakable sound of a charging splatling reached his ears. Patton’s head snapped up to see Remy aiming directly at him. In a moment of panic, the inkling slapped the button on the side of his roller and activated his special, trapping him inside the hamster ball-like contraption.

“Runrunrunrunrunrun.” Patton squeaked to himself as he rolled as fast as he could away from the now-incoming barrage of enemy ink. Some of it ended up hitting the ball, which made Patton flinch slightly, but he was safe in the plastic ball. He ran until he dropped down onto the opposing side of the lower part he’d been on before and then he detonated the ball, covering a wide radius in his team’s ink colour. He felt like he could breathe and was safe again, so Patton went to keep covering turf wherever he could find, but suddenly felt a sight lock onto his back.

With a quick glance behind him, he could see the sight line of the charger from the other team aimed directly at his back. Patton braced himself for the incoming splat, but found that it never came, despite the fact he could clearly hear the sound of someone being splatted from nearby. He turned fully to look at where the goo tuber user had been, only to find that he was gone. Patton grinned and shouted up to the air, “Thanks Logan!” He then continued on his way.

The inkling in question quirked the corner of his mouth into a small smile. It was a tradition for his team to thank him like that if they realised he’d helped them out with his charger. It was nice, made him feel appreciated. Logan revelled in the feeling for a moment before getting back to looking through his scope for another target.

Then he stopped and dropped the weapon from his eye. There was that sound again. The sound of the splatling charging. And it was clearly almost done. Logan shifted his eyes back to where Patton had been when he was about to be splatted and found the splatling user standing there, aiming up at him.

“Oh sh-” was all Logan could manage to get out before the ink came at him, splatting him easily, even as he tried to get away. The bespectacled inkling respawned with a slight sigh of disappointment, but quickly headed off to find a new perch and assist his team once more.

As Logan swam past, Thomas threw him a quick smile. He’d had a fairly uneventful game, just doing his own thing. Sure, a few splats here and there had occurred around him or to him or by him, but it was nothing special. He was just enjoying himself.

He dropped down from his team’s side back into the lower section, finding himself following Roman’s path. Thomas ended up covering the opposite side of the short walls that provided some sort of divide to the platform. He expected to round the corner and find himself face-to-face with Roman, but that was not the case. Instead of lingering on it, Thomas merely shrugged it off and headed up the wall.

Had he looked behind, however, he would have witnessed the meeting of two opposing forces. Both having lowered their weapons for a moment as they took in the shock.

Roman’s mouth hung open slightly, as he seemed to search for words to say.

Remus simply stared with wide eyes, his posture softened.

Then a wide, unhinged smile grew on the octoling’s face and he tensed up significantly. His features darkened, a fire coming over his eyes as he rose up the end of his goo tuber to point directly at the inkling before him.

The shot he intended to hit Roman missed, due to the inkling dropping into the ink and moving out of the way. He’d also seemed to come out of his reverie and was ready to fight.

“Roman~” came Remus’ sing-song voice, spine-tinglingly creepy and soft as he slowly walked.

Roman was still hidden in the ink, taking his time to swim around the centre walls in order to attempt to get behind the octoling.

“Come now, brother. Aren’t you just so happy to see me?” Remus called once more. The slow sound of his steps in the ink and the short bursts of ink firing from his weapon set every single one of Roman’s nerves on edge. It was in this moment that he cursed his lack of ninja squid, that one specific add on would make this situation so much less stressful.

Suddenly, something hit Roman and he flinched. He’d somehow gotten lost in his thoughts and miscalculated how wide the wall was. He’d hit it straight on.

“I hear you!” Remus shouted, his footsteps now fast as he ran towards the noise. Roman quickly returned to human form and aimed his aerospray in the direction that Remus was clearly coming from. It took no time, once the octoling was in range, for him to be dealt with.

Roman took a moment to reflect. This was the last place he’d ever thought he’d see his twin again… yet it had happened. He quickly ended up swimming away as another member of the opposing team drew closer to his location.

Everything continued to escalate. Turf being inked and reinked over and over, both inklings and octolings finding themselves being splatted. Mostly inklings, especially in the latter half of the game, as the dualie user on the other team seemed to have an uncanny ability to know exactly where they were at all times, using that to pop out from behind Patton to splat him several times, as well as find Logan and Thomas in their far off corners of the map.

Logan became suspicious after he’d respawned and headed back out of the spawn point towards another good charger location he was familiar with on this map. As he headed in that direction, he noticed that the dualie user was already right on Roman’s tail and – after splatting the inkling – then immediately turned towards the direction Patton was in.

The sceptical inkling kept a closer eye on the dualie user as the game continued. Whenever he had a chance, Logan searched for the bright yellow of their eyes and the punk boots they wore. It was only in the final few seconds that Logan’s suspicions were confirmed.

Declyn had gotten careless. He knew his team were going to win, especially after his little experiment had worked like a dream. He’d barely noticed that Logan’s scope was directed at him when he pulled up the holo map from his wrist and took it in. He looked for his next target.

Logan was immediately floored. The map that he was seeing from the dualie user was not what he should have been seeing. He could see that his team’s information was present, not the dualies’ team. It explained a hell of a lot. There was no way that the octoling would have been able to know where each of them were at all times without something like that. Logan wanted to shout something about it, but the countdown had finished. The game was over.

They all jumped to the results room. Logan stared across to the opposing team, taking them all in properly for the first time. The dualie user looked far too pleased and confident, as if he knew that his team had won thanks to his cheating. The goo tuber user was seemingly focused solely on Roman, who was pointedly ignoring him. The brella user was nervously staring at the ground, his arms wrapped around himself in what seemed to be an attempt to blend into the dark walls of the room. The splatling user seemed absolutely bored out of his mind. He was sat on the floor; one leg outstretched, the other bent, as he looked over his weapon.

Logan didn’t pay attention to the results. He was busy focusing on the odd team they’d just fought against. They didn’t seem to make much sense as a group.

“Good job, Virgil.”

All eight of the combatants were standing just outside the automatic doors of Deca Tower. The inklings were ignoring the octolings. Virgil felt his cheeks heat as Declyn’s hand clapped onto his shoulder and his loud compliment got the attention of the red-eyed inkling.

Virgil curled in on himself a little, “It was nothing. I just… covered the turf. Like the game says.”

“Don’t be so modest, Virgil. You did so good. Much better than the other team. We could all see your score!” Declyn’s voice rose slightly at his slight to the others in the small area, clearly in an attempt to get a rise out of them.

The red-eyed inkling seemed about ready to say something, but the other three stopped him.

“Come on, Roman. Let’s head out.”

The four of them walked away from the group of octolings. Virgil watched them go, a little pool of guilt forming in his stomach. The fact that the red-ey- Roman glared at each of them in turn over his shoulder, before tossing his head back and stalking off with his group made Virgil feel even worse.

Remus, however, seemed to find it utterly hilarious as he started cackling uncontrollably. He threw an arm around Declyn’s shoulder and practically draped himself against the other octoling, “That was wonderful! I could kiss you for that! ….in fact…” Remus’ attempt was cut off by Declyn’s hand coming up and blocking his lips.

“Thank you. Either way, our entertainment has left. Wonderful job today. We’ll talk about the next practice soon.” Declyn threw out casually as he wandered off, leaving Remus to catch up and trot along behind him like a small, very strange puppy.

Virgil turned to his final teammate, watching Remy stare at his phone screen. Upon realising he was being watched, the sunglasses wearing octoling looked up. He noticed that it was only him and Virgil now, and that the sun was beginning to set. With a grunt of effort, Remy pushed himself off of the wall.

“Come on. We should get you home before your parents kill me.”

Remy walked ahead without a warning. Virgil jogged to catch up. He still felt guilty about the fact they’d won that match. Something inside of him knew that they really didn’t deserve it, but there was no proof. Either way, Virgil was really happy to have been able to play today. Hopefully he’d be able to play again soon.

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Map for Bluefin Depot.

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