#maybe I was a little harsh on Claire here

[artimeanatheart]

Aaron Character Analysis-Quests Book Three Part One

Aaron actually gets to do stuff in this book! There's a whole plotline with him in Artime going on, which we haven't gotten yet in this series. Which is exciting for me and traumatizing for him.

Head Mage Aaron Stowe

Alex is dead.

"'I felt it,' said Aaron quietly. 'Alex's life fading away. The moment it happened, I imagine. It was a searing cut to the heart,' he said, tapping the spot. 'I though I might be dying myself, and then just as quickly the pain eased and left a. . .a dull aching emptiness, I suppose.'"

And Aaron feels it. He's about as far away from his twin as he can possible be, literally worlds apart, but he still knows that Alex is dead the moment it happens. He's probably the first to know, because it takes the rescue team a while to realize what has happened. He feels the exact same thing that Alex did at the end of Island of Shipwrecks when Aaron himself was dead/dying. Unlike Alex, he doesn't collapse on the ground sobbing, even though he probably wants to. He's able to keep functioning through the pain. Because at least he and Alex ended in a good place with each other. He knows that Alex knew that Aaron loves and supports him. And he knows that Alex loved him for who he is. There's a sense of closure, even amidst all the pain, that Alex didn't have way back then. So Aaron starts trying to figure out what to do. He needs a way to get to Artime quickly, now that the tube is gone. He calls for Pan and she answers and he rushes off to Artime. Much like Alex almost rushed off to find him.

"Speeding across the waves toward them, on the back of a shimmering black water dragon named Pan, sat Aaron Stowe. Alex's identical twin. Aaron held a package in his hand. As they drew up to the shore, everyone could see his face was stoic, his eyes etched with grief."

Aaron arrives in Artime, or, more accurately, the Death Farm, on the back of a dragon carrying a magical robe that once belonged to the man he killed. Aaron didn't go to Artime intending to take on the role of head mage. He went there to offer his help and support to it, much like he has ever since halfway through Island of Graves. Aaron knows now that he doesn't enjoy leading. He's happy to be part of a team and be one of the advisors to the leader of the team, but he doesn't want to be in charge of it himself.

"'Do you have the spell memorized?' 'I. . .yes.' 'Thank goodness.' 'Shall I tell it to you so you can proceed?' Claire rested her hand on Aaron's arm and gave a sad half smile. Sweat shone on her face and neck, and her hair was tangled and filled with bits of splinters and dirt. 'You know I don't want this job,' she said quietly. 'My life is helping to govern in Quill now. I'm only doing this because we didn't expect you to come so quickly.'"

But that's exactly what happens. Aaron arrives in Artime and Claire practically shoves the responsibility at him. She's the only other person there who knows/can do the spell. She's never wanted to be head mage and has been perfectly clear about that since Island of Silence. Once there was an option to recreate Artime without Claire being head mage, she was perfectly happy to take it. Even though that option is the person who killed her father and imprisoned her. But she's moved past all of that, and expects everyone else to have, too.

"But Aaron hesitated again, feeling waves of guilt over what was about to happen. And he knew not everyone in Artime would be pleased about it. He'd been acutely aware of dissenters over the years. And he'd noticed the angry woman and the small group forming around her who were beginning to mutter at the proceedings. Aaron glanced at them uneasily, then looked back at Claire. 'Are you absolutely certain you want me to do this?' he asked. 'Even. . .after everything I've done? Have you thought this through?' This wasn't going to be a seamless transition. Claire nodded, tight lipped. She knew what he was asking. 'Ignore them. The past is forgotten. You and I will work well together, I think. Perhaps. . .perhaps like Gunnar and my father did.' 'I'd like that.' Aaron gave her a grim smile. She'd come far in forgiving him."

They have not, least of all Aaron. He asks Claire twice if she's sure that she wants him of all people to be head mage. She is, so he takes the robe. Claire is pretty much the only person in the series who expresses that they don't want to be head mage and their wishes are respected. To be fair, Artime was literally created for her, so she does have some right to the privilege (?) of getting to choose not to lead it. But no one even stopped to ask if Aaron wanted the job. He very clearly doesn't. All he wants to do is go back to the Island of Shipwrecks and grieve his twin in peace with the support of Ishibashi, Ito, and Sato.   He doesn't feel like he's the one who should be leading Artime, especially since the last time it vanished was because he killed Mr. Today. He takes the robe anyways, thoughts of his shame and guilt weighing heavily on his mind.

"Aaron cringed but tried to focus. His mind was on the one who should be wearing the robe-his brother. How was this possible? How was Aaron standing here, doing this? A wave of grief broke his concentration, but he pushed it back and gripped the robe's packet tightly until the moment passed. He closed his eyes and took a few breaths to clear his mind."

Aaron takes the robe out of a sense of obligation to Artime and his brother's memory.  He feels like he can't say no to helping Artime because of how he hurt it.  He always has to help save it not just because it's the right thing to do, but because he feels like he owes it to the people he hurt. He will never say no to an Artime in need. Aaron does love Artime, but that's mostly because his family loves Artime and he loves his family. He owes it to Alex to recreate the thing his brother gave his life for.

"The dissenters lingered for a moment, but Aaron was surrounded by supporters. From the corner of his eye, he saw the angry group reluctantly disperse and hoped he'd heard the last of their complaints, but he doubted it. There would always be some who couldn't forgive him, no matter what he did or said now."

But, like I've talked about before, Artime isn't Aaron's home. Artime as a whole has never accepted him, even though he does have friends and family there. Part of that's in his head, with him distancing himself from the Artimeans because he was never officially declared an Unwanted at any point. He feels like he doesn't belong there. Part of it's not in his head. There are people in Artime who don't accept him, won't forgive him, and can't understand that he's changed. Aaron knows this; they don't make their dislike of him subtle, even before he shows up on Artime's shore. He knows that making him head mage is a bad idea. He thinks that he's doomed to an eternity of struggle from the start. It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and kind of not, because I think the dissenters would have disliked him no matter what he did or how much effort he put in.

"She [Thisbe] knew immediately the spell had come from Aaron, for she'd given him the pebble when she was five years old for this exact purpose. It was the first seek spell she'd received since the Revinir had taken her captive. She wasn't quite sure why, but it made her cry. Maybe because she wasn't able to send one in return. More likely it was because it finally seemed like someone was looking for her after all this time."

Anyways, Aaron restores Artime and becomes head mage both practically and functionally for the first time. One of the first things he does is send seek spells to his family. We know he sends one to Thisbe, and probably Fifer and Kaylee, too. But was he one of the people who sent one to Alex, adding to the glowing memorial above his grave? Or did he not, knowing from the pain inside him that it would be pointless? Either way, he is the only person from Artime who sends a seek spell to Thisbe. He knows there's a chance it could put her in danger and he knows she doesn't have anything to respond with, but he has to do it. He was to let her know that he's thinking of her, that he cares about her, that he misses her. Thisbe gets that message and clings to it tightly.

"How long would he be wondering if Kaylee had died along with Alex? Would their son, Daniel, grow up not remembering his mother? It was unthinkable. Yet all too familiar. Even his sisters didn't remember their parents. Why had he let himself grow so complacent? Around him, Sean, and Henry's fears were assuaged. Cheers erupted at proof that Carina, Seth, Lani, Samheed, and Thatcher were indeed alive. Aaron, grateful but growing more distressed, withdrew inside himself, remembering the muttering dissenters."

The only person Aaron likely sent a seek spell to expecting a response was Fifer. He thought that Kaylee wouldn't have anything with her, echoing the same thoughts about her lack of sentimentality that Kaylee herself had expressed. He resigns himself to an unknown period of time unaware if she, or Thisbe for that matter, are even still alive. Because if something could kill Alex, what are the odds that none of the others died? He's quiet about his pain, though, not wanting to bring down the mood as the others rejoice from hearing from their loved ones. They deserve that happiness.

"The ball came to a stop in front of Aaron, and Florence gave him a hopeful glance. Others nearby watched to see who it could be from. When it exploded into an image of a wedding ring-the ring Aaron had designed and given to Kaylee five years ago-Aaron clutched Florence's arm, then sank to his knees. He covered his face with his hands. A sob let loose from his chest. At least he hadn't lost her, too."

Except. There's a final dot on the horizon. One last seek spell, carrying the confirmation Aaron barely dared to hope for. Kaylee is alive. And he breaks down sobbing, for the first time we've seen since his appearance in this book. He's been holding in so much and trying to function through it, but this is what makes the grief and relief too much for him to keep inside. This is a huge public display of emotion for Aaron, and speaks to just how much he's hurting.

As if Aaron doesn't have enough going on, cue Frieda Stubbs.

[lovebugism]

“I’m not the easiest person to talk to, or be around. It’s… hard for other people to love me. I get that.” with Eddie? Maybe he and reader are sorta rivals or frenemies?

here's an unsolicited part 2 to this fic! hope you like it :D — eddie knows you like him now, so you find it extremely hard to be normal around him accordingly (enemies to lovers, grumpy!reader, more succession references, 2.3k)

You walk into the Hideout behind Steve and Robin, hands trembling and sticky with sweat. 

The humid air of the overcrowded bar and the overwhelming stench of cheap beer do little to quell your swirling stomach. The too-loud music and bustling bodies are hardly more than a harsh reminder of the last time you were here — pouring your heart out to Eddie Munson in the form of anxious word vomit, only to be hopelessly turned away. 

Not quite rejected but hardly embraced, which is somehow more embarrassing. 

“You alright?” Steve asks once you’ve ducked into the dim hallway of the backstage area. 

The music and muddled chatter are mostly stifled now, but the walls continue to pulse with life — riddled with chipping paint and dubious stains that only add to your unease. You try to swallow down your distant ennui, hoping it isn’t as obvious as it feels. (It is). Your loud feelings are too big for your body, and it’s got your face softly screwed together like you’ve tasted something sour.

The concerned glint in Steve’s eyes makes you cower. “Yeah. I’m peachy,” you deadpan with an unconvincing shrug. “Why?”

“‘Cause you look like we’re leading you to slaughter,” Robin scoffs.

“You’re asking me to be nice to Eddie Munson for two hours,” you grouse. “So, excuse me if I’m not the most chipper.”

The brunette girl flashes you a look over her shoulder, ocean eyes smudged with dark liner. “Scared you’ll spontaneously combust?” she jokes with her hand wrapped around the rusted knob of the faux greenroom. It feels more like her chipped maroon nails have grabbed your heart and twisted.

“Terrified,” you monotone just before she swings the door open.

The tiny, windowless room smells like sweat and grocery store cologne. It’s crowded with vanity mirrors, plastic folding chairs, and suitcases — hardly big enough for a heavy metal band. 

The three of you run into Gareth and Jeff on your way in. The two look nothing like themselves as you shuffle past them in the doorway, sharing fleeting glances and awkward greetings as you go. A couple of D&D nerds in leather and eyeliner feels almost uncanny.

It’s the same with Eddie, sort of. Curls drenched with sweat, eyes smudged black, tanktop damp around the neckline — a total rockstar. You’re not sure if it’s the raucous outfit stirring your stomach or the body wearing it.

“Oh, shit— You assholes actually showed!” Eddie beams at the sight of you. “And you dressed for the occasion, too.”

The boy in all black and silver stands before the three of you, still dressed in corporate attire after working late shifts. Steve and Robin look at least mostly normal without the Family Video vests and branded name tags. You, however, look like one of those businesswear catalogs brought to life — glaringly out of place. 

“You sayin’ The Gap isn’t proper Hideout attire, Munson?” Steve quips, holding his arm out for a friendly (only slightly awkward) side embrace.

Eddie slaps the back of the boy’s collared shirt with a ringed hand. “Claire’s is more metal than The Gap,” he teases, then turns to hug Robin. “At least Buckley looks halfway normal.”

“And by normal, you mean hot, right?” she jokes, voice deep and gritty and effortlessly sultry.

He scoffs. “Obviously.”

Eddie has no trouble greeting Steve and Robin but loses most of his cool when he turns to you.

The not-so confession at Benny’s Burgers seemed to change more things between you than the heart-felt one you shared here not too long ago. He feels a bit weird, knowing now that you meant what you said — that you actuallyliked him, and that it wasn’t just some cruel joke. 

He feels like he’s got cool points to win with you now. And it makes him achingly aware of when he inevitably loses them.

“Look at you,” Eddie grins, tossing his chin back to shake wild curls from his face. A few chestnut strands cling stubbornly to his sticky forehead. The milky white tendons of his neck shine with sweat, too. “You look like an actual human person.”

“Wow. Thanks, Eds,” you monotone, unsure of whether or not to take his words as a compliment. You cross your arms over the chest of your fitted turtle neck and joke, “I’d say that same, but… you look like a poodle that just washed up on shore.”

Robin mumbles your name through gritted teeth, flashing you a look and poking you on the shoulder. She scolds you like a parent, as though to say be nice without actually saying the words out loud.

“What?” you shrug.

Eddie only chuckles — a low and honeyed sound he presses to your ear when he brings you suddenly in for a hug. His lean body meets yours, soft and strong and slightly clammy. His skin smells like deep cologne, minty aftershave, and very faintly of boy. You tense when his hands cradle your back.

“Oh,” you mumble in surprise, floundering at the affection as you attempt to hold him back. “Okay.”

“How’s the nine-to-five?” Eddie asks after he parts from you, sounding almost like he cares. “Boring the absolute shit outta you?”

You shrug with an air of nonchalance and hope you don’t look as flustered by his attention as you feel. “Oh, you know… Burying the bodies, counting the cash.”

“Gotta picture of me in your little cubicle?”

“Tons,” you answer. “It’s basically an Eddie Munson shrine.”

His smile widens to show all his teeth. His chocolate eyes glitter with mischief, too, like he knows what he’s doing to you. 

Eddie gives you a break from his suffocating stare and looks to Steve and Robin standing on his other side. You feel like you can finally breathe. “I told Greg at the bar to give my friends free beer tonight— just show him your ID or whatever,” the boy tells them.

“Oh, my god— I could kiss you right now,” Robin mumbles.

Eddie’s plush pink lips curl into a half-smirk when he turns to you again. “So try not to run up your tab tonight, alright, sweetheart?” he quips and pats you on the arm. It’s easier to joke that he hadn’t mentioned you at all when your name was first from his lips. Which is totally a joke you would’ve made.

You flash Steve and Robin a wide-eyed look of annoyance, jaw clenched to contain all the insults you instinctively want to spew. “He got us free beers,” the former cautions with a sympathetic shrug. “Don’t ruin it.”

You roll your eyes and hear them leave behind you — not even trying to pretend like they didn’t swing byfor the beers. Eddie’s stupid grin widens when you stay. “You heard the man. Means you gotta be nice to be all night.”

“Right,” you scoff like it’s funny. Steve The Hair Harrington doesn’t exactly scream figure of authority to you. Robin Buckley, maybe. But definitely not Steve.

“Think you can do it without spontaneously combusting?” he quips.

You hate that he knows you so well. “Not particularly,” you deadpan.

Eddie tilts his wild head to the side and sends you a pretty, tight-lipped smile. “Well, you’re doing a great job already.”

His praise is sarcastic. You know this already, so you’re not sure why it has your stomach doing backflips. “Thanks…” you mumble, inherently shrinking inside yourself as you attempt to make small talk. “How, uh— How was the show?”

“Fine,” the boy hums, shrugging his pale shoulders. “Same set from last time. Same crowd of drunks.”

“Sorry I missed it.”

“Eh. Don’t be. You’ve actually got important shit going on— Don’t worry about me.”

“Your shit’s important, too,” you argue without thinking, perhaps more shocked by your sincerity than the boy ahead of you. You follow quickly and much more harshly, “I guess.”

Eddie smiles wordlessly. You start to squirm in place. He watches you grow suddenly uncomfortable in your own skin as you seem to look everywhere but back at him. The pink expression ebbs into a more concerned one. “You okay?”

You hate the question more the second time. 

“Fine,” you monotone, hardly convincing.

He squints. “Then why aren’t you looking at me?”

“I am looking at you,” you argue just to argue, giving him a measly glance before turning away a moment later.

“No, seriously,” Eddie chuckles, reaching out to touch you. “What’s going on?”

His ringed hand caresses the outside of your elbow. You jerk back on instinct, more aggressive than you mean to be. 

“Nothing!” you huff, looking so far away from him that he can only see your profile. You grumble like a storm cloud, “You just— You make me go all weird. As you know. And fully intend.”

“That’s what this is all about?” Eddie chuckles. “You got a little crush on me?”

He reaches out for you again, this time digging his fingers into the junction of your neck. You swat him away with a harsh hand. You hate the way his touch makes your skin buzz. 

“You’re such a dick,” you groan before spinning on your heel. Your slacks swish around your ankles as you walk the very short distance to the door. Eddie’s footsteps sound much heavier in comparison as he rushes behind you. 

“Hey, hey, hey! C’mon. I’m just kidding,” he assures, still laughing as he slides his body between you and the exit. He meets your glare with a crooked smile. “It’s okay. I got a crush on you back— you know that.”

You hate how easily the words spill from his mouth, how cool he is about all of it compared to the time bomb you’ve become — tick tick ticking away as your anxiety builds. You figure this stupid crush (or whatever he wants to call it) must mean more to you than it does to him. So again, you turn away.

Eddie knocks his worn sneaker against the toe of your pleather boot. “Just because you don’t believe me doesn’t make it any less true, you know?” he tells you, quiet and suddenly serious as he tilts his cheek to his shoulder. “Doesn’t make me like you any less, either.”

His confession makes you feel funny. It makes you giddy and fills you with dread all at once. “It’s just… It’s weird,” is all you can think to say, after several long moments of silence.

“Why?”

“‘Cause I— I’m not— I don’t know,” you groan, bringing your hands to your face to hide behind your palms. “God, I did not intend to talk about this today.”

“Well, too late. We’re talking about it.”

Eddie takes a step away from the door, moving impossibly closer to you. He ducks his chin to meet your sheepish gaze, dark eyes sparkling with visible concern. 

You step back from him on instinct and talk wildly with your hands. “No! Tonight was supposed to be about you— about you’re fucking show— not about me!”

Brows raised and hidden behind his sweat-drenched bangs, he monotones. “Say it.”

A stubborn sigh puffs out your lips. “I just… I know I’m not the easiest person to talk to. Or to be around. I know that,” you confess. “I know it’s hard for people to like me, but… you do, and I really don’t fucking get it, okay? It just feels like you’re playing a big, dumb prank on me.”

Eddie stays silent for a moment, chocolate gaze unwavering as he ponders your words. 

“Wait, so…” the boy trails off, eyes squeezed shut in concentration. “You’re mean to me, but I like you anyway, and because I can see through all the— faux bitchiness or whatever— You have a hard time… being around me?”

Your eyes flit to the ceiling for a moment. You look back at him and nod. “Yeah, that’s… That’s pretty much the gist of it, yeah.”

Eddie beams before he can help it, filling the dingy room with golden sunshine. “Well, you know how we get past that, right?” he wonders and scrunches the bridge of his nose.

You get the feeling he’s teasing you still, but you entertain him anyway. “What?”

“Us being boyfriend-girlfriend—”

“Eddie,” you groan with your head tilted back, only partly pretending to be annoyed. You don’t step back from him when he inches closer to you this time, though. You don’t jerk away from his touch when his hands caress your forearms, either. 

“I know you wanna…” he lilts, pulling you closer with ringed fingers wrapped gently around your wrists. Your shoes scuff the carpet as you stumble into his chest. “It’s why I make you go all funny, right?”

You squint up at him, with hate in your eyes and your heart in your throat. “You’re so annoying,” you deadpan.

“Okay, how about this? We can just go on one date, alright?” Eddie offers, smoothing his guitar-string calloused fingers up your shoulders. “Nothin’ fancy, I promise. Just bottomless breadsticks at Enzo’s at seven. And you, bottom-less at my place at eight.”

Your knotted stomach does a backflip at his words, but you keep glaring at him anyway. “And who says you don’t know how to flirt?” you squint.

Another chuckle spills from his plush, pink lips. His tongue darts out to wet them a second later — mouth desperate to be kissed. “‘Kay. Fine. How about we just makeout in my van after closing? And I try not to be a total idiot and ruin it like last time?”

He’s much more serious now. You can see it in his very expressive button eyes. He’s borderline pleading now, for a second chance he never needed to ask for. 

You cave, far quicker and with a lot less fight than he expected. “Fine,” you shrug with an unenthusiastic huff.

Eddie smiles so big, it’s like you’ve just told him you loved him or something — all his teeth on display — so wide and full of adoration it almost hurts. 

[aya-keating]

February 14, 2025 

“You can’t wear that!”  The harsh tone of the voice startled Aya as she turned to face her sister. Even with the sharp edge of her words, she thought maybe Claire was teasing. The countenance she held revealed this was not true. Aya laughed awkwardly, suddenly feeling very self conscious in the dress she chose.  

“Uh, why not?” she replied, tilting her head to the side to survey the visage of her older sister. Aya didn’t even want to go to the party at Dax Holloway’s. She was only going because Claire had begged her to—and because she was her public image rep, unofficially, of course. So it was her job to make Claire look good and bring in potential jobs and sponsors for her. Aya sank on the arm of the couch, watching Claire who was on the verge of tears. “What’s wrong?”

“You look hotter than me!” Claire sobbed, turning to look at herself in the mirror, her hands coiling down the sides of the dress that fit her perfectly and complimented her curvy statue. 

“What?” Aya gasped, quickly joining her sister in the reflection of the mirror. Aya laid her head on her sister’s shoulder from behind. “You look like a goddess, babe. I wish you saw yourself through my eyes.” Aya’s tender voice caressed the words as she gently ran her fingers through her sister’s hair that was tied back in a ponytail. “You look incredible,” said assured her; backing away from the mirror so only Clarie’s reflection was there. “Look at you,” she emphasized. “The guys are going to go insane.”

Claire did just that. She stared at her image in the mirror for a long moment before finally forcing a smile on her lips. She tore her gaze away from herself and to her sister. “Do you think he’ll like my dress?” she whispered. 

“He?” Aya said with a furrowed brow. Dax!  Clarie’s excitement could not be hidden as she squealed his name. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that Claire was crushing hard on the guy who sauntered in and saved her dying career at just the right moment. Aya forced herself to smile as she looked down. There was something about Dax that made her very wary. She hated being in the same room with him, even if there were a hundred people. Aya let out a cheery laugh, it was hard to come by but it fooled her sister. “He won’t be able to keep his eyes off you,” she whispered…and the thought of this actually frightened her. Aya motioned to her sister’s face, “Touch up your makeup and we’ll be going.” 

 - - -

An hour later, the Keating sisters arrived at the lavish mansion of the music mongrel. Security let them pass the gates, the driveway filled to the brim with cars, but somehow Claire managed to find a tiny space of grass near a tree for them to park. She reapplied her lip gloss and spritzed herself with perfume again before smiling at Aya, “Let’s go!”

The door was opened to reveal one of Dax’s lackeys. Aya recognized him but his name eluded her at the moment. She gave a half smile as he sidestepped to let them enter. Aya couldn’t help but wonder what he had done to be put on door duty during a Valentine’s party. The enormous foyer was decorated in shades of red and pink, balloon arches were everywhere, petals astray on the marble floor. It smelt like drugs and sex; Aya pulled her hands a little closer to her frame. Claire was already drifting into the adjacent room where everyone was dancing. Smoke flayed through the doorway and gravitated up to the second floor. Aya hurried behind Claire, not wanting to lose her sister in this chaos. 

“You’re here,” came the gruff voice of a man behind them; Aya felt disturbing chills crawl up her spine. She turned to find herself staring at Dax Holloway. He stared at her a little too long for her liking before turning his gaze on Claire, who was seeing hearts before her eyes and was oblivious to it. “Let’s dance,” he said, taking Claire by the hand and leading her into the center of the dance floor. Aya stood at the edge of the room, watching the man walk away with her sister and knowing there was nothing she could do about it. After all, there was no proof that Dax was a bad guy. It was just a feeling she had…deep in her stomach. A feeling that only a woman knew. The feeling that made women choose the bear every time.

[josru]

Analysis of Names

Sydney: means "wide meadow", or "wide water meadow", or "From Saint Denis"

Carmen: means "garden or orchard", or "vineyard of God"

Claire: means "bright, clear"

Luca: means "light"

So from what I've googled and read about, Syd and Carm's names match the most. Obviously it conveys a sort of matching creativity- both characters are filled with the abundance of ideas and passion growing in their personal gardens/meadows.

But a wide meadow is a wild, grassy, overgrown ground, full of plants, kind of like how Sydney is still a little more fresh and new than Carmy, and she's got lots of ideas, but they're not streamlined yet. She's still learning how to trim things down, just like all those scenes in S2 where she's cooking and trying and messing up things.

Now Carmen being represented by a garden/orchard/a vineyard of god makes a lot of sense. He's worked at so many different fine dining restaurants so it checks out that he would be a meticulously crafted, trimmed to perfection garden, just like every perfectly made dish that he served.

Alternatively, an orchard is a bunch of cultivated trees meant to create fruit or some other kind of crop, typically existing for high levels of output. A vineyard of God as described in the Bible typically means that these trees must bear fruit, they're not for decoration. These latter meanings indicate that Carmy is more professional and simply creates a lot more because his process is a lot more streamlined and personally necessary in comparison to Sydney and her meadow.

A small slight connection (but most likely unintentional) between Sydney's "from saint-denis" meaning and Carmy's "vineyard of God" meaning, is that Saint-Denis is a suburb in Paris, France, and they have a massive vineyard there called Morey-Saint-Denis. Saint Denis was also a patron saint of Paris, which connects Saint-Denis and by extension; Sydney, back to God and religion. Interesting that this also represents a vineyard of God, right?

If I had more faith in the show, I would assume this is also a sydcarmy connection. But I have a feeling that this is a stretch/coincidence. Plus I don't remember Syd and Carm ever cooking with wine or talking about Paris (lol).

But otherwise, I think overall, Syd and Carm's names do kind of associate nature, harvest/abundance, and God. Kind of like divine inspiration/creation, which actually checks out. A lot of their important scenes are them bouncing ideas off each other, and then creating together, and you also understand their different skill levels as attributed by their name meanings. I love the idea of them being intertwined in a sort of fateful, holy act of creation.

What I also find really interesting is Luca and Claire's names having a very similar meaning as well. Claire's name might be a very on-the-nose comment of her being the clear choice over Sydney, over the restaurant, but it also ties into this whole thing of giving "peace" Carm and bringing brightness to people's lives (the whole, I just wanna take care of people thing.)

On the other hand, Claire might actually be providing clarity to Carmy in a different way. Like a harsh reality check. She shows him he'll never be normal and that freaks him out. She's tied to his abusive boss for some reason- maybe clarity is more tongue in cheek here, meaning like how anxiety makes you think your worst thoughts are the most clear and true. It would explain Carmy's panic attacks about Claire- he feels like he must meet his familial expectations of being with her, but he doesn't exactly like her, because she's been foisted on him.

Maybe by being the "clear" choice, it also indicates that she might not be the right one. The best choice often isn't the easiest one, and you could argue Claire's existence is meant to provide clarity to Carmy about his feelings on Sydney and the Bear.

Now, Luca meaning light I actually understood almost immediately. (Sorry Claire; the writers did you dirty lol). Because Luca has always had a sort of hopeful presence, like a positive beacon of light reaching out to the other characters. He helps Marcus in finding his way in Copenhagen. He is a calming light to Sydney during the party, to the point where you feel like she's drawn much more to him than Carmy.

So overall I'm kind of thinking of Sydney and Carmy as two sides of the same coin, and Luca and Claire as the two things beckoning to them. Luca is a light for Sydney, as the Bear and Carmy shut her down. Claire is supposed clarity for Carmy, making him feel like things are obviously supposed to be this way, with her.

I feel that Sydcarmy was meant to be tied by being similar in nature, and now we have some (kind of) evidence of that, and that they're being pulled away. The only difference is that Syd's pulling away feels more positive than Carmy's does. Maybe because she's still a relatively unchanged meadow, and she can still pursue other things due to not being permanently changed like Carmen has been.

Anyways take all this with a grain of salt. I know typically things like names are usually foreshadowing, but with Christopher Storer and Co., and how they've left a bunch of hanging threads, I don't know. They may have picked these names purely for the aesthetic.

[inkievoid]

CHRIS STANS RISE!!! WE NEED TO GIVE THAT MAN MORE LOVE AND ATTENTION!!! 😤

Domestic Chris…Because that’s my specialty. 🥹

I see Chris having three kids, two boys, one girl. He’d be the type of dad to push his boys so hard, always expecting the best of the best from them. His daughter as well, but not as harsh. I see them all pretty close in age, maybe 1-2 years apart for each kid.

He’d have his boys do all sorts of sports and activities. Football, baseball, basketball, tennis, track, cross country, you name it, they do it. Chris would also help them practice, especially in football and baseball. His daughter would probably do ballet, tennis, and be in the Girl Scouts with Cecilia, and maybe do drama with Violet as well.

Also, it’s very much cannon that Chris spoils his daughter 10X more than his boys. His little girl wants to go on a Sephora shopping trip? Take his card and go crazy. His boys want to go out with their friends? Here’s $25 for the both of you.

Chris is also such a loving husband. He’d buy you gifts “Just because”. Or if you mention a new designer purse online, it would mysteriously show up on the dining table to greet you when you woke up…With a handwritten note of course. You were very much a spoiled wife, but he didn’t care, you gave him three beautiful kids for god sakes, of course he’d buy you whatever you want.

If there was ever a time any of your boys were disrespectful to you while he was gone, (Because they know better than to mess with their mother while dad’s around.) He’d give them the “You don’t disrespect MY wife.” Talk. Ugh, 😣 give me a chance Chris…☹️

- Anon! 🎀

🎀 ANON I FUCKING LOVE YOU I'VE BEEN WANTING TO TALK ABOUT HIM BUT NO ONE REALLY DOES MUCH IN THE CHRIS TAG ANYMORE AND THAT PLUMMETS MY MOTIVATION!!!

But I'll scream with you anyday bb!!!

(I'm sorry this is so long I just couldn't help myself 😭)

Okay so I've had the idea that Chris met someone with a child from a previous relationship (Your first born son, Let's name him Oliver and call him Ollie for short! He's like 2 years older than Violet. He struggles a bit in school so they're in the same grade, along with his younger brother, after he was held back in 5th and 8th grade but that's okay! Everyone struggles!)

Ollie was like 2 when they first met. Your ex-husband was a HORRIBLE MAN, absolutely terrible to you and the only good thing he ever did was bless you with Ollie. That's it.

Chris and his wife met through work (let's be honest here, how tf else would he meet a woman? Chris is very much a workaholic.) His wife is basically the lead of the BSAA's dispatch response team (Basically what Hunnigan does at the FOS but the BSAA's version) and she's good at her job. Very strong willed and mouthy as a mf. Isn't scared to go back at anyone over the radio and definitely got into it with Chris once or twice before they officially met.

(catch me posting what happened when they met in person the first chance someone asks)

Anyway!!

After y'all start dating it doesn't take long before you introduce Chris to your son and Ollie is just OBSESSED with Chris. Like you've never seen this kid so excited to see another human being until Chris shows up. You two only started dating for a few months and Ollie already calls Chris dad. You try correcting him scared AF that Chris is gonna get freaked out but he's actually super chill with it. He's use to taking care of people, he basically raised Claire after their parents died but this little guy is much younger and a lot more fun and excitable than Claire was.

A few months into the relationship you find out you're pregnant. Chris is excited but also freaking out with how often he's gone. But everything works out and you end up having your second son, Christopher Jr but CJ for short.

You and Chris end up getting married not long after your first anniversary after the babies born. Not making a big deal out of anything just getting papers signed and having a little get together celebrating everything.

2 years go by, Ollie's in Kindergarten and CJ does daycare. You start getting horribly ill out of nowhere. So you go get checked out and oh God you're pregnant again...

(This would be the point in time where Leon starts bugging for another baby with his wife)

9 months of Chris being a nervous wreck fly by and the world meets your daughter, Talulla, Lulu for short.

Chris would be adamant on sticking the kids in after school activities once they're old enough. His boys would do sports and his baby girl in softball and girl scouts so she can hangout with her pseudo cousins. (Her being 2 years younger than Violet and 2 years older than Cecilia) Until her older cousin quits cause girl scouts are for babies (🙄)

Chris and his wife would be UBER COMPETITIVE when it came to cookie selling season. It's all out war between the Redfield's and Kennedy's every year.

I feel like Ollie would also really be musically gifted and play piano for the school choir and musicals. Lulu would Ed up wanting to do drama but be a stage hand or in the costume department. She's actually very shy.

CJ is basically Chris when he was a kid. Always doing stupid shit... Getting in trouble over the dumbest of things but looking out for others. (Definitely beat up that kid who was picking on Violet when they were 7.)

You're getting calls from the school at least once a month because CJ got in trouble for either getting into an argument with a teacher over rules or another kid tried something stupid.

[clairethecutepup]

Tykes at Heart: Getting Your Goat (Ch. 2)

Our tykes try to find out what exactly is causing Cio's new goat to be so... "homicidal," to put it nicely (and it is the nicest way to describe it). Unfortunately, Cio faces some bad news on top of his goat's attitude...

Alternative sites for reading (and better keeping track of the whole story), if preferred:

[Chapter Title: Antidote for an Angry Goat…?]

It took some time-- and all of the poor hybrids' well-being --but everyone managed to get the goat into the pen. Claire and Cio lay atop each other, panting while their canid ears and tails hang over themselves. Poor little Faxie found his small body sandwiched in between them. Suru found his head stuck in the building's back wall, his fox tail twitching around in anticipation of his head's freedom; while Kage drags herself back outside from the door that she previously flew past, her fox ears and tail hanging limply on her. Only Ryuketsu could be the still-standing triplet-- and generally standing person --as the large fox-man managed to hold the repeatedly rammed gate in place. Speaking of “twins,” what of the Winnings' fate?

"Leena, stay still!" Sparky cries, "Whatever you do, don't panic!"

"Sparky, look!" Leena points, "I can see our apartment from here!"

Sparky gazes around for something to help, while Leena looks on from the billboard that managed to hook the flying girl's shirt. Even literally, as she's hanging in the ending curve of a giant rod's line. Unfortunately, even those on the slimmer side can be doomed by gravity: Leena stops wagging her tail and screams, plummeting toward the ground with a ripped shirt bottom. Sparky also screams and hurries to catch his sibling, paws and furry arms outstretched. His attempts are thwarted by the long top of a street light: Leena's front-- face and all --emit a metallic, Clang! after the harsh landing.

"... Leena, are you--"

She slides off and lands atop her grimacing brother, laying them both on the sidewalk.

********

Everyone later recovers within the booths of the dining area, while Ryuketsu still remains as guard of the pen’s gate outside. Everyone takes a turn with the aspirin bottle, whether for their sore head or other aching body parts. Faxie didn’t require any, being a mechanical pet that lacked proper “feeling,” but his receptors and otherwise still remained dazed by the goat’s assault: the poor little thing just laid upon the table, his eyes spinning during his stay beside Cio.

“Cio, I know you want to make your own ingredients,” Sparky sighs, “but I think it’s safe to say that it’s a little… dangerous.”

“Look man,” Cio sighs back, “she’s probably just nervous, that’s all… I’m sure that once she gets settled in, she’ll stop trying to commit mass murder.”

“Maybe you’re better off getting a new goat…?” Sparky continues, “Who knows when that one will finally calm down…”

Claire mentally seconded the idea… She loves goats, but this would end with them all in the hospital. In her eyes, it seemed the animal just hated everyone, instead of it simply being afraid. She even thinks it tried to impale Cio and everyone else, instead of simply launching them! … Would Cio be upset if she preferred ordering takeout, instead of eating anywhere near the building now? Hopefully, he wouldn’t mind keeping video gaming and whatnot to strictly “long distance” measures… Or, he could always just come to her or the twins’ places-- in fact, maybe he should just live with either of them for now? Grayson would be happy to have his brother back under the same roof.

“Um, Cio?” Kage raises her braceleted hand, “Can I please do deliveries from now on, instead of the cash register?”

Kage also shuddered at the thought of Satan’s-Fitting-Symbol leveling the place.

“Come on, man,” Cio assures, “Kenny’s got her under control, and I’m sure she’ll calm down.”

“Um, can I work from home instead then…?” Kage still tries, “I think I heard it’s possible to do cashier jobs from far away…”

“Dude, everyone’s staying at the pizzeria…”

"Cio, please,”  Sparky interjects and stands, “it should honestly be everyone but that awful goat! I'm sorry, but I really think you shouldn't just 'give her time'..."

"Well, I don't really have much choice, man!" Cio shrugs, "They said that all 'livestock' sales are final... To be honest, I don't like it either, but I gotta now."

"Why can you not give her back?" Leena asks, "I am allowed to give things back to the store if I do not like them..."

"It was something about not wanting to risk 'sick' or 'injured' inventory," Cio sighs, "Even if that second part’s probably gonna happen to us instead..."

Sparky sighs, "Well, I guess you never do know what could happen to them..."

"I know what’ll happen to us!” Suru puffs his cheeks out, “That mean goat’s gonna give me another headache and do even worse stuff to everyone!”

"Maybe not, man..." Cio shrugs, "We just gotta find some way to help her relax and maybe she'll be nicer."

"Oh, I think I can help!" Leena stands proudly, "I am already good at calming my little buddy here."

Leena pats Claire's head, before giving her hair the most affectionate ruffle. Claire smiles and wags her tail, reaching a paw up to the hair-messing hand. Leena demonstrates her point through visually enacting her next words.

"Petting, scratching and especially hugs always make sad or nervous people happy again."

"Don't put her to sleep, man," Cio requests, "I'd like everyone to help me with that goat."

Claire simply laid back in Leena's arms, until the taller girl lightly patted her cheek.

"Wake up, Little Buddy, it was meant as an example and not to be an actual nap-starter."

Claire fully sits up, moving her glasses upward to slightly rub her right eye. It was always hard for a touch-sensitive pup to not pass out from all that.

"Uh, I don't think you should get close enough to do all that..." Sparky gulps, "That goat would only need you inside the pen to do even worse... I already had to worry about you falling from a three-story billboard, Leena. And, of course, the painful aftermath..."

"Pi-shaw, Sparky," she waves him off, "for nothing can be worse than that."

"What about actually dying this time, Leena...?"

“But people die all the time, Sparky, and for Cio’s sake--” Leena pats the mentioned friend’s head, “I must do my duty as a friend and not be stopped by what will happen to me anyway.”

"You can prolong your death, though, Leena..." Sparky then looks at Cio, "But I guess you’ve got a point: if you really are stuck with this goat, then we would have to find some way to make things work out..."

"It is time for me to shine!" Leena heads toward the outdoor pen, "Beware, little goat, for you shall become nice and friendly!"

Sparky immediately chases after.

"Leena, don't just walk back in there...!!"

Everyone else hastily follows as well, Kage carrying the still-sleepy Claire along, before they all dogpile the husky-hybrid.

"Sorry Leena," Sparky sighs, "but we really need a better plan than just walking back in..."

"You are right, Sparky," Leena pops her head out, "I should get a carrot first. Goats like them as much as horses, right?"

Everyone had to agree: perhaps some treats could help soothe the savage beast. Although, a salt lick was deemed more a goat's desired snack. Everyone leans back in anticipation, hiding behind the tallest that is Ryuketsu, as the giant fox-man holds the long pole that the treat is tied onto. It didn't take a genius to realize it’d result in a bitten-off end that looked like a woodchipper's aftermath, so everyone only felt more fear than any surprise.

Leena suggests, "Should we try another one?"

Cio gulps, "Uh, I think she'd rather eat our souls next instead..."

Cio certainly felt his pierced by those glaring eyes above the chewing maw.

Suru asks, "What's after ‘treats’?"

"Scented candles," Leena nods, "our mom always says that they relax her during baths."

"Dude, I don't want fire anywhere near her!" Cio protests, "She's already dangerous without some kind of hazard around...!"

"Do not worry, as I can hold the candle away," Leena continues, "or we can use canned air freshener instead."

"I think we'd better stick to more standard means for animals," Sparky suggests, "Maybe we're also rushing things a bit: we're probably better off approaching her and making peace, after she's had a day or two to take in her new environment."

"I guess that makes sense..." Cio sighs, "I just hope she'll eventually let me get close enough to milk her..."

"I suggest wearing a helmet-- one with a face guard, too," Sparky gulps, "Sure, you're usually beside the animal, but you never know..."

A couple days pass… and it’s a good thing Leena is arguably “braindead” already, otherwise she’d have become permanently comatosed: being the only one brave enough (or likelier stupid enough) to enter the pen, she’d often find herself being struck in the head or hitting it after each launch. Everyone insisted she get Ryuketsu’s help in restraining the goat, thus reducing the risk of injury and death; but Leena felt it would “build better trust” if the goat didn’t feel like it was “bullied into also being nice.” Well, they all supposed they could understand the logic, especially Claire: the pup would hate it herself if she was held in place, and forced to let someone untrusted come near her and especially do anything with her. This time, the ground breaks Leena’s fall, as her face slides along it and creates a small trench. Everyone else winces at the scene.

"I think I am getting somewhere, guys," Leena keeps her face down, "She did not launch me out of the pen that time, so she is starting to like me being in it."

The goat then crushes her spine underneath all four pouncing hooves.

"... Nope, I have not done it yet."

"Aw man," Cio sighs, his fox ears hanging, "we're never getting her to calm down..."

"I've been thinking that maybe we should get a vet?" Sparky suggests, "There could be an underlying issue."

"Nah man, she’s clearly healthy and fine if she’s able to attack us so easily… She’d probably be more defensive, too, instead of offensive.”

Leena is flipped over the fence and crushes Cio, making his face slam into the grass. With Faxie being in his front overall pocket, the poor little critter whimpers and finds himself unable to move under the weight.

“Are my legs still there?” Leena asks, “I cannot feel them…”

“... You know…” Cio keeps his face down, “I’m willing to try anything, even if it seems unnecessary...”

Unfortunately, the local vet is familiar with more “traditional” pets: cats, dogs, birds… It also doesn’t help that she can’t be thorough with such an antagonizing creature. If not for Ryuketsu still managing to restrain the beast, a doctor would’ve been needed instead.

“Well, everything seems to be fine…” the terrified woman backs away, hiding her face behind her clipboard, “No signs of illness or injury, but I did make a discovery…” she feels for the pen entrance, not taking her eyes off the horned menace, “Your doe isn’t actually one, but a buck… I guess that would explain the terrifying streng-- GÜTIGER HIMMEL!!!”

The full-human barely had time to exit and slam the gate shut, before the goat’s horns practically impaled the portion of fencing.

“Sorry…” Ryuketsu pulls him away, “He got free…”

“If that’s all you need of me…” the lady continues backing away, “I’ll send you a bill later…”

She turns around and runs, while Cio stands about in wide-eyed disbelief.

“... Are you freakin’ kidding me, man?!” he throws his hands up, “Even if I do somehow get that crazy goat to calm down, I won’t be able to use her-- him like I need to?!”

“Okay, that does make things a bit harder…” Sparky rubs the back of his head, “But even if ‘sales are final,’ they still have to fix any mistakes on their part, right?”

“I sure hope so, man…”

However, was it a mistake on the company’s part…?

[End Chapter]

********

Keyword of advice: if you EVER have a question pop into your head when writing, look up the answer immediately. I just realized that I almost repeated a plothole that's present in the original draft of this story, back when it was "Claire's Companions" instead: I wondered if "all sales are final" means it includes any possible errors on the company's part, so I looked it up in ChatGPT and learned that a company CANNOT actually get away with denying exchanges/refunds/etc. if there was a proven error on their end of things-- "sales final" or not. Yeah, in the original draft of both that series and TAH, Cio wouldn't be able to do anything because the site claimed for legal protection: "Sales are final, no matter what."

PS: remember that for general legal help, in case you ever actually find yourself in such a situation and especially if some seller tries convincing you, "Oh, well, we warned you it was 'final' regardless and now we'd like you to be naive enough to assume you can't do jack about it." Believe me, some people WILL try to use a general lack of knowledge against you if you're not careful.

[beezonia]

Okay Unwound Future au where Claire did actually have a sister and Celeste works with the gang like she does.

But in the end she gets to see Claire one more time like in the game or is Claire actually alive in this au

—-

So Celeste or Cece as Claire called her, is the younger one I’d say late 20s/maybe early 30s or maybe younger since it could be a larger age gap between siblings? whilst Claire got the fathers ginger genes she got their mothers brunette genes (cause no they are not twins)

Celeste is a forensic scientist who worked closely on the case before it became a lost one, hence the reason she knows something is up with Claire’s death.

Working with future Luke (she knows he’s Clive but doesn’t know what he’d been planing) to uncover what truly happened that day and to hopefully get her justice.

You find her first on the street that leads to the casino before you have to record Bostro’s voice for the gate to Chinatown.

Clive recognises then asks her what she’s doing there near the casino.

——

The conversation goes something like this

Future Luke: huh, what’s she doing here?

Layton: Is everything alright?

FL: Ah yes I just recognised an old friend of mine, I’ll have to say hello.

Luke: Are you talking about the lady over there?!

FL: Yes, my old friend Celeste.

C: Luke, Is that you? It’s been a while.

FL: How are you, is everyone alright?

C: (nodding) Yes, everyone is fine. We’re slowly getting to the bottom of this blasted mystery I suppose.

C: I’m Celeste, it’s a pleasure to meet you both. Such a shame it’s under harsh circumstances otherwise I’d be a bit more carefree.

Anyway I must go now, I’ve got lots to do and so little time to do it in heh.

FL: Stay safe Celeste.

C: Of course, same goes for you Luke.

LA: She seemed to be in quite the hurry, any idea why?

L: Yeah, Celeste looked really tired too she must be working herself to the bone!

FL: Yes, Celeste is one of the few detectives my London has. She’s always working hard to keep everyone here safe.

No wonder she’s always so tired. I’ll continue to wonder how she keeps a smile on her face even if she’s exhausted.

———

Yeah she’s the detective figure in future London , Clive admires her determination and ability to smile even though the world seems against her finding the truth and bringing it to life.

Celeste and Future Luke have worked together on several occasions they act like siblings most have noticed.

There’s teasing, rough play fights between them and Celeste loves to tease Him about his potential crush on a young lady named Meg.

——-

Hershel recognises the name Celeste from somewhere and it hits him this could potentially be Claire’s sister “Cece” as she nicknamed her

He specifically remembers Claire telling him she was a forensic scientist for Scotland Yard and barely came to visit her anymore.

When he meets Celeste again he does try to pry the information out of her but she skilfully dodges it until the end where she tells him the truth.

They do eventually bond over there love of Claire and have tea often when hersh visits Scotland Yard.

——-

Yeah let me know if you wanna hear more about this!!

Don’t know what I’m gonna call this au yet but maybe you can give me some ideas!

[vivianleighwishesshewasme]

Polly's Boys-17

Dinner and Devilment (language and thoughts of violence)

Polly and Michael stay in London at Devlin's mansion. Polly sees the games being played and tries putting a stop to it.

______________________________________________

Dinner was going as well as Polly expected which meant it was a disaster. Michael seemed beyond overwhelmed. Truthfully even the staff was frazzled. 

The children while at the table had food, liquid and God knows what else all over the expansive white dining room. We’ll whatever was left white still from sticky hands and spills. 

Devlin and David had offhandedly mentioned that some of the staff had worked for them before so they knew how the children could be. 

Michael nodded and downed his fourth glass of Whiskey. 

Polly had had enough. Even Winter was at her limit. Her short blond bob had been tugged at so much the shape was  mangled making her look as if she was losing her mind. 

She sure as hell was!

“Enough, this isn’t a circus. Why don't you three go upstairs and play in the nursery. I’ll send your parents up soon enough.” She snapped at the babies. Three under five years of age was a disaster. 

David and Peggy’s nanny, who was a young woman from  a poor family, God bless her dumb soul, seemed more than happy and capable of herding the little hellions upstairs. 

She gathered them up gently and with a sticky sweet voice convinced them to walk upstairs and out of site. 

The pressure in the room was like steam being released. A large collective sigh went through the room. It would be funny if it wasn’t so exhausting. 

“She's not the sharpest tool in the belt but she’s fantastic with them.” David almost seemed to beam with pride over the girl's lack of intelligence. It was probably for the best. 

“Ignorance is bliss sometimes.” Polly added with a tight smile. She loves her grandchildren but sometimes she wondered why God had allowed David and Peggy to breed. They clearly were too in love with a free outgoing lifestyle to care to parent their own babies. 

“So Michael, you have a girl back in the village or Birmingham?” Devlin’s eyes were icey cold slits, his jaw set hard and he was leaning forward his elbows leaving an indent into his solid oak tabletop. He’d also had too many glasses rapidly. 

Polly’s eyes swept over her boys to the object of attention. Winter St. Clair. 

Everyone had caught Michael looking at Winter several times. 

It was no secret the girl was stunning. She was petite, friendly, quick to smile and she had a quick wit. A lot of people “loved” Winter St. Clair.  

It was the nature of the beast, she was a popular celebrity starlit. Where she went people would try to paw at her, talk to her and dazzle her. 

“Devlin, get your elbows off the table. I raised you to have manners.” Polly snapped sharply at him. She needed four glasses of whiskey, maybe the whole barrel to get through tonight. Had she realized when she was driving over that everyone would be here, she’d have booked a hotel. By the time she was told everyone was sleeping at Devlin’s mansion for the night, well there just simply hadn’t been a gracious way to get out of the invitation. 

She’d been caught in her boy's trap. She wouldn’ let them trap Michael, they both seemed overly attentive to him tonight and not in a nice brotherly love way. 

“Mum, you're in my house.” Devlin must have forgotten who he’d been speaking to.  Polly’s eyebrows shot up in a harsh andwarning. She bit her cheeks as she held Devlind gaze, Everyone checked their hands and elbows removing them from the table. She bit the inside of her cheeks to keep from laughing.  

“Something you see that you like Mikey?” Devlin spat out uncaring about his mothers growing wrath. 

“Oh for God’s sake,” Polly yelled as she pushed her chair back causing a loud scratch on the fine tiles. She tossed her napkin on the table and marched up to Devlin who sat at the head of his table watching her cautiously. She forcibly took the fork and butter knife away from him. Dev glances at the spoon. She could slap him tonight!

“Spoons and razor blades, eh?” She quipped, causing him to smile and  laugh at her catch into his dark thoughts. 

“What?” Michael looked around confused. The spell of his sister in law had been broken. 

“You’re older brother is jealous. He had to marry the most beautiful girl in London and didn't realize that even God himself is proud to look down upon her beauty.” Polly sat down next to Michael but kept her gaze on Devlin. 

Michael got the message though and shifted his attention to his plate. Smart boy. 

“So, you're going to stay in Birmingham? I’m surprised Michael, you seem like a man of the world. Why not just move to London?” David’s tone was polite as was his face but his mother was onto them. She kept her stare on him waiting to see what happened between the three men. 

“We’ll I…” Michael started to speak but Polly cut him off swiftly. She’d had enough games for one night. 

“What’s this about? You two live far enough away. Why take Michael out here?” Her tone was accusatory, harsh and high. She looked like a mother dog who'd seen you kick her pup. She was ready to bite. 

“Just think a young, smart man like Michael, with a head for business and tastes like us, is going to get a bored mum. Besides, we’d be happy to move you to London, we've talked about this,” David was so smooth at talking bullshit. Polly smiled. He had his mother in him, out of the three boys David was the most like her. 

“I’m interested in London, maybe America one day. Who knows.” Michael’s admission seemed to catch Winter's attention as well as his mums. 

“America? Over my dead body.” All eyes fell on the elder matriarch. She meant it. 

“Have you toured there yet, to America?” Michael asked Winter. She shook her head no and looked a  little sad. 

“No, but Peggy has danced in New York, Boston and Chicago.I’d kill to visit. Her pictures are so interesting and beautiful.” Winter’s interest seemed to sour her possessive husband a bit more. They couldn’t stay away from each other for more than a few nights and she’d stayed in Britain. 

“What's wrong with Europe? Let the American’s come to you, Winn.” Devlin’s irritable mood was now almost to a burning rage. His voice was harsh like gravel and deep. He’d pull michael in and drown him if he didn’t get off this topic with Winter. Or any topic with Winter. 

“So Michael, you have a vehicle yet?” David asked as he tasted his dessert. Some sorbet. Polly wasn’t impressed. Like her daughter in laws who seemed bitterly disappointed she’d been hoping for cake. Not flavored ice water. How was this high class? 

“No, but mum lets me use hers sometimes for quick trips. Like driving her around to buy bread.” He seemed embarrassed to admit that. Polly scoffed. These children of hers was far to impish for their own good. 

“You don’t need a vehicle yet Michael, once you solidify your position in the company, in Birmingham, I’m sure Tommy will get you one for company purposes.” Polly rattled off. She was happy to see him everyday. What were they up to? 

“Don’t you have a vehicle you were looking to sell Dev?” Winter suggestion fell on deaf ears. Her husband wasn’t going to do anything to help his little brother, let alone give him a vehicle to come by more often. 

“Yes, but it’s an older vehicle, Winter. Nothing like what Michael would want to drive. Transporting goods, not people.” he said. The conversation was at an end. 

Michael nodded, Polly was watching her eldest boys with anger. She was going to smack their heads together by the end of the trip. She just knew it. 

__________________________________________

“Alright, what are you up to? Why are you messing with your younger brother and dont you dare lie to me. You're not so old that I can't slap some sense into you!” She’d waited until she’d heard their masculine footsteps and hushed voices coming up the main stairway. 

She’d popped out of her room and ambushed them. They seemed both surprised and impressed. 

She could feel it in her bones. They were up to something. 

“We're getting to know him mum, relax.” David tried to play it smooth. It only seemed to agitate the dark haired beauty further. 

“No, you are both intelligent lads, too intelligent for your own good. You have a fierce streak of the Shelby family devilment in you, especially you.” She said pointing to Devlin who comically pretended to be shocked. “ Leave him be.” She said it as a threat.

“Oh, but Tommy can get his hooks into him? He has plans mum,  grand plans, where do you think a young, naive country boy falls into those plans?” Devlin knew he had a point when he saw a flash of fear race across her face. 

“Watch what you say and how you say it to me. Tommy, for all of his own devilment has been good to this family. “ She shook her finger at the two men. The amusement was gone now. They looked like the hardened London men they were. 

“Yeah, okay, he'll also be the death of it. Mark my words. “ Devlin’s voice was low. He turned and bounced up another flight of stairs disappearing into his bedroom.  

“What, spit it out.” Polly demanded. David shifted on his feet. He was the calmer of the two boys, no less dangerous however. 

“ I’m sorry we couldn’t do more for you mum, I’m sorry life was hard, you don't have to side with the devil you know just because you’ve raised it longer.” She stepped back to look at him. She’d seen the hurt in him now. He felt betrayed that she’d gotten to raise her good for nothing brother children, but not her own. He was hurt. 

“Night mum.” He leaned down to kiss her, his eyes staring dead ahead, no emotion in them. 

________________________________________________

[viilpstick]

𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐔 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐑

The reflection of hers is a broke piece of glass that can only mirror the others. She may try to break such a impossible and conflicting curse, yet, no magic would fix her. A broken mirror not just is useless, but it may as well give bad luck, maybe the problem is with her being fragile, not with others breaking her.

𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔: Claire, Twisted Wonderland oc

𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔: Child abuse, identical crisis, oc x canon

𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆: Angst, hurt, hopeful ending (background), fluff and angsty (relationships)

𝒂/𝒏: Best song? Prologue: Beauty and the Beast. ANYWAY FINALLY HERE!!!

𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒈: @midnightmah07 @justm3di0cr3

OFFICIAL INTRODUCTION: "And, another Chapter finished... Hm. I wonder when this chapter of my life will finish."

Claire, molded by the expectations imposed by her parents, embodies a personality shaped in the crucible of responsibility and societal demands. Forced to mature prematurely, she exudes a remarkable grace and maturity that transcends her years. Claire's unwavering diligence leads her to prioritize the needs of others over her own, a testament to her sense of duty.

Yet, beneath the facade she wears, the toll on Claire's spirit is unmistakable. The vibrancy that once sparkled in her eyes has dimmed, evidence of the profound loss of her childhood and the unrelenting pressure to conform. A yearning for normalcy and the freedom to embrace her true self persists, but the weight of expectations acts as an inescapable shackle, confining her to a role not of her choosing.

BACKGROUND:

Born into a family of high expectations, Claire's parents were determined to sculpt her into the perfect daughter, an image of grace, charm, and obedience.

Claire's childhood was stolen from her as she was burdened with the responsibility of caring for her younger sibling, her parents often absent due to their demanding social obligations. While other children laughed and played, Claire was forced into the role of a surrogate parent, cooking meals, helping with homework, and ensuring the house remained in perfect order. At a very young age, Claire had to set the example. She was the most precious thing after all, for her parents.

Her parents' obsession with societal expectations turned Claire into a mere reflection of their desires. She learned to wear the facade of the perfect daughter, she reflected her parents attitude whenever she was out; Claire would act like a bright, confident person, very mature for her height, just because her parents acted like that. The weight of her obligations and the pressure to conform bore down on her fragile shoulders, threatening to crush the spirit that still yearned for a normal childhood.

Despite her heavy responsibilities, Claire clung to the solace of fairytales. In the quiet moments between her duties, she would escape into the magical worlds where brave heroes and heroines faced adversity and found their happily-ever-afters. It was an escape from the harsh reality that bound her.

With time, that was how Claire's personality changed to be exactly like the princess and princes she read on the pages of her books. Despite her outward compliance, the strain on Claire's spirit became evident. The light in her eyes, once vibrant and curious, began to dim.

Claire simply wasn't herself, she was what she saw, what was around her. She was just like a mirror, a mirror unable to act independently, she felt trapped in a role that wasn't hers to define.

One day, she comes back after the funeral, while exploring the dusty corners of her family's attic at the wish to find her favorite book, Claire stumbled upon a mysterious mirror. Unbeknownst to her, it held the key to a realm beyond her imagination. Claire gently takes off the blanket covering a mirror.

As she takes her hand passing through the thin glass, she feels a sensation never in her life she had before, her palm flattens on the mirror, seeing a small sorcery of a green light inside of it... Little did she knew, what was going to happened the same night she found the mysterious round mirror, with it's golden frame.

PERSONALITY

In terms of personality, Claire is a girl shaped by the heavy expectations placed upon her, thanks to her parents. The weight of responsibility has forced her to mature quickly, and she carries herself with a grace and maturity beyond her years. She is diligent and responsible, attending to the needs of others over hers.

Externally, Claire reflects the attitudes and behaviors of her fairytale's heroes when she is in public, presenting herself as a poised and confident individual. This reflection extends beyond mere imitation; it becomes a part of her identity, a mirror reflecting the desires of those around her. In social situations, she adapts to fit the expectations of others, seamlessly blending into different personas depending on the company she keeps. Her solace lies in the world of fairytales, where she can escape the harsh reality of her obligations. In these stories, she finds refuge and a source of inspiration.

Despite the facade she wears, the strain on Claire's spirit is evident. The loss of her childhood and the constant pressure to conform have dimmed the once-vibrant light in her eyes. She yearns for a sense of normalcy and the freedom to be herself, but the weight of expectations keeps her trapped in a role not of her choosing. And discovering her own personality instead of others wishes.

RELATIONSHIPS (main ones)

Grim: According to Claire, she perceives Grim as a sibling figure, noting that he often exhibits childlike curiosity, eagerly exploring the world around him. Claire finds his inquisitive nature endearing and sweet, yet she emphasizes the importance of practicality when necessary. Despite their close bond, Grim occasionally admits to finding Claire somewhat intimidating.

Ace Trapolla: Initially, Claire harbored a strong dislike for Ace, reminiscent of the bullies from her childhood who interrupted her solitary daydreams. It took a considerable amount of time for her to warm up to him. Ace, on the other hand, found Claire intriguing as a target for pranks. However, she swiftly learned her lesson, and now, when he attempts to joke or pull a prank, he often ends up being the one on the receiving end of a well-executed counter-prank.

Deuce Spade: From what is seen, Claire admires how persistent Deuce is and how he rarely backs down for any reason, specially stupid ones. And for Deuce, he encourages Claire to "never back down, never give up", which makes her more than happy to exclaim back in proudness and be more confident around him.

Cater Diamond: While Claire claims to have no favorites, there's an exception: Cater. He holds a special place in her heart as her undeniable favorite. Their dynamic resembles that of a big brother and younger sister, but more in a deep and affectionate bond. Cater perceives Claire not just as family but also as a trusted friend, confident that she won't be swayed by minor personality quirks. On the surface, they may appear unlike, but upon closer inspection, their similarities become apparent, revealing a striking resemblance that goes beyond mere appearances.

Riddle Rosehearts: Oh? You are forced into your parents' view, getting forced to be perfect all the time and endlessly setting expectations no one else cares except yourself and your parents' validation? He is too! Now, are you okay? Riddle has deep respect for Claire, for multiple reasons and one of them being: Remaining strong even with such a forced world view into herself. They aren't besties, but, you definitely see them both talking from time to time.

Jamil Viper: A role-model for Claire, even after his overblot, he has put up with things similar yet worse... How he managed to held his angry and sadness back, for Claire, is impressing. Jamil, whatsoever... Thinks Claire is slightly weirder than common. Not in a bad way, though. He just don't understand how a magicless person like her has survived for so long, specially with how much he sees her day dreaming.

Epel Felmier: With his soft-spoken nature and distant demeanor, found solace in Claire's understanding presence. Despite his competitive spirit and occasional lapses into rougher expressions, Claire's calming influence provided a sanctuary where he could unravel the complexities of his emotions. She became a confidante for Epel's short temper and competitive drive, offering guidance with her somehow motherly touch.

Silver Vanrougue: Observing Claire's nurturing side, Silver perceives a big sister figure in her, despite the mere difference of a few days in their ages. In a comforting role reversal, Claire extends her support to Silver, offering valuable tips on staying awake. Intrigued by her insights, Silver can't help but wonder about the reasons behind Claire's need for such advice, sparking a curiosity about the complexities hidden beneath her composed exterior.

Crowley: *bites his ankle off*/j Claire seems to have a flea behind the ear with Crowley. He sends her off multiple red flags, her gut feeling is always telling her never trust him that much, yet, does she have a choice?

VIL SCHOENHEIT

In the intricate dance of fate, Claire found herself entwined with Vil, a man whose commitment to beauty. Vil's regal demeanor and unwavering commitment to his appearance initially clashed with Claire's mirrored existence. She, a reflection of others' desires, and he, a sculptor of his own aesthetic destiny.

Yet, beneath the surface, they shared a common struggle – the pursuit of a role that defied external expectations. Claire noticed Vil's vulnerability beneath his perfect exterior and discovered his desire to break free from his villainous role. She became a source of understanding and support for him. Their connection blossomed beyond the superficial expectations that bound them. Claire, with her yearning for authenticity, and Vil, with his unwavering commitment to hard work, found a shared narrative.

In Vil's own words, shared with Claire in a vulnerable moment, "In a world fixated on appearances, I found an unexpected ally in you. Beneath the layers of our crafted exteriors, we are both yearning for a chance to play the hero in our own stories. You should script your own narrative, one where true beauty lies in the authenticity of your journey."

TRIVIA

Claire is inspired on the mirror of Disney's universe

Claire means “bright, clear”

Claire's height is 165cm

18 years old, born in May 1st

Claire's dominant hand is right

Best Subject: Astrology

Fav. drink + food: Hot cocoa, butter biscuits.

Least fav. drink + food: Yogurt, olives.

Hobbies: Reading, gardening

Pet peeves: Getting interrupted

Likes: Fairytales

Talent: Interpersonal skills

DO NOT COPY, TRANSLATE OR REPOST IN OTHER MEDIA MY WORK viilpstick © copyright 2023

[huntedlives-a]

＂      IT’S  NOT  EVEN  THAT  BAD.      —      i’ve  survived  a  lot  worse,   y’know.      ＂          and  somehow  she  expects  loved  ones  to  find  𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚝  in  that.      claire  doesn’t  mean  to  cause  them  stress  or  concern;      it’s  just  been  a  long  time  since  she  had  those  𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠  𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬  around  her    /    the  ones  that  notice  when  she  isn’t  there,    that  panic  when  they  see  blood  or  bruising,    or  both.      𝘴𝘩𝘦  𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵  𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘬  𝘰𝘶𝘵  𝘵𝘩𝘦  𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭  𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥,    the  supernatural  world  found  her  and  somewhere  along  the  line,    claire  apparently  decided  to  make  that  everybody’s  problem.      she  forgets  that  even  without  mom  and  dad,    there’s  still  people  in  her  life  who  worry,    only  remembering  moments  like  these,    when  eyes  meet,    an  unexplainable  𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚖𝚝𝚑  that  somebody  gives  a  shit  washing  over.          ＂      better  that  way.      don’t  need  the  extra  baggage  weighing  me  down.      ＂            what  blonde  means  is,    she  doesn’t  need  the  extra  loss.      hunting  alone  also  meant  not  losing  anybody  else,    except  maybe  herself.          ＂      besides,    i  don’t  know  if  you’ve  noticed,    but  i’m  lacking  a  little  in  the  family  department  these  days.      ＂    ��     it’s  a  little  harsh.      the  people  here,    at  jody’s,    that’s  𝐡𝐞𝐫  𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲  now,    but  guards  are  up    &    almost  impossible  to  knock  down,    except      .  .  .          ＂      unless  this  is  your  way  of  asking  me  to  invite  you  next  time.      in  which  case,    𝘪  𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥  𝘣𝘦  𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯.      i  bet  we’d  make  a  pretty  badass  team.      ＂

"Oh I'm sorry, do I not look enthused enough about the idea of you coming home bloodied and bruised? My bad..." she muttered as most of her attention went to gingerly placing a dressing on the small scratch Claire had acquired above her brow. When the bandage was placed she looked Claire back in the eyes, breath caught in her throat slightly at the sight of that smirk that was going to get her in trouble some day. Lily cleared her throat, eyes darting down to clean up the first aid kit as she spoke again, "I understand the hunting. What I don't understand is why you insist on doing it by yourself," she chided, looking back at her, "not even my family does that. And they've been doing this their whole lives."

[countessaustelle]

Cherish

: In which the abyss prince visits you on a quiet midnight, after years of you waiting for his presence in vain.

Sequel: Redamancy (to be written)

Relationship(s): abyss prince! aether x reader (romantic)

Tags: angst, secret balcony meetings, reunion after years, established relationship.

The rise of eventide moon,

When all dwellers come to swoon,

The phonograph sweeps your heart attune,

The disk pirouettes to Clair De Lune,

A peaceful evening ensued,

Until a pair of stranger's steps on your balcony tuned,

Sneaking up to that scheming buffoon,

Unaware of fate's plan that takes place soon,

The door swivels open.

The stranger's cape flutters with the wind.

**

"You are—!"

The stranger's harsh eyes shift to bewilderment upon descrying your figure. It was unclear why, whether it was because they have been caught, or was it because they were caught by you, especially.

A closer look was all it took for you to know the answer. Your eyes widen.

"Aether?"

Shock slowly simmers down to indifference. His golden eyes narrow, devoid of any sheen.

His lips part, closes, till he speaks again. His voice is hushed as he says, "I'm—I'm terribly sorry, did I wake you?"

Your heartbeat races, bating out of your ribcage in desperateness to grasp the elusive memory his voice allures.

Memories of that enchanting evening flooded your vision.

A man sat at the balcony's balustrade, clutching your palm and looking intently into your eyes.

You found your heart putty in his hands with every word he let go.

"I will cherish you until all the stars cease to glow."

With your thumb caressing his cheek and him feeling the skin of your waist after admitting you loved him back, the promise he made was sealed with a sloppy kiss.

You met him every midnight thereafter. He would knock gently on your balcony door, a handsome smile etched on his face whilst taking your hand to plant a kiss and whispering, "good evening, my love" before inquiring about your day.

He'd bring a bouquet of flowers with him sometimes. Often, he'd bring a music disk to play on the phonograph for you two to slow dance to as you both stumble, laughter erupting afterwards.

Some nights, he'd simply hold you close.

"Thank you for letting me to love you like this," he'd whisper, brushing his fingers along your hair, a warm kiss making its mark on your forehead.

"I'll see you tomorrow night once more, so please, wait for me."

Simple gestures they were, and yet they had you floating on cloud nine, believing that these secret midnight meetings were tailor made by the kismet—threads of every fleeting moment for sewing memories that would last for eternity.

You loved each other every night as if you would never get to love again by daylight.

Until it was true.

The clock's hand ticked three, mockingly signifying the three hours of waiting you've done in vain.

"How unusual, he's not usually this late." Holding your now-cold drink between palms, you whispered to yourself, "I suppose waiting a little longer won't hurt."

Perhaps it didn't.

One night without him didn't forebode the end of the world. You carried on with your daily life, ambling over the same balcony every moonrise, like a never ending loop.

However, after a month of seeing the sun rise above the mountains and never seeing his blonde hair, you realized something was amiss.

Maybe this time, you would always say. Maybe this time...

But nothing.

The turmoil in your heart grew.

"Aether..."

Winter eventually came around.

Frigid clouds spilled from your breaths, falling snow crystals bedecked your hair—you wished it was his gloved hand draping over your hair instead.

You wished he was here, long finished the hot drink you've prepared that had now gone cold, while telling you of the lovely sights he had seen in his ventures.

You wished he was here greeting you with "good evening, my love" once more, ambling to the comfort of your bed and lips meeting yours.

"He's not here again tonight," you muttered, disappointed, nothing out of the ordinary, looking down the empty road beneath your lonely terrace.

You supposed you had long been aware of it anyway, of the troubles that could possibly arise because you had made your adoration for the Prince of the Abyss known.

Perhaps you were simply in denial, stubbornly refusing to accept the reality laid right before you; or perhaps, it was him that kept you from fully embracing it.

"I will cherish you until all the stars cease to glow."

His promise had never sounded so shallow, senseless and untrue.

You tried to understand. Making enemy of the whole world, you were cognizant of the prospect that he may never return.

But even so, you waited, and waited, and waited again. The morning breeze grew cold after years of disappointment, but the midnight breeze was even colder without his presence gracing your balcony.

You waited nonetheless.

But he never returned.

You lived without him for several years, yet you never managed to fully immerse yourself in that foreign lifestyle. You awaited his arrival every night, but he never came.

But now that he's genuinely in front of you, you're perplexed, your defenses non-existent.

Why just now?

"N-not at all," is all you manage, stricken by incredulity. "Truthfully, I haven't gone to bed yet."

Where have you been?

"I see..." his eyes scatter everywhere but to meet yours. "You're up rather late tonight. May I know what for?"

Huh?

What for? his voice echoed, each repeat resounding a more sardonic tone than the former. What did he mean by 'what for?' Did he not meet you around this time every night before?

The luminous moonlight bathes his entire face, allowing you to catch a glimpse of his golden eyes, which are bereft of the affection you recalled they held.

And that's when you realize.

His eyes carry remnants of a stranger's gaze.

You must look stupid, hopeful eyes contrasting his indifferent expression. Your lips part but what of it when your voice was dead.

You hope that this is all a dream and he'd pull you in for a hug already, assuring that it was all a bad dream, a wicked prank, but you knew he was never one to make such sinister jokes.

It's painful. It hurts so much.

Everything erodes at time's behest. You are not different, not a subject to reality's clemency.

Is there truly no more adoration left in his heart? Is that why he left? What caused him to change?

Despite this, his face remains the same as before. Young, unblemished, a remainder of the man that you once loved, but is now the reason why you are lost.

You still cherish him, even if he doesn't. You treasure him and all of your memories of him.

"I will cherish you until all the stars cease to glow."

He made the promise, how come you were the one who fulfilled it?

"I'll see you tomorrow night once more, so"

"I'm..."

"...please, wait for me."

The moon casts its glow on you.

He hasn't told you straight that he no longer loves you, has he?

Perhaps this was one of your many naive premonitions again. A baseless hope. But if there's even a small possibility that he still cherishes you—

"I was waiting for you," you solemnly confess, "As I have been doing every night for all these years."

—you are willing to put up with a little more years.

Your heartfelt response, unbeknownst to you, tears him apart completely.

Note: Finally done AAAAA. This fic wasn't meant to be this long, I got carried away ueueueue.

Me: Finally done, I can finally post— *remembers that I still have to make his banner* or not. (-̩̩̩-̩̩̩-̩̩̩-̩̩̩-̩̩̩___-̩̩̩-̩̩̩-̩̩̩-̩̩̩-̩̩̩)

Oh, and there will be a sequel to this and it's going to be in the same series with the Origin fic I posted about Xiao. Keep an eye out, lovely people (｡･ω･｡)ﾉ♡

[heygerald]

HEART MECHANICS - PART 5/9

Bradley “Rooster “ Bradshaw x oc

Matty doesn’t make friends easy, but when she loses one of her longest lifelong friends to something beyond her control, she starts to seriously reconsider her life values, wants, and needs. 

Needs like a specific pilot that she can’t seem to forget about. 

Maybe the weight of family ties aren’t so heavy when you have someone in your life who offers to help shoulder the weight. 

Read it here: part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / ... / part 6 / part 7 / part 8 / part 9

“Well, well, well,” a voice, ragged with sleep and semi-hoarse from singing at the piano for far too long the night before drifts across the empty parking lot. “Fancy running into you here.” 

Matty didn’t even have to look to picture the bemused smile that would be pulling at the corners of Bradley’s lips; didn’t even have to turn her head to catch the crooked grin that he was giving her. But, well, as fate would have it she was already in the process of getting out of her jeep and he just happened to be standing between her and the motorpool that she called her own, which only just meant that she did look at him. 

Did catch sight of the upward turn of his cheeks, the way that his nose crinkled above his moustache, the ever so barely there wrinkles at the corner of his sleep deprived eyes. 

And... oh. 

If that wasn’t exactly what Matty wanted to see first thing in the morning, she’s not sure what would be. A beautiful sunrise, sure. Some dew on the burnt Californian grass, maybe. A blooming flowerbed outside her window with sprouts of white and delicate pinks that she kept an eye out for every spring, of course. 

But Bradley Bradshaw? Well, he seemed to fit into that category just as well. 

“Fancy that, huh?” she mused while climbing out of her jeep. The doors didn’t squeal today—mostly due to the fact that she had removed the doors a few days prior after a bad day at work—and so she didn’t have much to fiddle with as she grabbed her things from the back seat. “It’s almost like this is my place of work that I go to five days a week, on a schedule.”

“You work?” he teased.

“It’s a little early for humor, isn’t it?”

He hummed noncommittedly; took a sip out of some sort of caramel macchiato—whatever that probably cost more than Matty spent on piece of shit phone she carries around.

Which... maybe she should do something about that, but, whatever. 

The parking lot is mostly empty behind Bradley’s broad shoulders. No PT or dogfight football to be seen. “Aren’t you missing a gaggle of minions? I thought you all went on early morning jogs together to build up that team mentality you’re always talking about.” 

“Hardly,” he said, a smooth reply to her teasing that she was beginning to associate with him. Few others could so deftly bat away her insults and still manage to keep the conversation going. Hell, few others would even bother. “Phoenix passed out on the common room couch last night before we could even take off her boots.”

“Harsh.” 

“Coyote hung around way too late at the bar to have gotten eight hours of sleep.” 

“Do you think that Claire ever told him she was a lesbian?” Matty chirps in amusement, thinking about how he had barely left her alone the entirety of the night. 

Sure, Claire had a good sense of humor with a killer smile to boot, but when Matty had finally called it a night, no one had the heart to tell Coyote that he was barking up the wrong tree. Or, well, the heart had been there, but Frank and Matty had made a bet about how long Claire would string along the pilot, so they had adamantly prevented anyone else from breaking the news without prompting. 

“She did,” Bradley said. He was well aware of the bet that stood, and maybe that’s why he seemed reluctant to say, “right before Penny closed down. I actually felt bad for the guy.” 

She didn’t believe that one bit. 

“You could have said something,” she pointed out, if only to be the bitch that pointed out the fallacy in one’s own thinking. 

Based on the way that he eyed her, however, Bradley obviously didn’t think that had been an option. “As if I would get between you and Frank on anything. I saw the way he manhandled you around last night.” 

“There was no manhandling,” she argued. Then added, “and if there was it was me manhandling him. Still, probably wise of you not to intervene. If I lost fifty bucks because of you, Bradshaw, we would not be having a friendly conversation right now.” 

“Oh, so we’re friends now, are we?”

She rolled her eyes at his cheek. There were quite a lot of things that Bradley teased her about the night before, but the longer they sat at the piano together joking about this and that, it had become starkly obvious that somewhere along the metaphorical line of their relationship, they had most certainly crossed territories from strangers into something more. 

Nothing too big, Matty was sure. Nothing serious. 

But, Matty didn’t make friends that often. She liked the group that she had; found it difficult to disturb her current social circle just on the off chance that she might be able to add one more guest to her monthly bar crawl list. Really, she viewed making friends as a relatively pointless endeavor considering how reluctant she was to open up to new people. There were too many stakes, too much time to make up for—stories to share, memories to reveal, trauma to exploit—and so Matty often avoided that first step of friendship as much as she could. 

Yet, halfway through her second beer, she found herself telling Bradley about which base was her favorite to live on growing up. Explaining how she didn’t get along with her sisters—though for amicable reasons enough between the three that had more to do with different personalities than anything traumatic. They had spent the better half of an hour arguing about favorite movies. 

Mostly because she was appalled that he was a die hard Star Wars fan when Harry Potter was a significantly better story. 

At one point they had moved from piano to window seat to pool table to bar and, finally, back onto the Adirondacks that they had started on. 

Now, not even ten hours later, Matty had a hard time pinpointing a single thing that they talked about—just knew how the memory of it all still felt like a warm flower blooming in her typically cold chest. 

Twenty seconds of thought feel like fifteen years, and when Matty blinks herself out of the self-imposed revery, Bradley doesn’t seem the wiser. 

“What about Bob?” she asks, clearing her throat. 

“He disappeared early last night. Not sure why, although if the way that he was stuck in conversation with Boomer was anything to go by, maybe he got scared off.”

“Ah, relax, Booms is more candy-canes and gum drops than murder.” 

Bradley cuts a dark brow, obviously uncertain about that reassurance as well, and Matty brushes on with a flippant wave of her hand. In fact, as she thinks about Bob’s peculiar disappearance from the bar, she’s reminded of the other peculiar thing about the bespectacled aviator. 

“You know, I’m pretty sure that he hustled me last night at cards.” 

“Bob. Hustled you?” 

“Yeah, the fucker. I should have known from the way he had his own pack of cards with him, but he was just so... I don’t know, doe-eyed or whatever. I didn’t want to say no.” 

“You mean you didn’t think that you would lose.” 

She narrows her eyes. He laughs; a low, cool sound that has that itty bitty flower opening up just a little bit further in her chest; petals opening to the sunshine, roots digging deeper upon feeling solid ground. 

“Wh—whatever,” she manages after a moment. It’s a poor excuse for conversation, and certainly lacking in snark. Bradley notices, if the way his gaze sweeps over her features, and the glare she shoots him in response is hot enough to warn him off from even mentioning it. “Just didn’t know the kid had it in him to hustle. I mean, I’m totally going to kick his ass next time I see him, but I’m impressed. At least a little.” 

“I’m pretty sure you were hustling the boys all night,” he argue, unperturbed by the way that her snarl came out of nowhere. In fact, Matty watches his lips curl all the way up his cheeks until she swears that his face is pinched in two. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you and Nick ganging up on everyone at shuffleboard. What’s twenty bucks when you drank for free all night? Not to mention that volleyball game.” 

“The volleyball game was your idea,” she reminds his tartly. 

“Technically, it was Hangman’s.” 

“Hm. Blame all your poor life choices on him, sure. Still, being tricked out of my money by Bob of all people is just plain embarrassing. See if I ever give him dating advice again.” 

“When’d you give him dating advice?”

Matty ignores that question with a prompt flick of her hair. 

She didn’t have the time to wash it last night after getting back to the bar, and so it had been a challenge to get it all stuffed into a regulation worthy bun. And, well, if the long strands tickling her ears on the drive in were anything to go by, she had failed at that. 

She turns to eye Bradley. “What are you doing out here this early anyways? Couldn’t sleep? Bunk buddies snoring too much or something?”

“We get our own rooms, you know. It’s not like we’re in basic training.” 

She harrumphs while slinging her backpack over her shoulder. Of course, in her hurry that morning, she had forgotten to zip it closed, and they both watch as its entire contents go clattering to the ground with a thud. 

“Kill me now,” she mutters. Bradley doesn’t. In fact, the bastard even has the audacity to snicker at her misfortune. All amusement floods his face when her stare becomes more of a glare, though, and soon enough he stoops down to help pick up her things. “And they say chivalry is dead.” 

“It’s not my fault you’re a klutz.” 

“I’m not a klutz.”

“Fine. Walking disaster. Whatever,” he shrugs indifferently while carefully inspecting a crumpled newspaper advertisement she had snipped a few weeks prior offering discounted pottery classes. Under that, sits half a pack of cigarettes and a broken lighter. Bradley takes a single glimpse at the other litany of items before arching a brow at her. “Never would have pegged you for a pack rat.” 

Matty harrumphs and snatches the entire pile of... well, okay, shit that she had been stuffing deeper and deeper into her bag over the past couple of weeks. Still, she has the audacity to play at being offended. “Aren’t you just hilarious? Seriously, Bradshaw, you probably should have considered a career as a comedian rather than hurtling through space at the speed of light. Might have saved yourself some braincells in the process.” 

“Eh, too many critics.” 

She snorts this time, a half-grin betraying the exaggerated eyeroll she rewards him with. Together, they stand. “Who knew pilots were so funny, huh?”

“Who knew mechanics were such good drinking buddies.” 

Together, they laugh. Giggle, almost, if Matty Neven actually did giggle. But she didn’t, and no amount of snarky commentary and good looks would provoke something so abhorish from her. So, instead, she chuckles under her breath while Bradley smirks at her from behind his cup of too-white coffee. 

“You know,” she points out, “I think it’s pretty fucking rude of you to bring yourself coffee without getting me any.” 

“Oh?” he asks, a brow curling into his hairline. “I thought I wasn’t allowed to buy you drinks. Isn’t that the whole mantra?”

“It’s a motto.”

“Hakuna Matata is a motto,” he argues as they slowly begin their crawl across the parking lot. Her, to the motor pool where a long docket awaits her approval. Him, at her side, despite the fact that the PT field was in the opposite direction and the mess hell was even further away. “Pretty sure me not being able to buy you drinks is a law, at this point.” 

“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll consider revision,” she says out of the side of her mouth; a mumble, more than anything else, but he’s close enough to hear. 

Of course he is.

And, well, when he stuffs his free hand into pocket of his pants and looks away the rising sun so that she doesn’t see the shit eating grin splitting his cheeks apart, Matty doesn’t even bother to kick herself for saying something like...

That. 

Something flirty, sweet, saccharine to match the smile she had given him. Not like the mean grins she had given him at the Hard Deck upon their first meeting or the nasty snarl that she had chased him out of her garage with. Instead, this is something wholly Matty.

Wholly for him.

“Yeah?” he asks after a moment, his voice lilting at the end.

Matty shrugs. “Well, sure. I mean your friends did have a pretty good taste in the drinks they bought me last night,” she quips. Also because she is a bitch. There’s something teasing in her tone though; friendly and light. “Even Hangman held up his end of the bet and got me a blowjob shot; did one with me too just for the hell of it.”

Bradley scoffs indignantly. “Hangman is a total tool. He was just trying to get you to sleep with him.” 

“Well duh.” 

He frowns down at her. “You knew?”

“He couldn’t even talk to me without looking at my chest,” she deadpans. Bradley considers that for half a second before he scoffs once more; this time though irritation swathes his features in the half-lit morning sun. Matty just elbows him with a crooked smile. “Relax. If he even tried to make a move I would have broken his nose.” 

“Yeah?”

“Sure,” she shrugs. Then, just as easily, adds, “besides, I’m not really into blondes. They tend to have big egos.” 

“You’re a blonde,” he points out. 

“And I have a huge ego,” she tells him simply while twirling a loose strand of hair with her index finger. It’s still bent and bruised—of which their impromptu volleyball game the night before did not help—but she’s since removed the bandages giving her free mobility once more. “Of course, my ego is deserved. I’m the best damn mechanic on base. Not sure what Hangman has done to earn his though.” 

“He claims to be the best pilot.” 

“He couldn’t even serve the volleyball straight.” 

“Oddly, not exactly a skill transferrable to flying a fighter jet.” 

Matty rolls her eyes at his comment as they round the front of the garage. The door has been raised meaning that someone was here, but she doesn’t see anybody milling in the back of the garage so she isn’t quite sure who. 

George, probably. He’s always been the timely one of the group.

“Whatever. Flying jets is not something I ever plan on doing, so I think I’ll let that particular dick measuring contest up to you guys. Although, if I had to guess, Hangman is a teenie-weenie.” 

Bradley, having not expected such a comment so early in the morning, snorts into his drink. 

“And here I thought I was supposed to be the klutz, Bradshaw.” 

He wipes his chin with as much dignity as he can manage. Though, little dots of coffee speckle his t-shirt. No one would notice if they hadn’t watched it happen, but Matty still hopes that the other boys give him shit for it during lecture. Considering how much booze she saw spilled the night before, she thinks the hypocrisy would be amusing. 

“Sorry, I just haven’t heard anyone say teenie-weenie since middle school.” 

“Middle school insults have a timeless quality to them.” 

He shakes his head again but laughs all the same. Matty beams at that; at the rough sound of his voice in the early morning air and the glimpse she catches into who he is beyond this. Beyond the base, the plane, the job, the trauma. Beyond it all, she gets to see the Bradley Bradshaw that still has a middle school sense of humor and likes to forgo toxic masculinity to instead order the fruitiest, creamiest, sweetest drink one could get at a Starbucks. 

And when he glances down at her with a warm gaze, Matty doesn’t know it, but he’s thinking the same thing; enjoying the way that she crinkles her nose when she finds something amusing, how she snorts at her own jokes or speaks without thinking. The Matty behind the coveralls and ink and bruised, broken fingers; the one that doesn’t snarl at every person trying to get to know her but instead smiles at the way she can make them laugh. 

Few see the person behind the pilot.

Fewer even see the person behind the mechanic. 

“Aren’t you going to be late to... I don’t know, whatever it is you guys do this early in the morning?” she asks. There’s an edge to her voice; almost regretting having to ask that question in the first place. In fact, when Bradley calms down from his laughter, she actually feels a bit bad for asking at all. “I just don’t want everyone giving you shit because you’re late. You see how much I get heckled for being late with this group.” 

“That’s because you’re always late.” 

“I’m a very prompt person, I’ll have you know,” she says, nose stuck up into the air. It’s a very clear lie, however, and with the past two weeks of evidence against her, she has to change tactics. ”At least, normally. The past month has been... well, you know. Broken mirrors and spilt salt.” 

“Sure.” 

“I think I’m cursed.” 

“The only logical reason.” 

Matty narrows her eyes at his suspiciously agreeable nature, but he’s already turning away before she can catch him. Sipping his drink, there’s something both relaxed and tense about him. “Besides, it’s not like I have anything to be late to.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Class doesn’t start till nine this morning. That’s still plenty of time for me to get my ass moving.” 

“Oh.” Matty nods because that makes a whole lot more sense than the fact that he’s being dragged out of bed at seven am for a lecture. But then, well, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because here he is talking to her well before he even needed to get out of bed. Frowning, she starts, “then what are you—?”

“Jesus Christ, I thought you’d never show up,” someone drawls from the garage door, and Matty whirls around so fast that what hasn’t already fallen out of her bun does so with the plop of some poorly placed bobby pins. Frank, of course, doesn’t seem to give a shit about that. Just arches a brow at her over the top of a steaming cup of coffee. “Glad to see that you are still following the uniform regulations, Neven.” 

“Where the hell did you come from?”

Frank gestures to the back of the garage with a lazy tilt of his head before sweeping his gaze to Bradley. “Did you come to pay your tab from last night? Pretty sure you owe me a hundred after that last game of pool.” 

“Pretty sure that you owe me a hundred after you cheated at the last game of pool,” Bradley shoots back. Matty swings her head between them—so aggressively so that her hair is now a tangled mess at the nape of her neck—but they both studiously ignore her. “Besides, I’m pretty sure that I heard Maverick banning you from betting with anyone.” 

Frank rolls his eyes. “He’s just a sore loser.”

“What? He owes you money too?”

“Course he does,” Frank tuts, voice rough and low in the early morning hours. Swallowing his coffee as quickly as he does when it’s scolding hot probably doesn’t help either. “That asshole has been dodging his IOU payments for four years now.” 

“Oh, he has, has he?” Matty re-inserts herself with the cock of her hip. She can’t quite be surprised that someone had interrupted her conversation with Bradley, but she can at least play offended that someone would then steer the conversation towards the very same bullshit argument he wouldn’t leave alone whenever he got the chance. “Well, you two idiots both owe me for my couch that you ruined last Easter. When’s that IOU getting paid?”

Frank smacked his lips and looked away. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she announces, arms crossed tightly over her chest. This time, Bradley is the one glancing back and forth between the pair like he can’t quite figure out what’s going on. “Anyways, Bradshaw doesn’t owe you shit, Frankie. We both know that you cheated on the last play.” 

Both men turn to her in surprise. Surprise that she would defend a pilot, first of all, and surprise that she had been sober enough to even remember that secondly. 

“You were passed out on the bar,” Frank argues. “You don’t know shit.” 

“I know everything, Frankie-boy,” she chirps with a sardonic grin. It’s much more what Bradley was used to seeing on her face; all tight lines and sharp angles that make her seem almost... well, menacing. “Just like I know that Claire didn’t tell Coyote about her night time proclivities until well after midnight. Meaning you owe me even more money.” 

“Fuck off.” 

“I’m serious!” 

Frank shakes his head at her, before darting his eyes towards Bradley. There’s an uncomfortable edge to Frank—always has been to people that don’t him that well, all hard lines and taut muscle—and beside her, Bradley seems to shift under his weighted stare. 

Regardless. Matty always thinks if people ever stuck around long enough to hear Frank open his mouth they wouldn’t be scared of a fucking moron like him. 

“You makin’ shit up just to get on her good side?” 

“Frank!” 

“I ain’t paying shit unless Claire tells me straight up,” he continues, completely ignoring the seething look that Matty is now shooting him. Bradley catches on to it fairly quickly though; takes a step away from her when he sees the white of her knuckles. “As far as I’m concerned, you can take that debt and shove it up your ass.” 

He disappears back into the garage without another word.

Matty gapes at his absence. 

“Shove it up my—?!” she echoes, shouts, eyes nearly twitching as she watches Frank disappear into the back room. The parking lot is starting to fill up now, and several heads turn in their direction in interest. When they see who it is causing a ruckus, however, most keep on moving. 

“I feel like this is a good time to leave you be,” Bradley drawls. 

She spins to him; her hair is a whole mess now, features even more so as they’re pinched in irritation and exhaustion. It’s a marvel that Matty doesn’t explode on a daily basis from the amount of shit she has to put up with from the very people that she calls her friends. 

“I’m gonna kill him.” 

“You shouldn’t tell me something like that, you know. Plausible deniability and all of that.” 

“One of these days, buddy,” she warns. 

As she retreats into the garage—her home away from home—in search of a specific hick that needs his ass kicked, she can hear the smile on Bradley’s face as he calls after her.

“It’s Bradley!” 

---

The morning sun has drifted low on the horizon by the time that Matty manages to take a break. It’s been a busy couple of weeks that have somehow only managed to get busier with the arrival of Bradley’s group. She doesn’t blame him for it, though. Planes would be her specialty anywhere she went; at least working at Miramar meant she got to suffer through the unrealistic expectations of deadlines with people she considered to be her friends. 

Friends, like Frank.

“You’re not drinkin’ coffee are ya?” he asked as he joins her out behind the motor pool. The pair had stacked some crates in the small square of grass they were given, and since it had become their unofficial spot to take breaks on.

Matty smiles blithely at his question. “The coffee machine is still broken.”

He grunts, offering a water bottle anyways that she takes without any arguing.

A nice silence floats around them. Frank, with his own bottle now half filled with chew. Matty with a cigarette between her fingers stretching her legs as far as she can in hopes of getting rid of the kink in her back she had earned from passing out sideways on the couch last night.

They watch as a couple Humvees meander on by. Some soldiers drift from one parking lot to the next. A lot of people think that military bases operate like they do in movies—fast flying military escorts and booted privates running place to place—but in reality, bases more or less operated at a slow, but steady pace. Everyone had somewhere to go, but no one was in a great rush to get there lest they want to be badgered by the MP for driving too fast.

And now, as the work day was ending, the slow trickle of soldiers had turned into a snail’s pace crawl as cadets left for the day.

Matty always liked to watch them go. Liked to make stupid bets with Frank about how many Mustangs with fresh plates from the local dealership they would see drive by. Sometimes, they would even sit past dinner, when the motor pool was completely empty, just talking about the little things in life.

“Maverick seems good,” Frank drawls after too long of people watching.

Matty simply hums at the observation; not riled up enough to bite his head off for the obvious turn in conversation, but also not feeling particularly chatty after a long day of work.

“Penny too.”

“Penny’s always doing good.”

“Not always,” he banters, sitting forward to spit into his bottle, before scrubbing oil stained fingers through his short-cropped hair.

Matty concedes that much. She can still remember catching Penny at the end of a bad week closing out an even worse month last year. The normally easy-going woman seemed more frazzled than she had ever seen her before. Rumor had it that her ex, Amelia’s dad, had been stirring up trouble for the pair while passing through town with his newest girlfriend in tow. But Matty had never been one for rumors and by the next week Penny had found her smile again.

“Yeah, alright, maybe not always. But she’s gotten it straightened out in the last year. The bar is doing better than ever. Plus, Amelia’s grown into herself.”

Frank snorted. “Since when do you like Amelia?”

“Since she started becoming a funny teenager and less of a moody middle schooler,” Matty shrugged. Frank laughed into his dip, and she gave him a smile in return. “What? Penny knew how I felt about Amelia. She chased me out of the bar more than once for teaching the kid some creative curse words. I don’t know how she does it, honestly.”

“Puts up with you?”

“Raises a good kid like Amelia all on her own,” Matty says while kicking Frank’s leg with a mock scowl. He’s unbothered, of course. Always unbothered when it comes to her antics. And for once she’s fine with that. Matty is enjoying the peace of the day too much to pick up an attitude about anything in particular.

An odd thought for another time, she supposes.

“What’s their deal, anyway?” Frank asks.

“Who—Penny and Amelia? You do know how sex works, don’t you Frankie?”

“Fuck off,” he snorts, rolling his eyes at her cheek. So, okay, maybe she can still find it in herself to bring some attitude to the table. He knows her well enough not to call her out on it though. “I mean Penny and Maverick. They gonna’ get back together?”

“You secretly a romantic or something?”

Frank spits into his bottle but says nothing. Just lifts a dark brow at Matty that seems to speak volumes. She knows him like the back of her hand; which means that she knows he’ll be happy as a clam to sit around all night waiting for an answer to his obnoxiously invasive question.

Matty huffs, but gives in. “I don’t know. Mav doesn’t talk about her that much.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m not really sure why you think Mav is secretly a Nicholas Sparks type guy beneath the jet fuel and idiocy,” Matty chirps at her friend. A pair of lime green Camaros rumble down the road past them, momentarily catching her attention, and she smiles at the idea that she might win finally beat Frank tonight at their little, stupid game. They vanish after a few moments, however, and he catches her attention with the nudge of his boot. “I’m telling the truth. He told me a little bit about it at breakfast the other day, but with him... I don’t know. It’s difficult to know when he’s being honest with women, you know? I think he wants to believe that he can be a different guy—a better guy. The type that Penny deserves.”

Frank considers that for a moment before tilting his head at her. “You don’t think he can?”

Matty’s mouth screws up at the sides. “I don’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to relationships, Frank. You’re better offer asking Nicky for his opinion. Or Eggy. How Maria hasn’t left his ass yet eludes me.”

“He buys her flowers,” Frank shrugs simply. Then, with a bit of a crude smile, adds, “and fucks her every night.”

Matty scrunches up her nose at the idea of her friend fucking her other friend, and chucks her water bottle at Frank for even suggesting such a thing. “You’re a pig!”

“What? It’s the truth! Eggs won’t shut up about it.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to know, god!” she shrieks.

Frank chuckles at her aversion to the topic, and with a gleam in his eye, he leans towards her on his crate. “Don’t you know how sex works, Matty? They already have one kid. I thought you would have figured it out by now.”

She shoves him away with her boot. He bowls forward in amused laughter.

“I hate you,” she reminds him with her nose upturned. He, however, doesn’t care in the slightest for her insults, and because his laughter is so goddamned contagious, after a few moments her shoulders become less stiff as she lets a couple of laughs slip through her lips as well. “Maybe you should talk to Mav about Penny. I would love to know what’s up with the two of them, but he’s pretty tight lipped when it comes to me. Who the hell knows why.”

Frank, coming down from his laughter, shrugs. “You’re a bitch.”

Matty considers that. Then she shrugs too. “Yeah, alright. Fair enough I guess.”

They make eye contact and the pair are suddenly falling into a fit of laughter once more. It makes it easy to ignore the setting sun and the steady thrum of engines turning down the road in front of them.

It almost makes her miss the call coming through on her phone, too.

She doesn’t miss it however, and when she swings the device up to her ear, she presses answer without even catching the name on the screen.

“Hello?” she asks through giggles.

“Matty,” a familiar voice cuts across the line. It sounds unusually heavy and tense in the midst of their laughter, and maybe their laughter is the exact reason she doesn’t take a moment to consider why.

“Oh, hey Dad,” she chirps. Laughs when Frank lifts a brow at her, and then boots crate as far as she can so that the hick isn’t bent over into her space like he does when trying to eavesdrop on her phone calls. Sticking her tongue out at him, Matty switches the phone to her other ear. “You never call me during the week. What, did you miss me or something?”

There’s a long moment of tense silence.

Matty starts to feel it then; the presence of something beyond herself. The imaginary weight that settles onto her shoulders, the way it starts to slowly press the air out of her lungs.

“What’s—what’s wrong?” she asks.

Somehow, her voice remains steady, but the difference in it is still enough that Frank straightens in his seat all the same. Gone is the humor from his eyes. Now, he seems to be bearing the imaginary weight with her.

She’s not sure why she didn’t consider this.

She’s not sure why she didn’t think of him as soon as she answered the phone. All the same, it takes less than two words to shatter the peaceful space that she had settled into.

“It’s Ice.”

----

The flight simulations go better today than the days prior. Bradley isn’t sure what exactly has made the difference, but when he lands on the tarmac he’s told that he had somehow cut off a whole fifteen seconds from his route. It doesn’t sound like much to people outside of a cockpit; hell, in a normal job, fifteen seconds is nothing to be missed.

But in this job, it’s everything.

He’s almost expecting a pat on the shoulder from Maverick when him, Phoenix, and Bob make it back to the classroom. Their relationship might not have been mended yet, but that didn’t stop Mav from praising Rooster whenever he was given the chance. It tended to bruise his nerves knowing that he was the person Bradley needed approval from in the first place to get this job. Today, however, he finds himself almost disappointed that he doesn’t receive some sort of praise for his efforts up in the sky.

Even if it is Maverick that is offering them.

Alas, Maverick is nowhere to be found as the group is let out for the day.

“He disappeared a couple hours ago,” Phoenix answers his unasked question. Bradley scoffs at it, hoping to hide the fact that he was looking for their teacher, and in response Nat rolls her eyes at him. “Like you weren’t looking for him or whatever.”

“I wasn’t,” he argues.

She doesn’t believe him in the slightest. Bradley, now scowling, swivels his head towards her RIO only to find that Bob is studiously avoiding his gaze like he does when he’s trying not to get involved in an argument.

“Seriously?” he barks. Bob glances at him before darting his eyes away once more as if straightening out his sweat coated undershirt is more important than a simple conversation. “Whatever. I wasn’t.”

“You’re such a bad lair,” she tuts up at him.

Bradley doesn’t even get a chance to argue with that, either, before she swiftly disappears into the woman’s locker room with Halo. He feels a bit puff off at the idea that she clearly won this stupid argument, but then he reminds himself that it is, in fact, a stupid argument and Bradley turns into his own locker room with a shake of the head.

Bob is the only other person inside. Thankfully Hangman and his cohort of idiots are nowhere to be seen. They might have made some steps in cooling down their battle of egos, but the blonde was still unbearable to be around during their lessons. Bradley wonders if some of that has to do with the fact that Hangman must have had—as Matty told him the morning prior—a teenie weenie.

It can’t be an easy thing to live with, afterall.

And suddenly as he’s showering off the day, Bradley is left thinking about Matty. It was almost unconscious at this point. A little bit ridiculous too, how much he thought about her. She wasn’t exactly a diamond in the rough when considering her looks.

Sure, she was pretty. Gorgeous, actually. With white teeth and bright eyes and blonde hair that had been under the sun without protection for just a day too long. Not to mention her long legs. Her perfectly tanned skin. Crooked nose that was somehow cute to him. Lips that curled into a devious smile every time she made a joke that bordered on being insulting to everyone around her. The slight cut through her eyebrow that made her quirk it to the side rather than straight up her forehead.

The tattoo stretching down her back...

So, yeah, okay, Bradley thought she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen before. Whatever.

The fact of the matter was that he wasn’t a shallow guy; something he prided himself on after seeing how much of assholes some guys could be to what they considered to be “plain” women. hat had never bothered him. Never would, either. All it meant was that there were plenty of women for him to pick from outside of Matty fucking Neven. 

So many that he couldn’t keep count anymore.

Plenty that offered their numbers on soggy bar napkins. A handful that would approach him on a night out with a coy smile that suggested nothing innocent. More than enough to keep him occupied for the next couple of months if that’s what he wanted.

The problem wasn’t the lack of pretty girls. The problem was that the only girl he thought about didn’t have any interest in him. 

Because while she was both gorgeous with a killer banter, she was also impossible. She didn’t want his attention; she hadn’t given him her number. She had insulted him and his livelihood in the matter of seconds, but then apologized while sharing something personal that he doubted many people knew. She could have an attitude that was so breathtakingly nauseating to be around, but she could also make him laugh without even trying.

She—

“Jesus, Rooster, hurry up!”

Bradley blinked out of his stupor at the sound of Phoenix’s annoyed voice echoing through the locker room. He was startled at it, but when he turned on his heel—nearly slipping on wet tile—he was at the very least relived when he realized that she was not, in fact, in the locker room with him. Just shouting at the top of her lungs from the hallway.

He turned off the nozzle and wrapped a towel around his torso when Bob was shoved back into the locker room by a pair of tanned hands.

The techie looked flustered about the situation.

“You got a problem?” Bradley asked in exasperation.

“Oh, uh,” Bob rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. His hair was almost dry on his forehead, and suddenly Bradley had to wonder just how long he had been stuck in the shower. “Phoenix is getting a little hungry.”

“Rooster!”

“A lot hungry,” he corrected.

Bradley let out a strangled noise halfway between a huff of amusement and a scoff of annoyance. But, to be fair, he had promised that he would join the duo out for dinner at the local Italian place that Boomer told them about. “Yeah, yeah, alright. I’m coming. Just give me five minutes. Think she’ll last that long before turning into a fucking werewolf?”

Bob darted his eyes to the door. After a moment he must have realized that she hadn’t heard the comment, however, and the techie relaxed with a sheepish smile. “I’ll buy her a granola bar from the vending machine. But, uh, you’re sitting next to her.”

"Yeah, alright.”

They shared a laugh before the sound of Phoenix kicking the door with her boots startled them back into reality. Bradley tossed Bob his wallet.

“Buy her something chocolate.”

---

Whatever Bob had bought Phoenix had seemed to level out her sugar because she was much calmer once seated inside Bradley’s jeep. Not calm enough that she didn’t urge him to drive faster every five seconds, but calm enough that the boys felt confident she wouldn’t bite their hands off for laughing.

The base was getting empty by the time they got onto the road.

Empty enough that Bradley was able to spot an all-too familiar motorcycle sitting sideways in an all-too familiar motor pool parking lot.

Without thinking, he turned in towards it.

“Excuse me, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Little Italy is not on base. you know that, don’t you? You know where we are supposed to be going? Like, right now.”

“Relax, will you? I just want to see if Matty is still here.”

“Rooster, I’m fucking dying back here,” she threw her hands up in irritation. He caught a glimpse in his rearview mirror and would be lying if he said that the look alone didn’t make him re-consider his choice. “You’re girlfriend can wait another day to see your hideously ugly face. I, however, cannot wait any longer to get food. And we still have to drive across town!”

“Hideously ugly?” 

“And going to be even more disfigured when I claw your eyes out.” 

He rolled his eyes at her threat. Phoenix could be down right terrifying when she wanted, but being around Matty had given Bradley an entirely new scale of terrifying women one should not piss off. 

A hangry Natalie was, unfortunately, no longer the top of the scale.

Maybe that’s why he chirped, “you don’t think I’m ugly, Nat. In fact, if I remember correctly, you think I’m a stud.” 

She wrinkled her nose at him. “As if I would ever say that.”

“Oh, but you did,” he snarked while turning the engine off. Phoenix huffed at the accusation, and Bradley nudged Bob with his elbow. “You can even ask the backseater, Nat. You were all over me the other day at the bar. Talking about how we could make cute kids together. It was almost embarrassing.” 

Her eyes widened in horror. “I was not! Bob!”

Bob’s gaze darted between the pair, but as there was literally nowhere for him to run, he didn’t have much choice but to agree. “Uh, well... you might have said something about his, you know, cheek bones.”

“And hair,” Bradley added.

“And hair,” Bob agreed. 

Phoenix practically screeched at the concept; he hadn’t the slightest idea if she were embarrassed, angry, or hungry, but Bradley figured it was best that he not find out in that exact moment. He swung his door open quick enough that the hinges squeaked.

“Five minutes, P,” he said. “Try not to kill him by then.”

“You’re leaving me?” Bob asked at the same time that she shouted, “five minutes or we’re leaving! Wait, Bob! What did you just say?”

Taking that as his cue to leave, he made quick work of heading towards the empty motor pool. A few vehicles still sat in the parking lot. Next to Maverick’s motorcycle was Matty’s jeep. The prior was in such good condition that it made hers look like it belonged in a junk yard.

He vowed to keep that thought to himself.

Mostly so he didn’t upset her, but also so Maverick didn’t go around with a big head at the idea that Bradley complimented something about him.

Frank and Mav were the only people in the motor pool. They paused in their conversation as he approached.

“Hey,” he nodded.

“Hey kid,” Mav smiled. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, though, and Bradley slowed in his walk with a glance around at the empty garage.

“Is, uh, Matty here?”

Frank and Mav shared a look, before the former shook his head. “Nah.”

“Oh,�� he paused. “Isn’t that her jeep outside...?”

It was. Obviously he knew that. Obviously they knew that he knew that.

Frank crossed his arms while leaning onto the tool bench behind him. He seemed unusually tired; almost somber as well. It was an odd look on the mechanic’s face. Though they didn’t know one another all that well, Bradley had never seen him without a troublesome twinkle in his dark, hard eyes.

“She’s not here,” Frank rasped. “Sick day.”

He almost took that response at face value; almost turned around and went off to dinner with his friends in tow, but there was something off about the atmosphere that had him considering the pair suspiciously. Maverick squirmed a little under his stare.

“What are you doing here, Mav? Phoenix said you took the afternoon off.”

“Yeah, uh, I... wasn’t feeling all that well.”

“You’re sick too?”

Maverick cleared his throat. “Something like that.”

And, yeah, there was definitely something going on. Something that settled in the air between the three that did not feel right. Maybe him and Maverick didn’t have the best relationship in comparison to what they once had. Maybe him and Frank’s relationship didn’t exist outside of teasing one another and sharing a beer at The Hard Deck. Maybe it was odd for them to be together in a conversation without the one thing they had in common.

Matty.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t able to feel that something was up. 

“Is everything all right?” he asked next. It wasn’t just weird because she wasn’t there. It was weird because every mention of her seemed to stiffen the men up even more. “Did something happen with Matty?”

“No,” Frunk grunted at the same time that Mav said, “she’ll be fine.”

“Be?” Bradley echoed.

Frank leveled Maverick with a scowl that might have made a lesser man buckle, but the pilot just gave a half-shrug in response as if to say what?

“Okay, seriously. What’s going on?”

“Nothin’ is goin’ on,” Frank affirmed. “Matty’s fine. Just sick. She’ll see you when she sees you Bradshaw. Same with you, Mav. Fuck off and let me finish the docket now, yeah?”

“You’re a shit liar, Frank.” 

Frank pushed off the tool bench. “What’d you say to me?”

“Alright, alright,” Maverick stepped up too. He was relatively small compared to the two of them due to the height difference, but he was not in any sort of way someone that could be considered weak. Because of that it was easy enough for him to force the boys apart without any blood drawn.

Though, Frank still looked like he might be out for it.

“Maybe we should just tell him.”

And, shit, Frank was about to get it if the scandalized look he shot Maverick was anything to go by. Actually, it was hard enough that Bradley almost took a step back just to put some more space between them. He hadn’t quite believe Matty when she joked about Frank being nothing but a guard dog; right now, though, it was fairly obvious where his loyalty lied.

“If she ain’t tell him, then that means she don’t want us fuckin’ tellin’ him either, Mav,” he snarled. Maverick swallowed thickly, but somehow kept that lightness to his movements that he was known for. Always joking, even when there was nothing to joke about. “You know best of all how she feels about this pilot shit. She just needs time.”

Nothing they were saying made any sense.

“What the hell are you two talking about?” Bradley asked.

The pair continued with a silent contest of wills to the point that he was almost beginning to wonder if he was invisible.

“And you know best of all that she need someone who understands right now,” Maverick pointed out. His voice was low, tight, and heavy. Not anything like the easy-going guy that Bradley knew growing up. “Hollywood can’t give that to her. I can’t give that to her. And you can’t either.”

Hollywood?

Bradley kept that particular thought to himself; instead, he clung to everything else that Mav said about him, thought about the little piece of truth that Matty had shared with him at the bar the other night.

“Her dad,” he said. Both men turned to look at him. Frank still looked pissed off. Maverick looked surprised. “Is this something to do with him? She said that he was a pilot.”

The surprise ebbed to sadness.

Frank’s ebbed to curiosity lingering in the depths of dark eyes. “She tell you about that? About him?”

“Just that he was a Navy pilot,” Bradley said. He was still clueless to what this was all about, but hell if he wasn’t determined to get to the bottom of it. “Said that they were always moving around when she was growing up. And, uh, that he’s some big hotshot. Is he okay? Is Matty?”

He wasn’t sure what he said that was right, but something surely was.

Frank lost a little bit of his anger; calmed down a little bit as he returned to his slouched position on the desk. Maverick, for some reason, took that as a positive sign.

Turning to Bradley, he sighed. “Do you know where she lives?”

“What? No,” he shook his head in confusion, then annoyance when they continued to stare at him silently without giving much of anything away. Bradley squared his shoulders at them. “Are you two going to tell me what the fuck is going on or...?”

Maverick turned to Frank who, after a long moment, just gave a jerky nod. He seemed defeated about the entire situation, but when he met Bradley’s gaze, there was a whole lot of concern in his eyes as well.

“She’s probably gonna fuckin’ come after me when you show up at her door, but Mav’s right...” he rasped. Scrubbing a hand through his hair, Frank started to explain, “there’s something that you should know about Mats...”

---

It’s late when someone knocked on her front door.

Maybe not so late that it’s unusual for her to have visitors, but late enough in the day that the sun has already begun to set beneath the horizon. The lights in her house are dark, though, so she’s left to wonder who might be coming by to bother a lonely house with no evidence that someone in inside. The driveway is empty too seeing as how she had gotten a ride home from Frank the night before with no intention of getting her jeep back any time soon. 

All of which mean that whoever has come to bother her has done so knowing she was home with no intention of accepting visitors.

There’s a short list of who that could be.

They knock again. The list gets shorter.

Matty is in no mood to see anyone. No mood to entertain friends that have come meaning well, but that would require some sort of effort on her behalf. Frank is the only person from work that has seen her cry before. The only person she trusts to visit in a time like that, but she knows for a fact that whoever is here isn’t him.

He had spent the night before sleeping on her couch. The pair cuddled up beneath too many blankets with a stupid movie on in the background. Though the best friend she has, even Frank has limits on the amount of crying he can handle, and she’s well enough aware that she crossed the limit last night.

So no. He wouldn’t have come a second night in a row.

When they knock a third time Matty has half a mind to scream at them, but her throat is too raw to do any good yelling. Instead, she trudges from her spot on the couch to the door.

Sighs. Wipes her face. Opens it only to find—

“Matty. Hey.”

Bradley Bradshaw stands on her front steps with an awkward look on his face. He doesn’t manage a smile—which is good because neither does she—but he doesn’t seem angry either. Just...

There.

“What are you doing here?” she blurts out.

There’s no usual bite to her words. Nothing flirty or snarky or sultry. Just a croak that makes it obvious she’s been crying for roughly twenty four hour straight.

Which is fucking horrifying.

Bradley Bradshaw is the guy she has placed on the back burner. He’s fun to be around, someone she thinks about often, the first guy in forever that she’s actually considered the possibility that she might have genuine feelings for outside of wanting sex. He’s a good friend that she’s earned in a few short weeks. He’s someone who she’s pushed herself to be honest with even when she doesn’t want to be.

He’s not the sort of guy she cries in front of.

Matty moves to swing the door shut in his face because—what the fuck else was she supposed to do—when Bradley stops her with a boot wedged into the space.

“Neven,” he says. “I never even realized that your last name is Neven.”

And.

Fuck.

Matty slowly opens the door back up. He owlishly blinks at her through narrowed eyes, an impressive feat really. But he also looks like he has a lot on his mind that she doesn’t really want to hear in spitting distance from the sidewalk.

Maybe that’s why she sighs. “Shut the door behind you.”

He does.

And suddenly Matty Neven is coming face to face with the reality that her family name ties her to a lot more shit than she ever wanted to consider.

---

“Here.”

The mug that Matty offers to Bradley is not one that should host two shots full of cupboard whisky. It’s a splatter of pink and purple with a faded image of Hannah Montana on it; a gag joke from Claire for her birthday a few years prior that had certainly been found in the back of a thrift store, but something that she had always loved to make hot cocoa in for the irony of it all. Now, as she holds it over to him, it feels stupid, childish, and wrong.

He doesn’t care though.

In fact, he gives a quiet laugh as he accepts it from her hands. The ugly appeal of it doesn’t prevent Bradley from taking a long swallow of the amber liquid inside.

She likes that about him.

Matty sits down on the chair opposite him. It had been awkward when he first walked inside her house. Few people were ever invited over to her place. It felt like a personal invasion given how much memorabilia she had tacked up on every empty space of her walls. Bradley’s eye caught on more than one picture of her with Hollywood and his friends.

That’s when she had asked if he would wait on the screened in porch for her. There was a long moment of hesitation before he agreed. 

Maybe he saw the haunted look in her eye. Maybe he didn’t want to see the memories anymore than she did.

“Who told you?”

“Frank.”

“Frank?” she echoes. Her first instinct isn’t even to be angry at her friend for spilling a secret that wasn’t his to keep. Really, she’s more surprised than anything that he would trust Bradley enough to share it.

“And... Mav,” he tacks on with an uncomfortable look. Almost like saying the guy’s name left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Oh,” she says lamely.

“Yeah,” he agrees with a blithe nod.

Nothing else is said for a long, drawn out minute. Matty is silent because she’s not sure what she should say that could make any of this better; she hadn’t even been the one to share the secret with him, so she wasn’t sure how to approach the topic of it at all. Bradley is silent for a litany of reasons that she can’t comprehend just from looking at him.

She takes a long swig of her whisky—this in a chipped mug she had for far too long—before deciding to just get it over with. “Just ask me already. That’s why you came here, isn’t it? To talk about it.”

He doesn’t say yes or no. Just fixes her with an unreadable stare.

Eventually, however, “why didn’t you tell me?”

“That Hollywood was my dad?”

“Or that you knew Maverick before all of this. Or that you knew me before all of this—you knew my story, my dad, what the fuck I went through. Why didn’t you tell me, Matty? Why did I have to find out that your dad is fucking Hollywood from Frank? Was it some sort of game to you?”

“Of course it wasn’t.” 

“Then why? Why keep it from me? Why make a big deal out of how you hate pilots when you knew damn well that my dad died in a fighter jet in school right alongside yours?”

“What exactly would have changed if I told you?”

He scoffed. “Everything!”

“Do you think that we would have instantly become friends if you knew?” she shot back. He scoffed again, and Matty quirked a brow at him with a sharp scoff of her own. “What would have changed? Would we have made friendship bracelets for each other? Had movies nights where we talked about it? Would you have wanted to hear stories about your dad that I heard from my dad?”

“Of course not,” he rasped.

“Then what? What would have changed?”

“Maybe I wouldn’t be so fucking angry at you right now, Matty!” he shouted. The intensity of his anger surprised them both. Matty sank back onto her seat, hands clutching at the mug in her hands because she had nothing else to hold onto, and Bradley quickly turned his eyes away towards the dark yard.

There was nothing to see.

She didn’t remind him of that.

Instead, she said, “it’s my life too, Bradley. You don’t get to decide what I get to keep to myself and what I have to share with you.”

“This is different than you not telling me about your ex-boyfriends,” he snapped. It was a fair difference, she had to admit, but it wasn’t something she was about to let him play the victim over.

Not now. Not like this. Not after Ice...

“I don’t tell anyone about him. You’re not special in that regard.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“It’s supposed to make you understand me better,” she corrected him. Her tone was sharp enough now that he paused upon hearing it. A heaviness settled in the air between them that Matty resented him for bringing. Then again, she had bore a heavy weight on her shoulders for years now because of her dad. He was probably the only person that felt that same weight. “My dad pinned me at my commissioning ceremony. Ice was there with his wife, clapping along with everyone else. I was so happy. So excited that I managed to make my dad proud without following in his exact footsteps. I got the chance to do what I wanted and still make him happy. It was the best of both worlds.”

He settled in his seat as she spoke. 

Though, he seemed no happier. Maybe it was the bitter reminder that his dad hadn’t been at his ceremony; hadn’t pinned him, hadn’t been proud of him.

“The moment they left, my unit started calling me Baby Nep; short for Baby of Nepotism. People asked me for favors from Ice. Guys in the motor pool would corner me when I was alone asking for... less than savory favors. They figured out pretty early on that I wouldn’t complain about anything to anyone because I didn’t want word getting back to my dad or Ice. I wouldn’t even complain to my Captain because I couldn’t fucking stand people making accusations that I didn’t belong where I was.”

The thought of that first year in the service made the room seem so much hotter, the air so much heavier. It had been a dark time in Matty’s life that had heavily skewered her image of what a Naval career would be like.

But things got better, she reminded herself with another sip of whisky, and she decided to cut the rest of that story short to focus on the bigger issue at hand. 

“I am... I’m sorry that I wasn’t the person who got to tell you about my dad,” she croaked. It was as close to crying as she had ever been in front of Bradley, and the change in tone had him glancing at her in surprise. “I’m sorry that I fucked up... whatever this is that we have; whatever sort of fucked up friendship we’ve made. But I’m not sorry that I didn’t tell you right away. I choose to keep my relationships to myself.”

“That’s not a very good apology,” he argued. 

“I’m not going to give you a fake apology just to make you feel better,” she told him incredulously. A thought came to her then that she didn’t hesitate to share, even if if did make her a bitch. “And if I remember correctly, you didn’t exactly tell your class who your dad was either.”

“That’s different,” he argued. 

“How?”

“It just—it just is,” he said. The hotness had bled from his voice though. The resolve to stay angry at her going with it if the somberness of his gaze was anything to go by.

Maybe because they both knew it wasn’t different.

Matty sniffled when she felt her eyes getting too heavy with tears and she quickly turned away. She didn’t want to see Bradley anymore; didn’t want to sit in the heavy presence of all the times she had fucked up in the last couple of weeks. Didn’t want to feel alone when sitting with someone she thought understood her. 

"Well, now you know,” she wiped at her face with a bitter chuckle. She managed a bit of her signature sass even when she waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the door. “So, feel free to leave or whatever. I’d rather cry alone where no one has to see me with snot bubbles, thank you. My mirror tells me that I’m an ugly crier.” 

“Matty, I—”

Whatever he was going to say got stuck in his throat. Matty sipped on her drink while she let him figure it out. She wasn’t sure why, though. He was going to leave and she was going to be left alone.

Things would go back to normal.

“I’m sorry.”

It took a minute for her to realize what he just said, and when she whipped her head towards him, he seemed to grimace at the audacity of it as well. In fact, he finished the last of his whisky while managing to studiously avoid her gaze.

When the mug was empty there was nothing to occupy his attention, however, and she watched him trace the faded writing with his thumb.

“I... you’re right. It’s not that different. I shouldn’t have come over here just to yell at you when you’re—” Bradley caught himself before he finished that sentence. He gave her a wary look. Maybe he expected her to bust into tears at the mention of her mourning or maybe he just didn’t know how to act when she was being vulnerable rather than vulgar. Swallowing, he tried again. “Maverick said that you were close with Ice. Is that... true?”

Matty started picking at the loose hem of her sweater. “He was my godfather.”

He said nothing as she collected her thoughts.

“He was around from the minute I was born. Him and dad were always deployed together, so when one was gone the other was, but Ice didn’t have kids for a while. For him, coming home he got to see his wife, and he got to see me. He always joked that I was the one that convinced him on having kids of his own.”

“Sounds nice,” Bradley commented quietly.

She gave a bubbly laugh through the barrier of tears she was barely managing to hold at bay. Honestly, Matty was surprised that she still had any left to shed at this point. “My mom kind of hated him. He taught me my first curse word, taught me how to throw a punch. He would even take me out of school every once in a while just so we could so something fun. Dad loved it. Of course he did. He was ecstatic that Ice and I got along. Over time, of course, we spent less time apart. And then he got sick...”

“I didn’t even know that he was. Mom never mentioned it.”

“He kept it a secret the first time around,” she nodded. It was just like Ice to keep something such as a terminal illness to himself. Still, she didn’t blame him. Everyone had a version of themselves they presented to the world. Weak was not a word in Tom Kazansky’s dictionary. “This time he got sick quicker. Kept it quiet while he could. I visited whenever work allowed, but... he didn’t like people seeing him like that. Said he wanted to let us keep the good memories without the bad ones.”

Bradley seemed to understand that, in a weird sort of way.

“I met him a couple of times,” he admitted.

Matty hadn’t known that. She sat up at the idea. “You did?”

“Yeah,” he said with a half smile on his face. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, but she appreciated the effort anyways. It made her smile all the same. “He took me and mom out for lunch once or twice while I was growing up. I mean, not just him. Maverick was always there too, but... he was nice enough. From what I remember, anyways.”

“The only person I’ve ever known to be more charming that Maverick.”

“Mav might take some issue with that statement,” Bradley chuckled.

Matty shrugged. “He knows. I’ve told him on more than one occasion over the years that Ice was the better pilot between the two.”

His smile halted. “About that...”

Matty’s own smile shrank upon realizing what he was asking. She glanced down at her mug only to find it empty, and with a defeated sigh, she answered his unasked question. “Mav and I have known each other for a while. Definitely not for as long as you knew him and definitely not as well, but... he tries to check in when he can. I think he started making an effort the first time around that Ice got sick. I guess it scared him.”

Her answer didn’t appeal to Bradley who glanced away with something in his eyes that she couldn’t quite place. Though, it wasn’t hard to guess what it was about.

She knew that Maverick had done something stupid to mess his relationship up with Bradley; knew well enough just from the look that Mav got on his face every time she brought up the incident. He had never told her the entire story, though, and while she respected his privacy, part of her was desperate to hear it.

But not now. Not like this.

“Can I ask you something?”

That got his attention. “Since when are you bashful?” he barked in surprise.

It was so out of the blue that Matty actually laughed in response to the scandalized tone of his voice. He must have realized how it sounded too because she caught a blush redden his cheek before he tried to cover it up by running a hand through his hair.

“I mean,” he cleared his throat. “Sure. Just didn’t know you could ever care enough to ask for my opinion first is all.”

Another time she might have shot back with something snarky and mean.

“It’s a touchy subject for us both,” she said instead, surprising him even further with the gentle tone of her voice. This time, however, Matty was the one to blush. She looked away hoping that he didn’t see it at all. “It’s stupid anyways.” 

“What is it?”

She hemmed a bit. Then, with a sigh, bit the bullet knowing that she couldn’t make a bigger ass of herself than she already had managed today. “What was the moment that made you realize you wanted to become a pilot?”

“What sort of question is that?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. She didn’t have a clue where it had come from, but as she took the time to actually tell him about herself—a rare opportunity indeed—Matty was struck with the peculiar urge to know. She hadn’t become a mechanic to spite her dad, despite what some people thought, and she hadn’t joined the Navy to please him.

A single choice that negated all expectation.

A choice like that could tell a lot about someone. Matty was probably more shocked that she wanted to know so that she could try to better understand him than she was surprised to have asked at all.

Whether or not he understood that urge, Bradley still considered her question.

It was difficult for them both without whisky. Difficult to have a serious conversation while sober, but harder still to have it under the never ending weight that settled upon their shoulders the moment he showed up at her door.

Difficult but necessary. Self-inflicting but important.

“When I was fifteen, Mav picked me up after baseball practice and took me out to get some dinner at this nearby pizza place,” he started softly. “Mom was working late that night so we didn’t have to hurry back. We just there in this plastic covered booth for hours. I already told everyone that I wanted to grow up and be just like my dad by then. Everyone knew.”

There was a faraway look in his eye.

It was nothing next to the soft smile pulling at his lips.

“I asked him about his job, why he was gone for so long, stuff like that. He couldn’t tell me much and, well, you know Mav. He tried to tell all the fun stuff. I didn’t care about that, though. So, I badgered him with questions and... he got this goofy smile on his face talking about flying with the others. Merlin, Ice, Hollywood. He was so proud to be up there with them. I knew right then that he didn’t care if he was shot down tomorrow. He just cared about being there with them. These people that understood him more than anyone else ever could.”

He abandoned fiddling with the mug to meet her gaze.

“I wanted that,” he told her truthfully; so honestly that it almost made her want to turn away. “I didn’t care about the awards or fame. I just wanted to have a chance at being understood; at making my own family from people all around the world who thought like me. That’s why I did it. And then Maverick...”

The smile turned sour, the light in his eyes darkening to the point that Matty could no longer see it. Whatever Maverick had done, it was obvious that it had a lasting impact on who Bradley was as a person—it had hurt him unlike anything he had felt before.

Matty knew that hurt.

Maybe not the reason, but the pain. She could feel it tightening her chest when she woke up that morning to the sun already streaming through her windows. She could feel it when heard the sorrow in her dad’s voice when they spoke about the funeral plans over lunch. She could feel it like a ghost dagger in her side as she had to stare at pictures of her and him smiling through the years.

Matty Neven knew that pain better than anyone else.

And somehow, despite all of that, Bradley Bradshaw gave her the ability to smile even when drowning in the midst of it.

“Look, I suck at cooking and I only have shitty whisky, but... if you want to stick around for a little bit I was gonna order a pizza. Probably get a little bit drunk. I could even tell you some stories that Ice told me from the academy. There’s more than one about Maverick making an ass of himself in front of women.”

An olive branch.

Hell, it was so much more than that, but Matty didn’t really want to consider the reasons that she was so hell bent on fixing things with a guy who she swore she didn’t like at all.

“A total ass?”

“The biggest,” she rasped.

“Yeah, I think I can manage a few stories,” he said after a moment of contemplation. “I skipped dinner to come here anyways.”

“It’s only fair.”

It was.

It was the fair thing to do. Bradley had come to confront her and somehow ended up comforting her at one of the darkest moments in her life. More than that, but he knew. Maybe having someone around that she could connect with wasn’t the end of the world.

“So long as pizza and whisky doesn’t make this a date,” he quipped. Matty raised an eyebrow at him for the oddness of his joke, and Bradley managed a genuine smile in return. “You are a Neven, after all. I think my dad would turn in his grave if he knew that I was fraternizing with the enemy.”

Matty threw her head back with a laugh.

Maybe, she thought as he ordered them some pizza with extra pepperoni on top, she liked him a little too much for comfort.

*** taglist (thanks for asking!) @callsignbarb @coyotesamachado​   @shanimallina87   @luckyladycreator2 @olivethenerd16 @alanadetigy​ @the-winter-marvel33​ @hiddleless​ @momc95 @alanadetigy​

I have absolutely no excuse for taking so long to put this chapter out other than life? Life is a reason. Kind of. But I am back with an update! Hope you like it (and hope you haven’t forgotten the story by now). 

[whygodwhy69]

Golf Rivalry Lesbians: The Outline

Claire Donovan comes from a very privileged background and her parents are super intense. She has a crushing fear of failure (stemming no doubt from a concern of disappointing her parents). Uptight AF. Needs a chill pill fr. Very successful youth(/college) career → decent pro career but struggling to maintain highest ranking (or w/e). Constantly pushing herself past her limits trying to be the best. Trying to recapture success of her youth(/college) career. Disappointed parents are v v harsh – not helpful. Has a boyfriend who is also a pro golfer. He is pretty good but never had her previous success so he “doesn’t understand” her constant intensity for improvement. He’s actually an okay dude but lawd he preppy and bland and for god’s sake her parents fucking love him >:(

~*Enter the eventual love interest*~

Lauren (“Lo”) Jennings is fucking great at golf. She came outta nowhere on the pro circuit and has had a bunch of success. She’s so fucking relaxed– she gets to play a game for a living and has a lot of fun with it. She came from a poor background, got into golf via scholarship or something idk. Turns out she’s great at it. She gets all the endorsements and wins a bunch of tournaments. She is also a very nice person. So naturally Claire fucking HATES her.

(this is borne of jealousy and resentment; however, it will take a while for her to realize and accept that).

Of course they keep meeting at tournaments and each do well. Lo has more wins though because though Claire does fairly well, she struggles to actually win tourneys. So of course Claire blames Lo for this and becomes crazed determined to beat her… at the next tourney, Claire actually does super badly bc she is so focused on beating Lo that she totally falls apart. She’s pissed, her parents are pissed, everybody’s god damn pissed. Except Lo, she’s just chillin’.

So then boyfriend is like, uh maybe Lo isn’t actually the devil incarnate? And so Claire is like stfu we’re over. And boyfriend is like yikes ok

So obviously Claire is spiraling and lashing out and placing blame on the wrong people. At the next tourney Lo is like hey and Claire is like I swear to god I’ll fucking kill you and Lo is like who uh good luck in the tourney you seem stressed. If you ever want to talk about the pressure of being a female pro athlete with someone who understands I’m here 4 u

And Claire is like wtf I hate you get out of my face but now Lo is seeped into her mind in a different fucking way. 

Bc maybe she really isn’t the devil incarnate?

Fuck.

And maybe she’s really cute and kind?

FUCK.

Time to apologize for being a dickhead. Also maybe do some closer self-examination? Like why do I actually play golf? To make my parents happy? Because I had some previous success? Does it make me happy? It used to– when I had fun with it. Maybe I should try to chill and have fun playing. (Also am I gay what no never mind)

Well DUH she wins the next tournament bc she’s actually enjoying herself instead of just being super intense about everything. 

So Lo is like hey congrats and Claire is like whoops I was an asshole bc I was jealous of how successful yet chill you are and Lo is like oh dude I’m not chill at all I just go to therapy so I can balance myself out and grow as a person and Claire is like damn heart eyes emoji

And anyways they fall in love and smooch bc of course they do

Happy endings only over here babey

Also worked somewhere in there, Claire confronts her parents because she’s like you pushed me too hard and they’re like sorry we just wanted you to success and maybe we messed up and she’s like it’s okay but let’s all chill a little

Also also, at some point before her breakthrough, Claire straight up quits a tourney in the middle of hole bc she’s so overwhelmed by stress and trying to be the best and trying to beat Lo and her parents like berate her but maybe that’s when she confronts them?

Also also also, Lo is Very Obviously Gay™ but Claire has genuinely *no idea* because she’s a sheltered WASPy princess with no awareness of any other type of person. This will make her all the more confused about her stirring feelings for Lo. Yet she is fortunate bc at least Lo is already comfortably out and thinks she’s hot.

[lumosinlove]

PREVIOUSLY ON RELIC KEEL

Dorcas meets up with Marlene at Marlene’s house and Luke is there—we figure out Marlene and Luke are cousins. Luke, as it turns out, has a neglecting mother (as well as a father who has been taken to jail, Marlene’s father doesn’t want her dating Dorcas because she’s from Salazar, and Marlene still hasn’t told Dorcas that she got into college.

Saint goes to wait for Logan at The Carrows in Salazar, where he restocks his Crucio supply.

Lily and James are painting one of the Potter’s old boats together. Lily is confused and frustrated—and in love with James. James, already hurt and trying not to cause himself further harm but also not wanting to lose Lily entirely, lets Lily kiss him but ends it there. They’re both nervous about college.

Instead of Logan, Saint runs into Luke first, who, as a last resort, is going to the Carrows for Crucio. Luke seems to have some surprises up his sleeve—a love for books that Saint shares, perhaps. When Saint does spot Logan, he makes Luke get into his car so as to not alarm him, and steals his dad’s gold watch in the process.

When Saint goes to fetch Logan, they run into Amycus Carrow, who tells Saint that Logan owes them for using their stash of Crucio without paying—but they won’t tell Saint or Logan how much Logan owes.

As a result, Logan gets it into his head that he can pay off his debt if he finds the treasure of The Voldemort, the one that Leo’s dad died looking for. Logan tries to get Saint to help by asking what he wants most, and when that doesn’t work, asking what he hates. Perhaps Saint is one for revenge, rather than need.

Sirius and Dorcas finally get Saint talking about Logan and his time at Saint Clair. Saint reveals that there were harsh punishments for bad behavior in Saint Clair. He also reveals that, for reasons he can only guess at, when kids turn 18, the age at which they could leave the orphanage, they decide to stay. Saint believes Crucio has something to do with it. He has memories of being extremely tired at night, and having vivid dreams—he doesn’t say what these dreams were about. Saint believes that many of the kids, if they arrived young enough, don’t know how to tell the difference between a Crucio-filled mind and a Crucio-free one. The scene ends with them receiving an invitation to a party at James’ house.

Logan finds Leo at his family’s workshop and says he wants to help him find The Voldemort. Leo wants to finish his father’s work, Logan needs the money—Saint shows up, seeming to have found his motivation, too, whatever it may be.

***CW: mentions of taking drugs and being drugged, brief mentions of blood, brief mention of death of a father***

part vi

In his dream, Finn was in a house. There was a woman sitting at the table, a man at the stove, and a boy leaning against the counter. Everything was murky at the edges, even their laughter.

Finn knew what family was. He’d read about it. He’d thought about it. With Logan, he’d felt it.

What he didn’t know, what he could never be sure of, was whether he’d seen it. What it looked like. What his looked like. Every time he thought he did…he’d wake up.

They had begun as pills—vitamins. But pills could be kept on the tongue.

Powder couldn’t be kept from food.

Finn, sweetheart, the woman said in his dream. How was school today? Is Logan still coming over for dinner?

Your boyfriend, the other boy teased, smiling. The man turned from the stove and laughed, reaching over to tussle Finn’s hair.

Yeah, Finn heard himself say. He is.

He looked at the woman—his mother, maybe—and she looked different than she had a moment ago.

We can play pick up, the brother said—but he wasn’t anymore. There was a sister, and now a brother again, now two brothers. And then his mother was at the stove and his father coming in from the yard, and then there was a younger sister sitting on his lap, and then he was the younger brother and his dad was coming home from work, briefcase in hand, closing the front door, giving his mother a kiss—

Finn woke up. His throat was dry and his eyes were, too. He used to wake up crying when he was younger. And Logan had been there, both of them not understanding.

Finn didn’t know if Logan understood now. Finn hadn’t figured it out until after he’d gotten Logan out, not entirely. Not about the Felix. Just about the kids that weren’t leaving. Something was keeping them here, and all he had wanted was to protect Logan and himself from that. Now that he knew that it was Felix that kept them here…Finn couldn’t see why they wanted it so bad. He didn’t want these false glimpses of family. He didn’t want Felix. He wanted Logan. Logan was real. His only comfort was that Logan was free of it. Of this place.

Finn blinked slowly up at the walls of the solitary room. His eyes were heavy. His head, his limbs. He hadn’t eaten anything in almost a week now.

And the dreams still came.

Maybe it wasn’t anything but his own head that was doing the imagining now.

He knew what was real, and this wasn’t it.

~

Luke looked across the deck at his mother in her lounge chair and pinched the Felix, within a small plastic bag within his pocket, to make it sift back and forth. A sound only he could hear. That, and the ice cubes in his mother’s whiskey. The sun was hot on his bare chest, drying the water droplets left from the pool quickly. He couldn’t stop rubbing the place where his father’s watch had been. Just thinking about it, about Saint and his quick fingers, made him snarl.

His mother’s ice cubes rattled.

“I want to start going through your father’s things,” she said airily from beneath her floppy sun hat. “There’s just so much of it. His papers, and all those fat books he has. God, that stupid treasure obsession.”

“It wasn’t stupid,” Luke replied as evenly as he could. “And he’s not dead. He’s coming back.”

His mother laughed. “Oh, sweetheart.”

She had cut her hair very short after Luke’s dad had been taken away. Luke couldn’t get the images out of his mind. Her, walking back through the door the next day, with her long blonde hair cut to her chin, curling just beneath her jaw. She had smiled at him and given her head a shake. Like it, mon lumière?

My light, she called him. When he was little she’d kissed him goodnight with that nickname every day, turning on the small nightlight that he kept—he still kept it. He’d tried not to, but every time, every night, the dark was just too dark. He was almost mad at her for giving it to him in the first place. If he had just gotten used to the dark…maybe he would be more prepared now.

Since his father, she’d been moving about the house like nothing had changed. Or, rather, like something had changed, and she was all the better for it.

His father’s leather chairs were gone from the living room, replaced by two baby blue couches that made Luke sick to look at. The pirate ship wheel was gone from the wall, too.

Luke didn’t know this mother.

Not even the island knew this woman. They knew the bake-sale-bringing, strict-rule-making, no-nonsense-grounding mother that Luke had known his entire life. He’d spent so many nights furious in his room after she’d caught him sneaking out or drinking.

And now, here his mother was, offering him a glass of whiskey at eleven in the morning.

Luke pinched the Felix between his fingers more harshly.

“No, thanks,” he said, and squinted back out towards the ocean.

“If you’re sure,” his mother said. “Well, I just said so because I’m tired of looking at it all.”

“Don’t get rid of it,” Luke said, trying to keep the pleading out of his voice. “I like his office. Mom, it reminds me of him.”

Luke had spent hours in there, laughing with his father, talking about history and literature, sneaking the rare puff on his cigar.

Then, they had taken him away, and his mother had gotten a hair cut, and suddenly Luke didn’t know anything anymore.

“Excuse me,” Luke mumbled, and left his mother in the sun with her drink and the pills that were no doubt already within. She was getting high more than he ever had now.

Luke could barely see anything inside the house after the bright day outside, but he didn’t need to see. He could have found his father’s study, and everything in it, blind.

He was still damp when he sunk down shakily into his father’s desk chair, the plush leather smelling of cigars, and took the bag of pinkish powder out of his pocket.

Just to see him again.

Just for something else to have happened.

Just not this.

~

Remus met Sirius in James’ kitchen again. The large glass doors were flung wide, opening out onto the porch and the pool beyond where a projector and screen were set up, along with chairs and blankets. Lily had set out the floating lanterns that the Potters put in the pool during their dinner parties and they floated idly back and forth in the evening breeze, giving out a soft yellow glow to mix with the dusky blue that came in from the ocean. The palm trees leaned over the house’s surrounding gate, swaying.

The counter between Remus and Sirius was covered in food. Pizza and nachos from Thomas’ family’s restaurant, chocolate chip cookies, chips and salsa, sodas and liquor.

“If you’re gonna do it, do it in the house,” Mrs. Potter always said.

Sirius looked the same, but fresh out of the ocean. His dark hair was damp, dripping onto the collar of his faded t-shirt. He looked like the ocean had the same effect on him as it did on Remus. Sirius’ eyes looked brighter. His shoulders looked more relaxed. He looked up from where he was pouring some whiskey into a cup and even managed an easier smile than usual.

“Hey,” Remus said, taking a paper plate from the stack. “How’s it going?”

Sirius’ eyes found his, then he looked down, stoppering the bottle. “Pretty good, you?”

“Pretty good,” Remus said, and then took a breath before testing the waters. “Had a nice sail this morning, clocked a shift at the museum, can’t complain.”

Sirius glanced up quickly, and Remus suppressed a smile as he loaded his plate.

“Oh,” Sirius began. “I mean, yeah, I saw.”

“You like sailing?”

Sirius nodded. “Kris lets me take one of his out sometimes.”

“Kris?” Remus questioned.

“Oh,” Sirius cleared his throat. Remus watched some of those ocean washed walls begin to go back up. “Yeah, he runs the boat rental shop over in Rowena. I guess you wouldn’t know given that you have…you know.”

Remus tried to side-step the awkward shift. Sirius seemed to have ideas about him already. Remus wished he had some clue about Sirius, beside his ocean-eyes and guarded expression.

“Well, that’s cool of him,” Remus said.

Sirius nodding from over the brim of his cup. “Yeah, it is.”

“Hey, well—” Remus shrugged. “I mean, I’m sure you do it on your own all the time but…you know if you ever wanted to…”

Sirius raised an eyebrow. Remus hadn’t finished his sentence.

“I mean, if you ever wanted to,” Remus began again, and was suddenly nervous. Sirius didn’t even like him. It looked as though he didn’t like Gods in general. He’d probably think this was charity. He’d probably hate Remus for offering. “Go out.”

Sirius’ eyebrow raised further.

“On my boat,” Remus said, all in a rush. His cheeks were hot. “Go sailing on—my boat.”

Remus didn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t for Sirius to do nothing at all. He stood there, frozen and off guard.

“Only if you want,” Remus said hopelessly. “I get up pretty early.”

“So do I,” Sirius said, and there was the slap of flip flops from behind Remus.

“Look who I found at the kid’s table,” Saint’s voice came, and he leaned on the counter beside Remus in his tank-top and shorts, taking a nacho off of his plate. “Hello, Remus Lupin. You’re looking flushed. Sirius, are you making him blush?”

“Um,” Sirius said.

Remus just shook his head and reached for a soda. He felt idiotic, and now more so, after being interrupted. He could hear the others talking and laughing over the movie and wished he was over there—wished he hadn’t tried to hit on Sirius Black, of all people. He didn’t know if Sirius liked men. He didn't even know Sirius.

“Re, Saint, Black, someone bring me back a drink!” Marlene’s voice came over the chatter. She was tangled with Dorcas on one of the blankets, leaning back into her chest.

“Why do you look like you’ve done something?” Sirius said, drawing Remus’ eyes back to him.

“Well, I haven’t yet,” Saint replied. “But just watch.” He leaned closer to Remus. “Fruit-Loop, I need you to get me into that museum of yours.”

Remus looked at him warily. “How do you know I work at the museum…”

“A friend,” Saint said.

Remus looked at the hand Saint was resting his chin on. He was fairly sure that was Luke’s father’s watch.

“Get you in?” he asked. “Why not just go?”

Saint looked at him like he was entirely put upon, like he couldn’t believe Remus hadn’t caught on yet. “Because I don’t think what I’m looking for is on the floor, as they say.”

“Saint,” Sirius said incredulously. “What…what?”

“Can you help?” Saint looked at Remus. “You know, I could just take it.”

“Let you take something from the museum?” Remus laughed. “No.”

“Fine,” Saint sighed and pushed up from the counter, taking Remus’ plate from him and beginning to walk away. “I was just giving you the option to make this a little easier.”

Remus stared after him, then looked at Sirius, who shook his head before Remus could even ask.

“No idea,” Sirius said.

~

Saint didn’t actually know that many movies.

The movie theater was fine, but old. Grimmauld didn’t have a TV. It definitely didn’t have a large projector screen and James’ laptop. There was dancing on the screen. The actors were some place warm. He didn’t recognize it.

Books, on the other hand. Books, he knew.

He spied Luke resting on his forearms, long legs stretched in front of him on a blanket near that back of their group, and smiled.

“Deveaux,” Saint said as he sat down, placing the plate between them. “Pleasure to see you again.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “Oh Jesus, who invited you.”

“The peace keeper named James Potter,” Saint replied. “Not sure what sort of peace he thinks there is to keep. I, for one, think he’s made it all up in his head.”

Luke grabbed Saint’s wrist, the gold of his watch beneath his rough palm.

“This is mine,” Luke said. “You little thief.”

“Is it?”

“Saint,” Luke’s eyes were dark in the dying light and flickering screen. “Give it back to me.”

“What will you give me?” Saint asked, and leaned in.

Luke snarled and let go. “I’m not bargaining for my watch. You stole it.”

“I steal a lot of things. Your mother has good taste, by the way. So does Mrs. Potter. Unlike some of these God mothers. Do you think they know their husbands buy them the fake stuff, and save the goods for their mistresses?”

“Fuck off.”

Saint broke part of a cookie off. “Those are your two favorite words.”

Luke just shook his head, his jaw tight and angry, eyes remaining on the screen. Saint chewed slowly.

“What’s this?” Saint asked, jerking his chin towards the screen.

He felt Luke look at him. “You don’t know?”

“I just asked, didn’t I?”

“What?” Luke scoffed. “It’s Mamma Mia. You’ve never seen this movie? Where the fuck have you been?”

Saint looked at him steadily.

“Right,” Luke nodded. “Fucked childhood, and all that.”

“That’s one way to look at it, thank you, tweedle.”

“What else haven’t you seen?”

Saint flicked the hand with the watch on it. “How the fuck should I know?”

Luke’s eyes followed the gold for a moment, and then he looked back out towards the others. Saint did, too, laughing softly. He could practically feel Luke trying to decide how to get the watch from his wrist.

“Irish wrist watch,” Saint whispered. “Irish wrist watch, Irish wrist watch…”

James was sitting with Lily. Marlene and Dorcas were to the side, dancing along to the music with Thomas. Sirius and Remus had followed him out of the house and were, to Saint’s surprise, sitting awkwardly beside each other. Sirius seemed to be asking about the movie, too, and Remus explaining it to him.

Fucking Gods, Saint thought as he looked around at the glowing pool, the mountain of food in the kitchen. Fucking Gods and all their careless lives.

He wondered if maybe he should have brought Leo along, if his sob story about his dad might have gotten Remus to help.

Remus works at the museum, Leo had said. Me and Logan heard him say, him and Layla—her family owns it. If there’s any chance of seeing another copy of that map, it’s the History Museum.

“I’ve never seen you be quiet for this long,” Luke’s voice interrupted.

“You’re the one who ruined it.”

Luke reached between them for the plate and plucked up the other half of Saint’s cookie. “I was just saying.”

“I’ve never seen you not glower for this long—oh, there it is.”

“Give me my watch back.”

“For what?”

Luke paused, then said, “Books.”

That made Saint look at him. Luke’s eyes were on Saint’s wrist, but Saint remembered him in the car, reading James’ copy of Shelley. Saint felt stormy again, a familiar building in his chest that always simmered.

“Excuse me?”

“Give me my watch and I’ll give you—”

“So, you are bargaining.”

“You seem to like hand-outs,” Luke bit back. “You take books from James, don’t you? Not to mention this,” Luke shifted towards Saint. “You take a lot of things from people you claim to hate.”

“Ouch,” Saint said, and it really had hurt. Waste of space. He smiled.

“I can do you better,” Luke said. “Tell me what you want.”

“You mean your daddy could?”

Luke’s expression went cold all over. Lightning, over the strike of green in his right eye, nestled among the deep brown. “What’s his is mine now.”

Saint wondered if Luke had Crucio in his system right now. He didn’t have the tired look of it. Come to think of it, Luke never had that look, not like Logan did. He must take it at night, Saint thought. To sleep, maybe. Some people used it like that. Some people thought it let them control their dreams.

Saint didn’t think anyone could control their dreams, their wants and wishes—waking or asleep. Even if they wanted to.

“Was this his, too?” Saint looked at the watch face.

“God, just—” Luke broke off, shoulders tense, and rubbed his eyes. “What the fuck do you want? Money? Just tell me and give it back.”

Saint checked the time, then looked back at Luke.

“One-thirty. My bedtime. And I don’t need shit from you,” Saint said breezily, and patted Luke’s thigh before pushing himself up from the blanket.

“Saint,” he heard Sirius say faintly, but nothing from Luke, and he kept walking through the Potter’s house.

~

Sirius was almost angry at Saint. Or, maybe, he was angry at himself for wanting to stay at the Potters. He knew why he had been invited, why James had wrapped an arm around him, told him to help himself to the food, why Remus had talked to him, sat beside him, offered…well, he wasn’t sure what Remus had offered.

Pity.

At least, he thought he knew.

Though talking to Remus had felt far from pity. Remus laughed with his eyes squeezed shut, and it had taken Sirius off guard each and every time. He was angry at Remus Lupin. He was angry at him for his words when they were eleven.

Are you okay? Sirius, right?

As if he didn’t know Sirius’ name, and of course Sirius wasn’t okay.

But now Remus Lupin was talking about his boat, and this movie, whatever it was, that Sirius had never seen, and smiling at him as though he’d done nothing wrong.

Or, at least he had been, before Sirius had followed a blank-faced Saint out of the house.

“What are you doing?” Sirius asked Saint’s retreating back as they jogged down the steps to the driveway.

Saint had merely held up something that jingled over his shoulder. The car keys glinted as much as the watch on his wrist which Sirius knew wasn’t his own.

“Taking Luke’s car.”

“Saint, come on,” Sirius sighed. “I mean—that looked pretty fucking civil. Non?”

Saint turned on him. “Oh, yes, and you could hear every word? Non.” Saint kicked one of the tires. “Fuck the Gods, and fuck their shiny cars, too.”

Sirius shook his head. “What’s this—museum stuff? What’s going on? Saint, just talk to me—”

“You took Lupin’s side,” Saint breezed as he chirped Luke’s car. “You don’t get to know.”

That stopped Sirius in his tracks. He took a step back. “Since when do we do that?”

Saint slammed the door, sitting in the driver seat.

“Not tell each other things?” Sirius pushed forward. “Since when?”

Sirius watched him through the rolled down window as he ran his hands over the dark leather of the seats, the shiny black of the dash.

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Saint said softly. “There’s a lot I don’t know.”

“What do you want from the museum?” Sirius tried again. “Is this about…Saint Clair? Logan? Ever since he showed up—”

“Orphan!” came from the house just moments before the front door blew open. Luke zeroed in on Saint behind the wheel instantly, sandy hair casting shadows over his forehead and eyes. “What the fuck is up with you and taking my shit?”

“See you at home, sweetheart,” Saint said to Sirius, and started the car. Luke brushed past Sirius and tugged fruitlessly on the locked door.

“Hey,” Luke only just managed to bang on the back window as Saint screeched out of the Potter’s drive. “Saint!”

Sirius watched as Luke stood there in the humid night, watching his own taillights disappear. He cursed again, running a hand through his hair, and then turned.

Luke looked at Sirius. They stayed a few feet apart in the driveway.

“Do you know where he’s going?” Luke asked, breathing heavily.

Sirius did not like Luke Deveaux.

“No,” he said, and turned back into the house to find Remus.

~

Leo looked over at Logan. They were sitting on the curb outside The Lion, waiting for word from Saint, and Logan was quiet. Not that Logan wasn’t usually quiet, but this felt different. He was picking at an old scab on his knee, taking his hat off and putting it back on again.

“Are you okay?” Leo asked, and Logan didn’t look up when he nodded.

“Is it,” Leo hesitated. “Finn?”

That snapped Logan’s head up. “How did you…”

“You said his name to me,” Leo said softly. “The first night we met. You were…” but Leo didn’t really know the word. High? Hallucinating?

“I know what I was,” Logan sighed.

“Do you want to talk about him?” Leo asked. “I mean, you don’t have to I just…I know it helps to talk about my dad sometimes.”

“Finn isn’t dead,” Logan said harshly. He took his hat off, pushing his hair back, and put it back on again.

“I know,” Leo said. “I know, I just meant—never mind.”

Leo, in a way that Logan would probably hate him for, was dying to know more about Saint Clair. Saint had been around long enough that Leo sometimes lost track of the fact that he’d escaped. Others were around the island, doing work and looking normal enough that Leo could forget about them, too.

But he couldn’t forget Logan. Logan, who was tortured and rough and missing someone in a way that Leo could feel, that Leo could recognize.

Beautiful, with his green eyes and rare smiles, that Leo knew he should steer well away from. Because Finn. Finn sounded like—

“He’s my—” Logan began, then shook his head. “I don’t know what to say. Boyfriend sounds—small.” Logan shifted, looking at Leo. “He’s all I have. He’s all I’ve had for a long time. Since I can remember. My entire life.” Logan ran a hand over his face, and when it came away, he looked exhausted. “I’m just repeating myself, but do you get it?”

“Yes,” Leo said. “I get it.”

“And now he’s—and I’m out here, and…”

“And you want to get him out, too,” Leo finished for him. Logan looked stricken.

“He got me out,” he said softly. “When it came down to it, he chose me. But I didn’t have time to choose him. It was all over so fast.”

Leo rubbed the colorful bracelet on his wrist. Boyfriend. “And when you say you’re looking for him…Waiting for him…”

“I know where he is,” Logan said. “And the waiting part was a lie. I’d be stupid to wait. I need to get him. He—“ Logan swallowed. “There’s a courtyard. Where I can usually see him. But he hasn’t been there.”

Leo watched Logan’s throat bob again. He was picking at his nail beds, at the scab. Leo lay his palm over his restless fingers, and Logan looked up, eyes bright.

“He needs my help.”

“Okay,” Leo nodded. “Okay.”

“Lovers on the wharf,” came a voice, accompanied by thumping music. Saint pulled up in a sleek looking car—that definitely wasn’t his own. He leaned out the window, grinning. “Deveaux has terrible taste in music.”

“You stole this car,” Leo said dryly. “Didn’t you.”

“Yes I did, Knut. Yes, I did.”

“Let's go,” Logan said. He sniffed and picked up his backpack.

“Who’s got shot gun?” Saint asked.

~

Remus stopped in front of the gallery heading that read Madness On Hogwarts.

He hadn’t asked his mother about it yet. He wasn’t even sure how to ask. But, there it was. The name Lupin was there. He didn’t have to look far. It was there, telling about the slow demise of the mind.

Part of Remus had always wondered when his own would begin.

Another part of him felt like it already had.

He was, after all, standing beside Sirius Black on the dark museum floor, looking for a rogue orphan from Saint Clair.

“It seems pretty quiet, to me,” Remus said. “You really think he came here tonight?”

“He stole Luke’s car, didn’t he?”

Remus snorted. “Yeah, but…”

“So, that’s very get-away-ish of him. I mean he blamed it on hating Gods but—“

Sirius cut off, swallowing, realizing what he said.

“It’s okay,” Remus said and smiled a little. “I…it’s okay.”

Sirius cleared his throat. “It’s just that ours doesn’t always start up.”

Remus’ tried to ease the tension. “Get-away-ish?”

Sirius just shrugged and ducked his head, but Remus thought he was maybe smiling, too.

“Why didn’t you tell James where we were going?” Sirius asked instead, shining his flashlight over a model of a great merchant ship, its sails molded to seem like they were filled with wind. Remus could practically feel it.

It was Remus’ turn to duck as they walked around the exhibits, listening. “James Potter and sneaking anywhere? I don’t know about that.”

Sirius did laugh this time, and he looked almost surprised with it. “I guess you’re right.”

“Besides, he and Lily looked cozy.”

Sirius nodded. “Yeah, that’s been almost happening ever since I can remember.”

“Right,” Remus laughed. For a moment it felt like they did know each other. As though they had been going to school together since they were little. As though Sirius hadn’t left school one day and never returned.

“Can I…ask you something?” Remus said hesitantly.

Sirius made a non-committal sound, and Remus figured that was as good as he was going to get.

“When you left school,” Remus began, then hesitated. “Well, I guess I mean, how? Didn’t your parents…or the police, even…”

“My parents don’t want a son like me,” Sirius replied easily. “As far as the law goes…I’ve never been bothered. I assumed they told the Academy I was being homeschooled. When I say someone like me, I guess I mean they don't want anything to ruin their reputation.” Sirius sighed. “Whatever that may be. Otherwise, I don’t know.”

“But you weren’t homeschooled,” Remus said. “You’re in The Hollow?”

Sirius’ smile was a little challenging. “Surfing every morning. Hanging out with my friends every night. I get work where I can, but I don’t need much.”

Remus nodded. “I guess that doesn’t sound too bad. I guess you’re not going to college, then.”

“That stuff isn’t for everyone,” Sirius replied.

“Oh,” Remus began. “No, I wasn’t, like, judging, I was just—”

That was when they heard a thump and a curse. They jolted, looking at each other.

“The archives,” Remus whispered.

“He did say it wasn’t on the floor.”

Remus took off towards the back rooms, Sirius on his heels. He fumbled with his keys for a moment, then shoved the correct one into the lock and pushed the door open.

“Saint,” Sirius panted.

Remus looked from the pried open window, to the boy peaking his head through the glass—Logan, he remembered—and then, finally, to Saint, crouched on the floor and pulling flat drawers open, one after another.

Saint just looked over his shoulder at them, flashlight between his teeth, then back to the file drawer he was rummaging through.

“If you were hoping to catch me, maybe don’t leave your big flashy car out front, Lupin.”

Remus narrowed his eyes. He hadn’t even thought of the car.

“Look, I can’t let you steal something,” Remus said.

Saint scoffed. “Look, if it means that much to you, I’ll put it right back, we just need to look at it.”

Logan dropped in through the window, then, hissing as he cut his forearm on what looked like a stray nail. He looked up, seemingly mindless of the blood dripping near his fingers.

“We’ll just take a picture,” Logan said. “I promise.”

“Who says I’ll let you?” Remus said.

“Because I’m limber like that,” Saint said. “I can get in and out of here, and I can certainly slip through your sailor hands.”

“Yeah, is that something you worry about?” Sirius said, and Saint’s head snapped towards him. The light fell over Sirius’ face. “Being able to make the escape?”

Remus thought the words sounded menacing, at least he thought Saint thought that, but Sirius’ expression was softer. Worried, even.

“Very funny,” Saint finally replied, and his smile had a bite to it around the light. “Ha, ha.”

Saint Clair, Remus realized. Sirius was talking about Saint Clair. He looked at Logan again. Logan was watching Saint almost eagerly.

“What are you even looking for?” Remus asked.

There was a grunt as a third boy piled in—Leo, from The Lion.

“Leo?” Sirius said, looking between the three of them. “Jesus, Saint, what’s going on?”

“We’re looking for something,” Saint’s words were marred by the metal between his teeth. “Merde, aren’t you listening?”

“I told you no,” Remus said.

Saint pulled open another drawer. “And I told me yes.”

Remus and Sirius looked at each other. Remus shook his head, at a loss, and Sirius sighed.

“At least tell us what it is,” Sirius said, and went to crouch beside Saint.

Remus watched as Sirius put a hand on his back, low and firm. It was a familiar and comfortable gesture, and Remus thought Saint maybe pushed into it a little.

Remus tilted his head, looking at the soft splay of Sirius’ fingers.

“A map,” Leo said, and Saint all but hissed at him. “What? We’re not taking anything. I don’t even know why we broke in, really, we should have just asked—”

Saint took the light from his mouth. “I’m nothing if not a showboat.”

“Anything?” Logan asked, peering closer to what Saint was looking at. Saint had two papers in his hands, but he tossed them down roughly—too roughly for Remus’ liking.

Saint ignored Logan with a long sigh, and turned to Remus, bumping one of the flat drawers closed with a hip. “We are in need of a treasure map, Lupin.”

Remus blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t tell me the mad-house you grew up in didn’t have tales of The Voldemort.”

Remus felt his blood spike, heat draping itself around his neck. “Don’t fucking—”

“What Saint means,” Leo stepped forward, eyes apologetic. “I…my dad was looking for it. He was close and…and he’s—Saint and Logan agreed to help me find it. I didn’t know we’d be doing this. They know how much it means to me—”

“If your dad’s close to finding it, why not just use his map?” Remus asked.

Leo glanced up at him, then down at the drawers. “It went down with him and his boat.”

“Oh,” Remus stuttered out. “I…”

Leo just shook his head. “I remember what it looks like. I’ll know it when I see it.”

Saint waved his hand, and Remus noticed Luke’s watch again. “What’s it going to say, Knut, the ancient treasure lies here?”

“It’s not to The Voldemort,” Leo said. “It’s to a trading post, a stop point just off of Hogwarts. In the Cradle. People thought that it might have been a sort of cover operation, that maybe someone found the gold and was using it as a way to smuggle it out unnoticed—”

“So, it’s not even there?” Logan asked.

Leo splayed his hands helplessly. “I don’t know!”

Remus looked at Sirius when he laughed. “You’re kidding.” Sirius knocked Saint’s shoulder. “You’re looking for the fucking Voldemort? Since when?”

“You’re the one who wants to leave this island,” Saint said lowly. “To do that you’ll need money.”

Sirius’ expression changed in the dim light. The moon was high now, and he looked silver and shadowed—and surprised.

“What?” Sirius said faintly. Saint wouldn’t meet his eye. “But you don’t want—”

Logan stepped forward, eyes still on Remus. “Look. We’re not crazy. Leo wants this for his dad, and I—I need to help someone. I told you when we met, didn’t I?”

“You said you were looking for someone,” Remus replied.

Logan nodded quickly.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Saint said and rose, turning to Logan and pointing the light towards his chest like an accusing finger. “Hold every single one of your horses. This is not about Saint Clair, and this is not about Finn. This is about your stupidity and The Carrows.”

“No,” Logan said. “This is about getting Finn out.”

“The Carrows,” Leo repeated, looking at Logan. Logan glanced at him, then rubbed a hand over his face.

“Then help me with Finn,” Logan said, louder this time. “I made a mistake with The Carrows, fine, but are you going to be my next one?”

“No,” Saint all but snarled back.

Logan shoved him, hard, sending Saint crashing back against the files, making them rattle.

“Hey,” Sirius said lowly, and then he had a hand wrapped up in Logan’s shirt, pushing him back.

“Stop,” Remus said, putting his hands out. “Jesus, not here. Maybe you all don’t give a shit, but everything in here is old. It’s precious.” He turned to Leo. “A map, you said a map, just tell me so we can all leave.”

Leo bit his lip, gesturing towards the drawers. “These are labeled?”

Remus nodded and watched them all warily as Leo took the light from Logan and crouched to read the writing on the drawers.

Saint and Logan were still staring at each other. Remus could practically feel some unsaid words between them. Sirius had let Logan go, but Remus didn’t want to keep the three of them in this room together for much longer.

“Here,” Leo said suddenly, and the sound of one of the rattling drawers filled the room. “It’s—oh.”

“What?” Logan asked, shoving around Sirius’ body towards the drawer. Remus followed, glancing back once. Saint and Sirius had their heads close. Sirius had his hand on Saint’s neck, and they were talking softly but quickly to each other.

Remus looked away.

The label read, Cartography. C. 18th. Commerce Port, but in place of anything that the label suggested, was an index card with neat handwriting on it.

On loan: Victor Deveaux

“Deveaux,” Saint said, clucking his tongue. “Deveaux, Deveaux, Deveaux…”

“No,” Remus heard Leo breathe.

“That’s Luke’s dad,” Remus said. He stared at the name. “Oh. That’s…”

“What?” Logan asked. “What do you know?”

Remus shot him a look. He seemed even more on edge than a few moments ago.

“I’d sort of forgotten with everything. Everything that happened to Luke this past year, but,” Remus said. “Luke was always sort of obsessed with the treasure. Only because his dad was, though. When we got older, me and James sort of made fun of him for it, but when we were younger, Mr. Deveaux used to hide little trinkets or candy for us somewhere in the house, and then write out clues for us to work through.” Remus smiled at the memory. It was happy, and it was sad. It seemed like too long ago. “It was fun.”

“So, he has the map,” Logan said. “Can you take us there?”

“Can you relax, speed racer, thanks,” Saint snapped.

“We need the map,” Logan barked back.

“It’s almost three in the morning,” Remus said.

“All the better,” Saint replied and closed the window they had come through before opening the museum door.

“Can’t this wait until morning?”

“Luke won’t just hand it over,” Sirius offered.

Remus turned to him. “What do you care?”

“Saint cares.”

Remus blinked. Sirius was all walled up again, eyes silver.

“Lead the way, Sailor,” Saint said.

~

Luke’s house was large and pristine, but it looked abandoned somehow. Saint stared up at the white walls, the stone chimney that he couldn’t imagine ever got used. He wondered if it was as grand as the Potters’ house inside. It certainly looked that way, manicured and vast. But it lacked the warmth. It seemed to shift in the night wind.

“We can’t just knock,” Remus broke the silence.

“We should wait,” Leo said somewhat nervously.

“I’ve got this,” Saint replied, chin tilted up towards the large house’s windows. “Which one’s his?”

Remus laughed. “You’re not serious.”

“No, that’d be him,” Saint said, clapping Sirius on the back—who rolled his eyes. “Now, tell me.”

“What are you going to do, climb up the drain pipe?”

Saint shucked his flip flops into the grass. “Yes, sir.”

“You could fall,” Sirius warned.

Saint looked at the windows, set deep into the house’s frame. The rough painted sides and stray vine climbing the surface. He looked at the tilted roof. “I won’t. Now which room is his?”

Remus, behind Saint, was quiet for a long time. Saint kept his eyes forward, squeezing his hands into fists, and then letting them out again. His heart beat hard in his chest, as if remembering a memory his mind wouldn’t.

“He keeps a light on,” Remus finally sighed, and pointed. “That window there.”

The metal and stone were cold beneath Saint’s feet. The pipe was sturdy, but every time it creaked he could hear the others whisper from below. The higher Saint climbed, the more the wind picked up. He closed his eyes letting it push his hair off of his forehead. The summer night was humid, and the moon was high.

“Saint?” he heard Sirius whisper from below.

Saint didn’t respond, just kept climbing. That was how climbing worked. Maybe, if you were lucky, you could rest, but the real part was pushing through the aches and the fear.

What do you hate so much that you’re helping us? Logan had asked him in the car on their way to the museum, and Saint had said something silly, as he always did. He’d smiled. Logan hadn’t laughed, but anyone else would have.

Saint thought of Sirius’ hand, low on his back in the archives rooms.

But you don’t want to go, Sirius had been about to say when Saint told him why they needed the gold. But you don’t want to leave.

If they had been alone, Saint might have actually told him the truth.

But you do, he would have said. If there was anything that wouldn’t be wasteful, it was getting Sirius Black off of this island and away from his own, terrified self. Saint might be a waste, but Sirius wasn’t.

Saint reached the roof and crouched, breathing hard. He could see the light from Luke’s room below him, the slates of the slight, pointed arch above the window frame. It was a short drop. He made it soundlessly, glancing down at the dark shape of the others as he swung himself onto the wooden sill. He could see the source of the light now.

It was a small bulb, plugged in low on the wall by the bed. Simple and cheap, with some sort of picture lit up. A sea shell, Saint thought. It didn’t illuminate much, but Saint could see Luke’s face. He was turned towards the window, on his stomach with an arm beginning to fall over the side of the mattress. He was bare to his waist, where the sheets pooled along his lower back.

Saint pushed at the top of the window until it cracked enough for him to curl his fingers beneath the frame. Luke didn’t stir, not even when Saint let the humid night air meet the AC, and set his bare feet softly on the hardwood floor.

Saint still didn’t know if Luke was a snoop, but he certainly knew that he was.

The floor was stacked with books. They were shoved over to the sides of the walls, near the desk beside a tangle of laptop chords and phone chargers. The bedside table was littered with old water glasses and coffee mugs, clothes occupied more of the floor than the open closet. There were small, empty plastic bags littered throughout the room. Saint picked up one, looking at the few grains of remnants.

He let it flutter back to the floor.

Everyone needed to control something, or at least think they did. Saint, for one too many times since Logan arrived, let himself think about Saint Clair. They’d taken clarity from him. He didn’t know how The Voldemort would get him that back—maybe nothing would. It would certainly take Sirius away, the only constant.

But everyone needed to control something. Or at least think they did. If Saint was going to be alone, he wouldn’t let it sneak up on him. Not again.

Saint was as good at tricking himself as he was at tricking others. And he liked gold. Part of him liked Luke, too. Stubborn. Mean. Beautiful. That would never change.

Saint looked down at Luke’s sleeping form. He looked younger in his sleep. He was dreaming. Saint could tell, there was a flicker beneath his eyelids. The bruise on his cheek was slowly fading, but a faint purple still graced his cheek.

“Tricky bastard,” Saint said aloud, and Luke stirred, cracking an eye open.

There it was. The sleepy look of Crucio, the haze. The lack of will, or maybe the abundance of it.

“You,” Luke mumbled. “You’re…”

His eyes flickered over Saint’s shoulder. Saint wondered who he was seeing. Saint crouched beside him and stroked a hand through his hair. Luke leaned into it. A loved one, then.

Luke blinked at him, and his expression shifted. He scrambled backwards, cursing.

“Saint,” Luke said, blinking. Saint laughed. He sort of liked that Luke couldn’t tell if he was really there or not.

“Hello, tweedle,” Saint said, and held up Luke’s father’s watch. “I need something from you.”

[honeyxmonkey]

Whumptober Day 2: Talking Is Overrated

"Douxie!" Toby shouted, struggling against the thick, meaty arms that held him back. "Let him go!"

"No, we can't do that." The man said, tightening the garotte wire around the wizard's throat, listening to his choked sounds with glee. "You kids are a pain in my side and I'm going to take you out. One. By. One." With each word he pulled the wire tighter around Douxie's neck, now drawing a thin line of blood from where it was digging into his skin.

Douxie felt lightheaded from the lack of oxygen, clawing and scratching at the man's arm but he held fast. He let out a choked, gagged scream when the wire was pulled even tighter. The world was beginning to go fuzzy, the voices in the room becoming muffled and far away, like he was listening to a conversation underwater.

The lights dimmed, but that could've just been him blacking in and out. Douxie's struggling started to grow sluggish as he lost consciousness, the warm feeling of blood trickling down his throat became numb and blended in with the rest of the pain he felt as the world went dark.

_______________________________

"Douxie?" There was a warm and soothing voice in his ear, and a familiar weight on his chest. "Come on Douxie don't do this to me."

Muffled voices soon began to become clearer as the wizard drifted back in from a void of unconsciousness.

"He's coming to." Another voice said and Douxie could feel gentle hands at the side of his head.

"That looks bad." Someone else said with worry in their tone.

"He's lucky we came when we did." A girl's voice said.

Douxie struggled to open his eyes but he forced them open, wincing immediately at the harsh white light above him. His eyes adjusted to the light soon enough and he blinked blearily up at the figures surrounding him. Most notably was a large troll with six eyes and four arms.

"Blink-" he tried to get a word out but his voice came out raspy and it hurt to speak. "Bl-"

"Shh," the troll said softly, placing a cool stone hand against the boy's throat. "Don't speak yet, Hisirdoux. Who knows how damaged your vocal chords are."

The weight on his chest shifted and Douxie didn't need to look to know who it was.

"Are you okay?" Archie asked, appearing in his line of vision. The dragon had blood spatters on his fur but Douxie had the feeling it wasn't his familiar’s blood.

"I-" he rasped, immediately being gently knocked on the head by the person who had his head in their lap.

"You heard Blinky, Douxie." Claire said sternly. "No talking."

"No talking for who knows how long?" Jim said with a slightly snarky tone and a very worried smile. He was trying to make light of the situation for him. Bless his heart. "The silence will be amazing."

The little group erupted into laughter and Douxie couldn't help the small chuckle building in his chest.

Claire helped him sit up and out of the corner of his eye, Douxie saw the body of the man who'd kidnapped him and Toby laying a few feet away, blood everywhere. Archie must've been pissed.

Archie seemed to catch where his line of sight was and put a paw on his shoulder. "He didn't deserve to live." He told his familiar quietly. "Not after what he did to you. After he tried to kill you.”

Douxie was silent but nodded all the same.

"Hey, but being killed by a dragon isn't something just anyone can brag about." Steve joked, albeit a little uneasily. "He's gonna have a story to tell all the ghost buddies in hell."

"Alright that's enough." Blinky said sternly. "Save the dark humor for another day." He looked at the wizard again, eyes a bit softer. "Can you stand?"

Douxie slowly and shakily pushed himself up, staggering a bit before steadying himself. He gave Blinky a weak smile and a thumbs up.

"Alright then." Jim stood too, helping to support him as they walked. "Let's get out of here."

_______________________________

They were slow in getting out of the facility. Douxie was still unsteady on his feet and also still bleeding from the thin but precise cut on his throat. Thank god that particular part of the injury wasn’t too bad or else they were in deep trouble.

They slowly made their way down one of the corridors, red flickering lights overhead lit the path in an eerie manner. The group stayed huddled together as they walked, Jim supporting Douxie, and Steve and Claire at his other side and behind him just in case he suddenly went unconscious or something.

“It’s creepy in here.” Toby said nervously. “Where’s the exit again?”

“Not too far now.” Archie reassured, hovering near Douxie’s head. “Just a little further.”

“You said that five minutes ago.” Steve mumbled under his breath.

“We’re lost aren’t we?” Toby bemoaned, scooting a little closer to Aarrrgghh.

“We’re not lost.” Archie snapped, landing on Douxie’s shoulders. “I know the way out.”

“Then where-”

The arguing was cut off abruptly when Douxie suddenly lurched forward, falling to his knees. A raspy cough shook the wizard’s shoulders as he held a hand to his mouth, a deep red liquid splattering onto his fingers.

“Douxie!” Claire knelt next to him quickly, eyes widening at the blood. “Oh no…” she gently turned his head towards her, stomach dropping at how unfocused his eyes were. “Hey, hey look at me.”

Douxie seemed to be looking right through her, not even recognizing she was there. Another spurt of blood bubbled up from his throat and he hunched forward, coughing up the sticky liquid. He sat on his knees, arms wrapped around his waist as he continued to basically vomit up blood.

“What’s happening!?” Steve shrieked, having gone pale at the gory sight.

“I don’t know!” Claire yelled, not caring about the blood splattering on her pants. “Blinky?”

The troll seemed just as lost and as concerned as the rest of them were. “I don’t know…”

The team flinched when Douxie gagged and more blood splashed against the cement floor.

“His throat!” Jim suddenly gasped in remembrance, crouching next to his friend, grabbing the sides of his face to move his head back so he could better see the injury. His stomach churned at what he saw.

The earlier, seemingly fine, wound had begun to fester and smoke, the cut itself digging deeper into the wizard’s skin all on its own. Blood was pouring mercilessly from the injury as if an invisible and intangible knife was cutting deep into Douxie’s throat, causing him to cough up blood… and maybe soon even be choking on it.

“What do we do!?” Jim asked, mind racing for possible solutions.

“How are we supposed to do anything if we don’t even know what’s wrong?!” Claire demanded.

Douxie coughed again, this time it sounded more like a choking sound. He dropped onto one hand, the other clutching his throat as it continued to bleed and then… he dropped. He fell onto his side, gagging and choking on his own blood while his friends watched with helpless horror.

Archie nudged Douxie’s head frantically, eyes darting back and forth while he tried to think of something to do. With a reluctant sigh he placed both his paws down on his familiar’s shoulders, basically standing on his chest. “Sorry about this Douxie,” he said, feeling a comfortable warmth building in his chest and throat while he summoned his fire. “This is going to hurt.”

Without wasting a second the dragon let a scalding hot and steady stream of fire wash over Douxie’s neck. He didn’t stop, not even when the wizard started screaming and thrashing in pain through his choking gags. Claire and Jim were quick to hold him down, eyes wide with tears as they watched.

Finally, when the sound of choked gurgling ceased, Archie let the fire dissipate, nodding at his good work. The wound was closed, cauterized by his magic fire. He’d successfully stopped whatever sort of poison was on the garrote wire that had caused this… he only wished he’d noticed it sooner.

“He’s going to live.” Archie said shakily, watching the tears streaming down Douxie’s face with guilt. “He’ll be fine…”

No one moved, still too shaken up and trying to process everything that had just happened. They sat in the hallway, the lights still flashing a dim and gruesome red, blood spatters on the floor, and they wondered… When would the nightmare end?

[feralnumberfive]

The Rewatch Academy: Episode 2 of Season 1

“Run Boy Run”

I am in no way a good analyst so my little analysis and speculations probably sound a bit goofy or pretty wild and probably mean nothing at all. Everything I put into this post about each episode is purely what I noticed or thought, whether it's funny or serious. I will be making jokes, so please just leave it at that (in no way am I trying to make fun of an actor and or character!) I am also in no way saying I noticed this stuff first. This is just what I noticed while rewatching these episodes

☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂

1x01 | 1x02 | 1x03 | 1x04

☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂

☂ Ben is a tired boy leaning on his chair

☂ Luther and Allison please stop making googly eyes at each other 

☂ Five really woke up and chose violence that day huh

☂ Diego already knows shit is about to go down and it’s so funny

☂ I love that Reginald doesn’t even scold Five for stabbing the table

☂ Five: “I have a question.” blah blah blah Veggie is talking Five: “I want to time travel.” That’s not a question, Five

☂ It’s interesting to see young Five blinking/jumping compared to older Five. Even at this age, 13, he says that he’s still practicing his spatial jumps. Young Five needs to clench his fists and almost squeeze his eyes shut just to concentrate. Older Five simply just teleports without effort and is able to casually blink even as he’s just walking. Five probably practiced teleporting a lot in the apocalypse 

☂ Someone else pointed this out, but all of the other Umbrellas are frozen for a for a second as Five teleports next to Reginald. While that freeze is just editing, and possibly a small error, this is another example of how Five’s spatial teleporting doesn’t make a noise. Luther, Diego, and Allison only look at Five when he begins talking to Reginald. Grace notices Five right away because he is in her line of sight while Luther and Diego were looking at where Five was sitting and Allison had her head down eating

☂ “The effects it might have on your body, even your mind, are far too unpredictable.” Harsh foreshadowing 

☂ The “Run Boy Run” scene is one of the best musical moments in all of the show. It gave me chills when I first heard it, and the fact that all of the lyrics that play during that part match so perfectly with it make it even better. Tomorrow is another day being sung as Five travels into 2019 is just too good 

☂ Imagine how scared you have to be to call out to your p.o.s father

☂ The instant regret immediately falls onto his face and he kneels in front of the Academy

☂ I love how in the first few episodes Five’s hair is styled exactly as it was when he was an old man and when he was actually 13. Over the rest of the season and the second season it just gets more disheveled and floppier 

☂ “You think I didn’t try everything to get back to my family?” Ahhhh there we go, one of my favorite Five lines. This here is probably when I truly fell in love with his character. He spent 45 years just trying to survive and attempting to get back to his family. He would have spent more too if the Handler hadn’t taken him in

☂ Vanya is genuinely trying to understand what happened and Five was being a little asshole. C’mon, bud, she’s just confused and hasn’t seen you in forever

☂ This Five and Vanya scene melts my heart (simply as a sibling relationship!!) She doesn’t care anymore if she understands, she just wants him to stay because she hasn’t seen him in a while. Even Five understands that as his demeanor quickly changes from being frustrated to gently telling her “Night.” He watches her as she leaves, also partially realizing that he hasn’t seen her in a while too

☂ Why didn’t Five just teleport outside of Vanya’s apartment?? That would have been the stealthiest thing

☂ “All quick and efficient skills.” A little note on Five’s level of skill of slaughtering the Commission agents in Griddy’s

☂ Diego said he bought his police badge on Ebay, so computers do exist in the UA universe

☂ “By the way, this thing might look like a botched robbery, but my gut’s telling me something else is going on here.”  Yeah, and that something else is your brother

☂ I want Claire to meet her uncles and aunt so bad

☂ So Ben has a ghostly puzzle book and pen he can use? Because if they were real Pogo would have been able to see them just floating in the air. What other ghostly items can Ben summon? (I believe this is more so just an error but it’s fun to think about)

☂  “I-I found it at a playground, actually. Must have just *click* popped out.” An underrated Five line

☂ Five immediately becomes aggressive at the thought of losing the eye, something he found clutched in the hand of his dead brother and was a clue to what caused the death of his siblings and the end of the world

☂ Just now noticed that you can see Diego up on the second floor being led down to where Patch is in the police station

☂ I really like that they added in the little tidbit about a cold case Five created 81 years ago

☂ I miss Patch. She deserved better and more screen time

☂ Hey, Diego might have been thrown out of the Police Academy but at least he’s still in The Umbrella Academy!

☂ Hearing Patch talk to Diego really made me realize that the Umbrellas weren’t even necessary for helping with crime. It was just Reginald’s way of training them

☂ Love the shot of Luther looking at Diego’s cross-stitch and the camera lining it up so it’s like he’s wearing the mask

☂ Five lying just to keep Vanya away and to continue on with his goal hurts. His goal is saving the world and his family, but I don’t think he actually took in what Vanya was saying to him or maybe he recognized the offer but shoved all of his feelings down. She was reaching out to actually get him some help and he lied to her to avoid that. Maybe he doesn’t care and is just blinded by his ultimate goal. Save the world and family first, then process your feelings and genuinely communicate with your siblings 

☂ Don’t worry Klaus, I would have let you wear that outfit

☂ When Cha-Cha questions “Five” aka the poor tow truck guy, she asks him about “The London job in ‘66.” I believe she is referring to the Shepherd’s Bush murders where three policemen were murdered

☂ Hazel replying “Not from what I’ve heard.” when Cha-Cha asks if he thinks Five is a whimperer shows that Five definitely had a reputation in the Commission for probably being a cold and stoic guy

☂ Vanya is just trying to help, chill Allison 😭. You haven’t seen her in years, what do you know about her?

☂ Klaus would really slap his brother in the face to get drug money

☂ Another example of Five not making noise when he teleports is when he blinks into the taxi and Klaus didn’t notice that he had left until he turned to look where Five was. On the other hand though the taxi driver does jump as Five suddenly appears in the car. However, I believe that might be from the driver noticing Five in a mirror in the car

☂ I wonder what languages the Hargreeves siblings know. Vanya didn’t understand Leonard’s German. You think Reginald would have taught them multiple languages or maybe she forgot it if she was taught it

☂ I don’t know why but Luther just siting there and reading a book and almost getting hit by the knife is really funny to me

☂ Yeah Diego doesn’t have to prove his innocence, but it would have saved a lot of trouble

☂ Rewatching the scene with Leonard talking to Vanya about his father is just disturbing when you already know what happened to him and how he’s lying just to try to be more relatable

☂ I heard a rumor that smoking is bad for you ❌

☂ Vanya calling to make sure Allison is okay even though she hurt her makes me sad. She’s so nice and thoughtful

☂ The old man can’t even reunite with his wife before he gets hunted down

☂ The shot of Hazel and Cha-Cha putting on their masks in the dark with the music is 👌👌

☂ Again, Cha-Cha isn’t able to hear Five as he teleports next to her and slices her arm. She might not have noticed him though because he was very quick to attack her

☂ Five really went through all of that just to bring his wife home

☂ I think it’s an easily blocked out part because we already know what Allison has to say and it’s exciting, but Luther is apologizing about accusing Diego and causing issues amongst his siblings

☂ Five is just so defeated and emotionally tired that he doesn’t allow Luther to touch him. In fact, he very quickly and aggressively grabs Luther’s wrist. You can tell Five is a little out of it and I believe it was more so his subconscious stopping Luther. Five doesn’t want help, he’s going to carry the burden of figuring out who ended the world and killed his family as far as he can by himself

☂ “There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing any of you can do.” Are such heavy lines. Five is so emotionally and mentally tired at the end of the day and he sounds like he’s about to breakdown. He’s replaying the moment he found his siblings’ corpses. They weren’t able to stop the person who ended the world. Luther is offering his help, but Five is denying it. Luther couldn’t stop the person who ended the world. None of his siblings were able to stop that person. He’s telling himself that they can’t help and he’s telling Luther and Allison that too. Five wants to be alone to figure out who this person is. His siblings can’t help him

☂ Five coming across the corpses of his siblings is just heartbreaking. He first stumbles across three adults lying in the rubble. One of them is holding an eye. He goes to shake the man in all black, having a tiny bit hope that miraculously he is still alive. He stumbles across another body only to back away with tears in his eyes as he spots the tattoo on the man’s arm and realizes who these people are

☂☂☂☂☂☂☂

Feel free to comment or reblog with things you have noticed too!