#night mother is dubiously real. we do NOT

[poptartmochi]

love having a new Guy because then all the pre-existing guys get a cycle in the washing machine w him 🌪️🌪️

[nathan--matthews]

Common Goal || Apollo as Nathan and Charlie

Before coming back to Elysium as Nathan, Apollo had lived on this island as Patrick. He'd been here during the early days and had seen alliances and friendships form throughout the mutants before he'd decided to inhabit Patrick's body. One of Madelina's early friends, along with Amy, had been a girl named Charlie Diaz. Their bond had gone deep. So deep, in fact, that she'd been there when Madelina used her telepathy in order to kill someone for the first time. Charlie had been there to help Madelina get rid of the body and had also confessed her feelings that same night. To his surprise, Madelina rebuffed Charlie and the girl skulked off, licking her wounds.

It was no secret that Nathan was on Elysium Island. After a few encounters with onlookers, word had spread like wildfire. He'd even heard it at their wedding when he was in his real body, pretending to be 'Sean'. Madelina must have heavily shielded her mind that day because talk of Nathan and his return was on almost everyone's lips. "What would happen now that they are married? " "Didn't he say he wanted to be in hers and Lottie's life? " "How would that work?"

In fact, Apollo had been incredibly pleased that people were talking about Nathan. The more the island talked about him, the easier it would be to involve himself in Madelina and Amy's affairs.

However, in contemplation with himself, he realized that he would need allies. He would need people on the island and in Maddie's life to vouch for him, to speak for him when he couldn't speak for himself. He'd already reached out to Amy's mother. It hadn't backfired on him yet, but he was cautious. He found himself constantly wondering what Charlie Diaz was up to and made it his mission to 'bump into her' somewhere in Elysium. And so, here he was. In one of her favorite bars on the beach, waiting to run into her. When he caught sight of her familiar red hair, he cleared his throat and used his voice. "Excuse me...are you Charlie? Charlie Diaz?" He asked.

The girl looked suspicious almost immediately and looked him up and down before deciding to answer. "I am. How do you know who I am and why do you know my name?

"My name is Nathan Matthews. You might have heard of me from Maddie," he used the shortened form of the winged woman's name, knowing that the only person in her life that called her by her whole name was himself, Apollo. "I'm Lottie's father." He waited for a moment as understanding settled on her features.

"What are you doing here? You pushed her away. She's married now...or hadn't you heard?" She said it with a disgusted tone and rolled her eyes, disgusted at both the marriage and Nathan. "She's moved on, man. Give it up and go back to the mainland where you belong." She started to move away from him when he stopped her.

"I just want to be part of Lottie's life. Please. Hear me out. I thought if anyone would understand me...it could be you." He sounded genuine, he knew. He'd been practicing, trying to be more like Nathan than even the real Nathan was. "You were once her family, weren't you? I remember. After Maddie left and came back here, you helped her with Lottie. You were there for some of her pregnancy. You have to know what it's like to have a family in the palm of your hands and then feel them slip away from you." He felt his own eyes fill with tears and did an internal fist pump-- damn, he was good. He was so good, in fact, that Charlie started to get emotional as well.

"How do you know all that? Did Maddie tell you?" She asked, blinking rapidly so tears wouldn't fall.

He didn't answer, but changed the subject. "Let me buy you a drink. I want to explain why I'm here. I think we could help each other." He put his hand on her back and led her to a more private spot in the bar where they wouldn't be seen or heard. "What would you say if I told you that I have a plan to get Maddie away from Amy?" He asked dubiously, tilting his head to the side.

Charlie chuckled wryly. "Not likely, buddy. They can't be pried apart. They're like one person now...or haven't you noticed? They're all over each other all the time and holding hands and kissing each other. It's revolting." She said, rolling her eyes.

"And what if it was Amy's choice? Or...what if something...happened...to Amy?" He floated, trying to gauge her reaction.

Charlie became completely serious. "Excuse me?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "Amy would never choose to walk away from Maddie. Not after they got married...not with Lottie as her new daughter." She said, vehemently before leaning forward, her eyes watching Nathan's face. "And if something happened to Amy...you mean...something intentional. Is that what you mean?"

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, shrugging his shoulders. "Maybe. If it was...what would you say to that? It would free up Maddie for you...get rid of Amy..."

Charlie wasn't fooled. She cut him off quickly. "Then why are you here if not to get Maddie back? What the fuck do you need me for if you're just going to go after Amy and you can have Maddie in the end. Why pull me aside and tell me all of this?"

Apollo had to remember what he'd said when he first got to the island, it was important to remember the reason he'd given for Nathan to be there at all. "All I want is a relationship with my daughter, Charlie. And I can't have that with Amy in the picture because she already has 2 parents. If you were with Maddie, it would be like...a quirky aunt in her life instead of another mom." He offered. It wasn't true. He wanted Madelina and he could care less about Lottie. Lottie was simply an instrument to get him into Madelina's life. If need be, he could pawn the little girl off on Charlie entirely or even Maddie's father and stepmother. All he wanted was his Madelina back and maybe as Nathan, he had a chance at that. "I see that I overestimated your devotion," he said, starting to rise. "Clearly you don't feel as strongly about Maddie as I thought you did. Else...you would do whatever it took to get her back."

Charlie's hand struck out and stopped the man. She breathed heavily for a moment, closing her eyes as she made her decision. "I'm making a deal with the devil...aren't I?" She asked, looking up at his face intently. "If we are going to do this...it can't be painful. However we get rid of Amy...she can't suffer. Maddie would never live through it. And we have to do it soon. If Lottie remembers Amy, that will make it harder for me to be her new parent. I don't want her to have any trauma."

Apollo had to stop himself from grinning like a Cheshire cat. He moved to sit back down and put his hands in front of him, finger's laced. "Then let's talk specifics, my new friend. Let's talk specifics."

[arwenlalaith]

The Thing That Wrecks You

Ship: Alex Blake/Emily Prentiss

Summary: Tag to 200. Alex knows better than to let Emily into her heart a second time.

Word Count: 1438

Emily was drunk.

Well, maybe not drunk, per se...but she had been drinking for most of the night. Which is why Alex had volunteered to stay and drive her to her hotel.

"Are you sure?" JJ asked, still wrapped tightly in Will's arms. Her gaze kept drifting over to Emily where she was swaying slightly, even as she used the pool cue to balance while she waited for Derek to finish his turn. "I know you two have history – we could call her a cab or Will and I can..."

Alex shook her head, glancing over her shoulder at Emily as well. "It's fine," she insisted, "We're both mature adults, we can handle one car ride...especially if one of us is drunk off their ass."

JJ was obviously unconvinced.

"Go home with your husband, JJ," Alex said. She attempted a smile that really didn't feel all that convincing either, thankful when JJ didn't comment on that fact.

"Where are we going?" Emily asked, speech slurred as she stared out the car window, forehead leaned against the cold glass.

"Home."

"Home?" Emily repeated, somewhere between curious and confused.

Alex sighed, glanced over at her. "I don't trust that you won't choke on your own vomit and asphyxiate in the night," she explained, "So, I'm bringing you home with me."

"Oh." A beat. "Oh..." She grinned, waggled her brows mischievously.

She didn't need to say anything for Alex to know exactly what she was thinking. They'd known each other long enough that words were rarely needed. "Don't get any bright ideas, Emily. We're not going to sleep together tonight."

"Are you sure?" Emily asked, perhaps a little cocksure in her drunkenness.

Rolling her eyes, Alex managed to remain remarkably calm as she chided, "Enough, Emily."

Under her breath, Emily muttered, "You used to be more fun..."

"More fun?" Alex scoffed, shook her head. "Maybe I was more fun...before the woman I loved – the mother of my son – left me. Not to mention faked her own death and moved an ocean away without even bothering to tell me!" Her voice became louder and increasingly agitated as she spoke until she was nearly shouting.

That seemed to sufficiently appeal to Emily's guilty conscience and she immediately clammed up, no longer in a playful mood.

It was too late, though. Alex had already started in on her rant and there was no stopping it now that she'd begun. "You do not get to lecture me anymore. You gave up that right a long time ago. I think I've been more than flexible tonight, put up with more than my fair share of aggravation. And it was for the sake of saving JJ, so I said nothing, did nothing. But you don't get to sit here and act like the victim in all this."

"'Victim'," Emily repeated dubiously, "God, you're dramatic."

That was clearly the wrong thing to say. "You can fuck right off, Emily. I'm looking after you out of the goodness of my heart, because I thought we could both be mature adults about this and put the past aside for one night, but if that's too hard..."

"No one asked you to do that!" Emily snapped.

"You're joking, right?" Alex said, obviously unamused. "Everyone asked me to. Literally every single person on the team seemed to think that seeing me again would be hard for you, asked me to treat you with kid gloves and I wanted to laugh because they all seemed to know something I didn't – they all seemed to think you still carry a torch for me. And much as I wanted to believe that might be true, I figured it couldn't possibly be...afterall, you're the one who left."

Silence followed as Emily seemed to digest the fact that the entire team seemed to know far more than she'd ever wanted them to see.

Alex continued on undeterred, "Maybe if you weren't drunk and belligerent, we could have had a real conversation about us, but that's clearly not about to happen now, so I'll just grin and bear it – as usual – and nurse you back to sobriety and then pretend like nothing ever happened when I wake up and you're gone to catch a plane back across the ocean without so much as a 'thank you' or even a 'goodbye'."

Emily said nothing. She would have liked to argue, to insist that Alex was overreacting and over-dramatic, but knew that Alex was completely just in her accusations. She would have liked to apologize for all the ways she'd hurt her over the years, but knew that Alex was in no mood to hear apologies. She'd never been all that good at apologies anyway.

She sighed sadly, rested her forehead against the window once again rather than say anything else that might risk another verbal evisceration. She could feel Alex's gaze on her, though, and knew that the conversation had not finished.

______________

Emily clutched the pillow to her chest while she watched Alex make up the bed in the spare room, too drunk to be of any real assistance, and it struck her in that moment as odd that the one person who quite possibly knew her better than anyone else in the world, the person who was still, after everything, taking care of her could manage to contain the dichotomy that was still being in love with her while also being barely able to stand the sight of her.

"Why?" she blurted out before she'd even begun the thought process of initiating speech.

"Why what?" Alex asked on a sigh as she smoothed out the top sheet, not even bothering to spare Emily a glance.

Emily shook her head a moment, tongue flicking out over her lip. "Why didn't we work together?"

Alex finally did look at her then, expression something approaching exasperation. "You tell me, given that you're the one who left," she snapped. Which Emily had to concede was fair, she deserved that.

"I didn't leave because of you," she said in a voice that was uncharacteristically meek. "It was never about you."

"You'll have to excuse me if that fails to be of any comfort to me," Alex said dryly. "Because it sure felt really fucking personal when I came home to find all your things gone with only a note to provide any sort of explanation. A note, Emily! You didn't even have the basic decency to tell me to my face that you were leaving!"

Cheeks flushing faintly under the intensity of Alex's anger, Emily mumbled, "I tried, but..."

She shook her head furiously, crossing her arms firmly over her chest. "I deserved better than the way you left. After everything we'd been through together, I deserved more."

"I get that..." Emily started to respond.

Alex didn't give her the chance to finish. "I don't think that you do, Emily! Because it's been almost ten years and we're still exactly where we were before. Nothing has changed and you have the audacity to ask me why we're not still together!? Maybe it's time you looked in a mirror..."

It wasn't what she'd wanted to hear – not that she was all that clear on what kind of answer she'd anticipated – but it left her very little room to argue, as nothing she'd said thus far was untrue.

"Do you want the truth, Emily?" Alex asked. Without giving her time to provide an answer either way, she continued, "The truth is that I do love you; I probably always will. And if I thought that things might be different if I took you back, I probably would do so in a heartbeat.

"That's the thing, though... I don't think you've changed. I've done a lot of work on myself to get to a point where I don't hate you, a point where I could actually see myself being friends with you and I respect us both too much to throw away that progress. But more importantly, I respect myself too much to put myself back in a situation I know is toxic."

Emily nodded slowly, looking very close to tears but refusing to let them fall.

With a sigh, Alex settled on the edge of the bed, absently playing with a loose thread on the comforter. She patted the bed beside her in a silent signal that Emily join her. When Emily settled next to her, Alex surprised both of them by wrapping an arm around her shoulders, leaning in so her temple pressed against Emily's.

"I will always always love you, Emily," she confessed, "But we're just too different to be together anymore."

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hi, this might be a crazy request but since you asked for something platonic. Could you maybe write something where reader is a lonely siblingless kid and has three imaginary friends that are Jade, floyd and azul? For an example the parents see there child come home with all these toys despite only giving them 10 dollars and they ask if she stole them and there child just responds "no azul told me what to say to the sales clerk so I got these for 10 dollars but he keeps telling me to sell them!"

Ooh, this is a really fun idea ✨ so I took it and ran with it~

This prompt almost perfectly describes what I was like as a kid AHAHAHAH so it hits close to home... I hope others are able to relate, too.

***Mild spoilers for Dorm Floyd’s personal stories~***

Imagine this...

From a young age, the sea had always resonated with you.

There was something so calming about it--its depth, its expansiveness, the way light caught and sparkled on its surface. The waters were comforting in a way that human company never was. With no siblings and few friends to call your own, the sea was your solace--the thing that set your heart at ease.

The moon, like a pearl, an eye, in the sky, watched over you as you wandered along the shore, waves gently lapping at your ankles. Sand squishing between your toes, the chill of water delighting you. You clung to your mother and father’s hands that night, letting them guide you through the darkness, illuminated only by a silvery glow.

“Do you know why they call this beach Mermaid’s Cove?” your mother asked, pursing a finger to her lips. “They say that you can hear strange singing at midnight. That’s when the merfolk come out to make music.”

“Really?” Your eyes sparkled with wonder. “Do you think we’ll see some mermaids today? I wanna meet one.”

“We know you do, kiddo,” your father sighed. He gave you a playful ruffle on the head, messing up your sweat and sea-slicked hair. “But your mother and I worry that you’re a little lonely. You need to get your head out of clouds... uh, water... and make some friends outside of your imagination, too.”

“It’s not just my imagination. Merpeople are real, and I’m gonna be one when I grow up!” You prodded a seashell buried in the sand with a foot. “I’ll make a deal with the sea witch and get a magic potion, and when I drink it, I’ll grow scales and gills and a tail.”

“Then we’ll have to move you to an aquarium,” your mother joked, giving your small hand a squeeze. “And you won’t be able to hug all your sea creature plushies--they’ll get soaked if we try to bring them to you.”

“I’ll play with them by the water, then! I’ll keep’m dry!”

“Will we have to feed you sushi every day, too?” your father asked, wagging a finger teasingly. “Raw seafood? And get you seashells for your hair?”

“Yeah!! I’ll eat sushi and raw seafood and seaweed. I’ll wear all the fishy fashions, with seashells and coral! I’ll...” Your voice trailed off.

In the distance, a faint sound skipped across the waves to greet your ears. It was soft at first, a few notes that gradually evolved into an expertly woven melody. Slow and a little sorrowful, a song of ruin and rebirth.

Your heart skipped a beat, excited and aching at the same time. You tore away from your parents to dash out toward the waters, kicking up sand in your wake.

The sea was an azure blue, fading into jade at some points, and frothing with foam, a mixture of whites and pale greys. You squinted, and there it was. A crash, a splash--and a flash of a slender fin.

A fish, or...?

“Sweetie, wait...! Where are you going...?”

“I hear the mermaids!” you called back to them, pointing out into the sea. “They’re out there, and they’re putting on a special concert for us! Look, look! I just saw one of them diving back under!”

Your mother and father stared dubiously out into the waves, then at each other.

“... I think it’s well past your bed time now, dear. We should head back to the cabin and tuck you in for the night,” your mother murmured, slipping her hand back into yours.

“But mom...! I’m awake, I really, really am! I saw them, I know I did!”

“Your mother is right. Come along, now. The mermaids aren’t going anywhere. You can... see them again another day.” Your father patted you firmly on the back.

“But what if they do go somewhere?”

“[Full Name]. You heard your mother. Let’s go. We’ll return in the morning.”

“Awww, fine.”

You allowed your parents to herd you back, stomping dejectedly in the sand all the while, leaving your tiny footprints behind. You grumbled under your breath, something about how stinky stupid this whole thing was, and how you had longed to listen to the music for longer. The watchful eye of the night sky followed you and your tantrum.

“It’s not fair,” you muttered. “Not fair at all.”

“You should work on your negotiation skills, little one,” advised a dulcet voice.

A young man had emerged at the water’s edge, striding alongside you and your parents at a brisk pace. He was dressed in glasses, some kind of a fancy suit, and a hat, a scarf and jacket hanging off of his shoulders and trailing behind him. His locks were the color of moonlight, and his eyes, the sea itself.

Neither of your parents reacted to the young man--yet you could hear him, could see him, quite clearly.

“Knee-go-shee-ah-tions?” you whispered, your eyes swelled with confusion. “What’s that?”

“What he means,” cut in another smooth voice, “is that you have much to learn in the way of speaking up for yourself. Ah, but there will be plenty of time for that.”

Another stranger had appeared, bending at the hip and bowing to you as you passed. He wore a similar suit to the first person, though his coat was entirely buttoned up, and his bowtie perfectly affixed against his collarbone. A single earring, comprised of three diamond-shaped scales, dangled from his left ear, twinkling teal in the moonlight. He raised his sharp eyes to yours, revealing one olive, one gold--and a stripe of black against turquoise hair, cropped short.

“Ahahah~ I can’t wait to play with you some more,” added a third in a singsong. “They’re so small, but feisty, too! Just like a little shrimp. Hey, that’s what I’ll call you from now on, okay? Little Shrimp.”

You tilted your head--and there was a spitting image of the second stranger. His coat hung open, and his bowtie was undone, shirt not fully buttoned. He walked along with hands shoved in his pockets, lips turned up in a toothy grin and downturned eyes creased with glee. A stripe of black hair ran along his right side, along with his earring and the golden orb of his eye.

“Who are you guys?”

“Us?” The three of them shared a knowing smile--unseen and unheard by your mother and father. “Why, we’re your new friends.”

The house always felt empty when your parents were away at work. They often fretted, filling your room with more stuffed animals than you could count to keep you company. When those could no longer hold your attention, your father had returned one day with a plastic bag filled with water and a big, fat goldfish. Its tank was mounted in the living room, where you could make faces at it for hours on end until the front door swung open, and your parents paraded in.

Day 3 of goldfish watching, and you were already bored out of your mind.

You puffed up your cheeks and stuck out your tongue, blowing a raspberry at the fish. It gaped at you blankly, mouth opening and closing to let bubbles escape.

“You’re not very interesting,” you told it, tapping the glass accusingly. You wore a frown as you laid your cheek upon your arm, eyes slowly following your pet as it floated around aimlessly.

“Mm? Is Goldfishy boring you, Little Shrimp?”

You craned your head, finding Floyd to have plopped himself down beside you. He mimicked your motions, smushing his own cheek against his arm--but he wore a mischievous grin rather than a frown.

“That’s not his name! I called him Riddle, so you’ve gotta call him Riddle, too.”

“What kinda name is Riddle? Goldfishy makes way more sense.”

“That’s a silly name! Riddle is already a goldfish, so naming him Goldfishy is repeating. It makes no sense.”

“Riddle makes about just as much sense if you ask me.”

“You make no sense, Floyd!”

“Ehehehe. Where’s the fun in making sense?” He threw his head back and laughed. It sounded raspy, and on the verge of crazed, but there was still a musical quality to it that you liked.

“You stink at coming up with names,” you declared stubbornly. “You call a goldfish Goldfishy but you call me a Little Shrimp when I’m not even a shrimp!”

“It’s cuz you’re so teeny tiny,” Floyd cackled, flicking you on the forehead, “like a shrimp. I’d like to see you try to come up with something better.”

“I can.”

“Then...” He displayed two rows of dagger-like teeth. “What would you call me if I wasn’t already ‘Floyd’?”

Your answer was instantaneous: “Shark.”

“Eeeeh? You picked such a scary one. Am I scary to you, Little Shrimp?” Floyd leaned in a bit, his large form casting an ominous shadow over you. His smile remained lazy and laid back. “If you’re not careful with what you say, I might just gobble you up for lunch~”

At once, you leapt onto your feet, emboldened by his words. “Nuh-uh! Bet you can’t catch me in the first place!”

“Bet’cha I can,” Floyd retorted, hauling himself up to his full, imposing height--over 190 cm, easily towering over your puny form. “Sharks are fast swimmers! I’ll get you in no time at all.”

You looked at Floyd, then at his legs. Long and lithe, almost like a mermaid’s tail, split down the middle. You didn’t doubt his claim for one second.

... Which was exactly why you raised a leg and kicked him right in the shins as hard as you possibly could.

Floyd howled in surprise and doubled over, clutching at his knees--and with that head start, you made a run for it. His maniacal laughter carried after you as you raced down the hallway. "Ahahahah! That was a dirty trick you pulled, Little Shrimp!! I’m going to punish you when I get my hands on you...!!”

You skidded around a corner and scrambled into your bedroom, leaving the door hanging open so as to not draw suspicion to yourself. With a squeak, you dove under your bed and lodged yourself into its dark depths. You slapped your hands over your mouth to muffle your panting, and instructed yourself to stay still.

Sharks can smell fear, can’t they?

You inhaled shakily.

This was your safe haven, your undersea lair, as you called it. You had spent countless hours pretending to brew potions and tending to an anemone garden here, tucked away from the rest of the world. A familiar warmth swept over you, slowing your racing heart.

Stomp, stomp.

You could see Floyd in the distance--his polished shoes clicking against the flooring, and his funny striped socks. He made a great show out of checking every door, knocking at first, waiting a few moments, and then kicking the door down with a powerful foot.

To your horror, he quickly made his way to your bedroom. The merman paused at the threshold to knock.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!! Uncle Floyd just wants to have a little talk!” He cried out, voice tinged with a bit of madness. “If you give up now, I promise I’ll squeeze you gently!”

No reply came.

“Ohhhkaaaay, looks like we’re gonna have to do this the hard way!”

Floyd prowled in, sweeping to stick his head in your closet, your toy chest, even in your desk drawers. He made a full round, stopping just short of your hiding spot. If you reached out, you could touch his foot.

Your heart caught in your throat, and your hands clamped down harder than ever around your mouth. A frantic mantra repeated in your head. Don’t look under the bed, don’t look under the bed, don’t look under the bed...!!

“... ‘Kay, I guess you’re not here!”

And with that, Floyd spun around and his heel and bolted out.

Huh? You blinked, flabbergasted. Had you done it? Had you outsmarted the shark?

You held your breath, letting a few seconds pass, then cautiously poked your head out from under the bed. You shimmied, carefully wiggling your body out from down under. Bit by bit, you crawled your way out of the undersea cavern.

Then came the harsh tug at your ankles, yanking you back into the darkness.

You shrieked as you sailed backwards, limbs flailing in desperation. You kicked and punched at the air, but to little avail. Try as you might to fight against the monster from the deep, its grip held tight like a vice grip.

A familiar shadow loomed overhead as you came out on the other end of the bed. The shadow of a shark.

“Caught you,” Floyd announced giddily. “Ehehe. You’ve been pretty bad lately, Little Shrimp--so for your punishment, I’m gonna tickle you until your stomach hurts!! Prepare yourself~”

“Drink up, Flowey!” you chirped, tipping your watering can, heavy with water, to grant a refreshing drink to a bed of flowers.

(Once, you had called repetitive names stupid, but thanks to Floyd’s influence, you practically named everything after what it actually was. Was it a blessing or a curse? Perhaps both.)

While your parents were away, you looked after yourself at home--doing your homework, amusing yourself, even taking care of a few household chores. You had taken up “gardening” recently, if only because it was an excuse to be near some water. Hosing down the plants was great fun (until mother warned you you’d drown the poor things), so now you made it a habit of watering them a bit in the afternoons.

You set the watering can down and stepped back to admire your work. Flowey now glistened with fat droplets upon its petals, its soil soaking up its midday drink. “Grow up big and strong,” you whispered, patting its petals.

Of course, the flower did not answer--but you liked to think that it was nodding along to your wish.

“... [Name]-san? Ah, so this is where you were.”

Your ears perked up. Glancing over your shoulder, you found Jade perched on the backyard porch, hands dutifully clasped in front of him.

“What a good child you are, assisting your parents with looking after the garden,” he mused, striding over. Though shorter than Floyd by a few centimeters, Jade still towered over you. It was only when he crouched down that he was able to meet you at eye level. “How are the plants faring today?”

“They’re doing really good!”

“Well. They are doing really well,” he corrected.

“They’re doing really well!” you parroted back. “Maybe one day they’ll be even bigger than you and Floyd!”

“Fufufu. Will they, now? I look forward to that day, then.” Jade’s mismatched eyes glimmered with anticipation. “With all of these flowers and herbs you’re cultivated here... When the time comes to harvest, you will have a bounty on your hands.”

"Yeah! Mom and dad can make something really good with the herbs. And we’ll have fresh flowers to make the dinner table pretty!” You giggled, pleased with yourself. “We might get an apple tree, and plant some potatoes too, so we can have even more food from home.”

Jade nodded, his eyes carefully tracing the perimeter of your fenced-off garden. He tucked a hand, fingers curled, under his chin. “... Have you considered adding fungi as well?”

“Fun-guy?”

“Mushrooms.”

“Don’t mushrooms grow in icky places?” You grimaced, wrinkling your nose. “I don’t wanna eat something that grows in caves and between my toes.”

Jade chuckled. “They are more than just a means of nourishing oneself. Mushrooms can be used for poison medicine as well. Some can glow in the dark, some create their own ‘ink’, some change color... They are fascinating. What’s more, mushrooms can enrich the soil and make it easier for your other plants to grow.”

“They can?” you gasped, a hand flying to your mouth.

“Yes. You wished for your flowers to grow as tall as myself and Floyd one day, correct? Mushrooms can assist you in that endeavor.”

“Wow, are they magic or something?”

“Fufu. You could say that, yes.” Jade grinned from ear to ear. “But if you wish to see this ‘magic’ for yourself, then I would highly suggest investing in some mushrooms of your own. Do bring it up to your mother and father when you next discuss plans for the backyard.”

“Okay! I’ll do that!”

“Responsible and obedient. My, your parents must be so proud of you, [Name]-san,” he cooed, reaching out and running hand through your hair.

“... I dunno.” Your voice was small in the shaded garden. “They look at me funny sometimes. Dad says my head’s full of water, and mom worries that I don’t have friends from class.”

“... Is that so?” Jade’s smile turned sympathetic. “I suppose it is only natural for parents to be concerned for their child. However, in my humble opinion, there is nothing wrong with being considered an odd duck.”

“There isn’t?” A touch of hope honied your tone.

“Oddity is what gives the world its flavor, its spice. If we were all exactly alike, life would be quite dull to experience. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yeah, but...” You bit your lower lip. “My classmates don’t like odd. I get picked last for sports and group projects. They don’t want to play with me during recess. I’m always alone.”

“It is their loss--but you need not fear. You are not without friends. You have myself, Azul, and Floyd now, yes? We are your friends, and we enjoy your oddity.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

You fell silent, letting his words stir around in your head.

“... Thanks, Jade. I feel a little better now.”

“I am glad to hear it.” He rose to his full height and offered a gloved hand. “If you are finished tending to the plants, might I invite you inside for a snack? Your parents have left a platter of fresh fruit for you in the fridge. There are apples, bananas, oranges, and a berry medley.”

“Can’t I have cookies instead?”

Jade’s smile widened. “Most certainly not.”

“You’re no fun!! Floyd lets me eat cookies for snack time.”

“Floyd and I are not one and the same. You may say what you will, but I am merely doing my part to help maintain your health. Were you to be malnourished, I would not nearly have the same amount of amusement that I currently enjoy.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I wouldn’t concern yourself with it.” Jade placed a hand on the small of your back and gently ushered you indoors. “Come now--right this way. I will fetch you your fruit, in addition to some granola and a cup of low-fat yogurt. After all... What are friends for?”

You folded your arms, squinting down at the stacks of homemade play money spread out before you. Each “coin” was a haphazard circle with a number scrawled in the center, and each “bill” was colored in crayon and boasted crudely drawn mermaids or fish in the center. Seated across from you on the floor was Azul, his arms also crossed, patiently waiting for your answer.

“Let me repeat the question again to refresh your memory,” he suggested. “If I purchase the rights to the Mystery Drink from the Mystery Shop for 100 madol, tax included, then resell it at the Mostro Lounge for 1500 madol a glass, not yet including a 20% tip and a 8% tax, how much profit do I stand to make for each sale of the Mystery Drink?”

“You’re making it too hard, Azul!” you squeaked in protest. 

“I am challenging your intellect,” he insisted, pushing his glasses up. “Now then, your response?”

“I like you better when we’re playing board games. Even Monopoly’s better than this.”

“Your response, if you please.”

“My response is that you’re a meanie!!” you cried, shoving a handful of play bills and coins at him with a loud huff.

He glanced at the amount--quickly calculating the sum in his head--then grinned down at you. “That is correct. Well done. I knew you had it in you--all you needed was a little push in the right direction.”

“Hmph! You’re still a meanie.”

“This is the thanks I receive for helping you get ahead of your studies in math? How cruel of you, [Name]-san,” Azul sighed dramatically, bringing a hand to his forehead. “And here I thought you would be more grateful for my services... especially after I assisted you in cutting a deal with that toy vendor. Sob, sob, sob...”

“Liar. I can tell you’re fake crying!”

“Oh dear, it seems like I’ve been caught and foiled again. What ever shall I do?”

You laughed, chucking the rest of the fake money at him. “Make it up to me by getting me a Mystery Drink! I want to drink some, too!”

“As you wish, dear customer.” Azul swiftly collected all the bills and coins, tucking them away into an inner pocket of his jacket. “Shall we make the trip to the kitchen together to pour you that drink?”

“Yeah! Let’s go!” You eagerly hopped to your feet and trailed after Azul.

Click clack. Each step he took was accompanied by his walking stick snapping against the floor. Sharp and resounding in the long, empty corridors of your house.

You stared up at him quizzically.

“Azul, are you old?”

“Old?” He made a face. “Older than you, yes, but no older than the twins. By month, the twins are actually considered to be older than me.”

“You act a lot older. Plus, you’ve got this cane, and glasses, and grey hair!” you pointed out.

“I beg your pardon? For your information, this is no cane. This is a magical staff. One wave—” Azul pantomimed sparkles shooting through the air with a wiggle of his fingers. “—and I can make all your dreams a reality.”

“Can you make yourself real? And Jade and Floyd, too.”

“... That, I’m afraid, is simply not possible.” Azul glanced away, his expression solemn.

“You lied to me again.”

“Only if you consider us to be dreams. You’re very much awake right now, aren’t you? So technically, it was no lie.”

“Sneaky sneak!!”

Azul laughed. “Pay attention to wording, and you can find loopholes and grey areas in nearly anything. That is what makes for a skilled negotiator and debater.”

“You said something like that at Mermaid’s Cove.” You bounced on your tip-toes. “Have I gotten better since then?”

A sly smile. “Perhaps.”

“Geez, just gimme a clear answer!!”

Your banter continued as you crossed the threshold into the kitchen. Seated at the dining table, your father, newspaper in hand, and your mother with a cup of coffee. Sunday evenings were moments of reprieve for them, yet their eyes were deep and dark, almost sunken in.

Their heads turned to you as you, still bickering with thin air, entered. They exchanged a worried glance.

“Who are you talking with today, sweetie?” your mother asked nervously, staring at where Azul was—and seeing nothing there.

“It’s Azul, mom!” you replied cheerily. “He’s making me a Mystery Drink.”

“A... Mystery Drink?”

You swept by her and to the cabinets to retrieve a cup for yourself. Then you flung open the fridge and pulled out an assortment of fruit juices (though in your mind’s eye, you imagined Azul perched behind a classy bar area doing this for you). Unscrewing each cap, you poured off some of each juice into your glass (picturing Azul in your place).

Apple, orange (with pulp for texture), grape, cranberry, lemon, lime, fruit punch... You thought of them all dancing around in your mouth in a conga line.

You replaced the caps and, using a spoon, stirred up your drink to incorporate everything. (He handed it over with a crafty grin. “It’s on the house—no need to thank me, [Name]-san. Drink up.”)

“Thanks, Azul!” you told the air. Glass of Mystery Drink in hand, you plopped down between your parents at the table. “Oh, and Azul says ‘hi’, mom and dad. He thinks you should visit the Mostro Lounge one day.”

“And the ‘Mostro Lounge’ is...?” Your father raised an eyebrow.

“It’s the restaurant he works at with Jade and Floyd. They have lots of yummy stuff like this!” you explained, taking a loud slurp of your concoction.

“Right...” Your mother pursed her lips. She opened her mouth, as if wanting to say something, but immediately closed it before any words could escape. “We’ll have to go there next summer vacation, then.”

“Where did you say you met these... fishy characters again?”

“At Mermaid’s Cove a few years ago, dad. Remember? We heard them singing.” You paused, listening to Azul’s business pitch. “The Mostro Lounge usually has jazz music. They’re thinking of starting in-house band performances every weekend. Azul on the piano, Jade on the bass, and Floyd on the drums.”

“I see...”

Another concerned look was exchanged between your parents.

“Well... as long as you’re having fun, dear,” your mother said at long last. Her smile was kind, but a little weary.

It went over your head--but Azul took note of it.

The moon came out to play in the evenings. You liked to lie on your side and gaze out your bedside window, watching the moon and the stars twinkle until sleep overcame you. It was your silent fourth friend, the one that followed and guarded you when the others weren’t around, swathes of silver ribbons embracing you in a gentle hug.

But tonight, you were fully alert. Sugar coursed through every fiber of your being, refusing to let your eyelids drift shut--and there was pressure upon your bladder.

... Maybe I shouldn’t have had that Mystery Drink.

Your bladder seemed to gurgle in agreement.

You groaned and sat up, swinging your feet over the edge of your bed and letting them touch the floor.

In the dimly lit space, you slowly padded toward the bathroom. Only a few steps in, you caught a golden ray spilling out from further down the corridor. Light within the darkness.

That’s weird. Did mom and dad forget to turn off the lights?

Your feet drifted past the bathroom and curiously headed toward the kitchen. Words slowly came into focus, set upon familiar tongues.

“... rried about [Name],” came your mother’s voice.

“I am, too,” said your father.

What? About... me? You pressed your back to the wall, and strained your ears to listen.

“They should have outgrown imaginary friends by now... but they still talk about Azul, Jade, and Floyd as if they’re real people. Adding more and more details every day... It feels as though they’re disassociating themselves from reality.”

Ice climbed over your skin. Your body was present in the moment, but your mind felt far away--soul and spirit disconnected, jarred by the declaration. It was a punch to the gut, sending your thoughts whirling.

“They do the same thing in school,” your mother continued. “Their teacher called the other day, said [Name] sits and talks to themselves instead of with their classmates. They’re a bright child, but they’re so closed off from others... it’s alarming.”

“We can take them to the doctor. Maybe they can help us sort it out.”

“No! No, that can’t... that won’t do. I don’t want to ruin their fun, or make them think they have some kind of problem...”

“You’d rather we wait for it to go away on its own? How long would that take? The kid’s growing up fast. They might sooner lose sense of who they are before the issue poofs away.”

“You’ll crush their spirit. All their hopes and dreams.”

“At least then we’d still have our child intact. Not these... fake fish folk they speak through. They can’t keep living in a fantasy world forever, and we can’t keep sheltering them in it.”

“I… I suppose you have a point. Sooner or later, they have to realize a fantasy is a fantasy. Better that we address it now.”

“I’ll call the doctor in the morning, then.”

“Please do.”

The ground fell away at your feet, the world tilting.

Your chest tightened as you took a shaky step back. Then another, and another--until you bumped into something. No, three someones.

“... [Name]-san, it is well past your bed time,” Azul tutted, placing his hands on your shoulders to steady you. “You shouldn’t be up and about like this.”

“You should go about your business in the restroom, then see yourself off to bed,” Jade chimed in calmly.

“You’ll need your shut-eye if you want to have the energy to play, Little Shrimp!” Floyd added.

“Mom and dad think there’s something wrong with me,” you mumbled back, eyes dazed and blank.

You stared at your hands. The very same ones that clung to others, tapped goldfish tanks, watered flowers, played games, and poured drinks. They seemed so foreign now--so alien.

Otherwordly and unreal.

Azul grasped your trembling fingers.

And without another word, the trio guided you through the dark world.

You stood in silence by your bed, clutching onto Azul’s hand until your knuckles turned as white as the moon. Jade was busying himself with fluffing up your pillow, while Floyd was folding up your comforter into various origami-like shapes. The moon peered through your window, training its gaze on you.

A heaviness permeated the room, stifling all sounds.

Your various sea creature plushies looked on--an audience, watching, waiting.

Azul cleared his throat. “[Name]-san, I believe the time has finally arrived for us to part ways.”

Your snapped to him, face contorting in horror. “What? You’re… You’re going away?”

“It is for the best. You’ve grown far too old to continue clinging to shadows of the past.” Azul readjusted his hat, the brim casting a shadow across his features. Eyes as blue as the sea, and hair like moonlight--just how it had looked when you had first seen him.

“But I don’t want you to go. You’re my best friends. My only friends!”

“Little Shrimp can make new friends!” Floyd unfurled your blanket upon the mattress, blinding a number of your stuffed animals. “You won’t have any problems, since you’re so fun to play with!”

“None of them will be as cool as you guys! Or as strong and smart. I bet none of them are merpeople, either!”

“I’m afraid that flattery will get you nowhere.” Jade set down your pillow—freshly fluffed. “Azul is right. You’re growing in every sense of the term—our services are no longer needed here.”

“Lingering for longer than is necessary…” He shook his head, his earring clinking. “That would be coddling. Fufu. Such an insult to one who is already perfectly capable of looking after themselves.”

“But…”

“Depend on others too much, and you will incur a debt that you cannot possibly pay off,” Azul warned, wagging a finger.

“I don’t care! I’ll do whatever it takes to make you guys stay! You can take all the money in my piggy bank, all the mushrooms I raised, and Goldfishy too!”

“I can keep Goldfishy? Yaaay!”

“Floyd, please. We’re having an important discussion here!” Azul sighed in exasperation, hands folded as he regarded you.

His expression and his voice softened. “... We care for you—and because we care for you, we must also learn to let you go. Just as you must also learn to let us go. It is the only way you can continue growing splendidly.”

Azul patted the bed, now fully made. “Even if change is difficult or painful, it must be done if you wish to be your best self.”

You didn’t let go of his hand, and made no effort to climb onto your mattress.

Azul sighed, scooping you up in his arms and depositing you onto your bed in a swift motion. You stared up at him. His face was engulfed by shadows, moonlight outlining his form.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” he asked quietly. “Think of that, and let it be your motivation and courage for change.”

“A merperson,” you squeaked, voice hoarse. “I want to be where the mermaids are. I want to see them laughing, and dancing, and swimming through the sea. I want to be a part of that world—a part of your world.”

“... Is that truly what you wish for?”

“Yes. I want it more than anything.”

Jade and Floyd slinked over, flanking either side of Azul. Their golden eyes pulsated under the cover of night.

“You will always be a part of our world, so long as you are thinking of us,” Jade reassured you in a soothing cadence.

Taking your comforter in both hands, he neatly tucked you into bed. You raised your head to argue, but he eased you back against your pillow with a nudge on your forehead.. 

“We won’t be gone forever! The water’s always around. You can look for us, like a big game of hide-and-go-seek.”

Floyd seized a shark plushie from beside you and, with a giggle, tickled your nose with the stuffed animal’s maw. You laughed, swatting at him with your arms. The shark tumbled out of his grasp and rolled onto your lap, its silly smile a reminder of Floyd’s own.

You snatched it up and held it close to you. Squeezing so tight, you feared the shark’s button eyes would pop off.

You dared not look them in the eyes when the next words left your mouth.

“... I’ll miss you,” you sniffled, eyes watering and burning—threatening to spill over.

“Hey now, Little Shrimp! Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” Floyd ran a hand through your hair, tangling it all up between his fingers. “I had a blast while it lasted~”

“Do not think of this as the ending,” Jade advised with a bow. “Think of it as a new beginning. The start to a new song, simply with fewer performers than the last number.”

“A new song…?”

Azul expelled a sigh. “That is enough talk, you two. You are prolonging things.”

“Boo, lame.”

“My apologies.”

The twins silently stepped back, rejoining Azul.

“[Name]-san, it is late, and you look absolutely exhausted. You’d best be off to sleep now—perhaps dreaming of swimming in the sea.”

“I’m afraid that if I close my eyes, you’ll already be gone when I wake up.”

“... A lullaby would help,” Azul suggested. “You always were a fan of our songs, weren’t you? It was how we first met—and now, let it be how we depart.”

“I’m not sleepy.”

The bed creaked in protest as Azul and the twins seated themselves upon it. You weren’t sure who started it, or when, but before long, a low hum had floated over, wrapping itself around your head. The opening notes to a sorrowful song from the distant past.

Ruin and rebirth.

You couldn’t quite understand the words. They slurred and melded together, like a stream of water in constant motion—yet there was a comforting, soft cushion to their composition. Valleys and crests in the notes, filled with tears and fragmented hearts. Sad and happy at the same time.

Bittersweet.

Your eyes fluttered, despite your best efforts to keep them wide open. A pleasant, tingly warmth enveloped you from head to toe—thanks to magic of the music, and your blanket cocoon—and a curtain of drowsiness descended upon you.

You yawned, fresh tears forming in your eyes as they, at last, shut. The world went black, and sounds muffled, as your consciousness slowly faded away.

The last thing you heard...

“Sweet dreams, little one. May we meet again in another time and place.”

The moon looked on through the window, and shed a tear into the sea.

[tomatograter]

What are your Thots on jake’s pq route?

I already wrote some about it in this post where I discuss the problem with taking dirkjake as a literal parallel to tavris (Mainly, that it’s inaccurate to both situations and misrepresents the dynamics at play) but it’s been long enough since release that I feel like I can talk about it without that criticism being taken as a personal witch hunt. TL;DR: As a general rule of thumb I don’t cite Jake’s PQ as part of his characterization, and I think basing your Jakewriting on it will only lead you astray.

I liked a lot of the Pesterquest routes and the alphas were among some of my favorites, but I think when you play the four of them in sequence Jake’s really... stands as the odd one out. It’s almost as if he’s afforded way less sympathy from the get go for some indiscernible reason, or like MSPAR took a day to say ‘I can’t stand this kid in particular’ after dealing with waaaaaaaay more mindboggling troll customs or stupid dangerous situations that tested their patience and their limits. When it comes down to it, it’s mostly an issue of framing.

Let’s go with the “Just the Alpha routes” example, because I think that makes the overall context clearer and the response/reactions it gathered (or the lack thereof) easier to understand. The alpha kids were the last 4 Pesterquest episodes. They were also afforded entire volumes just for themselves, which cemented our expectations on “oh, they’re going to really dig into unexplored territory!” and for the most part, that’s what we got! It was really nice to see the internal mechanics of Jane as someone raised within a corporate echochamber, Roxy as a grieving, isolated kid, deprived of all human contact, and Dirk as a nerdy doomsday prepper haunted by private flashes of himself as a supervillain. It all works! Those are things the alpha kids were dealing with on the background of the broader Homestuck story, things we were only hinted at as the *larger* problems played out. It makes you understand their point of view. Except on Jake's route, where nothing about his life seems to be relevant at all? 

With Jane we get discussions about HIC and her family, with Roxy beautiful passages about a mother they never met and growing up alone— Same for Dirk, who gets a whole brother zapped from an alternate timeline. But on Jake's route there's not even an expansive dialogue path dedicated to Grandma English, Skaianet, the rebellion, or the giant red ship that came and murdered her in the night and then bombed his house, leaving him trapped inside his only surviving tower. No understanding passage realizing that this kid has had to fend for himself in an island full of Actual Giant Alien Monsters trying to eat him alive, or that he cremated his guardian specifically to avoid attracting predators to the scent of fresh blood drying on her mutilated corpse at the age of an actual toddler. The text refuses to dig into any of the psychological implications or impact an environment like this could have on a kid, which is even weirder when you consider MSPAR has met and helped Vriska get out of a similar situation. The whole thing with Jane in the previous volume has just happened, even, while Jake's particularities go unremarked. He was just supposed to deal with it. And that's because a choice was made to portray all of Jake's problems in this route as sort of... single handedly Dirk's fault? Something he should have Just Dealt with?

There's not even a hint that Jake knows Hal exists. Which is important! Jake can pick out Hal from Dirk based on *verbal cues*, and the fact that he considers Hal a barrier between him and his "real friend" getting to communicate with one another is a whole point of contention (and even comedy) in the story proper. Instead of examining Jake's isolation, or grief, or how he literally locks himself in his room and plasters it with cinematic posters to pretend he's just the main lead of a wacky adventure movie in the face of the immense shitshow outside, we get brobot acting nonsensically and threatening to break into Jake's room to beat him up. 

A general reminder on brobot: He was programmed to scout the jungle and deal with predators so Jake could a) Be allowed to safely leave his room (something he simply didn't do before age 13 out of sheer terror, and we know this because dirk and jake talk about it on his birthday conversation, when he first gets brobot) and 

b) Learn how to defend himself in the case of a surprise attack, with different combat settings adjusted to his level. The brobot has a novice mode Jake feels patronized by, but pushes him up levels quickly enough. In Homestuck proper, the brobot only enters "stalking mode" after Hal gets pissy with Jake for finding him out, and forcefully switches the setting on to make Jake work for the Uranium inside it. When you take Hal out of the picture, this plotline makes no sense! Jake's route is set way before the Alphas even think of entering the game, so this particular event hasn't even happened. Jake goes on to text Roxy and she turns the stalking setting off remotely anyways, so even if brobot was programmed to murder Jake in his sleep, or jump him inside the safe zone of his room (he's not) he has literally no reason to be acting like that when he's been set to Baby Buff Up Mode.

(Brobot does end up spontaneously pulling himself apart to give Jake his reward after this)

Which brings me to my other problem with the general framing of this volume; the alpha kids don't feel present in Jake's life as friends at all. It's all "romantic options" and "shipping discourse" and MSPAR making these silly logic jumps to justify insisting on this line of query, and all it does is completely flatten out anything of interest having to do with Jake as a Person, to build up an image of Dirk as being suspicious and shady for his volume and more or less come to the conclusion that Jake sucks because he just Cant Choose Who To Date Between All His Friends! And that's why jake is just like tavros… and dirk is just like vriska! Or something. 

And just as a reminder, here's Jake talking with Roxy so I don't have to explain why that feels like a weird choice to me. (click to zoom)

And then there's the endings. On the vriska ending, MSPAR just ends up weirdly angry at jake for being such a piss baby and not getting that he's tavros and dirk is vriska so he had to… uh… take all his anger out on this 13 year old alien girl he has never met and teach her a lesson to prepare to do the same on dirk, or something. And on the other ending Jake mentions his pen pal, is zapped to meet jade, they have some non-committal greetings and then a cosplay party where Jake insists that he totally likes Lara croft not because she's a femme fatale and he relates to that, because he's never ever in his life thought of anyone being interested on him. Or Something. He likes Lara croft for normal reasons only. He wears really tiny shorts and does sexy poses because he's not aware at all of how other people find him attractive. He's just too dumb to get this, or the shipping thing, or that he's tavros and Dirk is vriska (who the hell are these people?).

Jake feels like an afterthought in the grand scope of events. Sidelined on his own episode. This volume is busy with rehashing age old fandom arguments that have little to do with his character, because said arguments were started and maintained by bored teens engrossed on fighting online instead of analyzing Homestuck; we introduce vriska for no interesting reason at all (thank god at least Jake has enough decency to say he's not into hitting on 13-year-olds, because that would have been particularly rancid.) And aside from catchphrases and old slang sprinkled liberally into his dialogue like a fog making machine, none of the motivation for the character is there. What does he want? What does he fear? Why does he act like the way he does? What would accommodating him look like? What would helping him look like? We get this on Jane's volume, Roxy's volume, and Dirk's volume. To really heart-wrenching and dramatic results, too. You get to know who they are, where they live, what they want, what they fear, what might help them get better, but Jake is just sort of There. He's a burden. MSPAR either ends this volume berating him for not doing what they want or finding him weird and confusing and like they don't know each other at all, and the fact both of those were marked as dubiously bad ends in the game files speaks for itself, I think.

[thewatercolours]

King's Quest Fic: "The Marchlands" (Goblin Graham, part 7)

Previous installments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, interlude, 6

“Is Gwendolyn asleep?”

“I think so. Her body just couldn’t keep awake. If you ask me, she’s going to be ill from forcing herself to stay awake so long.”

“She’s going to be furious you let her sleep, Mom.”

“No, she and your uncle made a deal. They’re trading off. At least one keeps watch on the mirror while the other rests. I think… this is going to affect Alexander more than he realizes. Besides this all being kind of disturbing and, you know, out of thin air, it might be a bit close to home. Manannan. Transformations. Escapes. This is a little harder to process than the way your grandpa told it. For me too.”

“Yet you’re not in there too, glued to the mirror?”

“I – am dealing with this pretty well at the moment. I don’t believe this goblin business happened - or at least it’s not happening now. I don’t think it’s a window into some other timeline where at this moment your grandpa is alive and young and a goblin. I believe something real is going on here though. There’s a reason the mirror is showing it. I’ve got a couple of theories I’m following up on. But, um. My dad. I was close with him. I mean – look at how this is affecting Gwendolyn and Alexander. I knew him longer than they did.”

“Mom.”

“Someone needs to be functioning, looking for solutions. Gart, I may be riding out before morning. Llewdor. Your father and I have come up with a plan.”

“I see. Yes.”

“Be there for your cousin, will you? Right now she needs to keep watching but eventually she’ll need to talk. And if you could be sure those two eat.”

“I will. And Mom?”

“Yes?”

“You’re going to get to the bottom of this, I know. Godspeed.”

All night Graham trailed the townsfolk overland. Their progress down the mountainside was slow. Despite his crushed ankle in its stolen, armoured boot, he could keep up decently. Bramble and the old folks were slowing the group down, and thank the stars that goblin physiognomy was more forgiving to injuries! At first he kept near as he dared, promising himself he would call out to them. He silently practiced the syllables, navigating the tricky shapes required to shout, “It’s me, Graham!”

Don’t think. Call them out. Get it over with. Either they will accept you or they will fear you. You’ll know. Do it now, or you never will.

He drew breath to shout. But he exhaled again and slowed his steps.

No. No, that was fear dressing itself up as courage. That was fear wanting an excuse. Wanting to see the horror anyone would have on their face after escaping goblin captivity, only to find a goblin tracking them. The villagers would gasp and draw into defensive positions and demand proof. That was normal! It would even be normal for them to fight. They could do all that and it would not alter the fact they were his loyal friends. But fear didn’t want to see it that way. It wanted them to do it so he could give up immediately, despair of their friendship, and run.

We’re not doing that.

“Hey, muffin lady,” whispered Amaya up ahead. “Either you’re so shocked by our escape that you can’t stop gasping just thinking about it, or you deserve to sit down a few seconds.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, apple strudel!” added Wente with concern.

“Not on your li--!” cried Bramble, puffing but with razors in her tone. A chorus of hushes cut her off. She added, more softly, “We are not stopping till we’re in the castle. Aye, with every lock in Daventry turned behind us!”

“Think of the baby--” Wente began, but he got no further.

“Exactly. Think of the baby. A mother just knows what her child needs, doesn’t she? Well, I just know my child needs to be born outside of a cage!”

“I -” Wente turned around and scanned the area, squinting through the darkness toward Graham, who tensed up despite himself. “I don’t think any of those things are following us,” said Wente dubiously without pausing in his scan. “If you only rested for five—”

“Hey, we gave her the chance,” said Amaya firmly. “She’ll speak up later if she needs it. Pregnant ladies get what they want.” She grabbed hold of a whipping thorn branch in their path and held it aside to let the others by.

When all had passed, Graham waited two minutes and ducked under it, though to his surprise ducking was unnecessary in his case. Beyond the thorns sprawled a great patch of ground moss. Ah. It was springy and cushioned his limp, he noticed with gratitude. And though he was letting the villagers outpace him, it would be all right. In his ordinary body, he’d surely have lost them in the forested snarls of the mountainside. But to his ears, distant footfalls were as clear as his own breaths: easy to ignore, but unmistakable when he focused on them. He hadn’t specifically tried smelling the air for his friends’ scent – he wasn’t quite ready to wrap his mind around that one – but the earthy, after-rain smells of the undergrowth and damp boulders were lusher than he remembered. Maybe it was just by comparison with prison.

And as for seeing in the dark! Graham had thought the luminous mushrooms and milky lanterns of the goblin lands pretty. They were nothing next to the overworld by night. The most ordinary stump or clump of moss gleamed wherever the moonlight touched it, teal and purple and strange rich green unlike anything. In his lift shaft there had been no light for his eyes to turn into colours. It was like the colours had been saved as an escape treat.

True courage would take this slowly. Would walk behind them unseen, as many hours as it took to ready his heart, ready it to trust them through the screaming and brandishing of improvised weapons. Manny’s lies could tear his heart apart all they wanted. But that would not stop him from readying it.

His heartbeat settled for the first time since he’d freed the chain from the gear and begun his escape. He stumbled on, at least a hundred yards behind his friends now.

“Are we really making for the palace?” asked Muriel uncertainly, her whisper clear as anything to Graham’s long ears.

“Seems the best place to stay safe,” answered Bramble. “Home doesn’t seem so safe anymore.”

“But they got the boy too,” said Chester. “Palace still seem safe?”

Silence fell, though they didn’t stop walking. “Safer,” said Bramble at last.

“If every one of you weren’t basically vulnerable sector,” said Amaya, more quietly than before, “I’d march back to those tunnels now. Try to track that king of ours down.”

“Oh rabbits,” said Muriel. “Graham. He’s still down there.”

Amaya grunted. “He won’t be for long. I’m gonna round up every tin can on guard in that castle and show those bat-shearing goblins what we think of kidnapping around here.”

“Oh! Um, well, you’ve got a better head for directions than I have,” murmured Wente. “Will you, um,  remember the way back?’

Amaya didn’t answer.

Now. The moment was now.

But before Graham could speak, the villagers began cheering. He hesitated. What in the--?

Simultaneously he stumbled, as the ground flattened sharply beneath him. His foot folded into his leg at an angle it shouldn’t have been capable of. Only hugging a young apple tree to his left kept Graham from faceplanting. Pain shocked him, like his ankle was fracturing in new places. He hissed, clapped one hand over his mouth to stifle crying out. Still hanging on to the tree with the other arm, he sank to his knees. Thanks be that his friends’ shouts drowned him out.

“I never thought I’d be so glad to see that beaten up old signpost you can’t hardly read!”

“And I was so afraid we were going down the wrong side of the mountain!”

“Why, we’re not five minutes’ walk from the waterfall!”

“Let’s not let our guard down too soon, though. Those curlicue-heads could still be prowling around. I mean, they did come right into the town. But… yeah, nice to have got this far.”

“Come on, everyone! Come on!”

And they were off again, with renewed vigour. Graham still clung to the tree, kneeling, swallowing over and over as though the pain were an awful medicine he could gulp down and be done with. He shouldn’t have been able to walk on a foot as damaged as his must have been– not in his human experience, anyway. He heard them getting farther and farther away. He could have asked them for help, he supposed. But he wasn’t sure he’d be able to communicate everything he’d need to quickly in such a state.

Graham walked his hands down the trunk and backed up till he could crawl on all fours. He considered just letting himself down all the way and pulling bracken over his body. There was tomorrow. He could sleep away the pain’s freshness here in the bushes. Why not make his way into Daventry by sunlight?

Because now he still had his resolve. When he woke he’d have to start again. Maybe he’d chicken out. In the dark he could choose his moment to be seen.

But – but he couldn’t crawl all the way to town.

He raised his head. From this angle, he could make out better the signpost beyond the tangle of branches. Across the road, he could just see the mud puddle (looking oddly purple to his goblin eyes) beneath the sharp mountain drop. He’d fallen into it more than three years ago when he’d first arrived in these parts. So, that meant that just up the way… Ah. Yes. Just like that, he’d decided.

It took him even longer than he’d have guessed to scrabble, hand by hand and knee by knee, to the riverbank. When he finally reached the great summoning horn at the bridge landing, he permitted himself a grim smile of accomplishment. Showing himself was going to be hard, but somehow less hard than stepping into the moonlight and letting the townsfolk see him first. He grabbed hold of the horn’s mouthpiece, hauled himself up onto one foot, and blew with all the little might he had left.

The rumbling blast reverberated through his whole body, but it didn’t compare with the gigantic footfalls that shook through him before the sound had fully died away. His ankle shivered with new pain every thump. He clung to the mouthpiece hard as he could. He thought he was blacking out, but when he opened his eyes he found he was still standing upright.

An enormous, stoney hand dove down and scooped him up.

“Aha!” cried the familiar troll smugly, rolling Graham between his thumb and long finger like a cigar, “If this is how it’s going to be, Olfie won’t even have to set anymore traps! I told the little ramrod man that the puny goblins would be dumb enough to do this if we just left the horns for them!”

“Stop!” cried Graham resisting the horrible urge to bite his way free, as Olfie’s grip tightened. “Stop, stop! I mean – Olfie! It’s me! It’s me! Graham! Graham! It’s me!” The words sounded like a mouthful of pebbles, and screaming did nothing for the clarity, but Olfie suddenly paused.

“What’s that? Ohoho!” Olfie held him so close to his eye that Graham could have believed he was about to use him as a jeweler’s loup. “This one’s awful chatty for a goblin! ‘Stop’ – if you’re gonna learn one word, that’s a pretty good one.”

“Olfie,” cried Graham, forcing himself to be calm and think the words through. “It’s me, Graham. Graham. No, stop!” He squirmed as Olfie squeezed him harder.

Olfie frowned, and threat replaced amusement in his voice. “Stop, huh? You want us to stop, you goblins gotta stop first,” he growled. “Don’t you know people don’t like it when you shoot catapults at ‘em and take their families? Olfie doesn’t usually like chewy goblin elbows and knees, but you did trespass, and with Baker Man gone, Olfie’s gotta take what he can get.” He opened his cavernous mouth, tilted his head back, and tossed Graham into the air like a popcorn kernel.

“IT’S KING GOOSIE!” screeched Graham. He spun helplessly in space. Perhaps it was a mercy that his body ended up facing skyward as he fell, so that his last sight would be the Shining Stars, not Olfie’s gnashing teeth -

Suddenly the fingers were back, and he was spinning again, as Olfie grabbed him clumsily from the air. Graham slipped awkwardly from one hand into the other as Olfie tried to get a hold on him, like a ball in the hands of a beginner juggler.

“King Goosie?” said Olfie in disbelief, at last balancing Graham in one palm and propping him up against his thumb to sit. He held him up to the ridge of his nose and went cross-eyed looking at him. “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding. That’s the second time Olfie’s almost eaten you! Lookie here, li’l Goosie. Olfie deeply, deeply apologizes. His eyes aren’t what they used to be. He’s been picking up goblins from the traps he set around the forests, and thought you were a goblin.”

Strangely, Graham found himself not gritting his teeth courageously, nor fighting tremours in his voice. Instead, he found himself chuckling bashfully and scratching the back of his neck. “I am,” he laughed. “A goblin. Yep. Goblin. That’s me.”

He wasn’t sure how much of that had been intelligible to Olfie, but the bridge troll shut one eye, and began turning his hand about to look Graham over from all angles. And then Olfie actually blushed. Graham hadn’t thought trolls could blush, but then again, maybe with a new spectrum of colours in his eyes, Graham was going to notice all kinds of things he hadn’t picked up on before.

“Whoa. You’re right,” said Olfie. “Gosh. This is really embarrassing, King Goosie, but Olfie never noticed. All this time Olfie just kind of assumed that if you weren’t a goose, you had to be human. I mean, now that I get a closer look at you, you’re kind of a weird-looking human, no offense…”

Graham’s chuckle almost turned into a high-pitched giggle at that. No, no, don’t go there. Hysteria won’t do you any favours. Just breathe and enunciate slowly. “Well, yes, yes, I am human. Usually. You weren’t wrong. Just – I’ve been kidnapped, and –"

“You’ve been what?”

“Kid. Napped.”

“Olfie knows you’ve been kidnapped. Everyone’s been looking for you. Ramrod man’s been having – uh, what’s Matt call it? – uh, conniptions.”

“Wait, wait - I’m King Goosie, Wente’s Baker Man, Number One is Ramrod Man, but Matt’s Matt?”

“Didn’t really catch that – you’re talking real funny tonight. You got a cold or something?”

“Uh, never mind.” Graham slowed down again. “Olfie, listen to me. You’ve got to take me to the castle. The rest of the townsfolk are on their way there too. Tell the guards to – wait.” Something from a minute or two earlier clicked. “Wait, wait. Catapults? Olfie, what’s happening?”

Olfie sighed. “Oh boy. Have we got a lot to tell you.”

[dragonsdomain]

Lair

“Well that explains why you’ve never been to your lair,” Ember said, smirking. “You didn’t even know it existed.”

Danny laughed before turning his attention back to the oddly familiar door in front of him. “Well I do spend most of my time in the human world. And I don’t even usually pay much attention to these doors. There are so many. How’d you find it?”

“Ectosignature, silly,” Ember said, rapping a knuckle on the wood. “Don’t you know anything about ghost culture?”

Danny looked away, rubbing his neck sheepishly.

“Er, sorry. I guess that was a dumb question,” Ember said. She gestured to the door. “Well here you go! There’s your lair. You can… ya know… explore it and stuff.”

Danny moved to open the door but let his hand hover over the knob, strangely apprehensive. “What was… what was inside?”

Ember’s eyebrows flew up. “You think I went inside?” She sounded dumbfounded. “Even if lair doors weren’t locked until the owner of the lair first opens them, Don’t you know how- I mean…” She corrected herself. “It is super rude to enter a ghost’s lair uninvited.”

Danny’s mouth formed a silent “O”, causing Ember to perform a facepalm. That did explain some of the encounters he’d had in the Ghost Zone.

“Well, uh…” Danny’s attention fell back to the door in front of him. “Do you at least have some idea of what I might find in here? I mean… what’s a lair usually like?”

“Eh, I don’t know exactly how it works,” Ember said, leaning back in the air thoughtfully. “I think sometimes they’re connected to your obsession. Sometimes they’re just like, where you’d be happiest or thrive the best.” She shrugged. “I dunno, I’m no scientist.”

Danny exhaled a puff of air. “Okay. That doesn’t sound so bad.” He placed his hand on the handle of the door. He hesitated. Why was he so nervous?

Vaguely ominous notes began strumming from behind him. Danny turned towards the girl behind him who was currently plucking out the foreboding background music on her guitar with a mischievous half-smile on her face.

“You know, you’re not helping,” Danny said in slight exasperation.

Ember stopped playing as she stifled a snicker. “All right, all right,” She said, feigning offense. “I’ll take my leave. Don’t die in there!” She said before speeding off into the foggy expanse of the Ghost Zone.

“Still not helping!” Danny called after her before turning back to the door.

Danny put his hand back on the handle. He hadn’t noticed taking it off. Perhaps because of curiosity, perhaps because of some unidentifiable anxiety, he paused before opening the door to examine its exterior. It looked familiar somehow, yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on where he’d seen it before. It was something he knew he should know, but the recollection of where the door was from escaped him.

He sighed. Come on. Just open the door. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

He opened the door.

And he suddenly remembered where he’d seen that door before.

Behind the door lay a perfect replica of his own bedroom. He looked around in puzzlement as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Every detail was the same, all his model spaceships exactly where they should be, the little glow-in-the-dark stars arranged on the ceiling as close to the night sky as he’d been able to get them, everything precisely where it should be all the way down to the math homework laid out on his desk which he’d only gotten that morning.

Danny looked behind himself at the door, an eyebrow raised questioningly. Had the door just taken him to his own bedroom? His own house? Was the ghost lair of a halfa just his own home?

He looked back at his room and let out a laugh, changing back to human form. He felt a little disappointed that his adventure had simply led him back to where he went every day, but mostly relieved. He’d been afraid he’d find… well, something… in his lair that he didn’t want to find. His lair simply being his own bedroom was a bit underwhelming, but far from the worst it could have been.

In fact, he thought as he looked back at the oh, so familiar door, it was a little convenient that he’d been dropped off straight at home. He’d had his little adventure, and now he could commence his evening again right off the bat.

As Danny opened the door, he was pleased to see that it opened to the hall of his house, not back into the Ghost Zone. Yep, he was back at home.

“Danny, come down for dinner!” his mother’s voice echoed up the stairwell.

“Coming!” Yep, very convenient that he’d been brought straight here. He didn’t want to make his parents suspicious by missing dinner again.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and was promptly greeted by his parents and sister, all sitting down at the dinner table.

“Hey,” Danny said as he sat down, looking around dubiously. “...Why are we all eating dinner together? What’s the occasion?”

“Nothing, Danno! Except that your mother and I thought it might be nice to have family dinners more often,” Dad explained.

“We know you’ve been having a bit of a rough time with school and, well, everything, and something’s obviously going on with you that you’re not telling us,” Mom began.

Anxiety spiked in Danny’s gut. Did they know? Were they going to figure it out? How did he mess up enough to tip them off to that fact? They couldn’t figure out his secret; they’d hate him if they knew that he was a-

“...But we just want you to know that we love you no matter what. And nothing could ever change that.”

“We wouldn’t even stop loving you if you became a ghost!” Dad bellowed jovially. Mom rolled her eyes at him but smiled at Danny in silent agreement to the statement.

Danny sat back, stunned. Did he hear that right?

Jazz looked as surprised as he was. “Did you just say you’d love him even if...?” Her question trailed off.

Mom cocked an eyebrow. “...He was a ghost? Of course. He’d still be our Danny.”

It was too good to be true. Danny still almost couldn’t believe what he’d heard. Tears pricked his eyes. “Thanks. That’s… good to hear.”

At the sight of the tears Mom wrapped an arm around Danny’s shoulders. “Oh, sweetie, was that what you’ve been worrying about? Why you always look so scared when we talk about ghost hunting?”

“It’s just that, the way you’ve been treating Phantom…”

“Oh, we actually just made a truce with him this morning.”

...Wait. What?

Danny glanced at Jazz in confusion. She was grinning at him, but stopped when she saw his confusion. What? She mouthed.

Danny’s eyes dropped to the table in puzzlement. Something was wrong here. That hadn’t happened. At least not to him. Was there a ghost impersonating him or something? He really needed to get Jazz alone to talk about it.

Just when he was about to speak, something beeped loudly down in the lab.

Mom and Dad’s eyes met. “Jack, did you forget to-” Mom started.

“Yes.”

At that, they both rushed down the stairs.

“...Perfect timing.” Danny muttered to himself. He looked at Jazz. “I didn’t make a truce with Mom and Dad this morning.”

Jazz frowned. “But you told me about it during lunch. It happened during first period, remember? You missed that chemistry test to go fight Skulker? And you told me about how you were worried that was going to make you fail chemistry but I told you your grades were great even if you couldn’t retake it?” Danny looked more confused by the second. “You don’t remember any of that?”

“Jazz, since when have my grades been great?”

Jazz raised an eyebrow, pulled out her phone, and showed him his grades on it. He stood up and walked around the table to get a better look. Straight A’s.

Danny stumbled back. That- he didn’t have straight A’s, what- something wasn’t right-

“Jazz, where are Sam and Tucker?” Danny asked hesitantly.

“I think they said they were going to be coming over any minute now.”

At that exact moment the door burst open. Sam and Tucker entered, looking too happy, too healthy, much too carefree. Oh no, not them too.

“Danny!” They called out, rushing to give him a hug. Danny returned their embrace stiffly.

“Hey guys. You look like you’re doing… really well.”

Sam snorted, pushing him away. “Well you sound weirdly disappointed about that. What, do you miss all the ghost fighting we used to do?”

“Used to do?”

Jazz looked down at Danny in concern. “Are you okay, Danny? Don’t you remember all the truces you made with the ghosts? You’ve hardly had to fight anyone for weeks.”

“...I…” Was he in some kind of alternate timeline? How did he get here?

He suddenly remembered something Ember had said about ghost lairs: “Sometimes they’re just like, where you’d be happiest or thrive the best.”

Of course.

“...This isn’t real…” Danny whispered.

“What?” Jazz asked.

“It’s not… you’re not real!” Danny stepped back and glared at the things that looked like his friends and sister.

“Dude, of course we’re real,” Tucker said, reaching out a hand in concern.

Danny slapped it away and stepped back again. “No, you’re all just figments of my imagination or something.” He stepped back again and found his back against the door. “This isn’t real. It’s all just… fake.” He wasn’t really talking to the people in front of him anymore. He slid down to the floor and buried his face in his hands. “Why would Mom and Dad actually make a truce with me? Or be willing to accept me? Of course it’s not real.”

A hand rested on his shoulder. “Danny-” Jazz began.

Danny flung her hand away and phased through the door behind him, ignoring the shouts of surprise from those in the room. He found himself back outside his lair, in the Ghost Zone. A glance over his shoulder revealed the door, which looked like his bedroom door again, still shut. No concerned voices leaked through. Nothing thrust the door open to search for him.

He stared at the door numbly. It had been nice while it lasted, to have a dinner with his family, to have his parents not plotting his murder for once, to see Sam and Tucker without injuries stemming from his folly. Even if it wasn’t real.

A wry chuckle escaped his lips at the same moment as tears began to well in his eyes.

Of course it couldn’t be real.

[theresthesnitch]

A Letter from Home

Coming in late on day 2 for this prompt, but I'm happy with how this came out. Another entry for @harryandginuary BINGO event.

O 63: “I’m having the worst day and you've just handed me an envelope with…”

Read it here on AO3!

Rated: Mature

***

The rain is incessant. 

Everything is saturated with it. Weeks and weeks of staking out this post in the neverending rain, hoping that the dark wizards responsible for a string of muggle disappearances would finally, finally make a move and reveal themselves. The intelligence was good. They were sure. This was the right location. All that was left was to wait. 

And wait.

And wait. 

And wait. 

And Harry was so tired of waiting in this fucking rain, and on today of all fucking days, that he was legitimately considering if being an Auror was really worth it. He couldn't just walk away without consequences. He may have saved the wizarding world from the worst dark wizard in a generation (which, the rational part of him that wasn't quite soaked through with rain reminded him was not a card he would ever play), he still didn't have the standing to just walk away from an unfavorable post. He was a junior Auror. He was only just out of his training and had only just achieved Auror status. So he was stuck with no choice but to wait. 

And wait. 

And wait. 

And wait. 

And what's worse is they just received word from Robards that they would have to keep waiting because the intelligence still suggested this was the place they needed to be and the targets were close and they just had to wait and I swear to Merlin I cannot wait in this fucking rain anymore. 

"Auror Potter!" 

Despite the fact that Harry was younger and had less training, Junior Auror Jeffrey Wilson insisted on referring to Harry in a tone and with an honorific that placed Harry at a higher level of seniority. In fact, several of the Junior Aurors referred to him this way. Harry gritted his teeth at the continued use of the title. 

"It's just Harry." 

"Right, sir. Sorry, sir." 

"No, Jeff. Not sir. Just Harry." 

"Oh. Uh, right, si- Harry."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Did you need something, Jeff?" 

"Oh! Yes, sir." Harry bit back the angry retort at the use of sir again, and took the item Jeff was holding out to him. "A letter came for you." 

"A letter?" Harry looked dubiously at the envelope in his hands. "I thought they were blocking our post." 

"I don't know, sir. It came with our weekly rations from the Ministry, not by owl. Seems to be for you, though." 

Harry looked down at the letter in his hands, and his heart warmed at the familiar script that curled and twisted into his name. “Jeff, you are officially my favorite person here.” 

“Oh, thank you, sir! That’s wonderful!” Harry stifled a groan at the man’s overreaction to his offhand comment. “Uh, sir? What did I do?”

“It’s just Harry, Jeff. Not sir.” Why did he bother correcting him when it seemed like he would never learn. “It’s just that it’s my birthday-”

“Oh, happy birthday, sir!”

“-and we are stuck out here in the rain on this awful stakeout. I’m having the worst day, and you've just handed me an envelope with a letter from the love of my life. It’s just about the best present you could have given me.” 

“Oh, well you’re welcome, sir.” Harry shot him a glare that caused him to stagger a step under its weight. “Uh, Harry. You’re welcome Harry.” He scurried away swiftly after that. 

Harry flipped the letter over and broke the seal. He was immediately surrounded with the comforting scent of warm treacle tart, the earthy scent of a broomstick handle, and the flowery scent that had him momentarily transported back home to his bed and wrapped in Ginny’s arms again. He didn’t know how she managed to package everything he loved into this little paper box, but he was nearly overcome with longing, desire, and gratitude before even opening the letter inside. 

He removed the letter from the envelope, fingers trembling slightly. He unfolded it, and began to read: 

My love, 

I miss you so much that I don’t even know where to start. Remember to thank Robards for allowing me to include it in the supplies. I may or may not have yelled at him that the man who saved the whole wizarding world, including Robard��s own useless ass, deserved to receive at least a letter on his birthday. I’m not even a little sorry for doing it either. 

Mum wants to have a party for you as soon as you’re back, so she’s requiring everyone to keep Saturday evenings free until you get back. That resulted in a (not so) small amount of muttering about wasted weekends, but you know mum who shut them all up quickly. I only hope that she does not preemptively prepare a feast every Saturday just in case you turn up at the last minute. I don’t know if I have the heart to tell her that if you do show up without warning on a Saturday that we will not be making an appearance at a party that same night. Honestly, she may have birthed seven kids, but I am not prepared to discuss sex plans with my mother. 

Hermione helped me charm this letter so that it smells like Amortentia to whoever holds it. I hope you like it, and I hope it reminds you of that weekend we spent at Grimmauld Place during Christmas of my seventh year. If it didn’t, I hope that’s what you’re thinking of now.

Did I ever tell you my Amortentia smelled like? I don’t think I got a chance, since that was during my sixth year and you were away. I smell yeast dough and cinnamon, like the cinnamon buns that mum makes on Christmas morning. I smell the crisp, clean scent of new clothes and new shoes. And finally, I smell you, which is vaguely spicy and and dark, with earthy tones to it, like your Auror robes smell like when you return from long trips. I can still remember walking into Slughorn’s classroom and nearly being thrown backwards by the smell of it. It smelled of you so strongly that I searched for you in that room before I realized that it was a potion and not the real thing.

Writing this letter to you is bringing up all kinds of memories of my seventh year, while I was at Hogwarts and you were always just an owl away. I know it was only a few years ago, but I feel like we were such different people then. In that first year after the war, we were so broken down and struggling to come to terms with the post-war world. I’m proud of us for figuring out together how to navigate this new world. After the summer we spent barely apart, I thought we could never deal with just letters and a few Hogsmede trips, but it was leagues better than the year prior. 

I cannot wait for you to be home again. I’ve thought extensively on what that first day would be like when you finally return. I would feed you first, of course, because I know that you always come home from missions hungry. Something light, I think. Sandwiches, maybe, full of crisp green lettuce and juicy tomatoes. Then, I would take you upstairs, peel all of your clothes off and draw us a warm bath.

Do you remember the bath we took together after the Quidditch game against the Tornados my first year on the Harpies? We lost so miserably, and I was so worn down from the match. You took me in the bath, filled with rose oil and petals, and rubbed down all of my sore and tired muscles until I was putty in your lap. Then you made love to me slowly while the water cooled around us, and I swear that I have never orgasmed as hard as I did that night. I’ve been revisiting that memory a lot these last few weeks while you’ve been away, particularly when I’m alone in that great big bathtub, and my hand slips underneath the water and between my legs… 

Did I mention I miss you? Because I do. Touching myself never feels as good as when you touch me. 

I hope you come home again soon. I've been keeping busy with my training schedule during the day, but my nights are empty without you. I've been spending some nights with mum and dad or Ron and Hermione because I hate being here when you are so far away. 

I miss you, and I'll be here planning for the night you come home until I see you again. 

Yours eternally, 

Ginny

Harry reread the letter twice more, then held the paper to his chest and breathed in deeply the scents of Ginny and home. The letter was wonderful, but it also left him feeling empty. Reading her words wasn't half as good as having her in his arms. 

Harry looked up and caught movement at the house they've been watching for weeks. He waited another minute and, sure enough, it's what they've been carefully waiting and watching and hoping to find. 

Wait for me, Gin, he thought as he foldrd the letter and sounded the silent alarm. I'll be home tonight.

[reversalsun]

Explaining Rainbow Drinkers

I’m a decade wiser and return to the Homestuck fandom with a degree in biology and a desire to use it for evil. Lets talk about Vampire Troll Girls.

We get very little from the actual canon of Homestuck about Rainbow Drinkers, just Kanaya, Porrim, and a few hints of lore scattered about. Still, they’re one of the most interesting parts of troll culture - rare and strange, feared but also obsessed over in fiction and mythology. They may be analogous with vampires in the pop culture fascination surrounding them, but I don’t believe that they’re all that similar in function. So let's speculate on how Rainbow Drinkers could function on a biological level and how they fit into greater troll society. 

Rainbow drinkers don’t seem to be literal undead, but rather a functional state that some Jadebloods have the potential to enter into. Yes, Kanaya only becomes a rainbow drinker after “dying”, but death isn’t strictly what made her a rainbow drinker. In fact, I’d argue that Kanaya never actually died - rather she reached a near death state. This state, I believe, did kickstart her transformation. 

The most important thing to zero in on here is rainbow drinker being an inborn trait. Contrast this with how vampirism in human mythos is treated like a pathogen - no one is born a vampire, you become one via infection. RD is hardwired into Jadeblood biology, but it isn’t expressed in their default state. This raises a question: what causes a Jadeblood to undergo transformation into a rainbow drinker? Answering this is a little difficult, as we have a pitiful data pool of one to draw from. Nevertheless, we can examine Kanaya (as well as some dubiously canon content) to extrapolate a bit more about sparkly troll vampirism. Kanaya undergoes transformation into a RD when she is blasted through the stomach and seemingly killed by Eridan’s science powers. Off screen she regains consciousness, begins glowing, gulps down some friend blood, then returns with a vengeance. How do we explain this without leaning on the supernatural? Let's start by drawing on real world bloodsuckers. 

Little may be known about Alternia, but planet Earth is abound with creatures that subsist on blood. Mainly the trait is seen in bugs and parasites - this lends itself to our cause, as trolls seem to be more insectoid than mammalian in nature. Hematophagy (blood drinking) is a trait that has convergently evolved in creatures across the planet - that is to say, hematophagic creatures aren’t genetically related. The trait crops up on its own because it's widely useful, not because of a shared ancestral nematode. Vital fluids, after all, are incredibly prevalent and are in sure supply wherever animals live. It’s not farfetched to say that hematophagy would appear on other planets - especially planets like Alternia that are host to carbon based lifeforms similar to Earth’s. 

We can safely assume that blood drinking would work in the same way on Alternia as it does on Earth. That means rainbow drinkers face the same difficulties that Earth’s vampires do. Blood is not only difficult to obtain, but it’s also difficult to digest. So how do rainbow drinkers solve these conundrums? 

First, the method. Most terrestrial bloodsuckers are nocturnal - and not just for the spooky aesthetic. Fluttering, crawling, and slithering in on a sleeping host lessens your chance of being swatted on impact. Almost all hematophagic creatures are stealth feeders, and Rainbow Drinkers are no different. Trolls are a nocturnal species, but Kanaya is stated to be diurnal upon introduction. It would make sense for her and other potential Rainbow Drinkers to have a natural proclivity for daywalking, as it's much easier to feed from a sleeping troll than a waking one. Kanaya is also able to withstand the fierce, burning Alternian sun - a force which is enough to blind Terezi, and leave any troll who walks out in it for too long with a scathing sunburn. Even Jadebloods that are not currently or will never be rainbow drinkers are likely to exhibit non standard troll sleeping patterns, as they live primarily in the brooding caverns - dark, underground caves where the sun cycle wouldn’t really matter to them. When they do leave their caves to hunt, the glowing, white skin of a Rainbow Drinker would likely be a large boon against the Alternian sun’s devastating rays. In Friendsim we’re told that Lusii’s bright white coats help to protect them from the sun. It’s likely the same for rainbow drinkers; the color white reflects all wavelengths of light far better than any other, thus their radiance and pale complexion provides them an extra level of defense when they’re out hunting. Friendsim also vaguely mentions Rainbow Drinker extract in Tagora’s route, where it’s used as a luxury skincare/beauty product that makes a troll’s skin look literally radiant. Very little is said about the product itself, so it may be a hormone or a secretion derived from Rainbow Drinkers. In the case of the latter… Kanaya and other Rainbow Drinkers might just be really greasy? 

Now, in canon Kanaya theorizes that Rainbow Drinkers glow because of their home in the near pitch black caverns. It’s true that even with trolls' natural night vision, more light sources would be a boon. Animals that thrive in the dark like cats and wolves can’t magically see without a light source, rather their eyes are specially adapted to reflect even scant amounts of light. Animals that live in true darkness, like those found in the depths of caves, are more commonly blind. If no light is present, even night vision fails. With the mother grub’s natural habitat being subterranean, her special attendants possessing an internal light source would make sense. 

We have to change gears now and reckon with the How of troll blood drinking and Kanaya surviving. First: how can a troll survive on blood? We know that all trolls - even Kanaya, subsist on diets of foods akin to what you and I eat. Is it even possible to suddenly switch to a blood diet? The answer is yes. Blood drinking comes in two forms: obligatory and facultative. Obligatory, as the name implies, refers to creatures like fleas and ticks who only consume blood, whereas facultative refers to creatures that have a mixed diet of blood and other foods. Mosquitos for example only drink blood when they need to produce eggs. Rainbow Drinkers are likely similar - mainly eating standard troll goodies, but being able to rely on blood if the going gets tough. Natural resources may be scant in the brooding caverns, and the ability to survive on blood would be incredibly advantageous for those living there. Blood would of course be in no short supply given the population and purpose of the caverns. The implication I’m getting at is well… not every grub survives the caverns trials, or even the caverns in general. Between imperial drones, hoards of lusii, and difficult terrain, the brooding caverns can be dangerous. It would make sense for the troll denizens living there to be exceptionally tough and capable of “recycling” the grubs that don’t make it. Horrible. I’m sorry. But that’s nature. 

The transformation into Rainbow Drinker could very well be triggered by shock or extreme physical duress. After undergoing the transformation and taking a nice sloppy drink from her friends, Kanaya begins to exhibit increased physical abilities. Natural durability and rainbow drinker abilities serve Jades well in their special role as mother grub attendants, and I think that’s in part how Kanaya was able to survive Eridan’s attack. That, and the noticeable difference in how she and Feferi were hit. Fef was hit in the chest while Kan was hit in the stomach. Assuming troll biology is comparable to our own, cleaving out the lungs and heart is a lot worse than cleaving out the stomach. Now don’t get me wrong, both are awful, But if one of the two was going to survive, it would be Kanaya - not only is she a durable Jade (see above), but as a facultative blood drinker, it could be possible for her to have a separate stomachs for blood and food. The digestion process of the two is completely different, so throwing all of it into one pouch might not be a good idea. Outside of durability and luck with the placement of the blast, this could be why Kanaya was able to get back on her feet. And she’s a Sylph, a natural healer class. But this isn’t a classpect analysis, so I’ll leave that discussion for people wiser than I. 

Jadebloods are stated to be the second rarest blood type out there, and those that are able to turn Rainbow Drinker exemplify how badass the whole caste is. It’s likely that they don’t possess these skills because they’re the chosen attendants of the mother grubs, but rather these traits are why the mother grubs chose Jades as their keepers in the first place. As much as I wish we’d gotten more info about Rainbow Drinkers from canon, it was fun to explore how they could potentially work, and it really cemented Jades as my favorite caste. Anyway, please excuse me while I go draw myself a Rainbow Drinker trollsona. 

[magpiie]

Kidnapped by Baby Yoda pt. 3

Pt. 1 Pt. 2 Pt. 3

hey guys pls lmk what you think and be honest!!! thank you so much for 80 notes holy fucking shit wowie 

It's weird one day you're assisting teaching a class to a bunch of miscellaneous alien children on nevarro hating your life, and the next you're stuck on a ship with a mandalorian and his foundling who inexplicably decided he needed you to come.

“I'm going to talk to him today kid, believe me” you said to the lump of wool perched on your knee. Mando was out doing maker knows what, and you were left alone with the little guy like always. His big eyes gazed at you dubiously as if to say suuuuure. The amount of judgmental bitchy energy he could produce sometimes was astounding. “No really, i've been living here for what, uh 3 weeks maybe? And all we've really said to each other was the initial greeting and uh the exchange of names?” The last part trails off as you realize you don't even know his name. You said yours but he responded with telling you to call him Mando. So you didn't push it. You dont know alot about mandalorians considering they are almost extinct and their beliefs are often made to seem like folklore. But you do know that individualism and identity is not something particularly celebrated. So you decided to leave the amount of information he wants to share with you up to him out of respect. So far that's been none. “So, kid, how'd you break through his shell? He likes you?” the child just blinks unhelpfully. “I mean you never talk to him, but i've tried that and we saw how that went” literally radio silence from him. You don't particularly think of yourself as an extrovert who constantly needs interaction but you do need some. And currently you have the kid as a companion and if you didn't know any better you'd say Mando was a droid with how he acts. You also resolved that you needed to help out more. Basically you were a glorified babysitter and the idea that Mando was going to realize that he was better off without you on his ship as deadweight terrified you. You were a good cook, I guess you could say, but Mando always brought food back with him when he went out and then would hide in his room to eat in privacy. So that's not very helpful. The main thing that you could offer him was medical help. Back on Nevarro growing up you were the youngest of three older brothers. And considering your mother wasnt really in the picture, you had to take up the doctor role for the amount of fights three older boys could get into. You knew how to treat basically any external damage and how to sterilize and limit risk of infection. But how would you ever bring that up to mando if you guys didn't even greet each other in the mornings? Sometimes you would try to talk to him with something as simple as “good morning!” or “welcome back” or “night” or even just a simple “hey” sometimes he would bless you with a monosyllabic grunt but never anything more. But hey, you would take what you would get. After a week of this call and no response bullshit you kinda gave up and have spent the last two weeks in silence other than your episode this morning with the “good morning” fiasco. You feel your mortification settle back into your stomach at the fool you made of yourself. “Maker above, mando must hate me.” sometimes you wondered if he regretted asking you to come. But he doesn't really seem like the type of person to let you stay if you annoyed him. “Ok bug, here's the plan. What im gonna do is i will say hey when he comes back, sound good?” you look for confirmation from the creature and he gives you a slight tilt of his chin. Satisfied you continue, “and i will uhm say good night and good morning every day until he responds or tells me to shut up.” you finish with a huff of breath. This will either end with you finally finally getting to have real human interaction or left on some random ass planet god knows where.     

Mando makes his way back to ship feeling the pebbles crunch beneath the heavy sole of his boot. This planet was a desert planet much like nevarro, he wondered if you missed home. Mean no shit she's probably homesick dumbass he thinks its not like he was doing anything to make the ship feel welcoming. Like talking to you. But you made the ship feel like a home for the kid and that's more than he could ever want. You probably didn't realize how much what you were doing meant to him. You made the kid happy, you were giving him something that mando never could, a mother figure. Mando tried his hardest to be what he thought was a father for the kid but it was hard. He had to go and work and it wasn't safe to bring a kid so he was often swept around to different planets and left for hours by himself waiting for mando to come back and it was hard on mando. But you, now you were there. And the kid was always safe with you. He should probably teach you some self defense he thought considering how dangerous being associated with him was especially considering you needed to protect the child. But honestly, mando had no idea if you knew how to protect yourself, you might, space is a dangerous world. He only knew that you were a teacher but that was it. Slightly alarming that he implicitly trusted you without any prior knowledge of you or your credentials. You could be a bounty hunter assigned to kill him for all he knew, or to steal the kid, but you probably would have done that by now. Mando didn't know what made you trustworthy to him. You just were. And that terrified him. 

You're sitting in the cockpit with the child pretending to fly the ship as he gurgles happily in your lap. you giggle at the little guy and make finger guns and pretend to shoot an imaginary monster outside the window, “i'm the most fearsome bounty hunter in the guild,” the child lets out a particularly loud noise at that, “uhhh yes i am dont laugh at me, i am feared far and wide across the galaxy,” you tickle his sides with that one. youre so into playing with the kid you don't realize mando was back and is staring at you from the entryway to the cockpit. “You think i could take on your daddy, bug? You think it'd beat him in a shootout? Huh?” you say with your fingers poised and ready at the window.

“Not a chance,” says a deep voice that vibrates into the floor. You let out an embarrassing startled shriek and feel your heart do twenty somersaults and settle in your feet. The child screams at the interruption and immediately wiggles out of your grasp and waddles to Mando giddily. 

“I-i i was uh joking, really i was,” you stutter out cringing at the incredulous tone your voice comes out as. Remembering your resolve to talk to him you continue on even though you feel like you might throw up your breakfast from nerves. “He misses you during the day,” gesturing to the child, “so i pretend to be you” you finish realizing that sounds super fucking creepy, “well not like- you- like- you,  but i pretend to like uh pilot the ship and uh shoot um things?” you ramble lamely. A huff sounds from the mandalorian and if you allowed yourself to think wishfully it was laughter. 

“Doesn't surprise me. Before you he came everywhere with me.” you feel your eyebrows raise. Everywhere? Shit. 

“Must've been difficult to complete jobs and have to keep track of him,” you say nodding your head towards the little lump of brown wool. Mando offers you an affirmative grunt before setting the child down and turning on his heel towards the fresher. So that was an improvement, you think. Got ten whole words out of him. You feel a grin split your face. Hopefully this means you are past the dancing around each other relationship. And maker above, his voice, wow. If only you could wake up to that every morning. Deep and melodic. You wonder how deep and gravelly it sounds in the mornings. Or how your name would sound tumbling off his lips in pleasure. Nope. not going down that path. That is NOT platonic thoughts. You literally had your first conversation with him since the first day you met him and you're already thinking about that? Seriously pull yourself together. You don't even know what he looks like, or how old he is. Like what if he's like 70. And really ugly. What if your having sex dreams about someone like your grandpa. Ew. Your face contorts at the thought of Mando looking like your grandpa. Okay gross stop. You need to get to know him. Have civil conversations. Push down the gross thoughts. Even if his voice sounds like honey. And home. 

You're sitting in the chair behind the pilot seat reading a random book Mando left out on the scattered floor. Its some type of mechanical manual so its truly riveting. Note the sarcasm. The child's asleep, and seeing as though mando is cooped up in his room this book is better than twiddling your thumbs mindlessly. You decided that if you were going to stay on mandos ship you should at least try to pick up some mechanic skills. Better than the rudimentary at best you had at the present moment. You knew how to fix blatant errors in engines and how to reconnect wires if the instructions were explained thoroughly and very slowly. Okay maybe you didn't really know anything past engines. But that was better than nothing? Kinda? You sigh closing the book after rereading the same sentences about pre-imperial versus post-imperial hyperdrives. Maker what was the difference? The both made the ship go super fast or something? Was that the hyperdrive? You shook your head feeling the thought start to culminate into a downward spiral of what a hyperdrive truly was. You looked around the cluttered hull and decided that you should probably occupy yourself by cleaning up the mess. Mando might appreciate it, it'll also make you less of a deadweight on the ship. It was crazy how much shit one man and his child could accumulate on one tiny ship. You don't think you had ever seen this many small metal bowls in one place. The stack currently in the corner probably contained about 12. In what universe would 2 creatures ever need the same bowls 12 times. Well you guess now it's three. The thought filled your chest with a balloon of warmth only to be popped by the realization that you weren't part of the little family mando and the child were. At best you were a business associate. The kids stand in caregiver. Babysitter.

 The realization that you didn't have anyone to call family at your disposal fell heavy on your shoulders. Sinking you into the corner of the hull. You dont think youve ever felt more alone. In the cold corner of the hull with a hand pressed to your chest in an attempt to quell your ragged breaths.  Like a small raft cast into the oceanic expanse of space. If you drowned, who would notice? Certainly not your family, they were maker knows where, probably light years away. You didn't even know what sector you were in anymore. What would your father think of your decision to leave nevarro? You hadn't seen him in a while but you remembered the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. And how he would hug you after a long day. Hold you like you were still his little girl. The craving for a warm embrace from a solid body slammed into you with all the force of a meteor. Leaving you stunned and lost. You briefly wondered how mando coped. How did he deal with the overwhelming feeling of loneliness?  How did he leave his guild? Did he miss them? Were they like a family? Did he think about them often? How did he cope with the lack of touch? Or did he not think about it at all? Did he not need it? Was he so disconnected from the world through his beskar that he couldn't remember the feeling of someone's fingers on his skin? Etching a path with the searing heat they exuded. Hearing approaching footsteps you attempt to pull yourself together. Regulate your breathing, get rid of tear tracks and lose the flush coloring your face. You could do this. As he rounded the corner he stopped. You peered up at him from your curled up position on the floor and offered him a smile that felt unconvincing even on your lips. He tilted his head slightly at you and made his way cautiously to where you were. He bent slightly and offered a brown leather clad hand to you. For a second the only sound heard was the faint crackle of his breathing in his helmet. You could see him faltering. Here he was offering you comfort in your clearly distressed state and you were pointedly ignoring it. You laced your fingers with his and nearly doubled over from the strength he exuded into pulling you up. As soon as you were fairly steady on your feet you marveled at your hand shocked by the warmth creeping through the leather of the glove permeating into your palm. He sighed, a deep release of tension from his shoulders followed. “What's wrong?” he said, his hand still lazily grasping your fingers. You looked at him, what was wrong?

“How do you do it?” you said echoing his words from your first meeting to him. his thumb dragged a slow line along your wrist. When he didn't respond you added, “how are you okay with being alone?” if you could see his face you would say he looked taken aback. He released your hand.

“I'm not.” he offered. Confused as to which question he was answering you remained silent hoping to prompt him to continue. He started again, “I'm not alone, not truly. I have him.” he gestured vaguely to his sleeping quarters where the kid slept. He rubbed the back of his neck, 

“And neither are you.”

[kickingitwithkirk]

Deuxième Omega: Part II

Summary: Jensen is not dealing well with his unexpected divorce and before the ink is even dry, he is pushed into another union with a complete stranger.

Pairing: Alpha!Jensen Ackles x Omega!OFC

Word Count: 2859

Warnings: A/B/O, angst, angry Jensen, cursing, illness, arranged marriage, divorces, talk of Alpha dominance over Omega, suspected eating disorder, past abuses, vehicle drama

A/N: Sorry this took so long to get this part out, my antique laptop decided to eat over 2,000 words and have had to piece back together from memory so hopefully it makes sense.

A/N II: There is no intentional hate or malevolence intended towards any of the Ackles family. This is a purely fictional piece containing real and created persons/names/events set in the fictional A/B/O verse. 

Part I

*Supernatural doesn’t end in season 15 and some dates/events have been altered to fit the story.

*no beta, all mistakes are mine

The Next Day

Jensen waves his hand around again at that buzzing insect driving him crazy. He’s finally conscious enough to recognize the sound, it wasn’t a bug but his phone vibrating incessantly. Picking his head up and instantly regretting it starts patting around the bed for his phone.

“lo...”

“Are you still drunk?” A deep, honey-whiskey and way too damn loud for the morning voice barked at him.

“Jared?”

“No, fucking Misha.”

“Too early for your shit Jay...”

“Dude, it’s three-thirty in the afternoon.”

“WHAT!” Jensen yells sitting up too fast, the pain ricocheting throughout his head sends him flying off the bed, barely making it to the toilet before regurgitating everything he ingested last night. The toilet automatically flushes as he sits back against the bathtub groaning like a dying water buffalo.

“Really wish you'd hung up before sharing that,” Jared quips in a queasy voice, “I’m gonna regret this but Face Time me.”

Jensen cracked his eyes open enough to locate the button and tapping it Jared appears dressed in his running gear with a bandana holding his hair back. “No offense but you look like hammered shit. I was gonna call earlier but Gen threatened to have my left nut if I did.”

Jensen grunts and closes his eyes against the bright outdoor light emanating from the phone.

“Are you…” Jensen tunes him out for a minute then,“ ‘cause there’s something you need to know about, it’s really bad.”

He opens his eyes and it’s worse than he could have imagined going by the expression on Jared’s face.

“One of your clan sold you out, got it all on cellphone video, social media’s blowing up. Hell, even Fox News Channel picked it up.”

Jensen listens to the description of his expressions at the surprise traditional ceremony, his drunken stumbling around the reception with his new wife submissively following, his scoffing at the speeches during the reception and ignoring his silent, veil wife sitting next to him.

“My favorite bit was Alan and Josh carrying you out of the can.”

Jared's expression turned serious, “People are talking, we can't cover for you anymore. I got a text from higher ups cause no one could get hold of you for obvious reasons. PR’s gotta get ahead of this.”

“I’m a fuckup.”

“Yeah but we still love you. So, what's her name?”

Jensen licked his lips, biting the bottom one.

“Please tell me you know her name.”

“I..I don't even know what she looks like Jay.”

Jared ran his hand over his mouth, “The first thing you do is get up, take a shower and brush your goddamn teeth. Then you apologize, fucking supplicate yourself, to your new wife..unless you’ve already decided to put her aside.”

Jensen's head snapped up unbelieving that his friend, the man who was his brother in every way except blood, could think that of him.

“You really believe I could do that?”

Jared smiled, “No, you're too good of a man, an Alpha, to do that. I want you to remember one thing, in all this, she’s not the one who screwed you over.”

***

Jensen stepped out the shower forgoing shaving since the show was on a short break. He wiped the steam from the mirror and stared at this haggard expression and developing beer gut. I’ve got to get back on my exercise routine. Makeup and wardrobe could only mask so much.

Reaching for his bath kit he knocked a hand towel off the counter. Bending over to retrieve it he noticed a shoe with netting in the wastebasket. Pulling it out he saw a brown smear inside one of the heels, remembering how much trouble she had with them last night and made a mental note to inquire about her feet.

Washing his hands and searching through his kit realizing he’d forgotten his toothbrush. Opening on the cabinets he located the complementary ones. As he’s brushing Jensen sees another brush sitting in a glass by the other sink with a neatly folded hand towel and hanging washcloth.

Huh, she must have forgotten hers too.

Tossing his kit bag in the suitcase he dressed in a pair of well worn jeans and a T-shirt. Quietly entering the common area the curtains set open just enough for him to see her curled up on the couch, still in her wedding dress, asleep. He walked over to check on her when a knock at the door made her bolt upright.

“It's room service, I asked them to text so not to wake you.” He answered the door and had a brief word with the waiter who apologized, the ticket didn’t say not to knock. They deposited a coffee decanter, several covered dishes, bottles of water and left taking the cart with them.

Jensen sat down and before he could ask how she took her coffee, his wife scrambled off the couch and was kneeling at his feet, head bowed and hands folded in her lap.

“What are you doing?” He asked incredulously, having never seen anyone do this before.

“Awaiting you instructions Alpha.”

“Instruc...get up!” He gripped her upper arm, shocked at how far his fingers wrapped around it and helped her to the other chair. Sitting back down Jensen got his first look at his new wife.

Sleep tousled, dark blonde hair frame cheekbones overly prominent for the shape of her face, wide set eyes a blue-grey color with amber rings around the pupils. Her lips were full, the bottom lip slightly off center. She was not the Hollywood standard of beauty he was used to, and if compared to them, she’d only be considered moderately pretty.

“I was only doing what is expected…”

“Kneeling at my feet like an obedient dog!” He barked as she said, “..of the Omega.”

“What’s expected?”

“In the book..”

“Please look at me when speaking.” She raises her eyes but doesn’t meet his, “..it states that the Omega is subservient and the act of humbling ourselves shows respect for the Alpha, as is their due.’

Jensen sat back shocked, running both of his hands through his still damp hair, making it stand up to resemble a hedgehog. He was in over his head and, for one of the few times in his life, didn’t know what to do and the first person he would have turned to for advice had banned all communication.

He took a deep breath to refocus and leaned forward, resting his arms on his legs to look her in the eye, “I need you to forget what I said last night. I..I’m angry, feels like I..we..were ambushed by this situation. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, I’m sincerely sorry.”

“I don’t understand, are you apologizing to me?”

“It’s what people do when they’ve done something wrong and what I did was unforgivable. I want to make it up to you if you’ll let me and hopefully we can make a go of this.”

She looked at him dubiously but nodded once.

***

Jensen finished the last dregs of his coffee while packing, having decided to head back to Austin tonight. Clif had texted him he was ready whenever they were.

Sitting down on the bed he listened to the running shower and reaching his phone picked it up to start recording a video message.

He apologized for his atrocious behavior the last two years, asking the fans not to take it out on the show, this was all on him. To his coworkers for having to cover for him, they should have never been put in that position and if he had better character they wouldn’t have had too.

He next apologized to his family for his inexcusable behavior last night, which should have stayed private within their clan, and fully accepted his banishment by the clan leader, his father, for however long he deemed fit.

He lastly apologized to his new wife, they were irrecoverably tied together and he’d do whatever she demanded from him to make up for the horrendous treatment he’d shown her and hoped she’d give him a chance to make a go of their marriage.

He uploaded the video to his few online accounts and turned the phone off, wearily running a hand over his face. Getting up to take one last look he found his jacket from the wedding hanging in the closet.

Folding it he hears a crinkling noise and reaches into the inner pocket finding the marriage certificate. Tossing the jacket on the bed he unrolls the certificate reading his wife’s name Iseult.

“It’s pronounced Ee-sult Alpha.”

Jensen's head jerked up in surprise, “Hey, um, we're heading out as soon as you're ready.”

“Oh, okay, I’ll need you to button my dress Alpha.” She said repacking his bath kit she'd borrowed.

Jensen furrowed his brow, “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in something else, I mean, I’m telling you what to wear but it’s a three hour drive to my..our home.”

Iseult looked down playing with one of the pearlescent buttons, “When I married my hus..ex husband, our prenup stated that I only got what I had in my possession at the time. Apparently, he disposed of my things at some point,” she fanned out the shirt, “this dress, shoes and veil, your mother purchased them otherwise the media would have had a lot more to exploit at my..our expense Alpha.”

“Let me give you something of mine.”

“Anything of yours will swallow me, you're much more solid. There is a Walmart on..” she abruptly stopped at Jensen's raised eyebrow, “I’m sorry Alpha, I overstepped my place.” She bowed her head and hunched her shoulders, exuding the scent of fear as if she is expecting punishment from him.

What had happened to this woman to make her believe she should cower and gravel? Jensen manages to keep his anger in check, not wanting her to be more scared of him than she was, thinking who the hell is her ex-husband and what had he done to make her like this?

Jensen slowly walked behind her and gripping the fabric was once again dismayed at how prominent her shoulder blades were, his gut telling him her slenderness wasn't something natural.

As he fastened the buttons he spoke in the gentle voice he used when Jared's daughter Odette was upset, “If you can survive till tomorrow I’ll take you to get whatever you need.” She nodded once.

“Can I make one request Alpha?”

“You don’t have to request anything, just ask.”

“I have a prescription I need refilled, there’s a pharmacy on Wilmont, it’s on the way.”

He plucked the jacket off the bed and held it open, “Please, it's getting chilly.” She slid her arms into the sleeves and Jensen saw she was right about being swallowed. He put on his ball cap and headed out.

When they got off the elevators Jensen went deeper into the hotel. He stopped at an employees only entrance off the kitchen and knocked twice. A double knock answered and he pushed it open to reveal a waiting SUV. He introduced Clif and handed him the bag, taking it to the vehicle's rear and loaded it before getting back in.

The wind had started picking up ahead of the late autumn thunderstorm. Iseult grabbed her whipping hair in one hand and her skirt in the other as Jensen opened the back door.

“Iseult?”

“I was waiting for you Alpha, its proper etiquette.”

“I was raised it’s proper for a lady to enter first, please,” he held his hand out to her.

Iseult released her hair and hesitantly took his hand. Jensen felt a skittering sensation go up his spin as Iseult quivered, staring into his eyes as a whirling wind intermingled their scents, enthralling them.

Clif politely coughed, “We need to go before the bottom falls out.”

A tremendous thunderclap sent them scrambling into the car as the heavens let loose.

***

The trip to Austin was darker than usual, the weather slowing the drive back and with the incident at the pharmacy, Jensen still couldn’t believe it, refusing the prescription now that she was married to an Alpha, needing his verbal consent.

Clif interceded before he went off about the subjugation of Omegas in modern society, reminding him they were in predominantly conservative Texas, where this thinking was considered normal, not California.

Jensen glanced over to see Iseult staring out the window when his phone vibrated. Picking it up from the cup holder he saw a text from Josh.

>Jenny, know I’m not supposed to be in touch but call me!!! Need to know the shit going down here.<

Josh picked up on the first ring, “Man, all hell breaking loose. Your wife's ex didn't notify his clan that he was divorcing or remarrying her and they’ve filed an appeal with the Pack council to get her back.”

“We were married in the Traditional...”

“The fuck Jenny, did living in La La land make you forget everything? Your the second son of a clan leader, you know Pack law supersedes all federal, state and religious laws. They’ve dug up some obscure sub-clause that states a clan has first right to remarry an Omega within the clan and if they don’t whoever takes them must pay settlements.”

“What are settlements?”

“Has your brain fallen out of your ass? The bride price.”

“Josh, that's insane, it's 2020....”

“No shit Sherlock, but this is Texas. Fuck, dads back already. I’m gonna leave my phone on, keep your goddamn mouth shut or it's gonna be my ass too!”

Jensen can’t make out anything then his mother clearly says, “..they are asking what for her?”

“Ten million.”

“Your shitting me!”

“Joshua, language young man.”

“Five of it’s compensation for damages done to the Omega.”

“What damages? Jenny’s got a temper, what Alpha doesn’t, but he wouldn’t hurt anyone unless he was forced to.”

Alan cleared his throat in the manner Jensen had come to know that something’s making him uncomfortable. “It seems the Omega was..unsullied when she married her ex-husband.”

“Holy shit! You mean she’s never been with an Alpha before Jensen?”

“Joshua, I will not tolerate that language and we will absolutely not discuss your brothers new wife’s...virtue.”

Jensen hears the tinkling of glass, “Donna, did you know about any of this?”

“Well..no, of course not.” Her answer wasn’t very convincing.

“Donna, what are you not saying?” Alan’s Alpha voice resonated, he only used it when his mate was being evasive about something she’d done.

“When Danneel wasn’t willing to reproduce for Jensen I put out some feelers about finding him an Omega…”

“Jesus Fucking Christ! Even if it is acceptable for Jensen to have a second wife with Danneel being a Beta, he would never agree to it.”

“I’m not telling you again about your language. I might have, at one of my appointments, casually indicated to Brent that I wanted an Omega like his.”

Who the hell is this Brent?

“Wait, Brent Worthington?!”

Jensen dropped his phone. It smacked against his other hand turning on the speaker allowing everyone in the car to hear.

“Donna, have you any idea what you’ve done?”

“I never thought he'd actually offer her, they always seemed so happy together.”

“He took your casual indication as an actual offer for his wife. You do understand that while we have to deal with each other they are still our rivals.”

The Ackles and Worthingtons were two of the original founding clans of the Dallas Pack, and rivals for centuries. Iseult had been married to the only Beta son of Abraham, the Clans Alpha, like Alan.

Josh’s voice shook as he spoke, “Mom, if the council decides to return her do you have any idea what they’ll do if Jensen’s already mated and claimed her?”

There’s a ringing phone and Alan answered, his voice loud then faint, apparently pacing around the room.

In the SUV dim interior Jensen could see Iseult shaking, awaiting the decision.

“The council sided with the Worthington's stating the law…”

Jensen’s inner Alpha raged, loosening a wrawl causing Clif to jerk the wheel, swerving across the wet lanes, throwing Jensen against the seat in front of him, landing on the floorboard before the vehicle was under control and stopped on the shoulder. Twisting around he sees Clif opening the back door checking on Iseult while Alan’s voice filled the otherwise silent SUV.

“...but taking into consideration today’s social climate they came back with the final decision since she remarried another clan leader's son her status is unchanged, so if we send her back there’s no penalty for damages. If we choose to keep her, it’s five million due to the Omegas age.”

“What did you tell them dad?”

“I told them we were keeping her, I won’t be the cause of anymore upheaval in my son's life. However,” Alan’s voice turned hard, “the council has ordered additional financial penalties set against both clan leaders for the transgressions committed by their families.”

“How much?”

“I paid twenty-five million for a Deuxième Omega.”

tbc

SPN: @donnaintx​​​​​​​

Dean/Jensen: @flamencodiva​​​​​​​

[percywinchester27]

A lot like ‘Us’ (Part-9)

Word count: 4.2K

Pairing: Sam X Reader AU

Warnings: fluff, implied smut, teehee ;)

Series Summary: Y/N Y/L/N is eager and honestly, still in awe that she managed to get herself an acceptance from Stanford Law School. On the face of it, her life seems as put together, mysterious and independent as one might hope for. On the insides, she carries the burden of past that haunts her till date. Seemingly, she’d left it all behind; that is until she sets foot in the class of the Law School’s youngest, most promising professor.

A/N: There is no angst in this part whatsoever. Fun break, right? ;)

The story employs two different timelines. The present timeline for the story takes place in 2014. Please let me know what you guys think :)

Beta: @deanssweetheart23 the best! <3

A lot like ‘Us’ masterlist

Kevin kept stealing glances at you. It started out guilelessly, but then he got suspicious real quick.

“Something is up with you!” He finally proclaimed.

You looked up innocently from the bowl you were mixing the batter in. “What?”

“Oh, don’t give me that look. I know something is different today,” Kevin insisted. “Jack, back me up here!”

Jack looked up from his book, sweet and oblivious. “What?”

It only furthered Kevin’s annoyance. “Look at her!” He pointed a finger accusingly at you. “She’s humming!”

“She hums sometimes,” Meg shrugged from her place near the flowerpots in the balcony, where she sat cleaning her telescope.

You winked at her and she blew back a kiss.

“Did you see that!” Kevin shouted. “And now she’s winking!”

“Kev, you need to take it down a notch,” you grinned at him.

“Say what you want, Y/N, I know you’re keeping something from us,” he announced. 

“It’s just that I have an evening to myself for the first time in a while. It’s good to know that I can be in bed by eleven.”

“That’s a good enough reason to hum if you ask me,” Jack said absently. “God knows we’ve all wrecked our sleep schedules beyond repair now.”

“Y/N, Cas and Pam at least have night jobs,” Meg said. “We have zero excuses.”

Kevin gave up on trying to wriggle out the reason for your humming out of you and settled for stealing the cookie batter.

“Let’s not bake this. Let’s just eat this out of the bowl.”

You smacked his hand away, taking the bowl with you to the kitchen counter.

The door to the apartment opened and Cas came in. He looked ready to drop.

There was an outburst of excitement at his entry and he gave everyone a tired but happy smile.

“I thought I’d find you guys here,” he said, dropping on your sofa. 

“Long day?” You asked sympathetically.

He sighed. “It’s always a long day when you’re posted in the pediatric ward. I don’t look forward to it.”

 “But you’re so good with children!” Meg said.

You zeroed in on her. “How do you know that?”

“I-I ran into him at the hospital,” she said, suddenly busy with her lens. “It was nothing.”

Didn’t look ‘nothing’ to you, but you didn’t press her on it. Solidarity was the key to a healthy roommate relationship. Afterall, she had helped you out with Kevin earlier and hadn’t spoken a word about the coat.

You needn’t have worried, because Kevin clearly wasn’t over you.

“Y/N’s keeping something from us,” he complained to Cas promptly. “She’s humming, and smiling and baking those cookies!”

“She does all those things normally,” Cas said. You gave him an exaggerated bow, and Kevin’s jaw dropped.

“Now she’s- she’s doing that!” he spluttered.

You threw the kitchen rag at him. “Why are you scrutinising me with a magnifying glass, when we all should be clearly interested in Jack’s date! Why is nobody asking him the questions?”

“It was good,” Jack said, finally setting the book down. “Claire’s awesome! Hey, Y/N, guess what I found out? Her mom’s a Professor at the law school!”

“Really?” 

“Claire Mills, if it helps,” he added.

Professor Mills. You would have never guessed she had a daughter that old. She didn’t look it. You were instantly reminded of her barging into Sam’s office. What would have happened, if she hadn’t?

“You know what? Fine! Don’t tell me,” Kevin crossed his arms over his chest.

You walked over to him, and ruffled his hair. “It’s really nothing. If it was anything big, I’d tell you.”

It was true. A professor had smiled at you for a bit. That was all there was to it.

“Fine,” he gave in, sneaking away the bowl of cookie batter. “Keep smiling though, you light up the room.”

*************************

9th September 2008

‘You’ll be okay by yourself?” Aunt El asked you, worry creasing her forehead.

“Mom!” Jo groaned. “She’s not by herself! She’s with me.”

Ellen looked at her like that was hardly a good thing and you snickered.

“I worry that instead of her influencing you in a good way, you’re going to spoil her,” she admonished Jo good naturedly. “Please don’t get drunk and annoy the neighbours.”

“We’re totally getting drunk and annoying the neighbours,” Jo whispered conspiratorially behind her mother’s back.

Ellen was heading to Wisconsin for a bar owners convention. At least, that’s what she had told you. Jo believed it was a pretense for her to get drunk with her own friends.

“I’ll help out Jo at the diner,” you told your aunt, getting up to walk her to the door. 

Aunt El placed a hand on your shoulder. “You know you don’t have to, Y/N. Jo has plenty of help there.”

“I want to,” you offered, and she smiled.

“Alright girls,” Aunt El said. “Don’t have too much fun.” She hugged both of you and chasetly kissed your forehead. It was such a pure gesture of affection, it brought back memories of your Gran and the few faded ones of your mom.

“Pick your poison, my sweet child,” Jo grinned, pulling out a bottle of Vodka mere minutes after Ellen’s car had left the driveway. She had a hoard of bottles with her under the table. “We also have Whiskey, rum and this sweet mother of everything holy - Tequila.”

You stared at the assortment of liquor in horror. “Jo, I’ve only ever had beer, and two pints were more than enough to me as high as the holy heaven. This is a stupid idea.”

“In this house, we live for stupid,” Jo said, pouring some of the colourless liquid in a shot glass. “At least when my mother isn’t home.”

You looked at her dubiously.

“C’mon, Y/N, this will be fun!”

Her grin was so infectious that you gave in. 

“Pour away, bar wench,” you said, delicately putting your hand against your forehead like a gothic European woman. Your cousin howled with laughter and slid the glass towards you. “Let’s start with Vodka, shall we?”

The next day you would know that you shouldn’t have started with Vodka. Hell, you shouldn’t have started with anything! It felt like waking up in another reality when you opened your eyes the next morning. In fact, even doing that had been a struggle. The sun was shining too brightly through the tiny slit in the curtains, almost assaulting you in the eyes and your head felt like it had grown a few pounds over the night.

You groaned, wanting to roll over and go back to sleep, but a wave of nausea hit you and you shambled out of the bed, making it just in time to the bathroom to hurl your gut into the toilet. It was nasty and felt neverending. After the puking fit passed, you just curled on your side on the wet bathroom floor, wondering why the hell people put themselves through this? Sure, it had been a fun night, and after the second glass of vodka, you didn’t remember much anyway. Just really vague memories. There was some dancing on the staircase involved, jumping on the bed, and really loud music. Your throat was already sore from all the yelling and laughing, the throwing up had only made it worse.

You tried to recollect why you were in your bra and shorts. Oh, strip poker. You wanted to bang your head against the bathroom tiles, but even moving made the nausea worse. Only the thought of Jo finally made you get up and go looking for her in the house, which was a total mess. There were clothes everywhere. It was like the wardrobes had all burst open spilling clothes all over the house. 

And had there been crying? You remembered in flashes that you were sobbing ceaselessly in Jo’s arms at one point. 

Jo was nowhere to be seen. You did the only logical thing and called her phone.

“Morning, sunshine!” Jo answered on the third ring, voice absolutely nice and chirpy.

“How?” You croaked. 

Jo’s laughter echoed from the other side. “I’m just good at handling it. I was going to wake you before I left for the diner, but you were out for good. Figured you’d call when you woke up. Man, drunk Y/N is my new favourite person in the world. She’s a freaking rockstar! We are so doing this every weekend.”

Well, you wanted to dropkick drunk Y/N from the roof of the house. She got to have all the fun and you were the one to suffer especially when you didn’t even remember anything. From your seat next to the phone you gawked at the clock. It was just past noon.

You groaned.

“There, there,” Jo said sympathetically. “There’s a bottle of Advil on my nightstand. Take two and keep drinking water. You should be better in a few hours, okay?”

“Mhmm…”

“Do you want me to come over?” She asked, sounding worried now.

“I'll be fine,” you answered, quickly.

“Just keep sipping on some water and don’t skip the meal. Eat some bread, I’ve heard that helps, too.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Hey, Y/N,” Jo asked. Her voice hitched, as if she was nervous. “I’m going out with Dean after work. Is it okay with you if he stayed over?”

“Of course!” you said immediately. “It’s no problem at all.” 

“Thanks, Y/N. I owe you one.”

After hanging up the phone, you studiously did what Jo had said. Took the pills, filled a water bottle and then snuggled up on the couch, playing some mindless sitcom on the TV.

You didn’t pay any attention to it. Instead, you thought about Dean. When you had first met Dean, you were a little unsure about what to make of him. He wasn’t exactly hostile towards you, but it wasn’t hard to spot the wariness, as if he didn't trust you being around Sam, or rather didn’t want to trust. After the funeral that had completely changed. He had been more than welcoming and understanding. In fact, he had taken the time out to show you around the town in his car. According to Jo it was super rare of him and that he must really like you. His words from the graveyard came back to you. “You have to take care of yourself first, before you can take care of anyone else.” It had been just for your ears, and you knew exactly who he had been hinting towards.

You wondered idly, if you’d had a big brother, would he have been just as protective of you as Dean was of Sam? But Dean wasn’t just Sam’s brother, he was more than that, he was also a parent. Must have been awful to be the responsible one since such a small age and then doing such a great job. Look at how Sam had turned out to be.

You sighed, readjusting yourself. You so wanted to call Sam, but didn’t want to disturb him when he was busy studying for the Bar. You had taken to dropping by their place in the mornings with food. It made you feel like one of those evil scientists, because Dean’s face would light up the moment he saw you, expecting the pie. It was all really cute. Sam’s eyes, however, were only reserved for you. There was so much longing in them that it made your legs weak. The moment he saw you, though, the longing would be replaced by purest of joys. You would run to him and he’d catch up in his arms, kissing you soundly each time. That feeling, of being so wanted, was the best thing in your life right now. 

It was always the little things. How he never touched you without being completely sure that it was what you wanted. The first night you had stayed over, you had woken up in the middle of the night to find him sleeping on the carpet below you. The sight would have melted the hardest of hearts.

You didn’t know what most couples did, had nothing to compare this with, but Sam was definitely different. He read to you. He would open his textbooks, and read out loud cases and laws and proceedings. You didn’t understand much, but you loved to see him so immersed in it, his deep voice had become an anchor, steadying your life around it.

Once, after much persuasion, he had obliged you by playing a piece of Chopin on the Grand Piano. He said he was rusty, since he had been out of practice for so long, only having started playing again recently. You didn’t understand classical music. Whatever he played, it was all lovely.

On Sundays you would go to the park with picnic baskets, and you would rant about the ducks endlessly. Sometimes Dean and Jo would join you, but mostly it was just the two of you, stealing quiet moments. The soft touch of his rough hands drove you mad sometimes, but he never did anything more than kiss you. At first you wondered if he didn’t want anything more, despite Gran’s ‘boys only want one thing’ speech, and it left you feeling so frustrated. You would have believed it too, that he wasn’t interested in you like that, if you hadn’t seen his pupils dilate after he kissed you. His hands would start shaking a little and he would gulp before pulling away. He felt something, even if he didn’t want to show exactly what it was. 

The clock chimed and you opened your eyes. Had you really fallen asleep again, despite having woken up at noon? The TV was still playing a rerun of Days of our lives. You sat up feeling steadier. In fact, your stomach was settled, too. It was like the hangover of morning had never happened. Despite it being only 6, it was dark outside. You walked to the window to see that the sky was overcast. 

Deciding to listen to Jo’s sage advice, you made yourself grilled cheese and ate it as quickly as you could before getting to the mess that the house was in. Dean would be flabbergasted if he saw the condition of the place. You grabbed all the clothes and folded them neatly into two piles- yours and Jo’s. Seriously? Had there been a drunk fashion show? Then rounded up the empty bottles and put them in the trash can. It took you over an hour to clean the rest of the house.

At least Jo had put the mail inside on the table before leaving. You decided to put it in the drawer for when Aunt El returned from her weekend. As you were sliding it in, you noticed that one of them was addressed to you and on the letterhead of-

You hurriedly tore open the envelope and pulled out the contents. Unfolding the first paper, you went through the content furiously for the words that you were looking for. As you read them, the paper slipped out of your hand, fell onto the table. You were running before you knew it, running out of the house and into the street. It had started raining outside and your feet slipped on the wet pavers of the sidewalks. Several times you slipped and fell, but you didn’t let that stop you. Each time you picked yourself up, running till you were drenched and out of breath, till you had reached his house.

You banged on the door, not stopping until it opened. Sam stood there, his annoyance swiftly melting into first surprise, then concern.

“Y/N!” He ushered you inside, quickly closing the door behind you. 

“Sam... S-Sam,” You tried to say and he immediately dragged you inside. 

“Jesus Christ, you’re shivering and soaked to the bone,” he fretted, seating you on the sofa and throwing a rug over you. “What were you thinking? You know you can’t deal with the cold!”

“Sam,” you said, grabbing his hand to stop him from hovering over you. “I- I got in!”

He came to a halt. “What?”

“I got into North Carolina Central,” you finally managed through chattering teeth. “I got in!”

His grip on your arms loosened just for a second and then he was pulling you to him, kissing you with an emotion that probably didn’t have a name. 

“I’m so proud of you,” he said, pulling back, a grin of true happiness breaking across his face. “You did it, Y/N! You did it! This is incredible.”

You could see that he meant it. Each word. And his eyes were saying more than that, they were brimming with gratification. Instead of saying anything, you leaned forward and kissed him some more, deeply, pouring all your feelings into it, till a violent shiver ripped through you.

“Shit!” He swore. “You’ve got to get out of these. You can use my bathroom to wash. I'll get you some of my clothes. Not that they’d fit.” He scratched the back of his hair, looking nervous.

Anything to get out of these clothes. Now that you were so cold, you realised just how reckless it had been to get wet in the rain. 

“Come on.” Sam slowly led you upstairs to his room. “I’ll just turn the hot water on for you.”

You looked around Sam’s room as he disappeared in the bathroom. All the times that you had been to the house, he had never invited you up here. Not once. Looking around, you noticed how clean and organised the room was. There weren’t many personal touches, given how little time he had spent here in the past few years, but there was a picture on his table, of him and Dean, laughing at something. 

“In you go,” Sam said, coming out. “There’s a towel for you, and er... I’ll leave the clothes on the bed.”

“Thanks,” you mumbled shyly and walked into the bathroom, clutching at your wet clothes. Locking the door, you stared at the girl in the mirror. She looked bright eyed and… happy. Like the whole world was at her feet. 

The hot shower did calm your nerves, soothing your skin and getting the mud out of your hair. It felt impolite to leave your clothes in the cloth basket at the foot of the sink, but what other choice did you have? Wrapping the towel around your body, you peeked out to make sure you were all by yourself, before stepping out. Sam had laid out a tshirt, a pair of boxers, sweat pants and even a sweater. You felt your face heated up at the sight of them. It felt so intimate to pull on the boxers. You pulled the T-shirt over your head next. It almost reached your lower thigh. Boldly, you decided to ditch the sweatpants, not feeling the need for them after a warm shower.

In the living room, Sam was tending to the fire, his back turned towards you. Feeling brave, you climbed down the staircase. Sam turned at the sound of your feet and his eyes widened, an audible gasp leaving his lips. The reaction was both flattering and encouraging as you walked towards him slowly and kneeled down in front of him. He gulped and breathed out, leaning back just a bit. You moved forward, caressing the side of his face. He sighed as if your touch pained him. 

“Is this not okay?” You breathed uncertainty. “Do you not want this?”

Maybe the hurt was clear on your face, because Sam drew your hand away from his face and placed it over his heart. Through the thin layer of his t-shirt, you could feel it pounding hard.

“Not want this?” He laughed breathily. “It feels like I’ve wanted nothing but you since I first saw you.”

You didn’t understand. “Then why don’t you ever-” you trailed off.

He took your face in his hands, looking at you like you were the most precious thing in the world. “Y/N/N,” he whispered and the hair on the back of your head stood straight at the intensity in his voice. He had never called you that before. “Don’t you see? You’re too good. I-I don’t think I’m saying it right… part of me feels that I don’t deserve this… I don’t deserve you.”

“Sam! What’re you talking about?”

He looked away, not meeting your eyes. It was something you couldn’t bear.

“Do you know what my first thought was, when I saw the acceptance?” You asked gently, placing your other hand which wasn’t resting over his heart, on his face, making him look at you. The very light stubble there prickled the skin of your palm. “That I had to tell you. It was enough to make me run in the rain, because I knew no one would be as happy for me as you would be!”

“I was happy because you deserve this and the world.” His eyes were a liquid galaxy. They held the universe’s power over you.

He still wasn’t getting it. “Sam,” you said, voice low. “I love you.”

His grip on your face slacked and his hands slid down to your shoulders, eyes roving all over your face, like he was trying to memorise every line, every curve of it.

“Y/N.” 

Your name falling from his lips did strange things to your body. Suddenly you were yanked forward and with none of the softness you had come to expect from Sam, but with a desperation that left you reeling. His fingers twisted in your hair and he was kissing you hungrily, like there was no tomorrow, like the world would cease to exist if stopped now. For you it would, if he stopped. You grabbed onto his shoulders, feeling the tense roll of his muscles as his lips traveled down the column of your neck, leaving wet kisses in their wake.

And you? Your body was on fire. It didn’t hurt, just tingled so pleasantly that you never wanted it to stop. An incoherent moan left your mouth as you held on to Sam like dear life.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked, voice hoarse.

You nodded, unable to form proper words, and then fumbled with the hem of his t-shirt. God, don’t stop now. Don’t stop ever.

Sam yanked his shirt off of over his head in one swift move and you were left to marvel at that carved out muscles. You ran your hands lightly over his chest, abs and stomach till the skin disappeared beneath the waistband his pants. 

His hands disappeared under your shirt, feeling the skin of your back and shoulders. You shivered and he pulled his hands back. 

“Do you want to go upstairs?” He was nervous, you realised. You dipped down to his chest.

“Yes.”

Before he could do anything else, you stuttered, “Sam?”

His eyes were wide, breath coming pants. “Yeah?”

“I-I’ve never done this before… I want to... but I don’t know how…” your voice trailed off and you looked down at his hands where they held yours. 

Sam placed one finger under your chin and titled it up so he could look into your eyes, “We’ll take it slow… only if you want to. And if you don’t-”

You put your finger to his lips. “I want to, really.” You might spontaneously combust if it didn’t happen now. 

That was all Sam needed to hear. He scooped you up in his arms, and carried you to the very bedroom you had just left. There was no fire here, but the room was dim and his bed was somehow already warm. He didn’t waste a second before his arms were circling your waist. You caught hold of the hem of your t-shirt and pulled it over your head. Sam gasped, his eyes doing that thing again which made you go all weak in the knees, made your bones soft.

“Can I?” His voice was oh so soft, and when you nodded, he pulled you back to him, chest against chest and skin against skin. You’d be damned if it wasn’t the most wonderful feeling in the world.

“God, I love you,” he breathed into your hair. “I’ve wanted to say it for so long. I can’t believe that you feel the same way.” He kissed your forehead. “And you’re so beautiful. Each time I look at you, you take my breath away. What are you doing to me?”

This was what touched you the most about being with him. He treated you like the most precious blessing in the world, like you were some special favour granted to him by destiny when you were just… you. The only reason you could tell him that you loved him so freely was because you knew he felt the same way. How could you not know, when he looked at you like you were his wish come true? His every gesture, every word just went to further prove it. 

But he did try to prove it for every moment of the night, with his touches, kisses and reverences. He tried to prove it over and over. Later, exhausted, after he had fallen asleep, you lay with your head over his arm, thinking that he needn’t have tried at all. You would forever remember that he loves you. It was the one thing you would never question.

*************************

A/N 2: *Wiggles eyebrows* Finally some action eh? ;) Let me know what you think about it. The next chapter is mostly in present times and pretty crucial for the progress of the story, if I do say so myself ;)

Once again, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who commented and reblogged. You are AWESOME!

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[angrylizardjacket]

runs in the family // charlotte&lola (penny&jupiter)

Summary: Jupiter and Penny somehow find themselves in 1981. What else is there to do but meet their moms at Motley Crue's first gig?

A/N: as always, for @misscharlottelee and eva ill edit this and tag u when I find ur new url. @compositionnotebook 💖 why did I write this? Because I love to suffer. Also as always, unedited.

----

Of course, waking up in a hotel room they don’t remember, with their cousin asleep in the other bed, only to realise that they’re back in LA when they’re meant to be on the other side of the country in the middle of their tour, Jupiter was understandably panicked. They hadn’t been drinking last night, and they’re pretty sure there was no way of them getting across the country without realising, and the idea that something is up is solidified when Penny wakes up and starts panicking too. 

The front desk says they’re paid up for the month; the woman’s hair is sand blonde, feathered and sprayed up to the high heavens, while the uniform she wears is the ugliest shade of green Jupiter’s ever laid eyes on, but the woman has the gall to give Jupiter’s outfit an unimpressed look. They’re all for the current resurgence in 80s fashion trends, but it feels like this woman may have committed too hard to the bit. Jupiter, nonetheless, asks the woman if she remembers how they and Penny had arrived, and the woman actually rolls her eyes and says that she’s not paid to ask nosy questions. 

It takes the cousins a full hour to find out that somehow they’ve landed themselves in 1981, a full day to believe it, and a full week to fully understand what that means. 

“I hate this, I want to do something, go somewhere,” Friday night and Jupiter’s sick to death of no TV and only the radio for entertainment. Whoever had been staying here, whoever’s place they and Penny had taken, had left a wallet with no ID, but an exorbitant amount of cash, and a closet full of clothes in their sizes. It’s eerie as fuck, but the only person who’s come knocking was the housekeeping staff, and Jupiter tells them to go away every time. 

“We are near The Strip in the eighties,” Penny suggests, flicking through a newspaper idly, lounging on the bed, “what if we saw young Guns ‘n’ Roses live, or, oh God, what about Motley, could you imagine?” Penny snorted, and Jupiter’s whole expression wrinkles to something horrified.

“They weren’t around yet, were they? What’s the date?”

“April twenty-fourth,” Penny’s expression sobers considerably from it’s delight, adding, “nineteen eighty-one,” much quieter, “fuck.”

They agree to go out, if only to get out of the room they’d been hiding from the world in, rather terrified to face their reality. There’s hesitation; do they get dressed up? Do they use the makeup sitting neatly on the bathroom counter? It felt safer to try and blend in, but blending in with the 80s nightlife wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world. 

Both have the distinct, horrifying thought of ‘I look like my mother’ when they’re finished, looking in the mirror, all dark makeup and patterned jeans and leather jackets; there’s a leather miniskirt that neither of them touch, not wanting to go too hard on their first night in the apparent real world. There’s a half empty bottle of hairspray on the counter that they both eye dubiously.

“It would be weirder if we didn’t spray up our hair, right?” Penny says, and Jupiter feels distinctly like a teenager, uncertain, awkward, not quite sure of their style, rather than the early-30s successful musician they were. 

It doesn’t end up looking good, at least not to their 2020 sensibilities, but as they make their way down to the street, a woman in leopard print gushes over how good they both look. 

It’s sunset, with people looking just as out there are the out-of-time cousins, band posters and flyers plastered to every wall, every telephone pole, every surface available as they walked the six blocks to The Strip. It takes only the ten minute walk from their shitty little hotel, to the Whiskey-A-Go-Go, for the reality it of it all to settle in Jupiter’s stomach like they’d swallowed ice. More specifically, it takes right up until they’re standing on the corner by the Whiskey, Penelope’s eye caught by one of the flyers on the nearby telephone pole, for Jupiter to think to look across the street at the rundown apartment complex that they realise they already know of. 

They gaze upon the window of one of the apartments on the second floor, with, even at this distance, a visibly fist-sized hole, gaff-taped up through the window. Jupiter knows that window, even as Penelope’s calling their name insistently. 

“It’s April Twenty-Fourth, right?” Penny calls, dubiously, and Jupiter says something about how that’s what she’d said back at the hotel, not paying attention.

“First ever rehearsal we had for the band, I didn’t even see your mom, she was out somewhere, the gym I think, but before she’d gone, she and Nikki had a fight and she put her whole fist through the window; I thought they were the coolest people I’d ever met.”

Tommy’s voice floats through Jupiter’s mind as they finally turn to Penny, to her insistent tone, only to step back, as if burned by the very sight of the Motley Crue poster. Penny was holding one corner in a fist, eyes wide. Tonight. The Starwood. 

“No.” Jupiter didn’t even let her get an word in edgewise, but Penny shook the poster more intently. 

“We have to,” she implored, though Jupiter was now adamantly shaking their head.

“We have to do no such thing,” Jupiter crossed their arms, cocking a hip. Turning their nose in the air at the poster, they accidently catch a glimpse of what they’re pretty sure is their mom’s apartment, and their expression reflexively wrinkles.

“What if my mom’s there?” Penny says quietly, and oh God damn it, there’s no way Jupiter could say no to that. The walk from the Whiskey to the Starwood is a good half an hour, and they’re both just glad to have opted for the flat shoes they’d brought from the future, rather than risked any of the platforms or heels that were lined up neatly at the bottom of the closet they’d raided. There’s a Motley poster ever few feet, and while dread had settled in Jupiter’s stomach, Penny was buzzing beside them nervously.

The Starwood had closed only months after Motley’s first performance, but both Jupiter and Penny had heard their family lovingly reminisce about it, with photos from the night, from nights before and after, so it strangely felt like they’d been there before, looking at the club’s name up in shining lights, Motley Crue headlining the night just below. 

“Isn’t that the guy from Rock Candy?” There’s two dudes a few feet away, squinting at another poster for the band, then looking up to the sign, both of them in leather jackets and flared jeans. 

“Dude, fuck, that’s the guy from London, last gig he played, he broke the singer’s jaw!” The second dude, delights, already tugging his friend towards the club where people were already filtering in.

“No man, their roadie broke the singer’s nose after he knocked out two of the bass player’s teeth on stage -”

It was so strange to hear misinformation spread so casually about people both Jupiter and Penny knew so well; they’d both heard the story of the night Tommy and Charlotte had met Nikki and Lola, how London had a small fight on stage that ended up giving Nikki a bloody nose, and how Lola had knocked out two of the singer’s teeth the in alley behind the bar after the gig. But here, now, it was like it’s own kind of folklore. 

They follow the men inside. 

No-one check their IDs, thank God, their own wallets hadn’t travelled back in time with them. The bouncer lets them pass without issue, and Jupiter is strangely reminded of their age as they see the people around them, a majority in their early to mid-20s, all looking right at home in leather and black denim. It’s still fairly quiet, the stage looking only half set up with a few clusters of people milling around the bar. There’s two people on the stage, setting it up, but with their backs turned, but they’re not exactly recognisable, long blonde hair and dark hair respectively, though the dark-haired one is in a distinctively spiked jacket. Closer to them, however is, a pretty red-head sat at the end, all tight clothes and effortless elegance, one leg crossed over the other where she was lounging against the bar on her barstool, a beer in one hand. Something about her is so familiar.

Jupiter and Penny carefully sit themselves by the bar too, a few seats away from the red-head, looking around but not quite processing it all. They’re at Motley Crue’s first show. 

Jupiter’s squinting at the row of drinks behind the bar, trying to decide what to order, when Penny grabs their hand so hard it hurts. Before they can turn back, however, they hear a voice they’ve only ever heard recordings of.

“Aw, Eileen, so nice of you to get me a drink,” Charlotte Lee’s tone was all teasing and light as she took the bottle out of the redhead - Eileen’s - hand, taking a sip as Eileen herself rolled her eyes.

“Lola is a terrible influence on you,” Eileen said flatly. Penny’s nails were digging into Jupiter’s forearm. Charlotte hands the drink back with a fond twinkle in her eyes.

“Lola hasn’t paid for a drink in her life, so I happen to think she’s a great influence-”

“She only drinks for free because she’s blackmailing half the bartenders in town,” the bartender himself piped up, cracking open a beer and handing it over to Charlotte without her even having to ask, flashing a grin that’s all teeth, “you ladies drink for free because I like making pretty girls smile.”

“Ricky, you’re the one who keeps hitting on her,” Charlotte points out, and his expression falls almost comically fast; “you keep taking her back to your place.”

“Only ‘cos she lives with Nikki and I don’t feel like being fucking stabbed in my sleep,” Ricky counters, pouting and flustered, his arms crossed over his chest. 

“That’s definitely fair, but it’s not Lola’s fault you’re embarrassed about having a nun fetish,” Eileen’s tone is unbothered in the fact of Ricky’s embarrassment, though her lips twitch in the barest amuse smile as she adds, “Father Richard,” and Ricky turns scarlet as Charlotte spits half her mouthful of beer as a laugh escapes her. 

Jupiter can feel their heart beat in their throw. This is so real, what the fuck. 

“Can we help you?” And then Eileen’s looking directly at Penny and Jupiter, who realise that they’re staring at the women by the bar, eyes wide like they’d seen a ghost. Ha. She’s got a single, perfect eyebrow raised, shifting in a way that’s barely noticible, but so clearly confrontational, like a cat’s fur raising even when a cat doesn’t move. 

“Charlotte Lee,” there’s a wobble in Penny’s voice when she finally speaks, and Jupiter can feel the way her hand’s trembling, “that makes... that makes you Eileen -” and she swallows hard, editing the last name she knows so well for the one that Eileen would have had in 1981, “Austen.” 

Charlotte and Eileen share a look, and then look back to Penelope. 

“Wait right here,” Charlotte sounds delighted, actually addressing Penny with a hand out.

“How do you guys know who we are?” Eileen asks, as Charlotte takes off towards the stage. Penny moves instinctively to follow her, but Jupiter holds her in place. There’s something in the evaluative look she gives them, lip curling just a little, on edge at being stared at by two strangers who must be roughly a decade older than them, who seem to already know them. “Are you friends of Lola’s?” She asks dubiously, and Jupiter is fighting the urge to run.

“Our little brother went to high school with you both,” Penny blurts out, “he was in the year above you,” but something seems to ease about Eileen’s posture as Penny tells her the exact school, and the year she and Charlotte would have graduated. It’s too specific for Eileen to think they’re lying, and for that both Jupiter and Penny are glad.

For all that Penny is Charlotte and Razzle's daughter, she was still raised, at least in part, by Lola, arguably the best liar of her generation. All the various Lee-Dingley-Sixx children had some innate ability to convincingly lie through their teeth, and though it didn't come in handy for Penny nearly as much as it seemingly did Jupiter, she was never more grateful for that skill than she was now.

“False alarm, Charlie, their brother went to school with us,” Eileen calls out, just as Charlotte is returning, dragging a dark haired woman both Jupiter and Penny knew far too well.

Seeing Charlotte at first had been so overwhelming that they hadn’t really processed what she’d looked like, but now, standing next to who could only be Lola, in 1981, it hit Jupiter just how young they both were. 

Lola’s still shorter than her own child, but taller than Jupiter remembers her ever being, curtesy of her intimidating platform boots, leather and buckles and spikes, a good match for her spiked leather jacket and studded bralette. She’s all sprayed up hair, larger than life, dark eyeshadow, and fishnets, somehow wearing so much and not at all at the same time. 

Beside her, Charlotte is only a few inches shorter, hair just as high, still with dark makeup, looking like a beautiful middle ground between Lola’s intimidating intensity and Eileen’s high glamour. In flashy denim pants and an artfully ripped, hand painted Motley Crue shirt, Charlotte’s the picture of the eighties, as beautiful and bright as any photo or recording Penny and Jupiter had ever seen. 

Charlotte’s expression falls with disappointment, but before she can speak -

“You’re twenty-two!” Jupiter hears themselves say, and Lola looks directly at them, lip curling. Jupiter’s blood runs ice cold. 

“What?” The single word is so derisive in a voice that Jupiter has never known to be cold, and before anyone else can speak, Lola looks to Charlotte, eyebrow raised. When she crosses her arms over her chest, even the leather jacket can’t completely hide how well muscled her arms are, “Charlie, I love you but I don’t give a shit about two old broads whose brother you knew, we gotta finish setting up.” It hurt like a physical ache, somewhere behind Jupiter’s sternum, each word somehow hurting more than the last.

“Don’t be rude,” Charlotte told her, elbowing her in the ribs, smiling even so.

“I don’t even know my fucking age - who are you?” Lola’s undeterred, on hand holding a roll of gaff tape in a white-knuckled grip, while the other had curled into a fist, weight shifting from one foot to the other in agitation. Okay, that’s very fair, Jupiter regrets ever opening their mouth. Fuck. 

“You don’t know how old you are?” Charlotte asks, disbelieving, breaking the tension, and Lola looks back at her, face scrunching up as the tension drops from her shoulders.

“Why would I know my age?”

“Because that’s a very weird thing not to know!” Charlotte exclaimed in disbelief, eyes wide. Jupiter, on the other hand, wracked their brains for any scrap of knowledge they’d heard about their mother’s past and actually retained.

“Sorry, we know we’re being weird,” eyes closed, they took a deep breath, trying to sort out their thoughts, “our brother Leo went to school with Charlotte and Eileen, but we... talked to a band you roadied for, and they told us roughly how old you were, but you look,” Jupiter pauses, cracking open their eyes, only to see the way Lola's expression had softened upon hearing the name Leo - oh fuck, she doesn't even know the truth about her own dad yet! -“younger than I expected.”

“I’m used to Lola being recognised around here, just got my hopes up that it was my turn,” Charlotte admits with the faintest embarrassment, picking her drink up from the bar and taking a sip. 

“One day soon, Charlie, if the boys take off, we’ll be right beside ‘em; everyone in LA will know your name,” the way Lola says it is strangely wry, like she’s self aware of the fact that her own name is out there for some less than reputable reasons, or like she isn’t fully convinced that Motley Crue would be the runaway success they all hoped.

Jupiter and Penny share a look, pained by the dramatic irony the three women across from them couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

It takes a moment, and Lola is definitely still a bit wary, but then it passes, and Lola looks to the stage again, still clearly addressing Charlotte.

"If you wanna help me with the last bit, I just need to do a sound check.” And with that, she was off, and Jupiter lets out a breath that hadn’t realised they’d been holding. Penny is still staring at Charlotte, who's rocking back on her heel as she has another drink, contemplating going after Lola, but also intrigued but the two interlopers enough to stay.

Eileen asks their names.

Penny and Jupiter share a panicked look, because they can't just tell the truth, it would make things weird in the future! What if they end up in the present named something entirely new!? They hadn't even begun to consider the butterfly effect of their being here.

"Lisa?" Jupiter says finally, picking a name they'd used in the past, but not for long, a nickname derived from their birth name in honour of their grandmother. Eileen looks wildly unconvinced, but Charlotte, bright and kind and perfect and alive, tells them its pretty. Penny is struggling to come up with an alternative, before conceding that her nickname is probably common enough that it wouldn't really matter.

"Penny's such a pretty name," Charlotte beams, and tells them its lovely to meet them, and Jupiter rests a gentle hand on their cousin's back, a silent reminder to keep breathing, as Charlotte trots off to help Lola with the last of the sound check.

Jupiter orders them both several drinks.

They end up sitting at the other end of the bar, away from the spot Eileen has clearly claimed for herself and Motley Crue's glorified roadies. Penny is quietly trying not to hyperventilate every time she thinks too hard about what's happening, and made a muffled scream upon hearing Charlotte laugh at one of Lola's jokes.

"I've died, Jup, we've died and this is the afterlife because that is my fucking mother, and she's alive, and she's twenty-one goddamn years old. She is a child. Our mothers are children. What the fuck?!" Penny hissed, and took another sip of her drink. Jup was watching Lola, so young and confident and mean as all hell, a defensive mechanism that's only made apparent to be such because Jupiter's known her longer than this version of Lola's been alive. But she smiles around Charlotte and Eileen in a way Jupiter's never seen her smile before, something grateful and adoring at the corners of her lips, an unfamiliar kind of softness in her eyes for just the barest moment.

Lola smiles like she feels lucky to be here, to be around these women, to call them friends. Here and now it hits Jupiter hard, that even decades later, their mother never fully recovered from losing Charlotte.

"We're not dead," Jupiter tells their cousin softly, and they both watch Lola and Charlotte head back to the green room before the band begins.

"But I- how, explain then, how can I go over there and touch her? She's real, Jup, really real, my mother, Charlotte Lee."

"I can't explain it, it just is," Jupiter muses, and finishes of their next drink as Lola and Charlotte reappear, followed by the band, all looking far too young and overeager, and Jupiter's heart is beating in their throat as Tommy Lee beams and waves to the crowd. They're going to be sick. Or maybe cry. Or maybe have a full panic attack right here by the bar. Fucking hell he's even more of a child than Charlotte, only twenty, and just as bright and excitable as they've known him to be, possibly moreso.

The audience seems underwhelmed, not sure what to make of these boys with their leather and hairspray and nervous excitement; Vince introduces them to the quiet bar with a yell, and Jupiter kind of hates that their future step-dad is giving them gender envy.

And then Tommy knocks over his cymbal after showing off with his drumsticks, and Jupiter bursts into tears.

They're furious at themselves for crying, hand pressed to their mouth for fear of anyone hearing if they would sob, brow furrowed into a scowl, other hand messily wiping at their eyes as they mouth defiant swears against their palm. People are jeering and booing, and out of the corner of their eye, Jupiter sees Charlotte actively holding Lola back, and something deep inside their heart knows that if there wasn't stupid fucking tears in their eyes, they'd be just as ready to defend the band's honour as their mom is.

"Oh, he's always been like this-" Penny's voice is softly adoring as she watches the man who will one day be her uncle and adopted father, before she looks to Jupiter, sees them overwhelmed with it all, and mad at themselves for feeling that, and she laughs, gentle and kind and understanding, and wraps Jupiter up in a hug. Its grounding. Even as Jupiter sulkily tells her to fuck off, they wrap an arm around Penny's shoulders and press their face into her hair.

"He looks like you," Penny murmurs as the first song starts, despite the negativity still pouring from the crowd. Jupiter wrinkles their nose, but can't help but smile. Tommy looks incredibly cool tonight, and it's true that Jupiter had inherited a lot of physical characteristics from their father.

Everyone in the bar hears the jeering way a dude in the audience asks about the 'chick singer', and for a moment, the children unwittingly mirror their mothers as Penny's grip on Jupiter tightens, anticipating when they go to lunge for the stage in outrage, but the moment the guy spits on Vince, across the bar Charlotte let's go of Lola, setting her loose on the vitriolic patrons.

Penny and Jupiter knew Motley's first gig started with a fight, but it was another thing to witness it.

Tommy leaps into the crowd, delighted by the carnage that Nikki and Vince are already taking part in, and Lola’s already knocked a guy flat on his ass. Surprisingly, Charlotte lobs her half-empty bottle at the guy who had spat at Vince, not taking direct part, but not abstaining either, cackling when it shatters against him and he's looking around, angry and confused, and Eileen says her name with a tone thats both scandalised and impressed.

In the end, by the time the bouncers step in, all that's left is Tommy absolutely wailing on a dude, and much to everyone's surprise, most of all her child's, little Lola Gone wraps her arms around Tommy's chest, cops a full elbow to the face, and still hauls him up and off his victim like he weighs nothing, even as he's thrashing and swearing and telling her to go fuck herself before realising who it is. When she puts him down, she snarls something at him, and shoves him towards the stage.

By the bar, Jupiter's mouth is agape, while Penny is trying to hold in her laughter, both of them realising just how terrifyingly similar to their father Jupiter actually is. And that at Twenty-Two, Lola is built like a tank.

The things you never truly understand about your parents because you always think of them as your parents is wild.

But above all, in the wake of the small riot, Jupiter and Penny can only feel a strange and overwhelming pride, seeing how eagerly they'd all defended each other.

"Fuck yeah, Motley Crue!" Leaves Penny's lips, delighted, at the top of her lungs, and suddenly the eyes of everyone in the bar, and more importantly, the people these two time travelling cousins will call family, forty years from now, fall on them. Grateful. Beaming. Then, laughter; Charlotte’s.

"Fuck yeah!" She echoes her daughter, and a cheer rises around the bar as the band begins playing again, energy revitalised. Charlotte beams at them, sharing in the moment, waving them both over eagerly as the bartender begrudgingly hands over a stack of napkins, while Lola's got her head tipped back, arguing with Eileen as to whether or not her nose is broken as it bleeds profusely.

Even at their first gig, Take Me To The Top sounds good, sounds like it should, all rough and energetic, and Jupiter knows how strange it would be to sing along at the band's first fucking gig, but the song, even now, feels like home.

"Lola, you're a danger to yourself and others," Eileen smirked, "and you're a terrible influence on Charlie."

"Thank you," Lola grins, right as Charlotte tries to deny it, which devolves into Eileen pointing out that Charlotte had lobbed her bottle at one of the offenders, which delighted Lola to no end.

"Don't know if you would know this, not sure how much your brother would have said," Charlotte says, grinning at Jupiter and Penny, "but my cousin, Tommy, he's the one on drums," she says, oozing pride. Jupiter and Penny both bite back on their instinctual responses, but still the surprise reads on their face.

"The one who did this to me," Lola's beaming despite looking a little like a horror movie, sounding only proud.

"He's certainly energetic," Penny says, finally, before letting herself breathe, watching the band for the moment, "they're really good," like she can't quite believe this is all real, still, "they have no idea how huge they're gonna be," the words slip out quite by accident, and both Jup and Penny share a panicked look, but the words don't get the reaction they expected.

"I knew I liked you," Charlotte's grin is sharp and pleased, and before Penny can protest, Charlotte's thrown an arm around her shoulders, "you've got taste." And that's enough incentive for Charlotte to shout both Jup and Penny a drink, oblivious to the way Penny freezes, like a deer in the headlights. Her mother's arm is around her without her mom even knowing how much this means. She looks like she's about to cry.

"Its really good to meet you, Charlie," Penny's voice is strangely hoarse, strangely honest in ways Charlotte can't even begin to understand, and Charlotte gives Penny's shoulder a squeeze.

"You too, Penny, and you, Lisa," she adds, grinning up at Jupiter for a moment, "anyone who thinks good things about my reckless dumbass of a cousin and his band is good in my books." She's so effortlessly earnest and endearing, exactly as everyone had described her, able to make friends wherever she went. Penny tentatively thanks Charlotte when she hands her a drink, and wraps an arm around Charlotte's waist when the younger blonde seemed content with an arm around Penny's shoulders.

"I can't believe you two are the only other assholes with taste," Lola smirks, holding a napkin to her nose.

"Get bent," Jupiter fires off automatically at the vaguely derisive tone, and Lola flips them off while Charlotte shoves her in the ribs. This moment, in its own weird little way, makes sense.

[emeraldtawny]

IkeVam Headcanons: Meeting MC’s parents for the first time

Fluffy Friday tiiiime~! More IkeVam headcanons, this time of them meeting MC’s parents! We’re just going to assume that they followed MC to the future and also we’re going to completely ignore that they are famous historical figures otherwise these poor parents will have lots of questions gnreiknerdh

Napoleon

Golden Boy number one. Despite being a little nervous, he’ll be calm and prepared to face your parents.

He has waged war and almost conquered Europe. How hard can meeting your parents be?

He’ll be pulling nervously at his collar as you both walk up to the front door, but after a quick deep breath, he’ll look completely normal and ready to face anything.

“Hello, and Bonjour. My name is Napoleon Bonaparte. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Your parents will be blown away by his politeness and that magnetic charisma of his will have them hooked. He’ll keep conversation with them perfectly fine and the way both of your parents smile seems to suggest only good things. 

When dinner is over, he’s on his feet ready to help clear away the dishes, asking your parents about the food and any recipes they used.

Of course, when embarrassing stories of your childhood are brought into the mix, he’s trying but failing miserably to contain his laughter and everyone else is laughing too, both at the stories and at Napoleon’s contagious laughter.

Throughout the evening, he’s well-behaved in regards to touching you, but he still sneaks in a peck to your cheek when some of your dessert misses its mark. He’s grinning at how flustered you are, but your parents just find it super sweet.

They don’t have a single bad thing to say about him and you can’t help beaming in pride for him. As the night ends and as soon as you close the door to your parent’s house, he sweeps you up into a hug and sighs out how that was the hardest thing he has ever done in his life.

You grin and tell him he did wonderfully and he just laughs exhaustedly into your hair before pressing a kiss to your cheek. You both walk back to your home hand in hand with your parents’ approval lightening the air around you both.

Mozart

This one will micromanage until the moment his knuckles rap against your parents’ door. He’ll be close to interrogating you on what your parents like, dislike, conversations to avoid; anything to ensure this goes well.

You tell him that this isn’t like meeting the lords and nobles from his past and that he just needs to be himself. While he doesn’t seem convinced, he sighs but agrees on the condition that he can keep holding your hand when he needs to draw strength.

When the day finally comes, you’re almost convinced a stiff breeze could knock him over. He’s clutching your hand like a lifeline as he knocks on the door.

“Hello. I am Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Your daughter has told me many things about you. It’s a true pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

His ‘speaking to nobility’ switch will be on while his guards are up, but he’ll still be able to make polite enough conversation. However, as soon as your mother asks about his profession as a musician, he comes into his own element and instantly relaxes as discussions of his concerts and experiences go back and forth.

You’ll notice how his grip on your hand loosens more and more as the night goes on, but he only lets go when dinner is served (and your parents are completely floored by his exemplary table manners) and even then, he returns to holding your hand, his fingers intertwined with yours.

When Mozart excuses himself for a moment, your parents ask if he’s always this clingy, to which you giggle and say he’s just nervous. They add onto it saying he has a wonderful smile when he looks at you and they know he’ll treat you right.

When the night is over and you’re both making your way home, Mozart squeezes your hand tight and asks if you think he won their approval. You grin and tease him saying you don’t think so (to which he almost deflates) you KNOW so because they told you. Breath returns to his lungs and he scolds you for scaring him before he squeezes your hand again, more tenderly this time, seemingly unaware of the relieved smile on his face.

Leonardo

As soon as you bring up that your parents want to be introduced to him, he just kind of shrugs at you, saying all will be fine and nothing can go wrong.

No matter how much you want to believe him, you aren’t convinced. And after some rather forceful pleading, he relents and agrees to do whatever you tell him to be the “model boyfriend”.

He still complains when you take his cigarillos away from him...and wonders how the hell you managed to convince Comte to help you with taking away every single one, even those he thought were hidden and only known to him.

On the day of the dinner, you’re still nervous wondering if you did enough to ensure things will go well. Leonardo pats your head and sends you a grin, telling you in his usual easy-going way that he’ll convince them he’s the one for you. You practically feel your heart drop as your parents open the door.

“Good evening. Leonardo Da Vinci. Piacere di conoscerla.”

You blink and gape at the formal greeting and how he makes it seem like it’s his usual way of speaking. When your parents ask you what’s wrong, you can see Leonardo’s shoulders shaking trying to hold back laughter.

In his usual fashion, he’ll make himself right at home (on the couch, thankfully), his legs crossed and an arm around your waist pulling you close. You’ll get an eyebrow raise from your parents but nothing more.

They’ll be impressed by his odd mix of maturity and open-mindedness, some interesting ethical and scientific conversations coming up throughout the evening with one of the fathers of the Renaissance. 

He’ll even notice and offer to fix the broken clock on the wall, but not before squeezing your waist and dusting a kiss to your temple. You watch him dubiously, but can’t stop your smile forming as you watch him in his element. Your parents can see the light in yours and Leonardo’s eyes as you sneak glances at each other all night and they know you’re in good hands.

As the night ends and you make your way home, his shoulders collapse with his sigh and he rubs his head, saying you have to repay him for making him suffer through withdrawal for this. You smile as you wrap your arms around one of his, just happy that the evening went so well.

Arthur

You are genuinely nervous to introduce him to your parents. He basically radiates playboy energy and you don’t want your parents to see him and immediately disapprove because of his past reputation.

He assures you that he will be on his “very best behaviour”, but you still warn him to be civil and to keep his frisky hands where they can be seen.

When the day comes, he’s as calm and composed as ever and as soon as the door opens, he slips his arm around your shoulders and pulls you close.

“Good evening to you both. I’m Arthur Conan Doyle. It’s wonderful to finally meet the people who brought ___ into this world and into my life.”

His charming grin doesn’t stop your parents’ eyes from narrowing a little and you sigh under your breath, knowing you have your work cut out for you.

The evening goes smoothly enough, conversations being lively and non-stop with no shortage of grins from the Brit. He gives book recommendations to your parents and all seems fine.

When the dreaded question of his past antics is brought up by your father, you visibly tense. But Arthur is quick to take your hand and declare that he wouldn’t dare break your heart and that he’ll prove his words to be true with his actions by loving you with all he has.

Both you and your parents baulk, but he quickly laughs off the serious atmosphere and restores the calm conversation.

When your parents move into the kitchen to clear away the dishes, he suddenly reaches for your hand and you notice how shaky he is.

“Th-this is going well, right? Do you think they like me? Because the last thing I ever want is for the people who raised you to disapprove of our relationship. I...well, to be frank, I don’t think I could take it.”

You sigh and give him a quick kiss to his forehead and whisper to him that he’s doing amazing; all whilst your parents stand in the kitchen having heard every word, and smiling in silent relief that the man you love isn’t as bad as his past suggests.

Vincent

Golden Boy number two. You actually call up your parents beforehand to warn them about him and to be prepared for cavities.

He’s genuinely excited to meet your parents and he even prepares a couple of small landscape paintings to give to them as a gift.

On the day itself, he will be nervous, especially standing in front of the door. You give him a kiss on his cheek and tell him that he has nothing to worry about and he instantly relaxes like magic.

“Ah, good evening. My name is Vincent Van Gogh. I hope I can show you just how much love I have for your daughter, and that you can give me your blessing to keep making her happy.”

Your parents very quickly realise just how right your warning was. When he hands over the paintings with a smile like sunshine, you have to laugh at your mother trying not to coo over him.

The evening goes so smoothly, you’re almost convinced it isn’t real. Your parents were slightly concerned about his profession as a painter being a bit too unstable, but he assuages their worries with talks of his latest exhibition and ones upcoming. Vincent gushes about how he can still be with you even when you travel for your work because his work usually lets him travel as well, and the pure love in his voice when he says that leaves you a blushing mess and both of your parents smiling at how happy you seem.

When they ask about his family, he turns slightly bashful and says that the close family vibe he feels between you and your parents wasn’t a luxury he experienced growing up. He adds that he doesn’t wish to steal you away from them and only wants to make you happy. 

“We all love her...so as people who love her, let's do our best to make her happy" (credit to @snow--blanket​ for this lovely line~)

Ending the night with Vincent receiving a handshake from your father and your mother whispering into your ear that he’s a keeper and he’s welcome back anytime, your steps are practically weightless as you both leave.

When Vincent pulls you closer and asks in a hushed voice if you think it went well, you throw your arms around his neck and say it couldn’t have gone any better. His breath catches before he laughs in relief and hugs you back.

Theodorus

He’ll brush it off as no big deal, but on the inside he is just...screaming. 

He knows better than anyone how abrasive he can be, and the absolute last thing he wants is to get on your parents’ bad side from the very first meeting.

Will he tell you this? Of course not. He’ll just casually hang around you when you’re on the phone to your parents to pick up on any clues he can.

Does he call Arthur and ask him to collect information on them in exchange for him paying the next drinking tab? Who knows...Arthur certainly doesn’t ;3

On the day he’ll be his normal self, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets as you walk beside him. As he rings the doorbell, you jokingly tell him not to call you hondje or knabbeltje for the whole night, to which he only scoffs at.

“Hello. Theodorus Van Gogh, but just Theo is fine. Hope we can get to know each other better.”

Whilst a little crude, you’re still impressed at how polite he sounds compared to what you’re used to. As you walk inside, you freeze as he slips your coat from your shoulders without so much as a word and hangs both yours and his coat on the coat rack. Your parents hardly seem to notice, but you’re suddenly frazzled at this new polite image of the usually grouchy yet kind Theo.

The night continues in the same way. No teasing of wanting a treat, no dog-related nicknames; at this point, you were almost convinced he’s been replaced. Your suspicions heighten with how easily he seemed to be getting along with your parents as well.

As soon as they leave to clear away the dishes, you cup his cheeks and pull his face to look at you, your eyebrows furrowing further when he doesn’t even try to retaliate like normal.

When you ask him what he’s doing and why he’s acting so weird, he just sighs deeply and admits that he has been worried of what your parents would say if they heard him calling you a dog so he decided to tone it down. 

You smile and kiss his forehead, telling him that, while you admit the dog nicknames would have been a weird discussion, your parents would see how clearly he loves you, and how you love him. He grumbles under his breath as he moves his hands to place them over yours.

“I did it for you, mangy hondje. Just enjoy letting me pamper you for tonight, but you best be ready for extra teasing to make up for today.”

That only makes you laugh and as your parents walk back into the lounge, you both pull away from each other and return to the evening’s calm conversations, you stealing glances at how awkwardly adorable your loving boyfriend is.

Dazai

You sit him down and take a deep breath, staring him square in the eyes. You say nothing, only handing him your phone so he can read the texts on them. He blinks once he finishes reading and you cross your arms over your chest.

“I have one thing I would like you to promise me, Dazai. I will do anything you want, just, please, use the door to enter AND exit my parents’ house...please?”

He smiles warmly and says he wouldn’t dream of it. The glare you shoot him dulls his smile none. You sigh, mentally preparing yourself for the no doubt weird day to come.

As you’re both walking to your impending doom, your grip on his hand is tight. He squeezes your hand just before you move to press the doorbell and smiles at you - a real smile that freezes your movements yet drains the gnawing worry from within you. He presses the doorbell in your stead and you just stare at him, wondering how he’s so calm.

“Why, good evening to you. My name is Dazai Osamu. I am truly happy to finally be able to put faces to the people who brought this lovely woman into my life.”

The sight of you blushing like mad with Dazai holding your hand and grinning without a care only makes your parents chuckle.

Dazai is his usual self, his odd yet charming aura drawing your parents in as you all speak about a wide variety of different things. When your mother asks about his career, he looks at you and slips an arm around your waist and says that his job is making you happy. You grumble that he’s actually a writer, but he insists that the job he said is much more important.

You’re shocked at how sweet he’s being, even using your actual name when addressing you. Your parents don’t notice your internal crisis and by the end of the night, they’ve been won over by your eccentric, quirky boyfriend.

As you say goodnight and start making your way home, you twine your fingers with Dazai’s and thank him for using the door. Weirdly, he doesn’t laugh like you expect him to. Instead, he stops walking and pulls your hand softly so you look at him. You’re taken aback by the sudden serious look in his eyes.

“I’m aware that I don’t make an effort to be serious in most things I do, but that’s because I haven’t found anything I’m this serious about until I met you. I’m pretty sure I would do anything to keep you with me.”

His name ghosting from your lips is stopped by his lips sealing yours shut with a gentle kiss. When you open your eyes, his usual smile is back on his face as he whispers, “Or something like that.”. You stroke your thumb gently over his own, wondering why you ever doubted him for a second.

Isaac

Anxious sigh.mp3

This poor boy will be mumbling to himself like he’s trying to discover the ultimate secret of the universe, questioning everything from what he should wear to how he should stick his hand out for a handshake. You show you shouldn’t find his panic so endearing, but you can’t help it.

You’re constantly reassuring him that he’ll be fine and you’ll be right beside him the entire time. He mumbles out that he knows and that he really loves you for that, though he peters off at that last part so you don’t hear it.

On the day, he is sweating bullets and questioning every life decision he has ever made. You hug his arm and give him a peck on his cheek, whispering that you’re right here. You feel his tension dispel a little bit, even if he still looks petrified.

“Uh, um...hello. I’m Isaac Newton. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

He bows his head, the movement stiff and forced. Your parents can practically feel his nerves, but you’re quick to drag them all into the lounge to stop the awkwardness settling in too much.

Despite the bumpy start, the evening starts flowing more calmly as it goes on. At the dinner table, your hand rests on Isaac’s on his lap. You squeeze his hand whenever he fumbles his words or just freezes under your parents’ questions and, just like magic, he finds his words instantly.

You’re worried when your mother asks you to help clear the plates, but Isaac’s soft nod is enough for you to believe in him. Sure enough, when you come back, he’s deep in conversation with your father about some of his most recent research efforts, and you have to laugh at how it just flies over your dad’s head.

As the evening concludes, your parents smile at this awkward yet intelligent and caring man and it takes everything within Isaac to not immediately collapse with relief. You say your goodbyes and as soon as the door shuts behind you, you’re pulled into his arms and he buries his face into your neck.

“Oh, thank God and everything that is holy. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

You keep your grin to yourself as you wrap your arms around him to return the hug, letting him recharge a little before heading back home.

Jean

“I’m not sure meeting your parents is the best idea, ___. What if I scare them?” Jean pls.

It takes longer than you’d care to admit to convince him that your parents do want to meet him and that he won’t scare them. The build-up until the day is spent with him asking how to best approach this. He seems perplexed when you tell him to be himself, but he can’t bring himself to argue you and your smile.

If you believe in him, then surely it can’t be that difficult, right?

As you both arrive at your parents’ house, Jean clears his throat and bows formally at the hips, his hand over his heart.

“Bonjour. My name is Jean D’Arc. It is an honour and a privilege to meet you and I wish for us to get along.”

Your parents just kind of freeze at Jean’s formality and seriousness, but you just smile as you take his hand and tell them that’s just the man you know and love. He turns red in an instant, but thankfully your parents don’t seem to notice as you all make your way inside.

Conversation is not the most abundant throughout the evening, but it’s by no means awkward. When he’s asked about his time in the armed forces, you quickly step in and ask for lighter conversations, aware of Jean’s usual reluctance to broach the subject. His eye softens and he smiles a soft smile at you, but it disappears a second later. Your parents notice, however, and share a smile of their own.

As the evening draws to a close, Jean bows again to thank your parents for the evening. They simply smile and say that they’re happy their daughter has found such a lovely devoted man. He completely freezes but you just blush and sidle up next to him, smiling with a hint of pride.

He seems in a daze as you both return to your home, unbelieving that they accepted him so easily. You smile up at him and move to wrap your arms around his waist and tell him that him just being himself was all he needed to do. He sighs out a laugh and strokes your hair, smiling with equal parts relief and awe.

Shakespeare

You can’t lie to yourself, you are more than a little nervous to introduce this one to your parents. His aura is distinctive, to say the least, and you’re worried about how your parents will react.

He chuckles at the way your eyebrows draw together and kisses your forehead, telling you that he will do his utmost best to win over your parents.

You’re wringing your hands together anxiously as you both walk up to the house, but Will dusts a quick kiss to your temple and whispers to you that all will be fine.

“A fine evening it is. My name is William Shakespeare, and ‘tis a true pleasure to maketh thine acquaintance.”

Your parents just blink at his manner of speaking; a reaction you expected. But you have to laugh at your father saying “Oh. He’s a theatre man, I see.”

Will simply smiles at his words, saying that he works as a playwright for the local theatre. He pulls out two front-row tickets to the newest show and hands them over as a gift - an extravagant gift if your parents are theatre enthusiasts.

The rest of the evening is...vibrant. Unusual conversations come up asking about Shakespeare’s career and where he draws inspiration. He admits that once he spoke of tragedy being his driving force, now he finds romance and love to be equally as stimulating. Cue you blushing and grinning like a fool as he gazes sweetly at you.

While not entirely convinced, your parents can’t deny that you both love each other and that they see no reason not to support your relationship. You breathe out a sigh of relief as Shakespeare shakes their hands and wishes them a pleasant night.

You’re smiling happily as you make your way home, saying you’re glad that it went well. Shakespeare smiles as he rests his hand on your hip to draw you closer, saying that he has to try harder to win them over so he can propose to you all the sooner.

You’re practically steaming the rest of the walk home.

Comte

Golden man Boy number three. When you broach the topic with him, he’s more than happy to set aside his schedule to meet with your parents. 

You get suspicious when he starts asking about your parents’ taste in aesthetics and furniture and tell him that just a simple bouquet of flowers should be plenty if he’s wanting to bring a gift.

You walk up to their house on the day, your arm looped comfortably through his and his free hand holding a bouquet of pink roses. As you knock on the door, you both exchange smiles and any nerves you may have been feeling vanish instantly.

“Bonsoir. I am Le Comte de Saint Germaine, but I realise that’s quite a mouthful so just Comte is fine. It is wonderful to finally make your acquaintance.”

As gentlemanly and amiable as ever, he hands the bouquet of pink roses to your mother, its meaning of appreciation and gratitude apparent if your parents know of the language of flowers. Either way, they’re a nice centrepiece and have already earned your boyfriend brownie points.

The evening is filled with pleasant conversation, Comte’s sophisticated and mellow nature allowing everything to flow smoothly. 

You tense slightly when they ask what he does for a career, but he shoots a quick wink your way before saying he’s an “entrepreneur of sorts”, which isn’t exactly wrong. You giggle silently to yourself at that.

They might be slightly wary of your relationship considering how much older Comte may appear compared to you, but Comte is quick to wrap an arm around your shoulders and, though he understands where they come from, he vows to love you with his entire being because he has never felt this strongly about anyone in his entire life; words that hold a different meaning to you, considering you know that he’s immortal.

In the end, they can’t condemn your boyfriend in any way, though your dad wonders why he looks like an aristocrat from the 1900s and you have to hold back the look of shock from showing on your face at how accurate he doesn’t realise he is. As you both leave, you heave a sigh and say that went better than you expected. Comte only chuckles and offers you his arm again, ready to escort you home like the ineffable gentleman he is.

Sebastian

He just blinks at your phone as he reads the texts before slowly raising his eyes to look at you. You ask him if he’s comfortable meeting your parents and he assures you that after meeting his historical idols, nothing and no one could ever fluster him again.

You giggle at that, but then immediately turn serious as you look at your boyfriend. He raises an eyebrow.

“I have one condition for the evening, Sebastian. When they inevitably ask about what you do for a job, your answer should be no longer than five minutes’ worth of talking.”

He grins wryly but agrees. He knows as well as you do how excited he gets over his career, and doesn’t want that of all things to scare your parents.

The day arrives and you’re not as nervous as you thought you would be. Just before he rings the doorbell, Sebastian brings your joined hands up to press a quick kiss to yours before he reverts back to his usual serious self.

“Good evening. My name is Akihiko Satou. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

He shakes your father’s hand and bows his head respectfully to your mother, the smoothness of his actions reminiscent of his butler days. He removes his jacket and moves behind you to remove your own, folding them neatly over his arm before hanging them on the coat rack. Your parents already look impressed and you just smile.

Old habits die hard for Sebastian. He pulls your chair out for you to sit at the table, but you can see out of the corner of your eye how antsy he is in wanting to help. 

The night continues calmly until the dreaded career question comes up. You click your phone to life to check the time and, like it’s his cue, he begins gushing about his job as a historian with a focus on European history (carefully leaving out details of him meeting said historical figures).

As soon as five minutes pass, you reach up and flick him on the forehead (a little payback). Your parents baulk, but Sebastian is quick to step in, saying that if you didn’t stop him he’d keep talking until the new era.

The evening draws to a close, and your mother whispers to you how you found such a straight-laced and lovely man. You just grin and say it’s a long story.

[ohmightydevviepuu]

our little life (rounded with a sleep) / chapter 5

our little life (rounded with a sleep) chapter five

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective. She had blonde hair, green eyes, no family, and she was good at finding people; in fact, she proclaimed this on her office door. “Swan and Humbert,” it said. “Private investigations, missing persons, and bail bonds.”

Only lately, she’s been thinking that maybe it should say “Emma Swan: Loner, Loser, Complicated wreck.”

Her partner’s been killed on a case after she made a deal with her landlord to find what had been taken from him. But when she tracks a possible perp to a bar on the outskirts of town, Emma will find out exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes.

--

thank you as ever to my support team of mythical beauties, without whom this fic would not exist in its present form:  @thisonesatellite​ for her many, many rereads; @profdanglaisstuff​ for swooping in to save the day (no cape necessary); @katie-dub​ just for being there, and being awesome.

SPEAKING OF AWESOME there are not enough good things to be said about the team @captainswanbigbang​, and the amazing crew in the CSRT discord for cheers and comeraderie and so many late nights of sprinting and bad decisions.

--

cw: canonical character death rating: T/M (implied violence, language) word count:  ~4.5k  AO3  chapter one | chapter two | chapter three | chapter four

chapter summary:   Hook spends the night in jail, and Emma spends the night dealing with her shit. (It’s not a particularly pleasant way to spend the time, but what the hell--Emma Swan is not a believer.  She is, however, a thief.)

--

Emma had a parking space that was legal, had sightlines into the Mills Organization building, and was far enough back from the entrance that the bright yellow car would not be too memorable. There was even a nearby streetlight that gave enough light to see without destroying her night vision.

It was almost enough to make a person believe in magic.

No cars went by as she sat and waited; no late-night pedestrians passing by in activities either savory or unsavory.

But she sat, and waited, because Hook was right and this was her best chance of making progress. Because she believed him when he said he hadn’t stolen Gold’s “valuable object”, no matter how much it went against her better judgement.

She believed him, about that and--

Her fingers traced over the soft, pebbled leather of Henry’s book as she waited, turning open to a page at random: a cartoonish drawing of a wedding, the bride in white and the groom in plate armor complete with sword belt. It was True Love and Happily Ever After, all of it Mary Margaret down to the core.

Once Upon a Time.

Only the longer Emma stared at the illustration, the more the image began to seem like a photograph, like she could almost see their faces and the stained glass and the way the princess’s skirt fluttered not from fabric but from feathers dancing in the air.

The lights in the window flickered, pulling Emma’s focus fully back toward the building and there was a tall woman--blonde--she was dressed out of time in a voluminous brown skirt embroidered all over in roses and it looked like the curtain-clothing from The Sound of Music. She walked through the front door and vanished in a single flash of hard white light; a scream carried through the air and Emma was out of her car before the echo had faded.

That was when she saw the man in the animal coat, the one with the skin that seemed to glitter. In his hand was something small and white and he carried it as though it were both delicate and valuable.

“Hey!” Emma called out.

His expression, was she could see of it, registered surprise. The object vanished as he held his hands at right angles to each other and he giggled.

“Who are you?” Emma called, trying to walk forward and finding herself unable to do so.

“Not yet, dearie,” he said. “Not yet.”

He vanished; Emma felt a hand brush against her shoulder and jumped.

It wasn’t a hand--it was a silver hook where the prosthetic left hand of James Hook’s had been.

“Tick-tock, Swan,” he said.

The fingers of his right hand rubbed against her wrist and when Emma woke it was with her own hand wrapped around her tattoo and her head leaning against the steering wheel.

--

The thing about stakeouts was that you needed actually to stay awake in order to execute one, so Emma gave up the game and turned the Bug back home when she saw the lights in Regina’s office were out. She parked the car in the first open spot within spitting distance of the of and found herself running inside, nearly banging the door into the wall when she came through. She called out an apology to Mary Margaret before remembering that it was well after midnight and only sort-of noticed that her roommate wasn’t even home as she started pulling drawers and cabinets open, looking for the one box that she never unpacked, never once in the seven different addresses. For most of her life, its contents had been in her backpack, squished up and neglected but never left behind, leaving just enough room for a toothbrush and a change of clothes and a few pairs of socks, maybe a hat if she was living someplace cold.

The blanket was soft, the knitted wool somehow still fluffy under her fingers in spite of its ignominious storage conditions. Emma pulled it out slowly, running her fingers across the smooth purple ribbon woven through, feeling the simple running stitch across the upper corner that spelled out her name. She sat cross-legged on the floor and draped the blanket over her legs and told herself it was just for a minute.

Emma’s life was full of nightmares. Sometimes, on her worst days, her entire existence actually felt like one; a waking hell from which there was no escape except for her own determination to keep going and to keep running.

But none of those nightmares had ever felt like this, like something true and just on the edge of her consciousness, like a memory.

Milah. The crocodile.

Emma could still see his face as he died in her dream, and she wasn’t sure if she meant Graham’s or Hook’s or both, so she sat on the floor with her blanket.

Enjoy the quiet moment.

The blanket didn’t offer much in terms of real warmth when she sat on the floor, but Emma didn’t notice. She rubbed her hand across her wrist as though she could feel the motif inked there--remembered a time and a girl and a friend, her only friend, scribbling on that wrist and saying now we can both be special. Neal and how he had made her feel special; prison and the tattoo to remind herself that she was special without anyone’s help; the buttercup because once upon a time there had been a girl in a storybook that no one thought was special and she became a princess, the True Love to end all True Loves.

Henry’s book had fallen open and Emma slammed it shut almost exactly at the moment when the door banged open again, a slightly disheveled and fully distracted Mary Margaret walking in and nearly tripping over her.

“Oh!” Mary Margaret futtered around her, reaching a hand down toward the floor, apparently changing her mind, and then covering her mouth with it. “Emma! I didn’t expect you.” She paused. “On the floor, I mean.” Her hands were rubbing against each other anxiously as she played with the peridot ring on her middle finger.

“Mary Margaret,” Emma said, rubbing unshed tears from her eyes before her friend had enough focus to notice them. She really did not want a post-coital Mary Margaret going all mother-hen after the night she’d had. “Sorry. Got caught up in...a case.”

“Hmmm?” Mary Margaret said, still distracted. “Oh, that’s good.”

Emma looked at her friend, really looked at her: the woman was a wreck. Tear streaks on her face, the kind that came from ugly crying--and Sheriff Nolan had been the one to pull Hook into custody. So--

“Where have you been?”

“Out,” Mary Margaret said, dully. “Walking. By the water?”

“Is that a question?” Emma said.

“What?” And there was that famous Mary Margaret focus, looking at her as if she had just noticed the two of them were standing in their dining area in the middle of the night. “Emma, what’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” Emma said.

“‘Nothing’ with you always means something,” Mary Margaret sighed, “because if it were nothing, you wouldn’t be sitting on our floor in the middle of the night.”

“We were talking about you,” Emma said, a little desperate.

“Yeah,” Mary Margaret said. “But talking about you is easier right now. Remember how you told me to stay away from David and I didn’t?”

“Yeah,” Emma said, pushing herself upright and going for the Scotch. Mary Margaret didn’t drink that often, but they kept a bottle of it in the same cupboard where Emma had hidden her blanket. Mary Margaret bent over and picked the book up off the floor.

“Where did you find this?” she asked. “Did Henry Mills give this to you?”

“What?” Emma said, startled. “Why?” She poured herself a shot and then another one for her friend, handing it over.

“I lent it to him,” Mary Margaret said wistfully. “It used to be my favorite book, you know.”

Emma took her drink and poured another. “Fairy tales?” Emma laughed, and it was harsh--slightly hysterical, even. “Seems about right for you.” She finished the second shot and put the glass down.

“No,” Mary Margaret said, running her fingers across the gilded lettering. “It was more than that. It was hope. Like--believing in even the possibility of a happy ending.”

“Hope,” Emma repeated dubiously.

“And belief,” Mary Margaret said. “It’s a very powerful thing, you know.”

“Whatever,” Emma said, summoning a smile for her friend. She walked toward the ladder to her loft before turning back in an attempt to offer Mary Margaret some kind of reassurance, but Mary Margaret was no longer there. Or maybe she was, only her hair--long now instead of the short pixie cut she typically favored--her hair piled on her head, her waist confined in a dress with a white silk corseted bodice.

The skirt had feathers.

“Mary Margaret?” Emma said.

“Yes?” The woman in white answered her.

“Good night,” Emma said.

--

Sleep was a challenge and beginning daylight was making the sky go grey; Emma was already dressed and out the door by the time five o’clock came and went. She had gone to bed full of whiskey and frustration and fear, chasing a vision of a woman in white through the pages of the storybook she’d gone downstairs for as soon as she’d heard her roommate’s sobbing go quiet and still.

She hadn’t slept.

The fairy tales were--unexpected. To begin with, they were not in any sort of chronological order, meandering through a series of origin stories and follow-ups seemingly based on whatever interested the author most at that particular moment; an increasingly hard-to-follow series of circumlocutions as if they had been paid by the plot twist to churn out the craziest content they could think of. Snow White was a bandit; Prince Charming a shepherd; Red Riding Hood was the Big Bad Wolf and True Love’s Kiss could conquer anything.

Including The Dark Curse, product of the darkest magic and the most malign intent, unleashed upon the world by an Evil Queen manipulated by a man known as the Dark One, and then Snow White and Prince Charming had wrapped their newborn daughter in a hand-knitted blanket trimmed with purple ribbon and hoped that someday, she would find them.

All of it, he’d said, is because of Regina Mills and Robert Gold.

That was when Emma left a note for her friend, promising breakfast, and went back to The Rabbit Hole.

The rear entrance was locked but the office wasn’t, and anyway Emma had come prepared for both, the tension wrench going straight in and exactly the right amount of pressure on the pins popping the back door open in a matter of seconds. The room was exactly as they had left it, even down to Emma’s unfinished tumbler of rum sitting on the far side of Hook’s desk. This time, though, Emma sat on his side, in his chair, bending to examine the drawers.

In the third drawer down she found the locked box. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the lock on this offered more of a challenge than the back door had done, but it was still open in less than a minute, its contents spread across the desk for Emma’s examination. Emma’s hands fidgeted with the smallest treasure pulled from the trove--a ring on a chain--as she contemplated the curved, silver metal that would not have looked out of place in the collection on the wall in the main bar. The hook was nestled in with a scrap of worn leather embossed with a sigil, a foreign crest stamped atop the name ‘JONES’; what stopped Emma in her tracks was the pen-and-ink drawing of a woman and another of a boy, both with creases so sharply worn from folding and unfolding that she was almost surprised the paper--the parchment--didn’t fall apart in her hands.

The boy could almost have been a twin for Henry Mills.

But Henry didn’t have a twin--that much, at least, Emma knew for sure. She’d only given birth the once.

The ring went around her neck before Emma could ask herself why.

The parchment went into her pocket.

Everything else went back into the lockbox and then back into the drawer.

Everything you think you believe is wrong, he’d said.

But Emma Swan was not a believer.

--

Granny’s at seven in the morning was another challenge. Not just because the neighborhood’s best coffee shop and diner would naturally be bustling during the morning rush but because Emma’s head was still pounding from the Scotch. Almost before she sat down, Granny had sent Ruby over with a cup of steaming hot chocolate, whipped cream on top and a cinnamon stick instead of a spoon to stir it. Ruby pulled a face at being dragged back into her old waitressing gig, then gave Emma a wink and sat down, brandishing a bear claw.

Emma closed her eyes and tried to remember why Ruby had quit working at her grandmother’s diner instead of imagining a werewolf serving a breakfast pastry. Something about a row between Granny and Ruby that ended up with Ruby at the bus stop, threatening to leave town, and Emma finding her and mentioning that she and Graham could use the extra help.

“You look like shit,” Ruby commented, taking a bite of an apple that matched her lipstick.

“Are you sure Granny didn’t just fire your ass?” Emma retorted. “Because that is now how you speak to paying customers.”

Ruby laughed. “I’m a people person,” she said. “One that you pay to speak to your customers.”

“Good point,” Emma said, offering a small smile. “How long did you work here, anyway?”

“As long as I can remember,” Ruby said, rolling her eyes. “Too long, that’s for sure.”

As long as I can remember.

“I’m sorry my heart attack interfered with your plans to sleep your way down the eastern seaboard,” Granny said, coming up behind them. “Eat your bear claw or I won’t save you one next time.” That last was directed at Emma, who hastened to comply.

Ruby laughed. “What’s up with you this morning, Em? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bear claw last long enough for you to put it on a plate before.”

Emma shrugged. “It was a long night,” she said, because that was easier than saying she’d stayed up too late reading fairy tales and drinking, or explaining that she’d already committed a felony and been to the office before seven. She’d sat at Graham’s desk, with his things--added another reminder to her collection when she’d pulled the laces from his work boots and tied them around her wrist to cover her tattoo. Hook’s ring bumped up against the swan pendant around her neck that might as well have been an albatross for how much it had weighed her down in the years since Neal had stolen it for her and then bequeathed it to her, a parting gift she’d received in prison as she served the sentence he’d set her up to take.

It came in the mail the same day she’d taken the pregnancy test.

Emma Swan did not get emotional about men and she carried the reasons--the reminders--why everywhere she went.

It’s always nice to leave an impression.

The ring was leaving an impression in her skin from where she’d wrapped her hand around it, Emma realized as she tried to focus on what Ruby was saying to her, and then the bell over the entrance rang and Mary Margaret came in, looking nervously around her before sliding into their booth. Emma ordered her a tea by gesturing for Ruby to go get it, which got her another fake snarl before Mary Margaret said, in a voice barely above a whisper: “I broke up with David.”

“Ah,” Emma said. She leaned in closer, wanting to offer comfort but not totally sure how to do it. She reached her hand out to her roommate’s in an unfamiliar gesture, then let it fall to the table when her eye caught the peridot ring Mary Margaret wore on her third finger.

"I’m not the jewelry type," said Snow White. "I can tell," said the prince."

“Kathryn,” Mary Margaret said, “his wife, I mean, she got into law school.” She paused. “In Boston.”

And it was then, when he saw his mother’s ring on her finger, that he knew in his heart there was no other woman he would ever love.

Emma pulled at the ring on the chain around her neck.

Consider it a reminder.

“So David is moving with her?”

Ruby laughed. “David, outside of Storybrooke? I’m not sure if he would survive.”

“No,” Mary Margaret said, on the verge of tears. “We talked about it--we agreed--to take the opportunity to start over from a real place. He was going to tell her the truth. We were going to be honest.”

Emma did not fail to notice the repeated use of the past tense.

“He didn’t tell her,” Emma said, not needing to ask. “But she found out, didn’t she?”

“While you were out last night on your case I was with David,” Mary Margaret said. “And then his wife called looking for him. She thought he was on duty at the station but he didn’t answer there so she--” Mary Margaret was wiping away tears. “He was supposed to tell her. He told me that he did.”

“That would have been the honorable thing to do,” Emma muttered.

“And I realized,” Mary Margaret said, “that what we have, it isn’t love. It’s something else, something destructive. We shouldn’t be together. It’s like we’re cursed.”

"Show me you feel the same, and we can be together forever." “They had their happy endings stolen from them,” Hook had said.

Ruby came back with the tea and sat down, looking between Emma and Mary Margaret before enveloping Mary Margaret in a hug.

“I always thought,” Mary Margaret said, “that if two people were meant to be together, they find a way. They--find each other, no matter what. I really believed that.”

“If you need anything--” “You’ll find me?” Snow said, looking at him thoughtfully. "Always,” Charming confirmed. “I almost believe that.”

Emma shook her head, trying to wake herself up, trying not to picture the story she’d read the night before, trying not to see the woman in white and a red-cloaked werewolf where her friends were sitting. She took a sip of her cocoa and looked at the clock: 7:15.

“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” Ruby was saying, an arm still wrapped around Mary Margaret’s shoulder as the bell over the door rang again and Sheriff David Nolan walked in.

“You made a mistake with David,” Emma said. “It happens. Hang in there. If there’s anything I can do to help, I will.”

“Thank you,” Mary Margaret said softly, wiping under her eyes, though her mascara was already a lost cause.

So much for True Love.

But Emma still had a job to do, even if she wasn’t completely sure what it was any more. She finished her cocoa and got up, a quick “see you at the office” to Ruby and a hand on the shoulder, which seemed like the right thing to do, for Mary Margaret. She walked toward David and resisted the urge to hit him when she got in front of him and asked, “What happened with Hook last night?”

David’s head moved but he wasn’t looking at her. He was almost looking through her as he said, “I’m looking,” which didn’t seem like an answer to her question.

“What the fuck, Nolan? You really want to dick around right now?” Emma gestured impatiently at the sobbing woman behind both of them.

“I’m looking,” he repeated, and it still wasn’t an answer.

“Whatever,” Emma muttered, moving toward the way out. David Nolan looked like a man possessed.

Or cursed.

Fuck literally all of that, Emma thought as the door closed behind her, nearly walking into someone on the sidewalk. She sidestepped him at the last minute, turning behind her just to double-check, and he was staring at her. The man was tall, with messy hair and wide eyes, something frantic in his gaze. He wore a cravat and a top coat as if that was a thing people did, and turned away when she met his eyes, walking quickly in the other direction.

Emma buried her hands in her pockets, twisting her fingers in the fabric of the pocket bags, and walked to the sheriff’s station.

--

She should have been expecting to find him already gone, if Nolan was out and about getting coffee, but finding the cell empty was still something of a shock. Judging by the charge sheet David had left on his desk--without locking the door, making it easy to snoop--Hook had been bailed out by a woman named Cora Hart. David had left no other notes or thoughts, at least none that Emma could see, so she walked back to the door and came face-to-face with Regina Mills, who was walking in and looking, as usual, angry.

“Seriously?”

“I should be the one asking you that,” Regina said, apparently exasperated in addition to angry. “What game are you playing at, Miss Swan?”

“I could say the same to you,” Emma retorted. “It was you, wasn’t it, who phoned the Sheriff last night?”

Regina did not condescend to answer. “The way the two of you were making eyes at each other,” Regina said with a sneer, “constituted a crime.”

“We do not,” Emma objected, “‘make eyes’.” Emma realized her mistake only when Regina snorted--it felt like an admission, of sorts, and definitely one that Regina could not be trusted with.

“I’ve come to see to him, at any rate,” Regina said expectantly. “What have you done with him?”

Emma gestured at the empty cell with a flourish, suppressing the urge to make a mocking little bow. “He’s gone,” she said. “Bailed out this morning by Cora Hart.”

There was a beat of silence and then Regina’s face went completely white, as if all of the blood had drained from her face at once--except for her lips, which remained so red they looked bloodstained.

“Who is she, Regina?”

“It’s not possible,” Regina whispered.

“You seem to be saying that a lot lately,” Emma said. “It never seems to be true.”

Regina’s perfectly painted lips formed a moue. “She’s my mother,” Regina admitted.

“I thought your mother was dead,” Emma said.

“So did I,” Regina said.

--

Watching Henry Mills on the playground was like staring into the past.

A group of kids crowded around the swingset; another took turns using a slide; and Henry sat, resplendent in his solitude, in the tower of a play structure.

“He calls it his castle,” Mary Margaret explained when Emma had shown up at the school looking for Henry. “That’s where he spends most of his time.”

Emma had always been, at best, at the fringes of childhood socializing. More often, she found herself alone and apart, considered temporary--too aloof, too prickly, too much effort to be worth it.

“You left this in my office,” Emma said, coming up behind him and settling herself next to him. The book she left on the ground in between them.

“Oh,” Henry says, looking sheepish. “Yeah, thanks...Emma.”

“You know who I am, don’t you?” Emma said.

His expression brightened. “You read it?” he asked, excited. “You know?”

“Did I read what?” she said. “Do I know what?”

“The story about you,” Henry tapped the book. “That you’re the Savior.”

“Oh, kid,” Emma said. “You’ve got problems.” Then: “What is it, anyway?”

Henry considered her. “I’m not sure you’re ready, Emma,” he said seriously.

“I’m not ready for fairy tales?”

“They’re not fairy tales,” he said with complete sincerity. “They’re true. Every story in this book actually happened.”

Every story you’ve read, Hook had said, some version of it has actually happened.

“I’ve kind of had enough of the book crap,” Emma said, then winced. ���Sorry, I guess I should watch my language or something. But, yeah, I read some of the stories in your book.”

Henry was quiet for a minute, waiting.

“What I meant,” Emma said, “was that I’m your--your birth mother.”

That was the first time she said it out loud.

“I know,” Henry said.

She had never even let herself hold him.

“It’s okay, Emma,” Henry said, his eyes as wide as saucers and his voice gentle and older than his years. “I know why you gave me away. You wanted to give me my best chance.”

“How do you know that?” Emma asked.

“Because,” he said, “it’s the same reason Snow White gave you away.”

Your parents’ entire kingdom was cursed. They sent you here to break it.

“What matters is that you’re here now,” Henry said happily. “You’re going to bring back the happy endings. It says so in the book.”

A place where all of their happy endings had been stolen.

“Did Hook tell you that?”

“Hook?” Henry repeated. “Like, Captain Hook?”

“No,” Emma said, shaking her head. “No, like Hook from The Rabbit Hole.”

Henry was nodding. “Yeah, Liam’s brother. Hook. Captain Hook, Emma. He’s in the book, too.”

“Listen to me: I’m not in any book, I’m a real person. I’m no savior,” she said. “But you’re right about one thing--I wanted you to have your best chance, and it wasn’t with me.”

“But it could be,” Henry said quietly. “You don’t know what it’s like here. With her. It’s not--it really sucks, Emma.”

Emma was surprised to hear that kind of language from a ten-year-old and she wanted to grab him, to soothe him. She didn’t know if she was allowed to, though, so she rubbed her hand against his shoulder and quickly pulled it away.

“You could be,” Hook had said.

She couldn’t do this.

She was not parent material.

How could she be a parent when she never was one? When she never had one?

“Believe me, kid,” Emma said, “I know what ‘sucking’ is. I was left on the side of a freeway--my parents didn’t even bother to drive me to a hospital. But I’m sure, in her way, your mom is trying her best.”

“Emma,” Henry said, “you’ve met her. You’ve seen her. Do you really believe that?”

She didn’t--she really didn’t. But she couldn’t say that to a ten-year-old kid who wasn’t legally hers.

“I want to, kid,” Emma said.

“You know she’s the Evil Queen,” Henry said. “She’s the one who made it so your parents had to send you away--they didn’t leave you on the side of the freeway. That’s just where you came through.”

“What?”

“When you went through the wardrobe,” Henry said, “your parents were just trying to save you from the curse--so you could find them, and break it.”

“You found me,” Snow said. “Did you ever doubt that I would?”

“Sure they were, kid,” Emma said. “So, you spend a lot of time with Hook?”

“Liam’s my friend,” he said, shrugging. “His brother is always really nice to me.”

“And you told him about your storybook? That’s why you think he’s Captain Hook?”

Henry looked shocked. “Of course not, Emma,” he said. “They don’t know they’re cursed. That’s the whole point.”

But Hook--he knew.

“And you think I’m here to break this curse? That’s why you stole Mary Margaret’s credit card to find me? Why you left the book in my office?”

“Yeah,” he said with certainty. “Because you’re the product of True Love. That’s what makes you the Savior.”

“True Love,” he’d said. “That’s the most powerful magic of all, or so they say.” He’d said that, as if magic were real and it was just that simple, and then he’d looked at her with the kind of look you get in your eyes when you’ve been left alone. The kind of look a man might have after growing up under an indenture and losing the brother who had protected him--the kind of look he might have after watching the woman he loved die while he was helpless to stop it--the kind of look that might drive a man to chase his vengeance through worlds and time and finally give himself over to a curse in the hope of finally finding his revenge.

“You really believe,” Emma said, “that everyone in this world is a fairy tale character?”

Everything you think you believe is wrong.

But Emma Swan was not a believer.

“No,” Henry said.

Emma smiled, relieved.

“Just the ones in this part of town, in Storybrooke,” he said. “Time’s been frozen, only, I think it started moving again when you got here.”

“And no one noticed that time just, like, didn’t move?”

“They don’t know,” Henry insisted. “It’s a haze to them, ask anyone anything about their pasts.”

“As long as I can remember,” Ruby said. "As long as I can remember,” Hook said. He’s older than he looks.

“So let me get this straight,” Emma said. “For decades, people have been wandering around, not aging, with screwed-up memories, stuck in a curse?”

“Yeah, exactly!” Henry said. “I knew you’d get it--that’s why we need you. You’re the only one who can stop my mom.”

“Because I’m the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming,” Emma said.

“Yes,” Henry said. “But my mom doesn’t know that--we have the advantage.”

“The child got away,” Hook had said.

“Riiiight,” Emma said, drawing out the word. “And who--who do you think Snow White is, exactly?”

“Miss Blanchard,” Henry said. “Definitely. And I’m pretty sure that Sheriff Nolan is Prince Charming.”

“It’s like we’re cursed,” Mary Margaret had said.

“Oh, kid,” Emma said again.

“I have a name, you know,” he said. “It’s Henry.”

“Yeah,” Emma whispered.

Henry put his hand on her arm. “I know you like me, Emma. And I know the hero never believes at first. If they did, it wouldn’t be a very good story.” He held the book out to her, barely balancing it in both hands.

Emma took the book.

She was not a believer.

--

@kmomof4​ @shireness-says​ @spartanguard​ @optomisticgirl​ @katie-dub​ @eirabach​ @stahlop​ @snowbellewells​ @captainsjedi​ @carpedzem​ @scientificapricot​ @searchingwardrobes​ @mariakov81​

[atinytokki]

Across the Night

i. Mother’s Cooking 

Sometimes Seonghwa’s mind was invaded by strange dreams. At least, he thought they were dreams.

There were faces and voices, images that flitted in and out of focus, sometimes nightmares that crescendoed into darkness and panic.

He always woke from those with his mother rubbing his back and singing to him.

But some time around his tenth birthday it all stopped. He sat patiently playing idly with some wooden action figures and watching Mother bake his birthday cake when she suddenly turned around and pointed her spoon at him.

“You should be starting an apprenticeship soon.”

“I should...?” Seonghwa closed his fists around the figures, hiding them from view. He was probably too old for them.

“Yes, you’re almost of age,” she tutted and guided herself into a chair opposite his. “And I’m going to retire soon.”

“Retire?” Seonghwa asked, surprised. Sure, his mother had quite a few grey hairs and struggled to get around the house sometimes, but Seonghwa couldn’t imagine her leaving her position as palace nurse. The younger prince would need her, wouldn’t he?

“The princes are almost of age as well,” she continued, answering his question before he got a chance to ask. “They won’t be needing me to look after them while they learn how to rule a kingdom.”

Seonghwa frowned. He liked it when Mother was away at work and he could play with his friends, getting into trouble climbing on the city walls and drainpipes and watching carriages and palanquins go by.

“What will I learn how to do?” He asked with a pout, fiddling with his toys under the table. The face on his pirate character had nearly rubbed off. “I don’t get to learn how to rule a kingdom.”

At this, Mother bit her lip and looked away, sighing through her nose and fetching the bowl of cake mixture. “Why don’t you learn to cook?”

She handed it to him and smacked his hand when he went to lick the spoon. Again, he pouted, but obediently stirred while she instructed over his shoulder.

He enjoyed his birthday cake even more than usual that evening, due to the small part his own hands played in creating it, and asked his mother to teach him how to make bread the next morning.

Perhaps growing up wasn’t terrible after all.

It was a bit difficult to explain to his friend Chaeyoung why he was giving his toys away to her little brother Chan while they sat on the wall and enjoyed some freshly baked bread the next week. Of course, Seonghwa kept his favourite pirate figure hidden under his pillow because even growing up couldn’t separate them.

“We can still play together, right?” Chaeyoung raised an eyebrow at him. “Because I brought these.”

She pulled a pair of guns out from her bag and Seonghwa’s jaw hit the floor.

“Father gave them to us,” she announced proudly. “They’re safe to play with, not loaded or anything, and if you think these are exciting, you should see the new one he was just issued.”

Her father, Lieutenant Park, was a naval officer who was in the local regiment but it appeared had been reassigned, and rearmed quite handsomely.

“Well,” Seonghwa drew his composure together, fully aware that Chaeyoung knew better than anyone how much he loved even the very idea of battling on a ship. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. I’ll go ask Donghyun if he’d like to join us.”

He hopped off the wall and hurried over to the door of his next door neighbour. It was Donghyun himself who answered, and he was just as eager to get in on the action.

The three of them walked towards the city centre while Chan followed behind. Seonghwa was leaving the house against express orders from his mother, but he knew by now the general timeframe of her work schedule and what she didn’t know about his afternoons wouldn’t hurt her.

“I have to grow up too, you know,” Donghyun mentioned passingly to Seonghwa. He was the oldest of them, and the quietest, probably due to his overbearing parents who took it upon themselves to mould him into the social-climbing gentleman they could never be.

“You’re practically already grown,” Seonghwa joked, his smile falling when Donghyun avoided his gaze.

“Well, it’s gotten worse. Mother and Father don’t consider art a profitable trade and encourage me to take interest in something else. If they find out where we’re going, they’ll probably confiscate my painting supplies.”

“We’ll just have to make sure they don’t find out where we’re going then.”

Their destination was the grand fountain. Imposing statues at various levels spilled water into the magnificent basin and the children easily climbed over the edge and splashed around in mock battle without any trouble from the authorities.

Even Seonghwa would usually refuse to participate in such risky play, but there was no guard here to turn them out, and the fountain would be emptied come winter.

The capital city of Doljeon was too busy to care about four children roughhousing in the grand fountain and for the half hour they risked it, they weren’t bothered.

When Chaeyoung pretended to fire her gun at him and he threw himself back into the water, thoroughly soaking himself, Seonghwa figured he’d had enough.

The other three followed his lead when he climbed out and pulled a bath towel off a nearby clothesline to dry himself off.

“What if the owner comes out and finds wet towels?” Chan questioned nervously, shaking droplets out of his hair. He was only three years younger than the rest, but they were nearing apprenticeship age and he was not, which made him practically an infant in their eyes.

“Hope that a rain cloud covers our tracks,” Seonghwa laughed, slinging the towel back over the line and readjusting the clothespins.

Donghyun had gone quiet again and when Seonghwa followed his eyes, he quickly learned why.

A poster was pasted to the wall of the shop opposite them. The great artist Kwangsuk, coming to paint the royal portrait, was also looking for an apprentice here in Doljeon.

Seonghwa could see the longing in Donghyun’s eyes and pulled the poster off the wall to inspect more closely.

“Is this the same Kwangsuk who painted all the great lords and officers?” He asked rhetorically, smiling fondly as Donghyun could only nod in his starstruck state.

“Ooh! Maybe we should ask him to paint our family when father becomes a war hero!” Chaeyoung gasped, elbowing Chan until his attention was also on the sheet.

Seonghwa smiled at their confidence. Lieutenant Park was no doubt a great man, but they weren’t currently at war for him to make such an impression.

But Donghyun, on the other hand...

“When are the royal family sitting for it? Is it a public event?” He squinted at the print on the bottom of the page and found the time and location.

“Tomorrow evening, the palace,” he sighed when he found it. It would be preposterously difficult to find a way in, especially to do so without being seen by Mother. “Let’s do it.”

Donghyun blinked at him dubiously.

“You’d attempt to sneak into the palace? For me?”

“I don’t see any other option,” Seonghwa shrugged as if it were nothing. “If your parents won’t let you apply for his apprenticeship, you’ll just have to find another way. And this looks like the way right here.”

“Besides!” Chan piped up. “We’re your friends.”

And so it was settled.

When they reached their road, Seonghwa reluctantly relinquished his gun, fantasising the rest of the evening about becoming an admiral’s steward and cooking on a real frigate with a real gun in his holster.

When he kissed his mother goodnight and pulled the covers up to his chin, the gravity of his promise began to weigh on him.

They needed a plan for tomorrow or they were toast. Plain and simple.

He tossed and turned but nothing came to mind and eventually he gave in to sleep.

Seonghwa awoke from a nightmare that night with a tear-streaked face and shakily sang to himself on his own. He was nearly grown, which meant he should handle his fears himself. He didn’t need Mother rubbing his back anymore.

Perhaps growing up was harder than he thought.

...

A/N: Haha I could have posted this two days ago whoops.. Anyway hope you enjoyed and keep a lookout for more spinoffs and main series updates from me !

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