#not me bringing years old fic from the deep vault | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nightingaelic · 3 years ago

Note

could you do Fallout New Vegas companion’s reactions to a Courier Six who is also the Lone Wanderer telling their stories from their time in DC? (bonus points for Arcade’s reaction to them hating the enclave, and if that would make him decide to keep his past hidden even longer, or if he would still tell them?)

The logistics and implications of this make my head spin. This is also super long, honestly I should just quit writing reacts and start writing fics OH WAIT

Getting the courier talking was a tough thing to do, but on nights where the moon was full and the coyotes' howls were miles away or at least behind some stout walls, on nights where they were a few beers in and they hadn't seen another living soul in a few days, that Mojave Express deliverer started to reminisce. That wasn't really the surprising part, though. No, the surprising part was what they would remember, fondly or not-so-fondly: A world apart from the desert, a continent away on another coast, and stories of life in a vault, a missing father, pure water and a Brotherhood divided.

Arcade Gannon: Arcade didn't mind these moods, at least when they first cropped up. He nodded along as the courier talked about living in their father's shadow, about feeling cornered by their own family's legacy. He hung on their words about living in the cradle of America's history, about Project Purity, all of the gritty details of modifying a GECK to bring water to a devastated wasteland.

Eventually though, the courier's memories soured, with the arrival of Enclave remnants in their life. Arcade folded into himself with every harsh word, every jolt of plasma that had disrupted his friend's world relived in horrific detail. They gestured angrily as they described their newfound purpose, their battle for power with the fractured Brotherhood of Steel at their back, and their smug satisfaction at the moments they were able to crack open Raven Rock and the Enclave's mobile base crawler and lay waste to their tormentors.

It took a few rounds of these stories before the courier noticed he shrank and grew quiet whenever they neared the end of their story about breaking into another vault to find the GECK. They stopped abruptly one night. "What's up with you?"

"Um..." Arcade scratched the back of his neck and looked away. "Nothing. Nothing, I just... have some personal experience with the Enclave, myself."

The courier sighed. "Yeah, there's a few people walking around the West Coast that have similar stories to mine. Arroyo's full of them, for one. Is it something like that?"

Arcade took a deep breath. "I feel... well, it's a lot closer to home, for me. Close enough to raise questions, so I don't talk about it much."

"Close enough to..." The courier twisted their face up in confusion for a moment, before realization set in and their eyes grew large. "You were... your... oh."

"Mmm-hm."

"Well, fuck me." The courier smiled and popped a cap off of another beer. "I've been doing all the talking, haven't I? Let's hear your story about working with the guys in power armor who ruined my life, right after dad did."

Craig Boone: Whenever the courier started up like this, Boone couldn't help but notice a familiar twinge of regret and self-doubt in their voice. It shone through most clearly when they spoke about their time with the Brotherhood of Steel, the men and women they'd fought alongside and lost during their struggle against the remnants of the Enclave. It was there, too, in their story about returning to the vault they grew up in, setting the chaos that had arisen in their wake to rest, but not being able to go back to the way things were.

Boone didn't pry. He knew that feeling well. Instead, he cracked open bottles of beer, liquor, soda, whatever they had on hand during their nights in the desert, and just listened. He'd done the same for Carla, when they were younger and new to each other and he couldn't get enough of her voice and how it flowed endlessly, easily, the way his never could. He absorbed it all now as he did then: The joy, the pain, the loss, the fear, the triumphs and falls and abandoned dreams that filled the courier up and drove them to travel west, beyond anything they had ever known.

That last part stumped Boone a bit, though. "Why didn't you stay?" he finally asked one night.

They looked surprised. "Stay? Stay where? I didn't have a home anymore."

Boone shook his head. "With the Brotherhood. Or some other settlement."

"Like Megaton?" The courier sighed. "I thought about it. Close to the vault, friendly people, easy work... I guess I just didn't want to wind up... stuck."

They flushed red and looked away from him. Boone knew why they were embarrassed, but he also knew the truth in their words.

Sometimes the courier cried after they had finished, though they did their best to hide it. Boone pretended not to notice. He was pretty sure they knew he was pretending, but he was also pretty sure that pointing it out would be worse than just letting it be an open secret between them. The silence between them endured, but something grew inside it and flourished. Some kind of deeper understanding.

Lily Bowen: The more the courier spoke, the more Lily made connections in her muddled mind. Of course they knew the basic layout of most vaults, they had grown up in one. Of course they were extra-sensitive to the Mojave heat, they had come to the desert from the cooler of the two coasts. Of course they'd been extra-wary around the super mutants or nightkin of Jacobstown, they had only known angry super mutants looking to grow their own numbers through any means necessary.

Their shared experience of growing up inside a vault reminded Lily of happier days, and she often asked questions about Vault 101 during the courier's stories. "Were you sweet on anyone inside your old home?" she asked, with a big smile befitting a proud grandma.

The courier blushed. "That's not very polite, Lily."

"Oh, I'm sorry, dearie."

"No, no it's okay." The courier smiled. "There was a boy who picked on me a lot, but I never figured out whether he did it because he hated me or liked me. His name was Butch. And there was Amata, my childhood friend. She was the daughter of the Overseer."

"Daughter of the Overseer?" Lily grinned. "I'm sure she was a lovely young woman."

The courier looked a little misty. "Yeah. She was. Probably still is."

Lily pulled a handkerchief that used to be a small tablecloth from inside her overalls and handed it over. "Maybe we can go back there together, pumpkin," she offered. "I always wanted to travel to the capital. We can visit your friends, see the sights."

"Yeah, maybe someday." The courier accepted the gift and blew their nose. "I've got some things I need to finish up here before I even think about wandering back east, though."

"Then let's make a list and do our chores," Lily said happily. "Number one?"

"Ohhhh, man." The courier smiled up at her. "I wouldn't even know where to start."

Raul Alfonso Tejada: Raul got a faint smile on his face whenever the courier started up like this, as if their memories reminded him of another place he had come from, another time. While they couldn't have more different backgrounds, pasts- hell, he had several hundred years on the courier, even if they shared the same road today- there was something in the description of the other roads they had walked that made him feel warm on a cold night.

"What's on your mind?" The courier asked him one night, when Raul's smile grew larger than usual.

"Nada, boss," he reassured them. "You're just a good reminder that I can change my mind about the future anytime I'd like. Tell me the one about that radio DJ again."

"Again?" The courier rolled their eyes. "Why? I could tell you a million stories about Underworld and all the ghouls that lived there, but all you want to hear about is Three Dog. You'd probably have more in common with the Underworld folks, honestly."

Raul nodded noncommittally. "Sí, but my favorite stories are about people who had to rise above bad situations and become someone uncommon. Anyone who's able to do that is either fighting for something great or running from something terrible. Sometimes both."

The courier shot him a skeptical look. "Three Dog's holed up in his radio station 24/7, he's not running from anything or out fighting for anything. All that stuff about 'the good fight' is a load of bull."

"Now, now, Six," Raul chastised. "Just because he looks like your average pendejo doesn't mean he isn't doing his part. You even told me his radio show is inspirational for the Capital Wasteland folks."

The courier held their hands up in the air and bobbled them, as if balancing an invisible scale. "The duality of man. Being an average pendejo, or convincing everyone around you that you aren't actually an average pendejo and can pull off miracles."

Raul laughed. "And which one are you, boss?"

"Eh, I'm still figuring it out."

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: Cass was never one for fixating on her own past, but she couldn't help but sympathize with the courier whenever they deigned to add onto their unbelievable story. It was hard enough for her to navigate her own damn life: She couldn't imagine being called upon to steer an entire area's destiny.

After another night of recalling their life inside a vault with their dad, then their unexpected loss of him right after being reunited on the surface, the courier stopped suddenly. "I'm sorry," they said.

Cass paused her swig of precious whiskey. "What?"

"I keep going on and on about my dad, and here you are not knowing what happened to yours."

"Eh." Cass took her drink and waved her hand around until the burning swallow made its way down. "S'loads of people in the wasteland without a clue what happened to their pops. I'm not special. In fact, I'd say it probably hurts a bit more, what happened with yours."

"Well, all the same." The courier sank deeper into their seat and examined their own bottle of spirits. "I feel like an open book, tonight. Anything you want to know about where I came from that I haven't already spilled?"

Cass thought for a moment. "Tribals."

"What about them?"

"Does the East Coast have them? You're not the first traveler I've met from there, but none of you have so much as mentioned any tribals out east."

"Mmm." The courier looked thoughtful. "I guess we do have them, though maybe not in the traditional sense. There's a mess of them in Point Lookout for sure, and at least one tribal group in the Capital Wasteland outright, but beyond that things are more... loose. Fewer intact families, fewer intact homes."

"Huh." Cass took another drink. "Maybe that's where my dad went."

She let the courier stew in the awkward silence for a bit before she grinned and reached out to smack them. "Just kidding. Keep going. I want to hear about that giant robot again."

Veronica Santangelo: Veronica usually sat and listened, spellbound, picturing a chapter of her order that had realized the very thing she kept trying to tell the Elders and made the ultimate sacrifice to follow their hearts anyway.

Well, maybe Elder Owyn Lyons hadn't come to the same realization as her, but he had had a change of heart that split his company and cut them off from almost everyone they had ever known. It had been five years since the High Elders had instituted radio silence toward their East Coast chapter, and so far there had been no attempts to re-establish contact.

Veronica prodded the courier for any info she could get about the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood of Steel. The courier let slip pretty early in their friendship that Elder Owyn Lyons had passed away, which wasn't unexpected. The man was 76 years old, after all. She learned on one particularly emotional night that his daughter, Elder Sarah Lyons, was also dead, something she wasn't sure even the Western Elders were aware of. That memory was clearly painful for the courier though, so Veronica didn't press for details.

"And the Enclave?" the Scribe asked one night, arms wrapped around her knees. "Are they completely gone?"

The courier grew cold. "Yes. I made sure of it."

"Right." Veronica nodded. "So the Brotherhood took over the air force base they were at. It must have been chock-full of tech and resources, if it was the Enclave's last stand."

"It was." The courier sighed and shifted in their seat. "And it woke up some of our brothers and sisters to their original mission in the Capital Wasteland. I thought maybe that selfishness had died with Liberty Prime, but... well, I didn't like it, so I left."

"Mmm, yeah." Veronica nodded again, sympathetically this time. "I know how you feel. Felt."

"Feel," the courier agreed. "I just wish there was more I could've done. Maybe there wasn't anything else, short of seizing power."

"You'd definitely get pushback for that in the Brotherhood," Veronica agreed. "But you might get that chance out here in the broader Mojave."

ED-E: At first, ED-E enjoyed the stories, trumpeting and cooing various beeps at the appropriate moments for emphasis. The one time the courier began badmouthing the Enclave, however, the eyebot waited until they had finished before playing back the first tape that Dr. Whitley had recorded before its trip.

The courier listened to the scientist's words from years ago, deflating slightly as it played out. When the tape had finished, they stood up and checked the eyebot over. "He sent you toward Navarro, huh?"

ED-E beeped affirmation, and the courier sighed. "But Navarro was already gone. I'm sorry. I guess I'm... well, me and the Brotherhood of Steel back east are responsible for your previous master's decision to send you away. Might be responsible for more, too."

ED-E beeped sadly. The courier pressed their forehead against the eyebot's metal dome in apology.

Rex: Well, surprising for most. Rex was not most. As soon as the courier got really into their recollections, Rex usually yawned and went to sleep. He stirred when he felt their hand reach down to scratch the ruff of his neck, or pat the glass dome that held his brain.

"Good dog," the courier said, through the veil of sleep. "You remind me of another pup that used to follow me around."

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the-al-chemist · 3 years ago

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Artemis, all grown up.

The fic I’m working on at the moment, Learning To Fly, is set roughly a year after the HPHM kids leave Hogwarts, starting around the time of Artemis’ 19th birthday and finishing around two years later. It’s strange seeing her out of school, and even stranger through the eyes of someone else, but it’s got me really interested in her as an adult, and how her story is going to progress after the events of my mammoth adaptation of HPHM.

Now, not all of Artemis’ story is set in stone (I’ve learnt the hard way that my girl doesn’t let me choose what she does), but I thought I’d share some vague insights into what the future holds for Artemis after leaving Hogwarts.

Artemis leaves Hogwarts in June 1981, and starts working as a Curse-Breaker for Gringotts.

There are several reasons why she chooses this path. Partly, despite what everything she went through with the Vaults, she genuinely enjoyed Curse-Breaking, at least to begin with. Also, she’s stubborn as anything. She sees giving up on the idea of a career in Curse-Breaking as the Vaults winning, somehow.

Professional Curse-Breaking, however, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Artemis loves the international travel, the ancient ruins, the adventure, danger, and excitement. She hates the paperwork, the focus on money and profit, and the fact that Gringotts keep a dragon in chains deep in the basement.

In May 1992, Artemis enjoys a brief and relatively successful career as an amateur dragon smuggler. Because of this, she knows the importance of allowing these creatures to live freely, and is less than pleased about the mistreatment of the Gringotts dragon.

Sadly, this means that she will eventually hand in her notice at Gringotts. Or, more likely, storm out in a very flamboyant and explosive way, effectively (possibly even literally, knowing Artemis) burning her bridges with the bank, after only a couple of years of working there.

Having left Gringotts, Artemis secures a temporary position working with the Ministry’s Department of Magical Games and Sports and Department of International Magical Cooperation to help arrange the tasks for the Triwizard Tournament.

Artemis attends the Quidditch World Cup in August 1994, alongside Penny, Tonks, and Chiara (who is working as a Healer on-site), and meets up with several old friends. She is present when the Death Eaters start to terrorise the campsite, and joins in the fight against them.

In January 1995, Artemis moves in with her boyfriend of almost a year, and later receives a marriage proposal from him. She rejects it, not feeling that she is ready to settle down yet, effectively ending the relationship.

The Sphinx in the maze during the final challenge of the Triwizard Cup is one that Artemis encountered during her time as a Curse-Breaker. She has a direct role in bringing the Sphinx to Hogwarts, and is present at the castle for the aftermath of the final challenge.

Cedric’s death causes a lot of bad memories to resurface for Artemis. In a crisis, she leaves the country and spends a few months sleeping on the sofa of her close friend Charlie in Romania, working on a voluntary basis at the dragon sanctuary.

Artemis joins the Order of the Phoenix. However, Dumbledore requires absolute loyalty and obedience to him. Artemis doesn’t always trust his judgement. In turn, he doesn’t trust her with anything too important.

Kingsley Shacklebolt persuades Artemis that she should train as an Auror in 1996, the academic requirements having been dropped due to the increased demand for Aurors. Artemis has no desire to be an Auror, however when Kingsley explains his reasons for wanting her to go through the training (namely, lots of duelling practice that will stand her in good stead for the battles to come), she accepts the offer, and trains with him as her mentor.

In August 1997, Artemis attends the wedding of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour. She is only mildly insulted by Bill’s choice of best man. She will forever stand by the fact that she would have done a better job than Charlie.

After Voldemort takes over the ministry and Snape takes the position of Hogwarts Headmaster, most of the Order continue to follow the plans set aside by Dumbledore before his death. Artemis doesn’t. Why would anyone follow a dead man’s orders? She does what she does best: does things her own way.

Using her skills as an unregistered Animagus, Artemis goes rogue and helps in the war effort as a jailbreaker. She is eventually discovered, captured, and tortured, but manages to escape with the help of an old friend.

Artemis fights at the Battle of Hogwarts. She survives. Not everyone does. She struggles emotionally in the aftermath, as do the rest of the survivors.

At some point, Artemis will connect with the extended members of her biological family. Her relationship with her mother will never be a good one, and will affect her own feelings towards the idea of family and motherhood. Maybe it’s because I’m still writing her as a reckless teenager, but right now, I can’t see Artemis becoming a mother herself. At least, not a particularly good or safe one. She is, however, named godmother to Bill’s three children, a decision that he sporadically regrets.

I know very little about what Artemis will do after the end of the war. However, I do know that she will attend the wedding of Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter as Charlie’s date, and that she will spend an hour or so all alone under a rowan tree every year at sundown on New Year’s Eve for as long as she lives.

Like I said, Artemis’ story evolves as she does. I have outlines, but the details are hazy. She’ll decide for herself as she goes along. She always does.

#artemis hexley #the hexley saga #learning to fly

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jamlavender · 4 years ago

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Unholy Ghosts deleted scene: Chaos Family Christmas

I was reminded of this fic the other day, and after giving it a scan I remembered that the first version of the Christmas scene was very different to the one I ended up including in the posted story. This first draft was longer and more comedic, and I decided to write another because the fic was already so long and the tone had already become more contemplative. Upon giving that first draft a reread, though, I thought it was funny, and have decided to share it here!

The necessary backstory for this is: Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter avoided falling into the abyss (though still killed Metatron) and tricked Lyra into coming North five years later. After a rocky start, she spends her winter break with them. This is towards the end of the fic, and if you want to read about how they got to this point (or why she’s calling them Asriel and Marisa) you can read the full story here. Also, for some of the jokes to work, the version of Boreal mentioned in this is the older version from the books. I hope you enjoy!

One day, Lyra was wandering around the Saariselkä market with her mother, a migraine having confined a foul-tempered Asriel to the bedroom for the afternoon, when she spotted the date on a newspaper stacked outside the post office. Tucked away in the cabin, she’d largely lost track of time. “Look!” she said to Pan, who was rolling around in the snow. “It’s December twenty-third. It’s almost Christmas!”

They arrived home that afternoon with the usual spoils, along with a freshly plucked snow goose and a stack of root vegetables, ideal for roasting. They’d also found some sweet pears and fresh cream, which they could poach in red wine for dessert. Her mother had even let Lyra drive the motorsledge home, the wind whipping through their hair and flushing their cheeks the same bright pink as they charged over the white hills back to the cabin, both of them beaming, unbeknownst to the other.

Her father went off on a tirade when they explained what the purchases were for, of course, ranting and raving, saying that he hadn’t thrown God into an endless abyss to then celebrate his son’s birth like a sycophant. Marisa simply nodded along while she melted chocolatl into milk on the stove and spiked it with brandy, then guided Lyra to the sofa, mugs in hand, and whispered, “Let’s just wait for him to tire himself out, hmm?” which made Lyra laugh, and then she felt guilty for laughing, as she still did whenever they shared a shred of affection.

Lyra assumed that she’d prepare the meal alone on the day itself, but confronted with a sack of dirt-encrusted potatoes and a whole goose carcass, to say nothing of the chard or the gravy or the dessert, she realised that she might benefit from some assistance. She peered across the room to the lounge; her father was stretched on the sofa with a notebook on one leg and a newspaper on the other. She marched over with her hands on her hips. “There are too many potatoes for me to peel on my own, not if I’m going to stuff and season the goose too. I can’t do it all myself. You have to help me.”

He frowned. “I’m working.”

Lyra peered at his sparse scrawls. “You haven’t written a sentence in an hour.”

“I’m mulling,” he said petulantly, though Stelmaria had lifted her head, her ears twitching.

Lyra folded her arms, spurred on by his dæmon’s mild enthusiasm. “It’s Christmas.”

“You know that means nothing to me.”

“I don’t care.” They stared at each other, an imperious mirror image. She raised an eyebrow. “Marisa’s excited about it, about us celebrating together. I can tell her that you’re refusing to participate, if you’d prefer that.”

The corner of his lip twitched, the hint of a smirk. “Are you trying to play us off each other?”

“Is it working?”

He sighed. “Can’t your mother do it?”

“She’s even more useless than you are. And she’s in the bath.”

Stelmaria got to her feet with a yawn and padded into the kitchen, giving Asriel no choice but to follow, a scowl etched across his face and a triumphant grin sprawled across Lyra’s.

She put him to work preparing the snow goose for the oven while she mixed fennel and star anise and salt together for the seasoning, grinding the spices in an old granite mortar with a chipped pestle and adding a squirt of lemon juice at the end. She’d assumed that he could handle basic meat preparation – her parents’ brutal reindeer butchery had made it clear that he knew his way around a cleaver – but when she checked on his progress, her eyes widened. She’d tasked him with lightly scouring the goose’s legs and breast with a knife to help the fat render, and he’d interpreted that as gouging deep trenches into the bird, burying the knife into the carcass.

“Asriel!” she said, grabbing the knife from him. “God, no, not like that. Like this.”

He rolled his eyes as she instructed him, dragging the fine point of the knife over the goose’s other leg. He tried again and immediately created a deep channel in the bird’s flesh. Lyra glared at him.

“Have you ever been gentle in your life?”

He let his head roll towards her. “What do you think?”

She shook her head and took over, passing him the peeler instead and shoving him towards the pile of potatoes she’d already scrubbed clean. “I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me,” she muttered, tracing delicate scratches into the bird’s skin and then rubbing the seasoning into the fresh grooves. “Threatening to break my arm was your first instinct when I was a child – don’t think I don’t remember you putting me in an armlock in the retiring room, or all those times you dragged me to Mrs Lonsdale by the wrists – and then you tore the bloody sky in half! When it wasn’t even necessary. But that’s just what you’re like, isn’t it – ”

“What?” Asriel had paused, peeler in one hand, semi-shorn potato in the other. Lyra blinked; she’d assumed that he’d just tuned her out.

“Nothing. I was just commenting on your inability to do anything with restraint.”

“What do you mean it wasn’t necessary?”

She stared at him. “Well, there were lots of windows already, weren’t there? Even in Oxford. But no, you had to go all the way to the North – ”

He dropped the peeler onto the countertop with a clatter. “There were other windows? In our world?”

“Yeah,” she said, sharing a nervous glance with Pan. “You – you didn’t know about them?”

“How could I?” he said. “Within days of leaving Svalbard this world was several windows away. I didn’t spare a thought for home until your mother and I returned. How many? Where are they? Did you say Oxford?”

“They’re closed now,” Lyra said, an unwelcome memory of Will’s face disappearing behind a cruel, luminous seam in the air coming to her mind. “And I only knew about a few, the Oxford ones, mostly, though Will’s dad must’ve come through one too. But they’d been around for ages, they must have. I mean, Latrom had been crossing for years.” She tilted her head. “You really didn’t know that there were other windows? Even now?”

“No,” he snapped, Stelmaria grizzling beside him. “No one deigned to tell me. And who’s this Latrom?”

“That creepy collector guy, with the snake-dæmon. Oh, he had a different name in our world…”

“Boreal,” Pantalaimon piped up from beside her. “Lord Boreal.”

Her father’s eyes widened. “Boreal was travelling between worlds?”

Lyra nodded. “He’d been at it for ages. Decades, I suppose. He ran a big company in Will’s world and had travelled all over, collecting things for his weird basement. I think he was trying to impress Marisa. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.”

That made Stelmaria growl, and Lyra’s heart began to beat a little faster.

“Your mother went with him? To another world?”

“She was looking for me, I think,” Lyra admitted. “Latrom – Boreal – whatever, he’d stolen my alethiometer to force us bring him the knife, and she came to intercept us. That didn’t work either.”

At that moment, her mother swanned into the kitchen, wearing a red cashmere dress and a coal-black shawl, a fragrant bloom of perfume following her, the intertwining notes of rose and myrrh a smell Lyra had come to recognise as soon as it appeared in the air. She smiled at the sight of them, Asriel and Lyra side by side in the kitchen, though the joy was wiped from her face as soon as Asriel exploded, “You went to another world with Boreal?”

Marisa glared at Lyra, and she took Pan in her arms at once and clutched him to her chest. “What did you say to him?”

“I didn’t realise it was a secret!” Lyra said. “It was years ago!”

“When I asked you to go to another world with me, you refused. But when he asked – ”

The golden monkey was pulling gently on Stelmaria’s ears, trying to placate her, but Marisa herself seemed unperturbed. She poured herself a glass of wine, the same deep red as her dress, and leaned against the dining table. “He had something to offer me that served my own interests. You wanted me to simply abandon my life’s work in favour of yours, without a moment’s hesitation or complaint.”

“Semantics,” Asriel growled.

Marisa sipped her wine, pursing her lips, unbearably smug. “Are you jealous, darling? I thought you didn’t care about my lovers.”

Lyra’s eyes widened. “Wait, what? You and he… ugh! That’s disgusting!”

“Thank you, Lyra,” her father said, smirking.

“He was so… so smarmy, and so old, even then!” Lyra said.

“He was not that old,” her mother snapped, shooting daggers at Asriel when he laughed.

“Trust me,” Asriel said, leaning towards Lyra but not lowering his voice, “she went older.”

“I don’t want to know!” Lyra said, at the same time Marisa growled, “Asriel.” The golden monkey’s soothing caresses became a vicious wrench, and then both Asriel and Stelmaria were grimacing.

Lyra shook her head, reaching for the warped tin tray holding the goose and carrying it over to the oven. “Ugh,” she said again, shivering slightly, thinking of Lord Boreal’s oily voice and vault of trinkets. “You did that to find me and I still got away. No wonder you were furious.” She closed the cast-iron door with a smack. “What happened to him, anyhow?”

“An altercation with a spectre,” her mother said smoothly. “If he’d been paying more attention, perhaps he’d have seen it coming. Alas.”

“You quite certain that the old snake’s heart didn’t just give out?” Asriel said, irritation transformed neatly into amusement. “As your daughter has emphasised so thoroughly, he was getting on.”

“Seems rather hypocritical to be goading me about the age of one’s lovers, hmm?” her mother said, with a sneer. “How old was that Latvian witch? Five hundred? Six?”

“Hard to say, given that she looked younger even than you,” Asriel said, leaning back against the counter with a smug smile. The monkey bit Stelmaria, and Asriel grunted.

“Stop it,” Lyra said, pressing her hands to her ears. “Ugh, just – just stop it! Both of you!”

Her parents glanced at Lyra, and then looked back to each other. Silence fell across the trio, and just as Lyra thought that the ghastly conversation was over, her father said, “She was four hundred, I’ll have you know. The witch you’re thinking of was Siberian, and she was – ”

“You’re both so infuriating!” Lyra said, storming out of the kitchen into her bedroom, closing the door with a slam.

She sat on her bed and folded her arms, expecting one of them to come and find her, but it soon became clear that her flouncing off had done little to end the argument. She could hear them bickering, two familiar tones resonating through the cabin’s wooden walls, with the occasional sharper snap or outraged shout. Then she heard the sound of glass smashing and a chair scraping across the ground. Lyra lay back on her bed with a groan, slotting her head beneath her pillow and pressing the soft cotton to her ears.

She waited a few minutes before resurfacing, pleased that the brawl had quietened, and then spent several more minutes flicking through her book, hoping that their tempers would have burned themselves out by the time she returned to the kitchen. But when she made her grand reappearance, expecting to see some contrition on their faces, even just a grain of sand’s worth, she found the kitchen empty, the only sound the faint hiss of the kettle on the stove. She looked around the empty room, noting the glass shards on the floor by the sink. “Do you think one of them ran off, and the other followed?” Pan said, peering out of the window.

“Their coats are still here…” Lyra said, frowning.

At that moment, the workshop door swung open and her father appeared in the doorway. His cheeks were flushed, and he was tucking his shirt back into his trousers. “Oh. You’re back.”

Lyra stared at him. He glanced at the oven, chest heaving. “Is that goose ready yet? I’m starving.”

Her mouth fell open. “You – you – ” She shook her head. “Oh my god!”

“Lyra, darling,” her mother said breathlessly, appearing beside Asriel, her face the same deep crimson as the dress she was still straightening.

“You two are a disgrace,” Lyra said, with all the admonition she could muster, but her father only snorted. She turned and stalked back to her bedroom. “Disgusting. Disgusting!”

This time her mother did appear after a few minutes, her wild hair neatened and her face dusted with powder, Lyra scowling beneath the covers and pretending to read when the knock came at the door. Marisa opened it and skulked inside, looking – perhaps for the first time in Lyra’s memory – truly embarrassed, her cheeks still aflame, now for different reasons.

“I’m sorry about that, darling,” she said, running a hand through her curls. “I don’t know what came over me. Now, won’t you join us in the kitchen again, hmm? I’ve mixed you a drink, with the cloudberry jenniver. I know that it’s your favourite.”

Lyra gave her an unimpressed glare. Her mother smiled sweetly, one hand stroking her dæmon’s golden back. “And you know your father doesn’t know what to do with a paring knife, nor a roast potato or a pear. It would be such a shame to see your lovely meal ruined, wouldn’t it? I certainly don’t know when to take the bird out of the oven.”

That got her out of bed, her mother’s hand rubbing gently between her shoulder blades as they returned to the kitchen. Her father was hacking at the pile of potatoes again, a half-finished cocktail by his side.

“There you are,” he said, holding out her drink. Lyra took a sip and suppressed a hum as the sweet spirit hit her throat. He gestured to the countertop. “Now, what do you want me to do with these?” he said. Before long, their workflow had resumed, Asriel scoffing at Lyra’s comments on his knife skills but following her instructions nonetheless, while her mother sat at the table and offered unhelpful suggestions, a glass of wine in her hand and her feet propped up on a chair.

“Merry Christmas to us,” Pan said after Marisa had made a particularly useless remark. Despite herself, Lyra smirked.

This is a deleted scene from my story Unholy Ghosts, in which Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter survive the abyss and reunite with their daughter. You can read the full story on AO3.

#my fics #chaos family #lord asriel #marisa coulter #lyra belacqua #bad parenting #i thought this was funny idk #this is a crack fic tbh #the full fic is a lot less silly

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pedros-mustache-main · 4 years ago

Text

the arrangement

summary: it is all clear and simple—until it isn’t.

word count: 6.6k+

warnings: sugar daddy relationship, age gap (john is ~35, reader is ~23), angst, language, innuendo, suggestive themes & moments (not 18+ but be mindful—probably more so than with anything i’ve written!)

a/n: for the sake of this fic, veronica et al. don’t exist. i refuse to write infidelity. okay i hope you enjoy because i am very upset about the cottagecore!brian fic that i wrote which was eaten unceremoniously by the monster living in this website. xoxo!

1986.

he doesn’t kiss you; you won’t let him.

it’s all a part of the minutiae of your arrangement. he has his rules: a shower before and after—sometimes together, but mostly alone; meetings out of the public eye, normally his london flat; no contact with his colleagues. you have your rules: no outside arrangements with other women (or men, for all you care); no spur-of-the-moment visits; and above all, no kissing.

he can—and does—have a field day with the curves and contours of your body whenever he gets the chance. his mouth knows your skin well, and you’d like to think you know his in a similar fashion. you know what it feels like to be touched and held and loved by him, but his lips have never so much as brushed yours, and you intend to keep it that way. it’s just a quirk, a bothersome little thing you carry with you to all of your arrangements. kissing is too intimate and, though you’ve been more than intimate with john, there’s a line in the concrete you are unwilling to cross. he respects that, so the arrangement works.

you like him. he’s charming and intelligent, thoughtful when it matters. he never forgets a date despite his busy schedule, and he seems to anticipate your moods, knowing just when to spoil you a little extra to ease the pain of a ruined portrait or sour customer. he supports your art endeavors, though you are firm about him staying away from your studio apartment. like kissing, it’s too intimate, too personal. he pays the rent, though, and is admittedly happy when you confess he has inspired a piece or two.

still, he’s confounding. there’s a pervading sadness about his person, even when he’s laughing. it runs deep—that sadness—and you can’t pinpoint the origin. you suspect he must be lonely even though he’s one of the world’s foremost musicians. why else would he dote on you endlessly? why else would he throw his hard-earned money at the feet of a girl too young to be his proper lover and too guarded to ever give him the chance at something real?

not that he’s tried to move the arrangement to something deeper. he hasn’t. for that alone, you’re more than content to stay with him. you’ve had strings of other arrangements before, but never one that’s lasted this long. it always falls apart eventually—unmet expectations, dangerous feelings, the unfortunate death. a year and a half with john is a long time, and you’re surprised he’s not bored with you yet. you’re surprised you aren’t bored with him.

but truly, he is kind and well-off—physically and monetarily—and so long as he’s keen to have you around, you’ll stick around. you aren’t complaining.

of all your arrangements, you like john richard deacon the most.

he’s been gone for some time, consumed by the magic tour and promoting the latest queen album. he’s tired, ready for a break, and when he calls you a week before his return, you can hear the shoulder-crushing weariness in his tone.

“i’m getting too old for this, [y/n],” he says.

his sigh is heavy, and it gives you pause. you hold still, the paintbrush between your fingers suspended in midair. you twist on your stool in discomfort. though you know your role—and you play it splendidly—there’s always a flare of uncertainty in the back of your mind when john muses personal.

you shift, cradling the telephone between your shoulder and your ear. “you’re only thirty-five, john,” you say after a moment. “hardly an old fart.”

“well, i feel one.” something crinkles over the line. “i think we’ll be on break for a good while after this. freddie is—” he sighs again. “when can i see you?”

you can’t help but smile. you dip your head to the side as you study the foot of the angel in your painting. there’s something not quite right, so you lift the corner of your smock and wipe away the top of her big toe.

you like it when your men are eager; it means they still intend on supplementing your income and leaving you fine gifts. as soon as the eagerness begins to fade, as soon as the meetings are less and less frequent, you know it’s time to look elsewhere. nearly two years later and john is more eager for an evening with you now than he was at the start. you have nothing to worry about.

“when do you get back?”

“thursday.”

“then you can see me thursday.”

he exhales in something that sounds a lot like relief. you bite your lip to keep from smiling wider. he’s wrapped so tight around your pinky; neither of you seem to care.

“good, good. i’ll bring you something from barcelona. what do you want?”

"hmm. surprise me.”

“you don’t like surprises.”

“you’re right. how about some of those fun little tiles? the colorful ones, y’know?” he hums in agreement. “i can put those in my kitchen.”

“tiles? my baby wants tiles?” he laughs, and you’re thankful for the thousands of miles between you. the affectionate term, spoken normally in jest, sends your thoughts straight to the gutter every time, loathe as you are to admit such a thing. “fine. tiles it is. see you thursday.”

“it’s a date, mr. deacon.” you pause then add, “get some rest, john. you sound knackered.”

“i am.”

“i’ll see you thursday, handsome.”

he says goodnight, wishes you sweet dreams, and hangs up. you drop the phone to its base and sit back, stretching your arms over your head.

the canvas before you is taller than it is wide—twenty-four by thirty-six. the customer, a repeater, requested something angelic and bright, a new addition to their marble villa in the south of greece. you’re happy to oblige, but you’re stuck on the bottom portion. should the angel be in flight? poised on a cliffside? in a garden? you know it doesn’t matter, that the buyer will be happy regardless, but it matters to you. each painting needs to tell a coherent story, and you like for that story to fit well with the piece’s ultimate home.

your mother says you are blessed with a gift by god. john says you have natural talent. you think you’re just good at copying. it’s not forgery; all of your paintings are as unique as they are original. still, you’re excellent at replicating dead-and-gone styles: renaissance, rococo, romantic, hell even the odd modern piece. whatever the customer wants, you can reproduce it for a fraction of the cost. your work pays handsomely, but averaging only one painting a year doesn’t pay all the bills that pile up on your kitchen island over the months. that’s where john comes in. it evens out in the end, with more than enough on the side to play with.

rising from your stool for a much needed break, you cross the concrete floor, the stone cool beneath your bare feet. the evening has gone drafty, so you shut one of the tall windows looking onto the side garden. you pick up your mail from beneath the flap on the front door and rifle through. nothing urgent, though there’s a letter from your mother. you tuck it to the side.

john would detest your studio if he ever saw it. it’s unfeeling, bare bones and vaulted ceilings and exposed beams. most of the open floor plan is used for your painting endeavors. there’s discarded portraits along the wall, a few untarnished canvases tucked in a corner. there’s a worktable that doubles as a kitchen table, and a cramped kitchen shoved beneath the loft which houses your bed and wardrobe. you don’t mind the gray walls and gray floors and metal and lack of personal touches. if anything, the simplicity allows your creativity to explode.

after a piece of jam and toast for supper, you return to your painting. the angel should be on a cliffside overlooking the sea, you decide; after all, her home will soon be greece. dipping your brush to the mixture of tan and dark brown you’ve been using for her skintone, you curl a leg beneath you and set to work. only this time, you struggle to keep the excited smile from your face.

john’s coming home. you missed the bastard—him and his money.

thursday evening you find yourself on john’s front stoop, fist poised to knock on the door. the dress beneath your coat is silky, like water against your skin. you feel underdressed for the turn of the season but you’re likely to be without clothing entirely within the hour so you grit your teeth against the chill on your legs. you clear your throat, adjust the curled ends of your hair, and knock on the door. the bottle of champagne in your hand grows heavy as you wait, and you finger the small string of diamonds around your neck.

john inhales through his nose sharply when he opens the door. “[y/n],” he breathes before sweeping you into a tight embrace.

you laugh, crushed against his chest, your arms snug around his shoulder. he smells clean, like soap and fresh tea. you lift your legs, giggling further as he spins you about the rowhouse foyer.

“okay, okay!” you squeal. “put me down!”

he drops you to the floor, your heels clicking against the hardwood. “let me take your coat,” he says, sliding behind you to remove your outer layer. you shimmy out of the garment and bite you lip on a smirk when he sucks in a breath through his teeth.

“like it?” you ask, twirling on the ball of your foot in a slow circle. your dress—pale pink, short and open in the back—leaves little to the imagination.

“you’re a sight for sore eyes, angel.”

he steps away from the coatrack to circle his arms around your waist. he settles his hands in the curve of your spine and drinks you in, his pupils expanding with appreciation. you preen under his gaze and rest your palms on his brightly patterned shirt. you never tire of this—no matter who your benefactor is. the glazed look in their eye when they see you wearing a necklace newly bought or sporting a handbag of your choice or simply pushed against their strength is intoxicating. you feel powerful and desirable and unstoppable all at once.

“missed you.” john lifts a hand to brush a lock of hair away from your face, and the gesture is decidedly intimate. it sends a chill down your spine, your mouth tightening. you know if this were any other relationship he would bend forward and capture your lips, marking you as his and erasing the weeks apart with a single touch. you know he’s fighting the urge to do so now; you can see it in the way his eyes flick to your mouth and hold there.

to ease his yearning, you wind your arms around his neck and squeeze him tight, curling your fingers in the base of his recently trimmed perm. you like the fluff; it’s quirky—like him. “missed you, john.” you kiss the corner of his jaw and pull away, trailing to the kitchen.

he’s hot on your heels.

lifting your rump onto the kitchen island, you cross your ankles and grin as he enters the room. “did you bring me my tiles?”

john blinks, as if he’s not sure what you’re talking about, but then recognition lights his eyes, and he snaps in remembrance. “ah yes, the tiles! hold on.” he slips into an adjoining room before returning with a brown box tied with a white ribbon. “here.”

you take the box, smile at him where he leans against the counter opposite you, and tear off the string. within the box there’s a small index card covered in john’s neat script. you lift it and meet his eyes again; there’s a faint blush on his cheeks as you read aloud.

“[y/n], i thought you deserved something better than a few titles. love, john.” lowering the card to your side, you push back the tissue paper to see a framed pencil sketch of a woman mid-gown fitting. the seamstress is crouched against the floor, her back to the viewer. the woman being fitted is twisted, glancing over her shoulder as the seamstress works, her reflection visible in an invisible mirror. you squint and push your nose to the corner then nearly drop the frame to the floor.

your head snaps up so fast it cracks. “john, you didn’t.”

he just beams, nodding.

tucked in the right hand corner of the sketch is the artist’s signature, a signature you know well. mary cassatt.

“got it in paris,” he explains. “thought you could use an original from your favorite.”

you brush your fingertip along the signature and feel the sting of tears beneath your eyelids. of all the gifts you been handed—holidays in rome, designer bags and jewelry, luxury rides to and from the city—this, this, is the best. part of you hates the sudden rush of emotion that spreads through your chest, but you allow the feeling to take hold, opening your arms to him. he steps between your legs, and you curl yourself around his body.

“thank you, john,” you whisper. your voice is muffled by the fabric of his shirt, but the way he presses his hand against your shoulder blade tells you he heard you loud and clear.

he hums against the crook of your neck. the vibrations tickle your throat, and you flush. you draw back, far enough to meet his gaze, but close enough to feel his breath against your face.

god, you could kiss him.

the thought strikes you like a bolt of lightning, and you resist the urge to gasp. you’ve never thought it before; the rule of no kissing is ingrained in you so deep the mere idea of breaking it sends you for a loop. but there he is—generous and gorgeous and yours. he knows you well, spoils you well, and all he asks is you entertain him in return.

how did you get to be so lucky?

clearing your throat, you brush past him to hop off the counter. you tug the hem of your dress down a smidgen and touch his shoulder. “want me to go shower?” you ask, cocking your head toward the bathroom.

he turns to face you and shakes his head. “no.” his arms are around you again, as if it pains him to keep his distance for a moment too long. you can feel it in the thrum of his heart against your ribcage. you swallow hard.

your brow pinches in a frown. “but you—”

his mouth is already tracing the lines of your neck, warm and wet and dizzying. he grips your hip, his fingertips pressing through the satin of your dress. “forget it, [y/n]. i’ve missed you,” he whispers, a tattoo on your skin. “come to bed.”

“but the sho—”

he pulls back and lifts a hand to grasp your chin. the touch is not angry, not possessive; it’s just firm. the words in your mouth dry up, and you meet his gaze with wide eyes. “i said forget it.”

you nod, mute.

his eyes lower to your mouth. his tongue darts out to swipe his lower lip.

he steps away, his fingers trailing down your arm until they circle your wrist. he leads you through the house, silent, until you reach the foot of his bed. moonlight washes through the open terrace doors. a misty rain drifts into the room, bringing with it a chill and a whisper of autumn.

you toe off your heels, run your finger down his grecian nose, over his straight jaw. there’s this feeling in your stomach, one you can’t quite place. it’s a mixture of contentment and nerves, joy and apprehension, all at once. it’s a foreign feeling, and there’s no time to dissect it as john leans close.

his nose nudges yours. “i missed you.”

you sigh, wistful, and pull him onto the bed.

come morning you are sated and sore. you groan through a stretch, curling your back like a cat as you adjust to the morning light. you slept well, better than you have in several weeks. you can’t be sure if the dreamless slumber was due to exertion from your evening activities or pure tranquility. you missed sleeping beside john; he has a comforting way about him, even in the throes of pleasure or sleep.

you turn your face to see john already wake, propped up against a pile of pillows. you grin and reach for him.

“morning,” you mumble on a yawn.

he blinks contentedly at you, a half-smile on his mouth, a lit cigarette between his fingers. “morning.”

“sleep well?”

he nods. “that was the most sleep i’ve gotten in weeks.”

with a chuckle, you pinch his bicep. “funny—i thought the same for myself.”

he pats the space beside him, and you shuffle to lie perpendicular to his body, your head on his bare chest. he drapes an arm across your torso, and you lift his hand to fiddle with his long fingers.

the terrace door is still open, allowing mid-morning warmth and the gentle hum of the street below to fill the room. you sigh and smile when john takes a drag of his cigarette and tilts his head to exhale in the opposite direction. he knows you hate the smoke, thoughtful boy.

when he turns back, he catches your eye, furrowing his brow as he studies the look on your face. “what?”

you shake your head. “nothing.”

he grunts, shifts a little lower along the pillows. “tell me about the paintings you’ve got going in that pretty head of yours.”

“just one for the moment—an angel near the sea. it’s for the olsons and their villa in greece.”

“olson? wasn’t he the one who bought that nudie fashioned after his wife?”

“precisely the one!”

john smirks. “how’d you feel if i had you paint something like that for me?”

you guffaw, flipping over onto your stomach to slap his breastbone. “john!”

he holds up his hands in surrender, though there’s a mischievous twinkle in his gray eyes. “oy! it’s just a thought!”

you huff. “continue like that and i won’t finish the painting i’ve started for you.”

he leans back against the pillows in surprise. his neck is contorted in the effort it takes to properly meet your eyes as he sits, and you poke the double-chin that’s popped up beneath his jaw. he swats your hand away, though his fingers wrap tight around your wrist. he presses his pointer finger against your pulse point.

“you’ve started a painting for me?”

“course i have. don’t sound so surprised.”

“what’s it of?”

you narrow your gaze. “don’t know if i should tell you. it’s supposed to be a birthday gift.”

“my birthday’s not for a while, [y/n].”

“my paintings take a while, john.”

he sighs, squeezes your wrist, lifts it to kiss the bone on the side of your hand. “tell me,” he mumbles, his mouth against your skin, eyes locked on yours.

on an inhale, you give in. “it’s victoria park. well, victoria park seventy-five years ago.”

his eyebrows rise, and his fingers tighten around your hand. “victoria park? my victoria park? from leicester?”

“where else, silly?”

he goes quiet.

the air in your lungs stills, and that funny feeling you had the night before flares in your stomach. you feel your jaw slacken as he rakes his gaze over you in such unabashed adoration it makes your gut twist. there’s an overwhelming desire to be near him, to feel him as you’ve never felt him before, rising like the tide, and you are pulled to it like a baby sea turtle searching for the safety of the ocean. it’s a natural pull, but you are determined to ignore it.

you sit up, brush a lock of hair behind your ear, and turn your back to him.

he runs his finger along the curve of your shoulderblades. you shiver.

sensing your discomfort, john sits straight in bed, the covers around his lap rustling with the movement. “you know,” he says, pulling on his cigarette again. “freddie would like one of your paintings.”

“what?” you look over your shoulder with a frown. “you told him about me?”

he shakes his head. “no, i just mean what you do is his style. he’d be thrilled to have something so… romantic.” he pauses and lifts a brow in question. “i could mention it to him, ask if he’d be interested?”

your frown deepens. this is not the john you know. john rarely speaks about his bandmates, preferring to keep his exploits with queen separate from your arrangement. when he does talk about his job, it’s normally a complaint here, a silly little story there. though you’ve been with him more than a year, you know more about his life before queen than his life during. he’s private, like you, and you respect that. it’s why your arrangement works: mutual respect for the other’s boundaries.

but there’s something different about him. you noted it the night before. first no shower. now suggesting he introduce you to freddie. it doesn’t make sense.

or maybe it does. maybe this is his way of shifting the relationship, subtly, under your nose, done before you realize what’s happened.

a thread of panic weaves itself around your spine.

“what’s this about? you’ve never wanted me to meet freddie before.”

he shrugs, playing innocent. “just an idea. we’re on break now, will be for some time. i figured meeting you would give freddie something to fuss over.”

“you know how i feel about my studio, john.”

“i know, i know. you like your privacy.”

john stubs out his cigarette in an ashtray on the bedside table then scoots closer, drawing you close with an arm around your waist. his mouth works idle patterns along your shoulder, the spot where your neck meets your back, the ticklish spot behind your ear.

you tighten your hold on his arm, your nails biting his skin. when you speak, your voice is but a whisper.

“i don’t want things to change.”

he stills, lifting his head from your skin. “sorry?”

“i said i don’t want things to change.” turning, you meet his eyes, nearly losing your breath in the process. he’s close; you can practically taste him on your lips. “what we have works. don’t you think?”

“’s just an idea, [y/n].”

ducking your head, you play with the hair on his arm. your heart squeezes tight. “i know. but i say yes now and tomorrow you’ll be…” you lift your face.

he seems to understand without needing you to finish the thought.

he untangles himself and swings his legs over the side of the bed. you watch his movements, stiff and irritated. he pulls on a pair of ratty joggers, rising from the bed to shut the terrace doors. you startle at the sound of glass rattling in the windowpanes.

“john, i—”

he cuts you off. there’s another cigarette between his fingers now. “better take a shower,” he quips. his eyes remain planted on the cigarette packet in his hands. he taps the thin stick against the cardboard several times before jamming it between his teeth. “you didn’t take one last night, and we wouldn’t want things to change, now would we?”

the door slams shut, the blast echoing in your empty stomach.

you don’t hear from john for a week and a half. it’s not uncommon, the length between visits. he’s busy, you’re busy. sometimes you can barely find time for yourself, let alone him. still, there’s no box of chocolates delivered to your doorstep, no flowers dropped off at an inopportune time.

there’s just silence.

it worries you at first, and you wonder if he’s dropped you like a hot potato. it wouldn’t be unheard of. one arrangement ended in a similar fashion, and you nearly lost your studio in the process. but john is better than that. he wouldn’t leave you on the verge of homelessness, would he? he cares about you too much to do such a thing.

your fears are assuaged when a bouquet of flowers does arrive one afternoon. you have paint smeared along your forehead, and your neck cracks as you stand to answer the doorbell, but the sight of sunflowers in a pretty blue vase erases all your uncertainties. the note tucked in the ramble of flowers makes you smile—sorry for being a dick. give me a call if you forgive me – j—and you tape it to your refrigerator.

john is still yours; you are still his.

you call him that night, and after reaffirming your boundaries, the phone call devolves into a mess of heavy breathing and whispered encouragements and sinful sorts of pleasure.

as you fall asleep, you’re struck by something he said in the hazy cloud of post-bliss: even if this is all you give me, i’m happy.

even if this is all you give me…

he wants more. how much you aren’t sure, but enough that you can’t fall asleep as readily as you normally do. frustrated, you slip from bed and finagle your way down the stairs to the kitchen. you warm a glass of milk and lean against the counter, sipping slowly. your eyes fall along the mary cassatt print, now housed on the kitchen wall above the vase of sunflowers. the milk in your stomach curdles.

john deacon loves you; and if you tarry any longer, you’ll be close to loving him, too.

the decision to call the arrangement off does not come lightly. you mull over it for days on end, even as a sliver of your heart warms to the idea of allowing john to love you as he pleases, of letting yourself love him back.

it’s all you can think about the next time you see him face-to-face. as he pours you a glass of wine and lays you out on the living room floor, your thoughts are elsewhere. when he takes you shopping for canvas frames, you let him hold your hand, but you can’t focus on what he’s saying about the best fit. even when he mentions your studio and you find yourself willing to invite him inside, you cannot shake the feeling that you are losing a part of yourself you will never regain.

but would it be so bad? giving in?

you’re interested in john, that much you will concede. he’s good and kind and generous and a hell of a good romp and you enjoy your time with him. but the stubborn part of you refuses to let go of your own autonomy. you will not become his plaything, his arm candy at all the queen functions he so dreads. you value your independence too much—the safety of your well-crafted walls—to be anything other than his dirty little secret.

you’re prepared to shove your concerns aside and continue on until john makes the decision for you. he gives freddie your studio address, and freddie shows up one morning unannounced. you invite him in, sketch out a painting over the worktable, smile when necessary, and ignore his wonderings about your connection to john but on the inside you’re reeling. you’re livid and you’re hurt.

you’ve never been hurt by one of your arrangements before.

after freddie leaves, john answers the telephone on the third ring. “hello?”

“we can’t see each other anymore,” you say, your voice firm.

he’s quiet for a moment. “i’m sorry—what?”

“you heard me, john. i’m calling it all off.”

“why on earth would you do that?”

unbidden, an answer rises to your mouth: because i think i like you as much as you like me and i’m scared.

with a harsh clearing of your throat, you instead say, “you sent freddie here. i told you not to do that.”

“he did what? no, [y/n], i didn’t send freddie to you.”

“then how else would he know who i am? my clients don’t run in his circles.”

panic laces the edge of john’s voice as he rushes to explain, but you grit your teeth against the sound. “i swear, angel, i didn’t tell him where you live. i might have told him about you, yeah, but he’s my best friend, and i needed some advice.” he hesitates, sucks in shaky breath. “don’t do this. don’t call it off.”

you swallow hard. for the first time in a long time, you feel a wash of tears over your eyes. “you want too much from me, john. i can’t give you what you want. i’m not the girl for that sort of life.”

“oh, baby, i—i’m sorry. i know i’ve been pushy lately but i—” he sighs. “god, i love you so dearly. i’d give you the world if you let me.”

at this you choke on a sob. surprised by the sound, you press a hand to your mouth.

oh god, you love him too. the feeling crashes over you like a wave, and you’re the sea turtle who has found the safety of the sea. john is your sea. he envelops you, carries you to safety and uncertainty all at once. but you know him—he will protect you, guide you, with everything he is and all that he has.

you love him, you love him, you love him.

but it’s not enough. it’s not supposed to go like this, and you both know it.

“i’m sorry, john,” you whisper. you didn’t remember that tears taste salty. “please don’t call me, okay?”

you hang up before you can hear his protests any further then you crawl into bed and weep.

several months pass. autumn fades into winter, and you grow colder by the day.

you’re stressed. you cut john off entirely, opening a separate bank account and shuffling your monies and generally working to disentangle him from your life. but no john means no stable income. you’re fine for the time being, your painting for the olsons paid for and gone; but you’ve taken to rushing your artwork now, allowing customers to sit for hastily and poorly arranged portraits with their dogs and children. the paintings are lovely, yes, but they’re not you. it pays the bills, though, so you can’t complain.

you continue on freddie’s painting. he paid you upfront, so you owe him that much. in the evenings, after shooing the last snot-nosed kid and yippy dog out of your home, you turn on the lamp above the canvas and return to the sort of art you yearn for day and night. the painting screams freddie mercury all over.

there’s a man, mustached and tan, draped against a purple chaise in the center of the canvas. he’s flanked by a tall gentleman with wiry hair who is focused on a globe in the corner. to the far right, two other men—one blond, one brunette—whisper amongst themselves. you realize, belatedly, that you are painting queen in some sort of ridiculous nineteenth century daydream. it makes you snort every time you sit down to work.

you struggle to capture john in the painting. you know his face better than you know your own. you dream of it every night and wake to an image of it every morning.

you love him. you miss him.

you’re not certain when you started loving him. maybe six months in when he took you to new york and the moma and the empire state building. maybe nine months in—your first christmas together—when he gifted you a song. maybe a year in when he confessed his deepest fears—fears of loneliness and isolation and an empty old age—and made you promise to stay by his side. maybe when he came back this last tour and you wanted to kiss him so badly it hurt to hold back.

you’ve never been in love. you don’t quite understand the way it works, but you know enough to know that you love him. perhaps you always will, your disco deaky, the thoughtful boy.

you finish freddie’s painting come the first of the year. it’s been four months without john, four months entirely on your own. you have no compunction to find another arrangement. no one could fill the shoes of john deacon even if they tried, and the idea doesn’t appeal to you like it once did. you’ll go it alone for a while and revel in the autonomy you so desire.

freddie invites you to dinner when you call and say the painting is ready, and you reluctantly go. you’re half afraid he’ll pull some trick and invite john as well, but he swears he’ll be on his best behavior. the night of the dinner, you dress warm and gently arrange the framed canvas in the boot of your car. after losing your way twice, you eventually find his house and park outside. jim helps you carry the painting through the tight gate and into the front parlor where freddie waits, hands clasped in excitement.

“oh, i could just piss myself i’m so thrilled!” freddie squeezes your shoulders when you unveil the completed work. “i look so divine, like bloody oscar wilde!”

the edges of a smile lift your mouth. “yes, divine indeed.”

“you are more talented than you know, [y/n],” freddie says. he boops the end of your nose. “you shouldn’t hide your talent.”

“i don’t! i sell my work.”

“yes, but you could be a star, darling. i could make you a star.”

“i don’t want to be a star, freddie.”

“then what do you want?”

you sigh, shrug, and curl your lips in a wry grin. “not sure anymore.”

“perhaps dinner will help you figure it out. come on, it’s ready and we don’t want it getting cold.”

you follow freddie to the dining room. what awaits you sends your blood running cold as the frost outside. john richard deacon, handsome as ever, sits at the table, a smoke in hand. he looks up when you enter, surprise painting his face at the sight of you bundled in a winter coat in his friend’s dining room.

you twist in the doorway. your fists tremble with rage. “fuck you, freddie!”

he cringes. “okay, i can explain. you just have to hear me out before you slit my throat.”

john rises to his feet. “[y/n]…”

you ignore him and keep your gaze on freddie. “you promised!”

freddie nods. “yes, i know, but you see it was my fault that this whole thing fell apart.”

at this, john turns his head. “what are you on about, fred?”

“well, when you told me about your relationship with [y/n]”–-he lowers his voice to a stage whisper, looking at you from the corner of his eye—“when you told me you loved her”—he returns to his normal voice—“i got very distracted by the idea of a painting of the four of us. so i ignored your issue and looked her up and then it all fell apart.”

john sucks in a deep breath, shaking his head. he runs a hand down his face, and you note the weariness etched along his eyes. “fuck, fred.”

“so, you see, it’s my fault. if i had just left well enough alone, you two might still be shagging like rabbits and spending all that hard-earned money instead of moping like a pair of silly-pants!” he sobers, his nose twitching. “i really am sorry. it was selfish of me.”

“freddie—” you start.

he shakes his head. “no! i won’t hear any excuses—not until you’ve made up.” a timer somewhere in the kitchen dings, and he snaps. “now… if you’ll excuse me…” he slips from the dining room, shutting the door behind him with a tell-tale click.

you look to the floor. you should get your winter boots polished. they’re horribly scuffed.

john speaks first. “you look good, [y/n].”

lifting your head, you scoff. “you always were a flatterer.”

“no, i mean it.”

you run your eyes over him and feel your heart trip. god, you missed him. “you look good, too.”

“what have you been doing?”

“oh, this and that. mostly painting portraits.”

“you hate portraits.”

“i know.”

outside, the cricks chirp loudly, but you wonder if john can heart the beating of your heart over the chorus of insects.

“[y/n], i—”

“john—”

he smirks. you look to your toes again.

“you go first,” he says.

lifting your head, you dare to step further into the room. you steel yourself, biting the inside of your tongue to keep from spilling your guts at his feet. “i was wrong, too.”

he cocks his head to the side in confusion. “what do you mean?”

it’s time, isn’t it? seeing him now... how could you ever live without him?

“i was foolish and stubborn and willful. i knew what i wanted, but ignored it for the sake of my own stupid ideals.” you step closer and catch a whiff of his cologne. it sends a thrill straight to your belly. “turns out i need people just as much as you do.”

“what are you saying?”

“i’m saying i was wrong to turn you away. i was scared. i’ve only ever known love with a price tag on it, never real love. not until you anyway. as complicated as it is, you have loved me better than anyone else, and i was blind to it for so long. and even when i wasn’t blind to it, i pushed you away. i’m sorry.”

he swallows, his adam’s apple bobbing. “what—what are you saying?” he asks again.

“i’m saying i miss you and i’m a right git and i love you and i’m sorry.”

he reaches for you, his touch like fire on your wrist. “i shouldn’t have pushed you.”

you shake your head in disagreement. “i needed a good pushing. i didn’t realize how much i needed you until you were gone. and fuck all about the money. i don’t care about that. i needed you. i need you.”

john moves his hands to cup your face, his palms warm on your cool cheeks. he leans downs and presses his forehead to yours. you exhale, sure that if you open your eyes, if you move an inch, you will wake from whatever dream you inhabit. you don’t want this moment to end—him and you and no one else, all the possibility in the world stretching out before you.

“you don’t know what it means to hear you say that,” he whispers. “i would be content to love you silently, but, god, i love you.”

you laugh and open your eyes, blinking back tears. you pull away to meet his gaze. “even though i’m a stubborn fool?”

“i’m more stubborn and more foolish than you ever could be.” his thumbs work over the apple of your cheeks. “i love you,” he breathes.

“i love you.”

you grin. he matches your smile.

“kiss me,” you whisper.

his eyes widen, his mouth parting. “but—”

“it’s part of our new arrangement. you can kiss me whenever you like so long as you promise not to smoke in bed.”

“fuck. i—” he shakes his head, eyes fluttering shut. you lift a hand to his cheek, and his eyes open.

“i know. me too.”

he captures your mouth, the touch soft and everything you have waited to find, everything you have searched for in all the wrong places. he kisses you, holds you against his body, weaves his hand in your hair. he moves his lips in tandem with yours, and you feel like you’re floating.

he kisses you, and you are home.

#john deacon #john deacon x reader #queen #queen fic #j writes #the arrangement

227 notes · View notes

homebody-nobody · 4 years ago

Text

touch me someone

HIIIII it’s your favorite fic writer back from the dead with TWO whole fics real close together maybe I’ll finally become a consistent publisher?!? we can dream. Anyway. JJ and Kiara are my new Bellamy and Clarke I guess so enjoy this VERY angsty smutty hurt/comforty poetic nonsense the idea for which would not leave my brain til I wrote it. Please for the love of god read this bc I actually kind of love it and need validation or concrit or literally any feedback at all bc my none of my irl friends like this show so pls interact/comment

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ao3

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He pulls away from her, and his eyes are wide but dry as his chest heaves. He looks wild, uncaged and raw, the moonlight turning his blond hair white and his blue eyes into pools of silver. Tragedy and shock have destroyed him, the chains he’d wrapped around his brash, heedless, unending want twisted into shards by an explosion of hurt and grief. He has always been the victim, the boy left behind in empty rooms with nothing but loss and bloody fragments, told to piece himself back together. Finally, they’ve taken the last thing. When he told John B they had nothing to lose, they still had each other. And now, he doesn’t even have that.

But she’s still here.

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Touch me someone

I’m too young to feel so

numb, numb, numb, numb

You could be the one to

Make me feel somethin, somethin.

The Phantom went down around 8:30 PM. Or maybe 10:30. Kiara doesn’t remember. She only knows that the hours between then and now have felt like a lifetime and also no time at all. Like she’ll turn and John B will be there, behind her shoulder, laughing at something JJ said, Sarah hanging off his arm; but also like the world is dark and will be dark and has been dark forever. Like the sun will never rise after this. Like the storm took the light and heat from the world just like it took her best friend.

Later, she’ll learn that John B’s official time of death is listed as 8:34 PM, when they stopped trying to establish radio contact with him and Sarah. Later, she’ll watch news stories about the manhunt for Rafe Cameron and the scandal of Ward Cameron’s property being left to his second wife, rather than his remaining daughter. Later, she’ll get an email from an internet cafe in Bermuda and her whole world will flip upside down one more time.

But now, she is laying in her four-poster bed, watching the ceiling fan lazily trawl the same, tired circle, listening to the pull-chain tap not-quite-silently against the glass fixture. Now, her hair still damp from the shower that her mother made her take, eyes stinging from sharp wind and tears not yet shed, the inside of her mouth shredded and sore from the hours she spent chewing on her lips, the world is too quiet, too peaceful. The crickets outside sing soft and gentle, just like they have every night her whole life, and the texture of her comforter, the quiet harmony of the night, the soft click and whoosh of the fan -- it all feels so chokingly familiar, like spiralling back down to earth after spending weeks dipping in and out of orbit.

She wants to scream until her throat is raw, sob and fight and unleash herself on every single adult that hurt John B, that brushed him off or refused to help or wouldn’t listen to him. She wants to gut Ward Cameron for ripping everything away from John B, first his father, and then the gold that was his by right. The gold that was theirs. She wants to rip off Rafe’s skin piece by piece until he’s in shreds at her feet. She wants to eviscerate his father with the same gaff hook he used to rip apart those two mainlanders and ruin John B’s life. She’s so full of hurt and grief and anger that her fists keep clenching white-knuckled in her blankets and she wants to bring down the sky itself. But at the same time, she’s haunted by that same emptiness that followed her after Sarah’s childish betrayal, like she’s watching it all from the outside.

She can’t sleep. She won’t. Sleep is just an escape, a place to forget, and she’ll have to wake up and remember what happened all over again, remember the rush of hope and the hours of adrenaline and apprehension that ended in a tragedy none of them could have ever predicted. What child foretells death?

Rolling over, she presses her face into her pillow, smothering herself until her lungs force her to turn her head for air. She opens her eyes, no less heavier than they were hours ago. Her throat tightens like tears are about to well up, to spill over and stain her sheets, but they don’t come. Itchy and claustrophobic, she throws back the sheets and paces over the smooth boards of her room, bare feet making soft noises over the lacquered wood. She has to get out, to make sure that she didn’t dream up the whole goddamn thing.

She dresses quickly, throwing on denim cutoffs and an old drug rug that cycled its way through at least two of the boys’ wardrobes before landing in hers. She doesn’t know where she’s going, doesn’t know what she needs, but she throws her wallet, her charger, a flashlight, and her water bottle in her beat up backpack, and, on second thought, a toothbrush and some deodorant. She picks up her keds and tiptoes down the stairs, avoiding the creaky eighth stair.

The key rack is empty, and, chastising herself for believing her parents would leave the car keys out after everything she’d pulled in the last few days, she rocks on her heels, assessing her options. The most prudent one is probably just to go back to bed, given the usual risks of going out at night as a teenage girl, the massive punishment that looms in her future, and, now, the lack of a vehicle. But the thought of returning to her stale room, skin crawling and mind racing at a standstill, makes the decision for her. She slips out the back door, making sure to catch the screen door before it slams, and digs out her bike from next to the garage. The tires could use air and the gears are misaligned, but it still rides, and it’ll get her… somewhere else.

Her original intention is to go to Pope’s house, mostly because it’s closest, but then she thinks about how she kissed him earlier that afternoon -- and God, was that just this afternoon? There’d be implications, now. Showing up in the middle of the night, throwing pebbles at his window -- it would mean something. So she stands up on the pedals and pushes past his street, floating like jetsam through the night.

She ends up heading for the chateau, which is where she was going all along. After her family moved to the outskirts of figure eight just before high school, it was the only place that felt like home anymore. She cruises deep into the cut, where even the smell of the air changes, from freshly mowed grass and chlorinated in-ground pools to gasoline and oil, rotting seaweed and the salt marsh.

The little house sits in the reeds, ramshackle and welcoming as ever, tired and reaching under the moon. It’s empty and forlorn, alone on the edge of the edge, out past the main cluster of the cut, pushed past the tideline, separated from the rest of the flotsam by a freak wave. The Routledge boys never fit in, even with the outcasts, and they made their home like they knew it. Skidding to a stop in the gravel driveway, the sting of tiny rocks against her bare ankles is the only thing she’s really felt in hours. Her heart picks up, skipping over itself as her memory stumbles over all the years seeping out of the wind-weathered boards and the sinking foundation.

Again, it feels like this would be a moment for tears, like the sight of John B’s house, the memory of Big John’s booming laugh and all the bonfire-scented nights on that sagging porch should mean enough to make something in her crack, to finally shatter the glass walls of shock and let the grief come pouring in. But it doesn’t. She just stares up at the chateau, one part of her aching for the ease of a found family she’ll never get back, the other dreading the fate of the little house.

The breeze changes directions as she stares up at the rickety shutters and holey screens, bringing with it the tinny sound of music played out of a cell phone in a solo cup, a noise she knows well. Her stomach drops to the hard-packed dirt, crashing there with her bicycle and sending up a cloud of dust. Maybe John B survived. Maybe he made it back to shore, and he’s laying low, doing that stupid, chivalrous thing he does, trying to protect them by not letting them know. Maybe he’s out by the shed in that old metal lawn chair, Sarah in his lap, exhausted and defeated and alive. But as she gets closer, the moonlight glints off tawny waves crusted with sweat and salt, and the momentary, wild hope crashes and ebbs away from the shore.

JJ hears her, of course, sitting up in the hammock and turning toward the sound of her flat-soled sneakers slapping the dirt. “Hey,” he says, his expressive face, for once, inscrutable.

“Hey,” she says, slightly out of breath from the sprint. “I thought you were…” she trails off, because he knows. Because he’s the only one in the whole world who can look at her and understand the cathedral dreams and vaulted memories crashing down in her chest.

“I’m not,” he says, an answer that belies more than either of them knows. JJ gets this look, when he’s seconds away from doing something particularly concerning (and usually criminal). Manic energy lights up in his blue eyes, burning anywhere from mischief to stubborn determination to full-tilt rage. The well-developed muscles in his shoulders and arms refuse to relax, and his hands get so fidgety they lose the coordination it takes to flip the zippo lighter between long, practiced fingers. His face fights with itself, half already spitting with well-steeped anger, the other tired, and broken, and grieving.

“I noticed,” she responds. She drops her bag on one of the metal folding chairs, dooming it to a coating of flaky, faded paint. Crossing the grass, hoping her broad strides will disguise the rattling breath in her chest, the shake in her hands, she moves to sit next to him in the hammock, and he shifts his weight to allow her.

There’s no verbal communication, no squabble about personal space or indignant demands she find her own seat. There never is, not with her boys. The Pogues. It seems so silly now, hiding behind that name for themselves, a name she’d never really belonged to, anyway. He’s holding a lit joint in one hand, a bottle dangling from the other, and he offers her one while swigging from the other. The old favorites of a Maybank in crisis. She takes it.

He falls back next to her, sending the hammock swinging as he gazes up at the stars. Sarah had known the most about constellations, of the five of them, but JJ knows a fair amount, too, some of the only memories of his mother the nights when she would hold him under the stars, tracing the designs across the sky, her hand wrapped around his tiny one. His eyes keep drifting off the sky and landing on Kiara, eyes distant, bathed in moonlight.

“He’s not dead,” JJ says, surprising himself as much as her. He sits up, and she follows. He stares at his feet for a while, and she thinks about putting her arms around him. “I --” he picks his head up to look at her and stops, voice stolen by the hope in her eyes. “I’d feel it,” he finishes lamely, and watches the spark die.

“The first stage of grief is denial,” she says, and it’s supposed to be at least slightly lighthearted, but it falls cruelly to the crabgrass.

“You sound like Pope,” he counters, and there’s too much weight to that name to throw it around for long. They’re both thinking of Kiara kissing him, and the memory is pleasant to neither.

She doesn’t really know why she did that. Maybe it’s because he’s everything she’s supposed to want, intelligence and ambition and ingenuity, everything she tells herself is important in a guy. Maybe because he’s in love with her. Maybe because she’s definitely in love with one of her best friends, and he’s the one who makes sense. She takes another hit and hands the blunt back to JJ.

“I’d know,” he repeats, and she knows it’s not her he’s trying to convince. He lays back in the hammock, putting the blunt between his lips and dragging deep before tilting his head back and blowing the smoke into the tumultuous night. She looks back over her shoulder, watching his jaw and the movement of his throat as he exhales. Laying back next to him, she tries not to think about the warmth of his skin against hers, the strength of the body pressed to her side. It’s only JJ, the same reckless, stupid asshole who carried that damn pistol everywhere all summer and has a talent for getting into trouble. He’s not giving her butterflies with his proximity, and she’s not thinking about reaching down and lacing her fingers through his.

Eventually, JJ flicks the roach into the darkness and stands as quickly as he can without tipping Kiara out of the hammock. She starts, not realizing she was dozing on his shoulder until it’s gone. “It’s late,” he says.

She stands as well, tucking her hands into the pocket of her sweatshirt as he kicks at the dirt. “I don’t --” she starts, and the hesitation makes him stop his nervous movement, meeting her eyes. “I don’t want to go home.” He opens his mouth to say something, but she interrupts him. “I can’t go home.”

“Okay,” he says, after a second. He doesn’t want to be alone, either. She nods, and walks past him, picking up her bag. He follows her up to the house, and they stop at the foot of the stairs to the porch, staring at the buzzing light. JJ takes a stuttering inhale Kiara pretends not to hear, and he goes up the stairs first, wrapping a shaking hand the handle to the screen door. He pauses before going in, frozen, and it isn’t until she lays her hand on his shoulder that he summons the courage to push the door open.

They knew the place was going to be tossed, but it still hurts Kiara and kills JJ, to see the overturned table and scattered papers, the couch cushions scattered on the floor and the coffee table flipped. He tries to shuffle backwards, to run from the sharp, fresh grief and the deep, familiar ache of loss and violation, but Kie is in the way, and when he turns to escape she catches him, her arms around his shoulders, his clutched around her waist. “I can’t --” he chokes, his face pressed to her neck, “It’s not --” his breath speeds up, his shoulders shaking. “They --”

“I know,” she says, swallowing down tears, herself, in that same small voice from the night in the hot tub. She knew JJ was broken, on that deep, fundamental level that, intellectually, she could conceptualize, but she could never feel. But that night, seeing the bruises on his ribs, damning as fingerprints, the ghost of his pain, the whisper of breath knocked out and the brush of betrayal, turned her chest inside out. This feels the same way, watching him lose the last shred of some semblance of home to the same kind of mindless anger and selfish authority that claimed the first one. “I know.”

But she’s still here. “Kie…” he breathes. She opens her mouth to reassure him again, but then his hands are on her face and he’s kissing her, deep and rough and desperate. She bursts into flame underneath him, paralysis broken, stupefaction overcome, as the glass walls she’s been watching through crack and shatter at her feet. JJ’s hands wrap around the back of her neck and spread across the small of her back, pushing her up against the door, and she twists her hands into his shaggy, sun-streaked hair. Every desperate question is met with his touch, and she chases it, even as he pulls away in horrified shock.

“Fuck,” he gasps. “Fuck, Kie, I’m so sorry --” He tries to shove himself away from her at the instant she curls her fists in his shirt, and it almost rips as she pulls and he slams back into her. Teeth clash and noses bump and it’s not perfect or soft or loving, but passion born from desperation and terror of what it would mean to stop. Putting his hands on the door on either side of her face, he pushes himself off of her, even as she tries to yank him back. “What are we doing?” he asks, in a voice that won’t like the answer.

“JJ,” she gasps, pushing her fingers back up to tangle in blond, salt-sticky waves. “Shut up.” Pulling his mouth back down on top of hers, she gasps into him as his hands come down and frame her ribs, one of his arms sliding around her waist and the other pushing back up into her hair.

“Don’t you think --” he tries, even as he leans over her, their breathing ragged, his knuckles white in her impossibly soft curls. His forehead is pushed to hers and he can’t pull away any farther, sucked into her gravitational field, helpless to it.

“I don’t want to think,” she insists. “I want this, I need this,” This momentary pause is already too long, and if he stops kissing her, stops touching her, the tears she’s been holding back will crash over her and they won’t stop. The dark room is loud with heavy breathing as she catches the scent of him, salt and sweat and smoke. “I need you.”

His grip falters and the momentary relaxation has her pressing herself against him. “Are you sure?” he asks, and this is a choice, now. This isn’t something that either of them can pawn off as a mistake made in the heat of a desperate moment. He wants this, has wanted it, ever since he met her, but he won’t be a decision half-made, won’t take advantage of vulnerability only to become a regret. He’s giving her a way out, knows her pragmatic nature and her anxious need for well-thought plans. He wants her to think, even if she’s desperate not to.

He’s right, when he almost never is, but she knows that if she waits too long or lets in the doubt that expects her, she will break. “JJ,” she gasps, “Please.” His name, she knows, he can’t resist, not when paired with urgent pleading, and in this way, she makes her choice. He surrenders to her.

They fall onto the creaky pullout, still set up from JJ’s most recent stay, not minding the sheets and blankets wrought asunder by the angry police search. He can’t let go of her, his hands pushing up her sweatshirt, dragging over her sides and up her thighs, tangling in her hair like he’s drinking her in with his touch, intoxicated with the smell of peach in her hair and the taste of sweat on her skin. Kiara lets herself get lost in him, ride the wave of desire pushing through her, moans and gasps when he hits the right spots and closes her eyes as he lifts her shirt over her head and attaches his lips to her neck, his hands finally coming up to cover her tits, and the long careful fingers she’d spent so many afternoons watching prove adept at twisting and pinching her nipples and leaving her begging for him.

She almost rips his t-shirt off, pulling his bare chest against her own and letting the feeling of skin on skin light her up, setting fireworks off behind her eyelids. Wrapping one hand around the arm holding him up, she can feel his teeth on her neck, and she knows he’s leaving marks, and, for once, it doesn’t feel like she’s being claimed. She knows what it is -- proof this is happening, that they’re alive and feeling and crashing together again and again. She sinks her nails into his bicep as his fingers skim below the waistband of her shorts, and feels him smirk against her lips.

“Yeah?” he asks, and the teasing in his voice is tortuous and reminiscent of his old, humorous self, just enough to make her sad for a moment, and when she nods quickly in return, it’s a bid to forget that sadness. His fingers flick open the button of her shorts and as his fingers dip lower, the only thing she can think about, the only thing she can feel, is his touch, his all-consuming presence, radiating heat. The bastard takes his time, her only gratification the press of him against her hip, hot and hard. He teases her through her underwear, and she can’t say she doesn’t enjoy it, arcing into his touch, shocks of pleasure building in incredible anticipation, but he’s going too slow, and he’s wearing too many clothes, still, and the intense want gnawing at her has too much potential to turn into grief.

“Would you just --” she grunts against his mouth, cut off on a moan as he presses his fingers against her clit. “Fucking -- ah,” he works slow, hard, circles, enjoying himself as she tries to form sentences with his hands on her. “Fuck me already!” Because even this can’t be easy, not between the two of them. Because she’ll always be fighting with him, even with her bare chest pressed against his and his hand down her pants.

JJ grins, scraping his teeth over her ear. “What,” he says, still teasing, still bittersweet, as he finally pushes his hand into her underwear, “aren’t you enjoying this?” Slowly, much too slowly, his fingers part the lips of her cunt, pressing down over her clit before finding the wetness further down. JJ practically growls as his middle finger dips between her folds and he finds her soaked, dropping his forehead against the forearm braced above her head. “Fuck, Kie,” he moans, and he can’t disguise the wasted crack in his voice. “God, you’re so fucking wet.” He’s already drunk on her, every new sensation dragging him deeper.

“Your fault,” she stutters as he puts his hands, lean and strong and practiced, to good use, dragging slick fingertips back up to her clit and teasing small circles, rough, calloused skin creating delicious friction. And this -- this is what she was so desperate for, to feel only his touch and the way he pushes her higher, closer to an edge far away from the bleak grief of their every day world. He moans, too, as he dips his middle finger into her and she keens into his mouth, and she’s not thinking anymore, only chasing heat and skin and pleasure, the rest of the night foggy and distant, moonlit and blurred.

She doesn’t even know how much time passes before he’s kissing his way down her body, only that he’s fucked her so well with his hands he has three fingers inside her and she’s asking for more. He pulls his hand away and she lets out an embarrassingly high-pitched noise at the loss of contact, only to end on a gasp when she opens her eyes to see that he has his fingers curled around the waistband of her shorts and his face is hovering near her hips, pupils blown wide as he looks up at her. He asks her something, but blood rushes in her ears as her heart pounds and her chest heaves and it isn’t until his tongue darts out to wet his lips that she realizes what he’s saying.

“Fuck, yes, please,” she whines, and it feels like less than instant before her shorts are on the floor and his head is between her legs, his tongue on her clit, and she screams, pushing her hands into his hair as his mouth launches her higher and keeps her there, wave upon wave crashing over her until her legs are shaking, and when she feels the pull deep in her stomach and he takes half a second to breathe, she has enough presence of mind to yank him back up, slamming his lips down onto hers, tasting herself there.

“Inside me,” she gasps, ragged and raw and scraping. “Now.”

“But you haven’t --” he breathes, and she reaches down, shoving past the waistband of the shorts he’s still wearing, her hand on his cock stopping him dead.

“Now,” she repeats. And then, leans up to kiss him, slightly softer than before, as if in apology for being so rough, but more as a distraction as her hands unbutton his shorts and shove them down his thighs, her hands finding him again and stroking his cock until he’s gasping into her mouth. “Unless,” she says between short kisses, trying to keep her tone light, even as her cunt aches for him. “You changed your mind?”

He scrambles out of his shorts and boxers so fast it’s almost funny, but the laugh falls out of her chest as he braces his forearms on either side of her face, pushing her hair back from her forehead and looking at her so carefully it almost hurts. “I don’t have a condom,” he says, uncharacteristic worry trembling in his voice.

“I’m clean,” she says, her hands reaching up to tangle in his hair once more, to ground her, and disguise their shaking. “You?”

He nods. “What about --”

“I have an IUD,” she says, more grateful than ever for her liberal mother and her own presence of mind.

He licks his lips again, eyes dropping to her mouth before flicking back up to her eyes. “Last chance,” he says, like she’s going to change her mind and push him off of her, run off into the night and leave him here, disgraced and embarrassed. “Still sure?” he asks, like he’s expecting her to say no. She nods without hesitation, caught in his blue eyes, turned cobalt in the half-light. He kisses her one more time, and it’s laden with years of things he hasn’t said, and she surges up with urgency, not ready for the tenderness in his touch. JJ tries to slow her down again, to revel in the moment of bare skin and vulnerability, no matter how guarded it may be, but she reaches down, wrapping her hand around his dick, guiding him closer to her, and he’s falling into her touch, into her orbit, helpless.

She draws him inside her, his forehead dropping to her shoulder with a forsaken, heavy breath. It’s too soft, this moment before he moves, too easy to break, every sense on fire. The air is too close to her skin, too tight around her arms, like she could rip the fabric of it with the barest movement. She wants to be lost in him again, to feel separate, far away and floating above herself, not so torturously in her body, JJ trembling and present above her. “JJ,” she says, opening her eyes to find his, a split-second mistake, the next word hitching on its way out of her chest. “Move.”

He does, mercifully lowering his face to press against her neck, the eye contact too substantial, too burdensome to hold. The bubble surrounding them expands as he works her up to that blissful edge with ease, his mouth letting out a stream of filthy words about how good she feels surrounding him. Closing her eyes, she tilts her head back, letting her hands have free reign over his back, his shoulders, his arms and up into his hair, every place she wants to touch him when she watches his ridiculous muscles ripple under his young, tan skin. He shifts his weight, hooking her knee over his hip so his cock hits exactly the right spot with every thrust, and she cries out, racing higher.

She should have expected that JJ likes to run his mouth -- she only catches parts of what he’s saying, things like ‘so fucking hot’ and ‘sound so fucking good’ and ‘so fucking wet for me’ and as her moans increase in pitch and volume, he growls “c’mon, Kie, cum for me,” and she falls apart. He fucks her through the aftermath and she barely knows what noises are coming out of her mouth, her nails digging angry welts in his back. Just when she thinks she can’t take anymore, he tenses and spills inside her on a half-broken sigh.

Her vision sharpens as he rolls off of her, collapsing on the squeaky bedsprings, and the house is too quiet all of a sudden, the air once again too close. Her breath slows, the sweat cooling on her skin in the soft breeze pushing through the wooden walls, the still-open front door. Neither of them says anything, and Kiara can feel him looking at her, his blown out smile too loud in the fallout. She sits up, almost flinching at the light touch of his fingers on his spine when he picks up a strand of her hair. “I’m gonna pee,” she says, finding her underwear and pulling them on, and then, after half a moment, pulling his discarded t-shirt over her head.

Her head echoes as she steps over the scattered mess to get to the bathroom, like she’s walking through a tunnel. Her legs ache and tremble, and she wraps her arms around herself, numb and falling. She fights tears as she washes her hands. The bathroom is, as always, a deplorable mess, products everywhere and hair all over the sink. Her green bikini top is still on the floor from when she’d forgotten it just the other day, and that girl feels impossibly far from the one staring at herself in the mirror, wearing her best friend’s shirt while he’s naked in the next room. There’d be shame, and guilt, too, if the smell of John B’s deodorant didn’t choke her with overwhelming loss. Bracing her hands on either side of the sink, she can’t hold it back anymore, and sobs spill out of her, harsh and echoing in the small space.

JJ is behind her an instant, half-dressed in basketball shorts and drawing her into his arms, tucking her close to him, her tears hot on his skin. “He’s gone,” she whimpers. “He’s really gone.” He doesn’t say anything, just guides her back to the pullout and straightens the blankets enough for her to fall in. She curls up on her side, crying so hard she can’t breathe, and he climbs in across from her, pushing one arm under her neck and using the other to pull her against him, his lips pressed to her forehead.

Tears leak out of his own eyes, silent and soft to her earth-shattering grief. “It’s gonna be okay,” he reassures her, fighting the quiver in his own voice, his chin shaking with the effort of it. He stares into the empty darkness above her head, every jerk of her prone body another crack in his breaking heart. “He’s coming back,” he says, more to himself than her. “He’s coming back to us.”

When she finally quiets down, the betrayal of dawn is beginning to lighten the sky, the moon fading, and the idea of this night being over feels impossible. For a short while, they breathe each other in, her forehead pressed to his collarbones, his hand trailing up and down her spine. Her head aches and her eyelids fall heavy over gritty, exhausted eyes, but she still fights sleep, stubbornly resisting another day, the beginning of a life without John B and Sarah. “I can’t stay here,” she says, finally, pushing back from him. “I should go home.”

He reaches up to catch her chin as she watches her hands curled close to his chest, reluctant to go. “Kie,” he murmurs, lifting her gaze to meet his. He moves forward to kiss her, and she flattens her palms against his skin, stopping him even as her eyes fall to his lips.

“JJ,” she says, an exhale more than his name. “We -- I mean, I --”

“Shit,” he sighs, and it almost sounds like a laugh, formed from expectations he wished hadn’t come true. “Okay.” His eyes flutter close, and she watches him draw back into himself, close all the doors, like he wants to turn off the lights and pretend he’s not even here. But then, he looks at her again, gently smoothing a curl behind her ear. “It’s just --” he starts, and inhales again, wetting his lips as he struggles to keep his eyes on her deep brown ones. “Can we go back to normal tomorrow?” Her eyebrows push together a fraction of an inch, and he focuses on the wrinkle there, a thousand times easier than holding her gaze. “Please,” he says when she inhales to say something. “I don’t want to be alone.”

It’s the first time either of them have been completely honest all night, and the most he’s said in hours. “Yeah,” she says, agreeing without thinking. Making it about him instead of admitting to herself that she wants to stay, that she doesn’t want to be alone either. “Yeah, okay.” She allows herself to be kissed, to be held and kept softly. JJ twists his fingers in her curls, skims his lips over her hairline before pressing his forehead against hers.

He tucks his hand against the side of her neck, his fingers spanning from her ear to the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “It’s gonna be alright,” he promises, and they both pretend he’s saying it to her. She’s seen JJ cheerful and stubborn, breaking and angry, seen him a thousand different ways. But never like this, kind and soft, quiet in the grey, grieving dawn. Eventually, she falls asleep under his touch and reassuring whispers.

The morning is just as sticky and unforgiving as every other that summer, and she wakes up damp and sticky with sweat. JJ is stretched out on his stomach, arms tucked under his head, mouth slack and hair falling over his eyes. Her head still hurts, and now so do her back and thighs, and she stretches her hand out across the rumpled sheets, tracing the red lines she’d left down his back. He blinks awake, closing his mouth and freezing when he feels her touch on his skin.

“Hey,” she murmurs.

“Hey,” he replies.

She waits for him to say something, but he just watches her, his clear blue eyes unflinching. She bites her lip. “I should get home,” she says, keeping her eyes on the knuckle tracing over his back, his gaze too heavy to hold.

“Yeah,” he says, “okay.” Neither of them move. The world waits on a hair trigger, and JJ’s more familiar with this kind of silence than she is. She wants him to break it first, to be the impulsive hothead he always is, to make the choice for both of them. But he doesn’t, and the moment crumbles, and she sits up and goes in search of her clothes.

He doesn’t say anything until she stoops to pick up her bag, sweatshirt in hand, ready to shove it into the biggest pocket. “Kie,” he says, and she stops dead, looking up at him. She doesn’t know what she wants him to say, but she deflates anyway when he just asks “my shirt?”

She’d forgotten she was wearing it. Pulling it off, she feels his hungry eyes trace up her bare chest as she untangles the drug rug before pulling it down and arranging it around her hips. She tosses him the shirt, and he holds her gaze as he flips it right side out and tugs it on. They stand on either side of the disheveled living room, daring the other person to say something, move, do anything first. He knows what he wants, what he can’t have, what he’s convinced himself he never will. She remembers the line she drew, the boundary she’d very clearly set. He chooses to respect it while she waits for him to break the rules.

Birds sing in the unflinching morning, and a breeze stirs the hair around her face. She slings her backpack over her shoulder. The sun blazes as gulls call and waves lap against the dock. He tilts his chin back, like he always does just before a fight. She turns to go.

#outer banks #jiara #jj x kiara #kiara x jj #kiara/jj #jj/kiara #outer banks fanfiction #jiara fanfic #jiara fic #jiara fanfiction #jiara smut #jiara angst #angst #smut #hurt/comfort #PLEASE interact with this I'm LITERALLY BEGGING YOU

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sneezehq · 4 years ago

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Repairs

Two sisters, in the aftermath of the battle at Haven.

This is another fic that I've had in the works for a while, as this idea has been living in my head rent free since I finished watching volume 5. God that season just gave me so many feelings about these two, and I just love these two and their relationship to bits. So yeah, I thought I'd write it down and y'all can check it out. Enjoy!

For all her claims that she’s fine and more worried about the rest of them, Ruby crashes hard after the battle at Haven.

She manages to stay awake long enough to be interviewed by the Mistral police, although she does have to keep stifling the occasional yawn into her hand as she answers their questions. Ruby is barely able to keep her eyes open when she’s handed off to the medical team that was called in, but she reluctantly hangs on to consciousness long enough to get checked out.

As soon as she’s released, Ruby passes out, curling up with her head on Yang’s shoulder and snoring softly. She gets a few concerned looks from Weiss and Blake, but Yang just lets out a loud sigh and runs a hand through her sister’s hair.

They sit like that for a while, as the sun slowly creeps up in the sky, as Weiss is ushered off with a pair of medics and Blake is taken aside by a pair of faunus that Yang assumes are her parents. At one point, Sun is sitting with them—when did he get here? Yang tries to get Ruby to lay down properly, if she’s going to sleep, but her sister had stubbornly insisted that she was totally fine and that she was definitely going to stay awake, before immediately dozing off again.

For all of Qrow’s boasting about knowing everyone and his connections with other huntsmen, it doesn’t spare him (or the rest of them) from extensive questioning by the police about the attack on Haven. By the time they’re all cleared to leave, the sun is firmly in the sky and the day is well into morning.

“Hey, wake up, sleepyhead,” Yang teases, shaking her sister’s shoulder gently. “They’re letting us go.”

“Guh’what?” Ruby mumbles, eloquent as always when she wakes up. She scrubs at her eyes with one hand and brushes her bangs out of her face. It doesn’t do much, as the rest of her hair is a tangled mess. She looks up at Yang, blinking blearily. “Where are we going?”

“Back to the house, silly.” Yang reaches out a hand to help her to her feet. “You awake enough to walk?”

“Of course! I’m totally fine!” Ruby insists petulantly, batting aside the offer of help and clumsily scrambling to her feet. With her hair a tangled mess, flushed cheeks, and sleepy pout, she looks like the five-year-old that Yang used to read stories to. “Let’s go!”

Yang is willing to humor her at first, but after the third time that her sister trips over her own feet and nearly faceplants into the road, she decides that it’s time for her to step in. It takes some cajoling—and some quick rearranging of weapons (because Yang is not walking the whole way back with Crescent Rose jabbing her in the spine, Ruby’s baby or no)—but Ruby eventually gives in. She reluctantly clambers onto Yang’s back, with Nora carrying her beloved sniper-scythe beside them, promising to keep it within Ruby’s line of sight so that she can keep an eye on her weapon.

Despite her vehement protests that she was fine to walk and that she wasn’t even remotely tired anyway, Ruby is out within minutes, her head slumping forward against Yang’s neck. She doesn’t even stir when they arrive back at the house. It’s all too worryingly similar to the comatose state her sister was in after the fall of Beacon, and although Yang tries to banish those darker memories, she can’t help the relieved sigh she breathes when Ruby finally wakes upon being unceremoniously deposited on the floor of their room.

Scowling, Ruby starts to make an unsteady, shambling beeline towards the nearest bed, but she’s stopped by Yang’s hand on her shoulder. “Not yet,” she scolds gently. “Shower first, then sleep.”

Ruby glares at her, looking for all the world like an angry toddler who missed her naptime. “You’re mean.”

“Really hitting me where it hurts, sis.” Yang pats her sister’s shoulder. “Come on, I’ll get you something to eat afterwards. You’ll have weird dreams if you go to bed on an empty stomach.” Ruby pouts, swatting at Yang’s hand, but she reluctantly grabs her things and heads in the direction of the showers.

Heading to the kitchen, Yang quickly decides on sandwiches and fixes a pair of plates, making sure to leave a couple extra out on the counter in case anyone else is hungry. She’s exhausted, and every muscle in her body aches, but she knows from experience that she’ll feel less crappy when she wakes up if she takes a shower and eats something first.

She arrives back at the room to find Ruby fresh from the shower, hair damp and pajamas on, and hands her a plate. Ruby scarfs down the food as if she’s afraid that Yang will take the food away from her.

“How’s your head?” Yang asks when Ruby finally decides to come up for air. The medics had cleared her for a concussion, but she’d still taken a pretty hard hit from Emerald.

Ruby squints at her, grabbing another sandwich. “It hurts,” she mumbles through another mouthful of food.

“Anything else hurting?”

Her sister blinks slowly at her and shrugs, putting her half-finished sandwich down and resting her head on the table. “Everything?” she says finally, sounding more asleep than awake.

Yang nudges her awake before she can fall asleep at the table. “Go lay down in the bed if you’re going to sleep.” She holds out a couple of pain pills. “But first, take these and drink some more water. I’m getting in the shower.”

Ruby rolls her eyes but does as she’s told, downing the pills with a large swallow and stumbling off in the direction of the beds.

Freshly showered and dressed for bed, Yang expects to find her sister passed out for good, probably snoring loudly and drooling on the pillow. To her surprise, she emerges from the bathroom to find her sister watching her, propped up on her side by an elbow. She’s also laying in Yang’s bed.

“I didn’t think that you’d still be awake,” Yang comments, crossing the room and plopping down next to Ruby. “And scoot over, you’re hogging the bed.”

Ruby scoots, and Yang settles in, pulling the covers the covers up to her chin. As soon as she lays down, Ruby is pressed up against her side, tucking her head into the crook of her neck. Yang smiles at the contact, running her fingers through her sister’s soft hair. “So, what are you still doing up?”

Ruby is quiet for so long that Yang starts to wonder if she’s finally dozing off. “You were crying earlier.” Her voice is so quiet that Yang has to strain to hear it.

“Huh?”

“I noticed it earlier, when you came back with the lamp,” Ruby says, stifling a yawn. “Did something happen down in the vault?’

Oh. She hadn’t thought that anyone had noticed. She didn’t think that Qrow noticed, and if he had he hadn’t brough it up. But of course Ruby wouldn’t miss something like that. “I,” she begins, before trailing off. She’d lied to Qrow, earlier, but she can’t quite bring herself to lie to Ruby. “I ran into my mom, down in the vault.”

“Oh,” her sister murmurs. “Wait, did she try to hurt you?” Ruby scrambles to try to sit up, as if expecting Yang to be hiding some grievous injury from her.

Yang stops her with a hand on her arm. “No, no, she didn’t hurt me.” Not physically at least. “If anything, I hurt her. I might have yelled at her when I ran into her.”

“Oh,” Ruby says again. “Good.”

Yang almost does a double take. If she had been drinking something, she definitely would have spit it out. “That’s good?”

“Yeah,” Ruby nods, her chin bumping gently against Yang’s collarbone. “She left you, and I don’t know why she left you, but I know that her leaving hurt you. A lot. It’s not good to keep all that hurt inside you, you know. I heard what you said to Weiss, and I’m sorry that I left you too.”

Speechless, her head spinning (and not just because Ruby is being a massive hypocrite right now), Yang flounders for a moment before responding. “You were right to leave,” she says, although it pains her to admit it. “And you know that you’ve more than made up for that already. I forgave you pretty much the moment you left. You were hurting too, and I took it out on you. That’s not fair, and I’m sorry.” She pauses, brushing some hair out of her face. Ruby makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a sniffle. “But,” she takes a breath. “You know that the same goes for you, right? You can put up a façade all you like but I know that you’re hurting, and you can’t keep hiding it from everyone like this.”

Ruby sniffles again, scrubbing at her face. “I know,” she mumbles, her voice raw. “But I’m scared. Sometimes it feels like if I try to talk about it, I’ll just fall apart. I don’t have time for that.”

“If you fall apart, we’ll all be here to put you back together,” Yang soothes, running her hand up and down Ruby’s shoulder. “You’ve been strong for the rest of us when we were falling apart, so let us return the favor for once.”

“Yang? I’m scared.”

“Me too, Ruby.”

“Y’know, after the fall of Beacon, I don’t remember much,” Ruby says hesitantly. “Once minute I was on top of the tower, and—” she cuts herself off. “And the next I was at home, and everyone was gone. It was—it was really scary.” She takes a deep breath and wipes her eyes again. “I’m scared it’ll happen again. What if I close my eyes and everyone is gone again? I just got you guys back.”

“Well, I know that I’m not going anywhere. When you wake up, I promise I’ll still be here. And I can’t speak for the others, but,” she pauses to wipe her own eyes. “I guarantee you that if you don’t get some sleep Weiss is going to yell at you. She’ll probably yell at you anyway. I’m sure she can find a reason. And Blake,” She takes a deep breath to brace herself. “I don’t think, well I hope, anyway that she didn’t come all this way just to leave again. She said she wasn’t planning on going anywhere, so I guess we’ll have to trust her.”

“You’re right,” Ruby murmurs sleepily. She yawns. “Yang? I’m really tired.”

Yang smiles fondly, pressing a kiss to the top of her sister’s head. “I bet. Get some rest. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

#rwby #yang xiao long #ruby rose #strawberry sunrise #fanfic #hurt/comfort #my writing

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malarkay · 4 years ago

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To Walk With Dreams and Darkness

Alright, I’ve decided to start posting my Storm Hawks/Harry Potter crossover fic, because I’m impatient. I only have a few chapters written, and I write slow, so I’m only going to post the prologue for now. The prologue is a little dark. The main story will not be, at least for a while.

Summary: The year: 1982. The place: Brixton, London, England. Piper is a normal 11-year-old kid trying to enjoy the summer holiday with her foster brothers, Aaron and Finn. But when a stranger shows up bearing an acceptance letter to a place called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she's swept away to a magical world, one that is just beginning to heal from a brutal, decade-long war. There she will make new friends and new enemies. And she just might find herself a part of something bigger than she ever imagined.

Prologue:

Cyneric Cyclonis frowned as a sudden, searing pain flared in his forearm. He looked to Kestrel, who was rubbing her arm with a frown that mirrored his own.

The Dark Lord was calling. And from the strength of the summons, he was in a furious mood.

"I'll get Lark," Kestrel said as he conjured their uniforms. She returned presently with their sleepy but uncomplaining daughter in tow. It was late, but they had impressed upon her from a young age the importance of not keeping them, and by extension, their capricious master, waiting.

"Your mother and I have a meeting to attend," he told her. "You're going to stay with your grandmother."

She nodded, and they traveled via the Floo Network to his mother's estate. They found her there in the sitting room, reading.

She arched an eyebrow at their arrival. "I wasn't aware there was a meeting scheduled for tonight."

"Neither were we."

"You look pensive. Do you think it wise to attend?"

"I think we don't have a choice. If we haven't returned or sent word in two hours?" he prompted.

"Go into hiding. Yes, I know the protocol."

He nodded and turned to Lark, kissing her forehead. "Love you, fy bach i. Don't give your grandmother too much trouble."

"I won't," she promised, hugging him. When she released him, he stepped back and put on his mask, watching as Kestrel said goodbye to Lark.

Once Kestrel was ready to go, they Apparated together to the Dark Lord's position and found themselves in the drawing-room of Malfoy Manor.

The Dark Lord sat before them in a high-backed armchair set off to the side of the massive fireplace. Lucius Malfoy stood stiffly to his right. A quick glance around the room revealed no others, and the long table they usually sat around when a meeting was held at the Malfoy's was pushed up against the far wall.

"My Lord," Cyneric and Kestrel greeted in unison, heads bowed.

"There's no need for the masks," the Dark Lord said. "It's just the four of us tonight."

They lowered their hoods and removed their masks, setting them down on a nearby side table. Cyneric glanced back to Lucius. "Cousin," he greeted the younger man.

Lucius nodded his greeting, not meeting his eyes. His usual poise and arrogance were missing tonight, and Cyneric didn't like it. Then the Dark Lord spoke again, and his stomach tied itself into a sick knot.

"I have heard some disturbing rumors. About you."

He sidestepped closer to Kestrel, his hand seeking hers. She took it; her palm was sweaty.

"Rumors, my Lord?"

"Rumors that call into question your loyalty to me," the Dark Lord said, his voice as cold as death.

"I assure you, my Lord, our loyalty to you is as strong as ever it was," he said, willing his voice to remain steady.

The Dark Lord was out of his seat in an instant, fury burning in his eyes. "You dare lie to me? Or did I never truly have your fealty?"

Cyneric tapped a finger against Kestrel's palm twice. It was their signal to Disapparate. He could buy her some time to escape, to get their family and get away from the Dark Lord's wrath. Almost immediately, Kestrel swiped a finger in a straight line across his palm. Negation. Or failure.

He tried to Disapparate them both. Nothing happened. Someone had put up an Anti-Apparition Charm since their arrival. They weren't alone.

In one smooth motion, Cyneric pushed Kestrel away from him, drew his wand, and spun around to cast the Stunning Spell at whoever he knew must be lurking behind them.

His instincts proved true as his Stunner was deflected, and his attack returned twofold. He cast a Shielding Charm, and the two spells dissipated as they hit his shield. Not Unforgivable Curses, then. He was surprised, given the casters: Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange. They were not known for their restraint. Lord Voldemort must have given orders not to kill. That didn't bring him any comfort.

They stared at each other for a moment, waiting to see who would be the next to act. Behind Cyneric, Lord Voldemort seemed content to see how things played out.

In the end, it was Kestrel who broke the brief cease-fire, throwing a curse at Bellatrix, who deflected it. The curse hit a mirror, which exploded, sending shards of glass and wood flying. Bellatrix laughed in delight, "That's seven years of bad luck! Too bad you won't be living that…"

Bellatrix's words cut short as Kestrel flicked her wand toward her once more, and a large shard of the mirror shot toward her. Bellatrix flinched back, and the glass sailed past, slicing a shallow cut across her cheek instead of ripping open her throat as intended.

Bellatrix's retaliation was swift as she slashed her wand at Kestrel. "Sectums…"

"No!"

Cyneric fired on Bellatrix before she could complete her spell, engulfing her in a nimbus of blue light that blasted her off her feet. He wheeled back toward Rodolphus, throwing up another Shielding Charm just in time to block the barrage of spells the man sent his way. Rodolphus was relentless, pressing forward with each attack, forcing Cyneric back. He could see flashes of light in his peripheral vision, knew that Bellatrix was back in the fight, but he didn't dare break his concentration to see how Kestrel was faring.

Tiring of the onslaught, he pushed his Shielding Charm toward the other man. It barreled into Rodolphus, shoving him back until he was pinned against the wall, unable to move. Cyneric looked over to Kestrel and Bellatrix. Bellatrix snapped her wand like a whip handle. A cord of orange light shot from the end of her wand toward Kestrel, trying to ensnare her. Kestrel sliced at it several times with a Severing Charm, but it kept coming, snaking around her wand arm. Bellatrix pulled her wand back, and the cord began to retract, dragging Kestrel toward Bellatrix as it went.

"So, you like playing with sharp things, do you?" Bellatrix asked, drawing the ornate silver knife she liked to carry. "So do I."

Still pointing his wand at Rodolphus to keep him pressed against the wall, Cyneric drew the secondary wand he kept on hand in case of disarmament or damage to his primary one. "Locomotor," he incanted, pointing his second wand at the rug upon which the two women stood, pulling it out from under them and sending them both sprawling. Bellatrix's concentration broke, and the cord vanished, allowing Kestrel to scramble away as he wrapped Bellatrix in the rug.

"Duro!"

Kestrel's spell hardened the rug into stone, trapping Bellatrix within.

"Watch out!" Kestrel warned him, and he ducked as a streak of red light flashed by overhead, a Stunner fired by Rodolphus. He had managed to free himself while Cyneric was dealing with Bellatrix. An unfortunate flaw with dual-wielding wands. Spells cast simultaneously were weaker than a single spell to which you devoted your full attention.

He had scarcely had time to straighten before a second Stunner struck Kestrel in the back, cast by Lucius. Damn the man! He had hoped, foolishly, that he would stay out of the fight. She collapsed, unconscious, and he rushed to her side.

"Reducto!"

Nearby, the hardened carpet erupted in a shower of stone, freeing Bellatrix. He covered his head with his arms as he crouched over Kestrel, protecting them both from the debris that rained down around them.

As he did, he heard both Bellatrix and Lucius yelling at Rodolphus.

"You idiot! That was an antique rug!"

"What were you thinking? You could have blown me up along with the carpet!"

Taking advantage of their momentary distraction, Cyneric pointed his wand to the fireplace before slashing his wand horizontally as he spun in a circle. The flames leapt out of the fireplace, roaring along the path he set for it, surrounding him and Kestrel in a protective ring of fire that stretched nearly to the vaulted ceiling.

He pointed his second wand at Kestrel.

"Rennervate."

The wall of fire sputtered but held, and he refocused his attention on maintaining it as Kestrel stirred. She lurched to her feet in alarm, eyes wide as she stared at the fire. "It's okay," he assured her. "It's my spell."

"Are you certain about that?"

He frowned. Watching carefully, he noticed what Kestrel had, that the circle was closing in around them. Kestrel raised her wand to help him wrest back control over the flames. Standing back-to-back, they pushed back the fire, widening their circle and giving themselves more breathing room. The others pushed back, and it became a game of tug of war between the two sides.

"We can't win," Kestrel said quietly. It wasn't a question, or even a lamentation, just a statement of fact.

"We can try."

"Even if we were to take down the Lestranges," she mused.

"And Lucius," he added.

"There's still the Dark Lord."

Cyneric drew in a deep, shuddering breath, releasing it as a sigh. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I got you into this."

"That's not what I need to hear from you right now."

He glanced back at her, felt a lump form in his throat.

"I love you."

"That's better," she looked back over her shoulder at him, giving him a sad smile.

"Oh?" he asked, turning his attention back to the flames. "Is that all you have to say?"

Her voice, which had been so steady up until that point, cracked as she replied, "I love you, too."

"You ready to get back out there?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"Firestorm."

Together, they channeled all their power into this one spell, twirling their wands clockwise overhead. The fire ring began to spin, morphing into a cyclone of flame with them at the eye. Slashing their wands downward, they sent the flames radiating out like a shockwave, scattering their opponents.

The wall of fire shrank as the flames licked across the floor, reaching waist height by the time it crashed against the walls like a wave breaking against a cliff, sending a violent shower of sparks into the air. Some of those sparks caught and ignited the canvas of one of the many family portraits that decorated the wall, a painting of his Maternal Great-Grandfather Typhon Malfoy. Typhon fled into a nearby portrait, glaring out at them in pinch-faced disapproval.

It took the others a dishearteningly short amount of time to regroup. Almost immediately, a volley of spells assailed them. He batted away the attacks that came near him with his spare wand while casting his own with his main. He fought without much thought or finesse, now. At his back, he could feel Kestrel do the same, desperately firing off a flurry of spells in the hopes that one would find a target.

A jet of red light came straight for him, and he deflected it, failing to notice the second jet that followed closely behind. The second spell struck him square in the chest, and the world faded around him.

When he came to, he found Bellatrix and Rodolphus standing above him, wands at the ready. Turning his head, he saw that Lucius had a hold on Kestrel from behind, his wand pointed at her throat. He felt around for his wands, found one on the ground beside him, and pointed it defiantly at Bellatrix, who snickered.

"Enough," Lord Voldemort said. "Know when you've been beaten."

Cyneric looked over to where Lord Voldemort sat. The room was a mess, but a one-meter ring around his chair sat entirely unscathed, as did the Dark Lord himself. Lord Voldemort raised his wand, and Cyneric found himself divested of his own.

Rodolphus grabbed Cyneric and dragged him over to Lord Voldemort, forcing him to his knees. Lucius was only marginally gentler with Kestrel as she was made to kneel beside him.

"Now then," Lord Voldemort said, conversationally. "Let us return to the discussion at hand. This could just be a terrible misunderstanding. That's why I've kept it a family affair."

"My Lord," Kestrel began, and Lord Voldemort held up a hand for silence.

"There will be time for you to plead your case. But first, let me tell you what I know. You see, Bellatrix came to me with an interesting tale. She said that she had heard from her sister that you have been planning to betray me. Her sister, of course, had heard it from Lucius. And who was it who told Lucius?"

Here Lord Voldemort paused.

"Please, my Lord, I…"

Lord Voldemort cut him off, "Yes, you! Naturally, I had to investigate this claim further. So, I spoke to Narcissa. She told me that you had tried to recruit Lucius into joining your little coup d'état. Of course, she realized that such an attempt would be doomed to failure. She worried about what might happen to her husband should he be tempted to join you. Then I spoke with Lucius."

His voice grew colder as he stared hard at Lucius. "And he assured me that, while you had approached him, he had no intention of taking part in your plan. The only reason he had not yet told me himself was that he hoped he could dissuade you and bring you back into the fold without any...ugliness. That might even have worked had he not told Narcissa of your initial conversation. But I understand that it must be difficult for spouses to keep secrets from one another. Isn't that right?" He turned his red-eyed gaze upon Kestrel, who averted her eyes. Any hope Cyneric had that he could keep her from being implicated in this died with those words. Even if he had kept her in the dark, Lord Voldemort would never believe it.

"Tell me," Lord Voldemort continued, looking back to Cyneric. "Is what they say true? Or did Lucius misinterpret your words?"

Cyneric remained silent. He knew he was being toyed with. There was little hope of him believing any denials he could voice, no matter how plausibly he could spin his lies. He doubted Lord Voldemort fully believed Lucius' claims of innocence, either, but he was willing to overlook the man's transgressions in exchange for his cooperation tonight.

But he couldn't admit the truth outright. They had to buy enough time for his mother to realize what had happened and act.

Lord Voldemort sighed. "Perhaps you require assistance in loosening your tongues. Which one of you would break first under the right amount of pressure, I wonder? Lucius, what do you think?"

There was a long pause. Cyneric wasn't certain whether Lucius was considering the question or simply didn't want to answer. But he couldn't stall forever.

"Cyneric, my Lord. He's the more ardent of the two."

Lord Voldemort nodded, and Bellatrix's eager voice rang out. "Crucio!"

Beside him, Kestrel screamed, her back arched and her head thrown back as the curse tore through her.

Cyneric surged to his feet. Or rather, he tried to, but Rodolphus held him in place. "He picked me!" he yelled at Lord Voldemort.

"I am aware," Lord Voldemort answered after a long moment before gesturing toward Bellatrix, who lowered her wand. Kestrel collapsed forward onto her hands, taking deep, gasping breaths.

"Did that stir up any memories?" Lord Voldemort asked after giving Kestrel a moment to recover.

"Lucius lies!" Kestrel surprised both him and Lord Voldemort by saying. Shakily, she pushed herself upright. "He's jealous of Cyneric's standing with you, my Lord. You play them against each other so often, claiming first one and then the other as your second, that it was only a matter of time before one of them tried to rid themselves of the competition. He had to have known that Narcissa would go to Bellatrix with whatever story he concocted and that Bellatrix would go straight to you. I swear to you, neither my husband nor I would ever betray you, my Lord."

Cyneric stared at her in amazement. He almost believed her; she sounded so sincere. Voldemort laughed, high and cold. "I don't know which I find more impressive; your acting or your occlumency skills," he praised. "If what you say is true, then let me into your mind so that I may see for myself." He paused. "No? Very well." He gestured once more to Bellatrix.

"Crucio!"

Another scream ripped out of Kestrel. She fell forward, curling up into a fetal position as if that would protect her from the curse. Lord Voldemort let it go on much longer this time. Lucius had to help Rodolphus hold Cyneric back as he screamed threats at Bellatrix.

Bellatrix merely smiled, her wand remaining trained on Kestrel.

"Enough," Voldemort commanded.

Bellatrix reluctantly lifted the curse. Kestrel remained curled up in a ball, sobbing.

"It pains me that I have to do this," Lord Voldemort finally spoke once Kestrel's cries had grown softer. "Every drop of pure blood shed weakens us. But I cannot let this betrayal stand, no matter how much I wish we did not have to lose two of our own this night. I know you have been plotting against me. Admit it and end her suffering. End your suffering."

Kestrel had managed to sit up during Lord Voldemort's speech. She knelt with her head bowed, shoulders hunched. Tremors racked her body, but no fresh tears fell. Cyneric's heart clenched painfully as he looked at her.

When neither of them spoke, Lord Voldemort sighed in disappointment. "You leave me no choice. Bella, continue."

"I have been plotting against you," Cyneric blurted before Bellatrix could obey. He couldn't put Kestrel through another round of this.

"Thank you for your honesty, at last," Lord Voldemort said. He raised his wand, aiming at Kestrel. "Avada Kedavra!"

Cyneric's breath caught in his throat as Kestrel slumped, lifeless. It was like an iron vice had closed around his chest, constricting. He couldn't breathe, couldn't cry. His vision went hazy as his head swam.

Vaguely, he could hear voices. They seemed so far away. So insignificant.

There was pain, then. He barely registered it, but it made the voices clearer.

"-a question!"

Kestrel was dead. His wife was dead. Kes...

Pain exploded across the left side of his face, bringing him fully back to reality. He raised his hand to his jaw, gingerly probing where Rodolphus had punched him. Twice.

"What?" he rasped.

"I said the Dark Lord asked you a question," Rodolphus said. It was the longest sentence he'd ever heard the man string together. He laughed.

Somewhere behind him, Bellatrix laughed, too. "He's cracked! How pathetic!"

He fought to regain control, to stop the laughter that continued to bubble up, unbidden from within. He had not cracked. No, it would have been better if he had. But despite his best efforts, he was still laughing as he spoke, "I just didn't know your husband was capable of speaking."

Rodolphus punched him again, and he tasted blood.

"Why?" Lord Voldemort asked. "Before you die, I want to know why you would betray me."

The laughter died. The dull certainty of his own impending death prompted him to speak frankly. As frankly as he dared without revealing his true motive and putting the rest of his family at risk, anyway.

"Because while there's no question that you can lead a revolution, you'll never be able to rule."

That riled Bellatrix up again. "You filthy traitor, how dare you!"

Lord Voldemort held up a hand, silencing her. "And why is that?"

"You don't have the temperament for it. You lead through fear. People won't tolerate living like that forever. They will rebel. Again, and again, as many times as they need to, to be rid of you. There would never be peace. It would destroy our world."

"So your plan was to wait for me to win this war, assassinate me, then assume the mantle of benevolent dictator yourself?"

"Essentially."

"Then we have nothing more to discuss here. Avada Kedavra!"

The last thing Cyneric saw was a flash of green light.

~*~*~

"What happened here tonight stays between us," Lord Voldemort said. "Bellatrix, Rodolphus, gather their belongings and deliver the bodies to their home. But be circumspect."

"No Dark Mark?" Bellatrix sounded disappointed.

"No."

As the Lestranges gathered up the discarded masks and wands, Lord Voldemort turned to Lucius. "They had children, did they not?"

"One. A daughter."

"How old?"

"Nine, I believe."

"Not yet attending Hogwarts. Excellent." He raised his voice to be heard by the others. "While you're there, Bellatrix, kill the girl."

"My Lord," Lucius cut in. "That will end their bloodline."

"The loss of another Pure-blood lineage is a tragedy," Lord Voldemort agreed. "They should have thought of that before they stood against me."

"Consider it already done, my Lord," Bellatrix said. He appreciated her unwavering enthusiasm for destruction.

She lifted the Anti-Disapparition Jinx she had cast earlier, and she and Rodolphus disappeared, bodies in tow.

Lord Voldemort glanced around the ruined room once they were gone. Broken glass, splintered wood, and chunks of stone littered the ground. Furniture laid overturned. Scorch marks marred the floor. The portraits that usually hung so straight and proud were in disarray.

"Your House-elf has his work cut out for him, Lucius." His lips twitched in amusement. "It's as if a storm tore through here."

#storm hawks #storm hawks fanfic

4 notes · View notes

randomfandomginger · 4 years ago

Text

Puppeteer

I’ve been working on this fic for long enough I should really talk about it over here lol

Anywho, who ordered a Logince and Moxiety slowburn with extra plot and superpowers?

Summary: There are a couple of life experiences that you can't get through without bonding with others. Being kidnapped just happens to be one of them. Discovering that you share certain enhanced abilities with your fellow kidnappees- that's another. (Logan would argue that it's hardly kidnapping, he's just helping to forcibly move them to a second location. No, never mind, that's definitely kidnapping.) Why have they all been brought to the same place? To fight crime apparently, and to steal back a little something that might just change their lives as they know them.

Words: 80k, complete!

Click below for the character’s introductory chapters!

Chapter One- Patton

Patton had been an optimist his entire life, somehow. To be fair, it had nothing to do with his personal experiences and everything to do with his love for life as a concept. Patton felt that he was lucky just to exist, lucky to have found such loving and accepting parents, lucky to feel so secure and happy as himself, lucky that he could do and see everything he wanted to do and see. Patton felt lucky, nothing else to it.

“Honey I’m home!” he called out jokingly into the open air, using his foot to help open the door to his apartment. In his hands, groceries were piled high, his spoils from his trip to the grocery store.

The store had been out of spinach, so they would have to forego the salads that he and Virgil forced themselves to eat every few meals, just for a semblance of healthiness in their lives.

“Pat? Is that you?” Virgil’s head poked out from around the corner. Patton was so lucky about so many things, and just knowing Virgil was one of them. The two of them had been inseparable since middle school, but the fact that they had both ended up at the same college had nothing to do with luck and everything to do with their shared love for the English language and a certain bond that could only possibly form between two boys who entrusted one another with such unique, such important secrets as they did.

“Who else would it be?” Patton said with a grin, setting the groceries down on the small table that they had set up in the middle of the tiny room. “Is anyone else around here referring to you as ‘honey’?”

“Last time I checked it was just you,” Virgil replied, beginning to help Patton stuff as many of the groceries as he could into their minifridge. “But then again, better safe than sorry.”

“Touche,” Patton replied. “Cutesy nicknames, that’s how they lower your guard…”

Virgil just laughed, a deep rumbling sound that Patton had been hearing for years, yet he never failed to feel a rush of happiness upon hearing it. “Alright, you find some cheesy feel-good movie to put on, I prepare our first round of food?”

“After last week’s disaster? Yes please,” Patton replied, smiling.

Being around Virgil was as comforting for him as it was for Virgil. Virgil’s brain seemed to slow down a bit when Patton was around, and a sense of contentment seemed to surround him. He was familiar, and safe, and Patton had known him so long that he could sometimes predict how he felt about any situation before he actually felt the shift in Virgil’s emotions.

Virgil gave him a grin. “I didn’t know it was physically possible to burn ramen, what with it being immersed in water and all, but you managed.”

“Well, I am a man of many talents,” Patton replied, a bit of an inside joke between them, already squatting down in front of their little box TV and looking through the collection of DVDs below. They’d been collecting since they were both children, but they’d agreed that only the essentials should come alone to them with college. That’s why, after a mere four hours of soft bickering, they’d settled on their twenty favorites to bring along.

“Hmm,” Patton mumbled to himself as he ran through his options. He could hear Virgil bustling around in the kitchen, humming the lyrics to some old song as he worked. “Something cheesy and feel-goodsy…” Patton said, then giggled at the word ‘feel-goodsy’.

He settled on Avengers, for both a comforting and fun storyline and Captain America’s ass, though he’d never admit the second one.

He and Virgil had been watching Avengers for years now, but what could he say? The movie held up. They’d always end up watching it somehow after bad breakups, difficult tests, kids being jerks, anything. It was a comfort movie, and one of the few that Virgil could stomach seeing more than three or four times. Movies like that were to be treasured.

Virgil waltzed back over to their shoddy little hand me down couch and sat down next to Patton, pulling him out of his thoughts, their plates clutched in Virgil’s calloused hands. “Our main course tonight will be none other than those gourmet reheated pizza slices that were apparently still left in the back of our fridge,” he announced with a flourish, handing Patton his plate.

Patton played along, gasping. “The very same gourmet reheated pizza slices that may or may not have been ordered a week ago?” he asked, doing his best but ultimately failing to hide the start of a grin tugging the corners of his lips up.

Virgil nodded gravely. “Those very same slices.” They stared at one another for a moment before they both burst out laughing. “Alright, what movie did you choose?” Virgil asked him mirthfully, and Patton simply nodded at the TV, where Avengers was all cued up and ready to go. “Nice!”

“Well, it is a cinematic marvel!” Patton joked, grinning at Virgil’s soft groan. “How could I not pick it?” He took a large bite of the pizza, chewing at the slightly stringy cheese.

“Terrible pun, Pat,” Virgil said, shaking his head as he shuffled a little bit closer to his shorter friend as he took a bite of his own slice. “ Terrible pun.”

Patton loved these nights on their ratty old sofa, eating cheap food and watching movies that they’d both already seen too many times to count. He knew they both had homework they needed to get done, and the next morning their stomachs would probably hate them, but these nights were to be cherished.

After all, Friday nights were one of the only nights he used to be able to have friends over.

Patton was fifteen, dressed in hand me down pajamas, and sitting in his living room, practically vibrating off the walls.

“Goodness,” his mother chuckled, walking into the room and finding her son staring at the front door anxiously, knee bouncing up and down feverishly. “He’s only five minutes late, Pattycake, I’m sure he’ll be here in a moment. Maybe traffic was just rough.” She was amused, which seemed to be her default setting. Amused and fond.

“I know, I know,” Patton said, bouncing his leg a little bit faster as the corners of his lips twitched. “Sorry Mom, I’m just anxious.”

Patton could feel his mom’s ripple of pride as he said that. He looked up to see his mother trying her best to hide a grin. That always happened these days, even though he’d gotten used to calling her mom almost a year ago. “And I can tell that from all the way over here!” his mother commented. “What makes this Virgil guy so special, hmm Pattycake?”

“He’s a friend,” Patton said, distracted, looking up and meeting his mom’s growing smirk with a groan. “No, Mom, not like that. He’s just a friend, I swear.” He wasn’t just a friend, he was Patton’s closest friend, but he didn’t really think saying that would help his case. It didn’t matter, he didn’t need his mother to know it for it to be true.

“Alright, whatever you say,” his mom said with another smirk. “You two are sleeping in the living room though, you hear me? Not your room.”

The doorbell dinged then, luckily saving Patton from any kind of further embarrassing gossiping. Vaulting to his feet, Patton rushed over to the door, opening it quickly and doing his best to act like his entire face hadn’t been flushed a brilliant red only moments earlier.

Virgil, complete with an overnight bag, stood on his front porch. As Patton took his friend’s image in, Virgil’s anxiety spiked through him like lightning. Virgil was clutching his bag close to his chest, eyes a little bit wide and unsure, knuckles white. Patton frowned. He didn’t really mean to read Virgil, but it wasn’t like he could help it.

“Hey,” Patton said softly to his friend as he took him in, Virgil’s anxiety still coursing underneath his skin like boiling water. He didn’t really need his empathy to figure out that Virgil was tense, but oh well. “You doing okay there, Virge?”

Virgil swallowed, nodding, shoving down whatever he was feeling. Patton resisted a small wince at that. Repression was never good in the long run. “Yeah,” he finally replied, cracking a small grin as he took in Patton in his baby blue pajamas. His mood shifted to a more positive one. “Yeah, better now.”

Patton beamed at that. “Great! Welcome to my home!” he said with a small flourish. “Come on in!”

As Virgil walked through the front door, Patton’s mom came around the corner, still grinning. “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Virgil!” she exclaimed happily. “Patton’s told me so much about you.”

“Mom…” Patton grumbled, flushing a little bit, but Virgil just laughed a little bit.

“It’s nice to meet you too, ma’am, thank you for letting me stay the night.”

Oh gosh, he’s so polite.

“Please, call me Mrs. Hart,” Patton’s mother said with a small smile.

When his mother left, Virgil began to look around his living room. Patton followed his gaze, a frantic bundle of excited and nervous thoughts. Virgil’s gaze rested for an unnaturally long time on the mantle, and Patton frowned a little bit. Virgil’s house was full of baby pictures. You get through the front door, there are baby pictures on the walls. You go to use the bathroom, bam, more baby pictures hanging above the toilet. Their living room practically looked like a ‘greatest hits’ from Virgil and his older sibling’s lives. Patton had even found baby pictures all over the mug of hot chocolate his mother had handed him. They were everywhere. Virgil was the youngest of four, and Patton didn’t think there had been a moment of silence in that tiny house. He positively loved it.

Patton’s house didn’t have baby pictures. They didn’t even have him when he was a baby. Patton didn’t remember his childhood, as he was a baby at the time, but he did remember the foster care system.

Baby pictures don’t make a family, Patton reminded himself firmly. Sure, it would be nice for him to remember anything from his youth, but he was happy now, under the care of two loving parents that he cared for very deeply. No sense in dwelling on what you couldn’t remember. Besides, he had Virgil here right now, and his top priority was making his friend feel comfortable in this new space.

“Your house is so much cleaner,” was the first thing that Virgil said, after a long moment of silence. He wasn’t exactly wrong, the entire living room looked as though it had been surgically bleached. His parents liked a clean home.

Patton burst into laughter at that. “I promise my room looks more lived in,” he replied. “Plenty of dirty clothing on the floor.”

Sometimes, Patton hated feeling other people’s emotions. Sometimes it was a rush of hatred and disgust and all kinds of horrifying darkness that made Patton feel dirty just for feeling it secondhand. Sometimes it was sadness so crippling that Patton’s own knees felt weak, that he could feel himself tearing up. Sometimes, it was fear so paralyzing that he felt his joints lock up and his own breathing get shaky.

Tonight, it was joy and excitement and a tinge of adrenaline that usually accompanied exploration. Tonight, Patton had never been less bothered by his empathic skill.

As they watched the movie, Patton could feel his mind beginning to wander. This was in no way the fault of Avengers, he’d simply seen it more times than he could count. Besides, now his brain was full of thoughts regarding his special skills.

The empathy was bad enough, forcing him to pry into people’s heads when he didn’t want to know, but his second skill was even worse, even more intrusive. Patton knew secrets, or more accurately, one secret per person. Sometimes he knew their worst fear, sometimes he knew their greatest hope. On very rare occasions the two were the same.

For instance, when he first met him, Virgil’s greatest fear was someone discovering that he was different. It had changed since that day, but Patton had known and always would know with nothing more than a simple cursory glance exactly what it was. There were no words floating in circles around Virgil’s head, there was no psychic link moment where everything became clear to him, he just looked at him, and he knew. He didn’t have any better way to explain it.

Patton hated it. His mom’s greatest fear was cancer, and his dad’s greatest hope was to give his wife and son the best lives that they could possibly have. Most people’s were generic like that, but more often than he’d like to admit Patton would stumble across something that he’d rather not know.

He’d outed his first foster father at age eight, asking his mom what a homosexual was, and why his new daddy was so worried about her finding out. He’d informed his second foster father bitterly at age twelve that his wife was having an affair, one that she feared he’d discover. It wasn’t until he was thirteen and finally settled in with his mom and dad that he was able to relax.

Patton was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that when the doorbell rang, he jumped about a foot in the air, jostling the table.

“Oh crap!” he cried out in distress, watching as Virgil’s glass teetered, before beginning to fall to the floor, almost as if in slow motion.

Quick as a blink, Virgil’s hand shot out, easily snatching the glass before it hit the floor. He’d barely even looked up from his phone.

“Nice catch,” Patton said with a grin. “Show off.”

Virgil stuck his tongue out at him. “What can I say? I’m a man of many talents.”

Two, to be exact. They both had two. It had taken Virgil a long time to use his around Patton, but his enhanced reflexes came in handy around the house, as Patton tended to bump into anything and everything that could be broken. Virgil had probably saved about ninety percent of their dishes by this point. Super fast reflexes don’t sound very much like a superpower until you bump the dining room table over and not a single dish ends up broken.

“I’ll go see who it is,” Patton said cheerfully, patting Virgil’s silky purple locks as he passed him by, smoothing out his shirt in an attempt to make himself marginally more presentable before pulling open their heavy oak door.

“Hello!” Patton said cheerfully, his smile dipping momentarily as he took in the scene before him.

A young boy, maybe about his and Virgil’s age, stood in front of them. He had dark hair, so dark it was almost black, and navy blue spectacles on his face. He was dressed in all black, almost formal. He was expressionless, but a wave of guilt hit Patton like a brick. He began to feel uneasy.

“Is there anything I can do to help you?” Patton tried again, eyes flicking behind the boy to see the two men standing there, staring straight ahead. They almost looked like soldiers.

“I suppose,” the boy spoke, and Patton turned his attention back to him. He appeared to be sizing Patton up, an action which was not appreciated. “Are you Patton Hart or Virgil Sinclair?”

“That would be me,” Patton said carefully, “What can I do to help you good folks?”

The boy in front of him opened his mouth again, when he heard from down the hall, “Pat? Everything good out there?” Virgil was nervous, he could tell from his voice.

“Ah good, that answers my next question,” Logan said with a nod, now rummaging around in his back pocket for something. “Well, Patton, I would tell you that I am incredibly sorry about this, but the fact of the matter is, I don’t find myself bothered by this. After all, it is necessary.”

Patton was taking a step back, already trying to close the door, but the man closest to him grabbed it before he could. “Virgil!” Patton shrieked as they pushed past him into the house, and then he felt a sharp prick in the side of his neck.

Looking back at the young boy, Patton swayed for a moment, suddenly feeling heavy. Blinking drearily, he squinted in an attempt to focus. What was he supposed to be doing? Gosh, he sure felt worn out. Wouldn’t it be nice if he could just take a little nap? As Patton’s eyes sagged closed, he could hear Virgil doing something, most likely fighting the other men, but he couldn’t keep his focus on much of anything for too long.

Family, he thought as he drifted off, staring up into the other boy’s bright blue eyes, his biggest hope is for a family.

And then his eyelids slipped shut, and he could feel his head thunk against their floorboards.

Patton didn’t dream while he slept. It was just dark. He couldn’t see anything, he couldn’t hear anything, but he knew he was asleep. That in itself was peculiar. Patton was a lucid dreamer, and usually his entire night was filled with fantastical adventures and unusual shenanigans.

He awoke in a strange bed, in the middle of a strange room. His eyes snapped open, another unusual occurrence for him, seeing as Patton usually took ages to muster up the courage to open his eyes after a full night’s rest.

The room was dimly lit, and he sat up, rubbing his neck slightly as he took in his surroundings. To his left was a table, a couple of books stacked underneath. In the right corner sat a potted plant with a light blue vase. In the chair next to the potted plant sat the same boy from the night before, staring intently at him.

Patton jolted as he noticed him.

“Oh, good,” the boy said with what looked like an attempt at a friendly smile. “You’re awake. We may begin. My name is Logan.”

Patton sat there, his mind racing. Should I say something? Will that make it worse? Where am I? Who is Logan? How long was I asleep? What am I doing here? Why did he take me?

Where’s Virgil?

Chapter 2- Janus

Janus couldn’t believe his luck. Honestly.

Walking throughout the crowded city street on swift feet, he eyed up the stores to his left and right respectively. The crowd rushed around him like a babbling brook, and just as loud. Vendors were out on the congested streets, doing their best to entice the public under their brightly colored coverings. Children were laughing, birds were chirping, and the organized chaos around him made conditions perfect for what he wanted to do.

Janus ducked out of the street, standing off near the opening to a sweets store, observing the festival from a bit more of a difference. The shadows obscured his already covered face further, and Janus tugged impatiently at the strings on his hoodie, squinting his honey and hazel eyes squinting at the people wandering through the festival. “Come on, come on,” he muttered under his breath.

A little ways away from him, a tan man with long black hair laughed loudly, running his fingers through his thick hair before interlacing them with his girlfriend’s once more. Perfect.

Janus concentrated. Usually, when he shifted, he preferred to close his eyes, but the most important part of this whole thing was that he stayed constantly on his toes, so he begrudgingly kept them open.

Janus could feel his entire body begin to tingle as the shift took over. That was probably his least favorite part of all of it. He could feel his chin bulging slightly, as well as his nose growing. His build became stockier, and his eyes, so captivating before, turned to a dulled brown. Likewise, his hair darkened as well, the already dyed blonde coloring fading from the roots outward. In a matter of moments, he was a completely different person.

Janus put down his hoodie, stepping a bit further out of the shadow of the archway and smiling a smile that wasn’t quite his. “Alright, let’s get this started,” he said, his voice deeper than it had been only moments earlier. Good, that was all in order then too. The mimicry was always easier than the conscious effort shifting took him, so long as he heard their voice first.

As he walked, opposite the direction from the man he’d just impersonated, he kicked at the sidewalk casually, forcing his toes to the end of his boot. Did I lose a couple of inches? He wondered, amused. He was pretty short already.

Whatever. He ducked into a nearby store, one that sold crappy old antiques for overinflated prices, resisting the urge to crack his knuckles as he did so. That would have been horribly stereotypical. Giving the shopkeeper another one of someone else’s signature smiles, Janus set to work, eyes flicking from shelf to shelf, noting the unsurprising lack of customers that made his job much simpler than he needed it to be.

As Janus left the same store only minutes later, an extra pep in his step and his pockets full of useless knick knacks, he blended back into the crowd easily, letting the flow carry him through the streets.

Nabbing a spare pastry from a visiting vendor and dropping some change on the counter, he continued through the crowded streets, allowing his face to slowly bleed back into the one that he’d been assigned at birth. This time, changing back was almost like shrugging off a heavy coat, one that fit him just a little too strangely to feel completely comfortable in.

That was the oddest part about it, in his opinion. Everyone was a slightly different experience. Some people fit like skin tight leather, others gave him a strange, almost bloated feeling while he was trying their likeness on. Still others left a tangy taste in his mouth, and on very, very rare occasions, people just felt right. A person’s outward appearance wasn’t the determining factor, to the best of his knowledge, as Janus had tried and failed to find one characteristic or pattern that would differentiate exactly how it felt to become that person.

It was a beautiful, bright summer day, and the heat of the sun beat down on Janus’ back while he wandered, taking another bite of his chocolate pastry. The sweet was positively exquisite, and he smiled. The summer festival was his favorite time of year, not only for the ease with which he was suddenly able to pickpocket, but also for the out of state company and the vendors from all over that lined the streets constantly, jousting one another for position, each tarp cover more flamboyant and eye catching than the last.

There were a couple of little kids playing in the street nearby, shrieking and giggling. Their mothers were pleasantly conversing a small ways away, most likely also keeping an eye on their respective children. Janus watched them from the corner of his eye, running his slender fingers through his hair. They were caught up in their own little world, unaware of the strife and conflict that surrounded them at all times.

He frowned. Ah well, they would learn soon enough. He certainly had.

As he moved on, his phone buzzed. Digging it out of his back pocket and checking it absentmindedly, he noted the time.

Grandma: When will you be home, garter snake?

Smirking at the pet name (though he’d never admit it), he shot back a ‘soon’ to his grandmother before repocketing his phone. He’d technically gone out today to see the festival and he wanted to stay just a little bit longer. After all, it really did only happen once a year.

It was at that moment that Janus heard the crying. Honestly, it was a miracle that he could even pick it out in the first place, what with how quiet it was. Luckily, several years of living on edge and learning to make money where there was none had prepared Janus for hearing noises others didn’t deem quite so important.

“Mom? Mommy!”

Janus glanced around hurriedly, heart race picking up as the small voice became clearer. The kid was getting closer to him.

It only took him a moment more to spot her, wearing a slightly scruffy white dress and blue boots, her straw colored hair pulled back in two braids. There were tear tracks on her cheeks, and she stood off to the side of the crowd, calling out to the foot traffic desperately, like she wanted to weave and search her way through the crowd but was unable to. She clutched the side of one of the nearby vendor’s tarps in her right hand and a tiny stuffed bear in her left. Crap.

Quickly, he ducked out of the flow, approaching the girl with his best ‘I’m not intimidating’ smile. The girl, for what it’s worth, evaluated him through calculating eyes. This would be very good, if not for the small sniffles she let out every couple of seconds, and the tears budding in the corners of her little chocolate colored eyes. Why is no one helping her? he thought, an irrational surge of anger coursing through him.

“Hey there kiddo,” Janus said, the words sounding a bit strange in his mouth, but pressing on nonetheless. “You doing okay there? You look a little lost.”

The girl nodded hopefully, though he couldn’t tell which question she was nodding in response to. She kept the distance Janus had established by stopping a few feet away from her, clutching the tent behind her a little tighter. “I’m looking for my mommy,” she explained, before sizing him up again and stating decisively, “You’re not my mommy.”

Janus had to push down a bubble of laughter at that, watching a small grin cross the girl’s face. “Well, you’re definitely correct there,” he admitted, shrugging in a ‘what are you gonna do’ kind of way. “But I can help you find her if you want,” he offered.

“Mommy told me if I ever get lost to go to the nearest place I recognize and wait there for her, but she hasn’t come to get me yet and I’m scared,” she told him. Janus didn’t miss the way her voice broke on the last syllable, or the tears now threatening to spill over the corners of her eyes and down her rosy cheeks.

Oh shit oh crap, don’t let the child cry, he thought, and before he knew what he was doing, Janus had dug through his pocket and pulled out one of his knick knacks, a little silver chain with an aqua stone hanging from it. It was one of the simpler things he’d nabbed, most likely not even very old at all. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the store had taken it and distressed it themselves in an attempt to pass the necklace off as an antique.

The little girl’s eyes widened as he offered the necklace to her, taking a step forward and reaching out with both of her little freckled hands to examine it.

“Here you go,” Janus said dumbly, because he wasn’t really sure what exactly to tell the small girl, but he wanted her to know the necklace was hers to keep, and she seemed pretty entranced by it already, but it couldn’t hurt to clarify.

“It’s so pretty,” the little girl said, touching the dangling stone carefully. A child who’d been taught how to handle breakable things, even better, Janus thought, giving her a reassuring smile.

“Okay kiddo, if I’m going to help you, I’m going to need to know your name, okay?” he told her, and she nodded up at him.

“That sounds reasonable,” she said softly, sounding out every syllable in the word reasonable. “My name is Jessica, but my friends all call me Jessie.”

Janus continued to smile at her, hoping it was still coming off as reassuring. “That’s a very pretty name, Jessica,” he said, watching her attempt to fasten the necklace around her neck. “My name is Janus, and my friends call me Janus. Would you like some help with your necklace?”

She giggled a little bit and nodded again, eager. “Thank you Mr Janus!”

He couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face as he knelt down to help her, Jessica turning around and raising her hair out of the way, even though it was in braids. Diligently, he refastened the little silver clasp around her neck, suddenly thankful for his long nails.

“Alright Jessica, now let’s get you back to your mother!” he announced in his best chipper tone, and the little girl flashed him a grin brighter than the sun.

I should probably find an officer, or maybe someone in charge of security, he thought, and even though his blood went a little cold at the thought of willingly walking up to anyone dealing with law enforcement, he shot another glance over at the little girl, and he steeled his nerves, doing his best to push down the anxious fluttering in his stomach.

“Okay Mr Janus,”Jessica responded, prim and proper and polite as she used her palm to wipe the last of her tears off of her face. Then, a little shyer; “Can I hold your hand?”

He looked down at her, and the words “Of course,” were spilling out of his mouth before he could even stop them.

Just as shyly, he felt a tiny hand slip into his, and Jessica gave him another of her little smiles. “Okay, all ready now,” she announced, and Janus grinned at her.

And the two of them were off, Janus weaving through the crowd easily, used to navigating large groups of people. Every so often, he would glance behind him to reassure himself that Jessica was still there, despite the weight of her tiny hand in his own.

As they neared the police tent, stationed near the barricades closing off the road at the ‘start’ of the festival, Janus could feel his stomach trying to crawl out of his throat. There were a few officers standing around under the cover of their tent, and one very desperate looking woman speaking with them hurriedly. As Janus approached, he could hear the conversation a little bit clearer.

“Please, sir, I need to find my daughter,” the woman pleaded. “I don’t even know what happened, one moment she was holding my hand and the next she was gone, please!” She sounded close to hysterics, clutching the deep red purse around her arm tightly.

“Ma’am-” the police officer said in a slightly exasperated tone, but it was at that very moment that Jessica cried out “Mommy!” and let go of Janus’ hand, running past him on her short little legs and straight into the arms of the anxious woman.

“Jessica!” the woman responded, picking up her daughter and squeezing her. “Oh my gosh, Jessica, what happened to you? Why did you let go of my hand? Are you safe? Are you okay?” The woman’s questions got louder and more concerned the longer she looked her daughter over, patting her down for injuries and then hugging her again, just as tightly as the first time.

“Mommy, it’s okay,” the little girl said, in that same placid tone that all children somehow managed to channel through them when they really truly believed that nothing was wrong. “Mr Janus helped me.”

“Who is Mr Janus, honey?” Jessica’s mother asked, biting her lip nervously and giving her daughter another once over.

“He’s right over there!” Jessica pointed back to where he was awkwardly standing a few feet away, feeling a little bit like he was infringing on a personal moment. “He gave me a pretty necklace and helped me find you.” Janus gave her an awkward wave, unsure of what exactly to do.

As Jessica’s mother looked him over, Janus squirmed under the scrutiny. Jessica clearly took after her mother, sharing her straight blonde hair and button nose, though her mother’s eyes were blue, and Jessica’s were brown.

“Hi,” he tried, unsure of the proper protocol for dealing with returning a lost child.

Jessica’s mother’s grip tightened on her child for a moment, and then she smiled genuinely at him, and oh, that was Jessica’s smile too, and tears were welling up in her mother’s eyes as she said her next words. “Thank you so much for bringing my little girl back to me.”

Janus felt a rush of emotions, most of them positive, some of them bittersweet, still others a little bit confused and unsure. “Yeah, it was no biggie,” he managed to make out, giving her a smile and a head tilt. “I just did the respectable thing.”

Jessica’s mother gave him another smile, and said in the most genuine, sincere voice she could manage, “Well, if the world were full of people like you, we’d be all the better for it.”

Janus had to resist the urge to laugh outright at that, though the corners of his lips did twitch up. Hopefully, he could pass that off as a bashful smile. Oh lady, you have no idea. “It was my pleasure,” he responded smoothly, smiling down at Jessica and waving. “It was nice to meet you Jessica.”

“Bye Mr Janus! Thank you for helping me find my mother!” Jessica said with another one of her big grins, and surged forward to wrap him in one more big hug before she let him go.

“Bye Jessica,” he echoed, even as he turned away, smiling a little bit, knick knacks weighing heavily in his pockets.

The walk home was a slow one, one that he knew well. He’d been walking these bleak streets for years now, practically since he was old enough to stand on his own two feet. They were as familiar to him as anything could be, the result of time and effort spent exploring their back alleys and lanes.

Now that the festival was behind him, the cheery feeling had faded, the colors desaturated. Even the air seemed different, slightly stuffier. He knew that was ridiculous, he knew the air quality couldn’t deteriorate that quickly, but it seemed to choke him, worming its way down his throat and making itself at home in his lungs. It always had.

A dog barked from a nearby house as he passed by, and Janus crossed the street. There was no one out on these roads, but that wasn’t uncommon. He wouldn’t have been very surprised if a tumbleweed bounced past him one of these days on his walk home. It was just horribly stereotypical enough to be funny.

His grandmother’s house was a little brick house on the end of the block. She’d lived there as long as he’d known her, which was pretty much his entire life. Then again, he’d lived with her for most of that life. He didn’t really remember his parents, but that was okay in his book. Anyone who deserted their three year old child wasn’t anyone he ever wanted to meet, much less be related to.

Besides, his grandmother had been a more than capable caretaker. No one had showed up at more random childhood talent shows and concerts than she did, and she baked cookies wherever Janus did anything even minorly noteworthy, to show him just how proud she was of him. They’d replanted practically the entire garden behind the house together when he was little, and it was yearly tradition by now for the two of them to go out on the first acceptably temperate day during the spring and do their first round of weeding together.

Janus was walking up to the front step, already fumbling for his key when he stopped. The door was already open, slightly ajar. His eyes narrowed.

He could hear deep voices coming from inside, faint, but definitely there. Not his grandmother.

Without a second thought, he shifted, struggling a bit to pull his coat from this morning back on. Crap. Were the man’s eyes blue or brown? Was the small scar on his right hand or his left? Did his chin have a cleft in it or not? He didn’t remember, and that could be dangerous.

His coat was full of holes, little ones, but holes nonetheless. It was like he’d left it in the back of his closet, only pulling it back out to wear again once the moths had had their way with it. Was his nose really that big too? That certainly didn’t feel right. Clearing his throat and letting his voice deepen and shift into the man’s honeyed rumble, he slipped his jacket off and left it on the rocking chair to the left of the door. The voice was always easier.

“Mrs Devon?” he called out as he pushed the door the rest of the way open. The voices inside quieted immediately, and Janus put on his best mildly concerned but mostly confused look. His teeth were just a little too white to be real. Something told him that he wasn’t nailing this.

“Janus? Sweetie is that you?” his grandmother called out. She sounded nervous, never a good sign.

“No, it’s, ah, Mark.” Janus winced. He hadn’t had time to come up with a name, a story, anything. “From nextdoor?” he tried.

“Ah, Mark, come on in!” his grandmother called out, and Janus had to resist smirking. She was a better actor than he’d ever be.

As he walked through his hallway and into the kitchen, he found his grandmother sitting at the kitchen table with her hands crossed in front of her. Her lips were pursed and her expression was mildly frazzled. All around her, making themselves at home in her kitchen, were several different middle aged men. Sitting on the counter and sipping from a juice box was a boy that looked about his usual age, kicking his feet a little bit.

Staring at the scene in front on him, Janus all but tilted his head to the side questioningly. “It appears that I am not acquainted with your guests, Mrs Devon. Are they new in town?”

Before his grandmother could reply, the boy with the juice box spoke. His tone was icy. “Simply passing through.”

“Yes, I do believe they’re looking for my grandson,” his grandmother said, meeting his eyes. Janus could feel his blood run cold. Surely this isn’t for petty theft, he thought.

“What did he do this time?” he tried to joke, but it fell flat.

“Not a gosh darn thing,” his grandmother replied. “Mark dear, you will let me know if you see him, won’t you? He’s been out all day and I’m ever so worried about him.”

“O-of course.” His throat felt dry.

“We were informed that he would return at around this time,” the boy said, eyes narrowing behind his thick glasses lenses. He brushed some of his black hair out of his face as he evaluated Janus.

That seemed to be happening a lot today.

“Well, I certainly haven’t seen him,” Janus responded, you know, like someone who certainly had seen him.

“Of course you haven’t,” the boy repeated again, in that same cool tone that made Janus feel like his skin was crawling. “Because if you had seen him, then you would certainly tell us. After all, you have nothing to hide, and as a fine, upstanding citizen you certainly want to make sure that the law is being upheld.”

“That goes without saying,” Janus replied. Seriously, don’t say it. Stop talking to me. Please.

The boy sighed heavily. “This is a real shame, Mr Devon, I’d hoped you would cooperate with us…”

“I’m sorry?” Janus replied, feeling dread begin to pool in the bottom of his stomach.

“Yes,” the boy said with a nod. “Yes, I suppose you are.”

There was a small prick in Janus’ neck, and he gasped, stumbling away from the man behind him, eyesight already going a bit fuzzy. Somewhere to his left, his grandmother let out an indignant cry. Shit. “What- what did you do to me?” he gasped out, blinking heavily even as the man retreated back next to the boy with the brilliant blue eyes. “Shit,” he gasped out, and then his vision went black.

Chapter 3- Roman

It was just like his brother to have done something incredibly stupid the last week of their senior year and then claim he was “too tired” to get anything else done for the rest of summer. Roman let out a small huff as he walked back from their kitchen, balancing two plastic cups in one hand, and a bowl of chips in the other.

Remus had set off fireworks indoors. Not a couple of fireworks either, he’d gone out with some friends a couple of nights before and bought as much as six months of a minimum wage paying job would buy in fireworks, which was more than you’d expect. Roman had been saving his own money for college, despite his scholarship, but Remus just went out on impulse and purchased more fireworks than could fit in the back of his truck quicker than you could say “bad idea”.

Talk about going out with a bang.

Besides, Remus wanted to be a ceramist, he’d already gotten everything set up and ready to go on that front. Best to start the whole ‘starving artist’ thing as early as possible, right? At least, that was his go to joke whenever it was brought up.

“Anything good on TV?” Roman asked him, setting the cups and chips down on the table.

Remus was flicking through the channels absentmindedly. “Nah,” he muttered.

“Move your legs,” Roman told him, nudging one of the offending limbs. Remus insisted on wearing booty shorts throughout the entirety of ‘shorts season,’ no matter how cold out it actually was. Between the AC and the time of day, Roman didn’t know how his brother’s legs hadn’t frozen solid already. Remus had always run warm though.

“Mmh, no,” Remus replied, reaching out and popping a chip into his mouth.

“Don’t make me sit on you,” Roman warned him. “I’ll do it too.”

“Whatever.”

“You asked for it.”

Roman sat down on Remus’ kneecaps, but instead of the usual cursing and writhing that would result from such an action shared by siblings, Roman could only feel Remus’ knees give a little bit, and then they went completely flat and rubbery.

“Oh, gross!” Roman leapt off of him at once, brushing down his butt like he’d sat in lava. “You know that I simply despise it when you do that!”

Remus let out a little snicker. “Do what?” he asked him, smirking.

“You get all… rubbery. I don’t know how to explain it! Just… ew.” Roman made a face.

“I know, right?” Remus grinned at him. “I’m like a gutted fish, ready to be cooked! Where do my bones go? Who knows…”

“Don’t make it any weirder than you already have,” Roman said, exasperated, like they hadn’t had this conversation over and over again in the past. “Come on dude, please, just move your legs.”

“Oh! Well why didn’t you just say so, brother dearest?” Remus said, batting his eyelashes comically at Roman and sliding his legs gracefully to the floor, where they fell with a slight jiggling motion, kind of like jello. Roman resisted the urge to make another face, he knew it just egged his brother on.

Sitting down, Roman popped a chip into his own mouth, chewing slowly and savoring the flavor. Twelve years of schooling, done and dealt with. He couldn’t believe it. They’d done so much and spent so much time in that old brick building that it felt almost wrong to leave it. He had no more constants in his life, no more getting up early every week day for school, no more Friday math tests, no more lunch block to be spent with the theatre kids. He had lost all his constants.

Well, all but one.

Remus was his one true constant. They were going to the same college, despite all of the differences between them. Roman’s football scholarship was offered by a place with an excellent theatre program, and Remus had chosen the same school based on their stellar arts program alone. Remus was the antithesis to his thesis, the yin to his yang. Even Remus’ powers seemed to be in direct contradiction to his. Roman had expected them to be exactly the same, since they were twins, but his brother and he couldn’t be more different when it came to their strange, almost otherworldly skill sets. They’d had two apiece their entire lives, the powers of unknown origins that they only used when it was them and their parents around.

Roman had always had thick skin and an even thicker skull, in every sense of the words. He couldn’t remember a time when any knife, nail, or needle had ever pierced his skin. He led a surprisingly bruise and scrape free childhood, but it wasn’t until he’d accidentally caught his finger in a stapler and pressed down and the stapler had bent that he realized he couldn’t break his epidermis. He’d come to his mother and father crying, they’d thought he was finally hurt, but when he showed them the bent stapler and his pristine almond skin, they’d simply exchanged a look that he couldn’t quite figure out.

Remus’ skin was weird too, but not in the same way as Roman’s. Where Roman’s skin was rigid and unmoving, Remus’ was practically too easy to bruise. He’d spent most of his childhood covered in bandages and gauze pads, but he’d never broken a bone. This probably stemmed from the fact that Remus was like a rubber band. He could have been a contortionist, though Roman hadn’t ever seen a contortionist that could squeeze themselves completely flat and slide under his door to wake him up at three am on their birthday. Remus had limits, sure, and he seemed to keep the same body mass no matter what, but it was like his bones were gone sometimes, weird to look at and even weirder to feel.

It was Remus’ second skill that really made him the one with the more interesting skill set, in Roman’s opinion at least. It was the one thing that actually made him a match for Roman’s super strength, and made sibling squabbles a little bit more “fair.” He didn’t use it often, and Roman hadn’t ever really been able to put a finger on what he should call it.

They were seven or eight at the time, sitting on the floor of their living room, propped up in front of the TV. Colorful cartoons flashed on the tiny screen, but neither brother was actually paying much attention at all to them. Their focus lay on the toys on the rug in front of them, trucks and cars and dolls and little tiny building blocks.

“Boys, do you want lemonade?” their mother called from the kitchen, before returning to her usual humming.

“Yes please!” Roman called back to her politely, before returning to his very serious battle with Remus. So far it looked like he was winning, but he never knew when Remus would try and cheat to get the upper hand, so he had to stay vigilant. His father had taught him that word last week, and Roman had been thrilled to know that it had so many practical applications.

“Alright, Monsieur Poopybutt will now lead his forces in an attack!” Remus cried out, holding up his own doll, a barbie with a sharpie mustache scribbled across its small upper lip. He placed the doll very delicately in his biggest monster truck, colored the green and brown of camouflage.

As Remus mimed driving the car closer to Roman’s lego castle, he let out a hearty laugh. “You fool! You’ve fallen for my plan, hook, line, and stinker!”

Remus chuckled. “It’s hook line and sinker, doofus!”

“Whatever! Point is, I have you now!” Roman grabbed another of the dolls, one he’d been saving for the special moment that Remus tried to attack him head on, like he always did. “This is Princess Elizabeth!” he announced, brandishing the doll close to Remus’ face so that he could see her closer. “She wears a sparkly dress!”

“I know Princess Elizabeth,” Remus replied, unimpressed. “You use her every time we play. She knows how to use swords and whatever. She’s not that cool.”

Roman gasped theatrically. “How dare you besmirch the good name of Princess Elizabeth?” he cried, dramatically throwing one arm over his forehead, the other still clutching his doll tightly.

“Meh.”

“Well, dear brother, there’s something you do not know!” Roman cried out, grinning the gap tooth smile of a delighted child. “Princess Elizabeth has learned a new skill since our last battle!”

“Oh?” Remus asked him curiously, tilting his head and flashing his own identical gap tooth smile. “What is it?”

“Princess Elizabeth has learned how to use magic,” Roman whispered, eyes sparkling as he leaned in for dramatic effect. It had taken him days to fully flesh out her backstory, limitations, and powers. Originally, he’d wanted to make her like himself, but in the end he’d fallen back on the classic elemental control.

Remus let out a raspberry. “Well that’s good for me, since Monsieur Poopybutt is immune to magic,” he said with a shrug, knocking Roman’s doll out of the way and continuing his siege on Roman’s now unprotected castle.

“Wait, you can’t just do that!” Roman cried out, scrambling to grab Princess Elizabeth. “You made that up just now, you can’t change the rules!”

“So what if I did?” Remus asked him, grinning. He was already in the process of destroying Roman’s castle, ramming the truck containing his own doll into the side of the structure again and again. “Monsieur Poopybutt can do whatever he wants! He’s immune to magic because I say so, and he’s killed Princess Elizabeth, so I’m free to attack your castle! Besides, you can’t learn how to use magic that quickly, that’s unreasonable. Learning magic takes time!”

“Princess Elizabeth is not dead!” Roman protested, holding her aloft. “See, she’s right here! She’s fine! You didn’t do anything to her!” He paused. “And you can too learn magic that quickly! Princess Elizabeth is a fast learner!”

Remus just looked over at him, before grabbing the doll out of his hand and chucking her across the room.

“Hey!”

“You started it! There, she’s dead, I killed her! Don’t make me pop off her head too!” Remus retaliated. “She’s gone, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

Roman let out a shriek, throwing himself at his brother and knocking him away from the castle, sending him staggering to right himself.

“What was that for?”

“You can’t just kill Princess Elizabeth! She’s my doll, not yours!”

They were both on their feet now, glaring at one another, the toys discarded. “I can and I will!” Remus replied haughtily.

“I hate you!” he yelled at his brother.

“And what are you gonna do about it, huh? Punch me?” Remus’ voice was deeper now, a low growl in the back of his throat that no ten year old should be able to use.

Roman shoved him. He knew it wasn’t the right thing to do, he knew that Mom had told him never to physically lay his hands on anyone unless it really couldn’t be helped, because they weren’t as strong as he was, but he couldn’t help it. Remus had been a pain in the butt all day, and this was just the last straw. Besides, he’d killed Princess Elizabeth and that was simply unacceptable. She was too important to just be killed off like that. So he pushed his brother with all the strength he could muster, stumbling into him and knocking him over.

Immediately, it was like his arm had gone dead. Pins and needles traveled throughout his entire body, and Roman felt drained for a second. Stumbling further, he fell on top of his brother. Immediately, Remus went pliant beneath him, probably ready to ooze away from him like he usually did. “Ow, get off me!” Remus cried out.

Roman felt like his body had been filled with lead, the pins and needles feeling retreating and leaving him utterly drained. He was oblivious to Remus’ whining as he tried to figure out exactly what he just felt. That had never happened before, not even when he hit things as hard as he possibly could.

“I said, get off of me!” Remus cried one last time, and then he shoved up at Roman.

Roman stumbled back and off of his brother, feeling a little bit like he’d bounced off of a wall. Crying out on his own, he felt his back connect with the floor as the air was knocked out of him.

A moment passed, and then Roman became acutely aware of his brother staring at him with wide eyes, their quarrel forgotten. His brother had shoved him away with a strength that only Roman could have possessed.

It had happened in the span of a couple moments, only seconds. Maybe he’d imagined it. Roman rubbed his elbow on reflex, even if it didn’t really hurt. He had never felt more powerless.

The best way he could think to explain it was energy redirection. However hard you hit Remus, he could hit back just as hard. He assumed. It’s not like they took a lot of time testing it out. As long as Remus could weather the hit, he would be fine. That was a lot cooler than his super strength, the only thing he got out of that was an advantage in football.

I wonder if Remus would be able to redirect energy from a moving car? he wondered to himself before banishing the thought from his mind. Remus would absolutely be up for being hit by a moving car for an experiment, and if he even heard about the idea he wouldn’t be able to get the idea out of his head. If he didn’t end up asking Roman to do it, he’d find someone else to hit him with a car. Roman wasn’t sure which of those options he felt more comfortable with. Probably neither.

Right now, they were both just having a lazy night in, gorging themselves on food while their parents were still paying to keep it stocked in the house and heckling at reruns on TV. It was peaceful and familiar, and Roman was glad for that. With so much changing so soon, he was a little nervous for what the future held.

Their mom brought their dinner out to the couch about halfway through wherever stupid TV show they’d put on for background noise, and after a profuse thanks from the twins, who hadn’t expected any other food to be provided, she retreated back to her study to work.

They dug into their calzones while they watched, the ceramic plates cold in their laps even with the steaming food atop them. College was stressful to think about, college was going to be expensive, and college was nowhere on their radar tonight, luckily.

The Princes had a rather nice house, upper class if you will. It was no mansion, but they had several floors and more than enough bedrooms for everyone. They were quite comfortable, and one of the features of their big house was their lovely doorbell, which had been rewired sometime when Roman and Remus were children to ring with a pleasant chime whenever anyone pressed the button. That being said, the sudden loud knocking at the door was a jolt to both of the twin’s systems, unexpected and louder than was strictly necessary.

Roman felt his grip on his fork tighten a little bit too much in his surprise and he looked down sheepishly. “I bent another one,” he told Remus.

His brother just rolled his eyes. “You’re a dork. Try to bend it back into shape while I go greet our guests.” He slid off of the couch and, with a shimmy, waltzed over to their intricate front door, opening it with a flourish.

Roman listened from the couch. His brother had an interesting way of greeting guests that tended to persuade them to leave quickly if they were unwanted, and his methods were fun to listen to. He just didn’t have a clue who would be knocking at- he checked the time- ten thirty at night.

He could hear Remus wolf whistle from the doorway, low and long. Roman frowned. He’d have to talk to Remus about doing that in the future, that was quite inappropriate. Then again, if he told him that, it might just make him do it more.

“Damn, where’d you fall from, angel?” Remus said, presumably addressing whoever had the misfortune to be on their doorstep.

The response was quiet, and Roman had to strain to hear it from the spot on the couch. “I have not fallen, in fact, I’m here on business. I’m looking for Roman and Remus Prince.”

“I sure hope you are, pretty boy.” Roman could almost feel Remus’ smirk, could almost envision his brother biting his lip in that way he did that made you feel weird making eye contact with him ever again. “Hey Ro,” he called over his shoulder. “Look who’s here to see us!”

Roman poked his head over top of the couch just as the boy at the door sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is definitely them. Just…” he waved his hand vaguely at the men behind him. “You know the drill.”

It took Roman about three seconds too long to understand exactly what he meant by that. One second Remus was standing there, grinning at him with his hands on his hips, the next his brother had been stabbed in the arm by the man closest to him, crumpling to the floor mere moments later. The man leaned down and picked him up like a sack of potatoes, beginning to walk out the door.

Panic rippled through Roman’s system as Remus left his field of view, and he threw himself at the blue eyed boy, unsure of quite what he was supposed to do but knowing that when he got there he’d figure out exactly what he was doing. He had to get Remus back.

Unsurprisingly, the boy dodged, stepping neatly out of Roman’s way and back a little further onto their porch. Thrown for a bit of a loop, Roman stumbled, twirling around to try and find the man that had grabbed Remus, single minded and focused on that and that alone, and-

-he felt a sharp prick in the side of his neck.

“You son of a bitch,” he whispered, feeling a haze settle over him, stumbling a bit further as his vision began to go dark.

Edit: Here’s the Ao3 link!

#sanders sides #logince #moxiety #sanders sides fanfiction #fanfiction #my fanfiction #logan sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #janus sanders #remus sanders

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heistmaster69 · 4 years ago

Text

pariet lilium

pariet lilium~by @heistmaster69

4th Year Draco Malfoy x OC fic.

~so uhh um I was maybe watching a video about dark academia while writing this and may have gotten a BIT carried away~

gif by @fairylightwishes all credit to them!

Frankie and Cher sat in the back of Potions class while Snape droned on about the effects of crushed versus shaved Bicorn Horn on the end result of a Pepperup potion.

“-now you see that’s exactly what I was talking about. Muggle movie stars are much more attractive than boys at Hogwarts-”

“Leonar-”

“-Dicaprio, yes.” She whispered.

“Frankie that man is gorgeous-”

‘So fine-”

Cher let out a sigh, while Frankie continued. “All the boys from Dead Poets Society-”

“So it’s decided then-”

“Yes. I’m saving my virginity until I’m of age and Leonardo Dicaprio can come and take it fro-”

“Miss. Reed.” Snape deadpanned. “If you and your friends would be so kind as to stop squealing about muggle boys in my class-I would appreciate it. That will be five points from Slytherin.”

Cher kicked Frankie under the table.

“My bad, professor.” She murmured, putting her palm under her chin and turning back to her notes.

Potions had to be her third favorite class, Frankie didn’t mind it at all, it’s just, she was a little distracted, recently. It seemed like her single-ness was beginning to get to her and she found herself daydreaming during class. She didn’t want to be as obsessed as she was, but Frankie couldn’t really help it. She wanted the movie-scene first kiss and the romance novel passion, as unattainable as it is, she craved it.

But the thing is-Frankie never let herself daydream about people she knew. In reality, none of the people she’s liked would ever like her back, and it just hurt her because she knew that no one would ever have feelings for Frankie as she did for them. Every time she let her walls down she got hurt.

A lot of the people Frankie has met have made sure she knows that she will never be as valuable, never as loved, as beautiful, as successful as others because she wasn’t as thin as others. Frankie loved herself. But her ‘friends’, her family? It seemed like they hated her for it...

Magic had always interested Frankie. Being a witch or wizard usually goes over the heads of purebloods, with the mere prospect of having the gift coming so naturally to all of them. Frankie’s isolated upbringing, rarely seeing her parents and being brought up by a strange yet kind tutor who instructed her in all sorts of topics, ranging from basic arithmetic to discovering Frankie’s magical abilities. Ms. Selwyn, around Frankie’s parents, and Kendra, during her tutoring sessions daily during childhood.

These memories with Kendra have a warm haze to them, and whenever Frankie reminisced, a smile would find its way onto her face. We would stand together in the garden, during the golden sunsets, and she would say;

“Magic is an incredible gift, it is beautiful and infinitely important. We hold the power of the universe in our hands.”

Young Frankie would stare wide-eyed, confused, and tug on the side of Kendra’s robe,

“Ms. Kendra, what’s the universe?” Frankie would ask.

“The universe is everything.”

“Everything? How much is that?”

Kendra would smile so gently and kneel down beside Frankie, grasping her small hands and gesturing towards the sky alive with color.

“More than we could ever know.”

Kendra knew the power purebloods held with the Ministry, after all, the Selwyns and the Reeds were a part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. The Ministry was still hypnotized by the status and the blood purity that these upper-class families held and overlooked the small laws broken by the elite, so Kendra and Frankie would practice small magic in their free time-in secret. The Reeds would never want their precious-little-delicate-perfect-pureblood baby daughter learning anything but the proper protocol for stuffy dinners with the Prewetts, the Malfoys, the Greengrasses, the Bulstrodes, the Parkinsons, the Notts, the Flints, or any other sort of perfect families that they could put in their larger-than-life estate.

Nevertheless, Kendra would take Frankie into the garden behind the mansion, near the rippling brook by a big oak tree. They would sit in the shade of the branches and Frankie would learn about everything her family didn’t want her to know. She learned about the inequality between purebloods, half-bloods, and muggleborns and as Kendra told her of the First Wizarding War, Frankie felt her heart shatter into a thousand pieces. How could someone think they were any better than another human being due to their blood? Their lineage? How they treat those supposedly ‘less than’? This realization caused a rift to form between Frankie and her parents-the entirety of what being Sacred 28 pureblooded perfection was.

She despised it.

Kendra warned her though, she spoke softly the words that shoved Frankie into a vault, locked her away, and threw away the key.

“I don’t know if this will ever change.”

Little Frankie blinked quickly, her wide eyes sore and puffy from tears. “Why?” She cried.

“They will never relinquish the privilege that this supremacy gives them.” Kendra let out a deep sigh and placed a tender hand on Frankie’s shoulder.

“I think you’re wrong, Miss Kendra.”

“I hope I am, Miss Frankie. I think you could make a difference.”

This upbringing of acceptance and wonder from Kendra instilled a unique view of magic in Frankie. She saw it as a privilege and took an interest in a side of magic that tended to be overlooked until necessary. Frankie liked to create spells and potions. Specifically, she had a fixation on wandless magic. It was crazy to her-she could create life from her hands. How so many of her friends and peers overlooked this, she understood but wished more people wouldn’t call people like her Loony Lovegood.

Anyways.

Frankie hid a tattered mahogany-colored, pleather-bound journal in her pillowcase. This journal rarely let the safety of her room, only transferring annually between her estate and Hogwarts. It was never shown to a soul, and it contained her life’s work in what could barely be considered spell-creation. Notes and random scribbles littered the pages, but if it were ever to be lost, Frankie would lose everything she’s done since she was six years, four months, and thirteen days old and Kendra told her about spell-creation. She thinks she would cry.

“Oi Francesca-” A voice called.

“-you’re not allowed to call me that, Blaise.” Frankie chuckled as he jogged up to her, stopping to lean against the wall with a smirk.

“I don’t care, you’re Francesca to me. Anyway, Potions, what happened in poti-” Blaise looked over his shoulder and shouted to Theo. “Oi Theodore, get your arse over here!” Blaise had a thing for using people’s full name-even if it’s not really their name, (ie Daphnessa/Pansleigh.) Frankie rolled her eyes as Theo strolled, shoulders taut, up to Blaise

“Frankie, what happened in Potions? You love potions, you’re always talking about how Potions is a really cool way to learn about how magic affects the world-”

“-Potions is a super cool way to learn about how magic affects the world-” Blaise interjected, wrapping an arm around Theo’s broad shoulders.

Theo turns to Blaise with a sarcastic stare at him. “Yeah, that.”

I want to have a stupid dumb kiss already. Which is stupid dumb and I don’t even care but I’m horny for love.

“Oh, yeah I-I didn’t sleep well last night.” Frankie choked out.

“It was kind of a relief, your constant enthusiasm about Snape’s class is alarming.” Theo snickered. Blaise snorted as he and Theo sauntered towards the Great Hall. Frankie let out a breath and followed soon after the two boys let for lunch to get to the common room.

Frankie’s boots tapped gently against the cold stone floor of the dungeons. Dust hung low in the air, illuminated by the amber glow of hanging torches that littered the walls. The dungeons are always shown as a dingy, disgusting place but Frankie found the common room comforting. She stilled in front of the entrance and spoke softly the password.

“Labebantur anguis.”

The wall dragged inwards with a low scraping sound, revealing her home. The estate is not a home, the estate is merely her stage, acting as the perfect daughter for an audience of haughty purebloods. This common room was perfect, smelling like pine and cotton and the perfect temperature. Green rugs and plush couches in front of a fireplace, tables and booths next to an espresso machine and a tea kettle. Arching windows and pillars showcasing the beauty under the Black Lake. This is home.

She stepped past the commons and walked up the winding stairs to the shared dormitories. Cher laid on Frankie’s bed with Daphne with parchment and quills set out on the emerald silk sheets.

“If you two spill ink on my bed one more time I’ll hex you in your sleep.” Frankie shrugged out of her robe and fell back onto Cher’s bed. The two girls giggled and returned to their subsequent conversations.

Cher was gorgeous. She radiated kindness and had an aura about her that made her seem impenetrable, yet she was humble. She had a crooked smile that never failed to bring one to Frankie’s face. Her eyes shone with emotion and were a deep brown that glimmered at all times. She was incredibly brilliant and the top of many of her classes. With the exception of Potions, Frankie held that spot proudly.

Everyone says that perfect Hermione Granger, the “brightest witch of her age”, is the top of every class, but ever since she had to use her time to deal with the two rambunctious children that are her friends, she holds strong at about fourth. Frankie had to admit, she had a burning jealousy of Granger. She managed to befriend Potter in her first year, as well as make friends with many of the teachers, ace her classes, and save the entire school three times by now. Not to mention, she was also very pretty. This envy flared its deep green color whenever Frankie so much as heard the name Granger.

“Earth to Reed?” Frankie snapped out of her covetous haze and met Daphne’s eyes. “Pansy’s bringing up lunch, get started on your essay, like, now.”

Frankie tipped her head in agreement and reached into her bag to pick out her Astronomy notes. “Five sheets of parchment? Is Professor Sinistra trying to kill us?”

“I think I might just use one sheet for every word: Sorry, I, Don’t, Want, To.” Cher counted on her fingers with a snort.

Daphne tugged at her bottom lip with her pinkie. “Maybe Frankie can use one of the spells from her secret journal to erase this essay from Sinistra’s mind.”

“That spell already exists, you toad.” Pansy swung the door open with several food items floating behind her, a slice of pumpkin bread levitating into Frankie’s waiting hands. “It’s called Obliviate, it has murderous side effects, and, next week it’s Reed’s turn to get the food.”

“Thank you Pans,” Cher cheered, mouth full of a danish pastry.

“Plus, the boys were bugging us to sit with them more often.” Pansy sat beside Frankie, parchment in hand. Daphne rolled her eyes.

“It’s one day a week, they’ll get over it eventually.”

“The students at Uagadou are so lucky. They have a good Astronomy program and they live in a cloud.”

Cher scoffed. “They don’t live in a cloud, Pans, They live in a castle-that’s on a cloud. It’s very particular.”

“I want to live in a castle.”

“You idiot, you do.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you bloody mean?”

“Nothi-whatever-what are we doing for Hogsmeade tomorrow?”

Draco. Bloody. Malfoy.

He walks around the school all high and mighty, like he owns the place, yet he acts like a right prat to many of its inhabitants. It’s like the boy was born with a stick up his arse. Yet, Frankie knew how he was raised, not that it’s an excuse. He doesn’t want to be the way he is, but he’s not some broken boy for her to fix.

She’s had many conversations in the common room with Malfoy after nights of nightmares. She’s shared hugs that linger a second too long and strange glances during lectures. His stone grey eyes held an emotion behind them that she couldn’t understand. It made her uncomfortable, the strange buzz on her skin where his hand met. The fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach when they got too close. She didn’t like it. It made her feel like a creep.

She sees the way he looks at Cher. Frankie doesn’t compare to a golden, legs-for-days goddess with a waist the same circumference as Frankie’s thigh. Besides, a Malfoy should be with someone the same physical caliber as him. Frankie’s mother prayed to the ghost of Merlin that Frankie would blossom into a beautiful flower, but as her mother continuously reminded her,

“You are a disgrace. Nothing but a weed in a garden of perfection.”

It’s not hard to believe. Many pureblood parents held a disdain for their children in private. Frankie was lucky to have someone like Kendra. Other teenagers didn’t have anyone. Frankie was lucky, not special. A mere weed, removable by a weak pull. A thorn on an otherwise perfect rose, fit to be plucked, ignored by onlookers.

Draco Malfoy was never written in the stars for someone like Frankie.

Not that she liked him or anything. He was, as stated before, a right prat. A good looking one, but a prat nonetheless. They didn’t talk much, at all, instead seeking solace in the late hours of the night, a deep bond hidden from their friends. How could two people who were supposedly so perfect, be so broken?

pariet lilium.

chapter two

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 5 years ago

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Alright who’s worse: Lockhart, or Dumbledore? 😂

Oh dear god how do I choose 🤣

Lockhart doesn't have the "his intentions were good" argument that Dumbledore can hide behind. His motivations are entirely selfish. He steals away achievements from people who are less "marketable" which is hard not to see as an allegory for minorities, and his use of memory charms just sickens me. I explore this in my fic but I feel that memory charms are morally reprehensible and the Potterverse just doesn't really take them seriously. Then there are the implications that come with Lockhart using memory charms on teenagers...when many are stated to fancy him...🤭😨

But Dumbledore....

-Deep inhale- Oh Dumbledore.

It's downright scary how blindly loyal everyone in the wizarding world is toward Dumbledore. The only people who question him are the Death Eaters, and that's only because of his politics. But Dumbledore is so beloved that people have wanted him to take over as Minister for years, despite him not being at all qualified...and that's creepy. If the past few years have taught us anything, it's that we should leave politics and public service to the Professionals. Still, even if he never became Minister, he might as well have. He's the de facto leader of the Wizarding World.

Don't even get me started on Harry.

How Dumbledore groomed him from literal infancy to be the Chosen One. Took it upon himself to decide where Harry should grow up, even though he isn't family or a legal guardian. (Say, whatever happened to the Potters' Will, Dumbledore? 🧐) And he chooses to leave Harry with muggles who will abuse him. Supposedly it was because of the blood wards, but they didn't exactly stop the Dementors, did they? No, I think he wanted Harry to be "rescued" by the Wizarding world so that he wouldn't take it for granted. So that he would want to save it. Notice how he very firmly insisted that Harry should not know he was famous growing up. It's the same reason he refused to tell Harry about the prophecy until he was "old enough" to know.

Dumbledore was also planning Harry's death for a very long time. At least as long as he was aware Harry was a Horcrux. And despite that, he had the nerve to say things like "Can't you see the flaw in my plan? I cared too much about you?" No he didn't. He needed Harry to believe that he did to build Harry's loyalty. It's the same reason that he blatantly stole a House Cup victory from Slytherin, to win Harry's trust and loyalty. In doing so, he also rewarded Harry for breaking rules and putting his own life on the line. Dumbledore provided positive reinforcement for that kind of behavior time and again, while pretending that he didn't want Harry to suffer the trials he had. Don't forget the time he decided not to veto Harry being in the Triwizard Tournament, just to see how it would play out! (Technically, that scene is only in the film, but we never get a reason in the book, and it's totally in character for him.) All the while, Dumbledore enables Snape at every turn. Defends a vindictive child abuser to his last breath, while also hanging Sirius out to dry. He perpetuates the idea that Harry and Snape's rivalry is two-sided. That Harry's bias against Snape is his own fault. He quietly guilts Harry for hating the man that regularly insults his dead father.

I could go on about Harry, but this is Hogwarts Mystery focused blog, so let's discuss MC.

Let's talk about Dumbledore being absent for long stretches of time when the school is actively in danger. Let's talk about how he was the one who brought Rakepick into the school, and obviously sanctioned her efforts to train "apprentices" against the Vaults. How he consistently gave MC one hundred house points at the end of each school year. Once again stuffing the ballot, once again rewarding a student for rule-breaking and dangerous behavior. Encouraging them to continue it. Then at the end of fourth year, he abruptly changes his tune. Gives MC a year-long detention for doing what he previously gave them hundreds of points for. Gave them a Prefect Badge for. Note that only MC gets these detentions. Charlie and whoever you bring with you? They don't get punished, only MC. Then he sanctions Rakepick's apprentice team the very next year! Let's talk about how Dumbledore demanded that MC promise not to get involved with the Dementor attacks, even though R was already making it clear that they were intentionally involving MC. Oh and apparently learning a spell to defend yourself from the Dementors counts as breaking that promise. Let's talk about all the secrets about Jacob that Dumbledore knew and kept from MC, the least of which being the legilimency thing. How Dumbledore had previous experience with Snape teaching MC about this topic and should have known better than to put Harry through that.

I could go on. I could. Seriously, I have more to say. But I already spiraled out of control. 😂 I think you have your answer, though.

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rhysand-vs-fenrys · 5 years ago

Text

My Fanfic Library: The Masterlist (As of 03/26/20)

**For the sake of space, only Chapter 1 of long-form fics is linked.**

The Shadows of Night (Ongoing)

A mysterious army appears in the mountains of Night and soon declares war against the High Lords. The conflict will shed light on Night's darkest secrets and reveal the horrible truth behind every Daemati and Shadowsinger in Prythian.

Tumblr: ~1~ || ~2~ || ~3~ || ~4~ || ~5~ || ~6~ || ~7~ || ~8~ || ~9~ || ~10~ || ~11~ || ~12~ || ~13~ || ~14~ || ~15~ || ~16~ || ~17~ || ~18~ || ~19~ || ~20~ || ~21~ || ~22~ || ~23~ || ~24~ || ~25~ || ~26~ || ~27~ || ~28~ || ~29~ || ~30~ || ~31~ || ~32~ || ~33~ || ~34~ ||

AO3 || Fanfiction.net

The Cabin By The Lake

Cassian has been keeping a secret- for the past 300 years he has been building cabins around a lake to house the Inner Circle and any family they might have. Five years after the end of ACOWAR, the cabins are finished and the Inner Circle descends for two weeks in paradise.

**Even-number chapters contain smut scenes.

Chapter 1 || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Velaris

“Protect Velaris. Protect each other. I love you all.” With Rhys’ final words, the shields around Velaris rise, trapping the Inner Circle inside for fifty years. This series follows Mor, Cassian, Azriel, and Amren as they struggle to adapt and fulfill Rhys’ final request.

Chapter 1 || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Velaris: Fury and Ruin

Following a disastrous attack on Hybern, Cassian’s wings are broken, Azriel is critically wounded, and Feyre is dragged to Spring by Tamlin. Rhysand must now earn the forgiveness of his friends, protect his new sisters-in-law, and find a way to protect Prythian from a looming war- all without his mate and best friend by his side.

**You do not need to read my previous series "Velaris"

Chapter 1 || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

The Feast of Souls

Everyone gathers at the estate in Velaris for the Feast of Souls- and to quietly investigate Feyre’s erratic behavior and strange temperament. Figuring out what is wrong with her is the easy part though- the hard part will be saving her soul before the clock strikes midnight and she is lost forever.

Chapter 1 || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

An Elucien Epilogue

Lucien returns to Velaris after the events of ACOWAR, determined to be a better male than Tamlin and put aside his mating bond if that’s what Elain wants.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Bring Her Home

After forty-nine years in hell, Rhysand has returned to Night. A piece of him will always belong to that human who saved Prythian- the fae female now poised to marry his sworn enemy. As the sun sets on that horrible day a plea goes out across the Courts- “please, save me. Get me out. End this,” and Rhysand is only too happy to oblige.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

The Poison in the Wound

Feyre and Tamlin meet to try and finally clear away some of the bad blood between them.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Strength in Darkness

After she is woken by a particularly horrible nightmare, Elain asks her husband to take her to the only place that might help her make sense of everything that has happened to her: Under the Mountain.

Elucien Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Elriel Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

What Rises from the Ashes

Tamlin confesses that he and Amarantha were incompatible mates- and the role that played in his downfall.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net || (New) Authorized German Translation

When the Darkness Comes

Lucien recalls the day Amarantha took his eye- and the difficult weeks that followed.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

The World Beyond My Cage

Azriel recalls his childhood, how he ended up in an Illyrian camp far from his cell, and how his world was changed by an arrogant little Lordling with a chamber pot.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

A Peaceful Night (18+)

The holidays are a time for too many parties, too many people, and too much noise. After the festivities are over though, one can take solace in the love of their other half and the light that person brings into their life.

Feysand Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Nessian Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Elucien Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Elriel Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Azuala Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Amrian Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Morridwen Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

A Sweet Treat (Feysand 18+)

On Feyre’s first Feast of Souls in Velaris, she finds a new way to give Rhys his holiday chocolates.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

A Midday Treat (Feysand 18+)

Rhys has been skipping meals again, so Feyre decides to give him an incentive to eat his lunch.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Alone in the Townhouse (Nessian 18+)

When the Court of Nightmares visits Velaris, Nesta and Cassian plot to take advantage of their time alone and finally take things to the next level.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Nessian: The Mating (Nessian 18+)

At long last, Cassian and Nesta's wedding (and mating) day has arrived... along with most of Prythian.

*This is a sequel to "Alone in the Townhouse"*

Extended Re-Post Chapter 1 || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Short Version || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Simply Love (Morridwen 18+)

In a thinly veiled attempt to seduce Cerridwen, Mor takes her lover of three years to day for a date before spending an evening at home. A simple, sweet fic for a simple and sweet love.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Slowly (Nessian 18+)

Cassian returns from a fierce Illyrian civil war weary and on edge. Nesta wants to welcome her lover home after weeks away, but she knows the lust that comes on the heels of bloodshed has been building in Cassian the entire time he’s been gone. Both desperately want to be with one another, but for Nesta’s sake he must shove down the Illyrian and proceed slowly.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

A Bargain Well Struck (Nessian 18+)

Their deal is simple enough- if Nesta trains hard enough, she can claim a massage as her reward. Cassian’s hands never venture beneath the modesty-towels, so Nesta makes sure all the right places are exposed.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Sharing Heaven (Nessian & Azriel 18+)

Nesta and Cassian invite Azriel to join them in bed, and Nesta finally gets what she’s been dreaming of all year.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Alone in the Garden (Elucien 18+)

As the Inner Circle tricks Nesta and Cassian into spending some alone time together, Elain and Lucien find themselves unchaperoned at the House of Wind. **Contains ACOWAR Spoilers** (This is a quasi-sequel to "An Elucien Epilogue" and runs concurrently to "Alone in the Townhouse")

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Cazriel: The Spongebath (Cazriel 18+)

In this AU of my fic "Velaris: Fury and Ruin", Cassian and Azriel explore previously untouched desires each male feels for their friend (written for Court-0f-Dreamers on tumblr in 15 min after too much alcohol).

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net: NOT AVAILABLE

The Torturer’s Throne (Cazriel 18+)

Cassian helps Azriel push his darkness aside and takes a bit of relief for himself in the process.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Until the Shadows Are Silent (Cazriel 18+)

For eight years the shields around Velaris have kept the Inner Circle trapped. Azriel is drowning under the wrath, rage, and pain of being caged in the city, so he turns to an old lover, one who is very good at bending fae over and not stopping until their minds and bodies are ravaged– Cassian.

*Contains strong BDSM themes, DM if you are concerned about a specific TW*

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanficiton.net

One Year in Heaven (Elucien/Elriel 18+)

Elain and her husband celebrate their first anniversary in style. A romantic dinner, an exchange of gifts, and a new suite of bedroom toys to try out.

Elucien Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Elriel Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Watching (Elucien 18+)

Elain and Lucien head into the foothills of Velaris to attend the opera, but their true destination is an exclusive club hidden deep beneath the theater. They’ll still get a hell of a show- and have a chance to put on one themselves.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.Net

Sharing (A Watching Sequel) (Elucien 18+)

For years Elain and Lucien have been loyal members of (and performers in) the sensual club hidden beneath Velaris’ opera house. Now- after months of discussion- they have decided to test the waters on expanding their display and changing their masks. No audience, no stage- and no longer just the two of them.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.Net

Incense Burner (Ongoing (Elucien 18+))

After a collapse in the Hewn City reveals a long lost Vault of the High Lords, Lucien and Elain accidentally come to possess one of the Lord’s treasures. What appears to be a simple incense burner turns out to be something far, far more. As Elain and Lucien fall under its spell time and again they will be drawn into a world they could only imagine in their wildest dreams…

Chapter 1 || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Chapter 2 || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

A Peaceful Night (18+)

Manorian Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Chaorene Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Elorcan Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Rowaelin Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Nesraq Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

Lysaedion Edition || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

The Calm After the Storm (Rowaelin 18+)

Erawan and Maeve have been defeated, the armies of Morath are vanquished, and Aelin rightly sits on the throne of Terrasen with Rowan by her side- and Lord Darrow as a constant pain in her ass. Frustrated and in need of a break, Aelin orders Rowan to do his job and consort with his Queen.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

To Spite the Shadow (Rowaelin 18+)

Nearly a year has passed since Aelin and Rowan destroyed the forces of Maeve and Erawan. Terrasen is rebuilding, Aelin is healing, and the world is finally at peace. Rowan conspires with Lysandra to give his mate a rest from her Queenly duties.

Tumblr || AO3 || Fanfiction.net

For You (Lysaedion 18+)

Lysandra and Aedion enjoy a peace and freedom they never knew before Erawan and Maeve’s defeat. Still- something isn’t quite right. Aedion is keeping one of his desires secret, and Lysandra is determined to figure out what it is.

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A Familiar Stranger (Lysaedion 18+)

Tanned bronze skin, piercing violet eyes, night black hair- after a nightmare week in Orynth, Aedion goes for a drink and catches the eye of a beautiful- and familiar- fae male. When the male leaves, Aedion follows him to a dark, secluded alley where they can both blow off some steam.

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The Path Ahead (Elorcan 18+)

For Elide, it is the end of her virginity. For Lorcan, it’s the last ‘first time’ he ever wants to have. Both are nervous about the evening to come, but neither would change it for the world.

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A Cure for Nightmares (Manorian 18+)

Mere weeks after the events of “Empire of Storms”, Manon and the Thirteen conspire to give Dorian the break he so desperately needs.

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Curing the Fever (Manorian 18+)

Manon is forced to leave a meeting early due to a suspected illness. Luckily for her and Dorian, none of the Thirteen guessed exactly what was wrong.

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One Year in Heaven (Manorian 18+)

Dorian and Manon celebrate the anniversary of their meeting in style- with ropes, chains, and a bit of domination.

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Morning in the Jingshi

A new merchant has moved into Caiyi Town, one who deals in sinful wares. Wuxian places an order and decides to model a whole suite of new toys for Wangji. Wei Wuxian has always liked it rough, but he may have been too ambitious this time.

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Project: Echo (Part 1)

A long-buried Hydra disaster, a monster in the shadows, a missing child. Eight months after the events of “The Winter Soldier”, Bucky turns himself in to the Avengers on one condition: They must help him find a girl snatched off the streets by Hydra seven years ago. In their quest, the Avengers accidentally unleash a horrifying creature of darkness and shadow, intent on making their quarry its prey.

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Project: Echo (Part 2)

A new enemy surfaces with a team of the Avengers’ greatest foes, hand-picked for their destruction. Meanwhile, Inessa’s pre-Hydra past begins to surface, casting doubt on where her loyalties truly lie.

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Project: Echo (FINALE)

Seven years after the events of “Part 2”, Avengers Tower explodes, fulfilling Bucky’s vision. All evidence points to Avengers Shadow-Ops leader Inessa Ryker, who is forced to seek out Bucky in hiding. Together they must determine who the traitor is in their ranks and if their friends are still alive- all while trying to survive deadly ambushes orchestrated by Sam Wilson and his hand-picked army.

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Avengers: Valkyrie Wars (Part 1)

When a young woman stumbles across a Valkyrie artifact the Avengers will fight Asgard, Valkyrie, Loki, Hydra, and the last of a monstrous race known as the Norn. Whoever claims the weapon can unleash Hell, but when it vanishes Loki takes the only person capable of finding it again: Steve Roger's lover.

**All cannon through "Winter Soldier" used, NO "Age of Ultron" or "Civil War"**

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To Save Her Soul (Ongoing)

After the events of "Captain America: Civil War", Alice Pierce (the granddaughter of Alexander Pierce), a drug addict, is pulled off the streets and forced through detox by the Avengers so that she might help infiltrate her grandfather's compound to rescue Clint's wife and children.

**Trigger warnings noted above chapters, overall warning for drug use/withdrawal**

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The Ridiculous Ground-Up World Building Sheet

Shorter: World Building 101

World Building 102: World Building Tips

The Ridiculous Ground-Up Character Building Sheet

General Writing Tips

Master Plot Types

Things to Ask Yourself

Dialogue

How to Write Smut

Tough-Love Tips for Writers

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flyswhumpcenter · 5 years ago

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Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me requests according to this marvelous card! (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled. Green deltas are for requested prompts.)

Choo choo, the Sickfic Express has just arrived in Galar, straight from Oreburgh City!

First fic of 2020 is a sickfic oneshot. How rivetting. I've very recently beaten Pokémon Sword and loved it! I found myself really loving the characters, what they are and what they've already become in my mind, so I couldn't help myself but type what I know best... A sickfic. Also, this fandom needs more of this stuff, so here. I'm providing. Is this story OOC? Chances they are. Was it absolutely a blast to write? You bet. I'm probably gonna look back on it later down the lane and be uncomfortable with how I depicted the characters; but you do need to discover the characters first, and what better opportunity for that than a little sickfic with some angst and pre-rel dramatic tension? Anyway, I hope you'll like this lil' thing I busted out in literally a couple hours. I forgot how fun it was to write without worrying yourself over continuity or already established elements like in Earth Never Stops... Btw, this fic was originally requested to me as a FE3H fill for Hubert, so I decided I'd most likely use another square on my card for him. Sorry Nonnie for this, my inspiration got the best of me yet again!

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Candles in the Rain

Summary: Is feverishly staggering through the damp streets of Hammerlocke under the rain with very little hope to feel warmth again and even less sense of direction a fitting end for a former Champion now that he's been defeated once? Scratch that: he doesn't have the time or brain power remaining to process such a question. Or: Leon witnesses a miracle in the form of a little dog and a childhood friend.

Fandom: Pokémon Sword and Shield (post-canon/game: beware for spoilers) Relationships: Pre-relationship Leon/Sonia

Wordcount: 3.1K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo

AO3 version available here.

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The streets of Hammerlocke are covered by a thick layer of rainwater, typical early winter in Galar. Nobody dares going against the terrible weather, which isn’t unlike the flooding that almost ate Kabu’s region of origin, or rather how he once described it based on bedtime stories, a couple thousand years ago. Honestly, after what Galar just went through, he can believe the tale to have been real all along, no issue there…

As always, he’s lost in the grand city of his main rival, and that frustrates him. He’s cold from the water having filled his shoes and wet his hair for hours and hours on end, not even the fire of the camp being able to make him feel warmer. If it wasn’t for his partners’ demands, urging him to stop camping in the wilderness and find a Centre already, he’d have surely stayed in the Wild Area and biked to a better spot. Ah, he misses Postwick, now. At least, he can’t get lost in Postwick, there’d be Hop and his now-Champion best friend, if not Sonia paying them all a visit, and there’d be the warmth of his childhood home… Gods, perhaps he does miss the peaceful life of a ten-year-old whose only contact to the Gym Challenge is dreams of grandeur.

Ah, if it didn’t rain so badly, Charizard could be warming the both of them as he tried to make his way to the nearest Centre.

Despite his best efforts to remain proud and confident, he ends up having to lean against a wall to stop a coughing fit from suddenly urging itself out of there. He must look pathetic and he does wish, deep down, that someone would get out of their house for a reason or another, recognize him like literally everybody in Galar; but his pride and brand would be on the line, and nobody is fighting against the terrible, terrible weather today. He’s all alone in the streets of the city, pushing himself from the wall with wobbly arms, trying his hardest to remember where to go with slow, hazy thoughts…

Even if he was cold merely moments before, his head now burns. He feels too hot under clothes that are wildly unfitting of such a muddy season, despite the hair rising on what is exposed of his arms. A Cramorant stole his jacket when he was training, a Linoone tried to steal his stuff, and he ended up having a Pokemon knocked out and losing most of his healing items in the kerfuffle. It really hasn’t been his day, lately…

His chest hurts. Not from the outside, as if he had injured himself in one of the falls he endured trying to feel from the Wild Area with no Pokemon to battle with and the slippery grass constantly trying to get the best of him, but from the inside. He doesn’t doubt the possible existence of bruises under the shirt that sticks to his limbs like a second, drenched skin; but this isn’t it. It intensifies when he coughs and it rattles strangely. When he tries to ignore the excruciating weather wishing for his demise, he hears the strange sounds his breathing now makes. He doesn’t know them so, in a moment of out-of-character lack of reason, he gets scared of them and vaguely wonders about worst-case scenarios.

It isn’t just his chest either. It’s his throat, it’s his mouth, it’s his feet, it’s his legs. Everything in his body is tired and screaming for rest, but he cannot provide it for any of his own self at the moment, stuck trying to navigate with what little he can distinguish with almost-closed eyes from how much he has to squint. His eyes can’t focus anymore, this much he realizes with a bitter sense of resignation, so everything he sees is blurry, including the weird gooey stuff he keeps coughing out whenever he can’t breathe anymore and has to stop for who knows how long.

He trips over his own unmade shoe tie, losing in one fell swoop what was left of his balance, and falls right into the rainwater that has accumulated on the ground. It sounds and looks and feels like it’s the end, that this is where his journey ends: in some damp street of a city that he has never been able to find his way in, alone, cold and hot at the same time, rain burying him with the rest of the pavement. Not that he even thinks he has the energy to go on… Not like that. Not when his strength, the only thing he thought he had left, has all but given up on him too. Truly alone in a time where, sitting against a giant wall, he realizes what has been going on and poisoning his breath. Hah, ironic.

Still, this isn’t how he should admit defeat. He’s been won over now, and recently at that, and it’d be more than a shame for him to all but give up now. He needs to bring his team to the Centre, he can’t not try taking his revenge on the new Champion, he can’t not at least prove his superior battle skills to Raihan yet again, he just can’t leave Hop, and Sonia, and everyone else like that…

So he rises up once again, on weak arms and unsteady legs, almost tripping over himself, shoulder stuck against the wall. He won’t let this be the end of him.

Even with a new resolve, it still doesn’t make it much better for him. Unless there’s a miracle happening right before him, he’s stuck with his heavily weakened state trying to find a place whose location he has no idea. His phone doesn’t seem to be able to show a map, its signal disturbed after whatever happened to it while he was looking or doing the polar opposite, so he’s stuck with his truly inefficient sense of orientation.

But it’ll be okay. It’ll have to be okay, because he needs to see Hop become a Professor, to buy Sonia’s new book, to rematch the Champion and his Leader friends, to give his team at least one more chance to shine. It’ll be okay, surely it’ll be okay, of course it’ll be okay… It’ll be okay, because this is all a terrible nightmare he’s going to wake up from, where he isn’t stuck in the torrential rain with a fainted party and very little hope of finding way out.

It’ll be okay, oh so okay…

He tumbles and falls over again, this time hitting the ground with no grace whatsoever, most likely scratching elbows and knees in the process. Even rising his head up as not to cough in water when a fit claws at his throat again takes most of the energy he has left, only for his blurry sight and cottoned-down hearing to spot the first good thing in who knows many hours: a familiar yelp and vague brown-and-yellow figure rushing towards him.

With a trembling and feeble hand, he tries reaching out to the Yamper who has guided him so many times out of dangerous situations, only for an oh so familiar voice to yell in his direction. Still, it’s hard to know if it’s real or just his imagination. Ah, well; he’ll have to see when he’ll have woken up. If he even wakes up from the darkness starting to invade his vision…

“Yamper, where in the world are you running like that?!” This creature never stops running, doesn’t it? “Yamper, wait for me!”

If she’s used to her trusty furry assistant running around everywhere it goes and pursuing it, Sonia has to notice there’s something odd in the air. Yamper never goes this fast, especially not in a city where it could smash muzzle first into people. There’s an urgent feeling to its yelps as it runs in one precise direction.

As suddenly as Yamper started running when she had just gone out of the vault to investigate a little bit more into the Galar mythos she had become a specialist of, it stops right in its tracks in a little street she’s frankly never seen nor noticed before. With how much it’s raining and how unlikely it is to stop pouring soon, she doesn’t want the both of them out for much longer than needed.

She stops to regain her breath, hands on her knees as she folds in two, wet red hair hanging from her head. Yamper stays in place, running around her in circles, then disappearing from her view into the old, little street covered in rain and shadows. It doesn’t seem to have any intent on leaving soon.

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“Why did you… bring me here…? Seriously, it’s raining Growlithes and Purrloins…!”

Still, Sonia gets herself together and goes on to follow her “assistant”. There’s dread building in her chest and stomach that she can hardly ignore… She’s seen enough movies as a teenager to know where this is going. She’s going to end up tangled into some messed-up situation, isn’t she…?

Her heart skips a beat when she notices a very familiar person lying face down on the pavement, drenched to the bone. A person who hasn’t given her any response or sign of life for a few days.

Someone who’s gotten lost in Hammerlocke again.

-------

When he wakes up, everything feels different than the last time he’s been awake. It’s all white, dry and soft. He stills feels too hot and too cold, breathing remains a chore and he wishes he wasn’t there anyway; but he supposes he’s now safe and, honestly, he can’t think of anything much worse than treading through the torrential rain with little strength left.

Now, if he knew what the thing on his face was, he’d be doing a bit better, but his arms feel like they’re made out of lead and he lacks the energy to rise them to his mouth and at least touch it…

“Leon?”

The voice, even if it’s muffled, is undoubtedly Sonia’s. He can’t quite put a finger on why exactly, yet he feels like this confirms something. If his chest didn’t feel so heavy and full, he’d have sighed in relief. That doesn’t prevent him from coughing again when trying to respond to his own name.

“Let me do the talking, okay? I’m sure you have a metric ton of questions to ask, but for the love of Galar, spare your voice unless necessary.”

Now that his vision is focusing again, he notices both the pipe inserted in his wrist and the frown on her face. She seems less than content with something. What, he doesn’t quite know, and thinking hurts his head even further than it already bothers him, heavy on his neck despite resting on a pillow. Speaking of which, where is his stuff? His clothes?

“Hey, hey, hey,” Sonia rises from her chair and puts her hands on his chest, putting him back into his mattress. “You stay here and don’t cause anyone any worry more than you’ve already done!”

He’s confused as to why she’s so adamant on him not doing anything. No speaking, no moving… If he didn’t feel this drained and lethargic, he’d absolutely get back at her with playfulness. Well, that does kind of answer his own question, doesn’t it? Or, at least, it seems to make sense to his brain which has troubles keeping up with the situation…

Yet, he sees a small smirk contrast with her frowned eyebrows. She seems… pained. Pained by what, or who, he doesn’t know; he’s most likely at least partially responsible for it, because she wouldn’t be there otherwise.

“I don’t know how you’ve ended up in that situation exactly, Leon, but you’ve managed to surpass yourself in terms of putting yourself in harm’s way. You’ve scared us before, but not to that extent!”

“I…” His voice sounds hoarse and it absolutely feels that way. “It’s complicated…”

“Your entire party was fainted, safe for Charizard who was about to follow; you somehow bricked your phone in the process and ended up catching more than a death of cold. Where were you during all that time?!”

Sonia sounds a bit too scared for someone who’s facing her childhood friend stuck in a bed.

“The Wild Area…”

“That’d explain why you were soaked to the bone when I found you lying in a puddle… You’ll have to excuse me for using that crude language, you scared everyone on that one!”

It’s his turn to ask a little question, even if the state of his body makes him want to remain quiet. Still, no matter how intelligent she is, Sonia doesn’t read minds, so he’s somewhat forced to go through with it if he wants his answers.

“Where are we?”

“A clinic in Hammerlocke. I forgot to add you also scared the ER staff with how bad your breathing was.” Has to be that irritating wheezing sound he’s hearing since he’s woken up. “By the way, since I know you’re going to ask me about that, your team is safe and doing much better now. They’re all gently resting in their balls while you recover.”

He misses Charizard and everyone else already. He owes them a big apology, that’s for sure, but he’s also certain his brain can’t process much right now. Sometimes, you just need to admit yourself to have been defeated… even if it bothers you to no end.

Sonia paces around for a little bit before sitting down on the chair next to the bed, arms still crossed. She sounds more than frustrated, and, well… He can’t really hold it against her, can he? He already can barely hold anything against her to begin with, considering how much they’ve lived through together; it’s not today, in these circumstances, that he’ll try finding a reason for her not to be frustrated. Who knows how long he’s been gone without giving news: he frankly, forgot how quickly or slowly time was passing while he was wandering through the Wild Area.

“At least, you’re still here and breathing with us. Just, if you could not do that ever again, it’d be better, you know? I can’t always be there worrying after you when I’m now a Prof! Arceus, I don’t even imagine what sequence of events has thrown you into such a state. You looked absolutely pitiful when Yamper found you.”

He tries to puff at himself to ease the tension he feels rising, but all he ends up doing is coughing. And coughing. And coughing.

“What did I say about sparing your voice? Tch, you’ll never change, will you? You’ve always stubborn, after all, so there’s no reason that’ll change now. That’s part of your charm, I suppose.” She shrugs before suddenly darting her eyes away from him. “But you’re right, I shouldn’t have to worry! You were the Champion of Galar for more than ten years, why would I be afraid of you? That makes very little sense, haha!”

“S-Sonia…”

He only now spots the dark rings under her eyes and the hair pulling out of her ponytail, one strand at a time. How long was he out for, and for how much of that time was she there, exactly? (Hey, he does work fairly well, for someone who can’t stop sweating and whose entire frame is shaken up by chills at irregular intervals!). Too many questions, too little available brain space, he guesses…

“Go for it, make fun of your good old friend who still hasn’t gotten the memo. I should have been like Hop and blindly believed you’d come back to us, as you’ve always done…”

Oh, right, Hop! How is he doing, has he advanced in his research, does he still worry for him? Well, sadly, it’s not the time to think about his brother: his childhood friend seems to have a meltdown right in front of him.

“Why?”

Sonia stares at him, completely silent, eyes wide. Seems like she doesn’t have an answer to her own interrogation, until pain comes back on her face like the wave crashing on the shore.

“You don’t… think it’s ridiculous?”

“What?” His throat doesn’t take kindly to his attempts at having a conversation.

“Everything! We swore we’d trust each other, but look at me, worrying over you as if we were still kids running in the fields with the Wooloos… And I’m telling you all that while you’re cooking on the inside! Really, isn’t that ridiculous?”

Gathering his breath and his strength, he rises up with shaky arms against the bedhead, pillow still preventing his head from entirely lulling over his shoulder from how heavy it is. Whatever he’s caught, it’s one hell of an affliction he’s found himself with. Still, if it’s for Sonia, if she’s this distraught over the situation (he did almost pass away), he can put up with the migraine, the difficult breathing, the mask over his mouth, the lethargy, the chills…

“I’m sorry, Sonia.”

He does cough immediately after apologizing, as expected. For once, she doesn’t reply immediately, doesn’t make a witty remark; instead, she looks confused and maybe embarrassed, considering the red he can see with the eyes that still refuse to entirely focus for more than a few seconds.

“Sorry for what? And, again, spare your voice, you…”

“For all of this.”

Her expression softens, eyebrows drooping and eyes shining brighter. Even if it’s slight and his eyes almost miss it, she finally smiles.

“How long…?” He’s interrupted by a fit.

“How long you’ve been out?” He nods, still trying to calm his chest down. “Around half a day. You did wake up at some point but immediately passed out again. No wonder why you don’t remember that.”

He now points at her with an unsteady finger. “Why are you… Oh, how long I’ve been here?” He nods again. “Most of that time, I’d say. I’d also say I fell asleep at some point too…”

She crosses her arms again, just as his vision starts weakening again. It’s back to sleep, right?

“I think we both need our rest. I’m also certain Hop is waiting at the door, so you’ll even have a guardian angel watching over you, isn’t that super cool? And if you attempt rising from that bed, you’re sure to be put back into it in mere seconds!”

He’d try laughing if it didn’t trigger such a massive reaction from his lungs, so he decides to just nod instead.

“See you later, Leon. Goodnight.”

He waves at her, the lethargy still reflecting in his slow and sloppy gestures, but that’s fine enough for now. Her smile is worth it, isn’t it?

Absolutely worth trekking through the rain with full lungs and little energy left…

#pokemon #pokemon sword and shield #pokemon leon #pokemon sonia #lionheartshipping #sickfic #hurt comfort #pre-relationship #pneumonia #bad things happen bingo #bthb 2 #leon (pokemon)#sonia (pokemon)#otp: watchful eyes of gold

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what-is-your-plan-today · 5 years ago

Text

Stark Spangled Banner One Shot: Driving Home For Christmas

This is a one shot nonsense song-fic/ drabble to be read alongside my Stark Spangled Banner Series and is inspired by a little drabble from @valkyriesryde which she posted Saturday Night.

Timeline wise this takes place the Christmas after Katie Stark and Steve’s wedding...but it can also be standalone

Song is Chris Rea- Driving Home For Christmas

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist

Warnings: Bad language, Hanger, and SMUT towards the end (NSFW) NO UNDER 18s.

Driving home for Christmas Oh, I can't wait to see those faces I'm driving home for Christmas, yea Well I'm moving down that line And it's been so long But I will be there I sing this song To pass the time away Driving in my car Driving home for Christmas

"This is your fault" Katie sighed, looking out of the window with a frown.

"What?" Steve's head snapped to the side to look at his wife, who was lounging in the passenger seat with her feet on the dash "this is Tony's car so how on Earth am I responsible for it breaking down?"

"I wanted to fly but oh no the Star Spangled Man with a Plan had a better idea..." she said sarcastically "let's drive and on the way home I'm gonna detour off the damned Parkway into the middle of butt- fuck nowhere so pray, do tell what is your plan to get us out of this?"

Steve snorted a laugh, he could help it. For a split second he was sent right back to the 40s and a conversation he had with Colonel Philips before he headed off to bust Buck and the men who would become the Howlies from a Hydra Camp.

“Oh if it isn’t the Star Spangled Man with a Plan, what is your plan today…”

"Oh I'm sorry, am I amusing you?" Katie looked at him, the smile on his face evident.

“In a word, yes.” he looked at her.

"Jerk" she glowered "FRIDAY, update please?!"

"Mr Stark is still running a diagnostic..." The AI replied and Katie groaned.

Her brother's technology was great, except in circumstances like this. Plenty of people had stopped to help them on their way but there was nothing they could do as the car ran off a combination of a smaller arc reactor and a ludicrously complicated computer system. When Steve had suggested they drive, Katie had suggested they take her Camero. But he preferred the bigger cars, the SUVs, said they were more comfortable to drive. So they had taken Tony's Q7. Which had been fine, they’d made it to DC fine, been to see Peggy and then meet with the Real Estator who had just sold their old Penthouse to sign a few documents and hand over the last set of keys. But now, on the way back, they were stuck as something had gone wrong. A bug in the system. FRIDAY had said.

Well fuck bugs and fuck systems. "How far are we from that diner you were aiming for?" She sighed. "I'm starving"

Ahhh. So she was doubly pissed because she was hungry. Steve knew he was on dangerous territory if the hanger was hitting her system. He hit something on his phone which lit up the console in the middle of the car and studied the map.

“Mile and a half. 30 minutes or so walk.” “Or a 5 minute run for you.” “You want me to go?” he asked.

Katie knew he hated the cold. The fact he was offering made her anger at him dissipate somewhat. She looked out of the window. It was dark but clear. They could get wrapped up

“Nah let's just walk.” she said.

The two of them stepped out of the car into the brisk December air and hurriedly pulled on coats, scarves and hats. Steve took Katie’s hand and positioned himself between Katie and the road, as always. As they walked she fired a message to Tony telling them they were seeking shelter at the diner, pinging him the locations.

It's gonna take some time But I'll get there Top to toe in tail-lights Oh, I got red lights on the run But soon there'll be a freeway Get my feet on holy ground

“You know this isn’t exactly how I envisaged our trip going.” Steve said as they walked and Katie gave a huff, her breath forming a cloud in front of her.

“It wouldn’t if we had taken the jet!”

“You know…” Steve sighed, his temper rising a little “I suggested driving because we needed to clear the apartment.” “No, we didn’t, that’s what Happy is doing!” she said, exasperatedly “I told you that when we got there!”

“Yeah, well, maybe I wanted to do it!” he was talking a little louder now “Instead of leaving it to someone else.” “Why?” she said, frustration lacing her tone “What was the point of us doing that? Happy is still gonna have to go and get the stuff we couldn’t bring!”

“The point is I loved that apartment.” he sighed. “And I wanted to clear our stuff ok? Take a last look round…”

Katie stopped walking and he did the same, turning to face her.

“You getting a bit sentimental?” she looked at him, a smile playing on her mouth. His blue eyes looked back at her, his handsome face illuminated by the moonlight and he sighed with a shrug.

“Look, when I came out of the ice, New York didn’t feel like home, not really, not anymore.” he took a deep breath “But DC did because you were there. And I know we didn’t live there together for long before we moved back to the tower but it has a lot of happy memories for me, from before we even started dating.”

Katie looked at him, her head cocked to one side as she continued to smile. He was a hopeless, romantic idiot at times and she loved him for it.

“You know movie nights, cooking together…” he continued as they started to walk again. “By together you mean I cooked, you ate.” she said.

“It was the first place we kissed, first place we made out.” he continued his trip down memory lane as their feet trod through the light dusting of snow. “First place you literally ripped my pants off like a horny school kid.” she quipped. “Yeah.” Steve grinned at the memory of the first time they had ever had sex “That was…”

“Good.” Katie smirked up at him. “Very good.”

“So, sorry for being a sentimental idiot.” he shrugged

Katie stopped, gently tugging on his hand before sliding her arms up round his neck. She pulled him down so her lips met his “I adore you, Steven Grant Rogers.” she whispered into his mouth as he returned her gesture, hand on the base of her back pulling her closer. “I’m sorry for snapping.” she sighed gently, when they pulled apart “But I really am hungry.”

He chuckled and pulled her to his side, his large arm wrapped round her shoulder, hers round his toned waist and they continued on their way.

So I sing for you Though you can't hear me When I get through And feel you near me I am driving home for Christmas Driving home for Christmas With a thousand memories

They eventually reached the Diner, but as Steve went to open the door he stopped dead and pushed Katie to the side, forcing her down below the window.

“Steve, what the…” “Robbery.” he said. Katie stood a little, peering in the window. There were three men inside, one ransacking through the till, one holding a gun to the Cashier’s head, the other had his gun trained on a group of civilians in the corner.

Katie sighed, her hand undoing her coat. “I make 10 hostages…” She pulled out the small pistol which had been tucked into her waistband and Steve looked at her. She seemed to permanently carry an arm now, especially after the trouble with HYDRA.

“Don’t suppose you have my shield tucked in there?” he quipped and she grinned.

“Sorry Cap.” “Worth an ask.” he said, looking round on the floor. Spotting a fairly big rock a few feet away he grabbed it before taking a quick glance through the window. “Ok, I’ll go in first, take out the one by the hostages. You get the other one with the gun.” She nodded.

Together they kept low, heading back to the door. Steve stood at one side, Katie at the other and with a nod he kicked the door with his foot. It swung inwards and in a flash Steve was inside, the rock in his hand flew towards his target, connecting straight with his head, taking him down. At the same time Katie had leaned round him, discharging her gun into the knee cap of the man by the counter. With a yell he dropped to the floor, pistol falling from his grip. The other man vaulted the counter but ran straight into Steve who gripped him in a choke hold, rendering him unconscious. As he dropped to the floor the screams that had been ringing around the diner died down.

“Wouldn’t have gotten this much excitement on the jet.” Steve grinned at his wife, as she rolled her eyes, stooping to collect the weapons from the 2 men, before Steve instructed someone to call the police.

I take look at the driver next to me He's just the same Just the same

It took the cops about 20 minutes to arrive, by which time Katie and Steve, with help from the staff had managed to restrain the perps in the kitchen. Steve explained what had happened to the Officers and as they hauled the men out and once they were gone Katie turned to the waitress.

“Any change of a burger?” she asked, and Steve’s head whipped round to look at her.

“Seriously?” he shook his head.

“Listen, we’ve broken down, it’s the day before Christmas Eve, we just kicked some low-grade, good for nothing shit head asses and I’m really, really hungry so I ain't leaving here without a damned burger and a shake.” her voice grew loud and with the last word she stomped her foot.

She stomped her foot. Like a 4 year old kid.

“You are such a brat.” He shook his head with a sigh and looked at the Waitress ready to apologise, but she was smiling

“Anything you want guys, it’s on the house.”

Katie flipped Steve off as she settled in one of the booths, an annoyingly smug expression on her pretty face that made her look just like Tony.

“You know...” Steve intoned, settling in opposite her, his voice growing stern as he leaned across the table “I don’t appreciate your little temper tantrums in public.” “Yeah?” she looked at him, her voice informing him she gave absolutely zero shits as to what he thought “What you gonna do about it?” “Oh you’ll see,Darlin’” his voice was full of his Captain authority as he leaned back and smirked, “you won’t be able to sit down for a week.” Her eyes widened, and Steve’s own flashed with mischief as he was now the one smirking with smugness as he knew full well he’d gotten her in the only way she responded to when she was in full on brat mode, and she squirmed a little in her seat, her teeth biting her lip.

Gotcha.

Top to toe in tail-lights Oh, I got red lights on the run I'm driving home for Christmas, yea Get my feet on holy ground So I sing for you Though you can't hear me When I get through And feel you near me Driving in my car

It was hot and sweaty in the SUV, the cold of the outside forgotten as Steve rutted into his wife over and over again on the back seat. It wasn’t comfortable, trying to contort his 6ft 2 frame across the rear of the car but he had managed it and right at that moment, comfort was the last thing on his mind as her hands tangled into his hair, nails scraping his scalp as she whined and keened underneath him.

His teeth nipped at her neck, harder than normal, causing her to groan and he hissed into her ear, his voice low. “You’re such a fucking brat…” his breath was hot on her neck, his thrusts hard as she banged her head against the door, neither of them paying it any attention.

“Fuck you.” she replied as he thrust harder still, his hands sliding underneath her sweater, gripping her hips harder as his lips met hers in a hard, deep kiss. He moved his hands down to her thigh and hooked her leg over his hip to find a deeper seat within her and boy did he find it. Beneath him, Katie let out a soft cry which he swallowed, his lips still on hers.

“Oh I’m gonna...” he ground out, his hips snapping forward, driving his cock as deep as he could “Gonna fuck some manners into you, Sweetheart...”

At his words she let out a filthy noise, and Steve thrust harder over and over again, and it wasn’t long before he felt her clench around him which was a tell-tale sign she was nearing her release. He quickened his pace even more and her moans became louder, her face turned and pressed into his neck.

“Fuck…” the curse tumbled from her lips as her body bucked “Stevie….”

White lights exploded in front of her eyes as she cried out, her back arching as she clawed at his skin, her hands under his Henley, the bite of pain from her nails overwhelmed him and he felt his own stomach tighten. His thrusts became desperate and then he was done for. His hips stuttered as he let out a load moan before he collapsed forward, trapping her between him and the rear car seats. The pair of them lay still, catching their breath. Katie smiled to herself as she moved her hand to wind into his hair, as his head lay nestled on her shoulder, face pressed into her neck before he moved his head to give her a lazy kiss, noses sliding against one another.

Their moment of bliss was disturbed by FRIDAY.

“Mr Stark has located the issue…” the voice made them both jump slightly, “it appears there was a glitch in the hardware.” “Can say that again.” Katie mumbled, and Steve let out a chuckle, both of them missing the rest of FRIDAY’s explanation.

“...and he has fixed it remotely.”

They caught that bit though. The car fired up and Steve looked over to the dashboard which was now alive again.

“Ready to go?” he asked, propping himself up allowing Katie to move and pull her jeans back on as Steve tucked himself back into his.

“Hmm. Had a fight, been fed, been fucked.” she said, ticking each of them off on her fingers. “Yeah, I’m good.” They both climbed out of the back and settled into the front. As Steve pulled off the side of the road he laced their fingers together and raised the back of her left hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to the back in a simple sign of affection.

Katie looked out of the window, this time with a smile.

Driving home for Christmas Driving home for Christmas With a thousand memories