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chibsytelford · 4 years ago

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Requested by anon - Hear me out. What about a fic where the reader is related to one of the sons (maybe chibs or tig?) And they broke up with her long-term boyfriend and had to move into a clubhouse dorm but since hapoy recently patched over , they spend alot of time together and things happen between them(if you get what i mean😏) and eventually she sleeps in his dorm almost evey night but they keep is secret from the others because they dont know how to approach the situation then one day one of the sons burst into his dorm and are like "hap something happend we need you to- OH COME ON REALLY?". Then they have to explain to the sons shes related to how long its been going on? You can choose how it ends.

A/N - I tweaked the story a little bit, I felt like I would have to write 10k words just to include everything. I hope you still like it nonetheless!

If you want added / removed from my taglist let me know 😊

The thought of having to explain again that you and your ex had broken up had your stomach churning. This was the only one of your boyfriends that Chibs had liked, and you thought it'd be the relationship that you'd have for the rest of your life. Oh how naive you were. 3 years you wasted, thinking that he loved you, that he wanted you, but it turned out that he was doing a pretty good job of faking it all.

As you pulled up to Teller Morrow you gave yourself a quick once over in the rear view mirror. You ran out of tears 4 weeks ago, but you hadn't slept much since the break up 2 months ago, and your eyes were proving that. Your boss was also your best friend, so when you told her you needed time off, she told you to take as long as you needed, and she even suggested you come to Charming for some 'healing' is what she called it. She told you that visiting Chibs - who you called 'Uncle Chibsy' ever since he rescued you and your car 6 or so years ago - would be good for you, and that night you had headed off to Charming and here you were.

Grabbing your suitcase, you locked your car and headed for the doors of the clubhouse. Before you could even reach them you were stopped by a Scottish accent you were oh so familiar with. "Y/N?" Chibs shouted from across the yard. "Is that you?" You turned around and he smiled, holding his arms out for you. You dropped the suitcase -not caring if anything in it broke- and sprinted towards him, jumping into his arms and nearly making him fall backwards.

"Surprise!" You smiled back kissing his cheek as he spun you around. "I've missed you Uncle" you admitted as he finally put you down again, lazily draping an arm around your shoulder.

"What's brought ye here?" He asked, picking your case up for you and holding the door open, as he always did. Chibs led you to a table, grabbed you a beer and plopped himself down beside you.

You had no intention of hiding the breakup from him, you just didn't want to keep talking about it. You had told most people back home over the course of the last few weeks and having to repeat it just made you tired. But you knew better than to keep anything from Chibs. "Dale and I broke up" you shrugged, picking at the label on the bottle. "It is what it is"

Chibs looked at you, raising his eyebrow and giving you the look. The look that had your walls crumbling, leaving your insecurities on show for him. He was always good at that, knowing when you were hiding something, knowing when you wanted to say something but couldn't. "He told me he didn't love me, that he never did, and never will" you sighed wiping some stray tears away. "3 years" you laughed bitterly, "I'm an idiot".

"Hey love, you're not an idiot" Chibs said, pulling you so you were now flush against his side. He placed his arm on your shoulder, using his thumb to draw circles on it - a gesture he knew calmed you down. "He's the idiot, and he will be a headless idiot when we are done with him" he said causing you to laugh out loud. The sound made Chibs smile.

Just then some of the other men came bouncing through the door. You recognized them all from when you had visited Chibs over the years. Juice came through first, followed by Tig and Jax, and then your eyes landed on Happy's. "Hey guys" you said greeting them with a small smile and wave. The men nodded at you and smiled back, but they were too busy grabbing beers and lighting cigarettes to come and speak to you, except Happy who was hovering halfway between you and Chibs and the bar. You pointed to the empty seat at the other side of the table and Happy silently padded over, accepting your invitation. You pushed your beer over to him, inviting him to take a drink, which he did so, before wiping the rim and giving it back to you with a small smile.

"How you been?" Happy asked, genuinely curious. "How's Dale?" The name fell from his lips like venom from a snake.

"She was just telling me about that asshole" Chibs piped up. "The twat broke up with her" you could have sworn you saw a slight smile grace Happy's face, but you couldn't be sure. "I was just telling Y/N about how we were going to find him and cho-"

"Chop his balls off?" Happy finished, glancing at you briefly before looking at the Scotsman.

"I was gonna say head, but balls work too brother" Chibs answered giving Happy a high five, making you laugh and shake your head at the action.

Dale was soon forgotten as Chibs, Happy and you spent the night laughing, drinking and telling each other stories, which ended up being more embarrassing for you than the other two.

"I'm going to bed now I think guys" You announced. You had no idea what time it was but a quick glance at your phone told you it was 230am. Time goes fast when you're having fun, and that saying was true for tonight. It was the most fun you had in ages. Chibs stood up to let you out and you bent down to give him a kiss on the cheek, doing the same to Happy too. He already had his cheek waiting for you, you noticed.

Grabbing your case you headed for Chibs' dorm. The room you always crashed in when you came to visit. Chibs didn't mind sleeping on one of the benches in the clubhouse, or sometimes he even crashed in Tig or Juice's room. You quickly changed the sheets, brushed your teeth and then put one of Chibs t-shirts on. You slipped under the covers and sleep welcomed you quickly, which was the first time in 2 months that had happened.

You had now been in Charming for 2 weeks, and every day was a different day. You started helping out Gemma a bit in the office and you helped to tend the bar. It was the least you could do since they were letting you stay there. You and Happy had developed a strong bond over the last few weeks. After your first night, every night after that was spent with Happy. You guys played pool, drank beer, listened to music and one night Happy even had a go on the karaoke after you begging him constantly. You found yourself intrigued by the man nicknamed The Tacoma Killer by his brothers.

You hadn't thought or spoken about Dale since the first night you got here. Your thoughts were slowly being taken over by Happy, and you were surprised by how quickly feelings had developed for him. You didn't expect to have feelings for someone so quickly after your last relationship, but you welcomed the feeling. And you knew that Happy felt something for you too. You noticed how he always went out of his way to bump into you, he always asked how you were, he made sure you had everything you needed and he also made you a cup of tea every morning and left it outside Chibs' door. In the 3 years you were with Dale, not once did he make you a cup of tea.

"Need anything love?" Chibs asked you as you dried the glasses and placed them on the rack behind the bar. You looked up and noticed he had a crow eater on his arm, and you knew his intentions.

You shook your head. "No, I'm fine thanks" you smiled. "Take your room tonight, give me 2 minutes and I'll change the sheets". Before Chibs could protest you had already left and changed the sheets, returning in a few minutes with your bag.

"Where will you sleep?" He asked.

"She'll sleep in my room" Happy said, suddenly appearing behind you, making you jump. "I'll sleep on the floor" he added before Chibs could shut the idea down.

Chibs looked at you and you nodded shyly, agreeing to the proposition. "Night love" he said leading his companion for the night to his dorm.

"Thanks Hap" you turned around and noticed how close Happy was to you. "You didn't have to do that" you smiled.

"Well I did" he said matter of factly. "You ready for bed now?" You nodded, placing the tea towel on the bar and wiping your sweaty hands on your jeans.

"Lead the way" you murmured, getting slightly nervous. You followed Happy and he showed you where everything was. He pulled out a t-shirt and handed it to you, pointing to his bathroom so you could get changed. The t-shirt covered your thighs and ended at your shins, so you decided not to wear any trousers underneath. As you excited the bathroom, Happy was just finishing up making the bed. He pointed for you, telling you to get in and you did what you were told.

He was mesmerising. A man who hardly said anything, yet the way he moved had you in awe. He took his kutte off and placed it over the end of the bed, leaving him in his vest and jeans. He took the jeans off too, not caring that you were clearly staring at him.

Happy grabbed a sleeping bag out of the wardrobe and went to make his bed on the floor but you stopped him.

"This is silly" you admitted "the bed is big enough for both of us, don't you think?" You had no idea where the sudden confidence came from, and you even caught Happy off guard with it too.

He blinked a few times, looking at you like you had suddenly grown three heads. "Yeah?" was all he could muster, and you nodded encouragingly, patting the space beside you for good measure.

Happy's movements were slow. He maintained eye contact with you, looking for a trace if regret or hesitation but you didn't give him any. Instead, you curled up under the covers and waited for his warmth. A few seconds later he joined you in bed, switching the lamp off and you were both engulfed in darkness. Neither of you said anything, scared of breaking the silence.

"Goodnight Y/N" Happy whispered eventually.

"Goodnight Hap" you replied contentedly.

You were woken by some banging on the door that didn't seem to stop, even after you put a pillow over your head.

"Happy? Happy? HAAAAAAAPY!" you recognized the voice as Chibs and he sounded like he was in a hurry or needed something urgently.

You turned around and saw Happy was dead to the world. He looked peaceful but you knew if you didn't wake him up that Chibs was about to burst the door down. You poked him once on the chest but he didn't move. You poked him on the chest again, a bit harder this time but again it was no use. You then turned your poking into nudging and soon you had managed to wake him up. "If you don't let Chibs in he is about to break your door down" you laughed pointing to the door.

Happy huffed and clambered out of the bed. He unlocked the door and yanked it open, coming face to face with Chibs.

"Finally!" He threw his hands up in the air exasperatedly. "What took ye so long?"

Happy shrugged. "Y/N had to wake me up".

"Ye don't look like a man who slept on a hard floor all night" Chibs pointed out.

"That's because he didn't" you said. Chibs poked his head around the corner and raised his eyebrows. "What?" You innocently shrugged "the bed is big enough for 2 of us".

Chibs held his hands up, not saying anything else. "We can continue this discussion later" he said aiming that comment at you. "Jax needs us" he said to Happy.

Happy nodded and shut the door, grabbing some clothes from his drawers and putting them on quickly. "Sorry" he mumbled "duty calls".

"Don't worry about it. I'll be waiting for you to get back" this time Happy kissed your cheek and you welcomed the feeling of his lips against your skin.

"I'll look forward to it" he smiled, and walked out, but not before giving you one last smile.

@rebelwrites @everyhowlmarksthedead @mayans-sauce @yourwonkywriter @pancakeisreading @mrsmarvelous1995 @encounterthepast @starrynite7114 @trulysuccubus @shelliechen @frightfulnite @scuzmunkie @blessedboo @jadesamhart @fangirlingaesthetics @i-love-scott-mccall @deeandbobbymcgee @gemini0410 @thisishowdynastiesareborn @meteora-fc @withmyteeth @est1887 @justjuiceyboy @destynelseclipsa @rocketqueen @lovebishoplosamiguelgalindo @queenbeered @lauraashley93 @talicat713 @jasminee97 @multiyfandomgirl40 @sadeyesgf @anangelwhodidntfall

#happy lowman x reader #sons of anarchy #happy lowman fanfic #happy lowman

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phantomphangphucker · 4 years ago

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Phic Phight - The Weird Little Shit

For: @darks-ink

A class discussion held by Wes about Danny’s weirdness was never not going to be an absolute cluster fuck

Wes smacks the board, “alright, fuckers, thank you for coming-”.

“We’re only here because we lost a bet”.

“Shut up, Dash. You shouldn’t have to be strong-armed into learning the truth”. Everyone rolls their eyes at Wes pretty actively. “Anyway, since you all refuse to see or even listen to the truth of what Danny Fenton is. Instead, this. Weird shit about Danny Fenton one oh one”.

Dash snorts, “now this I can get behind, little shit weighs, like, ten pounds or some shit”. Wes points at him aggressively, “exactly”. Scribbling down ‘weighs less than a sack of potatoes' on the board. Star throwing in her two cents, “yeah and I’ve seen Sam just pick him up under her arm and run off”.

Brittney smacks her desk, “half the time he makes food directly in home ec it’s fucking cold, which ew, but also really weird”.

“Oh yeah he does that with his drinks too. He whole ass ‘drank’ a solid chunk of ice, major power move honestly”.

“And remember that snowball fight? I don’t think he ever actually made any snowballs, he just kept acquiring them”.

“Kid made for a great air conditioner when all the windows got stuck shut though; guy runs cold as fuck”.

Wes is just aggressively scribbling more down with a mildly manic grin.

“We should totally invite him to parties so he can keep the fucking beer cold”.

Dash laughs loudly and smacks Dale on the arm, “now there’s an idea!”, deadpanning, “still not inviting freaky Fenton though”. Dale chuckles very awkwardly.

“Well he’s an ice sculptor so that’s not surprising”.

“What the fuck do you mean ‘ice sculptor’? He clearly lifts weights in his spare time”.

“Oh yeah, he lowkey picked up the back end of my car once”.

“James, your car is a tiny little piece of shit. I could lift that damn thing”.

“Hey”.

“Anyway. Like I was saying, people who handle cold shit all the time, you know, like ice sculptors, usually have cold hands”.

“He lifts weights! Not ice sculpts!”.

“Here I though he was a painter”.

“Why the fuck would he be doing that?”.

“Well he’s always randomly splattered in green paint”.

Basically everyone pauses to look at Hanna. Kwan blinking, “the green is ectoplasm, duh”. Emilie shrugging and nodding, “everyone knows that”.

“Well I thought it was paint”.

“Well you’re clearly stupid”.

“Shut up”.

Dash waves everyone off, “so clearly not a painter or weight lifter, because have you seen his goddamn noodle arms?”.

“He lifts weights!”.

“No he doesn’t!”.

“Who cares! Have you seen his dad? Of course he’s a strong little shit! What really gets me is him getting out of locked rooms”.

“Oh he whole ass climbs out windows and shit”.

“All that ecto that gets on his skin makes his hands all sticky, hence why he can climb the side of buildings”.

“When the heck did you see him doing that?”.

“Oh I totally saw him showing off knife swallowing to some elementary kids”.

“I think he hangs out and does drugs or some shit on the roof”.

“So he climbs up the school building to do drugs? Why wouldn’t he just use the hidden steps like a normal person?”,

“I’m pretty sure the kitchen staff actually include him in their budget for missing utensils cause he eats so many of them”.

“Julie, no one’s saying Danny’s close to normal. Also kids got an iron stomach damn”.

Dash has to jump in there, “I totally made him eat my underwear once”. Earning him a round of judging glances. “What? I didn’t expect him to actually do it. I was planning to mock him for pussying out. But then the little fucker went and did it”.

“Power move”.

“Shut up”.

“You fed your underwear to a guy who builds guns?”.

“Excuse me but what?”.

“Maybe him doing so much dangerous shit is why his heartbeats all slow and stuff”.

“Again, excuse?”.

“Well we totally tested everyone’s heart rates and breathing and shit and he’s super low. He blamed his corn supper”.

“That’s stupid”.

“His corn supper had teeth, Todd”.

“Back to the gun making because what?”.

“FentonWorks is a weapon company what do you expect?”.

“James, he made a shotgun out of a pencil, two toothpicks, an elastic band, and a snapped in half penny. The thing was magically welded together”.

“You can’t weld a fucking pencil. It’s wood, moron”.

“Well it was goddamn wielded”.

Wes grumbles, “yeah he welded my binder zipper together once, stupid pyrokinesis”. Star glares at him, “I thought this wasn’t about your crazy conspiracy crap?”. Wes glares at her like she’s stupid.

“Ignoring Wes being crazy again. You guys do know he has laser beam lipstick right? He could totally weld stuff with that”.

“Didn’t he have a tail that one day?”.

“Huh?”.

“That lipstick of his is the plasma peach one right? Because girl I so need some, it makes amazing blush”.

“Oh no a dog just crawled under his shirt. I think he was trying to hide the treats or some shit?”.

“Fucking where? in his shoulder blades?!?”.

“Oh my god that’s right, he can totally pop all his joints out so probably yeah”.

“Since when could he do that? Better yet, why? Fucking ow”.

“His fingers also glow green when he cracks them”.

“Right Right I remember that! We also got him under a black light, totally wild”.

“I wish I could pop out my joints randomly”.

“He probably just eats glow sticks and they leaked into his joints and shit”.

“THAT MAKES NO SENSE”.

“Who cares, take him to a rave”.

“Oh my god yes he does amazing makeup”.

“Wait Fenton does makeup now too?”.

Wes points at Dash, “he’s got to cover up the dead parlour to his skin somehow”. With half the class shouting, “HE’S NOT DEAD”.

Emilie pursing her lips, “but what if he was, that would be hot”.

“EXCUSE ME!?!”.

“Oh get off your vanilla basic bitch high horse, Karen”.

Wes rubs his forehead, “not this shit again”. Smacking the board, “weird shit about Fenton, people! Not y’alls weird necrophilia fetish!”.

“Hey that’s just Emilie”.

Jesse looks genuinely offended, “bitch what? Have you seen a ghost? That glow? Mmmmmh yeah, daddy”.

Star chokes, “oh my god. I love our town”.

Wes sighs, “I should just start blocking you people from seeing ghosts at all. Cover those eyes until you stop BEING FUCKING BLIND”.

“Eyes never stop seeing, they just get covered”.

“NO! NO! BAD!“.

“That weirdly reminds me that Danny can totally walk with his eyes closed”.

“That’s weird how?”.

“How ‘bout you fucking try it then!”.

Dash shrugs, “well his eyes go glowy green all the time so no surprise he can just see through his eyelids”. More than a few people look to him, “why did you not add that to the weird list?”.

“Because it’s not weird”.

“Dash... do you know anyone with goddamn glowing eyes... besides ghosts”.

“Uhhh the entire Defect Quartet”.

“Excuse?!?”.

“Honestly him biting open pop-cans is weirder”.

“Oh god yeah, that’s horrible to hear”.

“He dead ass cut his lip up once doing that and just... kept doing it. There was blood all over his neck”.

“Why the heck didn’t anyone take an edgy aesthetic photo of that? Goddamn”.

“I feel like this is more an off-the-books class on discovering that Danny might actually be hot”.

“You wanna say Fenton’s hot again? I’ll goddamn choke you, motherfucker”.

“Do it you fake ass bear dom”.

A couple of people shuffle out of their desks and away when Dash actually throws a punch at Jasper.

“On a side note, once saw Danny sleeping in a trash can”.

“How is that weird”.

“How isn’t it? It’s a trashcan”.

“And he’s trash, your point”.

“YOU'RE GONNA HAVETA HIT HARDER IF YOU WANT TO MAKE AN IMPRESSION ON YOUR TWINK BOY! HE’S DURABLE AS FUCK!”.

“FUCK YOU!!!”.

“Huh, he did survive falling from the ceiling multiple times and that drowning once”.

“Fucker wasn’t drowned, he can breathe underwater”.

“Excuse me?”.

“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!?!”.

Dash snapping his head around, “IM TEACHING HIM A LESSON!”. Jasper just smirks, “I DON’T NEED BREATH PLAY TIPS FROM YOU!”. Dash tries punching him again.

“This is ridiculous, I mean really, Danny would be the dom”. That silenced the entire room.

“What?”.

“Come on, he ate Skulker once ‘cause the guy was coping him an attitude”.

“DANNY EATS GHOSTS?!?”.

Wes turns around and slams his head on the board, “God fuck this is such a cluster fuck”.

“You’re hosting this and holding us hostage here”.

“YOU’RE NOT MY HOSTAGES! YALL LOST A BET!”.

“Oh suck my toes”.

“WHAT?!”.

“While Wes loses his mind for the fifth time this week, what we’ve got is he’s icy as shit, likes welding and makeup and ice sculptures and weight lifting, weighs fuck all, just vores goddamn everything, and climbs shit weirdly well?”.

“You’re forgetting all the glow shit”.

“HA! Glowing shit”.

“Fuck Todd, you are a dumbass”.

“IN SHORT LOCAL ELDRITCH TEEN BUT HE’S STILL NOT A GODDAMN GHOST WES!”

“FUCK YOU! IT’S SO GODDAMN OBVIOUS HOW ARE YOU PEOPLE LIKE THIS OHMYGOD!”.

Just then Danny Fenton opens up the door, the class going dead silent while he glances around slowly. Him looking to the whiteboard, then slowly back to his fellow teens, speaking “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no”, while slowly backing out and closing the door.

At first, no one says anything before Star snickers, “pffft”; the entire classroom bursting out into laughter directly afterwards.

Wes turning around and smacking his head on the board once again, “why. Just. Why me”.

END.

Prompt: Wacky reveals (ex: Danny drying up too quickly bc intangibility, Danny's drink stays cool way too long, people's electronic devices are always more charged when they've been near Danny, etc)

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alex-bowman · 2 years ago

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WTGF (A.Bowman) Chapter 2

Jess’ POV

I woke up when I felt movement next to me, I noticed I was naked, looked over and saw a naked Alex Bowman standing with his back to me. He turned around when he heard me moving around. His naked front was now facing me.

“Y’know standing in front of me naked like that is gonna make it hard to not have a morning round.” I smirked at him.

“Oh yeah?” Alex smirked, climbing on top of me. I looked up at him. He leaned down and kissed my neck. I moaned as I felt his dick rub against the outside of my pussy.

“Mm moan for me baby.” Alex whispered in my ear, while rubbing my clit. I softly moaned. “Not good enough.” Alex said.

I moaned louder as he rubbed my clit harder. “Oh fuck!” I moaned out. He then stopped rubbing me, and he smirked, spreading my legs apart and slamming into me without warning.

I gripped the bed sheets tightly, moaning loudly as he thrusted his hips harder and faster. And without warning again, I felt him come inside of me, “Fuck,” I breathed out. Alex smirked before pulling out, and laying next to me.

“Well if that wasn’t enough motivation to win the race today, I don’t know what is.” He said.

I smirked, “I’m glad I could be of help,” I laid my head on his chest. I felt him drawing patterns on my back with his fingers.

****

“Jeez you’ve been out longer than all night.” Denny said.

I smirked, “Yeahhhhh.”

“Where even were you?” He asked.

“At my friend’s hotel.” I lied.

Denny just nodded. “Alright, I’m heading to the garages, race starts at 1:30.”

After Denny left, I took a shower and got dressed in a vintage Dale Earnhardt Sr. t-shirt, some white shorts and checkered Vans, and threw on a basic NASCAR hat. I locked Denny’s motor home and headed to the garage area.

As I’m heading toward Denny’s garage, I’m pulled aside, behind the Hendrick garages. “Hey you,” Alex said. I smiled, “Hey.”

His lips crashed onto mine, and I kissed him back.

“I’m going to win this race, for you baby.” Alex whispered in my ear, sending chills up my spine.

“Yeah? Well I look forward to celebrating with you tonight,” I winked.

***

As promised, I was able to meet Alex in victory lane, this man ran a hell of a race. Denny finished 2nd, and basically Alex stole the lead from him. Denny’s not gonna be in a good mood. I no longer had my random NASCAR hat on, I had a hat that had the Chevy logo on one side of the front, Bowman written on the other, and on the side of the hat had 48.

I saw him drive his car into victory lane; he hopped out and celebrated with his team, before pulling me over into a huge ass bear hug, and kissing me. “You’re a man of your word.” I said to him. “I am, also cute hat. Where’d you get it?” He asked. “Greg gave it to me.” Talking of his crew chief, Greg Ives, who used to be Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s crew chief. Alex took Jr’s spot when he retired a few years ago.

After the victory lane celebration was over, the teams were getting ready to pack up and head out.

Alex lived in Arizona, and I live in North Carolina, it’s gonna suck not being around him. Unless I went to the race in Indy.

I was laying down in Denny’s motor home, we were heading back to Lake Norman, and it was a 4 hour drive from Richmond.

My phone was starting to blow up. I checked it.

@ESPN: Has @Alex_Bowman found love in Denny Hamlin’s younger sister, Jessica Hamlin?

@FOXSports: Alex Bowman and Jessica Hamlin getting cozy?

I opened an article from NBC Sports:

Bowman’s BIG Celebration

Richmond, NC 6:37 PM 6/27/2022

Alex Bowman, driver of the #48 Ally Financial Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports lead 37 laps on Sunday’s race at Richmond Motor Speedway. And of course a win like that calls for a huge celebration in victory lane. Well, for Bowman, that seems to have included one of his rival’s family members. Crews have captured multiple photos of Jessica Hamlin, 21 year-old sister of JGR driver Denny Hamlin, who finished in 2nd (after Bowman stole the race from him) and Bowman, getting pretty intimate in Victory Lane. Hmm, we wonder if Denny knows?

For all things NASCAR follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and anywhere you get your NASCAR news!

“JESSICA LYNN!”

Oh, I’m fucked.

#alex bowman #nascar #fanfiction #nascar fanfiction #denny hamlin #hendrick motorsport

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dmsden · 4 years ago

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What Is Wanting and What Is Owed

Hullo, Gentle Readers. Since I’ve been given the rare gift of a 5th Monday this month, I get a freestyle article. And, although I don’t often like to get on a soapbox, I’m going to do so a little. If you don’t want to hear me pontificate, you may want to skip this article and come back on Thursday.

During its recent D&D “Live” event, a few products were announced. Rime of the Frostmaiden was announced as the new adventure. While I’m personally meh about the whole Drizzt/Icewind Dale storyline, books, etc, I recognize that they’re an incredibly popular property, and I’m looking forward to seeing new monster stat blocks and so on. In proximity to this announcement came three other announcements, all of which I thought of as very positive, but which, to my surprise, brought a ton of venom from other D&D players.

Beadle & Grimm’s announced a Platinum Edition of the mod. No surprise there.

WotC announced Heroes’ Feast, the official D&D cookbook, from the same team that did the beautiful Art & Arcana book.

And finally, WotC made an announcement, which I will not go over again here, about how they wanted to show more sensitivity when presenting cultures based on real world cultures. You can read this in full at https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/diversity-and-dnd

I was pleased with all these announcements, but I was shocked (I guess I shouldn’t be any more?) about the level of venom I saw online about all three of them.

The B&G announcements was met with comments like, “$500? For that, the adventure had better run itself for me!” “Does it actually cast the spells?” and so on. For full disclosure, I have bought everyone of the Beadle & Grimm’s products. I ordered Waterdeep: Dragon Heist with a lot of trepidation, because $500.00 is a decent chunk of change for me. After receiving it and being blown away by what it contained, I knew we’d be buying other products as they came down the line.

The fact is that I am the target audience for B&G products: I’m a huge D&D fan, as is my husband, and we have a decent amount of disposable income to spend on our major hobbies, which includes TTRPGs. If you’re not in that target audience, then of course you’re not going to buy it, but I don’t see the value in tearing down others who make that decision. I guess, if anything, it’s likely motivated by jealousy. That’s a pretty natural human emotion, but it would be nice to see the honest reaction behind it.

The reactions to the cookbook seem to range from “I won’t waste my money on this” to “Well, they’re gonna lose money on this one” all the way to “Why is WotC wasting time with all-fluff products like this? They should be working on XXXX, because I’ve been waiting years for it.” I can understand not wanting to spend money on something you don’t want or need; that’s sensible. I’m personally charmed by the idea of an official cookbook, because I love to cook, so I’ll be grabbing this. I was actually pondering a fantasy-based cookbook project myself, but now I’ll wait to see what this looks like and if it scratches the itch I have for such a product.

So is WotC wasting talent on this? No, they’re not. The people who are writing this are the same freelance team that worked on Art & Arcana, so no WotC authors were dragged away from valuable work for this. Also, this isn’t one of WotC’s normal books that they release in a year. We’ll still be getting all the fluff and crunch this year that we normally would, but those of us who like the idea of a cookbook will get one.

Oh, and as far as losing money goes, I’d like to tell you about a book called Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home. When the Dragonlance novels and modules came out, they were incredibly popular. They were so popular that the demand for more material about that world prompted TSR to publish Leaves. It was all fluff and no crunch. You got everything from astronomy notes to sheet music to...oh, gosh...recipes. And it was a massive seller. It sold so well that they ended up making two sequels to it. So I think WotC will be okay with this one. And if not, they just won’t do another project like this down the line.

I think what bothers me about this one is really the sense of entitlement. Way too many posts seemed to boil down to, “This isn’t what I want; I want XXXX. WotC owes it to me.” Like, really, no they don’t. Every time WotC has a product announcement, I cross my fingers for Spelljammer, because I have an irrational love of its silliness and the imagination that went into it. But it would NEVER occur to me to think that WotC somehow owes me Spelljammer. WotC is a company, and the core principle of every company is to make money. I’m sure that, if WotC eventually thinks Spelljammer will make it money, that it’ll happen, but they know that Forgotten Realms is their bread and butter, so I’m not holding my breath.

I’ve been going on for a long time, but the last one is the one that cuts me deepest to the quick, so I can’t ignore it. It’ll probably come as no surprise to anyone that, as a very liberal/progessive gay man, I was disgusted to see so many comments condemning WotC for bowing to political correctness or for doing this “just to make money”.

As far as making money goes, I have already said, that’s what a company wants to do. I think you’d have to be blind not to see the surging tide of people in the U.S. and across the world who are sick and tired of inequality. The fight for equal treatment for people of color, for women in general, for gay people, for trans people...it’s still raging. For every victory, like the Supreme Court case that said workplaces couldn’t fire people for being of LGBTQ+ status, there’s a crushing setback, like President Trump’s executive order to allow hospitals to discriminate against trans people. But things seem to be shifting again, and people are more and more stepping up to declare their dedication to the fight. So yes, if I were running a company, I would be taking notice, and I would be taking actions in this direction.

What I do not and will not understand are people who are somehow going to claim to be upset that WotC is going to take steps to try to not offend people in the future. It bothers me that people can’t say, “Well, I’m not personally offended, but I’m not black/Romani/gay/Asian/Native American/whatever. I think it’s great that WotC is trying to make sure D&D is more inclusive for everyone.” I don’t understand how anyone can play a game like D&D...a game that literally makes you walk in someone else’s shoes...and yet have so little ability to do it in your actual life. D&D literally shows you how different people with different abilities have to work together to help each other achieve a goal, and it’s sad to see that some who play it have so little regard for people who are different from themselves.

If you’ve stuck through this article this far, I wish I could offer you some great wisdom at the end. I guess I’ll just caution you to spend a moment thinking about what you’re going to say online before you say it. Once your words are out there, they’re very hard to take back, and that can have consequences. I try my best to make most of my interactions online with people positive ones. Even when I don’t agree with people, I try to be positive, and to educate them as to my side of the argument, rather than just blasting them with “No, you’re wrong for thinking that.” I thought long and hard before writing this article, and I thought long and hard before publishing it. I may lose readers over it, and, if so, that would be a shame, but I would rather be honest about who I am and what I believe.

So be kind to one another. To borrow a quote from Critical Role, “Don’t forget to love each other.” Roll those 20s. And we’ll be back on Thursday with a fun question about running a campaign that begins before Session Zero. Whaaaaat? You heard me. See you then!

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mogwaei · 4 years ago

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Wolf Statues and the Tower of Bone tinfoil!

A theory about wolf statues crossed my dash again which...got me thinking along a somewhat separate train of thought of all the different places we find them. I’ve seen the posts about the Dales/Exalted Plains, but not much about somewhere like Emprise du Lion. I’m not sure if this has already been talked about, but I’ve been searching and can’t find any posts elsewhere.

This is going to be a long and rambling post about Wolf statues and Emprise du Lion, so a two in one theory 😂. I’ve never actually written a meta and I generally hoard my theories and write them in fic...because I’m not good at writing anything that isn’t in story format. You’ve been warned lol

First, some really long and tangential exposition about statues.

There are a ton of Wolf statues across the game. We’ve got a whole pack of them across the Exalted Plains watching over various locations. But they’re also located in a lot of the elven temples we run across as well. @serial-chillr and I were talking about the possibility that, assuming the Wolves are all Fen’Harel statues (unless the ones in the Dales are Emerald Knight wolves, but I kinda doubt that), then what is the likelihood of Solas himself having built these statues?

We know from Solas himself that elvhen nobility used to mark their slaves to honour the ‘god’ that they subscribed to. Sooo, why wouldn’t the more zealous ones build great big monuments in addition to marking their slaves?

What I fail to see mentioned in a lot of fics and theories is much mention of these nobles or the politics of Elvhenan. I’m sure that higher ranking elves probably owned land within Evanuris territory, and they probably needed permission before doing so, but I’ll bet that if a kiss-ass noble came up to one of the gods asking to build a pretty statue (hoping for bonus points) the narcissistic bastard god was probably like “You want to build a statue of moi? BUT OF COURSE!!!” and maybe gave the noble a pat on the head and a cookie for kissing butt.

For posterity:

That being said, because I can’t help but mention my own worldbuilding fic, The Guardian, I’m assuming the statues were built of Fen’Harel, and while Solas might not have really approved (or maybe wasn’t even able to stop them from being constructed ‘nu stop I’m not a godddd‘) he would instead have found a way to use them to his advantage. I write that he begins placing statues where allies (both agents and freed slaves) can find them and follow them back to safe places marked for the Rebellion. I go into slightly more detail regarding these special wolves (how he would get statues into the temples/palaces of the Evanuris and how to distinguish them from regular ones) in a plot involving infiltration of a compound in Chapters 111-120. I can’t give away all my secrets!

Anyway, moving onto statues in specific locations:

The one in Emprise du Lion

hewwoh big boi

What I find fascinating about this one specifically is that it’s also located in the same region as Suledin Keep (which also has wolfies inside of it ofc). Because of the landmarks codex in Emprise I’m hedging that this land used to belong to Elgar’nan. Look at Pools of the Sun for reference - THAT’S ALL I GOT FOR NOW

Anyhow, floundering, but my attention was next drawn to the Tower of Bone

In this story, a blood mage summoned a greater pride demon, who then possessed the entire tower. When the mage died, his sons were unable to control the demon, so they commissioned eight monstrous iron chains intended to hold it. The touch of the cold iron chain is the only thing holding the stone abomination in place. Should they break, the tower will pull itself off its foundations and walk, destroying everything in its path.

I know that they found human bones in the tower, but bear with me. I’m tinfoiling hard and trying to read deeper and tie it all together but I’m just a humble apostate hobo.

Anyway, some blood mage summoned a greater pride demon who in turn possesses the tower - of the companions, Solas has the Tower tarot card. The next sequence in the story, the sons bind the tower with 8 chains. The only mention I could find of the number 8 is in the Draconis codex where it mentions there being a possible 8th Old God being stricken from records.

Should all the chains break, the Tower will destroy everything in its path.

The Tower tarot, as we’ve seen in a hundred other tin foils, is commonly interpreted as meaning danger, crisis, destruction, and liberation. It is also associated with sudden unforseen change. WHICH ISN’T NECESSARILY A BAD THING! (Look, despite everything, I’m hanging to that thread of hope that Solas will have a good ending).

So, again, I’m probably totally wrong but the symbolism here has some pretty interesting potential if it is referring at all to Solas and the Evanuris.

Recap:

>random thought (because I’m totally writing this on the fly) but IF the 8 chains symbolise something more, then maybe it’s possible that the 8th ‘God’ could be the Sun that is briefly mentioned in elven legend (referring to the codex I mentioned above). And the Sun could be symbolism for yet another thing we aren’t aware of. Whether that’s some sort of dragon or spirit or entity we haven’t been introduced to in game (yet).

>The chains themselves could also be representative of holding back...again, something we don’t know. Blight? Something worse? (thinking about the Dread Wolf Rises mural and the seals, but there are only 7 there. Maybe the 8th is the thing they’re holding prisoner if it isn’t free?) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

>While I’m down this rabbit hole, maybe the 8th is part of this: “A final eluvian is situated in a peaceful bolt-hole where Solas has painted murals. Fen’Harel was here and wanted to make sure nobody ever found what the other gods were doing.” - this can be found in the game files under bolt_hole (in other words, maybe it has to do with whatever they found?)

>A big ass, greater Pride demon (more Sooooolllasss symbolism? looking at Tevinter Nights and some other cool theories on Dread Wolf - Pride demon connections)

>Reoccuring tower symbolism (does the little wolf Rook that Mark Darrah tweeted a while back count?)

>Breaking chains (liberation?)

>ALSO THE TOWER IS COVERED IN RED LYRIUM (AAAAAAAH)

>Someone’s gonna go wreak havoc when a Specific Thing Happens (*cough* Solas? *cough*)

I realise I flew off the handles here and I’m not sure if anyone is going to even be able to follow this tangent 😂

Anyway, that’s it for now until I think of something else. If you’re into a long winded fic of worldbuilding and lore weaving, check out The Guardian where I do a lot better job of putting my thoughts into words. I swear I’m not usually this scatterbrained and I spend a LOT of time weaving theories...that I then hoard like Smeagol. :3

As a closing message, I’d like to include this shot of my dear friend @schoute ‘s Piper Lavellan who doesn't know where the fuck she is.

Thanks for reading and I apologise if you’ve lost any braincells in this thought spaghetti orz

#dragon age #solas #the dread wolf rises #dragon age 4 #dragon age inquisition #fen'harel #Solas and Abelas tinfoil over tea

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wistfulcynic · 5 years ago

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Their Way By Moonlight: The Magic (Chapter 17)

In which the last of the curse is swept away and Zelena gets what’s coming to her.

This chapter took me sooo loooonnggg to write. Partly because of writing other things, partly because I’m struggling to focus during the lockdown. Normally I spend at least one afternoon a week writing at a local coffee shop but of course that’s not possible right now and it’s wreaking a bit of havoc with my productivity.

BUT! There is now a chapter count for this story! It will be 18 chapters in total, this one and a final one to wrap things up. Thanks to everyone who’s stuck with it for the past *gulp* more than a year. I love you all, but especially @thisonesatellite @ohmightydevviepuu and @katie-dub whose enthusiasm and support means the world to me ❤️❤️❤️

SUMMARY: A new curse has fallen on Storybrooke and this time Emma is trapped inside it, deliberately separated from Henry and anyone else who might help her break it. But what no one knows –including her own cursed self– is that she and Killian have the ability to share their dreams, and are working together in secret to find a way to break the curse and free everyone from a new and dangerous foe.

Rating: M

AO3

The Magic:

Snow White had heard the expression ‘earth-shattering orgasm’ before, of course she had, but like any sensible woman with a realistic perspective on men and their limitations, she’d never taken the phrase literally.

Until now.

Now she lay sprawled and trembling in her once-lonely bed, panting harshly wondering if the world had always spun so damned fast. She chuckled breathlessly against the sweat-slicked skin of David’s shoulder.

“Damn, Charming, you’ve always been good but I’ve never felt the earth move before,” she teased.

David rolled over and grinned at her, his hand trailing down her side and over her hip. “What can I say? It’s been a long time and I was highly motivated.” He leaned in to nuzzle her neck as his words echoed through her mind.

It’s been a long time… a long time… long time…

Snow gasped as realisation struck, just as David pulled back with a start and she could see he understood as well. “The curse,” she exclaimed. “Is it broken?”

“I think it is,” he replied. “I remember…” His eyes filled with regret and he pulled her close again. “Snow. I remember.”

Snow wrapped her arms around him and they held each other in silence for a moment, far too tightly for comfort and still not nearly tight enough as their cursed memories washed over them. Everything that had happened over the past year, the wretchedness of it, living together and feeling nothing for each other. It should have been impossible, Snow thought, they were True Love. She could certainly feel her love for him now, surging up almost indignantly as if it resented having gone un-felt for so long, and yet she remembered looking at him with pure indifference. She shuddered and David’s arms tightened still further. She knew he was wondering the same thing she was. Who, what, could possibly have done this to them?

She tried to sort through the memories, of Regina—as their maid, of all unbelievable things—and Zelena—wait, who exactly was Zelena?—and Emma, and—

“Emma!” she cried, jerking her head back so abruptly it narrowly missed a collision with David’s chin. “David, she’s here in Storybrooke! How is she here?”

“I was just wondering that,” he said grimly. “What do you say we go find out?”

“We should go to Granny’s,” suggested Henry. “That’s where everyone went when the last curse broke. I bet they’ll go there again.”

“Good thinking.” Emma nodded in agreement but Killian shook his head.

“What about Zelena?” he asked. “Do we know how the curse breaking will affect her? Perhaps we should stop by the sheriff’s station first.”

“I think Zelena will be okay in her cell for a bit longer,” Emma replied. “She’s still behind that shielding spell I put around her.”

“Nevertheless I’d feel better if we checked,” said Killian. “Not that I don’t have every faith in you, Swan, but we should err on the side of caution. Zelena is nothing if not unpredictable.”

“Hmmm, yeah that is a point. And she has been one step ahead of us for most of this.” Emma’s expression turned thoughtful. “Okay, we can go to the sheriff’s station, but I’d actually kind of like to go find my parents first.” She shrugged. “Just to see them, you know. Before we get caught up with the rest of the town.”

Killian smiled. “Of course, love.”

“And, um, actually, can I go to Regina’s?” asked Henry. “I want to make sure she’s okay, and I can tell her about the plan to meet at Granny’s.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” said Emma. “The rest of us can go to my parents—”

“It might be better if you did that without me,” Killian interjected. “Your father and I were still on rather shaky terms when I saw him last and my presence with you would likely raise some questions best kept for later.”

Neal snorted, then shrugged when the other three glared at him. “What? He’s not wrong.”

“So where will you go?” Emma asked.

“I was thinking I could stop at the sheriff’s station by myself. If Zelena is as secure as you think then you needn’t come along unless you wish to. I can check on her quickly then head to Granny’s and meet you there.”

“Okay, that sounds like a good plan,” said Emma. “Henry goes to get Regina—”

“And Robin, they have a date tonight so he should be with her.” Henry’s eyes lit up. “I bet Robin Hood will be useful in—well, in whatever comes now.”

“Yeah, okay, so Henry goes to get Regina and Robin while I go to find my parents, and Killian will go to the station to check on Zelena. We’ll meet back at Granny’s as soon as possible. Everyone okay with that?” They all nodded except Neal, who still stood in the corner with his arms crossed. Emma fixed him with a glare and he scowled in reply. “Neal?” she said in a warning tone. “What about you?”

Neal swept the room with his scowl and shrugged again. “I’ll go with Hook,” he said. “Check on Zelena then meet you at Granny’s.”

“Really?” Emma demanded. “That’s what you want to do?”

“Hey don’t forget I worked for Zelena under the curse. I saw what she’s capable of, and that was without magic. If she’s even a little bit free then trust me, the pirate’s gonna need backup.”

Emma looked questioningly at Killian. “I wouldn’t mind some backup, actually,” he said.

“And you’re sure you’ll—be okay?” Emma asked, turning to Neal again.

“If you’re asking can I go half an hour without punching your husband, yeah I can,” he replied with a sneer. “But those questions your parents are gonna have? I’ve got them too. Just as long as both of you remember that.”

“Once we’re sure the town’s safe we will tell all of you everything,” Emma assured him. “We promise. Just behave yourselves until then. Both of you.”

Killian and Neal exchanged a long look, then nodded stiffly to each other.

“Fine by me,” said Neal.

“Aye, and me.” Killian tightened the arm that still rested around Emma’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Be careful, love,” he murmured in her ear. “We’ll see you at Granny’s.”

Emma tightened her hold around his waist and quickly checked the protection spells around him. They were still firmly in place, and as strong as ever. Even if she somehow managed to gain control of the curse magic, there was no way Zelena could use it to harm Killian. Emma drew a deep breath and told herself to relax. Killian was safe, thoroughly protected, and there was no reason for him to know that she’d never let him go alone to face Zelena unless she was certain of that.

She gave him a final squeeze and then released him, stepping back and gathering her magic.

“Everyone ready?” she asked.

“Just one last thing.” Killian disappeared into their bedroom and returned a moment later, tightening the straps of the brace that held his hook.

“Just in case,” he said, as he tugged the sleeve of his sweater down over it and Emma nodded. “Ready when you are, love.”

She poofed Henry first, sending him straight to the living room of the loft. Killian and Neal she directed to a safe corner of the sheriff’s station, then took herself to the doorstep of the house where her parents now lived.

The Rabbit Hole was silent but for the low drone of the dwarves’ conversation across the room. The Merry Men sat in a circle, beer mugs clutched in white-knuckled grips, every ear turned to the large man standing at their centre.

“And that,” concluded Little John, with one final flourish to his rapt audience, “is how I reorganised the entire filing system at the library!”

The Merry Men erupted into cheers, pounding on their tables or leaping to their feet to clap the hero Little John on his back in hearty congratulation. All but Will Scarlet, who sat back in his chair with his arms folded and a scowl on his face.

“Pah,” he scoffed, once the furore had died down.

“What’s that, Scarlet?” said Little John. “Did you say something?”

“Pah, is what I said,” Will replied. “You’re always biggin’ yourself up, John.”

“Oh? You think you could do better?”

“I’m the bloody town records clerk, mate, of course I could do better. Let me tell you about my filing system—”

Alan-a-Dale took a deep swig of his beer and shook his head fondly. “I never thought I’d live to see a day on which Will bloody Scarlet boasted about his filing system, eh, Stutely?” He elbowed the man sitting next to him. “I could see you doing that perhaps… but...” his words trailed off as he realised what he’d said.

Scarlet... Stutely... filing systems...

The curse.

At the bar, Grumpy was having an epiphany.

It hurt a bit.

“Dopey,” he growled. “Did you… talk?”

Dopey’s eyes went wide and he slowly nodded his head. His mouth opened but no words emerged, closing and reopening again in increasing confusion, his expression shifting to one of panic as he felt in his pockets for his notepad.

“Here.” Doc fished a piece of paper and a pen from his own pocket and handed them to his brother. Dopey took them with a grateful smile and wrote a single word.

How?

“I’ll tell you how,” said Grumpy. “The curse.”

“The curse,” his brothers repeated, exchanging nods amongst themselves.

The curse? wrote Dopey on his paper.

“It’s broken, you idiots,” growled Grumpy. “THE CURSE IS BROKEN!”

Comprehension dawned on the Merry Men’s faces as Grumpy’s words rang through the bar. They turned to each other in delight and began slapping backs and shaking hands once again.

“Will Stutely, as I live and breathe!” cried Alan-a-Dale.

His companion’s face broke into a wide grin. “Alan-a-Dale, well met indeed, my man! Has it been you all this time?”

“It has!” said Alan, laughing and clapping his friend on the shoulder as they hugged, observing from the corner of his eye Will Scarlet almost lost in the bear-like embrace of Little John. “The devil’s own curse, this was. I wonder who cast it?”

“Who else?” snarled Grumpy as he and the other dwarves approached. “The Evil Queen. She did it before and she’s done it again, and this time she’s not getting away with it.”

“What do you mean to do?” asked Little John.

“We’re going to find our axes and do what we should’ve done the last time. Make certain the Queen can never hurt us again. Now, who’s with me?”

Regina was too distracted to notice the curse’s magic begin to shift and creak but she felt it shatter. She gasped as the razor shards of it prickled against her skin, jerking backwards and breaking her kiss with Robin. His arms were still tight around her, stopping her from stumbling, but his forehead wrinkled in confusion and she watched with her heart in her throat as he shook his head and blinked rapidly, and an expression of apprehension crept across his face.

“Your Majesty,” he said cautiously.

Regina refused to feel hurt, reminding herself that he probably thought she’d been under the curse as well and things hadn’t exactly been friendly between them in the Enchanted Forest. Of course he’d be concerned about her reaction to finding herself kissing him.

“It’s still Regina to you,” she said softly.

“Er—” his frown deepened. “Is it?”

“Yes. Robin—” she reached up to touch his face and he flinched, his muscles tensing. Fear made her heart pound as she let her hand fall to his shoulder and groped for the best words to explain. “You were cursed.”

“I remember. It was—wait, why do you say I was cursed? Weren’t you as well?”

“No.”

“But you—er, we—”

She nodded. “I had quite a lot of time to think this past year, with everyone else in town under the curse and with my son gone—” her voice broke and she paused for a moment to get hold of herself. “And I realised how much I regretted not being more… receptive to you in the Enchanted Forest.”

“‘More receptive,’” he repeated. “That’s an interesting way to phrase it.”

She felt herself flush. “I was a bitch,” she said flatly. “And I’m sorry.”

His eyes widened at this blunt statement and then a smile tugged the corners of his mouth. “Not a bitch,” he said. “Forceful. Determined. Prickly, perhaps.” His arms tightened around her, and her heart fluttered when she realised he’d never removed them. “Fascinating,” he murmured, his voice dropping lower.

She caught her breath then slowly lifted her hand again and laid it flat against his cheek, stroking her fingers across his cheekbone when he didn’t flinch away. He leaned closer and her hand curled around the back of his neck as his lips claimed hers.

Regina sighed into the kiss, shivering at the electric frisson down her spine as his hand slid up it and into her hair. Her arm wound around his shoulders and his tongue slipped into her mouth and then a cloud of white swirled up from the living room floor and Henry appeared.

Emma took a deep breath and raised her hand to knock on the door but before she could it swung open to reveal Snow and David, looking flushed and mussed and very surprised to find her standing there.

“Um,” said Snow, blinking in confusion, and then joy broke across her face. “Emma!” she cried, throwing her arms around her daughter. “Oh, Emma!”

Tears welled in Emma’s eyes as she returned the hug and they rolled freely down David’s cheeks as he wrapped his arms around them both, cradling the back of Emma’s head in his hand in that fatherly way he had that always made her choke up a little.

“I’ve missed you guys,” she said, sniffing and blinking rapidly.

“We—well, we didn’t actually miss you, but oh, I wish we had,” cried Snow, hugging her harder, and Emma and David both chuckled though their tears.

“Is it bad that I know exactly what she means?” David mused.

They clung to each other for another minute, a sniffling mess of limbs, then Emma pulled back. “We need to go to Granny’s,” she informed them, wiping her eyes.

“Yeah,” David agreed. “We had the same thought. That’s where people will congregate and they’re going to want reassurance. And honestly probably some vengeance. They let Regina go the last time but now—”

“Regina didn’t cast the curse,” Emma interrupted.

David and Snow exchanged confused looks. “Didn’t she?” David asked.

“Don’t you remember?”

“All I remember was that the curse came on so fast, almost out of nowhere,” said Snow. “And Regina had been working on finding a way to get back to Henry. I guess I just assumed.”

“Mom, she was cursed as your maid. And Henry wasn’t even here. She was miserable. Do you really think she’d do that to herself?”

“Good point,” Snow conceded. “But if Regina didn’t cast the curse then who did?”

“Zelena,” replied Emma grimly.

“Zelena!”

“Yep. Oh, and she’s the Wicked Witch of the West.”

“The Wicked—”

“But we don’t really have time to get into that now,” said Emma. “We need to get to Granny’s in case there’s another mob like when the last curse broke. We’ll need to give everyone that reassurance.”

David nodded in agreement but Snow had clearly not been listening. “But Emma,” she said, “weren’t you cursed too? How do you know—”

“Look, I promise I’ll tell you everything, but we kinda do have to hurry.” Emma tried to keep the impatience from her voice. “I can transport us with magic—”

“You can?”

“Mom!”

“Sorry, I just—this is a lot to take in.”

“Well, take it in at Granny’s. Can we go now?”

Her parents nodded but before Emma could gather her magic, her phone buzzed with a text. A scowl darkened her face as she read it. “Change of plans,” she said, tucking the phone back into her pocket. “I’m sending you two to Granny’s now, and I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”

“Where are you going?” David demanded.

“To the sheriff’s station,” said Emma grimly. “And I’m going in hot.”

White smoke swirled and dissipated, leaving Killan and Neal in the sheriff’s station, just around the corner from the main room and out of sight of the cells. Neal started to move forward but Killian held out his arm to stop him and gave a small shake of his head. He pulled a mirror from his pocket, the same half of a broken compact that he had used to signal his location at Zelena’s farmhouse to Regina. It was just a mirror now, as far as he knew, the enchantment on it lifted or possibly expired, but a mirror was all he needed.

He flattened himself against the wall as close to the corner as he dared and carefully angled the mirror until it reflected the image of Zelena in her cell. She was reclining on the cot with her legs tucked beneath her, examining her fingernails. Everything else appeared normal.

Killian slowly released the breath he’d been holding and returned the mirror to his pocket.

“Looks fine,” he whispered to Neal. “I’m going in.”

“Wait.” Neal kept his voice low but the urgency in it was unmistakable. Killian turned to look at him, carefully holding on to his patience.

“What?”

Neal shifted his feet, grimacing slightly. “Look, man, I—I need to know something before we go in there. If I’m gonna trust you to have my back I need to know.”

“Know what?”

“Why you married her.”

“Neal—”

“Yeah, yeah, now’s not the time, curse is broken, gotta save the town, I get it. We will. But I need to know why.”

Killian sighed. The timing wasn’t great but he would prefer to have this conversation with Neal alone, with no David around to bluster or Snow to cluck. He reminded himself that Neal still didn’t know about the connection Killian and Emma shared, or what had happened between them over the past two years. Their last conversation had been in Granny’s, when Killian had promised to back off. Finding him married to Emma now must surely look to Neal like blatant betrayal of that promise. His anger, however inconvenient, was understandable.

“Because I love her,” Killian replied. The simplest explanations were always the strongest, and there wasn’t time right now for nuance. “I love her and she loves me and we want to spend our lives together.”

Neal’s scowl softened and some of the tension left his shoulders. He gave a small nod. “Okay.”

Killian nodded in return and together they moved towards the main room of the station. Just as they turned the corner a rush of magic struck them, with the strength of a storm surge on an angry sea. It flung them both off their feet and sent them flying backwards to land in an undignified heap in front of the door.

Killian shook his head to clear the ringing from his ears then realised that it wasn’t ringing at all, but a shrill cackle proceeding from the direction of the cells. He ground his teeth, even as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, grabbed his phone from his pocket and thrust it at Neal.

“Text Emma,” he snarled. “Tell her to get here right away. Then stay out of sight until she arrives.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Stall the bloody witch until Emma can deal with her. Now hurry!” He scrambled to his feet and rounded the corner again, pushing his way through air made thick by magic. It resisted him, no longer a storm surge but a fen, the magic clinging to his clothes and sucking at his feet as he fought his way forward towards the cell where Zelena was still lounging, her pose ostentatiously casual and her expression far too pleased for Killian’s liking.

“Mom!” Henry cried, not seeing them at first. “Mom, you—whoa!” His eyes bugged comically and he clapped his hand over them. “Bloody hell!”

Regina leapt back, shoving at Robin’s shoulders until he released her and smoothing her hair. She knew she must be blushing furiously, and Robin’s amused expression only confirmed it. “Henry!” she exclaimed. “What—what are you doing here?”

“The curse broke,” said Henry. He peered cautiously through the gap between his fingers then seeing them standing a good foot apart removed his hand. “My mom and dad—er, both my dads are gathering everyone at Granny’s to figure out what happens now,” he explained. “I said I’d come here to get you, but I wasn’t expecting—I mean, I knew you weren’t alone, but—I thought people kissed at the end of dates!”

“They do, but… well…” Regina looked helplessly at Robin.

“But it’s not every day that a curse breaks in the middle of one,” concluded Robin smoothly, stepping forward and offering Henry his hand. “Hello, Henry, it’s good to meet you properly,” he said. “I’m—”

“Robin Hood,” interjected Henry with a wide grin, shaking the proffered hand enthusiastically. “I know. That’s so cool.”

Robin chuckled. “I’m pleased you think so,” he said, with a teasing glance at Regina. “Your mum was somewhat less impressed.”

Regina rolled her eyes dramatically, but she couldn’t quite suppress her pleased smile. “What do you want from me?” she huffed. “I said I was sorry.”

“So you did but I’m not sure I’m quite convinced—”

“Look, this is great,” said Henry, with a smirk and an eye-roll of his own. “I’m glad you guys are, you know, bantering or whatever, but the thing is we’ve got this curse that’s just broken, and—”

‘The curse!” Regina’s smile evaporated as a thought struck her, and she snatched up the flowers Robin had brought, scowling as she examined them.

“Um, yeah,” said Henry. “It is broken, right? Emma said—”

“Yes, it’s broken.” Regina plucked one of the flowers from the vase and peered at it. “Shattered, actually.”

“Shattered!”

“Yes.” Regina shivered. “It was always unstable and with all the pressure you’ve been putting on it lately, bringing love back, it was only a matter of time before the cracks burst open. Which leaves us with a new problem. That curse was made with magic from several different realms, and now it’s loose in the air and sort of—fighting with itself. Can’t you feel it?”

She looked up to find two pairs of concerned eyes on her. “I—maybe?” said Henry. “What does magic feel like?”

“Different magics feel different but this is like… well, to me it feels like shards of glass but for you it would be more like pinpricks all over your skin.”

“Shards of glass?” Robin exclaimed as Henry nodded.

“Yeah. I think I feel it.”

“As do I.” Robin put his arm around her, running his hand up her back. “Are you all right?”

She smiled, more touched than she could express by his care. “I’m fine. But we have to get rid of this magic. Storybrooke isn’t big enough to hold it all, and the longer it stays here the more dangerous it will become.”

“How do we get rid of magic?” asked Henry.

Regina looked again at the flower she held. “I think I might have an idea.” She looked up at Robin. “This flower,” she said. “Can you show me where you picked it? The exact spot?”

He nodded. “Yes, I remember it perfectly. But it’s deep in the forest.”

Carefully Regina probed at the magic swirling around her. Most of it had been loosed by the curse, far too sharp and dangerous to use, but there was enough of Emma’s light magic remaining in the loft for what she needed. “I can take us to the start of the footpath by magic, we’ll walk from there,” she said. “Henry—”

“I’m coming too,” Henry interrupted firmly, already on his phone. “I’m texting Emma now, so she’ll know where we are.”

“Good idea.” Regina looked again at Robin, who was watching her intently with a small smile on his face. Her belly gave a little flutter. “Are you ready?” she asked.

“I am.” He curled his hand around her shoulder as Henry tucked his phone back into his pocket. “Though I wish I had my bow. Unfortunately I’ve no notion of where it may be.”

“Oh, hey, I do!” said Henry said brightly. “I saw it at the pawn shop!”

“Do we have time to stop there and fetch it?”

“No,” said Regina. “But Henry if you tell me exactly where it is, I can summon it as we transport.”

“It’s in the back, hung on a mannequin in the far left corner.”

Regina closed her eyes and did her best to envision the back room of the pawn shop. She gathered all the magic she could touch and wrapped it tight around the bow, and the three of them. “Okay,” she said. “Here we go.”

“Well, hello, Captain,” Zelena purred as Killian struggled up to the bars of her cell. “What an interesting situation we find ourselves in.”

“Do we?” Killian kept his expression bland, carefully not revealing either the effort it took to hold himself upright against the crushing force of the magic in the room or the little details he observed, such as the fact that Zelena’s cell was still securely locked and the catlike smugness in her smile.

“I’d say we do,” she replied. “You must have noticed that the curse is broken.”

“Aye, that I did. The curse you told us we would never break. I suppose that is interesting.”

Irritation flashed across Zelena’s features, just for a second but he was watching too closely to miss it. “Yes,” she said. “You’ve done me quite a favour, you and your wife.”

“Have we? Things seem to have changed remarkably little for you.”

Zelena’s smile slipped again, for longer this time. “Breaking the curse released all its magic,” she spat. “It’s free now and it’s everywhere. There’s no escape from it.”

Killian fought to keep his own face from revealing anything. That was exactly what Emma had said. Its magic is everywhere.

“And yet, you’re still in a cell,” he pointed out.

Zelena snarled and he felt the air surge again. This time he was prepared for it, with his feet well-braced. It was rather like standing on the deck of a ship in reverse, he thought. On a ship the sea moved beneath him and here the air moved around him, but the rolling waves and the importance of keeping a wide stance with one’s feet firmly planted remained the same. Zelena’s lip curled in a snarl when he teetered but did not fall, and when the air ceased moving a moment later she fell back against the wall with a little huff.

She can affect the magic, Killian thought, but she can’t properly use it and the effort tires her. That’s good to know.

But where the devil was Emma?

White smoke swirled up just behind him and Emma appeared as though his thoughts had conjured her, wearing the darkest scowl Killian had ever seen on her face. Another surge of magic waved outward from Zelena’s cell, quick as the lash of a whip and giving Emma no time to brace against it. She threw up her hands in a makeshift shield but she was not quite quick enough to block the whole wave and she stumbled backwards, just for a moment—before Killian even had time to react she had righted herself and spun about to face Zelena.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she snapped.

“Whatever do you mean, dear?” asked Zelena, outwardly calm once again.

“What are you trying to do with the curse magic?” Emma demanded. “How are you even touching it?”

“It’s my magic,” Zelena hissed. “Did you really believe you could just cut me off from it?”

Something flashed in Emma’s eyes and her lips curled into a smile Killian recognised as highly dangerous. “There’s a thought,” she said.

“Well you’ll have no time to think it,” sneered Zelena.

A startled shout sounded from the hallway and Neal appeared, sliding on his back along the floor as a force invisible to Killian’s eyes dragged him by his ankle. Killian darted forward to help him but the moment his balance shifted he felt the magic in the air grab him, felt a crushing pressure on his chest as he was hauled backwards and slammed hard against the bars of Zelena’s cell. Dazed and winded from the impact, he drew a wheezing breath and shook his head to clear it, only vaguely aware as seconds later Neal was flung against the bars next to him, choking and gasping for air, his fingers scrabbling uselessly at his neck.

When Killian’s vision cleared he looked up to see Emma charging towards him, fury snapping in her eyes as she used her own magic to push through the sucking resistance of the force that tried to hold her back. Their gazes met and Killian could read her intentions perfectly in her determined glare and the set of her jaw; he knew her far too well to think even for a second that she might do anything other than what she now intended. She meant to save him and damn the cost, but if she went for him first it would be too late.

Which was precisely what Zelena was counting on.

“No, Swan,” he gasped, “Neal! Save Neal!”

Zelena cackled. “You’ll have to choose, Saviour,” she spat. “You’ve no time to save both. But the moment you release me from your shielding spell, I’ll release them.”

Emma’s eyebrows drew together and she looked sharply at Neal, whose face had gone mottled purple as he struggled for air. As difficult as breathing was for Killian, it was plain to him that for Neal it was far more so. He was choking to death and had mere seconds left.

“Protection… spell,” he ground out, trusting that Emma would understand.

She did. Relief washed over him as she nodded and shifted direction, heading instead for Neal. Zelena snarled and Killian could feel the force around him shifting, the pressure on his chest lessening. Zelena couldn’t maintain such a strong hold on to him while also keeping Emma away from Neal, he realised, and he could see the moment the same realisation struck Emma. With a furious shout she sent a burst of magic from her hands that burned clean through the curse magic, blazing an open path to Neal.

Zelena gave a cackle, triumphant on its face but with desperation ringing through. “Careful, Saviour,” she hissed. “One wrong move and he dies!”

Emma was frowning in concentration. She appeared to be feeling with her magic, Killian thought, probing at the force that was choking Neal in search of weaknesses.

“You’re right,” she conceded, with what he considered to be remarkable calm. “I don’t know how you’re influencing the magic like this, but I can’t untangle it without killing him. This, though,” she held up her hand and the subtle knife appeared in a swirl of smoke upon its palm. “This can.”

Zelena screeched in fury as Emma held the knife out with its sharp edge pointing downwards and with a single strong, controlled movement slashed through the air, severing nothing that Killian could see but Neal fell to the ground in a heap, clutching his chest as he sucked in huge gulps of air. In the same instant Killian realised that the pressure on his own chest was gone, that the air had shifted again, shoring up the space between Zelena and the door of her cell as Emma slowly turned to face her.

Robin strode along the footpath through the forest, his pace brisk and his steps sure. His bow and quiver were slung across his shoulder and Regina had to admit, wanted to admit after having wasted far too much time already in denying it, that his whole ‘rugged outdoorsman’ thing really did it for her. She hadn’t felt such simple animal attraction to anyone since—she winced as a spear of something that felt uncomfortably like guilt lanced her heart—since Graham.

She squirmed a bit before she could stop herself, and though neither Henry nor Robin was looking at her she adjusted her jacket and smoothed its lapels, wishing she could smooth away her conscience as easily. The thing was a damned nuisance, always pestering her with reminders of the terrible things she’d done, and all she had to atone for. It would keep doing that, according to Killian, until she’d made an effort to redress her wrongs. Regina grimaced. Graham was one of those wrongs, she knew, and she knew that there were consequences she would have to face—wanted to face, she reminded herself, she was genuinely tired of being a villain—for killing him.

But not just yet. Right now there were more pressing matters that needed her attention.

The path dipped, steeply and without warning, and the light through the trees shifted. It shimmered along the description of a downward curve, as if reflected off the edge of a blade, and when its arc was completed they found themselves standing in a wide clearing where the sunlight was dappled through shifting leaves and the ground a riot of colour.

“This is it,” said Robin, gesturing. “This is where I picked the flowers I brought you.”

Regina knelt and plucked a blossom from the ground, the twin of the one she had selected from Robin’s bouquet. “A mist lily,” she said, examining the trumpet-shaped head with its soft blue-grey petals, bobbing atop a slender stem. “I thought it was.”

“What’s a mist lily?” asked Henry.

“Just a flower.” Regina stood again and offered it to him. “It has no special properties, except that it only grows in the Enchanted Forest.”

Henry’s eyes went wide. “The Enchanted Forest!” he exclaimed.

Regina smiled. “Yes. This is the Enchanted Forest. Well, part of it anyway. I’m not sure exactly where.”

The trees surrounding the clearing were densely set, tall and wide and with thick-leaved branches that formed a canopy above their heads. It was impossible to see beyond it.

“At a guess, I’d say we’re at the northwest edge of your kingdom,” said Robin, frowning at the forest floor and then up at the sky. “Where it borders the ogres’ land. About, oh, two or so days’ trek from your castle.”

Regina felt a flutter in her belly. “How can you possibly know that?” she demanded.

“Mom, he’s Robin Hood!”

“Indeed.” Robin’s smile edged into a smirk, one she would dearly love to kiss off his face. “I’m an excellent tracker, as you know, and the first rule of tracking is to know where you’re starting from.”

“So cool,” breathed Henry. “Can you teach me how to do that?”

“Of course, if you wish. Though I think before we attempt to track anything through this forest I’d like to know exactly how we got here.”

“Ah,” said Regina with a smirk of her own. “That is the question. I believe…” she turned back to the path behind them and peered closely at the way the light hung in the air. “I believe this is a portal.”

It was a thin, neat slice through nothing, no wider than the breadth of a hair and invisible at most angles. Approaching from the correct one, however, one could simply step through it, out of one world and into another.

“But how?” Henry frowned as he circled it, poked his head through then pulled it back again.

“Unless I’m very much mistaken,” replied Regina, “it was cut by the subtle knife.”

“The knife Zelena had!”

“The very one. This is how she got the curse magic from the Enchanted Forest and into Storybrooke. And,” she added, her lips curving into a triumphant, vicious smile, “it’s how we’re going to get it back out again.”

Emma unlocked Zelena’s cell with a wave of her hand and stepped inside, still moving with some difficulty through the magic-thickened air, but more easily than before. Zelena was weakening, Killian thought. Pushing against Emma’s shielding spell to manipulate the curse magic was exhausting her.

Emma halted a foot or two in front of the cot where Zelena still reclined. Her previously triumphant pose now much more closely resembled cowering, Killian remarked, despite her attempts at bravado.

“I wanted to give you a chance, you know,” said Emma. “A chance to change and redeem your mistakes. The same chance we offered Regina. The same chance everyone deserves, at least once.” Though she wasn’t looking at him, Killian felt her words powerfully, deep in his heart.

“But,” Emma continued, “you refused that chance, again and again, and now it’s obvious that you can’t be trusted not to keep trying to harm us, even when you’re behind a shielding spell. There’s nothing I can do, no magic I can use that will keep my family safe from you. You’ve made it so my only option is to kill you, and that I won’t do.”

“Because you’re weak,” snarled Zelena. “Too weak to do what’s necessary.”

“The fact that you think that,” said Emma calmly, “is your weakness.”

She raised the knife again and probed the air with it, feeling for something Killian could not perceive—but Zelena could. For the first time he saw genuine fear in her eyes as it began to dawn on her what Emma intended.

“No!” she cried, leaping up off the cot. “No… you can’t! You wouldn’t! You wouldn’t!”

An expression of grim determination settled on Emma’s face as she located what she had been seeking with the point of the knife. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish there was another way.”

“No—” Zelena’s cry was cut off as Emma made another slashing motion with the knife, a single short downward thrust. Zelena gasped, a heartrending sound of pain and unspeakable loss, then collapsed onto the floor, her eyes gaping wide in shock and horror.

The sucking resistance in the air was gone, Killian realised, replaced by buzzing noise that started low then grew perceptibly louder as the air itself began to vibrate. “Emma—” he began, but he was cut of by Zelena’s shriek of pure rage.

“What have you done?” she howled. “What have you done? My magic… my magic—”

There was sorrow in Emma’s eyes, and a deep compassion, but no remorse. “You’ll never touch your magic again,” she said. “I’ve cut your link to it forever. The subtle knife can cut anything, you know.”

“You’ve ruined me! You bitch, you—”

“I did what I had to do to keep the people I love safe from you,” snapped Emma. “You would never have stopped trying to hurt us. Now you can’t.”

“Swan.” Killian reached cautiously into the cell, dizzy and discombobulated by the increasingly frantic vibrations that surrounded them. He slipped his hook around Emma’s arm, holding tight to the bars with his hand. “Love—what’s happened to the magic?”

Emma allowed him to tug her out of the cell and closed and locked the door behind them. She turned to him and frowned. “What do you mean—oh.” Her eyes went wide and she gripped Killian’s arm. “Oh. Shit.”

The buzzing was deafening now and the vibrations frantic, pinpricks of magic crackling and snapping around them with electric vigour.

“You can feel that?” asked Emma.

“Aye, I think even my organs can feel it.”

“It’s like an army of chainsaws in my head,” groaned Neal, struggling to stand. Emma held out her hand to help him and Killian his hook, still keeping a tight hold on the bars of the cell to balance all three of them. “What is it?”

“It’s the curse magic,” Emma replied. “It’s sort of—untethered. But it’s been that way since the curse broke, I don’t know why it’s acting this way now.”

As she spoke purple smoke swirled and Regina appeared, flanked by Henry and Robin. “I think I can answer that,” she said, turning to glare at her sister where she lay slumped on the floor of her cell.

“Hah,” said Zelena, with an attempt at her old sneer. “I’d love to see you try.”

“As would I,” said Killian. “Sooner rather than later, love, before we all turn to liquid.”

Regina shifted her glare to him, then began to explain. “We already know that this curse is not like the last one,” she said, and Emma nodded. “Zelena patched it together out of a hodgepodge of different magics, some of which should never have met. That’s what made the curse so unstable. And now that all of that disparate magic is loose it’s clashing and reacting, and that’s what we—what all of us, I guess—can feel.”

“So what are we going to do about it?” asked Emma.

“Storybrooke is too small to hold all of it safely,” said Regina. “It’s stuck within the boundaries of the town and there’s just too much of it. We need to send it somewhere where it has room to disperse, and the different kinds of magic can repel away from each other. We need to send it back to the Enchanted Forest.”

Killian scowled. “How the bloody hell do we manage that?”

Regina shot him another glare. “There’s a portal in the woods, one that Zelena must have used to cast the curse in the first place. One cut by the subtle knife.” She and Emma exchanged a significant glance. “Robin found it.”

“Stumbled upon it, more like,” said Robin.

“But what does that mean?” Killian pressed.

“It means we have an outlet,” said Emma, and Regina nodded. “We can funnel the magic through that portal and out of Storybrooke.”

“Exactly.”

“But then, how do we close the portal? Oisín said only the knife bearer can do that, and—”

“We’ll have to worry about that another time,” said Regina. “Once the magic is back in the Enchanted Forest it won’t be a danger to us anymore, and I can make a temporary patch to block the portal. It’s not a permanent solution but it’s the best we’ve got, and we have to move fast. The longer we wait the more dangerous the magic will become. We need to do this now.”

“Okay,” said Emma. “You go back to this portal, then. I’ll gather the magic here and send it to you, and you funnel it out. Does that work?”

Regina nodded. “It should.”

“Um.” Emma frowned. “How do we—do you have something, like a signal or something to let me know where exactly you are?”

“Take this.” Killian withdrew the broken compact mirror from his jacket pocket. “You still have the other half?” he asked Regina.

“I do.” Regina took the mirror’s twin from her own pocket. “These should work perfectly.” She waved her hand over both mirrors. “I’ve modified the spell so they’ll act like beacons. Once you have the magic under control, press your thumb on this mirror—” she handed Killian’s half to Emma “—and my mirror will send up a signal to show you exactly where I am.”

“Got it.”

“Okay.” Regina flexed her fingers. “Are we ready?”

“I’m coming with you.” They all turned to stare at Robin, who looked alarmed at the ferocity on their faces.

“I don’t think there’s much you can do to help,” said Regina.

“Perhaps not, but I’d prefer it if you weren’t alone,” he replied, and Regina’s expression softened to an almost girlish smile. Killian exchanged a glance with Emma, who just shook her head. Henry beamed.

“All right,” said Emma. “Regina and er—”

“Robin Hood.”

“Right. Regina and Robin, um, Hood will go to the woods and make sure the magic gets through the portal. I’ll collect it and send it to them and the rest of you—” she glared at Neal and at Henry, and finally at Killian, narrowing her eyes. “The rest of you stay out of my way.”

Flanked by his fellow dwarves and trailed by the Merry Men, Grumpy burst through the doors of the Rabbit Hole and headed down the street.

“We’ll go to Granny’s,” he said. “Gather a nice mob. Then we’ll hunt down the Evil Queen and this time she’ll get what’s coming to her.”

The dwarves chimed in a chorus of agreement but from the Merry Men it more resembled concerned muttering.

“A mob sounds like the wrong kind of justice,” said Little John. “Are you even sure it was the Queen?”

“Of course I am,” snarled Grumpy. “Who else would it be?”

“Well—”

“It was her,” Grumpy declared as they turned into Granny’s outdoor seating area. “It’s always her. Trust me.”

The door to the diner swung open with a cheerful chime of its bell and Snow and Charming emerged, she with a wide, delighted smile and he with his arms crossed firmly over his chest.

“It’s so good to see you all!” cried Snow.

“But you’re all going to need to turn around and go back home,” said Charming.

“Home?” growled Grumpy. “I don’t think so, Your Highness. We were cursed, again, and we’re going to make sure that this time is the last.”

“Oh we will make sure of that. But if your plan is to go after Regina I’m going to need you to rethink it. Regina didn’t cast this curse.”

“Ha,” said Little John, earning him a glare from the irate dwarf.

“Well then who did?” he demanded.

Charming’s expression was grim. “Zelena.”

“Zelena!” echoed Grumpy, as voices rose around him, dwarves and Merry Men all speaking at once.

“What, the mayor?”

“Ex-mayor.”

“Why would she curse us?”

“What does she get out of it?”

“Who was she in our world, anyway?”

“I don’t know, I don’t remember her.”

“She was the Wicked Witch of the West,” said Charming, raising his voice above the din.

“Like from Oz?” called Will Scarlet.

“How do you know?” Grumpy demanded.

“Emma told us,” said Snow, smiling proudly. “She figured it out.”

“Oh yeah? And where’s Emma now?”

“Dealing with the witch, we hope,” said Charming with a scowl. “Look, why don’t you all come inside and we’ll tell you everything we know.”

The magic snapped through the air, almost snarling in its growing fury. Emma focused her attention on it, clearing her mind as she concentrated on it, on feeling it and reaching out to it. Its jagged shards sliced at her, and though she knew the pain she felt wasn’t physical that didn't stop her feeling it. The others felt it too, she reminded herself, less acutely than she did but it still hurt them. She needed to get this magic gone before it could cause any real damage.

Closing her eyes, she stretched her senses as far as they could go, feeling for the magic as it spread through Storybrooke, catching it and gathering it together, weaving it securely into a shape that could easily be sent to Regina. It was not unlike trying to wrestle angry cats into a sack and though her attention was entirely focused on her task she was grateful for Killian’s calming presence, close beside her with his hand rubbing circles on her back. She reached out blindly and gripped his hook, clutching it to keep herself grounded as she pulled the last bits of the magic together.

“Okay,” she gasped. “I’ve got it.”

Killian handed her the mirror and she pressed her thumb against it. Seconds later it buzzed as the magic that linked it to its twin formed a connection. Not an especially strong one—a bit like two tin cans joined by a string—but strong enough tho show her where to send the magic. She pointed it in the right direction and then with a mental heave she flung it away, imagining the sack of angry cats sailing through the air towards Regina and becoming her problem.

She could feel the moment Regina took control of the curse magic and when she was certain it was not going to get loose again she let it go, stumbling a bit at the release of her burden and leaning into Killian’s arms when he caught her. He hugged her tight and stroked her hair as she breathed a heavy sigh into his shoulder.

“Is it done then, love?” he asked, his voice low in her ear.

She nodded. “It’s up to Regina now.”

Regina and Robin stood in Storybrooke’s woods, one on each side of the portal’s slender arc, waiting.

Robin had his bow in hand, not fully drawn but with an arrow nocked and at the ready. A gust of wind rose up, sending leaves swirling around them and he tensed, his eyes sharp on the path before them.

“You think arrows are going to help against magic?” sneered Regina, then immediately wished she hadn’t. The snarky attitude she wore like a cloak had become simple habit, born of anxiety and the need to appear strong, but she didn’t truly wish to be so nasty. Not to him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and suppressed a smirk at his look of surprise. “I’m worried, and that makes me snappish. But I shouldn’t take my feelings out on you.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” he replied, with such earnestness she gaped at him. He smiled. “You forget I’ve seen your magic firsthand, Your Majesty,” he said. “I have no doubt you can perform this task with ease.”

His simple faith in her despite the hesitancy and uncertain tension that still hung between them warmed Regina to her very depths and made her wish that she were better at feelings. “Robin, I—” she began, and then felt the mirror in her pocket grow hot. “I—I think it’s time.”

She removed the mirror and pressed her thumb against it to answer Emma’s call. The mirror buzzed faintly in her hand as it linked with its counterpart and a moment later Regina saw the curse magic winding its way towards them from the direction of Storybrooke, woven into a tight and impressively tidy rope. Oisín had clearly met with more success in teaching Emma how to use magic than she herself had, Regina thought.

She reached out with her own magic, stable tendrils of it pulled through the portal from the Enchanted Forest, and took control of the rope. There was a moment of tension when both she and Emma held it at once, then Emma released her end and Regina stumbled at the abrupt shift. Instantly Robin was there, catching her before she could fall and keeping a steady hand on her arm as she wrestled the snapping and writhing magic through the portal.

As soon as the tail end of the rope had gone she released it from her hold and followed it, slipping cautiously through the narrow opening with Robin keeping a secure grip on her had from the other side, and watched anxiously to see how the magic would react to its new surroundings. For the space of several heartbeats nothing happened, but then slowly, almost cautiously, the rope began to unravel. It uncoiled itself, picking up speed when it met with no resistance, spreading out as far as it could, all the disparate magics skittering away from each other and dissipating into the atmosphere.

Regina exhaled in relief then drew a deep breath, full of the familiar scents of her homeland, and felt a tiny twinge of melancholy. Someday she should probably go back to the Enchanted Forest again, she thought, to fix the ravages her curse—and likely now Zelena’s curse—had wrought upon it. But not today.

She stepped back through the portal and wove a protection spell around it, to prevent anyone from stumbling through it by accident as Robin had.

If it had truly been an accident. Regina had some theories on that subject.

She turned to Robin, who was smiling softly. “Well done,” he said. “I knew you could do it.”

She felt herself flush under his praise. “I had help,” she replied with a small shrug, surprised to realise that the modesty was genuine. She would never have managed to defeat Zelena or break the curse all on her own. Without Emma and Henry, and perhaps most of all Killian—she would have been trapped forever in the special hell her sister had made for her. More surprising still was the realisation that working with them had been... nice. Nice to have people on her side, sharing her burdens, nice not to have to handle everything alone. Nice to have friends.

She shook her head at the foolish thought. They were far from calling each other friends, she and Emma and Killian—it was a long path to friendship from ‘reluctant allies,’ after all—and yet Regina had a stirring of a suspicion, a tiny fragile bud of a feeling, that someday this might actually become a reality.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a real friend.

“Speaking of which, we should get back to the station and make sure they’re all okay,” she said, taking up her magic again. “Are you ready?”

Robin nodded. “Always.”

@katie-dub @kmomof4 @teamhook @stahlop @mariakov81 @snowbellewells @thejollyroger-writer @jennjenn615 @tiganasummertree @lfh1226-linda @winterbaby89 @ultraluckycatnd @resident-of-storybrooke

#cs fic #cs ff #cs ff au #captain swan #cursed storybrooke #canon divergence #3b canon divergence #alternative 3b #background snowing #background outlaw queen #justice for Zelena #their way by moonlight

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justjessame · 4 years ago

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The Deal Chapter 6

Daryl studied me in the moonlight. And I watched him. The way the light illuminated his face, his dark hair looked black, and his bare arms gleamed. I bit my lip, waiting, letting him choose our pace. He stepped closer, looking down at me and smiled.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, letting his hand come up so his fingers could trace the lines of my face. “I can’t believe you’re mine.” I kissed the pad of his finger as it made a pass along my lips. “Since ya shared your story with me, I wanna share some of mine with ya.” I nodded. He stepped back and pulled off his vest, sitting it at the foot of our makeshift bed. Then his shirt came off and he turned so his back was in full view.

I gasped, stepping carefully forward and gently touching the deep scars marking his skin. “What happened?” I asked, my fingertips tracing each dent and groove. “Who did this?”

He was still, but I could feel the tension leaving him as my fingers moved along his back. “My dad was a mean son of a bitch. He drank. He got mean. And he hit whichever of us was closest.” I let my hands run down his back and trace the tattoos and smooth over the rest of his skin. “My mom died when I was twelve. Merle was in and out of juvie until he joined up. That left me.” I could hear the pain in his voice, but I could also hear the pride of a survivor. “I wanted to show ya, I don’t show no one. Hell, even Merle don’t know.”

I tugged on him so he’d turn to face me. I looked up at him with such a fierce feeling of protectiveness. “No one touches you again, Daryl Dixon. Not like that, not-”

His lips crashed down on mine and I was left without words. His hands, usually so carefully above the waist, cupped my ass and pulled me tight against him. He wanted me, there was no doubt at all about that, and I needed him to know it was mutual. A moan, deep in my throat built and he swallowed it. Our tongues tempted and tasted one another, and I knew, barring some kind of catastrophe, tonight we would finally come fully together.

Our clothes fell off in record time, I can’t be sure who took what off of whom. All I know is that we were both, completely and totally bare beneath the bright moon and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. He cradled me into his arms and then we were lying on the blankets. One kiss became another, our hands touching every inch of each other, learning and testing what each one liked the best. The answer? Everything. Everywhere Daryl touched me a fire flared. Everywhere I touched him, I could feel his need.

As he kneeled between my open legs, he looked down at me and gave that half smile that I’d come to love. “I don’t got protection, Jessi, so we’re gonna have to be careful.”

I sat up and cupped my hand behind his neck, pulling him down with me. “I don’t care, Daryl. Just take me.”

And then, one rock of his hips and we were finally joined. His forehead met mine, our eyes locked together once we adjusted to just how perfectly we fit together. Then our lips brushed and I arched up against him. I felt him moan into my mouth and he moved. Together we moved, thrust being met with the same intensity. Our mouths searching for any bit of skin we could reach, our lips together every other second.

He’d compared my beauty to the stars, he was like my sun. Bright and hot and burning with every touch. As we came together, moving and clutching, I felt sure of one thing in my world. Daryl Dixon loved me. And I’d die for him.

GREENE FARM~ JUST BEFORE SUNRISE

I was snuggled in Daryl’s arms, his head resting on the top of mine. He was right, and it would be annoying how often that happened if I didn’t enjoy it so damn much. Our first time was memorable, and magical. We’d made love so many times during the dark hours that I lost count. Touching, tempting, burning, it was so amazing and I’d fight to keep experiencing it with him.

I felt him stir and smiled. “You waking up?” I asked, kissing his chest. “Maybe we should head back?”

He groaned at the mere thought. “Can’t we just stay here forever?” He asked, and I grinned up at him. “Could start a new Eden. You be Eve, I’ll be Adam?”

I hummed in approval as his hand slid down my body. “That’s pretty damn tempting, Dixon.” His hand landed on my ass and grabbed a handful. “I think we’d scare Hershel’s horses. Not sure they’ve seen naked people around here.”

That made him laugh. “True ‘nough.” He pulled me up so I could be kissed thoroughly. “I love you, Jessica Grimes.” He whispered as he released me.

“I love you, Daryl Dixon.” I said without hesitation. “I’m probably going to be walking funny for a few days, so I’m sure everyone’s going to know just how much we love one another.”

We both giggled at that. “Ya sore?” He asked, once he calmed down. Worried, like always.

“Just a bit.” I assured him. “It’s been a long time, you know.”

He nodded. And held me in his arms. “Know what they say, practice makes perfect, or in your case, less painful.” He kissed me again and I reconsidered the new Eden idea.

AN HOUR AFTER SUNRISE

We walked hand in hand back to our tent. Most of our group wasn’t awake yet, so we ducked inside the tent and took a nap. It wasn’t long after that we heard the sounds of the rest of the world waking up. I was still in Daryl’s arms when I heard Dad and the others talking about another grid search.

“Gotta get up and goin’, baby.” Daryl whispered into my hair. Kissing my forehead, he sat up and I felt a chill go down my spine.

“Daryl?” He turned to me and I smiled. “Be careful today?” He squinted at my tone, I knew I sounded scared, but I knew that something was going to happen today. “Just humor me?” He leaned over and kissed me when I sat up.

“‘Course I’ll be careful.” He gave me a breathtaking smile. “Got a lot worth livin’ for, don’t I?”

I nodded and sat in the tent trying to understand the chill. Carl was fine. Dad was clearly doing alright. Lori was being a little weird, but that’s understandable considering. So Daryl had to be the source of my worry. Didn’t he? When I left the tent, Dad walked over to me.

“Jessi,” he said, taking my shoulders in his hands. “I want you to stay behind. Most of the strongest fighters are going on this search, and since Hershel doesn’t mind your bow.”

I nodded. “Which grid does Daryl have?” I asked, looking around. He didn’t seem to be anywhere. I nearly missed the guilty look on Dad’s face. “What?”

“Look, yesterday, I told Daryl he didn’t have any more obligations to us.” I gaped at him. “I didn’t KNOW, Jessi. I didn’t know that you two were really-”

I felt my face fall. My own father had tried to push out the man I loved from our group. The ONE man other than him that cared about these assholes’ survival. “That doesn’t answer my question, Dad.” I breathed. I wondered why Daryl hadn’t told me, but it didn’t hurt that he didn’t. Knowing him, he hadn’t wanted to cause a rift between me and my dad.

“He’s on horseback, Jessi. He’s taking the ridge.” His tone was an attempt to sooth me, it almost worked. “He’ll be alright. I have to admit, he’s a tough one. And he’s amazing at tracking.”

“And he’s alone on the grid.” I bit out. “Alone and in a strange part of the forest.” I glared up at my dad. “You taught us, Dad, you taught me and Carl and Lori that partnering up on a search was the ONLY way to go. So Daryl doesn’t get that, does he?” I turned away from me to hide my fear and worry, but my dad knew me too well.

“Sweetheart?” He pleaded, touching my shoulder. “What aren’t you telling me?”

I felt the burning heat of tears in my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them fall. Not yet, not until I KNEW they were necessary. “Nothing, Dad, I’m not keeping anything back.” I turned and walked toward the RV. “I’ll take the first watch. Dale’s going to boil alive up there one day.”

I watched over the property. I watched Dad and the others, including Hershel’s youngest daughter’s boyfriend go off to work the grid. I wondered at Daryl leaving alone. I kept my eyes peeled as Carol ventured out and spoke to Lori. My stepmom looked shocked, but nodded. And when Dale insisted I take a break, I walked to the house to check on Carl.

As I came up the steps, I bore witness to a conversation I hoped I could burn out of my memory, but figured I wouldn’t be that lucky. Glenn and Hershel’s oldest daughter, the one that came for Lori and me, Maggie were standing at the door.

Glenn was trying to flirt, I guess, when I heard this zinger. “You know, we have eleven condoms left.” Ugh, I thought, they had sex. And then I was wondering where they’d scavenged the condoms.

Then the farm girl hit back with a below the belt attack with, “you see eleven condoms, I see eleven minutes of my life I won’t get back.” Ouch, I thought, looking at Glenn’s face fall. That’s harsh, and sad.

Sad puppy face Glenn begging for confirmation that he didn’t suck at sex, “it wasn’t that bad was it?” I closed my eyes to hopefully stop the trainwreck in front of me, but wait, was she giving him hope?

“I don’t even know if I like you.” Maggie offered. Thank goodness, I thought, because Glenn didn’t deserve the destruction she almost wrecked.

“But you’re thinking about it. You should.” Yep, Glenn got his sorta swagger back.

I wished I could disappear, because that’s when they noticed me standing at the foot of the steps. “Sorry. It was like the slowest moving trainwreck anyone has EVER had the misfortune to experience.” I offered, feeling my face burn bright red in sympathetic embarrassment. “Plus, I didn’t think I was being all that quiet when I came up. I mean, I’m not Daryl.” Shit, fuck, get me out of here. They were still staring at me. “I promise, your secret? It’s safe with me.” I moved past them to get in the door. Inside I let the sort of cool shade take the heat out of my face.

Shaking my head, I moved further into the house to sit with my brother, and try desperately NOT to worry about Daryl.

HOURS LATER~GREENE FARM

I was still with Carl when I heard the flurry of activity in the kitchen. Lori stepped into the room to let us know that we’d be having a big dinner together, that our group decided to cook dinner for Hershel and his family to thank them. I smiled at the gesture and hoped that it would be taken as such.

I was leaving to check in with Dale when I overheard Maggie and Hershel’s discussion about us leaving. Clearly, Hershel didn’t want us to be a permanent addition to his land. I walked quietly past the room they were chatting in and outside. The sun was still burning and I noticed that the others were back. I headed for the RV, thinking I’d relieve Dale again.

I heard Dale warning someone to not shoot, then I heard the damn shot fire. I took off running and realized that someone had put Andrea on watch. For God’s sake, I thought and realized that she looked proud. So why were my dad and Shane standing WITH the fucking walker? And that’s when I knew. This dumb, useless, gun-toting moron had shot Daryl.

I gave her no thought as I rushed to meet Shane and Dad who were trying to pick up at bleeding Daryl. He was covered in dirt, blood, and more blood. Was that a necklace of ears? Jesus, I glared at my dad and kneeled beside Daryl. I took his bleeding head in my hands and breathed easier when I realized Andrea had only grazed him. His side, that was another matter, I gasped when I moved his shirt out of the way.

“Lift him up,” I ordered, stepping away and removing the necklace. Eww, he and I were going to have to talk about appropriate accessories when he wasn’t so injured. “GET HERSHEL!” I yelled as we neared the house.

Daryl was leaning on his elbow as Hershel worked on his side. His head was bandaged and he was cleaner, thanks to me. I had sponged off most of the dirt and gore. He pointed out where he’d found Sofia’s doll on the map Maggie had provided for the grid search. And he wasn’t the least bit admonished for taking the horse without permission, he threatened the damn thing. I nearly laughed, but thought it best to restrain it.

“You’re fussin’, Jess.” He grunted, as I wiped more of his face clean.

I shook my head. “No, I’m just cleaning up my favorite masterpiece.” Hershel finished up and gave me a smile. “Thank you, again.” I offered the older man. “You keep saving the most important people in my life, going to owe you a huge debt soon.” He shook it off and left.

Dad and Shane asked Daryl a few more questions and then they walked out too. I sighed and Daryl’s hand met mine. “You knew, didn’t ya?” He asked, and I knew what he meant.

I nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t know WHAT, but I knew something bad.” I studied his face, clean now and pulled out the ‘necklace’ from my pocket. “Wanna tell me about this?”

He grimaced and laid back on the pillows. Patting the bed next to him, I crawled in and lay beside him. He groaned and pulled me closer, wanting my head on his chest. Hearing his heart pound steadily under my ear, I felt calmer than I had all day. “Horse threw me, fell on my own damn arrow, may have had some freaky ass visions of Merle, and killed some dead assholes that thought I was an easy meal.” He said, making it sound simple.

“And the ‘souvenir’?” I reminded him, having handed it to him and let him put it in his pant’s pocket.

I felt him shrug, and wince at the pain it brought to his side. “Seemed right at the time.”

I chuckled and turned my face up to look at him. “This was Daryl’s no good, very bad day, huh?” He grinned and agreed with a nod.

“Better now,” he whispered, kissing my hair. “Couldn’t think of nothin’ but gettin’ back to ya.” He sighed. “Gettin’ to ya, makin’ sure ya knew I was ok. I knew why ya looked at me like that this mornin’ as soon as the horse threw me. Then my asshole brother came into my head and I fought.”

“I’ll have to thank Merle when we find him again.” I smiled, and he grinned back at me.

We heard a light tap on the open door and saw Carol standing there. She held two plates and a smile on her face. “I thought I’d bring you two dinner, and give my thanks to the bandaged hero here.” She sat the plates on the bedside table. She leaned down and tried to kiss Daryl on his bandaged head, but he shook her off. Shaking her head, and smiling at the two of us pressed together, she went back to dinner with the others.

“You gave her more hope,” I said, sitting up to reach over him for the plates. Handing him his, I raised an eyebrow. He stared back, Clearly he wasn’t reading me for once. “Want me to feed you, hero?” He glared at me without heat and picked up his fork. Laughing I followed suit.

#daryl dixon x ofc #rick grimes daughter #eventual negan x ofc #smut #slow burn #angst

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goliath-de-senfina-sango · 5 years ago

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Things get darker right before they get brighter in the end, something three plucky teens are about to learn. Sometimes you just want that darkness to have never had a reason to come for you in the first place. One has to be careful what they wish for, of course.

Welcome to the end, friends

Danny was on the ground, unmoving.

The ghost left with a cheerful wave, saying, “Tata!” Like he hadn’t just ruined their lives worse than the first time Tucker had heard Danny’s screams at their loudest. Like it was simply a wonderful day and they had engaged in the most wonderful of conversations, not a fight that ended with one of them-

Danny was in Tucker’s arms, unmoving and pale.

Tucker was trying everything he could think of, removing most of Tucker’s tops and trying to perform every life-saving action he knew off, pressing against his chest, trying to breathe more breath into his lungs, keeping pressure on the bleeding and burnt wound when he saw it.

Danny was in Tucker’s arms, unmoving, pale, and bleeding.

Tucker knew everything was blurry because tears were clouding his vision. He knew he was crying. He knew he was shaking with the force of his sobs and for once in his life, he couldn’t bring himself to give half a damn about that because Danny-

Danny was in Tucker’s arms, unmoving, pale, bleeding, and his heart wasn’t beating no matter how long Tucker listened for it.

Sam was doing something, pulling out Danny’s weapons, and Tucker wanted to scream at her that she’d done enough with Fenton weapons already. He wanted to scream and rage at her for what she had done so far with Fenton Tech. He wanted to go to the Fentons and rip them all a new one for making what they made.

Because Danny was dead in Tucker’s arms, and screaming and crying were the only things he could do about it.

But he didn’t scream at Sam, he just watched as she pulled out one of Danny’s paintbrushes and dipped it in the ectoplasm of the cartridge in one of his guns. She started drawing on Danny’s face, his arms, his chest, and then pulled out another cartridge of charged ectoplasm in another gun and poured it in Danny’s mouth, tilted his head so that he would swallow. “Chant with me. Chant with me Tucker, we have to fix this!”

Tucker didn’t know any Hebrew, decided he’d learn both because Sam was his friend and because apparently, she could do things that could save their lives with it. Tucker didn’t need to know what he was saying to say it, and he did say it, over and over again for the next 10 minutes, until the drawings on Danny’s body lit up like fire and every ray of light rushed toward him and everything went dark. Tucker could hear the song of the universe dimming in his ears and knew nearly for a fact that Danny was sucking the ectoplasmic energy into him along with every other flavor of power within blocks of him. Tucker would let the sun itself go black just to hear Danny’s laugh again.

The darkness faded, Danny’s body was outlined in light, the markings were gone, and Danny groaned. His chest rose and dropped, his heart was beating, color was coming back to his skin, he was as warm as he’d been since the accident. Danny was alive in Tucker’s arms, and Tucker wanted to cry even harder than he already had. Instead, the put Danny’s binder back on him, Sam grabbed his shirt and jacket, and Tucker carried Danny out to their hoverboards. They flew to Sam’s house, Tucker staying as high and close to the sun as he could to let Danny soak in all the light he needed. When they got to Sam’s house, Tucker didn’t let Danny go until he was being set on a love seat on Sam’s balcony.

There were, of course, jokes to be made about the way Danny curled up in the fleeting October sunlight and how his fluffball curls and height combined with this to make him much like a kitten. Jokes about him being a cross between Superman and the Martian Manhunter could’ve also been made. Danny was a white-haired anime boy, that could be remarked upon with laughs aplenty. Tucker made no such jokes.

Tucker put to use the information he’d gathered at his last LARPing session at furrycon after a shank attempt by a guy who’d wandered into the park where he’d been LARPing at that took their cosplay a bit too seriously. That being that leather was wonderful armor, silk blocked stabs fantastically when a blade slid through said leather, and that one should always wear cotton under silk anything because sweating to death after a fight near to death wasn’t fun. He’d smacked a crazy guy upside the head and gotten a useful lesson out of that. Tucker’s older cousin could supply the leather, Sam could order fine silk jackets and pants for all of them, Danny had cotton shirts already, and Sidney offered to use intangibility to fuse the two together. Tucker commented that the leather would look fitting on Sam since she was more of a punk anyway. She called him a furry, he called her a weeb, and they both explained the concepts to Sydney.

That was all fine and dandy against most blunt force, stabbing and slashing that even a ghost could probably do, but against ghosts and their intangibility, there were few places to go. Sam had her magick book but Tucker didn’t want to touch on anything supernatural for a while and unless she could prove that her wards were working, he wouldn’t exactly trust Danny’s life with them. Convincing Jack Fenton that he needed some easily worn and hidden accessory to prevent possession was almost sadly easy, the only condition being that Tucker had to wear one of those horrible looking hazmat suits. Tucker let it hang in his closet, as he had no intention of matching Jack Fenton’s fashion sense.

One might feel that Tucerk and his friends were being a bit excessive in their measures to keep Danny padded up against the world, but such an individual hadn’t seen their best friend since age 1 die in front of them by the same person’s hand twice so that particular person could kindly go shove their opinion where the sun don’t shine in Tucker’s very polite opinion.

Danny himself was groggy for most of his recovery time and had clearly caught on that they were being extra protective of him. While Sam was introducing Sidney to anime and videogames and Tucker was showing him the best comics and music, Danny always had whoever wasn’t with the others within arm’s reach. He was jumpy when it came to his ghost sense telling him that Sidney was there, had his hood up whenever they were outside, and even though they’d been near forcing Agatha’s cooking down his throat at every meal they could, Danny had yet to Go Ghost. Sam brought up the idea of taking down the shapeshifter and Danny balked at the topic, bringing up the frogs, the latest anime that she had shown Sidney or really anything else when she did this. Tucker was more than fine with this since no ghost mode meant no seeking out danger which meant that the only fights they were dealing with included Dash, Kwan and Dale making fun of them for being a furry, a weeb and a Fenton. Seeing Sam put her martial arts to use when Dash tried to stuff Danny in a locker was worth the detention he got for tripping Dale as he rushed in to help. He spent it with Sam anyway so that was fine. If wanting Danny safer than Amity was selfish then Tucker was as far from selfless as possible.

“Hey, Danny,” Tucker said while he worked on finishing up the Spector Deflector that Dr. Fenton had started for him in Danny’s workshop. “There’s a swap meet coming up in Harrison Park this Saturday. Wanna come with? I’m gonna get a set of dice if I can and see if I can show Sidney DnD. Maybe we all can play even.” He grinned. “We can get you a new bowling ball so you can destroy Sam in bowling.”

“Bro, you’ll be wrecked with her,’ Danny challenged from where he drew in his art book instead of doing his homework. Tucker was procrastinating by making ghost hunting tech, he couldn’t blame Danny. “That sounds cool.”

“Awesome.” Tucker set down his tools and pulled up his safety goggles. “Can you come over and poke this? Very lightly and just a little in case I’m as done as I think I am.” Danny obliged and there was a loud SNAP accompanied by a yelp and Tucker patted Danny’s shoulder. “Looks like I’m done with the internals. Now all I gotta do is adjust it so that it can ignore your ectosignature, and Sidney’s and Agatha’s, and it’ll really be done.”

“Done for your armor idea, right?” Danny scoffed, slugging Tucker in the shoulder while he looked for the blueprint he’d downloaded of the part that’d track ectosignatures in the Fenton Finder. “Sidney told me about it while we were watching Star Wars. Or should I call it his guard duty shift? Cause I know what you guys are doing and while I appreciate your concern over my safety, I’m the one with powers here.”

“20 hours straight of unconsciousness and tears say that superpowers don’t mean you don’t need protection against people with the same superpowers.” Tucker huffed. “If we’d been wearing some armor like we’re making then that fish thing probably wouldn’t have been able to bite through me like it did. Silk and piercing ya know.” He bumped shoulders with Danny when he went quiet and forced his lips up into a smile. “And besides, your parents have literally no fashion sense. A leather jacket lined with silk? Leather pants, probably with studs in it since Sam is involved? Dude, that’s cool as fuck looking. You’ll be the best-dressed ghost out there.” Danny laughed and shook his head. Tucker got to work setting up the design for the Fenton Fabricator™ to make for the Spector Deflector. He also considered asking for a cut of the royalties when the belt inevitably became a Fenton Brand item, since he’d finished it. “You think putting on clothes in ghost form will invert their colors like your suit?”

“Fuck you, Tuck, now I have to find out.” Danny huffed and Tucker snickered. For a moment everything was quiet, and then arms were wrapping around his middle. “Thanks, Tuck. For everything.” Tucker looped an arm around Danny and smushed him against his side.

“That’s what bros are for, man.” The room was a comfortable quiet after that. The Fabricator and the generator were humming softly at the edge of Tucker’s once again human limited hearing, the only other sound was their breathing and - Tucker could swear - their heartbeats. The air was charged with something more than ectoplasm and electricity and Tucker wasn’t sure if Danny knew that as well, but he knew that he could hardly know anything else right then. So naturally, Tucker lowered his hand at Danny’s side and started tickling him. Danny squeaked, squealed out some giggles, and phased out of his grip when wriggling didn’t work.

“You dick! Get over here!”

Danny appreciated the effort Sam, Tucker and Sidney were putting in for him, he really honestly did. Sidney still went to his therapy session with Jazz which Danny could tell were helping him by how bright his aura had gotten, and between him and Jazz at school there were at least a few bright auras to go around, but with how things were going, Danny felt at least a bit suffocated.

Half the auras at school - both student and teacher - were dim enough that Danny almost couldn’t see them. Dash and company had been especially vicious as of late, calling them every name under the sun and getting into actual fights with him, Tucker and Sam. Between the three of them they managed well enough - being dragged to martial arts lessons with Sam and fighting eldritch abominations from the afterlife did things for your confidence in facing up to bullies - but it hadn’t ever been this bad before. And while Tucker and Sam both were clearly brighter than everyone else emotionally, they were skirting around things in the most unsubtle way imaginable and Danny wondered how they kept anything hidden. Sam tried to get him into ghost form to see how fast he could fly, Tucker changed the topic from anything ghostly to something nerdy and Sidney seemed to stare at him as much as he did the movies they were watching. Sure, Sidney was keeping his eyes on the screen but Danny knew ghosts could see more than just with their eyes and the feeling of being constantly watched was getting more than unnerving.

Saturday was a breath of fresh air. Sam was maybe coming down with something and Sidney was off exploring the city on his own, so it was just Danny and Tucker buying the stuff they’d come for and laughing their heads off at their dumb jokes. It was sunny, the crowd was bright with positivity abound, and he was having fun with his best friend in the world. It was nice.

Of course, a ghost attack ruined it.

Cotton candy erupted and flooded the place, and Danny slid under a table while the crowds stampeded away, yanking Tucker under as well. He reached inside, past the void of darkness into the soft and splintered light at his center. It exploded out to the surface and in a flash of silver glass, shimmering shadows wove his hazmat suit around him and unraveled gravity’s hold on his body. He shuddered, glitching out of reality - or what he was so very hopeful and sure was reality anyway - and gave Tucker a smile. “Wish me luck.” He slid down into the ground and forward, rising out of a mound of cotton candy as big as himself. There was a woman with long black hair, dark green skin, and blue scarce clothing floating over the sweets and stretching her arms. “I understand a sweet tooth and all that, but this is a bit dangerously Much.” Danny held out a hand with a smile when a sneer was turned his way. “I’m Danny Phantom, hopefully nice to meet you.”

“ I am Desiree,” she said in some accented blend of every language that Danny knew. It was headache-inducing and he definitely didn’t like it. “ This confection explosion was hardly my intention boy, I am cursed to use my power to grant the wishes of all those who make them. ”

“What, like a jinni? If I find and rub your lamp and say ‘I wish I had a dick’ do you complete my tra-”

“ So you have wished it, so shall it be. ” Her hands went up, green smoke curled around him, through him, within him, caressed that inner light and warmth that was his human body, and Danny shuddered in the wake of power well beyond his ability to fully process. Before the smoke even cleared, Danny could hear Desiree speaking through gritted teeth. “ Yes, boy I am a Jinni. One of your kind cursed me, both to be trapped in that infernal bottle, but also to use my power for all who catch my ear. ”

Danny was reeling when the smoke cleared, giving himself a mental review of what he could feel on himself and gawked when he realized what had happened. “Um. Wow.” Desiree was clearly unimpressed. “Uh, well, I know a way I can he-” a ball of ectoplasma, charged up with energy, raced into Desiree’s gut and knocked her back and Danny really wished that people would stop interrupting him.

“Stay away from him, damn it! Can’t we have one nice day?” Tucker readied another shot and Danny waved his arms to tell him not to. “I wish I had stopped you from going into that stupid fucking portal! Then we wouldn’t be in this mess!” crud.

“ So you have wished it, so shall it be. ” FUCK . Green mist filled Danny’s vision, and everything went dark.

#Danny Phantom #Danny Fenton #Bertrand #Tucker Foley #Sam Manson #Sidney Poindexter #Desiree #fanfiction #fanPhiction #Phanfiction #fanfic #Phanfic #fanPhic #Phanphic #PhanPhiction #Monstrous Chosen Spellslingers #Mundane to Monstrous Ghosts #Monstrous Mundane Magick #Rexy Writes

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ahsgotham · 6 years ago

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I Love You, Baby! - Duckie Dale

this fan fiction includes some of the song “I Love You, Baby!” by Frank Sinatra!

You sighed, putting something on your dresser and then plopping down on your bed. Another day, another terribly sad date with another terribly sad guy at your terribly sad high school. Why do you even try? You glanced over at your clock and saw that it was 11pm.

You quite literally rolled off of your bed and went over to your dresser, pulling out some pajamas. You removed your shirt, throwing it onto the floor. You went to remove your pants, until you heard something that sounded like a wolf whistle.

You glanced around your room, your eyes landing on your window, where Duckie, your best friend, was resting his head and arms.

“Duckie!” You exclaimed, covering up your chest. He smirked, making a “tick” noise.

“Open the window for me, won’t ya?” He asked, tapping on the half closed window. You went over and opened it, and you backed up as he stumbled in.

“Jesus Romeo, how’d you get up here anyway?” You asked as he went and sat criss-crossed on your bed.

“Climbed. It’s not that hard, y’know, if you have experience.” He winked playfully, and you laughed.

“Mind looking away while I finish getting changed?” You questioned, cocking an eyebrow as if he should’ve known he was supposed to look away. He sighed sprawled out over the bed, planting his face in your pillow.

You finished changing into your pajamas, “Ok, you can look.”

He flipped around, wiping a hand over his face. You crawled onto the bed, sitting next to him.

“Why are you even here, anyway?” You asked, and he shrugged.

“I don’t know.” He rested his head in one of his hands, “Boredom? Hormones?”

“Oh shut it, you.” You snickered and hit him with a pillow. He smiled, looking over at your dresser.

“Ooo, what’s this?” He said with intrigue, hopping off the bed and prancing over to your dresser. He picked up a terribly made corsage that you had dropped on it earlier and admired it.

“Well who gave you this?” He asked, squinting at it like he could barely see it.

“Jackson Conroy. He asked me on a date a few days ago, so I agreed.” You began, “He showed up at my house around 8 and didn’t even bother to come to the door. He honked his horn.”

“Sheesh.” He pretended to gag.

“But that’s not all. We went to this god awful restaurant, and waited, like, 45 minutes for a table. Then everything he ordered, appetizers, main course, second helping, it was all covered in garlic. And at the end he tried to kiss me! Which was horrible enough, but then the exact millisecond before he connected our lips, his surprise girlfriend showed up and had the biggest fit I’ve ever seen. And then after she left, he still had the nerve to hand me this mess of a homemade corsage and asked me to go to prom with him! Of course I said no, so then he left in a rage, made me pay and I had to walk home.” You explained.

“Oh my god.” He gasped/laughed, “Your life is a movie. It really is a movie.” He chuckled.

“And I’m your handsome co-star.” He struck a dumb pose, and you laughed. He opened the plastic box your corsage was in and put it on his wrist, admiring it.

“Don’t you look charming. Might as well put on a dress while your at it.” You jokingly suggested, and he looked in your closet and grabbed a random dress out of it.

“Charming is an understatement, my dear (Y/N).” He complimented himself and climbed back onto the bed with you. You picked up his wrist and looked at the design of the accessory closer.

“It’s even worse up close.” You said in almost amazement.

“But aren’t I a wonderful model?” He did an extravagant gesture with his hands and face. You huffed out a small laugh and nodded. You flopped back on your bed, yawning after the long day. He flopped down beside you too, resting a hand on your shoulder.

“You know, I’m not like Jackson Conroy.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“Exactly. You don’t have a girlfriend to cheat on.” You joked and booped his nose. He clutched his chest, pretending he was hurt.

“Oh baby, how you’ve hurt me!” He cried, and you hit his chest, eliciting a ‘oof’ sound from him.

“Honey?” You suddenly heard one of your parents call out.

“Oh, shiiiiii-” You flipped, eyeing Duckie intensely.

“Are you still up? What’s all that ruckus?” They questioned, and you practically pushed Duckie off your bed and signaled for him to go under your bed, to which he complied.

You quickly grabbed a book off of your nightstand and flipped to a random page to make it look like you had been reading. Your mom opened the door the second after you stopped freaking.

“Oh, hi hon!” They smiled, and you turned, closed the book and smiled back.

“Heyyyyyy! I was just... catching up on some reading for class!” You lied, holding up the book.

“Oh well that’s great! But what was all the noise?” They asked.

“Oh, the book was just so exciting, I couldn’t contain my excitement.” You made up and excuse, and they raised an eyebrow, but forgot about it.

“Alright, but you should be getting to bed soon, it’s awfully late.” They smiled, and you nodded.

“Goodnight.” You waved, and they closed your door. Duckie waited a second before coming back out from under your bed.

“You’re an amazing actress, (Y/N).” He stated, resting his head on the edge of your bed.

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” You pretended to sob, doing a very formal wave.

“Ok, but seriously, get out before my parents see or they’re going to kick my ass.” You said, and his head perked up out of concern.

“Not literally- I- it’s a metaphor- I’m not explaining this to you, Dale! Go!” You pointed to your window, and he scurried to the window.

“Seeya later, hot stuff.” He winked and climbed back out of your window. As you went to close to the window, you heard a ‘thump’ and a yelp of pain before it shut.

---

The next day, you had finished school and arrived at your work at a record shop with one of your other friends, Andie. You didn’t know her too well, but she was a pretty good friend of Duckie’s, so you had hung out a few times.

“I see Duckie flirts with you a lot.” She stated while standing at the counter, flipping through her sketchbook of designs.

“Andie, Duckie flirts with everyone a lot.” You laughed, sorting some records into their respective categories. She gave you a glance.

“He flirts with you more than he flirts with everyone else.” She said, looking back down at her sketchbook.

“It’s only because of that one time we played truth or dare and I was dared to kiss him. I got so flustered and he still to this day won’t stop teasing me about it. But who wouldn’t get flustered, right? I mean, it’s Duckie...”

“Oh, so you like him!” She exclaimed as if she just found out the world’s deepest darkest secret.

“No!” You pretty much shouted, “I do NOT like Duckie!”

As if on cue, you heard “Duckie huh?”. You turned to see Duckie dancing the shop.

“You called, ladies?” He smirked, gliding through the aisle you were in and running his hand across your shoulder. He kept gliding all the way to the counter in front of Andie and drummed his hands on her sketchbook.

“Could I play a song?” He asked, smiling at her.

“Nope, sorry.” She replied quickly, and Duckie let out a fake whine and took off his glasses, flashing her his best puppy dog eyes.

“Pleaseee, Andie? Not even for a friend?” He pouted, and she let out a breathy laugh.

“Fine. How could I resist that precious face?” Andie joked and gave in, reaching one of her hands out and resting it on his chin, shaking his head. He smiled and put his glasses back on, immediately heading to the other side of the store as if he knew exactly what he was looking for.

“You’re a man on a mission, huh?” You questioned, looking up at him as a pulled an album up, hiding it from both of you.

“Record player is in the back!” You shouted at him, and he nodded.

“You better not set off the alarm, Duckie!” You demanded, and he smiled before slipping through a door to the back. After a minute, a song started playing over the stores speakers.

“You’re just too good to be true.” Frank Sinatra’s ‘I Love You, Baby!’ started as Duckie danced out of the back.

“I can’t take my eyes off you.” He lip synced the next lyrics, pulling his glasses down his nose and looking at you through the top of them. He lip synced the other lyrics, prancing around the shop and pointing at you. You had the stupidest smile plastered on your face, and were probably blushing, like, a lot.

“I Love You, Baby!” The song said as Duckie continued to lip sync it, jumping at pointing at you as he crossed the aisle.

“And if it’s quite alright, I need you baby, to warm the lonely nights!” He twirled around the shop.

“Oh my god...” Andie whispered in amusement. He continued to dance around the lip sync to you for the entirety of the song, and as he finished it off with “Let me love you!”, he stood in front of you, smiling and gasping for air.

“So?” He cocked and eyebrow, visibly very pleased with himself

“Will you let me love you?” He asked, stepping closer.

“Duckie, I-...” You stuttered and you could see a desperate look in his eyes.

“Of course! Yes!” You squealed, pulling him into a hug. He laughed out of excitement, and Andie smiled while watching the two of you.

As you parted from the hug, you grabbed the collar of his blazer and pulled him into a kiss. He was shocked, and his eyes stayed plastered open for a moment, but then he melted into the kiss, and you leaned back into the records.

“Alright lovebirds, as much as I love seeing you finally confess your love if you mess up the shop our boss is gonna freak.” Andie interrupted, and Duckie and you laughed and parted, resting each others foreheads on each others.

He really wasn’t like Jackson Conroy.

#duckie dale #phil duckie dale #phil dale #pretty in pink #john hughes #duckie dale imagine #duckie dale x reader #pretty in pink fanfic #fan fiction #fanfic #jon cryer #jon cryer x reader #jon cryer fanfic #john hughes movie #uwu

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thicclaurance · 5 years ago

Text

Two Hundred and Twenty Nine Days and Three Quarters.

Yody Yo! This is my piece from the summer Aphmau magazine that was put together by @aphmauzine ! Please check out the zine to see all the lovely work everyone submitted including my friends Char, Al, and Yesani!

This is also my first Aphmau writing piece, and the first of my writing that I’ve shared here on this blog; I hope its well recieved and that I’ll be able to share more work with y’all.

Pairing: Dan-Chan

Series: MCD (original)

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2508

Two Hundred and Twenty Nine Days and Three Quarters.

Rays of golden sun cascaded through the glass of the window and into the bedroom. It heated the room, but instead of providing a comfortable and cozy warm like snuggling up with the one you love in front of the fire, it was a humid and sticky warm. It felt like being trapped in a pot of water that was quickly reaching boiling point. The heat was excruciating, it was so maddening it caused Dante to stir. He lifted his body only to twist before dropping back against the mattress like a sack of potatoes; but he only receive those lovely golden rays right in his eyes. His eyes opened, only a sliver, only to realise it was only another summer day.

To Dante, summer only ever felt like it droned on, It was like a meeting discussing how everyone was fine and the village faced no threats, but still lasted hours. Summer was only filled with sweltering days filled with humidity and annoying swarms of insects that buzzed in his ears and bit at his skin. The days felt like they droned on, lasting like weeks instead of hours as he almost roasted alive in his armor. Most people, especially in Phoenix Drop, felt that it was winter that droned on, and sure the season was a full month longer than the rest; but the days go by at the snap of a finger. You wake up and blink once and it’s already time to sit down for dinner with your lover. But for Dante, summer was the worst.

It took all the willpower he held in him to actually get up; he only got up because he knew he’d never be able to fall back asleep. Dante flipped onto his back and pushed his palms against the aged mattress to gain leverage as he forced himself into a seated position. His hands left the mattress and balled as he brought them to his eyes, a loud yawn escaped his mouth as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He felt the weight of the mattress shift next to him and heard a small and almost inaudible groan.

His gaze met the woman next to him as she shifted into a more comfortable position. Long pink hair laid tangled around her head and over her eyes, something Dante envied was the ability to ignore the sun. Her bare shoulder peaked out from the dull colored blanket as she curled herself back up. A smile spread across his face and his gaze softened as he looked at her, she was beyond compare to anyone nor anything. He leaned over and placed a sweet kiss to her shoulder; he twisted back around and let his feet rest on the upsettingly warm wooden floor. He stood and stretched his arms above his head and arched his back.

Dante’s next action was to track down his clothing that laid in various places on the floor alongside Kawaii-Chan’s. It was a simple yet tedious task to find specific articles and to dress himself, it only added to the heat. His chainmail, awful. The suit of armor, horrendous. It’d been about nine years since he took over as the head guard, nine and a half years since he began his daily task to watch the gate; nine years and a half since everyone’s disappearance. It was hard for him to think about all the friends he lost; but it was even harder not to seeing as he left his home at the same time every morning just to wait for them, waiting for them at the gate, hoping they’ll all return.

That’s where he found himself after hours, at the gate. The village walls had begun to crack and crumble as the weather took its toll, and ivy and moss grew against the sides. Birds chirped happily to one another, all enjoying the heat. The ground below his feet had worn down a bit and dipped down into the indent of his feet, it’s what happens when you three thousand four hundred and sixty nine days standing in one specific spot. And Dante stood in the same exact spot again today, he stood there for hours, hours spent almost succumbing to heat stroke. He stood there, until the sun had made it to the tree line and the air had cooled, until it was time to go home. He pivoted on one foot and turned away from the entrance. The trip to the gate and back was always nice. Though the houses had begun to suffer the same fate as the wall, they were still filled with kind villagers, well kind villagers that were still left.

“Fancy running into you here Dante!” The chipper country accent of a certain chipper brunette run out. She smiled brightly at him and lifted a hand to give a short wave from the end of the path. Instead of being able to walk down the path, she more waddled, one of her hands laid on her swollen stomach. “You headin’ home for the night?”

“Good evening Donna! My shift just ended so I’m heading home to Kawaii-Chan.” Dante responded as she approached him, a kind smile weaved it’s way into his face as he spoke to Donna.

“I’m sure she whipped up something nice for the two of you! I swear ever since she found out she was pregnant too all she has is baked! I can’t go a day without her springing some muffins or a cake on me!” She laughed.

“Don’t I know it! I don’t think I’ve gone a day without fresh baked goods in eight months!” He returned her laughter, it was a nice change of pace to laugh.

“Logan’s been enjoying it though, he can’t get enough if those cookies she brings over!” She placed a hand on her chest as she threw her head back and laughed. Dante was sure she hadn’t had a good slug in a while either. As their laughter died down, Donna’s gaze softened as she spoke again, “You gonna do what you talked to me about the other day?” She asked.

“I think I am, I plan on finally telling her” He nodded as he talked. “That you for helping me sort it all out!”

“Of course I would dear! Thank god you came along when you did! Logan won’t let me do anything as long as I have these creatures in me!” She motioned towards her stomach as she let out the complaint. “You better get going if you want things to go as planned.” Dante nodded again and said his goodbyes. The green eyes woman waved him off before returning to her evening stroll.

Dante took in the rest of the town’s scenery as he walked. Passing the village square that laid in disarray, the overgrown guard tower, half harvested golden fields, and even the hill the house of old lord, Aphmau, resided on. He passed a few people, Alexis and Kyle looked to be playing in the grass, but they were obviously training to be the next village guards, they swung wooden swords at each other and took turns dodging attacks. Not too far from them stood Molly and Dale, never seen too far from Alexis. They’ve both watched over her like hawks ever since the Zane incident about ten years ago. Dante provided a wave to the long term couple as he passed, they both returned his motions.

Finally, he had made it to his home. It was a standard house alongside the rest of the homes in Phoenix Drop. When him and Kawaii-Chan first decided to start living together she was upset at the lack of originality, she wanted a bright colored home, just like the pink one she lived in. It was a miracle Dante had convinced her otherwise, but he compromised with allowing her to plant whatever type of flowers she wanted in front of the house. He walked slowly up the cobble stone path and up the dark wooden door. He filled his lungs with one large breath and allowed his mind to become a blank slate, free of worry and hurt, before letting it out slowly like he releasing air from a balloon, and opened the door.

“Ah Dante-Kun! Welcome home!” He was greeted with the sweet voice of the woman who loved him. The atmosphere was warm and peaceful, like it always was around her. A few candles had been set out, ready to be lit as soon as it got dark enough, and she stood by the front door, in the kitchen. “How was your day Dante-Kun?” She asked as she waddled towards him and forced herself up to is height before she left a sweet kiss on his cheek.

“We don’t have time to talk about that darling, I need to bring you somewhere.” He spit out as soon as her heels came in contact with the wooden floor.

“What do you mean Dan-”

“I’m not joking Kawaii-Chan, I need you to come with me this instant.” Dante made sure his tone was calm as he spoke, careful not to scare the pregnant woman in front of him. He grabbed Kawaii-Chan’s hand, and barley let her slip into her shoes, before he led her out of the house.

“Where are you taking Kawaii-Chan, Dante-Kun?!” She asked, confused and slightly panicked. Their feet pounded against the cobblestone streets as they passed Molly and Dale who still stood watching the kids, and past the half golden fields.

“You’ll see when we get there!” He continued to remain vague as the two passed the street Dante took to and from the gate every morning and evening.

“Good luck Dante!” Donna yelled and waved as she made her way back up the street.

“We’re almost there” Dante huffed as he led her up the hill to the old lord’s house. Before stopping for a second to let Kawaii-Chan catch her breath.

“Why’re we at Aphmau-Senpai’s house?” She asked, before Dante dragged her to the left. They passed the large tree in the front yard and playset meant for the long gone Levin and Malachi, for they had left along with their caretaker Zoey, long ago. They weaved through the oak and birch trees, swerved past berry bushes, and avoided pesky evening insects.

“Be careful, I don’t want you to get hurt.” Dante said as he slid down a short sandy slope. They had arrived to the yellow sanded beach of the cove. “Take my hand.” He instructed as he reached a hand out to the amber eyed woman. Even though she was hesitant, afraid to fall and hurt herself let alone her unborn child, but yet she obliged. Her slim hand fit in Dante’s calloused one like puzzle pieces as he helped her down from the grassy area of the woods to the sandy shore of the beach.

“Just in time!” Dante mumbled and led Kawaii-Chan to the final destination, the shoreline of the beach.

It was a well known spot to the villagers. But it was rarely used since it was a place Aphmau had spent time and after her disappearance, no one picked up the habit of visiting. Dante and Kawaii-Chan were different though. They visited here on their first date, they didn’t care that it had been covered in snow at the time, instead they built snow maids and men together. That was exactly two hundred, twenty nine days and three quarters ago. He’d kept track of every day, every moment they shared together, and this was the perfect place.

“Dante-Kun, Kawaii-Chan is still confused.” She said her amber eyes trying to meet his deep sea blue ones, but instead of meeting her gaze he stared out at the horizon. The sun had just become halfway submerged into the sea leaving behind a painting of rose gold skies that blended into vibrant purples and deep blues.

“Kawaii-Chan, I need your one hundred percent attention.” Dante said and took both her frail hands into larger ones, finally able to meet her gaze. Unable to know how to respond, Kawaii-Chan simply nodded. “We’re alone so I know you’ll trust me to say this, Nana,” Dante took a deep breath to prepare himself to what he was going to say after this.

Dante felt her stiffen at the use of her real name. Something she’d trusted him enough to tell him just before they moved in together. He squeezed Kawaii-Chan’s hands in reassurance and she allowed herself to relax. It was short lived though, because immediately Dante released her hands and crouched down, kneeling on one knee.

“Nana, I know I’m not much with words. I never have been. But I’m going to speak from the heart.” He started off with, “I have known you for ten wonderful years, though we’ve only been together for eight months, I’ve never felt more connected to anyone before.”

As he finished that sentence, tears began to stream down Nana’s face. Tears of happiness, tears of surprise. She didn’t care when the tide had begun to come in and rolled over her feet, ruining her new dress. Dante didn’t care either, he didn’t care if it would leave his armor a sepia colored rust, he could get a new set.

“I never expected to fall in love with such an incredible woman, such an exciting woman, such a unique woman, such a gorgeous woman. Let alone did I expect to be expecting a child with her, to have a bundle of joy that would be a product of our love. I’ve had relationships in the past, good and bad, but none of them hold a candle to you Nana. None of them come close to how you make me feel.” Dante began to choke on his words, a tear began to slide down his cheek as he spoke, but it was no match the rivers flowing from Nana’s eyes.

He fumbled with his side, fingers mismanaging to grasp the box at his side. As he finally grasped it, his hands shook as he held it up to the beautiful pink haired woman in front of him. He opened it to reveal a small, but gorgeous silver ring encrusted with three small pink diamonds.

“I’ve cherished every day you’ve spent with me. All two hundred and twenty nine days and three quarters have been a dream, a blessing. So Nana, will you continue our two hundred and twenty nine days and three quarters streak and spend every day, until the day we die, together with me, and marry me?” He finally asked, a weight lifted from his chest as he finally got the words out, but it was replaced with the anxiety of rejection.

“Of course Kawaii-Chan will marry you Dante-Kun! Kawaii-Chan couldn’t think of anyone else she’d spend the rest of her life with!” She sobbed. She grabbed the sides of his face and bent down, as far as she could without crushing her stomach, and pulled Dante into a passionate kiss.

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thenonbinarydetective · 5 years ago

Text

The Secret of Shadow Ranch Game VS Book

Howdy folks!

I’ve decided to check the differences between the book and the game. I had no internet yesterday and I was bored. Fortunately this was kinda fun.

I’ve got two pages of differences so stick your heels down and settle in your saddles, it’s gonna be a long one.

I would say spoilers but the games kinda old and the book is ancient so i really don’t think there are spoilers at this point. Also it’s not in perfect order because from going back and forth from book and game. This isn’t a criticism of the game just a note of the differences.

It’s a lot and if it’s hard to read don’t be afraid to ask about parts

Bess and George arrived a week before Nancy in the book. In game they arrived after she did

Shorty’s last name is Steele in the book not Thurmond(like in game)

Uncle Ed and Aunt Bet got the ranch as repayment for a debt(two months prior). In game they simply sold the store they owned and brought the ranch(three months prior). Both were shopkeepers before though

When Nancy arrived in game Dave Gregory took her to the ranch on horseback. However in book, Nancy rented a car that overheated and Dave came out to fix it. The girls were guided to Shadow Ranch in car by Dave also in car. It was seriously hot and there was a sandstorm, also Shadow Ranch is practically two hours from the airport in Phoenix. The cars were used to get around multiple times afterward.

Sabotage in Game: Possible unmentioned things(?) - Rattlesnake bite- Water Pump explosion- electricity

Sabotage in Book:-Unnamed sabotage-windmills-trashed house and missing dog-missing palominos- electricity and water pump wrecked

There were also other acts of sabotage but the horse wasn’t “apart” of them. That sounds confusing but it makes sense in context.

Uncle Ed and Aunt Bet were present throughout the book. Absent in game due to Rattlesnake bite

In the book the rattle of a rattlesnake was dropped into Nancy’s knitting bag with a warning to leave Shadow Ranch alone. Which she ignored.

Also she was trying to knit a sweater for her dad during the course of the mystery. in the game there is no in progress sweater. Side note: the sweater was meant as a birthday present but in a later book when they had a birthday party for Carson(first in a while apparently) she didn’t even give him the sweater.

Hannah actually answers when Nancy calls her in book.

Like half of the cast for the mystery

Alice Regor- Bess and George’s little cousin

Ross Regor-Alice’s father and the cousin’s uncle. Artist and bank president

Bud Moore-Young hot cowboy who dated Bess during the mystery

Mrs.Thurmond-The real cook of Shadow Ranch(not Shorty)

Walt Sanders- The real foreman of Shadow Ranch

Tex Britten- Young hot red-haired cowboy. Very unlike in game Tex. No sister. Dated George instead of Mary.

Dave Gregory- Young hot cowboy(same obviously). Much more hostile to Nancy. Not shy and bashful. Isn’t nice to Nancy until much later. He’d thought she’d interfere with his finding the treasure but realized she wouldn’t. Was a total dick. Not Cowboy/Southern Charm. From New York so that check out.He’s sweet for the rest of the book.

Apache Chief- The handsome guard dog of the Rawleys’. Usually called Chief.He’s a large black german shepherd and a very good boy. Chases after the phantom horse and goes missing for a bit. Returns and helps solve the mystery.

Al Diamond- Boss of the Bank Robbers. Real Mastermind.

Sid Brice- Accomplice of Diamond and Shorty Steele.

Shorty Steele- regular cowboy and dumbass accomplice planted at Shadow Ranch to get rid of the Rawleys

Mary Deer- A young shopkeeper that literally tells everyone about the Valentine Treasure. Set the bad guys on their hunt unknowingly

Sheriff Curtis- Just Sheriff Hernandez with a different name

The game cut out a subplot mystery involving Uncle Ross Regor. Six months before Ross Regor went to the bank to get some papers he needed to work on. Unfortunately he came during the robbery and the bank president was kidnapped by the robbers so that they would not be identified. He falls under suspicion because other robbers disappeared and it made it look like he was one of them. He wasn’t. Nancy and the three cousins found him starved but alive near Dirk Valentine’s treasure.

Mary Yazzie doesn’t believe in the Valentine treasure. Mary Deer does.

In book Shorty left canteens empty and could not be trusted to fill them. In the game he mostly was.

The final encounter with the criminals stands in a similar rock formation/hide-out sorta deal but instead Diamond threatens to blow up Nancy, the cousins, Uncle Ross, and the treasure. It’s too late to keep it so he decides to destroy it. Nancy stalls for time until Dave saves them

The final encounter in game is pretty much just Nancy tricking Shorty into falling through a hole. Then she steals the phantom horse and rides off.

The girls go to a barbecue and square dance with the handsome cowboys. There she announces she found the treasure. Unfortunately, Game Nancy doesn’t get to square dance.

In the book Dave is a direct descendant of Frances Humber Dale. Sheriff Humber intercepted a letter from Dirk to Frances and learned of a meeting spot of the lovers. He went and hid with his gun. Dirk arrived and was subsequently shot and killed by the Sheriff. He went home and told Frances as she was lighting an oil lamp. After hearing that her lover was killed she fainted; Frances then had become extremely ill. When she got a bit better her father sent her to Buffalo, NY to fully recover. She continued to stay with relatives after fully recovering. She married a man called Mr.Dale and had two children with him before dying at a young age. Later Dave and his family moved from Buffalo to Phoenix and heard of the treasure. Hearing of Frances’ descendants, an old friend of her’s sent Dave some of Frances’ things. It’s pretty likely that Frances never fully knew what belonged to her and her heirs. Dave Gregory’s father died and left him to take care of his younger brother and sister. Dave didn’t have enough money to raise and pay for their education. He began to work at Shadow Ranch to earn some money until he found the treasure.

In the game Dave is only distantly related to Frances Humber. His great Aunt was her cousin. Frances left Shadow Ranch in perfect health and taught in Ohio before dying. She never found love again and never went for the treasure. Dave’s brother is dead broke and sick so he needs the money to help him out. Instead of being shot by the sheriff, Dirk was captured and hanged.

There is a horse named Choo-Choo in the book. The others went unnamed but the fact that Choo-Choo wasn’t mentioned is a crime.

Bob, Tillie, Frank, Dandy, Cookie, Clyde, Don, Pako, Zeke, and Ace are to horses in game.

Fun fact Dave refers to Nancy as “cookie” in the book. But like in the cooking sense

In game Nancy had a steady back home but in the book she didn’t. However there is a set of “Miss prints” that were published that mention Ned even though he is first introduced 2 books later. Somehow Nancy knows he’s in Europe.

In the game the ranch lost water and electricity separately. In book, it happened at the same time. They did try to break the water pump separately but were caught and couldn’t finish. So they ran and cut the electricity; Effectively cutting both water and power. The spring house used electricity.

Nancy makes sure to check her girth/cinch before getting on a horse. In the game we had to make her so she didn’t end up upside down.

The phantom horse usually arrived seconds after a special whistle by Dirk as it had done so in life. In game the horse just appeared.

Shadow Ranch is near Tumbleweed. No town is mentioned in game but Mary Deer’s shop is located there.

The cake in game was a recipe from Shadow Ranch. In book it was Nancy’s own recipe. Also it’s chocolate.

Phosphorescent powder was used on a white horse in game. In the book the criminals used phosphorescent paint on filmy Japanese silk on a black stallion to create their phantom.

In the book Dave talks to the Rawleys and offers to split the treasure with them once he finds it. Uncle Ed and Aunt Bet refuse to take any of the treasure but thank him for telling them. He offers some to Nancy and she also refuses. In the game the Rawleys split it with Dave.

The treasure in game is entirely heart-shaped gold pieces. In the book the treasure included the heart-shaped pieces with bank notes and jewels. The gold is handed over to the state government but he does get money from the bank notes and jewels for him and his siblings.

The “green bottle in the cellar” wasn’t found by the cellar in the book. As mentioned above, Frances had found the bottle and the letter. When she went to read it her father told her about killing Dirk. Because she fell ill so soon after she couldn’t continue the hunt. In game, she didn’t want to find it anymore so she gave the hunt to Dave’s aunt. Who then gave the hunt to Dave.

In game Nancy discovered the phosphorescent powder when her gloves started to glow. In the book, the dog started glowing. After biting the horse, the paint stained his teeth. This was discovered when “floating phantom specks” where found in the living room. Poor Chief was just trying to play with his ball in peace and accidentally scared everyone.

Tex doesn’t have a sister. However he does have a 15 year old brother named Jack who went on a date with Alice Regor.

Obviously the Hardy Boys weren’t involved at all.

Sure there are a bunch of things in common. All of the clues are more or less the same. The book features some incidents that were caused by nature. Also features less annoying puzzles. Anyway, this was fun and tiring. I’m gonna go play FFXIV. I will do one for Secret of the Old Clock but that will take me a bit because the game is based off of four books and not just one.

I know there’s a lot of little details but hey I’m a mystery fan. What kinda fan would I be if I didn’t look into the little details?

One last time, if you need clarification or have questions, I’ve got an ask box.

#this is a spiritual successor to book facts #which is still happening but I lost my place on where I was writing and need to start over #also i need to fix up the girls' facts because I didn't write them in a clear way #nancy drew #nancy drew games #nancy drew books #secret of shadow ranch #her interactive #bess marvin #george fayne #frank hardy #joe hardy #hardy boys #bet rawley #ed rawley #dave gregory #shorty thurmond #tex britten #I think I got everything

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