#only realised I had been @‘ed three seconds ago ;-;

[rewrittenwrongs]

Fic tag game

@‘ed by the lovely @im-not-buying-it-ether

Rules:

Make a list of five (or so--) of your WIPs for your followers to choose from.

Post a snippet from one of your fics that you've worked on in the past week.

Your followers get to send an ask with one of the five listed WIPs!

You must then write a paragraph or so in that file. If the filename is one you can't share from (for example, an event or gift fic), write a paragraph on it anyway, and then another that you can share from something else.

I do recommend adjusting the writing requirement depending on the size of your following. The point is to make some progress, so if you're not expecting a lot of asks, maybe make your goal bigger, and the inverse is true for large followings. Do you.

That's it! You can invite others to join in, or just post.

No pressure tagging @brucewaynehater101 If you’re reading this and interested you’re welcome to join too!

Fics and snippets

Blackbird Fly: Tim had spent the entire time hacking and was just putting away his phone when he caught sight of the building. There were three trucks parked in front of it, a few already starting to drive off, so Tim reluctantly instructed the driver to stop about a block or two away for their safety. Good news: the Joker was here, which meant that Jason—and his mother—were also here. Bad news: Joker and his goons were leaving, which meant the warehouse was about to blow.

Unnamed Jack Frost & Batfam crossover: Jack huffed as he floated closer, staff returning to his hand. “What’s so exciting it’s got you in the streets at this hour?” He hoped he wasn’t another Robin-type kid. Jack land lightly on the railing behind the kid and balanced there, peeking over his shoulder at the screen of his camera. He was taking photos… of Batman?

Unnamed Coraline AU: It’s a bit short for a door, made of wood stained almost black, and was hidden by a huge mirror leaning against the wall. That’s why Tim hadn’t noticed it sooner. He isn’t even sure why he pulled back the mirror at all. The door had seen finer days: the frame had thick cracks running up the sides and the bottom edge was covered in scuffs. Upon closer inspection he found a small engraving of a button next to the handle. Simple, done by someone who knew what they were doing—why pay to have a button of all things engraved? It was locked.

Thief of Lightning: Jasons’ butt hit the floor a second later. “Ow!” He tightened his grip on his blanket and rolled it around him more, forcing Octavian to drag him along the ground. “I don’t care if the world is ending, weasel face, I am not getting up at the asscrack of dawn!”

Listen to that heartbeat: So he’s alive. Now he just has to prove it. Without moving a single muscle… Maybe he could just wait for it to wear off? How long would an experimental paralytic this effective last? Surely they’d eventually do some sort of body scan. And there’s probably more of this drug-from-hell stocked in the warehouse they can use to reconstruct an antidote.

[ar1mas]

- a rant

no because ive watched this stupid show 5 years ago, and i only noticed this now?? how???

ok. some context first. this is about fox' gotham, a prequel series to batman. or at least a potential one with slight changes. one of those changes is the relationship between oswald cobblepot and edward nygma (spelled with a 'y' for mayhap legal reasons? idfk its silly). whats their relationship like in the show? well...

theyre gay af. idk what to tell you.

okay so oswalds gay as fuck. edwards... ambiguous. totally ambiguous. he had a girlfriend or 2 and a half (kristen kringle, the-woman-who-shall-not-be-named (aka kristen but... blonde? this show is weird), and lee. not comfy counting lee, but technically shes one, hence the 'and a half')! very straight, much hetero (on another side note how tf is oswald the gay one, like i know he wears make-up and shit but eddies all about theatrics and showmanship and flair and hOW IS OSWALD THE GAY ONE NEXT TO HIM?? ok anyway).

so oswald was (is. be real.) canonically in love with ed, ed was.........., and 'penguin in love' is a piece of music composed by david russo for season three in which the whole "im in love with my best friend" thing took place.

that song has been used all over season three, as far as i can tell not once in season four, and once in season five.

.....or so i thought.

because yesterday, while in another obsession phase (of which i get one a few times a year. ive only ever watched the show once, in 2019, when it ended. still dream about nygmobblepot though. i dont dream about media, like ever, but with them, its different), i saw 5x8 to satiate my never satisfied craving of nygmob scenes, obviously skipping the main story bc i dont care about that straight shit. i got to the scene where oswald kills mr. scarface and frees arthur penn from said mr. scarface, after which ed shoots him in the head because thats what one does in such a situation, thought "aw how cute", again, as one does, and then realised.

what was that background music just now? rewinds.... oh. oh haha, its 'penguin in love'. how fun.

WHAT.

WHY IS THAT IN THERE. WHY DID THEY INCLUDE IT.

correction. it wouldve made sense to have it here. they used it in 5x5 for the speech about not backstabbing each other (wedding vows for murderers fr fr), so using it again after their relationship has solidified wouldve made sense.

note how im saying 'would have'.

because it would have made sense, if they used it when ed said "i accept you for the person that you are, just as you accept me for the cold logician that i am. thats why this friendship is great." they didnt, though. they used another equally heartfelt song for that. dunno what its called, it sounds a bit like 'penguin in love' but isnt, not sure if that one has a specific meaning like 'penguin in love' does.

so when was the song used? at 36:08 – 36:17. barely ten seconds, right before eds lines, right before ed kills penn.

...right when penn was sitting in oswalds lap because theyd been fighting for the gun and os fell on the ground.

now. the most obvious answer to "why in the fucking hell" would be because ooh this dudes on his lap so sexy, but no. no. 'penguin in love' is about one specific thing: love. the pure kind. the kind that makes you giddy with butterflies in your stomach, kicking your legs, while youre on your bed, writing in your diary about this guy you have a crush on. and oswald and penn do have history, oswald was more or less fond of penn, but not in love (i mean where would he have found the room in his heart if it was already filled with EDWARD EDWARD EDWARD martin my sweet boy EDWARD EDWARD EDWA-). im also definitely not thinking that penn was so happy about being free from mr. scarfaces influence and not having to kill oswald (oh yeah, the horror. who would wanna kill oswald, the guy with the big ego, who never does anything for anyone without some kind of endgoal- well, unless your name is edward of course) that he instantly fell in love with the guy. i can deal with the homicidal kind of crazy, but that? no. thats where i draw the line.

the next most obvious answer is that it was about oswalds love for ed. more believable, since its what the song was made for, but more believable doesnt mean believable. or likely. because even if i 100% believe that hes been loving this dude for so long its not something he has to think about anymore for it to be true, im pretty sure that itd be very random to suddenly focus on that when oswald was just about to die. so no, even if its what the song is intrinsically about.

so next most obvious answer is- wait. thats it. huh? theres no obvious answer anymore? everything else is brainrot? oh. oh well. its been five years, im sure its too late to worry about it now. what the hell.

im sure you know where im going with this. or maybe not. honestly idk what the fuck im talking about-

youre smart. you know what im about to say. if it wasnt about what oswald was feeling because he was otherwise preoccupied, and it wasnt about penn because that makes no fucking sense, then who was this song used for? who else was in the room?

...oh.

YOU.

YOU FUCKING IMBECILE. YOU STUPID DENSE PIECE OF-

inhale, exhale. no. don’ get mad, you know he cant help it. you know hes totally helpless when it comes to emotions. just breathe. ok.

i hate him. i hate him so much.

if the song wasnt for oswalds sake, it was for his. because i know hes in love with oswald, but does ed? does the producers??

'penguin in love' is about oswalds love. its about his love for edward. its about their love, their relationship. its about edward just as much as it is about oswald.

a-fucking-PPARANTLY, I DIDNT KNOW THAT!! I JUST THOUGHT OH YEAH OZZY BE THE GAY ONE HAHA FUNNY, I DIDNT KNOW IT COULD BE ABOUT ED DIRECTLY!!!

(why am i like this? what is my life? i will never be normal.)

ed has always been the obsessive one. first kristen (and the woman who shall not be named is just an extention of that ofc), then oswald, then lee. and as weve seen with kristen, when hes obsessed with someone, he can become possessive. absolutely not on the scale oswald is on, but still. theres a wee bit of jelly there. oh you have a boyfriend? better get rid of him! oh you wanna run away from me bc i murdered your boyfriend? better keep you right in place and- oh shit did i kill you? ono D:

this is a huge oversimplification, but you get the point. its there. or at least it has to be there because why else do you get so angy that someone is sitting in the lap of your just friend because they were fighting and they ended up in that position totally accidentally? like thats not normal behaviour, for anyone, unless you have possessive tendencies.

i mean its not like penn was a threat in any way. "he wasnt the threat, the dummy was the-" like i understand ed told penn about the submarine which was supposed to be a secret, but come on, like they couldnt make sure penn wouldnt say anything. so why would ed shoot him? its not even like penn was a random dude where that type of thing would be very inconsequential, oswald knew him. hed worked for oswald, and like i said, oswald was more or less fond of the guy. penns just a poor little meow meow, y u kil him eddie? 🥺

unless this fondness was part of the problem. unless ed saw how happy oswald was to see him, got annoyed but let it slide, then used penn attacking os and knowing about the sub as an excuse to kill him. and why would oswald being happy to see penn be a problem to ed? it wouldnt be. it wouldnt be, unless ed thinks oswald is his.

which makes sense. i know im calling him names and calling him out, but like. oswald told him he loved him like 5 times 2 years prior, i dont blame him for believing that maybe theres something to it (especially since that was the point of 3x14, oswald really being in love with him and surprising himself with it). but i thought ed didnt feel the same way? because hes very hetero? because he had a full-on girlfriend before, twice, technically? because-

"the truth is oswald, you would sacrifice anyone to save your own neck. even me."

"like i said! you will always fail, because youll never change."

hm. i know this is a bit off topic, but i just got a war-flashback and... why did ed sound so hurt when he said that? "youll never change." "you would sacrifice anyone. even me." why does he care? they were friends, best friends, yes, but why does he sound like a heartbroken wife who just found out her husband cheated on her again? why does-

"honestly you deserve this. you are opportunistic, your loyalty is.. shaking, at best, and you will hurt anyone, anyone, to get what you want."

"and yes, i was not a good friend. to you or anyone. its why im alone. but i saw you for what you are and i valued that!"

...why would edward nygma, the man who literally said "i dont love you" to oswald, be jealous of even the idea that maybe penn could have something going on with oswald? and why would he act on it if hes usually so careful to not reveal his feelings (unless its about kristen. the original obsession, the american dream, the just be normal, show them you are normal, and people will accept you)? he wouldnt.

unless oswald just told him that he knows he messed up. that hes sorry for it.

and unless that made him think that maybe theres a chance.

"love is about sacrifice. its about putting someone elses needs and happiness before your own."

"you gave up your revenge for me?"

a chance... for what?

"life begins anew."

"shall we get to work?"

and if theres a chance, hes not about to risk losing it. not this time.

so maybe 'penguin in love' is about more than just oswalds feelings. maybe they were trying to tell us that, yes, we see you traumatised gay kid, were sorry this is all we can give you, but here you go, eds in love with him too, but don’t tell the channel. subtlely. just for barely ten seconds. and maybe it can be enough.

nope, it wont be. im gonna sit here crying about the injustice of not having them kiss on screen in the finale as was originally intended for the rest of my life. seriously though, what is this, nbc's hannibal, where im noticing something new details every single time i watch the show, causing me to spiral? no, i was already spiralling. the spiralling was the reason i rewatched the scene. the scene simply made it worse.

so yeah, im done freaking out about a mediocre show that was cancelled 5 years ago and is honestly not worth anyones time (like, its ok. it might even be better than i remember since its been so long. i doubt it. but its ok).

tl;dr: ive only now realised that a specific gay song plays in a specific episode of a show i watched 5 years ago and the only reason theyd include it in the episode is if the dude that was not canonically in love with the other dude was in fact gay, they just werent allowed to make it canon, so they added the gay song to subtlely tell us about it.

have a wonderful day, hellsite. dont do what i did and go crazy about fictional gay people. i know you will though, that’s why im here too. i hate gay people. these two make me homophobic so bad, i wanna gauge my eyes out and skin myself-

[ravensinthedaylight]

City of Ash - Daenerys Targaryen x Daughter!Reader

Request(ed by @violetromanova): i’m not sure if you’re taking requests or not right now (so if not i’m really sorry pls ignore this) but i had an idea for a daenerys targaryen x daughter fic where her daughter is there at kings landing and is so afraid and horrified by what happened that she struggles to be around her mum, and you can take it from there i think, i have no clue what should happen next,

Notes: For the sake of the fic Rhaegal never died lol, I also made some minor adjustments to the plot.

Summary: You struggle to look at your mother, Daenerys, after the burning of King's Landing.

Reader's Age: 13

masterlist (Got)

You didn't know what to think as you rode over the burning city.

Parts of King's Landing had been reduced to ash, it had only been two hours after the initial attack and your mother had finally given the go for you to be brought to the city.

The city that she had just conquered. the city whose people she had just cold heartily burned.

Even from high up, on top of Rhaegal, you could hear the screams and cries of the people. Your people. Your mother's people.

The more you looked the more tears flowed from your eyes.

Your mother couldn't have done this. Not the woman who had given birth to you and raised you even though your father, Beltar Celtigar, had died in battle in Essos before you were even born. Not your sweet, kind, fair, and honest Muña.

At first, you had told yourself that she had just lost control of Drogon. But the further you road with Rhaegal the more you realised that that wasn't possible. Drogon didn't have such a blood lust, Drogon was as loyal to Daenerys as you were, even at the age of three and ten you remain one of the people who are most loyal to your mother.

You knew that your loyalty probably didn't mean as much as that of Yara Greyjoy and the Tyrells, but your mother had been insistent that you were the person who mattered most.

As you neared the Red Keep you began to see the castle, or at least what was left of it.

Most of it was just a pile of stone. You didn't see how this could be rebuilt within just a few years.

It had taken your ancestors decades to build the Red Keep and now look at it.

You could hear the pitiful noises coming from Rhaegal. He seemed to share your grief.

You knew that the cries of the women and children would haunt you for years to come, and the images of the burning buildings and castle would forever be engraved in your brain.

The cries were so loud, so very loud, you could hear them so well despite being so far up above.

Rhaegal seemed to slow down, and stayed flapping his wings in the same spot.

When he stopped moving forward you could see everything. The full scale of the destruction caused.

You found it hard to breathe.

Daenerys had once promised that she would never attack King's Landing. She had said that she was not here to be Queen of the ashes.

But then what was this? What was she doing?

She had gone back on everything that she had ever said.

You were happy that Jorah and Missandei weren't here to see this, to see what your mother had done.

Because now, as much as you wanted to deny it, you knew that your mother had done this.

Your mother had shown no mercy.

She destroyed King's Landing.

There were no other words for it.

I'm sorry. You thought as you looked down to the flames that were no doubt burning thousands of innocent civilians this very second. I'm so very sorry.

The army of Unsullied stood in rows in front of the steps to what was previously the castle.

You had wiped your tears from your face, refusing to show her your tears. You had the feeling that this would be a different woman than the Daenerys Targaryen who you had said goodbye to just a few moons ago.

You didn't know what she would do to you.

Rhaegal let out a roar, landing in front of the steps.

As you dismounted, you felt a shiver up your spine.

It was freezing, even the furs that were wrapped around your shoulders didn't do much for the cold.

It was rarely this cold in Essos. You missed Mareen. You wanted desperately to return there. The atmosphere was happy there, and the people were treated with a kind yet fair hand.

You missed the warmth of the weather and flying the dragons alongside your mother. Of course, you were too young to ride by yourself back then, it was just the two of you on Drogon as Viserion and Rhaegal flew nearby.

You had made friends in Mareen. Here you were all alone.

You petted Rhaegal's scales and patted his head, signaling for him to stay.

You looked up. Daenerys Targaryen stood at the top of the steps, Greyworm to her side, and Drogon was perched on a nearby ruin watching over the army of both unsullied and Dothraki.

The Dothraki made room for you as you went to climb the first step of many up to meet your mother at the top.

With each and every step your heart rate increased, and you caught sight of the familiar silver hair that you had inherited from her, you refused to meet her eyes, you were afraid of what you would see in them.

But you saw her hand, a hand that was outstretched to you. Your heart was filled with hope.

You wanted to reach your own handout and touch hers, to feel her familiar warmth, but then the sound of the wailing children, mothers, and widows filled your ears and your yearning was quenched.

You saw her smile, the same smile which had made it a priority to tuck you in every night. The same smile that had been used after freeing the slaves from their masters back in Essos. Bile threatened to surge up your throat over the fact that that very smile was being used right at this moment, right after she had done this.

But no matter what you avoided the eyes, you didn't want to see her eyes. What if they were the same as before? In many ways, you knew that that would make you feel even more sick and horrified, for you felt nobody could commit such a heinous act and still be able to look at their child the same.

You were halfway to the top and the only sounds to be heard were the sounds of your footsteps, the wind, and the crying of the civilians. You didn't know which sounds were more deafening to your ears.

Daenerys hand was still outstretched, but as you got higher up, the more you looked to the nearest step in front of you.

When you finally reached the top you still refused to meet her eyes, she was - in what your mind perceived - stalking toward you. You felt like the prey. You didn't feel safe.

She ignored your flinch as she grabbed onto your shoulder softly, whether she noticed it or not you weren't sure.

"Oh, my sweetest love." She whispered lovingly as she pulled you closer and eventually into an embrace.

You were tense in her arms. You felt even sicker as she caressed the silver curls that cascaded down your back.

Your arms were pinned to the side, while your mother's arms were around your shoulders.'

You refused to give in to the affection.

"You missed my speech." She hummed, placing kisses to your head.

You said nothing, you were cracking, like when your mother's glass vase back in Braavos cracked when one of the baby dragons accidentally knocked it over.

"I hope you had a safe flight."

You forcefully pushed her off of you, breaking the embrace and making her gasp in anguish, in the corner of your eye you could see some Dothraki shift where they stood and Drogon's gaze sharpened.

Daenerys looked hurt and... confused... which irked you greatly.

"Sweetling?"

You promised yourself you wouldn't look in the eyes, you promised, but you couldn't stop yourself.

Her eyes were the same.

And you felt hurt everywhere. You felt betrayed even though it wasn't you she had betrayed.

Despite your promises not to cry you let out a distressed sob as you tried to turn away. Thousands of eyes were upon you, but you failed to care very much. For every eye that was on you another ten people were left burned by Dragonfire.

Daenerys put her hand on your shoulder and guided you away from the scene, knowing that this was a conversation to be had privately.

"Shh, shh, shh." She tried to tell you, but you just tried to pull your arm out of hers, but Daenerys wasn't having it, she wouldn't let go, which made you cry out more. "It's just me, Y/N. It's Muña." She said softly.

"Let me go, please." You cried, Daenerys finally did as she was told, releasing her hold on your arm.

You protectively wrapped your arms around yourself.

"What have you done." You whispered brokenly. "How could you have done such a thing."

Daenerys stared at you and her gaze faltered. "I did what was necessary. I did it for us."

You stared at your mother and took a step back.

"The city surrendered. It surrendered and you still killed thousands!" You spat. "You won, gods be dammed you won! Have you been down there? Have you seen- heard what I've heard, children, women, babies, innocent civilians are dead, you slaughtered them like sheep." You sobbed.

"You overcame Euron's fleet, you annihilated the Golden Company, you eliminated all the city's defenses, Cersei surrendered and you still killed them!"

Daenerys thought for a few seconds, she needed to gather her words. "I needed them to know not to mess with us, to never endanger my dragons, my army, my reign, my kingdom, and most importantly you."

You laughed bitterly. "Them? Who's them? The tens of thousands you have just slaughtered? Don't you understand that the start of your reign is now marked with the bloodshed of innocents?"

"I needed to make sure you would always be safe."

"You think I feel safe now?!" You cried out, bringing your hands up to your face. "You think I feel safe around you?!"

Daenerys looked hurt for just a split second, she goes to pull them away from your face, and you kept going.

"You've just murdered Lord Tyrion's family, you really think he'll stay loyal to you?" You snarked.

"I've granted him Casterly Rock." She responded dryly. You scoffed.

"If someone murdered me would you take Dragonstone and leave it at that?"

"You are not Cercei! And you already know the answer to that, Cercei was a tyrant and Tyrion understood that. Nobody will ever harm you, I've already told you. I've just guaranteed that." You could tell she was getting fed up with your comments.

You shook your head in disbelief, how did she think that this was ok?

"Do you even feel sorrow? Even just a little bit?"

You desperately wanted her to say yes, you desperately wanted to believe that what she did was truly necessary.

"I did what I needed to do, sweetling."

You looked down, you couldn't look at her, not right now. You didn't think that you would ever look at her the same.

"I'm sorry I scared you."

A new round of angry tears came to your eyes. She may have scared you, but that's not what was wrong here.

Your mother could sense your anger by the way you clenched your fists and how your eyelids started to squeeze tightly.

She placed a hand on each side of your face, making you flinch harshly, something that shocked her. Her hands felt as cold as her words, but the main reason you didn't want her to touch you, the reason being clear to both of you.

"Look." She uttered, adjusting your head so that you were facing the Iron Throne. "That's mine now. This is all mine now, the seven kingdoms and soon it will even be beyond that. And when I'm gone this will be yours."

You shivered. You didn't want this.

You were happy in Essos. You wanted to go back to Essos.

You didn't want a throne, you didn't want the titles, you just wanted your mother. You wanted her how she was.

You thought of the stories Viserys would tell to you before his death. The story of King Jaeharys was always your favorite, coming to the throne after Maegor the cruel had finally passed.

You wondered if you would have a similar story, as you didn't know if that was the last of your mother's ruthless slaughters.

"You should have grown up in the Red Keep." Daenerys whispered. "I should have too."

Her hands felt warm again.

"Even though neither of us has been here before, this has always been our home, this has always been where we belonged, My dragon. So welcome home."

You wanted to cry again. You were finding it so easy to forgive her, even though you knew she didn't deserve it, you had never met the people of King's Landing before, but you still felt as though you were betraying them.

"I don't ever want you contradicting me again, am I understood?"

You go to open your mouth, but no words left it.

"At least not like that. I'm your mother, you're but a hatchling. I can understand that you're slightly shaken, and I'm sorry for that, but we have finally reached our goal. You're confused, I know that, sweetling. You're so young and confusion is natural." Daenerys fingers traced your cheek soothingly. "But we need to be strong, especially now. Can you be strong for me?"

You nodded, you didn't even know what you were nodding to, you just knew that somewhere deep down you would always be desperate to please her.

"Thank you." She spoke with such love and adoration. "Now come here, please."

The second you were taken into another warm hug sobs wracked your petite frame.

"There, there, I know my love. Don't fret, I'll take care of everything."

You hated that she was so warm. You hated that you still craved nothing but her love after what she had done here, the number of people she killed. It made you sick to your stomach

"Muña." You whimpered. "Please don't do anything like that again."

Daenerys didn't respond.

taglist: (comment on liked to be added):

@earlyspectrum04

[occasionallysiren]

htnkjdgs. cowboy oc. ur welcome

There is a knock at the door.

Ed does not want to be awake. She pushes the bandana firmer against the cut on her forehead from where his hand had gone slack, a wince pushing its way out between her teeth. Her lip throbs, his eye is almost certainly swollen shut by now, and her ribs protest with every shaky inhale. Her right arm doesn't feel right, the metal shifting uncomfortably against the meat of his shoulder, he'll have to check it later when his priority isn't staying alive.

There is a knock at the door.

Ed does not want to get up from lying on the couch and answer the door.

A trio of knocks this time, each more insistent than the last.

Ed groans and slings his legs off of the arm of the couch and walks on shaky feet to the door. Careful not to trip on anything on the way there, books, trinkets, loose bits of junk she hasn't found a place for yet, Ed slumps against the wooden wall by the door with a grunt, and oh, yeah, her ribs are definitely fucked. 

"What do you want?" he wheezes, holding the bloodied bandana to his chest, blinking through her swollen eye and tilting vision. She probably shouldn't have moved so fast.

There is no response. Ed grimaces, maybe her hearing's been shot out, too.

"Who is it?" he spits instead. Still nothing.

Now, Ed knows that she lives a fair ways away from any town or settlement that consists of more than a train station, and he knows that very very few people even know how to get to her house from 'round the cliff, and she knows that the people who made him look like she just got runover by about ten horses aren't horribly keen on finishing the job, what with all the bullet holes in them, but Ed can't help the pinpricks of doubt that seep into his mind.

Ed knocks the side of his head against the wall in frustration, glaring as best she can out the small glass piece in the upper part of the door. It might work a bit better if she wasn't 5 foot nothing and only half lucid.

There is still nothing but silence outside.

Ed groans and pushes off of the wall and is halfway to slumping, over the couch again, content with letting it be her imagination fucking with her, before there's another knock at the door.

He stiffens, reaching for a pistol she doesn't have, and strides over to the door, unlatches the locks and swings it open.

On the shadowed porch, there stands three figures. 

One, Ed doubts she'd ever forget.

On the others, though, he's drawing a blank.

The first is Mina. She looks just as annoyed at him as she did nigh a decade ago.

The second, what is probably a child, its face cloaked in shadows.

The third, a stick thin woman that Ed realises after a moment is just a gangly teenager.

"Woah, cool arm!" The kid says, stepping into the light that's spilling from her doorway. And that's a child with feathers sticking out of its face. Okay.

"Mina--"

"Did you make it yourself?"

"Yes, I did. Mina--"

[dameronology]

I’ve been dying for a pov where fem!reader is the one that dives in the lake and gets attacked but the demo bats and Eddie being the protective boyfriend he would be would immediately jump in and save you then panic when he sees what they did to you 🫶

oh my goshhh yes the angst (also apologies for how long this took me to write work has been kicking my butt)

once again i went off on an absolute tangent w this lmao i kinda delved into the stuff a little before batgate too hope u don't mind i just LIVE for protective eddie ngl

warnings: language, mentions of injury

eddie munson, as he has proclaimed several times, tends to run from things. he ran from most of his homework in 1984 hence why he's now a super senior; he ran from jason carver in the eighth grade when he stole his animal crackers and he ran, rather ironically, from the gym teacher last week when she chased him from underneath the bleachers with a half-smoked blunt in his hand

he even tried to run from his feelings for you at first. it was mostly fear because you're golden as fuck and the best thing that ever happened to him and honestly he was just scared of hurting you

but this is eddie munson we're talking about, who regularly trips over his own fuckin shoe laces. even in a metaphorical sense, because whilst sprinting from said feelings he skidded and fell on his ass for you and realised that actually, letting himself fall in love with you wasn't the worst thing in the world

that was two years ago & now you're eddie's entire fucking heart. he might feel a bit lost about the future sometimes but he knows it's gonna be ok when you're by his side

getting tangled up in all the upside down shit was beyond what either of you could have ever imagined; honestly his reaction at first was to run, but he knew as you & the others came after him, he didn't have to anymore

you stayed with him at reefer rick's from the second you found him; half because he was a wreck and needed you there, but also because people are dying left, right and center, and he is hellbent on keeping an eye on you

eddie is glued to your hip the entire time. he's clingy at the best of times but now, he won't sleep without both his arms wrapped tightly around you and he wakes up periodically in the night to check on you

and despite the fact he's arguably more traumatised by this entire thing, eddie is constantly asking if you're ok; asking about how you're doing with recent revelations and putting on a brave face to hide his own worries

everything becomes a lot more real when you have to go out with steve, robin & nancy to find the gate. you're both kind of involved now, right? and you're deadset on proving ed's innocence so you're gonna find this fucking monster

eddie doesn't like the idea of you coming with them and getting hurt. he likes the idea of leaving you on shore even less. sometimes you gotta pick the lesser of two evils

it's like you were gonna listen to him anyways. eddie has never been able to tell you what to do

so you get in the boat with them; eddie takes the seat beside you, large hand protectively spread out on your thigh and dark eyes scouring the water ahead of you for any danger

when the compass starts going wonky with a capital "aah!" you're kinda over the whole thing and before anyone can stop you, you've lost your shoes and jacket and you're jumping in the lake

you're too quick for anyone to stop you

eddie is less then pleased when you resurface a few minutes later, announcing that you've found the gate

"why would you do that?! are you fucking insane?! why?!"

before you can argue, you're being dragged back under

even though eddie had said before that he was only brave when it came to d&d, he's diving in right after you. shoes on, jacket on, he doesn't give a shit

an unambiguous sign of true love indeed

he goes down and down after you, not really caring if the other three follow you (they do btw once they all have a moment of "what a chaotic couple")

eddie is basically kicking his way through the gate, blindly beating the shit out of every demobat he's seeing

because like HELL are they gonna get away with hurting you

he's blinded by pure, white rage really. also a little bit of fear, but that just manifests itself in said rage

eventually, when you're finally free of the bats' grip on you, eddie is on his knees by your side, one large hand holding your head and the other checking your pulse

"please tell me you're alive. jesus christ, please say you're alive because if you're not i'm going to-"

"- i'm alive!" you manage to cough out, "just about"

he's taking you in his arms in seconds, pulling you gently into his chest and holding you there, calling you a dumbass and a fucking idiot but one that he loves so fucking much it hurts me right now

robin & steve take a step back for a moment, but nancy - being nancy - is proactive, tearing up her jumper and wrapping it around the wound on your side

eddie sheds his leather jacket, wrapping it tightly around your shoulders

the entire time that you're walking through the upside down, he's got an arm around your waist and one hand holding where your cut is in order to keep pressure on it

and he lets you ride the back of his bike !! no way in hell is he making you cycle in your condition

whilst the other three are communicating with dustin & erica, eddie is ransacking the upside edition™️ of his trailer for any medical supplies

of course there are none but it's sweet that he tries

he insists on going through the gate first so that you don't have to just land straight on the mattress

even though he falls flat on his ass, he manages to catch you

eddie munson will always be there to catch you

[romione-trope-fest]

It Only Takes One Kiss

We love this Second Kiss from @firethecanonsfanfiction!

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Fic Title: It Only Takes One Kiss

Author Name: @firethecanonsfanfiction  Selected Trope: Second Kiss Brief Summary: Ron and Hermione share their second kiss, one week after their first.  Word Count: 2931 Rating: T TW: Subtle sex references.

Thanks to cheesy for the beta once again :D Also, a shout out to Ed Sheeran for thinking to write the song ‘Love in Slow Motion’ so I’d be able to borrow a line from it to use as a title.

—–

It Only Takes One Kiss

The Burrow was a deathly quiet that Hermione wasn’t used to. Of all the times she’d been here, it had always been filled with life and laughter and so many bodies crowded around her. Siblings were shoved into two or three tiny rooms in order to make room for visitors like herself and Harry. 

Now, a solemn air had taken over this once happy place. 

Hermione had done her best to be the person the Weasleys and Harry could count on. She, too, was feeling grief from all that was lost on that horrid day a week ago, but not like them. She hadn’t lost a brother, or a parent, or someone she’d known her whole life. Her parents were safely in Australia, out of harm’s way.

She hadn’t intended to, but she’d taken on the ‘mother’ role. When she could, she cooked for the family, she checked in on all of them, she tended to any non-life-threatening wounds, and she offered a listening ear or a comforting shoulder if they ever needed one.

Surprisingly, most of her time had been spent with Ginny. Not because Ginny needed her the most, but because Ginny was the one who seemed to be coping the best out of everyone. She’d shed her share of tears over her brother, but the young woman had nerves of steel, and it was her that Hermione turned to when she needed downtime. 

They shared a room, and their evenings were spent in quiet conversation, with Ginny usually inquiring about the rest of her family and Hermione filling her in on how everyone was doing. Ginny was the one who ventured from her room the most and took walks outside around the Burrow’s grounds. The rest had barely left their beds.

Hermione came down to the kitchen in the late evening of the seventh day, spotting Ginny sitting at the table. She startled when Hermione entered, and Hermione saw a few tear streaks along her cheeks.

Hermione offered her a smile, which Ginny returned. 

“Everything okay?” Hermione asked.

Ginny nodded. “Yes.” She wiped at her cheeks. “I mean… yes.”

Hermione gulped, realising that that was the only answer she was going to get from her friend. “I was just looking for the bandages. For Ron.” 

Ron had sustained an injury to his shoulder during the final battle at Hogwarts. In his grief over losing Fred, he had failed to notice its severity until a few days later. An infection had built up, and had he gone to St Mungo’s, or had his mother been of sound mind, Hermione had no doubt it would have been cured in a matter of minutes. But Ron had refused to go to the hospital, and Molly was in no way capable of caring for herself right now, let alone her children.  

So, it was left to Hermione to help him, and she was no Healer. 

“How is he?” Ginny asked. The last time they’d spoken about Ron, his injury had been improving. It was slow, but when she’d checked on him that morning, some of the redness and swelling had gone down. 

“Improving,” Hermione answered, collecting the bandages she’d placed inside a cupboard. “But he’d be much better off if he saw a Healer.”

Ginny nodded, but didn’t respond. Hermione left her on her own and went up the stairs to Ron’s bedroom. She drew nearer to the door, hearing the low murmuring voices of Harry and Ron. She stopped, listening for a moment. Ron was the only person Harry would talk to at the moment, and she’d hate to interrupt whatever it was they were talking about. But, if she left Ron’s bandages on too long, then his wound would only get worse. 

She pushed open the door slowly, and both of them looked up. 

“Can I come in?” she asked softly. “I need to…” She held up the fresh bandages, and Ron nodded.

She entered, casting a glance at Harry, who’d fallen into a sullen silence upon her arrival. He laid on the small trundle bed on Ron’s floor, but when Hermione set herself up on Ron’s bed, spreading out the ointment and bandages, he sat up. “I’ll… go for a walk,” he said without looking at them. 

“You can stay,” Hermione offered, but Harry shook his head. “Ginny’s in the kitchen.” She didn’t know if Harry would take that as an invitation to talk to Ginny, but he nodded, and then left, closing the door behind him. 

Hermione turned to Ron, the pair of them looking at each other with a knowing expression. “I heard you talking,” Hermione said first.

Ron shrugged and winced. “He wants to go and spend some time alone at Grimmauld Place. I told him it was a dumb idea, but…” 

Hermione beckoned him closer to her, ready to do her best to treat him. He shrugged off his shirt, something that had initially been uncomfortable for both of them, but a necessity nonetheless. Still, it didn’t stop a blush from creeping up Hermione’s cheeks seeing him like that. Though, like every other time, she put her own unruly thoughts aside in favour of making sure he was getting better. 

“You really should see a Healer,” she advised, slowly unwrapping her poorly applied bandages from that morning. “You wouldn’t be in as much pain if you did.”

“I don’t need a hospital,” Ron argued. “Besides, you’re a good Healer. Even if you don’t have the things an actual one might. You have a gentle touch.”

Hermione flushed at his comment, lifting up his arm to inspect it. 

“Looking any better?” Ron asked. 

“A little. It’s not leaking pus anymore, so that’s a good sign.” She reached for a sponge and dipped it into the ointment. Keeping Ron’s words in her mind about having a gentle touch, she dabbed it over his shoulder slowly… gently. 

Ron shifted.

“Sorry,” she said, quickly pulling the sponge away, worried that it had stung. 

But Ron shook his head. “It didn’t hurt. It felt…” but he didn’t finish, a red creeping up his ears.

She looked up, their eyes meeting, and that familiar flutter in her chest returned. She might have spent most of her time with Ginny, but the time alone with Ron was her favourite. She just wished she could find the words and the courage to talk about what had happened between them a week ago. 

They’d kissed, and she desperately wanted to talk to him about it, and to find out what it had meant. Had it been a once off? A ‘we might die today’ kind of kiss? Or did it mean something more? So much had happened since then that the last thing she wanted was to put pressure on Ron to talk about something that seemed trivial in the scheme of things, but so often these looks — these soft touches — had occurred between them and it was driving her crazy not knowing what to do next. 

Breaking his gaze, she finished sponging over the ointment and then picked up one of the fresh bandages and began wrapping his shoulder in silence. Ron didn’t speak again, though she wasn’t ignorant to the goosebumps that appeared on his flesh every time her fingertips grazed his skin.

All too soon it was over and she pulled away. “Finished,” she announced. “Do you need anything to help with the pain? I can go back down and get you something if you do.”

Ron shook his head. “I’m okay. Thank you.”

Hermione smiled, quickly trying to think of an excuse to stay where she was. Maybe another reason to initiate contact between them. She remembered that he’d hurt his hip, too.

“How’s your hip?” she asked, and without thinking she moved to take a look at, fingers touching the elastic of his shorts, before he grabbed her wrist. She looked up at him, surprised. 

“It’s fine,” he mumbled, the tips of his ears turning red. “That’s pretty much better.”

“Maybe if I just look at it and —”

“It’s fine,” Ron said, this time with more force, moving her hands away from him. 

Hermione blinked, and her eyes trailed back down to where she thought the injury was. And now she saw why he reacted as he had — the slight bulge in his pants. 

She flushed and busied herself with tidying up the used bandages and everything else. 

Oh.

At least she now knew that the attraction wasn’t one sided. 

Ron’s eyes were on her as she gathered the stuff into her arms. She felt them burning into her as if nothing else mattered to him. 

Making sure to keep her eyes above his shoulders, Hermione finally looked back at him again. “I’m sorry,” she blurted out, not really sure why she was apologising for it.

Ron seemed to think the same thing, for despite his burning ears, he looked amused. 

They stared at each other for a few more moments before she sighed, setting everything back on the bed. She needed to talk to him about it, even if it was for him to say he wasn’t ready to take anything further. She’d completely understand if that was how he felt, given what he was going through, but it would be better than the dancing around the topic which was all they were doing now. 

“I know this is awful timing,” Hermione began, “but… I don’t think we can just pretend nothing happened last week.”

She saw Ron visibly swallow, but he nodded. 

She ploughed on. “Did it… did it mean something? I mean… it wasn’t just a kiss, was it?” She tried to hold his gaze, but lost her nerve and looked away. 

“It meant a lot.” Ron’s reply was soft and quiet — barely audible, but meaningful. 

She looked at him again, surprised to find that he was smiling. He looked relieved, perhaps that she’d finally brought it up. 

She returned his smile, feeling her breath leave her. “Oh… it meant a lot to me, too. I mean… I didn’t just kiss you because I thought we were going to die or anything.”

“Yeah, I know that. I mean, I think I knew that at the time. It wasn’t like that for me either, just so you know.” He smiled again and she felt her cheeks tinge pink.

 “I’m glad.” She fidgeted with her hands, wringing her fingers together and trying to figure out what to say to him next. “I guess this means… well, I’m not really sure what it means? What do we do? Er… what do you want to do, I mean?” She was blabbering, she knew, but she wasn’t used to having a conversation like this.

“I dunno.” He was still smiling at her, like he couldn’t quite believe she was there and they were talking about this. 

“I like you,” Hermione blurted out. She flushed a moment later. 

“I like you, too. A lot.“ Ron’s ears tinged red again. “I mean, you saw… wow, it feels good to be finally saying I like you out loud.”

Hermione flushed again, finding it very hard to keep a smile off her face. She swallowed, keeping her eyes on his face despite her growing desire to lower her gaze again. “Well, I think… I think we need to do this slowly. If we do anything, that is. I mean… I hope… I just…” Her cheeks were burning now and Ron could tell.

He was fighting back a laugh and she didn’t know if it was due to amusement or happiness. Maybe it was a bit of both. “I’ll go as slow as you want. Where do you want to start?”

Hermione was grateful to learn that they both seemed as lost as the other, because she was going to ask him the exact same question. 

Where did they start? So, they’d established that their feelings were mutual, but they’d spent seven years dodging those feelings, pushing them aside and prioritising their friendship. It felt almost like second nature to try and preserve that, even now. 

“I want to kiss you again, Hermione.”

Hermione startled at Ron’s sudden frankness. He’d seemed as nervous and as uncertain as she was a moment ago, but something in his eyes showed her a new boldness within him. It had taken a lot of courage for him to say that — more than she had.

“I’m… I’m done pretending,” Ron then said, as if to explain her unasked question. “If the last week has taught me anything, it’s that I need to make every moment of my life count, because you just don’t know when it’s going to be the last moment. I’ve thought about that a lot lately while lying here feeling sorry for myself, and there’s two things that I’ve figured out.

“The first is that I loved my brother and I am going to miss him like nothing else, but I’m glad… well, I’m glad it wasn’t you.”

Hermione opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. She closed it again and waited, because he deemed to want to say more. 

His eyes were focused on his Chudley Cannons bedspread as he spoke. “The second thing I worked out just now, sitting here with you. I don’t know what my last moment will be, but if it’s going to be soon, I’d be pretty happy if I ended it kissing you again. I’ve done enough pretending, I think. Pushing down feelings I so desperately wanted to feel. I’m… I’m done with it. I’m going to be honest about my feelings from here on in. No hiding them anymore. So, Hermione, I’m telling the truth when I say this. I lo —”

Hermione reached for his hands, shaking her head. “Don’t say it,” she urged, feeling the thumping of her heart in her chest. “Slowly, remember?” 

He nodded. “Right. Sorry. I just… I feel it and it’s a very strong emotion. I can’t help it.”

Hermione squeezed his hands assuringly, letting him know it was okay. He looked up at her, giving her a sheepish smile.

“Just kiss me,” she pleaded. “I just want you to kiss me.”

It was all the invitation Ron needed. His hand — the one attached to his good shoulder — moved to the back of her head, drawing her towards him. Their lips met somewhere in the middle, crashing against each other in a kiss that was both gentle and desperate. Her own hands moved to his waist, gripping at his bare skin from where he hadn’t put his shirt back on. She felt goosebumps rise up on him wherever she touched him. His fingers tangled in her hair, pulling her even closer toward him. Her chest exploded with so many feelings in just one kiss. 

It was different from the first time. The first time had been desperate, a moment of weakness on her part. But this time it was so much better. And they were alone this time, with no one around to interrupt their moment. Her mind started to wander as her body relaxed, enjoying every time his lips met hers again. 

Then suddenly, she became painfully aware of Ron’s ‘problem’ from earlier, and realised that it, and her touching his exposed skin in the way that she was, was probably only encouraging him. He didn’t seem set to break the kiss any time soon, with his mouth moving away from hers and down to her jaw before skimming over her neck…

It surprised her by how much he seemed to want her; how desperate he was for her and she pulled away in shock, ignoring the roaring fire that had sprung up in her own body and the part of her brain telling her that this was going to happen eventually, so why not now?

“Sorry,” Ron mumbled, dropping his hands from her hair and pulling himself away from her completely so that they weren’t touching at all. He looked guilty. “Too much, too fast. Sorry.”

Hermione moved forward so that she closed the gap he’d put between them. “It’s okay,” she assured him, dragging her fingers along his good shoulder, down his arm, relishing in the response she got from him. “It’s just… a little too fast for me. That side of things, I mean.”

He nodded. “It just feels so good.” His voice came out in almost a moan. “You feel so good. And finally having you here… it’s the bloody best feeling in the whole world.” 

Hermione leaned forward and kissed him again, this time with a gentler touch. Ron sighed against her. 

She had to agree. Feeling his hands become tangled in her hair, his palms pressed against her head, drawing her closer to him, the rapid thumping for her heart… it was better than anything she’d ever felt in her entire life. 

When they broke away again, looking each other in the eye, Ron whispered, “I really want to say it.”

“I know,” she whispered back, her heart bursting to jump out of her chest and wrap Ron up forever. “I do, too.”

His lips pressed against her forehead and she fell against him, resting her head against his chest. His arms engulfed her, making her feel safe and warm.

“Stay with me tonight,” he murmured against her. “And all I mean is… stay. That’s all I want. To fall asleep with you next to me.”

She nodded. “I’ll stay.”

They both sighed and smiled. For the first time in a week, Hermione could safely say that she felt perfectly content exactly where she was.

[azurethevampire]

“Dad, don’t leave me”

Fandom: Chicago Fire

Summary: ‼️Set in 3x19 "I Am the Apocalypse".‼️ Kelly Severide's daughter learns about the attack to Chicago Med and Firehouse 51's involvement. She rushes to the hospital but is it too late to tell him that she has accepted him in her life as her father?

Words: 3700

A/N: The reader is based on one of my ocs in the One Chicago verse. She likes to be called Tin because she hates her birth name. She is also Kelly Severide's daughter.

•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•

The news reached your school fast. There had been some kind of explosion. Kid after kid spread different things about what had taken place. 

A boy who sat behind you in class declared that this meant a war had started. Whatever had happened must have been bad to cause this kind of havoc, but world war three? You didn’t believe it for a second. This was Chicago. There hardly went a day by without something bad happening. 

The teachers tried to keep the students attention on the teaching but few had luck in that area. Your class probably was one of the worst - your teacher was already shouting at you all to “please stay quiet and sit back on your seats!” But it didn’t do much. You wondered if he would give up soon. 

You felt bad for him. It must have been horrible to teach a bunch of hormone whirring fifteen-year-olds about something most of them clearly had no interest in. 

“Hey Y/N”, somebody whispered near you and you felt something poke at your side. You flinched, tightening your hand into a fist under your desk as you fought against the instinct to punch the other kid to their nose. 

“What?” you hissed quietly, making sure you kept your attention on the teacher who had gotten most of the class to calm down at least somehow. You already had a headache from the uproar, the last thing you needed would be a trip to the principal’s office because you had punched someone when you had mistaken their intentions for an attack. 

Besides, you couldn’t imagine Kelly being very happy either if he had to come to get you in the middle of a shift — again. 

“Isn’t your dad working at firehouse fifty-one?” the boy asked. 

Mention of the same firehouse that your father — not that you called Kelly Severide that — indeed did work in, made you turn your head quicker than was probably safe for your neck, to look at your peer who had been speaking. 

You think his name was  Colin and he had a strange look on his face as he slid something on his desk so that it was closer to you. A phone, you realised. You would have been surprised if it hadn’t been for what was on the little screen: 

“Explosion at Chicago Med's ER!” 

“As of yet the details are unclear but here’s what we know so far: something exploded at Gaffney Chicago Medical Centre's ED about an hour ago. The section of the building has been put on lockdown leading us to believe that there is a contagious disease in there. 

We have yet to know just how many have died or were injured in the explosion but our sources say there were several people in when it happened including some firefighters from Chicago Fire Department’s firehouse 51.

Was this simply an accident or something bigger: is this a biological terrorist attack against Chicago?” 

Your heart started to beat faster the further you get reading the article that had been posted only minutes ago with the promise that it would be updated as new information got in. You couldn’t wait that long! 

Blood rushed to your ears as your mind focused only on one thing: you had to get to Chicago’s Medical hospital. Now. You sprang up from your seat so fast that your chair fell on the floor with a loud bang - efficiently silencing the rest of the class, not that you noticed. In a haste, you pushed your books and pens into your backpack and rushed towards the classroom’s entrance. The students in your class all stared at you with varying faces of admiration, shock, and judgement. 

“Miss Morgan, where do you think you are going? Sit back on your seat, I have not dismissed this class yet!” called after you but he was too late as you were already on the door. 

“I’m sorry!” you decided to call over your shoulder. “I have to go!” 

“Come back here right this instant!” Your teacher yelled after you but you were already running down the hallway. 

•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•

It took excruciatingly long for you to reach the hospital as you had to run the rest few blocks because the traffic had jammed up due to the crowd in front of the gates. 

You had to fight your way through countless people before you finally got to the gate - only to be stopped by a CPD officer guarding the gate. 

"You can't go in there kid", he said. 

"But-" 

"But nothing. You either back away on your own or I'm going to have you removed from here." 

You pushed against the officer in an effort to get past him. You of course knew that attacking a police officer didn't get you anywhere but you wanted to get to Kelly! Or someone else from 51 who could tell you what was going on. 

The thought that Kelly Severide, who was your father even if you had refused to call him that, was inside there… hurt… or worse, made your blood run cold. 

You couldn't lose him. Not now when you finally started to believe that he really wasn't the scumbag your mother had claimed him to be. 

Not now when you finally had begun to believe that he wouldn't abandon you. 

"Hey!" The police officer said firmly, grabbing both of your arms before you could cause any real damage.

Tears of frustration and fear filled your eyes as you tried to fight against him. "Let me go! My dad is in there! KELLY!" You screamed his name, not caring for the slightest that you got everybodys' attention - including the news crew - "Lieutenant Severide!" You yelled again, still struggling against the patrolman who tried to drag you away. 

"Hey! Patrolman, wait!" A familiar voice called out suddenly and you looked towards it to see none other than chief Boden jogging towards the gate. 

You immediately stopped your struggling against the police officer, allowing for him to grab your arm in a near-painful hold. 

Boden only glanced at you, but even with the gate between you, you could see the way his jaw tightened. Bad feeling settled into the pit of your stomach at that. 

"Let her through, officer. She's the kid of one of my firemen", Chief Boden said. 

"I'm sorry Chief but I can't let anyone through there." 

"Please!" You cried out, tears now streaming free as you tried to tug your arm free again but it was in vain; the patrol man's hold kept. 

"I will personally vouch for her and keep her away from harm's way, officer. Let her through." 

"Fine! But if anything happens to her it's on you, chief Boden." 

The man nodded. "I know. Open this gate", the gate was opened just enough that you could slip into the other side. Chief Boden was quick to put his arm around you and start walking you away from the gate. You had already had plenty of attention from both nosy citizens and news cameras, no doubt. 

As Boden rubbed your arm in a comforting gesture, you knew something was wrong. Your eyes roamed ahead of you, searching, but to your horror, you couldn't see your father's face among the firemen outside the ER. 

"What's going on? Wh-where's Kelly?" 

"Erin Lindsay tried to get you discharged early from school to bring you here but she missed you by a few minutes. Now, normally I would scold anyone for that kind of thing, but in these circumstances, I won't." 

"I had to come when the news said that fifty-one was in here - I'm not sorry for cutting school." 

"Damn social media", Boden mumbled, guiding you to a stop behind the squad 3 truck. 

The sick feeling in your stomach grew. Where was your father? "Boden, where is he?" You asked again, desperation and fear both clear in you voice and on the expression on your face. 

Chief Wallace Boden placed his hands on your shoulders and leaned down to be at an eye-level with you. He looked you right in the eye, and the raw and pure emotion of sorrow, pain, and worry you saw in his hit you with full power; this man didn't just feel these things for his wife and son. He felt them for all of the firefighters and paramedics working in his house. Because they were his family too. 

And that family had included you too for a while now. 

When you saw the unhidden tears watering Boden's eyes you felt your own eyes tearing up again. It was almost instinctive to grab Boden's arms. 

"Y/N, I need you to stay strong now, okay?" You felt yourself move your head up and down slightly even though you didn't know if you could do what he asked. "Your father was almost in the centre of the explosion. He was hit badly, Y/N." 

"But…", you swallowed against the lump in your throat. "But he's gonna be okay, right?" 

Boden's eyes seemed to sadden even more. "There is a doctor who's doing everything she can. Mills and Brett are with him… I'm not going to lie to you, kid. There is a chance that he might…" 

"No!" You cried out. Your eyes caught the sight of the ER's locked doors and your body seemed to work on its own as you suddenly found yourself slipping from the hold Boden still had on your shoulders and making a dash towards the doors. 

You didn't get more than a few steps in before an arm grabbed you from the waist and pulled you against a broad chest. 

"Lemme go! I have to go to him!" 

Boden pinned your wailing arms against your sides and held you firmly against his chest. "I'm sorry, Y/N, you can't go in there. Nobody goes in or out until we know what we are dealing with. Calm down!" 

"But Kelly's in there!" You protested, but a lot weaker than a few seconds ago. "What if… what if he doesn't…" you couldn't make yourself actually say the words. You didn't even want to think about it but the thought was now stuck in your head, repeating it all over again: What if Kelly wouldn't make it? What if he died? 

Sobs racked your whole being as you suddenly stopped fighting against Boden and instead turned around in his hold, grabbed a handful of his smoke-smelling jacket and buried your head against his chest. He changed his hold on you and hugged you tightly. 

He wanted to tell you that it would be okay but he couldn't. He couldn't promise that to you.

"I've got you", he whispered instead. 

After a moment you had calmed down a bit and pulled back from Boden. "I want to speak to him", you whispered. 

"He's unconscious - you can't talk with him." 

You shook your head. "No with him, to him, please Boden. I want to tell him something… and I know he probably won't hear it but what if he does?" 

Boden looked at you thoughtfully for a moment. Then he spoke to the radio attached to his shoulder. "Brett, Mills, I know you are doing everything you can to save Severide. Here's someone who wants to say something to him. Is that okay?" 

The few seconds of silence felt like hours to you before Sylvie Brett's voice came through. "Go ahead, chief, put her on." 

Boden nodded by himself, then he pressed a button on his radio and looked at you. "Go ahead, Y/N." 

You took a deep, wavering breath before starting. "Kelly…", it felt wrong to call him by name. He wasn't just Kelly anymore, was he? New tears burned your eyes as you tried again: "... Dad, don't leave me. Please… I know, I know that I'm a brat to you a lot of the time and I'm sorry, dad, I'm so sorry but please fight this…", now you sobbed again. "Please don't leave me alone, dad; I need you."

You didn't know if Kelly Severide heard you at all but you wished he did. And you wished he would pull through because you really did need him. 

You, and firehouse fifty-one. 

•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•

You weren't sure how much time had passed after your confession. You had never called Kelly your dad - hell, you had never wanted to call anyone your dad, but somehow Kelly Severide had managed to get that spot in your life that should have been his since the day you were born. You had been mad at him for a long time for leaving you alone with your mother. 

It hadn't mattered to you then that he had not known you even existed. In your mind, you had needed someone to blame for your life before and Kelly - a man you never even knew by name nor face - had been a perfect scapegoat to place your blame on. 

You had never dared to let yourself imagine a life with your father, but even you had had to admit that Kelly was trying to make up for the fourteen years he had lost, he really was. And he had been there in the past months, he had been there for you even when you had clearly seen that he had no idea how to deal with you. He might not be like the dads in the books you had read when you were just a little kid but he was a dad. He was your dad. 

Yet you had never called him that to his face; and now you had uttered that word, one you had always thought you would never address anyone by, three times. 

And you felt guilt gnaw at your insides, because what if your dad died believing that you had never accepted him? 

You had no idea how much or little time had passed. You were in some kind of haze. Everything was slightly out of focus, every sound slightly off-tune. 

You had been made to sit on squad 3 truck and there was a blanket around your shoulders. Mouch was sitting up there with you, telling stories about anything he could think of but mostly about things that your dad had done on the job, the saves he had made. You were grateful to him but couldn't focus on a lot of what he was saying. 

You ran your fingers along the rim of the helmet that sat on your lap - your dad's helmet - when the door next to you was yanked open. 

"Your dad is stable, Y/N." 

A sniff escaped you with those words. "He-He’s going to be okay?" 

"He is." 

"Thank God", Mouch breathed out, and you slouched in your seat as relief hit you so hard you were surprised the emotion didn't knock you off your seat. 

A hand came to rest on top of your knee and you placed yours on top of Boden's for a few moments. 

Then the radio on the chief's shoulder cracked to live again. 

"Chief, we are clear. Not contagious. They're opening up the ER now." 

You wasted no time jumping off from the firetruck. 

You were among the first people to go inside the ER from the outside. Christopher Herrmann was just inside the doors and when he saw you he was quick to pull you into a quick hug. "How're you holding up, kid?" 

You could only shrug. You just wanted to get to your father, and Christopher could tell that. 

"You can go, Herrmann, I'll take Y/N to Severide", Matt Casey's voice came behind you and you turned your head enough to give him a grateful look. 

Christopher tapped you gently on the shoulder, "Hang in there, kid. You're dad's a tough one to crack", he said before leaving you in the care of his lieutenant. 

Which was a relief actually. While you had spent a lot of your free time at the station lately getting to know everyone in the firehouse, you were most comfortable with Matt — after Kelly, of course. Mostly because you shared an apartment with him until Kelly could find you two something of your own. 

Matt guided you down a hallway and before you knew it, you two were outside a hospital room. There on the bed lay Kelly Severide. He had a couple of cuts on the side of his forehead, you could see from here but you had been told that the more serious wounds were on his side. 

"He's gonna pull through, Y/N", Casey said. "But Severide's going to need to stay in the hospital for a little while." 

You looked up at him. "Where do I have to go?" 

Casey seemed taken aback by your question. Then he turned you gently to face him. "What are you talking about? You're not going anywhere, sweetheart. It's just a couple of days, of course you're staying home with me until Kelly comes back", he said, and as you opened your mouth to answer, he held up a hand to stop you. "You're family now Y/N. What sort of friend would I be if I abandoned you now, huh?" 

You opened and closed your mouth a few times as you tried to figure out what to say but couldn't find the words. Then you acted on impulse: you stood up on your toes and leaned up to give Matt a quick peck on the cheek. "Thank you, Matt", you whispered. 

He smiled at you. "There's nothing to thank for, okay? Now go be with Severide, I think he'll want to see you when he wakes up. Call me when you want a ride home, alright?" 

"Okay, I will", you promised. 

Maybe it was a combination of the stress and fear of the day finally releasing as you fell asleep sitting on a chair next to your father's hospital bed. You were holding his hand on your own, head resting on your crossed arms next to his middle. 

You weren't aware of a nurse coming in, smiling fondly at the sight of you two. 

April was leaning against the wall when Kelly stirred awake. He looked down at you when he felt your hand around his. His disoriented gaze softened as he watched the top of your head. He was sure your neck would be stiff sleeping like that. 

"You scared me", April Sexton said quietly. 

Kelly tried to remember what had landed him here but he couldn't. He knew only what he had been told when he had first come to after the surgery. "I don't remember any of it."

"Nothing?" 

"Nothing", Kelly confirmed. His eyes trailed back to you. "How long has she been asleep like that?" 

April's lips twitched. "A while now. You know you should be proud of her; Goodwin tried to make her leave but she talked her out of it."

Kelly carefully tucked his hand out of your hold and stroked your head. "How's she?" 

"Scared", April answered. "But she's a tough kid. Like her father." A wondering look came over her features. "Do you remember hearing her during your surgery?" 

"Y/N was there?!" 

"No, no, of course not", April hurried to calm him down. "Chief Boden let her speak through the radio. We all heard it but I don't think she knows that part." 

"What… I don't remember. What did she say?" 

And April recited your words to him. By the end of it, Kelly's eyes were watered. He looked down at you, coming to a decision as he gently reached with his hand and shook your shoulder.

April slipped out of the room as you sat up wiping the sleep away from your closed eyes. It took you a moment to gather your surroundings, and a second more to realise your dad was awake. 

"Hey kiddo", Kelly said quietly, reaching out to briefly brush your cheek with the side of his knuckles. "I know we are both new to this whole father and daughter thing, new to being a father and a daughter, but you know I'm not giving up, right? No matter how bratty you sometimes get you're not driving me away— I need you too, you know." 

Your eyes widened. "Y-you heard me?" 

Kelly took a gentle hold of your hand as his expression saddened. "I wish I had, Y/N, but a little bird told me what you said." 

You frowned, wondering who had told him. Had his doctor stopped by when you were asleep? As far as you knew there were four people besides you who had for certain heard what you said: Chief Boden, the doctor doing the surgery on your dad, and Sylvie Brett and Peter Mills.

But in the end, did it really matter? You had wanted him to hear those words after all. You wondered why it always took something tragic for people to tell how they felt about someone. 

"I'm glad you're okay… dad." 

Huh, the word didn't sound as strange as you had feared. If anything it was almost… natural. Like you would have always said it. And in a way, you supposed you had always said it — in your dreams. 

"Wow", Kelly breathed out. "There's a word I never thought I would hear myself being called."

"Oh, sorry! I can- I won't call you that unless-" 

Kelly interrupted your sudden panic by raising his hand to your cheek. Surprised you looked at him. He was smiling, eyes shining. 

"I could get used to being called 'dad'", he said to you. 

"I could get used to saying it", you replied. 

He smiled at you and squeezed your hand, and you noticed his eyes were drooping. Leaning over, you shut off the lamp on the table beside his bed and then leaned back on your seat. 

"Good night, dad." 

[capseycartwright]

okay but buck and eddie + "pretending you're going to kiss your best friend to see how they're going to react, they grab your face and kiss you back" from the kissing prompts

Eddie would, without question, move heaven and earth to make Christopher happy. It’s not something he’s ever had to doubt about himself - Christopher is his main priority in life, and Eddie would stand on his head for hours if it meant he got to see his son smile. All that being said - he might have bitten off more than he could chew, with this one.

Christopher was in El Paso for a week. Pepa had been going there anyway, and she’d taken Chris to see Eddie’s parents - despite Eddie insisting he could take Chris himself. Their work schedule wasn’t too bad, that week, and they had three days off in a row without having to use any vacation time, so he could have flown out there, but Pepa - and abuela - had insisted Eddie take some time for himself, which was not something he was very good at, so instead, Eddie had decided to surprise Christopher with a total room makeover.

Chris was the definition of a tweenager - he was hitting the age where everything was starting to be totally embarrassing (Christopher’s words, not Eddie’s) and so he thought his room was too childish. It’s just - Eddie hadn’t had the time, before now, to clear the room out, repaint it, replace all the furniture - the works.

Buck had been on board from the second Eddie had suggested it, and three trips to the hardware store, a whole day of painting Christopher’s room a seafoam green, and one very stressful trip to Ikea later, Eddie was sitting on the floor of his sons room, Buck looking entirely too self-satisfied as he pointed out Eddie was definitely building Christopher’s new desk wrong.

Eddie glared at his best friend. “Did you look at these instructions? It’s not exactly my fault that I put it together wrong,” he huffed, throwing the crumpled paper at Buck. “There’s pictures, and no words.”

“That’s supposed to make it easier, Eddie,” Buck said, smoothing out the instructions. “Come on, it can’t be that bad. We’re firefighters, we’re not going to be defeated by flat-pack furniture. Well, I won’t be - I don’t know about you.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “You’re real cute, Buckley.”

Buck looked up, grinning. “Aw, you think I’m cute?” he teased, making kissy-faces at Eddie, leaning in impossibly close - close enough that Eddie could feel the huff of his breath against Eddie’s own cheek, close enough for Eddie to be able to study every flutter of Buck’s eyelashes. “You think I’m cute. You think I’m the cutest ever,” he continued, his laughter genuine and bright, filling in every crack of Eddie’s heart as always. “You think I’m cute, and you want to kiss me.”

Buck was probably joking, Eddie realised - but something about his words, they made something snap inside of Eddie.

His feelings for Buck, they had changed, a long time ago - in hindsight, part of Eddie had to wonder if their friendship had ever truly been totally platonic, given how deep the connection was, from day one - but Eddie had really accepted he had been in love with his best friend right after he’d gotten shot. The moment the bullet had torn through his shoulder had been a strange one - it was as though Eddie’s life, past, present, and future, had played on some sort of desperate, sped-up, movie-style preview, and his heart and brain had gone into overdrive. He hadn’t been sure of what it had meant, until he’d woken up and seen Ana where he wished Buck was, and he’d only lasted a few more days before breaking it off with Ana.

(“It’s Buck, isn’t it?” she’d asked, more perceptive than Eddie had given her credit for. It felt like the movement took every ounce of strength in his body, but Eddie had nodded. “I hope it works out, Eddie,” had been the last thing she’d ever said to him.)

But Buck had been with Taylor - and he’d been happy, for a long while, until they’d broken up pretty amicably. They’d wanted different things, out of life - Buck wanted a family, a house in the suburbs and a happily ever after, and Taylor’s vision of her future hadn’t looked like that.

(“It was too big a difference, to find a compromise on,” Buck had shrugged. “I want a family - she doesn’t. It wouldn’t be fair to ask each other to change our minds on that - but we’re still friends, and I’ll be okay.” He’d sounded so sure, that Eddie was helpless to do anything except believe him.)

The breakup had been months ago, now, and Buck had all but moved in, since, spending all his time with Eddie and Christopher and all those feelings Eddie had buried for the six and a half months Buck and Taylor had dated for had come back with a vengeance, and Eddie had felt like he was drowning in how much love he felt for Buck.

So maybe Buck was joking -

But Eddie wasn’t, when he dived across the floor and cupped Buck’s face in his hands, pressing his lips to Buck’s in a desperate, urgent kiss. He’d imagined so many versions of their first kiss - slow, and romantic, exchanged over dinner, desperate and hurried, exchanged in the midst of an emergency. Eddie had never imagined this - never imagined the way Buck was frozen, in Eddie’s grasp, never imagined feeling too scared to pull back because he was worried that would be the first, and last, time he ever got to kiss Buck.

Eventually - Eddie had to pull back.

“I’m sorry,” he managed, trying to wrack his brain for an excuse for his behaviour. Could he blame it on the paint fumes, maybe? Say that they’d addled his brain and gotten him a little high? They hadn’t worn masks, when they painted, after all.

Buck’s grip on his wrists was tight, stopping Eddie from moving away. “Do you think I don’t want this, Eddie?” he asked, his cheeks flushed an adorable shade of pink, eyes wide and sincere as he looked at Eddie.

Eddie had never felt more embarrassed in his life. “You didn’t kiss me back,” he pointed out, wishing Buck would let him move away.

“You didn’t give me a chance to,” Buck said, and before Eddie could say anything else, Buck was kissing him again, slow and unhurried, as though they had all the time in the world to do this, to figure out how best to fit together.

Eddie couldn’t help the surprised noise he made against Buck’s mouth as the younger man pulled him into his lap, the way Buck’s strong hands gripped his thighs and easily maneuvered him unfamiliar - but not unwelcome. “Do you really want this?” he found himself asking, steadying himself by holding tightly to Buck’s shoulders.

He’s not sure he’d ever sat in someone's lap before, as an adult. It was kind of nice.

Buck nuzzled his face against Eddie’s neck, breathing deeply for a second. “I’ve wanted you for so long, Eddie,” he admitted. “I can’t remember how it feels to not want you - to not want this, us, our family, forever.”

“Our family,” Eddie echoed softly, brushing Buck’s sweaty, gel-free hair back off his forehead.

“Is that okay?”

Eddie nodded, leaning in to kiss the worry off Buck’s forehead. “It’s more than okay, Buck. It’s perfect.”

(It was hours later, when Eddie looked in the door of Christopher’s bedroom, a half-naked Buck doing his best to distract him as Eddie surveyed the wreckage of half-built flat-pack furniture littering Christopher’s floor.

“Chris is home tomorrow,” Eddie sighed, reaching back to run a hand through Buck’s hair. “We really need to finish.”

Eddie didn’t need to look at his best friend to know the younger man was grinning. “How do you feel about getting a TaskRabbit, Eds?”)

[artemis-fowl-angst]

chapter 4 of the fic I’ve been posting recently

TW: calories, paranoia, implied ED, this is an Atlantis complex fic

He considered dialing Butler's number again, as walking back to the dorms alone on a nightly basis was certainly a security risk.

After all, you never know who's following you just beyond the shadows, there was someone following him earlier today, wait what if they still were- It had been Po, remember, he was following him because he wanted to check out the cafe. Unless he had an ulterior motive...you could never be too safe.He pressed the speed dial button and butler picked up on the first ring.

“Artemis”

“Salutations, I am currently at a cafe, I will send you the exact location in a minute. And I deemed it unsafe to walk alone back to the dorms at night.”

“Of course, may I ask, have you eaten today?”

“Yes”

“Tea doesn’t count”

“I know”

“Neither does coffee”

“I have eaten at least one meal today, a meal that you would judge as sufficient nutrition as you have previously judged it as such.”

“If you’ve only eaten breakfast you need to eat a dinner too”

Artemis hung up the phone.

Dr Po, who had been glancing at Artemis more and more frequently in the past 30 minutes decided that this was the best time for a comment

“So us staff members aren’t the only ones concerned about your eating habits”

It was slightly snarky, a tone which Artemis did not appreciate, but didn’t particularly care to pick apart right now.

“As I said, verbatim in our last meeting on the subject: ‘I hardly eat anything on my plate because I have sensory issues and I’ve just never had a large appetite.”

Po, who had gotten marginally used to Artemis’s shenaniganry, didn’t blink at the display “I’m gonna guess that was your bodyguard?”

“You would be correct with that assumption”

Seven words, neutral.

“Hm.”

————————————————————

Butler had arrived a while ago but Artemis hadn’t finished so the three of them still remained in the café

Thank the gods the café was open 24/7

For the past hour Butler had been getting his attention and glancing at the pastries behind the glass, he normally would’ve obliged and ate one just to get him to stop, but they had come out with the Halloween themed pastries recently, pastries he had not memorized the calorie count to yet. So that wasn’t an option.

He got the waitresses attention and ordered another coffee, glancing at butler after she turned around.

“Coffee isn’t food Artemis, even in extreme amounts.”

He whispered

“Those are their Halloween themed pastries, not their normal ones”

“Have you tried them”

Four words- shit

Artemis shook his head

“And I don’t plan to”

Butler sighed, but didn’t push it. He knew that if Artemis didn’t want to eat something, there was no force in the world that could make him.

“Oh wow, its 1am”

A voice from the table one over piped up

“You’re just now realising this?”

“Well I hadn’t checked”

That was the second sentence in a row that was four words long. He was doing it on purpose wasn’t he? He knew-

Artemis took a breath and counted to five, steadying his nerves.

“You have to get up at 8 for classes right?”

“Five actually, if I want to get ready, get coffee, and make it to class on time, right won’t work”

“Studies show-“

“- Show that the average teenager needs from eight to fourteen hours of sleep a night, yes I know. However, I do not particularly care. I'm going to continue working.”

He turned back to his laptop, only to see the screen go black. He had 15 hours of battery left, that didn’t make any sense, that is until he saw a large finger over the power button.

“What exactly are you doing?”

“Making you take a break”

The audacity-

“What makes you think you can do that, butler?”

“It is my job to make sure you are healthy and safe”

“I am fully aware, I have read the contract many a time. Get your finger off of my power button”

Butler scrunched his eyebrows, just a bit. It was unlike him get this hostile this fast, however he was obviously sleep deprived and probably hungry too.

Caring for a workaholic teenager is stressful

“If I had hair it’d be grey” butler thought to himself as he engaged in a mini staring contest with his charge.

“If I eat a singular pastry, will that work for a compromise under your ideals?” Artemis gritted out, clearly unhappy and making sure that it came across in his tone

Odd phrasing, but…

“Yes”

Artemis sighed melodramatically

“Only to continue my work.”

Artemis stood up and Butler turned the laptop back on.

As he got up to the counter, Artemis cursed himself for not thinking ahead and memorising the caloric amount in the pastries before. He couldn’t ask with butler and Po watching. There was also the risk of the barista, who was used to Artemis asking, just telling him automatically, though if that happened he could just blame it on company policy or something.

“I overheard the conversation, which one would you like?”

He gestured vaguely towards the case,

“It really depends”

She paused, glanced at the two other customers before lowering her voice and saying

“The pumpkin one is 150 calories”

Artemis nodded and she went to go get the pastry

“That‘ll be £4”

Artemis suppressed a wince and left a five pound note on the counter.

He shook the bag in the air at Butler as he walked back to his table.

He continued his work, something was off though, Maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him, but Po was glancing at him more and more.

If it was his mind playing tricks on him, surely it would clear up on his own… if the good doctor was watching him, something could arise of that

He can read your mind! That’s ridiculous

Knowing the councillor, if he was actually concerned Artemis would soon be summoned to his office.

If that happened than that would allow Artemis to talk his ears off and slowly chip away at his concerns until nothing was left.

—————————————————————

Tag list

@pokegeek151 @artemisfowl-chaos @avid-author-activist @four-makes-my-bottom-sore @xxfanenbyanonymousxx @tell-the-stars-hello

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Haven (9/50)

Summary: They say Resembool is a haven, and they’re right. Lush pastures, quaint country town, farmers’ markets on Saturdays: a bucolic paradise.

But it’s more than that. Resembool is a haven for the runaways, the deserters, the people who don’t want to be found…

The Resembool community knows there’s something odd about Hohenheim, but they’re not going to let that stop them helping him out. This is Resembool after all, a place where no one has to hide and neighbours help neighbours, be they building a fence, chasing a sheep, or trying to save the country from an evil they inadvertently helped release centuries ago…

Or: A series of slices of life in an AU in which Hohenheim never leaves, and several broken state alchemists find hope and home in Resembool.

Rated: T

==

Haven

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [AO3]

Summary:  During her second pregnancy, Trisha satisfies an unusual craving and reflects on their growing family.

Characters: Trisha, Hohenheim

Pairing: Trisha/Hohenheim

For the most part, Trisha has found her second pregnancy to be much easier than her first. Knowing what to expect this time around, she’s been prepared for the morning sickness and the aching and cramping, and maybe it’s just psychological but they don’t seem to be anywhere near as bad this time. 

The thing she is not prepared for is the cravings. 

She hadn’t had any with Ed, at least, not that she’d noticed. She hadn’t wanted anything out of the ordinary. And she hadn’t wanted to eat at odd times of the day.

This one, however, has decided that it wants the strangest combinations of foods possible at the strangest times imaginable, which is why Van has just entered the kitchen at three o’clock in the morning to find her making a honey and tomato sandwich. 

For a long time, he just stares at her in confusion. She can forgive the confusion. It’s three o’clock in the morning and he’s just spent twenty minutes getting Ed back to sleep. He’s probably not completely with it at the moment. 

“Is that honey?”

“Yes.”

“And tomatoes?”

“Yes.”

“In a sandwich?”

“Yes.”

He opens his mouth to say something and then just shakes his head, deciding better of it.

“Come on, Van, this is not the weirdest thing you’ve seen me eat in the last five months.”

“That’s true.” He looks at the sandwich with something akin to fear in his expression, grabbing a glass of water and retreating out of the kitchen quickly. “I’m going back to bed, enjoy your… concoction.”

Trisha just laughs and tucks into her sandwich, looking down at the bump that’s undeniably starting to show. She hadn’t even realised she was pregnant again at the beginning, figuring that it had to be impossible, just six months after Ed was born and still breast-feeding. Even Pinako was surprised by it, but Trisha has long since accepted that nothing about her life since meeting Van was ever going to be ordinary. 

(She thinks they’ll have to be a bit more careful after this one’s born. As much as she likes the thought of a big family, she’d prefer them all to be a bit more spaced out.)

To say that Van reacted with mild panic when she told him she was expecting again would be something of an understatement. He loves Ed so much and he really wanted to have a family, but it took him a long time to get used to fatherhood and even though he’s comfortable with Ed now, he’s still worried about doing it wrong. Maybe it’s because he spent so, so long without a family that he’s just plain terrified of messing up the one he’s now got. 

Still, he got used to the idea fairly quickly and he seems much calmer this time around than he did before. She wonders if he’ll have the same kind of reaction to the new baby as he did to Ed, or if things will come easier to him now. She hopes they will; it was sad to watch him second-guessing himself whilst she had bonded with her first-born so quickly and easily. 

Sandwich eaten and craving satisfied for now, Trisha makes her way back upstairs, pausing on the landing to look into the darkened nursery and check on Ed, now sleeping peacefully after his earlier wakefulness. 

Naturally she has no pictures of Van from his early years, but she’s sure that he would have looked like Ed does as a baby. Ed already has his father’s eyes and nose, and his hair is rapidly lightening from the brown it had been when he was born, more like hers, to a dark gold. 

Ed gives a squeaky little snore and Trisha smiles. He can be a little devil sometimes but she wouldn’t change him for the world, and when he’s asleep, he’s one of the most beautiful things that Trisha can imagine. She steps out of the doorway and pads softly down the landing towards her own room. Hopefully his brother or sister will let her get some rest as well. 

She slips into bed beside Van, who rolls over and spoons up behind her, hand coming around to rest on her belly. It’ll still be a while yet before they feel a proper kick, but once they do, Trisha really hopes that this baby won’t be quite as active as Ed was. Once he got going it felt like he was dancing a Drachman jig inside her for the last couple of months. It was exhausting just feeling it. 

She interlaces her fingers with Van’s, waiting for sleep to take her.

“How was the sandwich?” he mumbles sleepily.

“Delicious. I’ll make you one too next time.”

“I’ll pass.” There’s a long pause and she thinks that he’s nodded off until he speaks again. “Do you think this one’s a boy or a girl? You were so certain with Ed.”

“I think he’s another boy. Not quite as boisterous as Ed was, but I’m still thinking boy.” Another long pause. “You should probably think of some girl names just in case though.”

“Why me?”

“I chose Edward. It’s only fair you choose this one’s name.”

“I like Alphonse. Maybe Alice for a girl.”

Trisha has to wonder. She knows not to prod at the old wounds, that Xerxes is difficult for him to talk about at the best of times, but she does sometimes ponder if there was anyone that he would want to honour in that way, by having their name live on. He knows the names of every single soul in his veins, and Trisha knows he won’t name their baby after any of them for fear of the others feeling left out. But maybe there was someone in his life before all that happened. After all, he had to have a mother at some point. 

She pushes the thought away and rubs her belly. 

“Be good in there, Alphonse, ok? We’ll see you soon.”

Trisha likes to think she feels a little flutter of movement in response.

[anachilles]

» somewhere in the crowd, there’s you  ♪  julie/luke [ juke ]

If they weren’t already dead Julie swore she would kill them. Luke especially.

Actually no, that wasn’t fair. This time she couldn’t completely blame them for what was admittedly a dumb decision on her own part. But see it from her perspective - the boys hadn’t seen the Mamma Mia movies. They didn’t even know of their existence. That had to be remedied.

TL;DR - The boys are introduced to the Mamma Mia Cinematic Universe. Alex spectates, Julie sings ABBA, Luke falls further in love, and Reggie ends up reliving the horror of high school math class. Also BROT4 couch cuddles.

link to read on AO3: [x]

taglist: @wokealex @blueruby31

If they weren’t already dead Julie swore she would kill them. Luke especially.

Actually, no, that wasn’t fair. This time she couldn’t completely blame them for what was admittedly a dumb decision on her own part.

But see it from her perspective - the boys hadn’t seen the Mamma Mia movies. Didn’t even know of their existence. They had just been finishing up a group jam session when she’d made some off-hand joke about them hitting the big-time and having their music turned into a movie-musical series “like ABBA”. Reggie’s face had lit up and he immediately jumped on it, “Wait, they made a movie out of ABBA music?”

“Multiple movies?!” Alex had cut in, looking disbelieving but nonetheless delightfully intrigued.

Luke snorted with laughter, throwing his hands up as he turned to look at Julie. “That’s it - I know what we’re doing tonight” he exclaimed, and pointed at her “Do you have them on ta-”

He catches himself before he can finish the word ‘tape’, but Julie’s eyes still narrow, her own smile now challenging. The boys really weren’t that bad at picking up the basics of modern technology, but slip-of-the-tongues still happened and Julie loved to tease them about it. Luke most of all just because he always dogged the other two the most about it when they did it. Also, perhaps a little bit, because he was kind of cute when he got all defensive.

“On what, now?”

Luke floundered for a second, and Alex and Reggie traded a look between them. Suddenly though, a lightbulb dinged above his head and his expression turned smug.

“DVD! Do you have them on DVD”

Julie laughed, making what was meant to be a loud ‘buzzer’ sound. “Wrong answer! Not the most up-to-date form of media storage, but nonetheless thank-you for playing”. Her expression softened though when she heard Alex and Reggie hound him a little behind her, “However, we do have them on DVD because my dad likes having physical copies of stuff”.

She was about to leave to go grab them from the house, only the time on her phone caught her attention and her heart sank.

“Hey guys, I can go get them for you but I don’t think I can stay the whole way through both. I’ve got school tomorrow.”

All three boys erupted in protestations, Luke’s notably the loudest of all, though on Alex’s suggestion she conceded to stay for at least the first one, then they’d pick up the second one tomorrow or something. 

Honestly, it hadn’t taken nearly as much convincing as it should have. 

She just really needed to physically be there to witness the three of them watching Meryl Streep jump off a pier to the tune of ‘Dancing Queen’ and Pierce Brosnan absolutely butcher ‘The Winner Takes it All’ for the very first time. Also, talking to them about the movies had made her realise it had been way too long since she’d last watched them herself, and they always made her feel so light and happy. As silly as it may sound, the care-free, sunshiney tone but with genuine moments in them had helped carry her through some really dark days. Since then, they’d always been comforting to return to.

So that’s how she ended up squished on the beat-up old studio couch with three ghost boys from the 90’s, having the absolute pleasure of seeing them react to ‘Mamma Mia’ for the very first time. It was a bit of a tight squeeze, and required Reggie to be sitting with one leg straddled over the arm of the couch and the rest of him pretty much glued to Luke’s side, but they made it work.

Although just as she was getting herself comfy in her spot between Alex and Luke, something niggled at the back of her mind. Something she forgot to do? Maybe? She wracked her brain for a couple of minutes, but her attention quickly and all-too-easily drifted to the screen as the opening chords of ‘Honey, Honey’ sounded, like some sort of siren call, and she couldn’t help but mouth along to the words. She knew them pretty much by heart.

What certainly didn’t help with her cognitive functioning however, is when during ‘Money, Money, Money…’ she felt Luke shift where he was pretty much flush against her side and his arm stretch out behind her neck. His hand settled somewhere near her shoulder; teasingly close but not quite touching it. Her heart rate kicked up a notch, but she was determined to keep her eyes on the screen in front of her, daring not to look his way or even let on that she noticed.

The boys were touchy-feely and generally very physically affectionate with each other, she knew that just from generally being around them these past couple of months. Julie had always found it really sweet and endearing, how unashamedly tactile they were with each other, but at the same time couldn’t help but feel left out as her own friendships with all of them got deeper and she grew closer to them all. Now that they were corporeal, at least to her, suddenly she’d become privy to all that as well.

Now she couldn’t imagine not being able to do stuff like hold their hands during band circles, or not knowing the utter warmth of Alex’s hugs (it was undisputed that he gives the best ones) when he noticed she’d had a tough day at school, or even what it felt like to not have Reggie gleefully grab her hands, or arm, or shoulders when he got super excited about something.

She’d already been falling hard for Luke before when she couldn’t physically feel him under her fingertips. For all intents and purposes wasn’t fully there there, but now? When she’d felt the brush of his body behind her when he’d lean over her shoulder to look at sheet music, or his thigh press up against her leg as they shared a piano stool during their little lyric brainstorming sessions? When they could high-five, lean into each other’s side, playfully shove each other when one thinks the other is being annoying, grab each other’s hands and dance around the room in celebration when they manage to book another gig? All those little moments they could have now added layers to what she already felt.

However, even if she felt something between them, that spark,  and her gut told her Luke possibly felt so too, Julie also couldn’t deny that that kind of affection wasn’t any different to the kind he showed towards Alex and Reggie too. Plus, she didn’t really know how ghosts felt about having relationships, especially with the living, or if Luke would even want to go there. So she tried not to read too much into what kind of felt like Luke pulling that old “arm around shoulder whilst distracted by the movie” move.

So although she never really could forget how close he was, Julie let herself become immersed back in the movie. Her life was generally good, labels and certainty or not, she was happy. The happiness of the movie fed into that. The boys seemed to be having a hoot with it as well, if how much Alex especially was grooving in his seat was any indication.

Julie’s not quite sure what possessed her to say it in the moment, or what she expected to transpire when she did, but when they got to the ‘Super Trouper’ scene coming straight off of the, uh, heaviness of ‘Lay All Your Love on Me’ (during which Luke went weirdly quiet for some reason, prompting Alex and Reggie to share a fleeting look over the top of both his and Julie’s heads) and the opening chords sounded she blurted out 

“Oh, this used to be my karaoke song when I was a kid”. 

Luke’s eyes immediately went wide and she knew she was in trouble. He quickly urged Reggie to grab the remote and pause the movie, ignoring Alex’s soft “Hey, I was watching that!”, before turning his attention fully towards her.

“Well now you have to do the routine; get on up there and show us what you’re made of!”

Julie’s jaw hung open a little and she wasn’t sure whether she could really be annoyed at anyone but herself for practically handing this to him on a silver platter.

“No! I really don’t…” she tried to argue, though his mischievous smile was infectious and damn her lips threatened to twitch into a smile too. “It’s been years! And anyway, I only bust it out for audiences that are deserving of it”.

Luke met her with a challenging gaze. “Bet it’s cause you don’t know the words” he said, turning to Reggie, his tone dripping in antagonism. “Hey, did you hear that the great Julie Molina won’t perform because she doesn’t know all of the words to Super Trouper by ABBA?”. Reggie’s eyebrows shot up and he immediately played along. “Y’know what? I actually did hear that somewhere. Huh…”.

Julie shot a withering look at Alex, a wordless “Can you do anything?” shining in her eyes, but he has the nerve to just shrug (!) with a silent, smiling “I’ll allow it”.

She could’ve got them to drop it if she really had wanted them to, she knew that. Maybe Julie from three months ago would have. Actually, no, that version of herself definitely would have made them drop it; the darkness shrouding her life day-in, day-out smothering any semblance of silly, carefree happiness and convincing her that simply having fun just wasn’t for her.

But she didn’t feel like that anymore.

Julie pulled herself to her feet, eyes fixed with new determination. She crossed the room to the open space, taking a stance mirroring that of the one they’d paused Meryl Streep in and fixed Luke with a playful glare, even though she was addressing Reggie.

“Unpause the movie”.

The performance was one for the history books, if she did say so herself. The boys watched on in amazement as she remembered every word, near enough every step and dance move (the big sleeve shimmy was an interesting one though with sweater sleeves nowhere near dramatic enough to match Donna’s) and personally she thought she sold it.

About halfway through Alex snuck a glance at Luke by his side, and realised karma must be having a slow night given how fast it was paying the other boy back, because he was undeniably staring at Julie with what was clearly pure, open adoration.

“‘Cause somewhere in the crowd, there’s yooooou” she finished with a flourish, heart thumping, and lowered her arm to point at all three of them in turn, but finishing ultimately on Luke even though he was sat in the middle. His face scrunched up with a cheesy smile and he let out a loud whoop of appreciation, kicking off the round of applause before the other boys joined in, Reggie coming in clutch with the standing ovation and everything.

Julie felt breathless but joyful as she flung herself back into her seat, and Luke leaned forward to grab her soda, handing it to her with what looked like contrition.

“I guess I stand corrected, huh?” he said, defeated, but not entirely sorry to be so.

She shrugged, taking a sip of the drink. “I guess you are. It’s a good look on you”.

Luke snorted with laughter and they laughed together for a brief second, an apparent blush rising to sit on his cheeks (Could ghosts blush? How did that even work?).

Before the situation could get weird or questionable though, he turned back towards the movie, but slowly. Like he wasn’t quite ready to leave this moment just yet; like he wanted to stay looking at her just a bit longer. Julie just nudged him and settled back in, trying to go about it in such a way that would implore him to put his arm back around her like he had before.

It didn’t come until the scene where Bill confesses to Sophie that he thinks he’s her father, but eventually that now familiar weight settled behind her head again, setting off a whole herd of butterflies in her stomach.

The first movie came to an end, and things wouldn’t have been awful if she’d just called it a night there and gone to bed. But she was having so much fun and they were all so comfy, and the boys seemed very excited for the prospect of a half-prequel-half-sequel.

“Surely they’ve already used all the good ABBA songs in the first one though, right?” Reggie argued, causing Alex to swing round to look at him, scandalised.

“Are you insinuating that there’s a bad ABBA song?”

While they hashed it out in the background, Luke backing Reggie up just to get a rise out of Alex, Julie acted on impulse and jumped up, running towards the garage window. All the lights in the house were out, meaning her dad was already in bed and everything. As long as she was super quiet sneaking back in and remembered to bypass that squeaky floorboard on the stairs, he never had to know.

“Alright; Here We Go Again - let’s do this”.

Turns out Julie had kind of underestimated how late it was and how long the day had been. She could feel herself getting tired around the ‘Waterloo’ mark, eyelids growing heavier and heavier as she gradually sunk lower and relaxed deeper into the couch. By the time young Donna makes it to the Kalokairi her head had come to rest in the crook Luke’s neck, his flannel soft under her cheek as his cheek leans against the top of her head. Maybe it was a testament to how sleepy she was, but she couldn’t bring herself to move away. The posture felt natural.

She was so comfortable, surrounded by warmth and the soothing hum of the old second-hand TV they’d bought at a garage sale and moved into the garage, she was right on the verge of dozing off… when a realisation crashed into her mind, seemingly out of nowhere.

Julie shot up poker-straight, suddenly very awake. “Oh, crap!”

The three boys startled, most of all Luke when her movement meant he almost fell face-first into the couch cushion.

“What is it?!”

She groaned and fell forward into her hands. “I have a math test tomorrow. And I was going to study for it before bed tonight.”

So that’s how she ends up with Reggie hanging uselessly over her shoulder in the middle of math class, the exchange that came after the realisation still ringing in her ears.

“Hey, hey! It’s fine. Take Reggie - believe it or not, he was good at math” Luke offered up hurriedly.

Reggie himself looked a little stricken. “Yeah, 25 years ago, dude!”.

“Do the rules of math go out-of-date, or…?” Alex teased, though still placed a comforting hand on Julie’s back.

“No, Alex, they don’t - so relax, you’ll be fine, man! You can’t make the situation any worse by trying”

“Don’t give him that challenge, Luke”.

Though admittedly she loved him just for actually turning up and trying, he was staring down at the test with as much confusion as she was. Apparently math had changed over the course of 25 years. They exchange a mutually panicked look. Clearly, neither of them knew shit. Instead, Reggie just runs up to the front of the room and peeps on Mrs Ford’s answer sheet, Julie’s hopeful eyes following him as he dodges around desks and backpacks lying on the floor.

“Are you sure?” she mumbles to him under her breath when he gets back. Apparently not quite low enough though, when the guy next to her turns to give her a funny look, and she has to make a show of furrowing her eyebrows and counting on her fingers, muttering appropriately as she goes.

Julie can feel Flynn’s discerning gaze from across the room and she knows she knows there’s some ghost-like foolery happening. It’s a mess. She’s a mess.

Eventually the bell sounds and signals an end to the ordeal, and Julie takes out her (locked) phone to genuinely thank Reggie for his help all the same.

“Ehhh I’m not sure how much help I was, but you’re welcome” he says, laughter coloured with self-deprecation.

Julie smiles genuinely, and she would’ve nudged him if she wouldn’t have been nudging thin air in public. “Hey, I think we got about three quarters of those answers down and that’s 75% more than I would’ve gotten without you”.

Reggie looks pleased, and stands up a little straighter as he walks alongside her. “Do you mind if I hang out here for a while, by the way?”

Julie’s a little taken aback. “I mean, sure, but why would you want to? It’s just school”.

Reggie shrugs, and there’s something unreadable in his eyes. It’s weird for him; he’s generally such an open book. “I don’t know. I never graduated, we were still going when we… y’know…” he trails off, eyes scanning the halls and the throngs of students laughing and chatting together at their lockers, going about their normal day. “Kind of miss it”.

“Well, you obviously have free reign to look around wherever you want. If you want me to show you anywhere in particular, just let me know. I’m meeting Flynn for lunch now though, so that might not be as fun for you...”

The way he says it makes something ache in Julie’s chest, and she wishes she could give him a hug. With the boys so real now, and so immersed and predominant in her life, it was getting easier and easier to somewhat forget that they were actually dead and had both led and left lives behind. Being reminded of that was starting to hit her that little bit harder.

Reggie nods sincerely, mirroring her slight chuckle. “Thanks, Julie”.

Approaching the cafeteria, Julie sees Flynn in the distance, and is about to put her phone away when she suddenly stops in her tracks, and keeps it held to her face.

“By the way…” she smirks. “If Alex or Luke ask, I scored a 95 and it was all down to you”.

[mendesficsxbombay]

just let me adore you | s.m

my third fic this month! this is absolutely NOT like me!! 

Requested ‘fluff’ from this prompt list:

34: you look so comfy and cuddleable

40: I’m not going to get sick you baby. Just let me hold you, can we just stay in bed

The call cuts off and she lets out her longest sigh of the day. It’s her fourth time calling him in a row, when otherwise, it’s him doing the calling. 

She let off the calls and texts the last few days, their relationship was still so fresh how dare she appear clingy to this beautiful boy she’s liked for as long as she can remember? As soon as they put a tag on it, the years of knowing each other, and the knowledge of each of their tricks and tactics went out the window. Three months in and they still act like teenagers with their first crush. Not that there is anything wrong with teenagers and crushes, but they’ve both already lived through that phase of life, why are they back here again? 

She racks her brain for alternatives, then furiously rubs at her temples as if that would make her thoughts come through easier. She could call up their friends, see if they’ve heard something from him in the last week. She hadn’t seen him for 7 days, his last message was 4 days ago. She could march over to his house but again … they’ve only been together together for three months. She’s not sure if she’s allowed to go knocking on his door without notice. Then again what if he’s in danger and she is the only one who thought about saving him? What if she is his only hope? He is the current Prince of Pop, the people wanting to cause harm to him must be endless. 

She scoffs at her usual downward spiral. Everyone in the world is not out to get him. He’s worked with her through her panic multiple times, so if he knew how much she worried about him why not just give her a heads up that he’s alive and safe? 

His apartment is really just twenty minutes away from hers after all, she could go over - she should go over. She purses her lips while looking at her black phone screen, as if staring at it hard enough will just, you know, make him call. But that’s not how the world works. And so she marches to her room to collect her bags, picks up her keys on the way, and sets off to his house. 

She used to do this all time, earlier - showing up unannounced. They’d spent a better part of three years being strictly friends. Nothing more. Except the times she would catch him staring at her a bit longer than what seemed normal, or when she would put in extra efforts to dress up when she knew she would be seeing him. They had been introduced through friends, an effort to club their friend groups into one large social circle, and they didn’t have a lot in common, but that’s what worked for them. They lived each other’s lives through the other’s eyes, and sometimes, that’s all you need in a friend. 

Unfortunately, most times they saw each other outside of their respective flats, there was alcohol involved. And bottled feelings and bottles of alcohol never really mix well. They used to play this game, they used to order drinks for each other, with the promise that the other would have to finish the drink, and the swear was on their friendship. A year and a half or so of knowing each other later, they found themselves exchanging kisses in dark corners of clubs and pubs, a glass of whatever they bought each other in hand. 

Soon enough, they didn’t need the liquid courage. Although it was the sort of thing that everyone knew of and no one said aloud, they kept their distance in front of their friends and the sneaking around never really ceased. And what their friends don’t know, didn’t hurt them. As if their friends didn’t know why or how they always arrived and left together. As if they didn’t notice that after a while she had chosen to stop bringing her car to these parties altogether because she knew she would ride back with him anyway. 

At some point, a boy she knew from university, a far off member of said social circle asked her out. And quite boldly so. In front of all their friends and at their favourite bar. She brushed it off, said she wasn’t interested. But he persisted. And that’s where Shawn stepped in. Gently, yet firmly, pushed the guy back from closing in on her so publicly. He said she wasn’t interested and he should have listened the first time. He asked him to learn. To do better. Then took her hand and left the place. 

The car was silent for the first time in all the rides they’d taken together. She didn’t like it. But she also didn’t have the guts to ask what all of that was about until she realised that he wasn’t driving to her place, he was straight on his way to his. 

She softy asked about why they were going to his, and his eyes widened as if he hadn’t realised that himself. He spluttered for a second, and then ‘fessed up. He felt she was the safest if she stayed over at his that night - if she was okay with it. He knew he sounded like a hypocrite, making her decisions for her and all, but just this one time, he couldn’t reign it in. 

She didn’t say anything back then, just linked her fingers through his on the centre console and leaned back against the headrest. He took it as a sign and brought her home. That night, they slept the best either of them ever had. 

The next morning, she asked him to be hers, and that was that. 

Three months in, though, she’s pulling up to his apartment and she’s more nervous than she was the first time she met him. It’s the fear of the unknown, really. What if he had another girlfriend on the side this whole time and he didn’t tell her so he wouldn’t hurt her feelings. She’s been cheated on before, she knows how gullible she is. It was really not hard for her past boyfriends to sneak around. But Shawn’s not like that. Or is he?

Riding up the elevator she send up a quiet prayer to anyone who was willing to listen. Please let me still be with him at the end of the night, I can’t lose him. 

She walks out of the lift as if she’s headed for war. Her head is spinning already but really, what was she expecting if she so suddenly decided to confront the panic she had been wallowing in for days now?

She took in a deep breath, and knocked on his door, patiently waiting for whatever was on the other side. She could take it (could she?). She would put on a brave face and confront - his mom?

“Babe! It’s so nice to see you here!” The older woman exclaimed, gently pulling her into a hug and rubbing her back, like she did with her son. “Shawn didn’t tell me you were coming over, I would’ve made some food for you as well!”

“Oh I - didn’t actually tell him I was coming over, Miss Rayment, he-“ it is okay, you can talk to her, she knows you are together and she loves you through it all, just keep talking, “He hasn’t really answered my calls or texts these last few days, I didn’t know what was wrong so I came over.” She winced finally, somewhat ashamed for showing up. 

“Is that so?” Karen frowned a little, letting go of her and finding her way into the kitchen. “Babe, he’s been sick for a week, it was the stomach bug, but then his body was heating up, too, and I called him on the second day of it - he didn’t sound too good and you know what mums are like, I packed a bag and drove right over. We had him speak to a doctor over the phone, thank god he doesn’t have any events lined up anytime soon, because the meds keep him knocked out for most of the day. I did expect him to call you, though.”

“Yeah, me too,” she whispers, her face growing hot with embarrassment, and she didn’t know why. “May I go up and see him? Is he awake?”

His mom smiles and nods, saying she’ll be down here if they need her. 

She silently pads her way up the stairs of his penthouse, cursing herself for thinking the worst of him while he just lay here drugged up and sick. She felt sorry for him and for herself, too. Why couldn’t she have figured this out sooner?

Before she knows it she’s standing outside his room, and there’s no turning back. She softly knocks twice, and waits for a response she isn’t sure she would receive. She turns the doorknob gently, aware of the slight creak it usually lets out. 

The room was darker then usual, the curtains to his floor to ceiling windows were drawn shut, and there was one nightlight glowing softly in the corner of the room. It took her a second to make out his figure under the lumps of the duvet pulled over him. She felt sadder than she did a second ago, thinking of how uncomfortable he must’ve been these last few days and how she wished she could just take it all away. 

There was a tiny empty spot on the bed next to his torso, she found a place for herself there. The covers were pulled up to his chin, his hair looked messier than it did usually and he looked so much younger, as if he was at peace even when his body wasn’t. 

She snaked her pinky through his, through the hand that was peaking out from under the layers of warmth. His lips parted slightly, hand curling around hers even when he continued to sleep. This was their secret move every time they were in public. Like a silent hi, I’m here when they couldn’t say it aloud. 

She peppered a few kisses to his forehead, light enough to not awake him, but dusty enough so he knew they were there. She saw his face scrunch just for a second, smiling to herself because of how much of a baby her big, strong boyfriend really was. It was adorable. 

She wanted to test how far she could go before he woke up. She smirked a little at the thought, remembering the last time she had stayed over at his, just last week, on this same bed. There wasn’t a lot of sleeping that happened that night. 

She leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his lips, and she got the exact reaction she got every time. His lips puckered against hers for a second before falling into a deeper sleep, lips parting again. Her heart warmed and she almost awww ed for real, but he was still sick, and still needed rest, so with one last long look at her love, she left the room again. 

Downstairs she found his mom on the phone on the pretty white couch everyone loved so much, patiently waiting for her to hang up. 

“What’s up, he still sleeping?”

“Yes… I was thinking I could make something for dinner since you’ve cooked this whole time?”

“Oh, you really don’t have to I could just -“

“No, please, I want to. Is soup and garlic rice okay with you?”

It was the first real meal she had learned when she was 16, and it was her signature. Everyone loved it. You couldn’t possibly go wrong with it. When his mum smiled and nodded as a reply, she knew they loved it too after she brought it home to them when they visited for Christmas. 

She went into the kitchen, happy to see most of the ingredients she would need. This would be a different case if his mum hadn’t come over, she would’ve only found fruits and frozen meat and some form of soda or beer in his fridge. 

She could cook this one with her eyes closed, so she was done relatively quicker. Just an hour later she was eating dinner with his mum, catching up on lost time. 

After the dishes were dried and put up, his mum asked if she was going to spend the night. She wanted to, but she also didn’t wish to overstep. She said she would wait till Shawn was up and had dinner and then leave. Karen understood and gave her a warm hug, a kiss to her head and found her way to the guest room. 

In the meantime she found the few books she had left at his house for him to read - as he had specifically asked, and she knew he hadn’t even touched the covers - and cuddled into the throw he usually had by the couch. 

When he come down the stairs an hour and 7 chapters later, he looked like the most beautiful train wreck. His cheeks were flushed red from the sleep and his body heat that she hoped had stabilised, and wasn’t increasing anymore. He wore a black muscle tee and gym shorts, yawning and making his way into the kitchen slowly, and it hurt to see her otherwise tough guy be this fragile. 

She waited for him to notice her. It was another challenge they had between them, he prided himself in how attuned he was to her, he could walk into a room and sense if she was there, too. Usually she would hide and try to throw him off but he found her, always. Which is why when he froze in front of the stove and let out a choked breath (it was probably a gasp but, you know, he is sick right now) and turned around, she couldn’t help but grin like a lovesick fool. 

“What.. are you?” He stuttered, his voice down several decibels, a throaty rasp which, in any other condition would’ve sent chills down her spine. 

“Heard someone was sick,” she sighed, putting her book down and joining him in the kitchen. “You hungry? I made dinner. The garlic will do good for your throat and tummy.”

“And mom?” She turned around to reheat the soup and toss around the rice a bit more. 

“We ate and she went to bed.”

“Are you mad at me?”

She finally looked at him, looking like a wounded puppy sitting by the breakfast bar. It was hard to stay mad at him, but she would hold her ground this time. 

“Why didn’t you tell me, Shawn?” He only ducked his head down, looking anywhere but her. So great, now he’s sick AND guilty. 

Shawn liked being taken care of - but he hated people having to worry about him. He hated being the subject of someone’s concern - especially those closest to him. He liked knowing that there were people who had his back but he hated having to use that support for anything. It made him feel guilty and incapable - a habit she was trying to rid him of since their first year of knowing each other. 

“Didn’t want you to worry.”

“So you worried your mum who lives an hour away?”

“No she was… going to come over anyway.”

“No she wasn’t. Just last week you said she probably wouldn’t come over for a bit because she had things to finish back at home. She told me during dinner, too. So what’s the real reason?”

She plated three scoops of rice and a bowl of soup and passed it over the counter to him, then sat down right where she was. He felt like that was a kick to his lungs. He would say guts but his lungs were weaker at the moment. She never, ever passed up an opportunity to sit next to him, to be pressed up to him, and looking at her settle herself so far away from him (four feet away is quite far when you’re in love) let him know he really messed up this time. 

“Didn’t want you to think I’m weak,” he mumbled around a spoonful of rice to make sure he didn’t hear him correctly. She did, though. 

“You falling sick would make me think you’re weak? Are you out of your mind or are the meds that heavy in dosage?”

“Look it’s just - you’re so strong? You’re immune system is made of fucking metal. And then there’s me. I get a cold every few months even though it can seriously harm my singing. And then I get a fever or stomach bug or just - something - every few months and like - You deserve someone stronger. I didn’t want you to be bothered by this.”

“Okay so the meds are definitely still working their magic,” she muttered as he rolled his eyes. “You have got to be joking, Shawn, look at you! How on earth could I possibly find someone stronger than you? You picked the worst time to be insecure honestly.”

She glared at him but stayed silent to let him have a bit of the soup, pushing back the urge to smile as his face almost unclenched at the taste and his shoulders sank in relief. She was a good cook and she knew it. 

“You do realise that I would’ve been more than happy to come over and help you out? I came up to your room and you looked so comfy and cuddleable I would’ve jumped right in to sleep too had you not looked so sick. What even happened anyway?”

“The doctor said it was because of a weather change, it’s a common cold but the stomach bug might be the real problem. You know how you came over on Saturday and then I dropped you home and went out with the boys? I think the meat I had wasn’t so good. So he advised vocal rest and then said I should eat home as much as possible for the coming few days or weeks. That’s all.”

“And you called you mum? Why, doesn’t she also think you’re weak? Now that she still has to look after you?” She hit back in frustration, “Look, if you didn’t want me to come over, you could’ve just said so, but dropping off the face of the earth was not it and I was really fucking worried, so thank you.”

“But, baaaabe I said I’m sorry,” he whined, his face scrunching up again as if he was in physical pain. 

“I’m only mad because - Shawn, wouldn’t you have done the same for me? Why are the rules different for you?”

He pursed his lips as it fully sank in, she wasn’t mad, she was upset. And all that could’ve been avoided very easily but he did nothing to solve it. 

“I understand, and the next time something happens, you’ll be the first to know so you can come over and make me all this yummy soup and then you can yell at me a bit more for being so careless. But until then, please don’t be mad at me again?”

She glared at him for a bit longer until her resolve finally broke. There wasn’t really a way for her to stay mad at him still looking like so soft. She cleaned up after he was done eating some more, handing him his medicines like Karen had asked her to. 

She linked her pinky through his as they climbed up the stairs, suppressing a smile again as she saw him turn his head towards her with a look of wonder evident. He asked her if she was going to spend the night, she said she would only stay until he fell asleep because she still had work tomorrow, but she would drop in before and after. 

She got him into bed first, nicely tucking his head in in the many pillows he had, curls fluffing out at the top as he looked at her dreamily. She pulled the covers up to tuck herself in next to him as she usually did, only to have him slap his hand down on the covers, snatching them out of her hands. 

“What are you doing?!” His eyes grew wide as if what she did actually offended him. 

“uh, getting in with you?”

“I’m sick and you shouldn’t be getting in anywhere with me. I’ll get you a chair or something to sit in-” and he was already struggling to get up and out of bed when she calmly put her hands on his shoulders to push him down again. 

“Stop moving around so much, you don’t have the energy. I’m not going to get sick you baby and you’re not contagious. I already have sinusitis, you couldn’t possibly give me more of a cold than I’ve lived with my whole life. And your stomach bug won’t magically transfer to me. Just let me hold you, okay?”

He gulped nervously as she slipped in next to him, worry flashed across his features. But it melted away slowly as she tucked herself around him, her head coming to rest under his chin, over his heart as it always did. He hadn’t held his girl in a week. It felt good. 

“Can we just stay in bed, forever?” He mumbled sleepily. 

She snickered lightly, “I’m sure we can arrange that. Until then do you wanna watch something? Harry Potter, maybe?” She found his television remote by the bed, and pulled up his queue of movies on the screen. 

His eyes narrowed at her - “You don’t even like Harry Potter?”

She finally smiled at him, patting his cheek and settling down again. 

“It’s okay, I like you.”

taglist: @shawnwyr​ @mendesstories​ @lanallaa​ @sleepybesson​ @rulerofnocountry​ @luvluvxx​ @wholesomemendes​ @c25905​ @angl-phile

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Episode Reviews - Batman: The Animated Series Season 1 (4 of 10)

Carrying on our look at the first season of Batman: The Animated Series, we present a fourth round of episode reviews, this time starting with a two-parter that introduced one of Batman’s stranger foes to the series.

Episode 20: Feat of Clay (Part 1)

Plot (as given by me):

Lucius Fox of Wayne Enterprises is lured to a secret meeting with a man who claims to be Bruce Wayne, who wants evidence the company has gathered about businessman Roland Daggett trying to take over Wayne Enterprises through insider trading.  The meeting turns out to be a set-up, but Batman’s interference ensures Fox manages to live.  However, the men escape and the injured Fox identifies Wayne as being complicit in the set-up.

 In reality, the man who set Fox up is Matt Hagan, an actor who is forced to carry out errands for Daggett in order to ensure a supply of an experimental chemical compound called “Renuyu”.  The compound makes skin highly malleable, enabling Hagan or any other user to rearrange their features as they choose.  However, the compound is also highly addictive, and Hagan needs it to cover facial disfigurements following an accident he had years ago.  Daggett insists that his men, Raymond Bell and ‘Germs’, eliminate Hagan for his incompetence, relying on Hagan’s addition to draw him to them rather than try to find Hagan, who was a noted master of disguise even before using the compound.

 As predicted, Hagan breaks into Daggett Pharmaceuticals and is caught by Bell and Germs.  They expose him to an overdose of the compound and then leave him in his car, where the compound begins to alter Hagan.  Meanwhile, Batman has learned his alter ego of Bruce Wayne was impersonated for the attack on Fox, and has remembered Bell, who is distinguished by the radio headset he wears to monitor police radio frequencies.  Batman uses this to flush Bell out by pretending to be a police radio operator.  Cornering Bell with the Batwing, Batman interrogates him about the impersonation of Wayne.  Bell confirms Wayne was impersonated, but passes out before confirming the identity of the imposter.  The arrival of the police forces Batman to abandon his efforts with Bell.

 Later, Bruce sneaks into Fox’s room at the hospital, but Fox panics and alerts the police officers outside his room, resulting in Bruce’s arrest.  Meanwhile, Hagan’s friend and stand-in Teddy Lupus tracks Hagan to Daggett’s factory, where he finds the overdose has transformed Hagan into a clay-like monster. Seeing himself in the rear-view mirror of his car, Hagan roars in horror.

Review:

Apparently, there have been several villains who have taken the name of Clayface over the course of Batman’s history in the comics, of which four had already made appearances in comics by the time this series came round.  What the series does is combine the occupation of the original Clayface Basil Karlo, namely being an actor, with the name of the second Clayface Matt Hagan, and then throws in an original origin story for the character.  Well, for the character it’s original, but for the show as a whole it’s not very original.  As the DC Animated Universe wiki rightly points out, this two-part episode shares a lot of common plot points with the ‘Two-Face’ two-part episode. Even the structure is roughly similar in that part 1 is set-up for a transformation that the principal villain then seeks retribution for in part 2.

 However, Hagan isn’t as easy to empathise with and root for compared to Harvey Dent.  While Dent was a crusading crime-fighter who was normally a good guy, and who was also friends with Bruce Wayne, Hagan comes off as someone who was probably a bit of a jerk to begin with, and who would probably be working for a creep like Daggett even if the chemicals that ultimately transform him weren’t addictive.  In essence, Hagan’s arc is like one big warning about the dangers of getting too caught up in one’s looks too much.  That said, he is well-voiced by actor Ron Perlman (yes, I mean the first cinematic Hellboy and Blade II villain Ron Perlman).  Other notable actors who have guest roles across this two-parter are Ed Begley Jr. (too many credits to name, but guest appearances in the West Wing, CSI Miami and Star Trek: Voyager number among them), and the now-late Ed Asner voicing Roland Daggett (Asner being most notable in voice acting outside of this series for Carl in Disney & Pixar’s Up!).

 Overall, it’s a decent part 1 with some very good guest talent alongside the show’s regulars.  It just lacks a bit in originality, and for that it’s only able to score 8 out of 10.

Episode 21: Feat of Clay (Part 2)

Plot (as given by me):

In his trailer at the film studio, Hagan wallows in self-pity and despair as he recalls how after his accident, Daggett conned him into being a test subject for his experimental compound.  Walking past posters on his wall, Hagan’s face changes to mimic the posters without him being aware of it.  Teddy points this out, and Hagan realises he can now make himself look like anyone, even simulating clothing out of his body. However, doing this requires intense concentration, and when Teddy disturbs Hagan, the disfigured actor lashes out, realising his career cannot be salvaged.

 Meanwhile, Wayne is released on bail, enabling him to continue his investigation as Batman, and Daggett insists that Germs kill Fox, despite the fact that Fox is in hospital and Germs earned his nickname by being a germophobe.  Hagan also deduces Daggett will try to have Fox killed, and plans to kill the assassin so he can take their place, the better to then kill Daggett.  As a result, all three men end up at the hospital. Batman intercepts Germs and manages to corner him in a room where viral and bacterial cultures are being stored for analysis, and uses this to coax Germs into revealing it was Matt Hagan who impersonated Bruce Wayne during the original ambush on Fox.

 Before Germs can reveal how Hagan pulled off the deception, a police officer appears to apparently arrest Germs.  However, it swiftly turns out the office is Hagan in disguise; he abducts Germs and takes him to the roof, intent on throwing him to his death.  Batman pursues and saves Germs, and the dark knight is startled when he sees Hagan’s face change on reflex to try and mirror his own.  Hagan uses his shape-shifting powers to try and kill Batman, but the effort soon exhausts him and he is forced to flee.  Elsewhere, Hagan finalises his plans to kill Daggett, and knocks out Teddy when he tries to talk him out of it.

 Later, Roland Daggett appears on a talk show hosted by TV journalist Summer Gleeson to promote “Renuyu” to the public.  When Summer takes questions from the audience, an overweight woman in the audience storms the stage, grilling Daggett about the chemical’s side-effects and addictive properties.  The woman then transforms, revealing it is actually Hagan in disguise, and the audience flees in terror.  Hagan, now calling himself “Clayface”, attacks Daggett, but Batman intervenes.  A fight ensues between the two that moves from the stage to the control room, Batman subduing Daggett along the way.

 In the control room, Batman activates videos of Hagan’s films, causing him to shape-shift out of control as his body tries to emulate all the varying and conflicting characters at once.  The police arrive as Hagan’s out-of-control changing continues, and they see his face briefly become that of Bruce Wayne. Hagan then smashes the control consoles, electrocuting himself.  He laments that he never got a death scene this good when he was still an actor, and won’t be around to read the notices.  While Wayne is cleared of all wrong-doing, Batman experiments on a piece of Clayface left behind and realises electricity has no effect on it. Combined with the actor’s choice of words, Batman realises Hagan gave them all a fake death; his body at the police morgue turns out to be an empty shell, and elsewhere a disguised Clayface laughs at his seeming triumph.

Review:

As I noted with part 1, the whole Clayface intro two-part story is quite derivative in its plot structure, having so many parallels to the Two-Face intro episodes that to a casual glance, they could appear identical.  However, part 2 does compensate for this with more than just a great cast of guest voices like part 1 did.  In part 2, we see Clayface show off his powers, and that’s where this episode comes to really stand out.  Unlike some DC heroes, Batman faces a rogues’ gallery composed almost entirely of otherwise normal people who are either just insane human beings or some form of professional criminal.  As a result, he’s often challenged more by their insanity or something technical they’ve done.

 Clayface, on the other hand, opens our animated Batman up to facing a foe who presents a challenge because he has a physical super-power that the caper crusader has to contend with.  Metahumans aren’t the norm for Batman solo adventures, but it’s fun to see them because they serve as evidence for why someone like Batman ultimately ends up as a member of the Justice League.  It’s his ability to get through the initial clash, learn from it and be prepared the next time around that ensures Batman can win even against a super-powered adversary.  However, even with this we’re not quite up to top marks, but we’re close.  I’d give this episode 9 out of 10.

Episode 22: Joker’s Favour

Plot (as given by me):

Average Gothamite Charlie Collins is coming home from a bad day at work when he is cut off on the freeway by multiple drivers, including Batman and officers of the GCPD.  However, the one that compels Charlie to return the favour complete with a string of abuse turns out to be the Joker.  Horrified at his mistake, Charlie then tries to flee, but the clown prince of crime pursues him.  Charlie, in the heat of the moment, states he’ll do anything to make amends, and the Joker agrees, stating that at some future time, he’ll ask a favour of Charlie.

 Two years later, Commissioner Gordon is to be honoured with a testimonial, something that sits ill with the Joker, and he plans to crash the festivities.  Despite having two henchmen and a right-hand woman in the form of one Harley Quinn, Joker decides to call in the favour owed to him by Charlie Collins. Charlie has moved cities and changed names, but the Joker has managed to keep track of the man, and insists Charlie return to Gotham if he doesn’t want his wife and son hurt.  At Gordon’s testimonial, which is being held at the Gotham Peregrinators Club, Charlie’s favour for the Joker is open the door for Harley while she pushes a giant cake in.  However, Charlie decides to try and warn Batman, and uses a club exhibit to make an improvised bat-signal.

 Charlie performs his task as Harley brings the cake in, disguised as a uniform cop.  However, Charlie finds his hand is now glued to the handle, and the cake emits a gas that paralyses everyone not involved in the Joker’s scheme (the Joker’s men, Harley and Charlie all wear gas-masks while Joker springs up from inside the cake).  The Joker pins a bomb to Commissioner Gordon’s suit and leaves with Harley and his men, planning to kill Charlie along with the assembled officers. However, Batman arrives, having spotted the improvised bat-signal as he’d been leaving the club as Bruce Wayne. At Charlie’s warning, he uses his grapnel gun to shoot the bomb outside, which results in the destruction of the Joker’s getaway van, after which he frees Charlie from the door, telling him to stay with the recovering police officers while he tackles the Joker.

 Batman is quick to take down Joker’s henchmen and Harley while Joker gets outside.  There, he is confronted by Charlie, who in mad desperation threatens the Joker with one of his own bombs that was thrown clear of the van.  Joker pleads for Batman to save him, and the dark knight appears in time to apparently talk Charlie down.  However, Charlie soon tosses the device to the ground, where it turns out to be a gag bomb instead of a real one.  While an amused Batman takes the Joker into custody, Charlie looks forward to returning to his normal life.

Review:

This episode has quite a lot going for it. For starters, it’s another Joker episode, which are generally sure bets to be interesting once any Batman show knows what they’re doing with the character.  Second, it’s a Joker episode with a very interesting premise of putting an everyman kind of character in the middle of everything.  That alone helps the episode to stand out as something different, and that’s before we consider that the everyman character is being voiced by Ed Begley Jr.  In and of itself, that last point might not seem like much, but if you compare Charlie Collins to the character Begley was voicing in the ‘Feat of Clay’ two-part episode, it shows this chap has an impressive range for voice-acting.

 However, all of this is relative pre-amble to the fact that this is the episode that first featured the show’s major break-out original character of Harley Quinn.  From the simple act of episode writer Paul Dini creating Harley as a guest character for this episode, her character has taken Batman’s original medium of comics and all other Batman mediums by storm.  It’s hard to believe given the episode isn’t giving her a proper intro with origin story and all the rest, but luckily the show would later address that. However, I think that just goes to show how strong the character was, or possibly just how much Batman lore must have needed that character without maybe realising it.  Factoring all this in, I’d say this episode is another top scorer; 10 out of 10.

Episode 23: Vendetta

Plot (as given by me):

Convict “Spider” Conway is being transported from Stonegate to give evidence against crime lord Rupert Thorne, but the transport boat is blown up by a bomb mid-transport.  The officers on board spotted the bomb and got off in time, but Conway is missing and everyone begins to assume the worst.  When Batman finds a toothpick like those used by Detective Harvey Bullock at the Stonegate Penitentiary docks, and later learns Bullock was once suspected of taking bribes from Thorne, he assumes something even worse; that Bullock planted the bomb himself.

 Bullock is taken off the Thorne/Conway case because of this unsavoury history, while Batman goes to interrogate Thorne.  The crime lord claims he wasn’t involved and that Conway’s testimony won’t damage him at all.  This seems to confirm Batman’s theory that Bullock blew up the boat to prevent anything come to light about his own past with Thorne, but Commissioner Gordon is adamant Bullock is clean.  However, when someone dressed like Bullock abducts another criminal, Joey “The Snail” Martin, from his police cell, Bullock is arrested.

 Batman examines another piece of evidence found at the docks, a scale which looks reptilian but has human cellular structure. A chance phrase of Alfred’s combined with the scale gives Batman an idea.  He eventually discovers Joey and Spider have been hidden in a cave with an underwater access and confronts their abductor, who identifies himself as a former professional wrestler named Killer Croc.  Croc was apparently born part-crocodile, which gives him a massive strength advantage.  Despite this, Batman is able to tie Croc up long enough to capture Joey and Spider and leave.

 Back at the Batcave, Batman is able to trace Croc’s past; he became a pro-wrestler after a stint as a side-show attraction, then turned to crime when he came to Gotham.  Initially penny-ante, Croc was later arrested by Bullock and convicted based on the testimony of Spidey and Joey.  Realising this, Batman intercepts Croc when he tries to corner Bullock in the detective’s car, after Bullock has been released on bail.  Batman and Croc take their battle into the sewers, where Batman ultimately wins, bringing Croc back to the surface for Bullock to take in. Bullock soon returns to duty with all charges against him formally dropped.

Review:

Here we get a fairly simple, but nonetheless decent, intro episode for another of the metahuman monsters that occasionally get a spot in the Batman rogues’ gallery.  This time it’s Killer Croc, who has a fairly simple backstory and doesn’t require the kind of introductions we’ve seen for many of Batman’s other foes. The backstory for Croc is so simple, in fact, that it doesn’t lose anything from being worked into a Bullock frame-up plot that allows us to also see a major supporting character in Batman lore developed further.  My only criticism would be that Croc’s proper name of Waylon Jones from the comics isn’t used, and that right at the end he gets identified as ‘Killer Croc Morgan’ by the news reporter.  It might seem like a minor niggle to some, but between that and the frame-up seeming a bit advanced for the simplistic Croc, I give this episode just 8 out of 10.

Episode 24: Fear of Victory

Plot (as given by me):

Amidst reports of star athletes having panic attacks that cause them to lose, Dick Grayson’s college room-mate and American football player Brian Rogers is on the verge of being signed into the professional American football leagues.  As they discuss this, Brian receives a strange telegram wishing him luck, but also reminding him that only a fool knows no fear.  Later at a crucial game, Brian suffers a panic attack of his own, and later when Dick is out as Robin assisting Batman, he has a panic attack while scaling the side of a skyscraper to tackle two thieves.

 Investigating Dick’s college dorm, Batman discovers the telegram is coated in a substance that is blocked by their gloves. Performing an experiment back at the Batcave, Batman deduces that the chemical is activated by adrenalin, causing major panic during moments of major excitement such as high-pressure sporting contests.  The nature of the chemical clearly indicates the Scarecrow, but Robin contends that Scarecrow is supposed to be locked up at Arkham Asylum.  A visit there swiftly reveals, however, that Scarecrow has escaped and somehow terrorised an orderly into keeping the escape a secret.

 Elsewhere, a man identifying himself only as ‘Lucky’ collects another big win from Leon the Bookie, who sends his enforcer after the man to find out how he is managing to win so many bets.  Lucky turns out to be the Scarecrow, and uses another drugged telegram to cow the enforcer into submission.  Batman explains to Commissioner Gordon that in order to finance his fear experiments, Scarecrow is drugging top athletes and then betting against them or their teams, depending on the sport in question.  That knight, Gotham’s professional American football team the Gotham Knights have a game that Scarecrow is likely to target, so Batman goes to intervene, Robin going along despite not yet having recovered from the fear chemical himself.

 At the game, Robin spots the disguised Scarecrow entering and follows, quickly deducing that this time, Scarecrow has tampered with a player’s helmet rather than going for the telegram trick again. Watching the game from the lighting scaffold in the stadium roof, Scarecrow is puzzled as the targeted player doesn’t have a panic attack, and is then surprised when Batman confronts him. Scarecrow threatens to drop a vial of fear toxin on the crowd if Batman doesn’t back off, but then opts to drop it to keep Batman too busy to follow him.  However, the vial lands on a lower platform instead.

 A scuffle ensues that causes the vial to fall towards the crowd, but Robin arrives in time to swing out and catch the vial, overcoming his panic attacks and saving the day.  He also reveals he was the one who swapped out the dosed helmet for a safe one.  Scarecrow is swiftly returned to Arkham and Brian Rodgers is signed up to play professional American football.

Review:

Quick bit of house-keeping; as a Brit, I cannot stand how Americans call actual football ‘soccer’ and their version of football, well, football.  After all, football is supposed to be played, as the name implies, with one’s feet.  Why the Americans apply this name to their version when they almost never use their feet to move the ball is just silly to me. Also, given the shape of the ball, I’d say what they’re really playing is rugby, albeit with a better set-up in terms of ensuring player protection and, hopefully, no stupid rules prohibiting passes in the direction players are meant to run.  So, for anyone wondering why I’ve insisted on using the term ‘American football’ all through the plot outline above, that’s why.

 So, that having now been explained, let’s consider the episode proper.  While this was the first episode to be aired featuring Robin, it’s the second from a production stand-point, and in all honesty it’s one episode that might have been better going ahead of the earlier Robin episode ‘Christmas with the Joker’.  The fact that Dick is at college, and thus less available to act as Robin, is more directly shown here, so really this should have been made as well as aired first, then the Christmas episode done later on both counts.  Robin’s arc in the story about overcoming fears is a decent, albeit highly cliché one that at times slightly undercuts the episode’s quality.

 To some degree, the return of Scarecrow with a more terrifying appearance helps compensate for this, but then also undercutting the episode is the obviousness that the Scarecrow is the culprit.  Between the episode title (and title card), not to mention the series of fear-related incidents with top athletes, it’s somewhat painful having to wait for Batman to make the connection the audience made five minutes earlier at least.  It’s like watching any episode of Columbo, where the audience gets to see what actually happened first and then has to wait ages for the detective to work it out.

 That way of presenting mysteries is almost as daft as calling a sport football if it’s not going to involve primarily foot-on-ball contact.  The audience should always be in sync with or behind the detective, and if you get there ahead of them, it should be from your own deduction, not because the book, TV episode or film spoils the solution for you while making the detective work for it.  Overall, this isn’t the best episode of the series by any means, and I give it just 5 out of 10.

Episode 25: The Clock King

Plot (as given by me):

Hamilton Hill, the future Mayor of Gotham, catches a subway to work at his law firm, and finds himself sitting opposite businessman and efficiency expert Temple Fugate, who is preparing for a hearing regarding a judgement of $20 million dollars against his company.  Hill warns Fugate that he needs to unwind a bit before the court hearing or the judge may rule against him by misreading his tension as guilt. Taking Hill’s advice, Fugate takes his coffee break 15 minutes later than normal and goes to the park instead of staying in the office.  This leads to mishaps that result in him appearing late and dishevelled, prompting the judge to rule summarily against Fugate, causing the demise of his business.

 Seven years later, Hill is now mayor of Gotham and in the process of starting a re-election campaign.  On his way to a fund-raiser for the campaign, Hill is detained when traffic lights at an intersection are tampered with, and at the same time a poster mocking Hill is unveiled on the side of a building.  Bruce Wayne is also caught in the traffic mishap, and spies the culprit on a nearby rooftop. He attempts to interfere as Batman, but the culprit (Fugate now lightly disguised as the timing-obsessed Clock King) manages to escape through his expert use of timing.

 Batman’s investigations of the traffic incident soon give him Fugate’s name, and when a bank is the subject of a targeted black-out to disable its time locks, the dark knight deduces this to also be Fugate’s work. At the bank’s vault, Batman is trapped inside by Fugate, who reveals via audio recording that he has left a high-speed vacuum pump to drain the vault’s air.  The pump will take less time than Batman’s cutting torch, and it’s rigged with a vibration-sensitive explosive to prevent Batman tampering with it.  However, Batman is able to break open the audio cassette and use the magnetic ribbon to rig up a pulley system; using this, he moves the pump to the vault door and then sets it off by hitting it with a batarang.

 The bank vault, however, was ultimately successful in that while Batman is getting free, Fugate sabotages the opening of a Gotham subway station by making two subway trains crash at the station.  Only minor injuries are reported, but in the confusion the mayor has gone missing.  Batman, hearing of this and recalling Fugate having a lot of plans of a clock tower, swiftly realises Fugate has kidnapped Hill and taken him to the tower.

 At the clock tower, Fugate has tied Hill to the clock hands, which will crush Hill at 3:15; the time Hill suggested Fugate take his coffee break at seven years earlier.  As Hill’s law firm represented the plaintiffs in the case against Fugate, the timing-obsessed criminal has become convinced Hill’s advice was deliberate sabotage, and thus he various crimes throughout the day have been about exacting revenge on Hill. Batman arrives and engages Fugate in combat inside the workings of the giant clock, until Fugate’s clock-hand sword jams the gears, causing a catastrophic collapse.  Batman and Hill escape, and while there is no sign of Fugate in the aftermath, Batman believes that a man with Fugate’s use of timing could easily have escaped as well.

Review:

While the main antagonist of this episode shares his codename and use of timing with a DC Comics villain that was mainly a foe of Green Arrow, this show puts a different person behind the name and modus operandi, complete with a different origin story.  It’s a decent story, and one that certainly breaks a major convention of the series by having Batman operate in the daytime instead of being a strictly night-time crime fighter.  However, that sort of change is good because it adds somewhat to the variety of the show while also taking the main character out of his comfort zone a bit. On a personal note, I also enjoy this episode because what happens to Fugate illustrates why if you’re someone who is worried about being somewhere on time, you should never listen to any advice that might put you behind schedule.

 Hill might think what he’s suggesting will help Fugate, but it’s clear he’s not really engaged with Fugate and doesn’t understand the man.  Anyone who is this good with timing clearly needs everything to run like, well, clockwork in order to be relaxed.  I know because I’m often the same way and can’t stand the idea of being late to anything even where it might be the social norm.  If being late is going to cause someone anxiety, don’t try to suggest that they do anything that’s going to risk making them late.  Don’t tell them to have their break at another time or to get out of their routine; let them stay in their routine because odds are they need that routine just to keep calm.

 As much as Fugate goes overboard on the revenge, Hill deserves the opening salvo of the traffic incident and poster graffiti, and so does anyone who tries to advise others on how to calm down without knowing them.  Also, changes in routine and getting outside won’t help if the source of anxiety still exists.  Anxiety, like every problem in existence, has only solution; deal with the problem at its source.  Got an illness?  Go for whatever treatment wipes it out or lets your immune system do so.  Don’t like the current government?  Vote to change who runs it and get everyone you can to vote the same way?  Want to stop discrimination of any kind?  Fight every kind actively, aggressively and never, ever just say ‘I’m not that kind of bigot’ and then do nothing else.  Problems are only ever solved by action, not evasion.

 So overall, this is a good episode with an interesting premise and a story that highlights the folly of giving well-meant advice if you don’t really know the person you’re advising.  It’s not one of the highlights of the series, but I’d be hard-pressed to consider it a flop of any kind.  I’d say about 8 out of 10 for this one.

Episode 26: Appointment in Crime Alley

Plot (as given by me):

Roland Daggett wants to buy up and redevelop Gotham’s Park Row, a formerly nice area of the city that has now become a slum so infested with crime that it is better known as Crime Alley.  However, most of the residents of the area cannot afford to live anywhere else, so they are resisting Daggett’s plans.  To that end, Daggett hires an arsonist known as Nitro to destroy the slum and make it look like a faulty gas main ruptured.  Daggett asks that the explosion occur that evening at 9pm, which is when Daggett will be otherwise occupied giving his speech to the Gotham Better Business Council.

 Bruce Wayne deduces Daggett is up to something as he watches news commentary on the Park Row situation, but he has his own appointment to keep in the area an hour prior to Daggett’s deadline, one he has apparently never failed to make.  Bruce heads to the area as Batman, but is delayed when a girl comes running out of an apartment building screaming for help.  Batman enters the apartment to find three crooks trying to terrorise the girl’s mother out of the place.  The dark knight swiftly defeats the crooks and learns they’ve been strong-arming everyone in Crime Alley to leave, suggesting they may be working for Daggett.

 Meanwhile, Crime Alley resident and physician Dr Leslie Thompkins realises Batman is running late and sets out to look for him, insisting to her friend Maggie that she’ll be alright, having lived in the area for 30 years.  However, Leslie is abducted and tied up by Nitro and Daggett’s henchman Crocker when she discovers them rigging explosives in a condemned building.  When Batman learns Leslie has gone out in search of him after he was delayed, he begins to search for her.  He is then delayed when a desperate Crime Alley resident holds a clerk from Daggett Industries hostage for serving him eviction papers.  Batman manages to diffuse the situation and resumes his search for Leslie.

 A check of Leslie’s apartment reveals nothing, apart from a scrapbook that explains the nature of her relationship to Batman; Crime Alley was where Bruce’s parents were shot and killed, and Leslie was there to comfort the grieving Bruce, being a colleague of Bruce’s father as well as a local resident.  Seeing a homeless man staring through the window, Batman confronts him and learns of Leslie’s abduction.  He is delayed getting to her by having to stop an out-of-control tram trolley, which forces him to abandon the Batmobile and finish his journey on foot.

 Finding Crocker and Nitro in the midst of completing their work, Batman locks them inside their own van and diffuses the bombs Leslie is tied up next to.  Leslie urges Batman to forget her and get everyone out of a nearby hotel that has become a sanctuary for many people with nowhere else to live.  As Daggett gives his speech, sections of Crime Alley explode, but when Daggett later appears on the scene, it turns out all the residents and most of the buildings are still ok.  Only a few condemned buildings are taken out by the blasts, and Daggett’s men are under arrest.  However, Daggett denies any involvement and pins the blame on the neighbourhood’s high crime rate.

 As Daggett leaves, Leslie urges Batman to let it go, and the pair walk away to keep their appointment, each laying a rose at the place where Bruce’s parents were murdered years before.

Review:

When it comes to adapting Batman’s supporting cast from the comics, there are a few characters who get over-looked in most versions, and Dr Leslie Thompkins is a major oversight in most incarnations. While Alfred’s place as Batman’s butler and Bruce Wayne’s surrogate father figure is generally ensured in every iteration of the character, the surrogate mother role played by Leslie is less featured.  The fact that this series actually bothered to include her at all, and does so with such accuracy to the source material, is another example of why this show remains so iconic and definitive in terms of Batman adaptations.

 Of course, the key to making this work is two-fold.  First, the episode is apparently based on a specific comic-book story, which wasn’t something this series or later DC animated universe productions did very often. Second, they had Diana Muldaur, better known to Trek audiences as Dr Kate Polaski from season two of Star Trek: TNG, voicing Leslie, and while I didn’t generally care for her TNG character, she brings the right warmth and kindliness to her role in this episode. We also get Ed Asner back as Roland Daggett, which helps to ensure Rupert Thorne isn’t the only animated series original criminal that’s getting repeat appearances.  It also gives the episode a suitably notable antagonist to keep it interesting.  Overall, I’m inclined to put this one in the top-scorers club for this series; 10 out of 10.

[hwu-adventures-blog]

All that Matters

Fic Description: Alicia Hardy and Ethan Ramsey’s relationship is complicated, it always has been, and after Alicia spends a night helping Ethan cook chicken, things start to be looking up for them getting together. However when death comes knocking at Alicia’s door, and they realise they might have just missed their chance...

Pairing: Ethan x MC (Alicia Hardy)

Taglist (let me know if you want to be added or taken off): @utterlyinevitable

A/N: I’m sorry that this fic has been on hiatus for a while, since September (I think). I’m in my last year at Uni and that’s hard enough except now we’ve also got the virus that shall not be named making it even harder, so I’ve been struggling with Uni and my mental health for a while but I finally got round to part 4 even if it’s a short chapter. I will be continuing with this fic, it just might take a while- also OH 3 is releasing next week! So I’m excited for that! Oh, and part 5 of this fic is in the works.

First chapter

Previous chapter

Next chapter

——————————————————————————

Chapter 4- Lifeline (Part 2)

“Goddamn it!”

Ethan exclaimed in frustrated anger as he chucked the crumpled up negative test results for any botulinum makers across the room catching the other members of his team’s attention.

“No markers for Botulinum I take it?” June frowned

“None”

“We can’t let ourselves lose hope. Alicia needs us” Baz said, noting the absolute state their boss was in

“That’s right. We need to keep working methodically. We have dozens of options left that explain all the symptoms we’ve seen, so we just tick through them one by one”

Ethan knew that was the most logical answer. He knew she was right, he knew Baz was right, they couldn’t give up hope, they had to work through this methodically, but all logic was thrown out in favour of the rising panic in his chest at the thought of losing Alicia.

“We don’t have time to patiently rule out every single thing that can poison a human body. Alicia needs us now”

And just like that, the Ethan’s frustration at the results was replaced with frustration at himself.

Alicia needed them. She needed him, and at the moment, he couldn’t be there for her.

He couldn’t let her down. He wasn’t going to let it become another situation like the one last year with Naveen, he sure as hell wasn’t going to give up on her. He couldn’t let her die.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news... Danny’s slipped into a coma, and the nurse caring for him says there weren’t any new symptoms since we moved him. I don’t think we’ll learn anything more from his case” Baz explained

Ethan sighed his look of anger dropping as he realised the impossible.

“Which means we need access to Travis if we’re going to make any headway on this”

“But we don’t have it. We just have to hope the FBI shares their findings from their private investigations with us”

“And that Alicia and Rafael can hold on long enough for that to do them any good...”

“Um doctors?”

Dr Sienna Trinh, who Ethan recognised as one of Alicia’s housemates, stood at the door nervously.

“Dr. Trinh. What can we do for you?”

“Actually, I think I can do something for you. And for Danny and Alicia and Raf. I-I know where Senator Farrugia is hiding”

“He’s still here?” June asked

Sienna nodded looking at Ethan with determination “and I think he knows where they took Travis”

“Travis’s symptom progression could help us narrow down the search! Any symptoms he shared with the other victims we could be certain were important!” Baz realised

“It could help us treat Alicia, Rafael and Danny more effectively. We might even get a diagnosis in time!” June agreed “Unless you think the feds will reach out to us on their own...”

No. Ethan almost scoffed as remembered his conversation with the agent as they moved Travis out of the hospital. Anything they learned was to be a ‘matter of national security’, there was no way they’d reach out to them if anything happened.

“No, I don’t think that’s likely”

“Then we have to talk to Ed. He’s our only chance to get more information” Sienna pointed out.

“Get answers from Ed?”

Ethan thought for a second as all three pairs of eyes looked at him for an answer, a decision, probably thinking that he was going to say no, he closed his eyes to think this through properly, He usually would have said no, it was too risky, they could get into all sorts of trouble doing this and that’s more than the hospital needed right now, hell he’d said no to helping Alicia break out the Senator who caused this situation in the first place out of Kenmore, because of that risk, but now, in that moment there was only one route he could take, one decision one clear answer. Alicia needed him. The image of her telling him she was freaking out, worrying over what was going to happen to her and her friends, staring at the spot Bobby had died minutes ago, struggling to think about anything else.

He’d promised her he’d fix it. He swore to it and if this was going to help Alicia, then he wasn’t going to give this up. The trouble was worth it if he could keep her in the world.

She was counting on him to keep her alive. He was her lifeline and she was his. He could not let her down!

“Let’s go” Ethan agreed “you two can handle things here?” He asked his two teammates

“Of course. We can’t get test results back faster if you’re here anyway”

“Go find us some answers, Ethan. We’ll keep going down the list”

“Follow me” Sienna said determination still sounding in her voice, Ethan turned and without a second thought, followed Sienna out of the lab.

[capnjay21]

A House is Never Still 6/6

Five years ago, Emma Swan disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Killian Jones’ disappearance, well, not so mysterious – given the denizens of Storybrooke all but blamed him for her murder. Drawn back to town by a series of strange events, he soon realises the story of what really happened the night she vanished is beginning to unravel, and what’s more: it isn’t over.

A/N: and here is the conclusion! I’ll ramble a little more at the end, but for now, please once again accept my repeated and evermore wildly gesticulated thanks for @hollyethecurious​ for this beautiful aesthetic which made the fic - I literally would not have done it without it! also hollering at the kids from the @csrolereversal​ way back when for starting the event that I originally signed up for, it was so much fun to be part of and while I’m a lil disappointed with myself for finishing so much later, life happens! thanks all! 

and now - story happens!

Rating: T

Warnings: mentions of suicide, canonical character death, and some Spooky Business™.

Continuing the teeny tiny taglist - but if you want off this list for the epilogue (pending), just let me know and I promise I will not be offended! <3

@snowbellewells​ @carpedzem​ @kmomof4​ @optomisticgirl​

AO3 | one | two | three | four | five

-/-

6 - when the first man awoke in the night

Present Day

There was a pervading sense of strangeness to seeing them all in the same room again.

It was like listening to your favourite song for the first time in years, but the lyrics were now backwards. Instead of humming along in that easy, thoughtless way, it felt jarring to the ears and forced you to really consider what exactly you were hearing, line by line, word by word.

Killian couldn’t stop thinking about every word he offered up into their shared space now; everything felt permanent, nothing could be taken back. What they said in this moment would mark how every moment after it would come to be. He was sure of it, and he was sure the other three felt the same, which was why very little had been said since Mary Margaret had warily invited he, Regina and David over the threshold and into her loft.

Regina had taken a position nearest the door, arms folded, expression neutral, leaning steadily against the wall. She looked like someone trying desperately to imitate the pose of one unaffected, but the tension in the set of her shoulders gave her away. Killian had perched on the stairs that led up to the upper floor, and David stood in the centre of the room shifting his weight from foot to foot and glaring sadly around him, as if he had no idea where he fit into this room anymore and imagined any of her items of furniture might have been the one to oust him. Mary Margaret sat at the side of her dining table that allowed her to face all three of them at once, hands clasped tightly together over the tabletop.

Mary Margaret had offered them tea and they had all declined.

It was the distance, Killian decided, that was most difficult to take in. It was the closest they had been to each other in five years, but the space between them had never felt wider.

The tape recorder was clutched tightly in Killian’s right hand. It was a little slick with sweat from his palm, but he refused to let it go.

“Is this about Emma?” Mary Margaret asked, and while she asked politely, the edge in her voice was unmistakable. She did not want her house of cards to come down around her. When they didn’t immediately reply she offered with a wry eyebrow raise: “It’s not likely to be about anything else, is it?”

“It is,” Killian said, seeing no point in drawing it out. “It’s about the house.” He and David exchanged a look. “It’s back.”

Something ticked in Mary Margaret’s jaw. “I don’t know how to make this any clearer – I don’t want to know.”

In that moment, Killian couldn’t see anything but Emma in her – except he had always had an instinct for how to scale Emma’s walls, but with Mary Margaret he floundered.

Fortunately, there was someone else in the room who knew how far better than he.

“Hey,” David started, gently, in that tone so earnest and warm that none of them had ever really been able to ignore. “You know who we are, you know what this must be. Just look at us.” No matter what else had happened, there they all were. “This isn’t something from nothing – we wouldn’t do that to you.” He gave her a sad sort of smile. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Mary Margaret stared back up at him, and not for a second did Killian believe their story was as over as they had both claimed it was. “What is it, then?” she asked.

“It’s this.” Killian stood up, opening his palm to reveal the tape recorder inside. It was sturdy and blocky, resembling a clunky child’s toy more than the instrument that had brought them together that night. He laid it on the table, and before she could ask he cut her off. “I recorded this five nights ago, in Brooke House.”

The tape immediately began to crackle and scratch, and Killian fast-forwarded just long enough until it started. It whirred, and it tck-tck-tck­-ed, and eventually there was a voice.

‘Emma?’

His voice. Cutting through the static. There were a few thumps. A rustle as he’d stuffed the recorder in his pocket, some creaks as he climbed the stairs within Brooke House. Through the recording, Killian could relive the second night he had gone to the house since coming back to Storybrooke, the same way both Regina and David already had.

‘Emma?’

There was a crash, and the unmistakable tear of book bindings. Except, where Killian had heard Emma’s voice that night, the tape recorder had picked up nothing. Instead it sounded as if Killian had stood in silence, waiting.

‘Why didn’t you show yourself to Regina?’

Another thud, as another book was hurled against the wall. Otherwise, quiet.

‘Come here,’ the Killian on the tape said, ‘let me look at you.’

Mary Margaret was frowning, and lifted her bemused gaze up first to Killian, and then the others. “What is this?”

“Just wait,” Regina answered quietly from her place by the door.

The Killian on the tape let out a long breath. ‘I’m so sorry.’ A pause. ’All of it.’

Killian bristled at the memory, felt the cold touch of her lips like a steel edge. You couldn’t tell from the recording what had happened, and Killian had not been quick to fill the others in on his actions during that particular interval. But even as the seconds passed, his pulse began to race – he had listened to this recording a hundred times already, listened to Emma’s spectral presence like a non-entity, had initially resigned himself to having caught nothing of measurable value to show she was there at all.

Except right then –

‘Killian?’

Emma’s voice was unmistakable.

Mary Margaret’s reaction was instant, and visceral. She almost bolted out of her chair. In fact, she looked so suddenly pale and faintly ill that Killian nearly offered to fetch her something to throw up in. What were you supposed to do when you heard the voice of your long dead friend, five years after the fact of their dying?

But it was just that one word – then it was Killian promising to help her, and then there was nothing at all.

“There’s more,” he said grimly, but he had a feeling Mary Margaret wouldn’t have been able to form words just yet anyway. Killian clicked a finger on the fast forward.

He had completely forgotten about that recorder after Emma had kissed him – it had sat on those bookshelves for five days, running continuously in the study on the landing. He was fortunate it was such an old, robust thing. Even without attention it had continued diligently fulfilling his purpose, and his only regret was that it had run out of tape after a day and a half.

But in that time, it had caught enough.

Having wound the tape to this point so many times, Killian stopped it once more and let the noises trickle out.

A rustle of fabric, something scratching on old floors. A faint, but tangible sigh.

‘Killian?’

Emma, again. Killian shut his eyes. He let the sound wash over him.

‘Killian?’

There was nothing for a minute or so here, but Killian left it running. They all needed time to process it, and together they listened to the soft sounds of Brooke House murmuring quietly. Ancient wood groaned, the stairs told the bannister that someone was coming, the wind pushed doors open and closed them. But eventually, reverently, they heard her speak again.

‘Yesterday, I dreamed…’

She hissed out a breath. Her voice was quiet, and terribly sad. Killian’s heart seized to hear it, because he knew it was his Emma. This voice wasn’t rich with delighted, dark secrets. It was hollow and resigned and a breath of condensation across frosted glass.

‘I don’t know where I am. I thought I heard your voice.’

Something fluttered, possibly the pages of a book. Then there was only silence.

Killian knew this quiet stretched the tape for a few hours, so again he tapped his finger to fast forward, until they could hear her speak again.

‘It’s – it’s the car. I don’t want to see it anymore. Is David there?’

David dropped heavily down into a seat at the dining table. The Emma on tape continued, oblivious.

‘I thought I heard your voice. We have to finish it. It’s…’ Something scratched loudly, and the four in the kitchen winced at the sudden volume of the sound. ‘Killian? Is that you? I’m so cold. I –’

The recorder clicked, sputtered and stopped. It had reached the end of the tape.  

Then they waited.

It had been enough to convince David; it had been more than enough for Regina to let go of her scepticism about whether Emma needed rescuing. For Killian, it had lit a fire under him. Not only was Emma, their Emma, trapped in Brooke House somehow, but she was cognizant. He had seen it. In those breathless few seconds after their lips had touched, his Emma had bled through like a blot of ink stretching across paper, and she had asked after him.

Now he intended to answer.

But they couldn’t do it without Mary Margaret, not if they needed what he thought they did – three pairs of eyes turned to look at her.

Killian was unsurprised to notice she was crying. Her shoulders shook, and she did not resist David when his hand came over to rest atop hers. In fact, she curled open her palm and allowed him to thread their fingers together as she let out a tremulous breath, her eyes misty and fighting for clarity.

“Please tell me this isn’t real.” She sounded as miserable as she looked.

“It’s real,” Regina answered.

“Our girl is in there,” David urged. “We have to get her out.”

With her free hand, Mary Margaret furiously wiped her face with the back of it. When she spoke, her voice cracked. “How?”

Killian brushed a finger across the edge of the tape recorder, and for a wild moment considered rewinding it and letting it play again just so he could hear her voice.

“The ritual. The same one we started five years ago.”

It had always bothered Killian, had niggled in the back of his mind for years. If the sole purpose of that ritual had been summoning a malevolent spirit in order to control its power, then why had Liam Jones allowed himself to become embroiled in it? Liam was honesty, integrity, and fierce loyalty. It didn’t add up.

“It was never about bringing something evil out – I should have recognised the signs the moment I came back, but I was too busy thinking about Brooke House now to worry about then.” Turning abruptly to the coffee table, Killian plucked a pen and ripped a page from a notebook that had been lying there and brought it back to the dining table. On it, he carefully sketched the five-pointed star he had drawn into the floorboards at Brooke House. “History lesson. One of the earliest known uses of the pentagram is actually as a Christian symbol – its points are supposed to represent the five wounds of Christ.

“Then, as time goes on, you start to see a rise in occult practices, and they pretty much liberally borrow as much symbolism as possible from anywhere they can. Particularly the pentagram – which, if you turn around –” Killian swivelled the image so the tip of the star was pointing down, and the two points jutted out upwards. “—Has been known to represent the two horns of Satan, here. The rejection of heaven and all things spiritual. That’s what I thought I was looking at when I saw it needed to be in the ritual.” He’d spent a few days absorbed in old library books, researching what Liam had written down and left in his toolbox.

He had allowed himself to be influenced by Belle Gold, by all the talk of evil, and as a result had only bothered with one interpretation of the symbol – which was reductive, and a potentially fatal error.

“But way, way before all of that, you have its uses in Taoism, with Pythagoras and the Greeks, in early iterations of paganism. Some perceive it as a representation of the elements, but most agree that it’s about balance. It’s perfection in mathematics, the human body, words; it makes its uses in religious ritual and magic basically inevitable. But by the time the pagan revival begins – well, mostly a re-invention or re-construction of older practices – it’s become so strongly associated with malevolence and Satanism that it’s a little difficult to adopt as a symbol of faith. So, what do you do?”

Killian grinned.

“You turn it the right way up and draw a big fat circle around it.”

He rotated the paper again, so the single point was facing upwards and drew a circle around its points, connecting each one.

“It’s a different symbol. It’s what most modern wicca practices call a pentacle, it’s supposed to represent a physical object used in ceremonial evocation – the act of calling upon a spirit – for protection. It’s a talisman. Liam wanted the circle made from salt, which is a common ingredient in purification spells. There are candles at each point to give energy, but –”

“You should have left one unlit,” Regina cut across him, eyes widening once she’d put the pieces together.

“Exactly.”

David and Mary Margaret, for their part, looked entirely nonplussed by the turn of the conversation. Killian winced internally – perhaps he’d spilt out the word magic a few too many times for them.

David blinked. “What – what are you talking about?”

“One candle should have been unlit to let energy out,” Killian explained. “This isn’t a ritual for summoning or capturing a demon. It’s a ritual for banishing one.”

Mary Margaret dropped her head in her hands.

“Years. Years of therapy. All undone in a single evening.”

“Did you hear her?” Killian pressed, tapping the tape recorder emphatically. “Did you hear her calling out for us? She said it herself. We need to finish this. There’s no moving past it until we do.”

“I can’t. I just – I can’t.”

Killian could feel frustration mounting, but David laid a hand on his arm before he could burst out something furious and likely detrimental to their cause. They could attempt the ritual without Mary Margaret, but without a person sat at every point of the pentacle the spell would be weaker. It had to be her – there was no one else.

“Mary Margaret,” David began. He shifted his chair a little closer. “Mary Margaret.”

Miserably, she raised her head, hands clasped on the back of her neck.

“I think you need a little of something that you used to give all of us,” he smiled. “Hope.”

Her eyes welled with fresh tears, and Mary Margaret shook her head. “Hope – hurts.”

“Only when we give it up.” To Killian’s surprise, it was Regina who had spoken, pushing away from the wall to stand at Mary Margaret’s shoulder. “I thought I could bury this beneath the way the world had opened up. That it was the price for new eyes.” She locked eyes with Killian, offered him a nod of understanding. “I was wrong. And… I’m sorry. We should have supported each other, stayed together.”

“Regina’s right,” Killian continued. “And this is on me, too. I should have been here. I shouldn’t have missed… everything I missed.”

He had missed the service for Emma, he had missed old Henry Mills’ passing, he had missed David and Mary Margaret going their separate ways, he had missed the coda of their friendship with Regina, he had missed Archie leaving town, he had missed the library closing its doors for the last time, he had missed, he had missed, he had missed.

Killian had thought leaving Storybrooke was the best decision he had ever made; that without Emma, all that was left was walking in the dust.

Admitting that he had spent five years missing Storybrooke was like releasing a breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding.  

“Emma needs us,” David urged, taking one of Mary Margaret’s hands in his own. “One last time. All of us – together.”

They were all pieces of the same, scattered glass. Some edges sharp, some smooth. All Killian knew was the completed image was soft and golden, and he ached for it so harshly and so tenderly that he couldn’t bear it if the night ended any other way.

Mary Margaret took a steadying breath.

Her fingers clasped around David’s.

“Hope,” she said, and it settled it.

They were doing this.

-/-

The sky above Main Street was a deep, midnight blue, the winking light of stars only clearly visible if you fixed your gaze on it for longer than a few seconds. All appeared still, other than the stirring of crisp and deadened leaves in an unhurried brush down the road, and long shadows cast by the bronze streetlights were black in the way the sky should have been.

In the corner of Killian’s eye, everything seemed to shift. Every few metres it felt like something flashed at the edge of his vision, just out of sight, daring him to turn and look, trying to pull them from their singular focus of getting to the edge of town as quickly as possible. He was sure it was Brooke House. The dagger felt cool against his chest from the inside of his jacket. How did Emma put it? Testing the boundaries? Stretching her limits? A spectre at the edge of Main Street, a shadow at the end of David’s bed.

He could feel her all around them watching, waiting, trying to deter them from coming any closer. Perhaps she knew of their intent. Streetlights flickered overhead, and the groan of steel scarring tarmac could be heard distantly.

Killian felt so exposed. The others had huddled in close, walking swiftly as a unit – maybe they could feel it too.

He was so involved in wondering after the otherworldly, that the reality of a car pulling up beside them didn’t even register until the occupant was already climbing out. The door slammed definitively, purposefully, and it drew them to a halt. Once Killian had identified who now stood there in the gloom, features lit by the fading amber light of the street, he let out a string of murmured expletives.

“I knew it was only a matter of time before the whole gang was back together again,” Sheriff Graham Humbert growled, his voice as melodic and dangerous as it had been when Killian was just seventeen, frightened, and exhausted beyond belief on the night that had started it all.

Killian fought to keep his voice level. “It’s been a long time, Humbert.”

“Long enough that you’re ready to finally give me the truth?”

“Graham,” Regina began quietly, and it was the way her tongue curled around Graham, it was the intimacy of it, the sheer fact that they were on a first name basis that sent Killian’s mind into a tailspin, cataloguing a few more ways the town had continued to tick without him.

They were all adults now, weren’t they? So why not? Why not Graham?

Because he didn’t like it.

“Don’t,” Humbert said shortly. “So where is it you’re off too? The ravine, maybe?”

He looked older than when Killian had seen him last. He had only just been elected the month before Emma had disappeared, gruff but bright-faced and enthusiastic about his future turning over small town misdemeanours. Then he had been thrown into a missing-persons-assumed-murder case, and nothing about Storybrooke had felt small anymore. Had Emma’s disappearance given him those lines, pulled taut at the corner of his eyes? Could the unhappy curve to his mouth, the adamant line of his jaw, be because of Emma, too?

He had only wanted to find Emma, it was all any of them had wanted. On any of the countless nights Killian had lain awake, unable to dream of anything but the night that Emma had vanished, could Graham Humbert possibly have been doing the same?

Not to mention his instincts were correct. The four of them did know something more about it than what they had told him. It must have churned him up inside to know that, and not be able to do a single thing about it.

“We’re going for a drink,” Mary Margaret offered, and she surprised Killian with the smoothness of the lie. “Just old friends catching up.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Humbert snapped. His badge glittered in the dim light. “You were up to something then, and you’re up to something now.” He folded his arms. “I’d like to invite all of you to come down to the station and have a chat, seeing as you’ve got the time.”

At the end of the street, a bulb blew in a shower of orange sparks. Glass rained musically down onto the sidewalk. Killian thought he saw the flutter of white fabric dart around the corner.

Watching, waiting, daring.

“We don’t have time for this,” Regina muttered. “Step aside, Graham.”

“Fine, go. I’ve got no problem with it. The way you all look tonight,” Humbert stared at each of them in turn, scathingly, “I have a feeling you’ll lead me straight to her.”

He had only ever wanted to find Emma. That, Killian reminded himself, they had in common.

Movement flickered at the edge of his vision, and for a moment Killian was certain once he turned his head he’d see another spectre of Emma, dirty white and terrible, but it was David, David had surged forward and his fist was swinging and Killian heard the crack of Humbert’s head hitting the sidewalk before his eyes had even processed that he was witnessing his crumpled form falling backwards. Out cold.

David was hissing with pain, shaking out his hand and wincing.

The other three were blinking, astonished.

“Sorry,” he offered to Humbert’s motionless form. Then, turning to the others and noticing their expressions, he suddenly grew defensive. “We’re in a hurry, aren’t we?”

Inside a convenience store, a radio burst to life. The scattered notes of Only You could be heard scratching across the quiet street.

Killian narrowed his eyes. Yes, they were.

The four of them stepped carefully around Humbert, and continued their brisk journey into the night.

Given their intent, Killian had half expected for Brooke House to be gone by the time they got there, like when they had returned on the first night to look for Emma. After the ritual they had scattered into the trees, tearing off in different directions to try and find where she might have gone, voices hoarse with their continued calls out for her. By the time they had returned to the site of the house to regroup, faithfully following the trail of Killian’s orange string, it had gone. Taking Regina’s Ouija board, Mary Margaret’s scarf, David’s Apollo chocolate bar wrapper and Emma with it. A piece of all of them lost to the maw – some bigger than others. It had feasted on what it could and disappeared into the night.

Perhaps, Killian thought, as he stared at its broad foundations, the beckoning creek of its front door, the gasping cavern of its insides, it looked at them all like an unfinished meal.

It waited, it watched, and it dared them closer to finish them for good.

Killian’s hand tightened on the hilt of the dagger.

Emma needed them. And she had waited long enough.

As one, he and Regina stormed up the steps and headed inside. Behind him, he could hear Mary Margaret whimper, the urgent, hushed tones from David pushing her forward, but he paid them no mind. They each had a job to do here – this was his. Regina immediately pulled out a black marker and began tracing the shape of the pentacle on the floor, while Killian rummaged in the rucksack they had brought for the salt. He started sprinkling it in a perfect circle around the edges, and it wasn’t long before David had coerced Mary Margaret through into the sitting room. She had her palms over her eyes, as if by not looking at the aged walls of the house she might not have to acknowledge she was stood there.

Something crashed upstairs. David and Mary Margaret jerked towards the sound, the latter dropping her hands. Killian and Regina exchanged grim looks.

“It knows,” she said.

“Get the candles.”

There were other loud bangs of protest, like the sudden opening and slamming of doors, and at every noise it brought the four of them closer together, until Killian could feel Mary Margaret’s small hand clutching tightly to his upper arm. He spared her the briefest of glances – in the gloom she looked completely pale, but her features were set into something determined. The house could screech and moan, but she would not be so easily spooked anymore.

This was the girl he remembered. The one who could be both; afraid, and brave.

Killian fumbled with the matches, but not a single one would light. Killian stuck his finger into the packet and found, bafflingly, that the tip of every match was damp, even though they had been tucked away in his pocket. With irritation Killian thought of the damp wall and the wallpaper, and he thought he could hear laughter. It might have been the wind whistling past broken glass, but it was something.

“Here,” David said. He’d pulled a lighter from his pocket.

At four of the five points they set a lit candle, and at the fifth they set a final one – unlit, for the release of energy they had intended. Quickly they took their places behind a flickering flame, leaving the gap between Killian and David where Emma had sat all those years ago.

Killian’s pulse raced, his heart felt jagged and stuttered; hope, that treacherous notion, couldn’t help but imagine that at the end of all this, she might once again be sitting there.

“Ah,” came an icy voice from over his shoulder. Killian shut his eyes, knowing who it was at once. “You finally brought my dagger.”

“Ignore her,” Killian said firmly, refusing to turn around, but the others weren’t paying attention to him. Their stares, slack-jawed and stupefied, were fixed on the phantom that had just entered the room.

David’s voice was hoarse. “Emma?”

“David,” Killian barked. “Take Mary Margaret’s hand.”

“David,” Emma’s voice was honeysuckle and thick. “David, it’s me. Come on, come away from there. It’s time to go, don’t you think?”

Mary Margaret snatched his hand from where it had been hovering near her, and in a daze, David turned his head back towards her.

“Look at me,” she said, fiercely. “My eyes. Only.” David looked torn. “That is not our girl.”

“David,” Emma sang. His shoulders tense, but he did not turn to look at her again. Instantly, Emma’s tone turned nasty. “Get out.”

Killian didn’t care for ceremony anymore; he didn’t care for the weight of it all, for the ritual, for the sense of preserving the past – he felt like he had spent his entire adult life consecrating devastation. Regina’s hand was tight in his, their incomplete circle ready and waiting. The candle flames danced backwards and forwards, and Killian used his spare hand to pull the dagger from his coat pocket.

There was a loud hiss from behind him, like the hum of a cooped-up predator, and something ice cold and hard swung in front of him and gripped his throat.

Killian gasped.

Mary Margaret screamed.

He felt the air being squeezed from his windpipe, the dig of Emma’s nails into his skin so harsh he was sure they must’ve drawn blood –

With effort, Killian raised his hand –

And flung the dagger into the centre of the circle.

The effect was instantaneous. Emma released him immediately and wailed, something loud and drastic and terrible, as the air began to crackle. There was no slow build up this time, a steady gathering of wits as the room began to take in its breath, there was just the rumble of distant thunder, the storm they made to summon forming as suddenly as a tornado. The wind howled through the cracked windows; one of them shattered under the force of it and carried shards of glass towards them, hurtling around them with great speed.

Through the gap between Killian and David, Emma had stumbled backwards into the middle of the circle, and her eyes were black and furious. Right in front of them, she began to curl in on herself but it was impossible, her back had bent at a right angle and the contortions were too much, too strange, that his brain tried to tell Killian that it wasn’t happening at all. The wind whipped away her crown of flowers until it disintegrated, and her mouth gaped open in a silent scream, wide, wider, a yawning arc of darkness.

Something sharp dug into Killian’s cheek – glass, he thought, helplessly – and he reached up his free hand to try and shield himself. Mary Margaret and Regina had their eyes tightly shut, expressions scrunched up with pain and Regina’s lips were moving, but Killian couldn’t hear anything over the roar in his ears.

That was when the lightning struck.

In unison, arcs of obsidian light latched onto both the centre of Emma’s chest and the dagger, tying the two together like an ugly, pulsing artery. Again it flashed, this time onto her back, and again, her left hand, again, her right, until Emma was entirely obscured from view by the opaque jet of the zephyr.

This was where they had lost Emma before – she had thrown herself into the centre of the storm.

Killian tensed, maybe – maybe –

Regina’s hand tightened on his, as if sensing the direction of his thoughts.

Not a chance, it said, and gripped even harder.

Instead he yelled out into the darkness.

“Emma!”

The only response was rage – the door to the sitting room swung off its hinges, dropping heavily onto the floor. The wallpaper was ripped to shreds. A hole the size of a fist splintered into the floorboards behind him. Even so, on hearing him, the others took up the call – screaming for Emma to come through, to break free, to take her place in their circle and complete them.

“I know you’re in there!” Killian hollered, and his throat felt hoarse but he needed to make himself heard. “Emma, you can do it!”

And then – and then – he saw her.

Not the twisted, luminous Emma that the house had been showing him, but Emma, their Emma, staring out from the centre of the tornado. Through jets of black lighting he could see her, eyes wide, palms facing upward as if waiting for the rain to come, her mouth open in a cry that he couldn’t hear.

He couldn’t hear it, but he could see it. When she locked eyes with him her mouth formed the same words that had haunted him from the minute they’d first been ripped from her.

Killian – Killian, don’t –!

Not this time.

Killian wrenched his hand free.

“No!” Regina cried.

If you have to have someone, he thought, furiously, then have me.

Killian hurtled in after her.

For a moment, everything was blindingly white, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

Then he felt the touch of her hand.

It all fell quiet.

There was – nothing.

-/-

His heart was still beating. That was something, he supposed.

Behind his eyelids the light had dimmed, but it was still bright. That was how he knew it was no longer night. The air felt damp, and cold, and smelled faintly of wet moss and pine. The ground beneath his feet felt soft and earthy, and experimentally he wiggled his toes inside his boots. Obligingly, something squelched. Somewhere, a sparrow trilled.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. About a metre in front of him the ground gave way, dropping hundreds of feet below him in stacked and uneven layers of rock, grass and sediment. A distant roar sounded from beneath him, and pitching himself forward a little he could see the crash of the river against the edges of the rockface.

He was standing at the edge of the ravine, he realised. The ravine that Liam had driven into.

“This is what it does,” Emma said from beside him. “It makes you relive all your worst moments.”

His hand was tucked into hers, not unpleasantly. Their shoulders brushed.

“Where am I?”

In the distance something screeched, and he and Emma turned their heads towards the sound. Belatedly, he realised it was the exhausted brakes of a car accompanied by the rumble of an engine, and a wave of nausea began to rise within him. The harshness of the sounds felt dissonant with the relative peace above the ravine, but as Killian turned his eyes to the right he could remember how it had looked in the days that followed. It had rained heavily that afternoon, the police report had indicated that had wiped away most of the evidence, and everywhere mud had been churned over and over, plants ripped from their roots. But at this moment everything was still, undisturbed.

The sound of the motor grew louder.

Killian couldn’t remember how to breathe. He began to feel the light patter of rain on the back of his neck.

Not this, he begged, not this. I don’t want to see this.

“It’s alright,” Emma said, squeezing his hand tightly. “I’ll be here.”

Then the trees exploded.

Liam’s old Mustang burst through the shrub, and although Killian was anxious not to see it, he couldn’t tear his eyes away, tried to fix his gaze on every single detail in the impossibly short space of time between the car careening from the forest and tipping over the edge of the ravine. It was like watching it in slow motion. The windshield had already cracked in two places, and the Mustang swerved dangerously to the left – attempting to wrench itself to rightness before it was too late, but it was too late – and when Killian finally felt brave enough to look into the cabin, he realised something else with a chilling rush of dread.

Liam was not alone in the car.

Someone else – something else – had two hands on the wheel, and Liam was wrestling for control. Acting purely on instinct Killian surged forward, but Emma’s grip on his hand held him back. He knew, with the certainty that you knew things in dreams, that nothing he could do would be able to stop it.

Then he blinked, and Liam was alone in the car, and the Mustang had hurtled over the edge of the cliff. For a few seconds, the forest had earnt back its stillness.

Then, with an almighty crash that made the ground beneath him shake, the Mustang hit the surface of the water.

Killian couldn’t bring himself to look over the edge. On the cliff, just metres from where Killian now stood, someone else watched the car disappear beneath the walls. It was a man – or no, was it a man, his skin looked more like slick bronze, glittering like the scales of a fish – and then he was gone.

Killian reminded himself to breathe in, and breathe out. Emma reached across and brushed tears away from his cheek with a gentle finger, which was how he realised he had been crying. He clutched her other hand tightly in his own.

He couldn’t speak, and mercifully Emma didn’t seem to expect him to. It could have been minutes that they stood there together, breathing in, breathing out, or it could have been hours. It might not have been more than a few seconds. Somewhere, a sparrow trilled again. Killian began to feel a splatter of rain against the back of his neck, which was how he realised it had stopped raining the first time around.

“Careful,” Emma said. “Here it comes again.”

In the distance, he heard another screech of tired brakes.

Alarmed, Killian turned – and realised the treeline looked exactly as it had when he arrived, before Liam had burst through it.

Overwhelmed by the urge to throw up, Killian bent double and retched, but nothing came out. Emma rubbed a soothing hand on his back.

Again, he watched as the Mustang crashed through the thicket, as Liam fought for control of the wheel with the strange man – the same man who stood on the cliff afterwards before vanishing into thin air, he now realised – and skidded over the edge of the ravine. The world fell apart once more as the car pounded into its final destination.

“Where am I?” Killian repeated, in between taking large gulps of air.

The scaled man on the cliff watched the car, satisfied, before disappearing completely.

“It’s hard at first,” Emma sighed. “I watched my parents abandon me on the side of the freeway, like, a thousand times.” Her hand squeezed his own. “The car pulls over, my Mom gets out, she picks me up in my blanket and puts me down. Then she gets back in and it drives away. It was like picking at a scab I thought had already healed.”

It hadn’t, though. He could have told her that. Some scars were meant to stay with you forever.

We’ve all got ghosts here.

Somewhere, a sparrow trilled. He began to feel the weak patter of rain against the back of his neck.

“I saw the kid who found me, too,” Emma added, bitterly, “his name’s August. Not that it matters now.”

In the distance, the brakes of the Mustang screeched.

Killian was finding it difficult to process what he was seeing with what he was being told.

“They say that’s the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result? I waited for them to get back out, just once, to not just leave me there. But that’s what it feeds on. That hoping. The more you fight it, the more you want something else to happen when it never could, the stronger it gets.”

With a shudder, Liam’s Mustang broke the treeline again. It swerved, splattering mud across the clifftop. Liam wrestled for the wheel and the tail of the car swung out; hope shuddered to life within Killian, this time this time he would pull it back, he’d regain control, he’d turn before it –

The Mustang sped over the edge of the ravine.

“He wasn’t alone in the car,” Killian managed to get out, as his heart seized in his chest. “He didn’t – it wasn’t suicide.”

The scaled man on the cliff stared at the disappearing Mustang, and then vanished.

“That’s what the spirit of Brooke House looked like,” Emma said, nodding at where the scaled man had stood. “When it came to Liam.”

When it came to me, he wanted to cry, it looked like you.

Somewhere, a sparrow trilled. He began to feel the weak patter of rain against the back of his neck.

In the distance, the brakes of the Mustang screeched.

“It threatened you,” she continued softly. “It said it would kill you if he didn’t help the spirit escape the house.”

“But he didn’t,” Killian added, needlessly. Of course he didn’t.

He thought of the ritual, the one Liam had outlined to banish the demon, and he felt weak. Helpless to stop the chain reaction of Liam’s death – both in the weeks that had led up to it, and as witness to his final few moments as the car crashed into the ravine. He would have died on impact, the coroner had said. The body swept up by the rush of the water below, taken out to sea. Just like everyone had always said. That final, private wish that he had only whispered aloud once, that the lack of a body meant that maybe, maybe something else had happened, was finally snuffed out.

Liam had been in that car. It was small comfort to know he hadn’t done it to himself.

The Mustang thundered out of the undergrowth, swerved, screeched, and fell.

“He tried to banish it, but he was missing one key ingredient.”

Killian knew, with the certainty that you knew things in dreams, what that missing ingredient had been.

“The dagger.”

Emma nodded. “Right. After that didn’t work… he was always a dead man.”

But how had he known? How had he even thought to banish the demon? It seemed with every answer he got, a thousand more questions rose in its place.

“But the dagger… his name was on the dagger. Why didn’t he –?” Look like you?

If Liam had died in the ravine, just like they had always said he had, why was his name on the dagger?

Emma looked out across the ravine, darkly. “That’s just how it keeps score. Its victims. Liam isn’t trapped here, but I’d say he’s still a victim.”

Somewhere, a sparrow trilled. Killian began to feel the splatter of rain against his neck.

“Wouldn’t you?”

In just seconds, gone forever. Not trapped, but gone.

Trapped.

For the third time, he asked: “Where am I?”

Emma shook her head. That wasn’t the right question.

In the distance, the brakes of the Mustang squealed.

So instead, he asked: “How do we stop the demon?”

“I’ve already told you,” Emma sighed, airily enough that it felt as if he were just disturbing her at work in the library again. Her voice sounded faint. “God, don’t you ever listen?”

Listen.

With the suddenness of breathing, his hand closed on empty air where it had once been holding Emma’s. She had gone.

So had the clifftop.

It was like waking up, when you weren’t sure how long you had been asleep.

He was standing in the single room of the old apartment he shared with Liam, and he had always been standing there. It was smaller than he remembered; just the open plan kitchen-stroke-sitting room-stroke-Liam’s bedroom, attached to an even littler bedroom that had been Killian’s. The kitchenette was in the corner, dark and musty smelling, and Liam’s bed was propped against the opposite wall, impeccably made as always. There had only been room for the bare minimum of additional furniture – a chest of drawers for some of Liam’s clothes, the rest hung on a metal rack like the kind found in a shop, a moth-eaten sofa and a small, boxy handheld television plucked right from the jaws of 1994 perched atop an overturned wastepaper basket serving as a table. It was dark, lit miserably by a single window next to the sofa, and warm in the uncomfortable way that a gym was warm; lived in.

It looked so insignificant. Almost barren, certainly cheap. Nothing to be proud of.

Killian longed for it with something so profound that it was an almost physical ache. This was life before Liam had died.

A key clicked in the lock, and the front door to the flat was flung open with more force than necessary. Killian’s heart sank once he realised what he was looking at.

It makes you relive all your worst moments.

In tumbled Liam, exactly as he remembered him, and a younger Killian – twelve years old, freckled, dark hair askew, and furious.

“—So unfair!” The younger Killian was scowling. “I don’t want to move again! I just started making friends!”

Killian had forgotten what it was they had fought about – it had faded completely from his mind beyond the core sentiment, which had been bloody and foul, in the wake of everything else that had happened that day. Now it all came back to him with startling clarity.

This was the last time he had seen Liam alive.

“Well, tough,” Liam said wearily, setting a plastic bag on the counter next to the refrigerator. “We are.”

The younger Killian rounded on him angrily. “Why?”

“For work.”

“Has all the wood been chopped in Storybrooke, then?”

Liam fixed him with a withering look. “Don’t be facetious. It’s important, Killian. You just have to trust me on this.”

He had wanted them to leave town, he remembered now.

After that didn’t work… he was always a dead man.

He would have known, even then, that Brooke House was coming for them.

It struck the older Killian, then, just how tired Liam had looked – dark circles clung to the bottom of his eyes, and his skin looked stretched and pale. It also occurred to him how young he was. Liam had always been taller, older, wiser; even after he had died Killian had never thought of him any differently. Yet, here, Liam Jones was just nineteen years old – and he already been looking after the brothers Jones for years already. Killian had already outlived his brother’s unfairly short life by almost three years.

The younger Killian threw himself dramatically down onto the moth-eaten sofa. “I bet Dad wouldn’t make us move.”

Liam scowled, busying himself taking a few meagre groceries out of the bag and putting them away. “You don’t know what Dad is capable of.”

“I would if you just told me!” The younger Killian twisted on the sofa so he could look at his brother, bristling with indignation. “What is it that’s so bad? Why won’t you talk about him or Mum?” Liam kept his mouth set in a thin line. How that had infuriated him at the time. “How about you just tell me, and then I’ll go without a fuss. I’ll even pack tonight! How’s that?”

“I don’t like being held to ransom,” Liam replied tersely. The younger Killian let out a cry of frustration, delivering a swift kick to the sofa, then stormed over to his bedroom door. “And a tantrum won’t help. So long as you continue to behave like a child, I will continue to treat you like –”

The younger Killian whirled around, hand on the doorknob and eyes ablaze.

“I hate you!”

It makes you relive all your worst moments.

“I’m not finished,” Liam snapped, “don’t you walk away from me.”

The younger Killian did not listen. He stomped into his room and slammed the door shut behind him.

Don’t, Killian begged, come out. This is it. This is the last time.

Liam had followed him to the door, let his hand hover above the handle.

Open it, he longed, pleaded. Don’t leave it like this.

He watched Liam change his mind. He watched him pick up his car keys. He watched him curtly inform the younger Killian that he was going out for a little while, but he would be back soon. He watched him wait for the younger Killian to respond.

He did not.

Liam left the flat.

A key clicked in the lock and in again came Liam, with the younger Killian in tow.

“—So unfair!”

Like the clifftop, he was apparently doomed to watch the same moment over and over – but Killian refused. Seething, he tried to think himself into being somewhere else. He didn’t know the rules here, but somehow he had moved from the ravine to here, and if that was possible then he could move from here to somewhere that was not here.

Not this time, Killian thought furiously, no more than once.

In part instinct and in part miserable fury, Killian put his fist through the thin plaster wall.

Behind his eyes, pain exploded – but it was not from his fist. No, his wrists were smarting, burning with an agony he could not see, and someone was screaming and he thought it might be him, he was back in the sitting room at Brooke House, the storm raged, a tornado of wanting and longing and hoping and nothing ever changing, and he could feel his left hand clasped around the dagger but his right – his right –

Emma was there, and she was holding tightly onto his right hand.

She looked him squarely in the eyes. “Listen!”

He was in Granny’s Diner.

He knew this because he could hear the quiet lull of patrons around him, and the faint smell of melted cheese had begun to permeate. He could feel the hard, well-worn cushion from one of the booths beneath him, and he could still taste vanilla cake on the tip of his tongue. He knew because Emma’s arms were around his neck and she was holding him tightly, and he could feel her breath on his lips. He knew because he had lived in this moment so many times, and begged a thousand times to have ended it differently. He didn’t need a demon to do that for him

“Thank you,” Emma had said, her cheeks flushed with glorious delight (he had done that, he thought fiercely). “For always knowing exactly what I want before I do.”

“You’re…” he trailed off, because he had become distracted by the bright and welcome jade of her eyes. “You’re welcome.”

All it would take was moving himself closer just an inch. He was suddenly conscious of his hand on the side of her hip, of his desire to move it further around until it brushed her spine, to use it to tug her to him, bridging the final distance between them. Her lips looked soft and pliant, a rosy pink that had spent their lives shaping around his favourite words in the entire world, because everything she said was a gift, and he loved her, God, he loved her, he loved her so much.

The jagged beat of Only You was rattling from the jukebox in the corner, and Killian Jones wanted to kiss Emma Swan more than he had ever wanted anything.

He could feel her unsteady breathing, rising and falling against his chest, and he was sure her pulse would be racing to match his – but fear gripped him. What if she didn’t want this? What if it scared her as much as it bloody terrified him? If he leaned forward and she didn’t meet him halfway he didn’t think he could bear it. He hesitated

He hesitated –

He always hesitated when it was important –

It makes you relive all your worst moments.

Killian had sailed past this moment more times than he could count, he didn’t need a ghost to remind him of all the roads not taken. For the last five years, Only You had been the song he had almost kissed Emma Swan too, days before he had lost her forever. In that moment, he couldn’t think of anything worse than watching himself, feeling himself not doing it over and over for eternity when that had been his only chance.

That’s what it feeds on. That hoping. The more you fight it, the more you want something else to happen when it never could, the stronger it gets.

Is this what Emma had done, for five years? Replay over and over the worst possible pockets of time it could think to show her, wishing ardently for something to be different, praying desperately for some hope of rescue. He thought back to the tape recorder – she had sounded lost, confused. Defeated. Trapped in an unending limbo of nothing ever changing.

It had to stop today.

How do we stop the demon?

Listen.

Emma’s eyes flickered to his lips, he felt her swaying dangerously forward. The air smelt of burnt toast, vanilla sponge and anticipation, and Killian felt untouchable.

Only You trickled out from the jukebox in the corner.

“‘Looking from a window above, it’s like a story of love… Can you hear me?’”

Killian froze.

That song had been following him around for days.

Piss off, ghost.

A taunt, he had thought. A wretched reminder of everything he had almost had. But what if it wasn’t?

I’ve already told you. God, don’t you ever listen?

The tape recorder was proof, Emma had the ability to bleed through the machinations of the demon, to touch her surroundings cautiously, gently, from inside her void of almosts and never-have-beens, and she had been hurling this moment into his path ever since he returned to town.

Maybe something in it had to change.

But if you fight it, Killian thought furiously, that only makes the demon stronger. So what was he supposed to do?

Emma’s arms tightened almost imperceptibly around his neck.

In the space of a steadying breath, he allowed himself another long look at her. Pretty, dainty eyelashes, but fierce and warm eyes of jade, capable of spitting fire and turning his insides into something weak and wanting. Her lips were parted and daring him closer, and as he entertained the thought of leaning in his heart hammered against his ribcage. God, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her more than anything.

The future was only sky. They had all the time in the world.

So maybe he didn’t fight it.

He didn’t want to, not anymore. He was so, so tired of fighting his way through life, Mary Margaret had lauded him over his stamina but that’s not what it was, not really, he just couldn’t remember what life had been like before he’d needed to throw up his fists. So he decided he was done with all that. If giving up meant he could live in the sensation of her breath on his lips, of their almost and their never-have-been, in that half a second before they decided no, then he would happily give up on life outside of this oblivion.

“‘All I needed was the love you gave…’”

Because almost kissing Emma, he decided, was so much better than living in a world where he hadn’t done it.

If you have to have someone, he thought, have me.

It was like waking up, when you didn’t know how long you had been asleep for. Suddenly mobility was possible, and he could feel his own chest rising and falling unevenly, aware of his own breath in a way that made it feel like he hadn’t been breathing before. Once he realised with awe that he could move it, he lifted a trembling hand up to brush a strand of hair behind her ear, cupping her face with the other. As his pulse raced, he just wanted to be sure that she was real.

“Emma,” Killian said, and his voice sounded far away. His thumbs brushed across the shells of her cheeks. “I’d very much like to kiss you now.”

Emma grinned, and he realised she was crying.

“You fucking better.”

Instantly, Killian surged forward.

It was everything he had hoped it would be. Emma was warm, soft, eager, and mimicking the same little sighs he could hear escaping through his own lips – kissing Emma was like kissing air. It was tightness in the top of his stomach; it was saturated mornings under the oaks; it was winter at the door, brushing its feet on the mat; it was the final ten seconds before the whistle blew in a championship game when all that was left was that startling, adrenaline-pumping hope. Kissing Emma was a race that he had been training his entire life for.

Everything was noise.

Wind surged, static hummed, someone screamed but still Killian resisted; he was determined to inhabit this moment, this second, if this was the rest of his life then he didn’t intend to stray too far. If it was just the space of a single exhale then he would breathe out, and he would breathe out, and he would learn to go without oxygen because as far as he was concerned, there was no other possible choice he could make. He heard someone calling his name. A hand scrambled at the hem of his jacket. Something fizzled like a power line coming loose and he could hear the sound of glass shattering –

Emma pulled away.

He could still feel her hands in his hair, though. That had to be something. He kept his eyes tightly shut.

He was cold, and he could smell the forest. Dry leaves crunched underneath a boot. He tasted only velvet, mist, and Emma.

“Killian,” she said softly.

Killian shook his head. He didn’t want the dream to end.

“Killian, you can open your eyes.”

Reluctantly, he did as he was bid. He was standing in the middle of a familiar patch of forest, his hands tracing the edge of Emma’s face – because she was here, and she was solid, and there wasn’t a lot else he cared about other than that – it had to be the middle of the night, as the sky overhead was a black curtain pulled taut, specks of light barely visible scattered across it. The earth looked black beneath his boots but he knew from the crackle underfoot that in daylight it would be a watercolour pad of New England autumn, but that didn’t make his being there any less disorienting.

“Where did – how did we get out here?”

Was that – Regina?

“Oh, oh – Emma!”

Killian felt the wind knocked out of him as someone came crashing into the side of he and Emma, throwing their arms around them – David? – and again they swayed dangerously, but this time someone was crushing him from behind and someone was crying and eventually his knees buckled and they were all tumbling down onto the forest floor. It was haphazard and dizzying, but he recognised their hearts just as clearly as his own; all relief, all love, all fierce, fierce joy.

Emma was clinging to David while he sobbed into her shoulder, and Mary Margaret was holding on tightly from behind and speaking in such a floundering, nonsensical babble that nobody had any idea what she was saying. Killian was dazed, and more than a little confused, but blisteringly happy. He had no idea what had just happened, but since this was the outcome he had been praying for, he chose not to dwell on it.

Regina clapped a hand onto his shoulder, and he spotted her wiping something from the corner of her eye that looked suspiciously like emotion.

“It’s over.”

-/-

Brooke House was gone.

That was what they had managed to surmise after they had finally been able to disentangle from each other. It wasn’t that they had been transported to some other location, it was that the house itself had vanished around them, leaving them sprawled in the dirt feeling more than a little shaken and more than a little relieved. The ritual had worked, they had banished the demon, and the only evidence it had ever been there at all was in their story shared, their hard-won memories, and a curving, silver dagger stabbed blade first into the earth. A close inspection revealed its edge to be flat and smooth. No names. Just a dagger. They left it there, buried in the soil. They were finished with it now.

Killian had tried more than once to explain what had happened after he’d hurtled into the storm after Emma, not just to the others but to himself – but Emma had laced their fingers together and she looked so paralyzingly pained and sweet and sad that he had stopped trying. Some things were easier not to explain.

She hadn’t spoken much on the way back, just tucked herself tiredly into Killian’s side and dropped her head against his shoulder. She was wearing the same outfit she had disappeared in, which made her look oddly like something stitched together from different times – she was a woman now, wearing the old, worn, coat and boots of a girl. David had attached himself to her other side, putting a strong arm around her shoulders and occasionally patting her hair, murmuring tender reassurances and kissing her forehead.

Killian knew how he felt. He thought he might have a panic attack if he had to let go of her hand.

Somehow, they had done it. The demon was gone and so was Brooke House, and Emma had been given back to them.

She had been amazed to discover she had been gone for five years.

“I’ll go to the sheriff station first thing,” Emma said, nodding her head like it would settle everything. “Clear your names.”

Regina looked unconvinced. “I’m not sure that’ll do it.” The fact that David had punched Humbert in the jaw was just now coming back to them, and Killian couldn’t help but agree.

“Why not?” Emma argued hotly. Then she pointed at herself. “Missing girl. No longer missing. Case closed, right?”

Killian squeezed her hand. “We don’t have to settle anything now.”

For now she was here, and it was enough.

As they turned onto Main Street he felt Emma begin to tremble, her shoulders shaking underneath David’s arm. Whether it was fear or relief or anticipation or a combination of all three, Killian couldn’t tell, but after he had asked her she reluctantly revealed that where she really wanted to go was to the Nolan house; to Ruth.

David turned away to hide a fresh wave of overwhelmed, happy tears, but Emma’s attention was fixed on Killian.

She rounded so she was in front of him, her free hand fisted into the lapel of his jacket.

“I want to see Ruth,” she said, looking agitated, “but I –”

She cut herself off, stared fixedly into his eyes. Willed him to understand.

I don’t want to be away from you.

Something warm bloomed in his chest.

“I’m staying at Granny’s,” he offered with a smile. “You could – after. If you want.”

I love you I love you I love you I love

“No, he’s not,” Regina cut in. “He’s staying with me.” When they all turned to look at her she bristled, adding lamely: “I’ll… make lasagne.”

Emma laughed and it was such a beautiful sound. “Yeah,” she said softly. “I want.”

By the time dawn had kissed the sky with streaks of pink and orange, that offer had become too tempting for any of them to resist. Regina and Killian had immediately decided sleep was impossible and had started depleting her stores of homemade cider to try and relax their nerves and carry them until morning. They talked about nothing at all, and although Killian could tell Regina was desperate to ask about what they had done, what he might have seen, itching for a chance to make a comparison to her book of spells, Killian did not give her the opportunity to do so. There would be time for all of that.

An hour or so in, Mary Margaret had arrived at the door. Wordlessly, she had proffered a bottle of Jose Cuervo, and they had invited her inside.

The sky was just beginning to brighten when David and Emma returned, which was how they now found themselves laid out on the floor of Regina’s sitting room, gorged on the perfect lasagne and mellowed by fatigue and Jose, watching the sun come up through the tall, French windows.

Emma was curled in Killian’s lap, her legs slung across his and her head resting against his chest, listening to the steady gallop of his heart. He very much wanted to kiss her again – hell, he wasn’t even sure he had kissed her the first time. But there would be time for all of that, too.

Everything was bathed in golden light. Regina was dozing on a sofa, David and Mary Margaret were talking earnestly in hushed, gentle voices, their foreheads touching. Killian was struck by something so right, so definite, that he wasn’t sure anything he had experienced since Emma had disappeared had been real. This was so clearly how everything was supposed to be that it was inconceivable to imagine it had been any other way.

“Thank you,” Emma murmured against his chest. She lifted her head up so their eyes met. They were a soft storm of emerald, rimmed with a tired scarlet edge along her eyelashes. “For not giving up.”

I love you, her fingers curled into the worn leather of his jacket, danced a pattern across his chest. Tapped a beat to match his aching heart. He could hear her. I love you.  

“How could I?” he replied. “You know where Archie hides the good snacks.”

She kissed him in the dusty light of morning, and it chased the last of his ghosts away, out into the dawn.

-/-

A/N: if you made it this far - THANK YOU! I am honestly so grateful for all of the support I received for this fic, it was my first try at writing something kinda horror/spooky and I’m really proud of how it came out. I’ve honestly been blown away by some of the comments I’ve got, I am SO happy, you guys are so awesome and I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed it so far - it’s been a pleasure to make your hearts race and keep you up at night! 

I’ll be posting a short epilogue on Wednesday, so keep an eye out for that! for now, turrah, and thank you so much! <3

[tablefourtwo]

just another player in your drinking games (r.t)

summary based on the song drinking games by silver sphere. she hated how easily richie could act like he didn’t care, she hated how he discarded all his feelings once he was sober again, she hated how she was just another player in his drinking games.

 warnings drinking, swearing

richie tozier was on her bed, buried in her blankets at three in the morning. if it was any other day, this would've made (Y/N)’s heart flutter, but she didn't have time to acknowledge her heart as she had to rush to the boys side every minute, trying to mend his broken heart. 

could it even be called a broken heart? jesus, they dated for what? two months? (Y/N) was positive that she would rather be anywhere else right now. obviously, she would never say this to his face. she couldn't help but feel anger rise in her body. she's been chasing the curly headed boy for literal years now and he settles for ashley-fuckin-martin?

she shuts her eyes for a moment, trying to cool down before having to comfort richie again. in his defence, at least he wasn't throwing a fit anymore, (Y/N) would be in deep shit if he woke her parents up.

(Y/N) stopped listening to what the boy was saying but through the words she managed to string together, most of them being curses, she knew she had to say something. “you know what?” she started, turning to lock eyes with tozier. cutting him off when he was going off about how he did something wrong. 

“fuck ashley, you didn't do shit, you don’t deserve this.” she hissed, “don’t beat yourself up over this. you- you don’t deserve this.” (Y/N) sighed, watching as richie’s tears slowly decreased.

“this sucks, really fucking bad, but you make it alright.” richie smiled softly, speaking in a voice just above a whisper. it was meant to be a friendly thank you, he would've done the same to eds or stanley. thats what (Y/N) told herself, but as he looked up at her, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose, she found it hard to think of a smart remark to make like she usually did.

“yeah, don’t worry about it, rich.” (Y/N) laughed, hoping that he wouldn't notice how her heart was beating a million miles a minute. 

fuck, she needed to stop getting attached to every little thing he says.

when (Y/N) offered to do anything to make richie feel better, she didn't think that attending a party was anything close to what he would suggest, this was alright though, she told herself. 

(Y/N) smiled, tozier was right. she watched as he laughed with his friends, red plastic cup in hand, to her, he was literally glowing. like he wasn’t just crying in her arms. why did she chase after him? why did she torture herself like this? every time she looked at him she was reminded of what she couldn't have. why did she waste so much time when she knew he wouldn't be hers?

as people started filling out of the house, (Y/N) had started to sober up. richie hadn't talked to her the whole party - except for their game of beer pong - so she didn't really have a reason to stay, but what else was there to do in derry?

“(Y/N)?” richie slurred, coughing into his sleeve, squinting behind his glasses. (Y/N) beamed as the boy slowly walked up to her. “what’re you still doing here?” he swallowed. 

“i was actually just talking to connor, you know, the one from bio? he said i have pretty eyes.” (Y/N) giggled, eyebrows raised. richie took a second to process what she had just said before contouring his face into one of disgust. “connor? ugh.” richie exclaimed, his tongue sticking out of his mouth as he pretended to gag.

(Y/N) thought it would be easier to just play along, laughing before an awkward silence washed over the both of them. “walk me home?” richie shrugged, “sure.” (Y/N) didn't miss how he carelessly agreed, how if there was a better option, she’d be thrown aside. he didn't care if she got home safe. no, of course he cared, as a friend.

(Y/N) had to slow down her usual fast paced steps to keep up with richie’s slow treading. sure, richie was drunk, but it didn't take a genius to realise that (Y/N) was staring at him. he felt as if she was burning holes into the side of his face. 

it wasn't like she could help it. once every few minutes, she’d find herself imposing all her attention onto richie. how the dim moonlight illuminated his face, how she had to dig her nails into her palms to keep herself from combing her fingers through his soft looking curls.

every time (Y/N) turned to look at richie, she hoped that he would look back at her. he never did. she had to hide her growing frown as the pair approached her house. 

(Y/N) stood on her porch so she was closer to eye level with richie now. she was thankful that he thought she was drunk so that she didn’t have to hide her blush like she usually did. 

“thanks again for tonight, (Y/N/N),” richie smiled, hiccuping. “and yesterday.” he mumbled. “it’s cool, just don’t almost punch my wall down again next time you come over.” she joked. 

the two continued to stare at each other for a while, richie, probably drunk out of his mind and not knowing what was going on–– but (Y/N)’s gaze was out of pure admiration. love.

when would be a better time to do this? kiss the boy, (Y/N)! the worse thing that could happen is he doesn't remember it. this is it, this is the only chance you’re gonna get. 

(Y/N)’s thoughts ran wild so to ease them she shut her eyes and leaned in. richie’s eyebrows knotted together and he didn't shut his eyes, when (Y/N) realised that she instantly pulled away. 

“we’re drunk.” he murmurs, very much sober now, trying to blink himself awake.

“yeah, yeah, no, duh.” (Y/N) starts blinking rapidly, tears quickly forming in her eyes.

richie nodded hesitantly, “(Y/N), are you alright?” he frowns, a string of curse words leaving his mouth as tears start running down her face.

“peachy, tozier. really, my parents are gonna kill me if they catch us out here, i’m gonna go.” (Y/N) laughs through the tears.

“once we’re sober, we should just— forget!” (Y/N) hears richie before opening the door to her house. it was probably meant to sound comforting and she lets out a genuine laugh at that.

(Y/N) hadn’t talked to richie in a week, this had been the longest the pair had gone without seeing each other so when her home phone rang she quickly picked up, instantly forgetting about the events that had occurred just a few days ago.

“(Y/N).” richie’s bright voice sounded in her ears.

“rich.” she smiled sadly, fiddling with the phone chord in her fingers.

“look (Y/N/N). i have to make this quick but- about what happened-” he stuttered.

“don’t worry about that, it was a mistake, i was- super drunk.” (Y/N) lied, she heard a sigh of relief.

“thank fuck, (Y/N). i was so scared that it would screw up our friendship.”

(Y/N) smiled, but she thought that if richie focused hard enough, he would be able to hear (Y/N)’s heart breaking through the phone.

“yeah.”

“i care but- it was a mistake.” richie laughed. (Y/N) hummed in response as she shut her eyes. tears flowing down her face now.

“Uh- ashley apologised and, and it was really real you know? it felt sincere and shit.”

(Y/N) lowered the phone from her face before letting out a laugh. she raised the phone back to her face and had to purse her lips so that he wouldn’t hear her sobs. “that’s good, Rich.”

“okay. well, i gotta go but hang soon, alright? and i can’t tell you about how happy i am that we’re still cool. you’re the best, (Y/N/N).”