#or did we already suspect something was afoot

[magicalmutants]

Every time my boss calls me “kiddo” my insides twist in this very complicated way. Sometimes with an older man you really gotta ask do I want you or do I want you to hug me and tell me you’re proud of me

[markantonys]

something i just thought of in the "will siuan live or die in the coup" speculation: moiraine's letter that sets up her finnland rescue! this has pushed me onto the side of siuan will live, for the reasons below.

assumptions about the way the show will do things + conclusions i can draw from these assumptions:

like in the books, moiraine will not really die but will be trapped in finnland and need to be rescued by a team of people including mat (evidence: mat has gotten some Missing Eye foreshadowing in the show already)

like in the books, moiraine will give rand a letter before she "dies", which she instructs him to give to a member of the future rescue team.

the future rescue team will consist of 3 people, like in the books: 1) mat, 2) thom (book canon choice, could rescue moiraine platonically in the show) or siuan (sub in as moiraine's show love interest for a romantic rescue), and 3) noal (book canon choice) or birgitte (imo much better option for the "party member with previous experience with the tower of ghenjei due to their colorful past, who sacrifices themselves during the rescue and comes back as a hero of the horn in the last battle" slot)

like in the books, the letter will say "i'm still alive but you can't tell anyone else until and unless [x specific circumstance is met], because i saw the future and things must happen in a certain order to have a chance of success"

it would be a bad idea to give the letter to mat because if he opened it and it said "hi mat, it's moiraine, i'm actually alive but you can't tell anyone yet" he would tell everyone immediately, or even if he did manage to keep it to himself, he would constantly be in a noticeable tizzy about it for the rest of the show; therefore, the letter should go to a rescue team member who would be capable of sitting on the information and acting outwardly serene about the letters' contents until the time is right.

particularly key assumption: the audience (at least the portion who don't know book spoilers) needs to genuinely think moiraine is dead or at least feel genuinely uncertain about it, because rand's and lan's and all the characters' grief for her would be cheapened if we feel immediately certain she isn't really dead. lan struggling with the loss is a huge emotional arc for him, and rand carries her "death" as a huge burden of guilt for the rest of the series; these emotional truths for the characters would be severely undercut for the audience if we immediately know more than they do and go into s4 watching them grieve for someone we're already certain isn't actually dead, and the story would suffer for it.

therefore, moiraine giving rand a letter to give to someone else needs to seem innocuous enough that neither the audience nor rand suspects anything fishy is afoot.

therefore, siuan makes the most sense as the letter recipient because both rand and the audience know that moiraine loves siuan, so we would assume this letter is nothing more than a goodbye note to her love and we would not immediately suspect that there might be more to it. (particularly if moiraine also gives letters to lan and/or rand that ARE just goodbye letters? i think that's what happens in the book, but i don't remember. anyway, if moiraine's like "here's one letter for my wife, one letter for my warder, and one letter for my son" that truly would seem like she's just saying goodbye to her 3 closest loved ones.)

by contrast, in showverse, moiraine doesn't know thom or know that rand knows him, and so it would deeply startle both rand and the audience for her to suddenly give rand a letter to give to thom, and this would make us suspicious. same for the third rescue team member, whether it be noal or birgitte or a secret other option. heck, even mat would be a suspicious choice for moiraine to send a letter to on the eve of her death, since they are not notably close right now. i would argue that the only people show!moiraine could send a Death's Eve letter to that wouldn't strike us as odd are siuan or lan or rand, and THE letter can't go to lan or rand because their emotional arcs depend on not knowing moiraine is alive (plus they can't be rescue team members since they're busy with other plot obligations at that time).

ooooh, this way we could even get a little reversal of that book moment when they think siuan is dead and egwene's like "won't you even cry for her, moiraine? or are you completely heartless?" but this time with egwene saying that to siuan about moiraine, and siuan isn't crying because she knows moiraine might have a chance of survival!

as a side note, just thinking about thom vs. siuan as the rescue team member, with the way the show has set stuff up, it of course makes a lot more narrative and emotional sense for it to be siuan. if thom was the one, that would be a narrative choice made for *mat* and the emotional impact the rescue sequence has on him, since thom is his buddy so yeah sure makes sense for thom to be by his side for this mission, but it would have no effect on moiraine since she's never met thom in showverse. but if siuan is the one, that has an emotional impact on both moiraine AND mat, because siuan is moiraine's lover and because siuan and mat will become acquainted in the tower this season and she'll give him her book speech about heroes thinking they're only doing what they need to do (which could circle back around in an emotional way later when siuan sees mat risk his life and give up his eye to save moiraine and then claim he was only doing what he needed to do :')). likewise, the audience would be much more moved by siuan helping rescue moiraine than thom helping rescue her.

[limitlesses]

❝ Happy birthday, Gojo-san. ❞

If it seems like Nanami has shown up empty-handed...it's because he did.

❝ Who the hell knows what to get the guy who has everything, or can at least afford what he doesn't? ❞ he explains before Satoru can ask, but anticipating the moue of disappointment that would sink onto the other man's half-veiled features, Nanami holds up a hand to once again interrupt Satoru from so much as processing anything.

❝ I have no idea why, but you're always pestering me to hang out with you. Well, I've cleared my schedule for the day; if there's anything you want to do, let me know. Otherwise, I offer to cover one of your shifts before the holidays ──── ❞

In the midst of birthday negotiations, Nanami's phone starts popping off with a deluge of chiming sounds. The lines on the Sorcerer's face deepen with exasperation; who is messaging him so much all of a sudden?? Why???

❝ Excuse me, Gojo-san, ❞ he sighs, slipping his phone from his pocket, half expecting to see some kind of distressed ranting from one of his co-workers, and instead...he raises a brow, confused. When the heck was he dragged into a group chat with Satoru's students? Oh. Apparently they are terrorizing him into letting them use his apartment to host a surprise birthday dinner for Gojo-sensei. Okay.

Nanami wouldn't be surprised if Satoru already suspected that some scheme was afoot, or if Mr. Six Eyes caught wind of the three vs. one conversation on the blonde's phone, which he pockets after shooting off a single-word reply. ❝ ...Also, come to my apartment tonight at six. ❞ Well, if nothing else, that certainly looked suspicious!

𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐃 𝐍𝐎 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 -- 𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐅𝐄𝐖, 𝐈𝐅 𝐀𝐍𝐘, 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐂𝐎𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍 𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐎𝐃𝐀𝐘. Nanami was, of course, not among those who remained oblivious -- but still, he didn't expect this... albeit the guy still discussed his exchange of an opened schedule or his time taking missions as some sort of business offer, true to his roots. Satoru couldn't help but smile at the other's classic antics of making... everything transactional, almost.

❝ Ah, Nanami, you don't ha-- ❞ Pings on his phone interrupted Satoru's immediate train of thought; I want you to want to hang out with me, this is a pointless gesture unless you actually want to --

Better if that went unspoken, in retrospect, because then it'd bare his heart a little too much to the yearning that nestled itself deep down ---- loneliness worsening that sickness, to be wanted, to be loved... so he didn't scoff or huff over the phone taking the spotlight, blindfold nested neatly in place disallowing the prying peer of his too-keen eyes. He could, as always, still see the flare of power that encompassed Nanami, a neat and orderly flame that was firm, steady, measured... it lapped around the shape of his soul, the essence of his being. There were no words for the colors that fluxed, that did not exist in name or concept, iridescent.

Satoru tilted his head to one side, though, at his colleague's expression -- an addition of mild confusion amongst its diluted annoyance, relent on its heels. That confusion transferred itself over onto Satoru's own curious expression ---- until he smiled, a flirt at the tip of his tongue.

❝ Ahhhh, that's ominous Nana~min... ~ are you sure you're not plotting my murder or something? But oh-kay, I'll bite. Six, you said? That leaves us wiiiiith... ❞ a hand delved into his pocket for his own phone, ignoring the two hundred and eight new unread messages that flared up in a little red bubble, banner notifications turned off for some solace... 99.99% of them were queries for his services, his strength.

❝ -- over eight hours of hang-out time ! Let's go play games or something, like the old days, yeah? Oh, or maybe we could go to a theme park, or the movies, or the zoo ---- regardless, I definitely want to stop by this new Cookie Time bakery that just opened up... their double-chocolate cookie dough ice cream sounds so good! ❞

[tonydaddingham]

okay so... we do agree that the most sense for the first scene of season 3 is to show in some way the fall, right? we saw the before, we saw the after (as in eden), we now need to know why there was this schism in the first place

and so, my question is, since i've just finished rewatching the job episode - what do you think, in gomens' universe, is the point of that schism? why did the fall happen? why was there a Great War? who started the war, was the war just between the different angels? who actually cast the losing side away?

the whole bit with "an angel/demon who goes along with Heaven/Hell as far as he can" really made me think about this all. plus, i personally would find it very satisfying to finally find out at least a little bit of context of why this separation happened in the first place for the moment (i hope) when the whole system is finally broken down and dismantled

hey lovely!!!✨ i do think it will open with some reference to the fall (as you said, imo it makes the most narrative, poetic, and thematic sense!!!), but i also feel like a lot of the show's answers are going to be within the fall, so idk if we'll see all of it in the beginning cold open, or if some will be continued towards the end of the series?

as for the fall questions, wowzers, i'll do my best to answer what i potentially think could factor in here, although they may not answer your qs outright!!!✨ and probably link to some other specs/metas that ive had jumbling around!!!

i think aziraphale knew or suspected something about why it would be risky to question god; maybe not that the fall was already bandied about as a concept, but maybe that there were Things Afoot that made him think that going against her will and plan could be bad news

i think that god is ultimately a very neutral, very amoral party. i don't think she is good or bad, right or wrong, well-meaning or malicious; she just is. i even possibly think that the ineffable plan, if there is even such a thing like she says in s1, is that she has no plan at all. everything is up to everyone else. (don't really have a singular meta on this, but perhaps a bit of this and that)

metatron is the Big Bad. dunno why, necessarily (ie what are his motivations other than Power?), but i think when god goes AWOL somewhere between job (or maybe actually after golgotha?) and present day, he fills the void and acts like he is still the voice of god, that he is still receiving orders. (again, no singular meta on this, and ive kinda got it sprinkled across many posts tbh!!!)

so with those kind of things in mind, here are my possible thoughts (not committing to any singular one) on the fall and the schism you've mentioned.

the fall was not necessarily meant to be what it turned out to be. i think ultimately angels came to god asking questions, or questioning her and her Ineffability, or the plan, whatever.

god wanted all of her creation to have free will. if that free will was to break away from heaven and from her, and act in their own interest, under their own orders, by their own conscience, i don't think she ever had an issue with this. even if - in the presumed case of lucifer - the intention was to break away as a direct challenge to god, to have the same power as god, i similarly don't think she wanted to stop this. that is literally free will. so she does nothing to stop whatever happens when they choose to break away.

metatron however has other ideas; heaven is good, and is correct, and is right. anyone who even questions it, even if out of love and devotion to god, those who just want to understand, were forfeit. god has removed herself from the picture, not even there at the (literal? figurative?) trial, so metatron acts as judge, jury, and executioner. in some cases, i think there were angels who were pushed, not fallen.

we know there was a war, but i think it was out of the angels that remained 'on heaven's side' being told lies about their fellow angels - told that these defectors were actively working against god to jeopardise her creations and her plans. that heaven will fall if they are not cast out. conflict ensues - from their perspective - to protect the sanctity of heaven.

then, possibly, i think a memory wipe kinda thing did happen, but specifically on the events of the fall. i do also wonder if this is where the book of life comes into play, but not overly confident (on any of this, really)

and ultimately i think the whole concept of true free will might have been god's plan - if you can call Nothing a plan - all along? that she completely steps back, and let's heaven and humanity kinda work it out for themselves.

like, this is the kinda stuff that i hope they reveal later on s3; crowley falling with lucifer, and possibly meeting aziraphale again etc. would, imo, be great for the ep1 cold open, but the actual events of the fall i think needs to be the belter that comes out in maybe ep5 or 6. obviously i haven't gone into where i think crowley and aziraphale may slot within all of this, but most things can be found in my masterpost anyway, or indeed happy to summarise for anyone who wants it!!!✨

[aewinning]

Potential spoilers for everything in Genshin up to this point including promotional materials. Throwing out some crack predictions for things that might happen in 5.4.

Prediction: Traveler getting an ancient name at least partially adds them to Teyvat's leyline system, revoking at least a part of their Descender status and causing Issues(tm) in the future.

Reasoning: the lines at the end of the 5.4 trailer talking about how someone has no clue about the value of a descender. Natlan's Night Kingdom is a replacement for the connection to the leylines that most nations have but 'belonging' to that network may still be similar enough to leylines+Irminsul to thwart the ability to surpass and change fate. If that happens, Mavuika story quest 2 might involve us trying to deliberately discard our ancient name to thwart the fuckup.

Tangential thought: something almost certainly has to happen to Natlan's leylines that will allow people from Natlan to leave. I don't think Hoyo would lock the Natlanese out of future international events.

-

Prediction: Capitano becomes the pyro archon briefly, then sacrifices himself to fulfill the pyro archons' debt to/contract with Ronova and save Mavuika's life as well as allowing himself to finally die after 500 years. As a sign of respect for his sacrifice and assistance to Natlan, Mavuika gives Snezhnaya the gnosis.

Reasoning: somebody's gotta die, and this particular arrangement of events ticks boxes for a heroic and satisfying death that tugs at heartstrings, allows Mavuika to be around for quests and events, and gives a reason for the gnosis to make it to Snezhnaya, because we all know it's gonna. Also allows Capitano a cathartic "fuck you" to Ronova, which I thoroughly think he deserves even if I would love for him to be playable. I'm always ride or die for a homie that flips the bird to Celestia.

-

Prediction: Mavuika's sister Hine is alive somehow and will become the new Lord of the Night, likely with Istaroth's help.

Reasoning: This one is out there, but several things make me suspect this. They are focusing on Mavuika and Hine's relationship a lot in the promo materials including Hine saying "I'll come find you one day! I know I can't live that long, but there has to be a way for us to meet again one day!" as the screen shatters into mirrorlike fragments similar to the way it did as we traveled through time and consciousness to reach the fight between Ei and the Shogun in Ei's second story quest. This quest mentioned Istaroth, Shade of Time, for the first time in mainline content. And we already have Shade involvement in the Natlan plot with Ronova in the picture, so it's not beyond belief to think that a second Shade could become relevant to the main story at this point.

Citlali also mentioned not being able to find information on Hine, which could mean nothing beyond 'she led a quiet life' but put me in mind of wiping someone from Irminsul (which is not what I think happened here exactly, but it's enough to make me think shenanigans are afoot).

In Māori legend, Mahuika has a sister named Hine(-nui-te-pō) who is a goddess associated with night and death that receives spirits when they die. Night, death, a home for spirits - that's the Night Kingdom in a nutshell, yeah? And the Lord of the Night Yohualtecuhtin is dying (and may thus need to be replaced).

So if we put all of these threads together, Hoyo may have Hine be in cahoots with Istaroth to allow her to travel into the future to be with Mavuika again, where she somehow ends up replacing the Lord of the Night. One sister the goddess of fire and the other the goddess of the underworld, as in the legend.

(It's not a one-to-one recreation of the story by any means - in the legend Hine-nui-te-pō is the older sister, and there are aspects of Hine-nui-te-pō's story that I don't think Hoyo would include in Genshin. But there's enough connective tissue for me to think that some of it might parallel.)

Anyways that one is almost fully a crack theory, but I at least think we're gonna see Hine somehow, if only to smack us in the feels.

[fantasticalleigh]

I feel the exact same way about the sound mixing on The Omen, had to watch with my hand on the volume button. But I think you might be misinterpreting the whole thing with his wife. One of the themes of the movie is that the Antichrist is always gonna win. You see that through the whole movie, no matter what anybody does, he just marches inexorably on, until he ends up in the White House. No matter what Gregory Peck did, his wife was going to die, because that was what was needed in for the plan to progress. If he had gone to get her himself, she still would have died. The devil makes a way.

Gregory Peck is a silver fox, indeed. But I also admire hot young David Warner before he got older and played villains almost exclusively. Did you ever see Time After Time? If not, can totally recommend, if only for his perfect portrayal of Jack the Ripper.

They did do a remake of The Omen in 2006 but it's awful, IMHO. Don't waste your time.

Yeah, that version of The Haunting of Hill House sucks. It's the black-and-white 1963 version or nothing for me. I love the book to pieces.

For The Terror, if you haven't already, read the book, it's much better, though the series is okay and worth watching.

Cheers, and I hope you enjoy more good spooky movies before we reach Halloween.

Thanks!! Oh absolutely! I understood that from the start. It just seemed almost flippant of him to, even though he cared enough to call and set up an escape for her, to let her do it alone when by that point he should have known to at least suspect there'd be fuckery afoot, enough to warrant him going home to make sure she'd navigate it safely, especially considering she'd already had a near fatal accident already. You're right that she still would have died, though. The sound issue was SO annoying it kept taking me out of it entirely, it was so bad. I have pretty sensitive hearing so when I have to constantly adjust volume like that I get cranky, and that led to me venting, haha.

David Warner wasn't on my radar before this but I just looked him up and damn, what hasn't he been in? Also, can we talk about how Final Destination his and the Father's deaths were with that metal pole and the sheet of glass?? I'll look into TIme after Time, and the B&W Hill House, thanks for the rec!

I feel like I might have watched the 2006 version of the Omen, or at least part of it. There's a specific scene that scared me (and admittedly I may be misremembering and this could be from something else) but I recall there was like a kid's party and some (or one?) kids are harassing a little boy who doesn't react but just stares at them, and later that kid who was bullying him falls face down and makes this really creepy croaking noise for a while and when they turn him over he's a skeleton, or just dead, and the movie ends. Is this from that movie or am I totally off base?

Watching The Terror definitely piqued my interest in the book! I found it online and plan to get into it...at some point.

Hope you're enjoying the spooky season too :D

[blythechadwell]

Upon arriving at the gate, Blythe was both puzzled and excited. Clearly there was something afoot, and it smelled like an adventure. Something she hadn't been on in too long. Well, if you could count an afternoon out an adventure, which to the blonde, she did. "So suspect gate, and into the thicket? Miles, you're one surprise after another. Just remember, if we do end up in jail, you're with me. We don't talk." She shot him a wink before following closely behind, her hand briefly grazing his shoulder until the path was wide enough for her to return to his side. "Was this a friend of yours?" She asked, glancing around as they continued down the path. "Because I am liking this already. The secret garden vibes are heavy, so if you're trying to impress, you're right on the..." Her words fell off as they came to the glass building, her eyes shifting from that to Miles, and back again. Without a word, she took a few steps towards the building, her eyes unable to stop from jumping all over the place. It seemed peaceful, untouched by the outside world. Safe. She beamed, and nodded towards the door. "There are very few times you can stun me silent, but Miles, not only is this beyond thoughtful, but it's quite literally perfect, and we've not been inside yet. So please, after you, or I may dash inside and ruin it." Her hands rested at her side as she resisted the urge to clap. "It's beautiful, ours are to show, these gardens are to enjoy. I need the story, so please share it."

"Wha- no. I wouldn't take you s-somewhere dangerous. I just didn't think you would want to risk getting your stuff dirty. I heard Bunny say how much she spent on her shoes once and- I don't know. It didn't seem worth it when this m-might not even be something you think is that cool." Miles shook his head, wiggling the gate's handle a few times before it finally gave and swung open to reveal a path that was obviously overgrown. "It's not breaking and entering, I promise. I know the guy who lives here. Or at least he used to before he- well I'm not really sure what happened but n-no one else ever moved in so it's fine. We're not actually going in the house anyways." Everything about his prior mentor was still a mystery, but Miles was sure he wouldn't mind what he was doing. At least he wouldn't as long as he stayed outside and avoided sharing too many of Willy's personal details. Despite his absence Miles still felt a strong sense of loyalty to the man, and he felt he owed him at least that much. But when he'd heard about Blythe's mission to amp up her garden there was only one place that had come to mind, and with their new friendship (if it could be called that much) he was eager to show it to her. "It's fine. That's the one thing I have enough of. I think it's one of the only perks of working outside all the time." He shook his head, leading her down the overgrown path until he came to a stop in front of the small glass building with the door propped open. "It isn't as pretty as yours but it was. Once. And it still is in it's own way. I thought it might be something different for your paintings."

[oh-my-damn]

Not ginger STILL thinking you talked shit first about her 🤣

Well, technically I did, I guess

After I was initially unfollowed and we had the sense something was up (I got some anons one day that were super lovely and the feel-good train was running, and suddenly I saw them kinda posting stuff that was very alike the sweet asks I was getting, however they were mocking it on dash instead. That initially gave me the sense something was afoot. I also suspect now that they might have been in my inbox on anon previously, but gotten blocked cus they were rude - remember those weird poo anons I had that were several people??? yeah, that was weird, and its also weird I haven't received any hate asks during this which makes me guess they might have been blocked in the past already - but of course, that was/is just speculation on my part and could just be paranoia, so I never said anything) I received the below ask and posted a reply to it: (this is the "hate" they are trying to say is the reason for the mass-unfollowing and blocking party (and subsequent believing I would doxx and harrass them, except this was posted after I was unfollowed by Maddy and Ginger)

Now, to any normal people, they would realize that I was talking about the trio in the first paragraph and myself in the second and third. But apparently this was still considered a "hate ask" for the two people mentioned by the anon.

Then a few days later someone was (allegedly) doxxed, and they told everyone to "look out for the big blogs who usually interact but don't now". They said this after blocking us, knowing we wouldn't even have seen what was happening. Which was clever of them, I guess, considering the narrative they wanted out there.

I have received a TON of asks from you guys. I won't be posting them all because I want to get back to normal. But I will keep them. And if they do any more fuckery, I will bring them out. It's nice to see I'm not the only one who has felt this way and it's nice to have people supporting me in standing up for myself.

I will continue to do so if anything more happens.

And I will know because you guys are amazing, and send me everything they say about me lol

But for now, I'm going to play the sims, and post naughty thots, and enjoy my vacation and go sightseeing and go to Disneyland. And meet Steve Rogers.

And they will stay blocked. lol

[milkywaydrinker]

Day 29. Halloween + Surprise

I wanted to write some more Cringe Crew. This took me way longer than I wanted it to. I had a lot of fun though, those three are so fun.

Her phone vibrated, and a faint notification echoed in the empty throne room. Zagan straightened her back and stirred up from her boredom induced comatose. She lazily swiped at the screen, one new notification from an unknown number. The text read:

«Heya! (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) It's Badyah! Ya know, Norma's best friend (⁠｡⁠･⁠ω⁠･⁠｡⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠♡ ? We're having a costume party next week!! I'd be soooooo cool if you could make it＼⁠(⁠^⁠o⁠^⁠)⁠／»

Just as she was about to write back, the second message came:

«PS. It's a surprise, so don't tell Norma UwU✿»

That fully captured her attention. It was a costume party. More importantly, it was a surprise costume party for Norma. Now that sounded like a great time. Another notification popped up shortly after the previous two:

«PS2. I would be really grateful if you could come to help us with the preparations (⁠ㆁ⁠ω⁠ㆁ⁠) Are you free next Friday (⁠人⁠ ⁠•͈⁠ᴗ⁠•͈⁠)?»

"Ooooooh! I'm so so glad you made it!" Badyah squealed, squishing her own face in between her palms. "We have so much work to do, and I still need to finish my costume. Wait, do you have a costume? Can I pick one out for you?" She talked so fast that Zagan was barely able to keep up. "Wow, hey, slow down." She stepped out of the elevator, already feeling lost. "What are we even doing? What's this all about?" "Oh, right." The girl scratched her chin, thinking of an answer. "So, our boss, her name's Barborah, let us throw a Halloween party in Dead End. Everyone's invited." She started to pace around the main hall as she talked. "Coincidentally, Norma's birthday is coming up too, and since we are allowed to organize a party in her favorite place in town we might as well combine the two!" She threw her hands in the air with a huge smile on her face. "That's… actually a really good idea," Zagan admitted, already feeling the infectious enthusiasm of the human in front of her. "I'm in. Let's do this thing!" "Yes! I knew I could count on you!" With absolutely no hesitation, she gave the demon a quick hug, before grabbing her by the hand and dragging her deeper into the house.

Human customs were odd, Zagan decided while floating in the air, close to the ceiling. Most of the decorations were already in place; the Jack-o'-lanterns were lit and the tables were filled with themed snacks. Other people milled around the Dead End, finishing their tasks before the start of the party. She affixed the last of the fake spiderwebs to the chandelier and landed on the floor. Badyah waved her over from the other end of the room with her usual bright smile. "I've got us something fun to wear!" She grabbed two bags from the floor and passed one to Zagan. "I think I got your size about right." "Thanks." The bag was full of black clothes with many red details all over. "What costume is this?" "A character from Norma's favorite series!" Badyah grinned. There was a playful twinkle in her eyes that immediately made Zagan suspect there was some mischief afoot. "Which is?" "Demonvania. You'll be dressed like the main antagonist, who also happens to be a vampire." "So, the big bad from a game?" She tilted her head to the side, considering it for a split second. "Are they hot?" "Oh, I bet you'll wear it better." Zagan froze. That response was thrown out so casually, she'd almost missed it herself. Badyah had seemingly moved on to other things, digging through the other bag. Not knowing what to say to that, she opted to just excuse herself from the room and change into her costume.

She had to admit, it was a great look on her. It might’ve not been the exact right color scheme, she would’ve preferred purple accents over the red ones, but the fit itself was on point. The heavy cape did nothing to limit her range of motion and left her wondering why she’d never decided to wear one in the first place. “All right! Girl, I have no clue how’d you get my size just right but-” she walked into the main hall just to find herself face to face with Norma. She and Badyah stood at the entrance, deep into an animated conversation. They were both in costumes as well, Norma with some sort of a white mask, perforated on the mouth level. It was now raised to her forehead as she talked. She was dressed in a set of work clothes stained with mud and red paint, and there was an impressively large, and wide blade strapped to her side. Meanwhile, Badyah was dressed from top to bottom in black, flowy fabric. She wore a screaming, white mask, now tilted to the side of her face. “Oooh! See! I told you it’s perfect for you.” Badyah’s smiled, her eyes sneaking looks at Norma as if waiting for something. “Zagan’s here,” Norma said quietly, completely fixated on her and her only. “Yep! Surprise! Got invited and couldn’t say no. Happy Halloween!” It took a lot to not remark on being aggressively checked out. Instead of saying anything, she leaned in, closer into her space, and whispered, “and, happy early birthday too.” In response, Norma pulled down her mask and mumbled, “thanks,” from behind it. “This is going to be the best party ever.” Badyah sighed happily to herself.

[frostironfudge]

Tenebrous - Loki (AU) - Chapter Eight

Pairings: Vampire! Professor Loki x Fem!Reader

Characters: Loki, Thor, Fem OC, Reader, Bucky Barnes, Stephen Strange

Warnings: angst, mentions of depression, discussion about depression, non consensual drug usage, fluff, Bucky just wants his PhD done man, non con blood drinking, Binder over usage by a character, discussion of removing the binder, body dysmorphia, angst between reader and loki, loki fluff, angst between reader and bucky. MINORS DNI

Word Count: 11.2k

A.N.: sorry for going awol there was alot going on irl and i lost all drive to write but i'm back and motivated, i have more work lined up so please do check out my masterlist!

Dividers: @firefly-graphics​

Chapter Seven || Chapter Nine

Main Masterlist || Fic Masterlist || My AO3

Chapter Eight - We're Fighting For The Same Thing

Present. 

Sierra looked between Miles and Clark, a grim expression upon their faces. 

“Can the two of you tell me what happened that caused baby witch to pass out? For four days?” 

“Well, we went pretty hard with the history lesson.” Clark scratches the back of his neck. 

“What did you do to the bond?” Sierra wonders. 

“Well apparently the vampire had already caused interference, it was frayed intensely.” Miles responds covering his eyes with the palms of his hands. 

Exhaustion riddled the two men. 

“Did he not want her? I’ve never heard of vampires wanting to break a bond…” Sierra furrows her eyebrows, none of the books about vampires suggest willingness to wreak a bond so sacred given once in a lifetime. 

“I believe there was something afoot prior to our intervention.” Clark muses, as he sifts through the box of grimores once again. 

“Do you think we can keep her prepared?” Miles wonders aloud, marking the bottles of herbs. 

“Either she is or we use the same technique as we did these, past few days.” Clark suggests, astral projection demands energy out of them but is a viable option to remain uninterrupted. 

Sierra gasps, “Eight decayed bodies were found in the northern region of Romania. Bodies of campers, mangled and burnt they suspect an animal attack and then the tents caught fire.” 

She then scoffs at the reasoning, “This screams vampire.” 

“He’s closing in on covens much more rapidly.” Clark purses his lips, looking at Miles. 

“You want to reach out to her again?” His husband vocalises the thought. 

“She’s woken up an hour ago.” Sierra reads the update from her nursing shift partner. 

“Then she’s had an hour to rest.” Clark deems, setting up the candles for the circle. 

Miles grabs the dried lavender sprigs, arranging them in a crescent within the circle, smaller candles to denote the stars akin to their shared necklaces. 

Sierra lights the candle residing at the centre of the crescent, she then takes her place at Clark’s left and Miles stands across her. 

Clark begins welcoming the element governing each direction, 

“From the North we call upon Fire, from the East we call upon Air, from the South we call upon Earth, from the West we call upon Water, Spirit we call upon you and we call upon the protection given by our moon.” 

Crackling of the candle flames, 

Cool breeze of a summer afternoon,

The scent of earth after rain,

The bubbling of a stream,

The iridescent line of spirit traces the circle, and each sprig of lavender intertwining the three witch coven members.

“Allow our fourth member to connect with us in the realm of astral, guide us, moonlight to the one we seek, 

allow us elements the chance with her to speak.” Clark seeks permission, soon they are led to the realm as they wait for Y/N to join them. 

— — — —

“Well, this is not how I expected to find you.” Nia looks between Loki and Y/N, the latter still between the vampire and the wall. 

Y/N places a palm against Loki’s chest. He shifts. 

Nia walks over, “What the fuck were you thinking?” She looks at her best friend. 

“I left you a letter!” Y/N defends.

“A letter? Gee thanks. Where was the part about a four-day sorcery or witchy bender?” The shorter woman demands. 

“I’m surrounded by a bunch of idiots.” Nia rubs her temples moving to the couch. 

Thor knocks as he enters, giving Y/N a smile and a pat on the shoulder. 

“Welcome to the supernatural club.” 

Y/N laughs, “Yeah officially in it I suppose.”

Nia glares at Thor. 

Thor in turn pales, slightly. 

Her irritation takes prominence he looks at her apologetic. 

Loki gazes between the two then back at his mate. 

“You should get back into the bed.” He murmurs. 

“I’m good thanks—,” “Get on the bed.” Nia gives her a glare and for once Y/N is afraid of Nia. 

Loki moves forward to help Y/N. 

“I can handle it.” She spits out. 

“Be my guest.” He gestures for her to move ahead. 

Y/N leaves the support of the wall, lowering the guard rail and sits on the bed. Everyone stares at her expectantly, “What?”

“Go on, tell us what happened.” Thor requests. 

“Coven customs won’t permit her to say anything.” Loki pipes up. 

Y/N bites the inside of her cheek, Loki feels her irk through the bond distantly. 

“Sorry.” He adds. 

“Right the customs don’t allow me to divulge too much information, the sensitive kind, the awakening did undo what Loki did the night I was attacked by Zemo in the forest.”

“You remember?” Nia’s eyes widened and her voice raised an octave, “How?” 

“I think the awakening did something to undo it…” Y/N looked down at her hands, the memory was fresh in her mind not distant. She wondered for a moment, if Loki did not have to erase that dance, those touches. 

How would have things between them shifted? Would they have confessed earlier? Would Loki be able to confess at her doorstep? 

Or would it just be brushed away as a moment of weakness?

“Well, that is something to know.” Nia glances at Thor, he offers her a small smile. She looks back at her best friend on the bed. 

“They showed me the history of the coven, these two were under Alexander and had to well partake in the extinction, but the high priestess at that time, Samana,” Loki looks to the floor as Y/N continues, 

“Loki was involved with her and they allowed a portion of the coven to live on and pass down the magick.” 

“I had to do what I did.” Loki defends. 

“I thought vampires were to wait for their mates?” Nia interjects. 

“Not all follow the norm, at least not in Alexander’s coven, he pushed everyone to, ‘have their unregulated fun’.” Thor explains, a wince on his features. 

“So basically, you all were told to sleep around?” Nia looks between the brothers. 

“It was not just sleeping around… Blood sharing, usage of our gifts to gain insight, lead witches astray or humans, lure them. Our kind has done questionable things. Things that, that have haunted me in my sleepless nights.” Loki gazes at Y/N, her eyes trace over his features. 

They had this conversation before, being forced to do these unspeakable things, preying upon innocents, killing covens. 

“You aren’t that person anymore.” 

Loki closes his eyes tightly at the words his mate repeats to him she’s utter against his lips before. 

Thor watches Nia, her eyes glaze over with unshed tears, “Is, was anything done to you if you did not comply?” 

Thor pulls her into his lap as he sits on the couch. 

“There was Brock.”

“He’s horrible.” Nia states from the events that were shared by Thor. 

Loki laughs humourlessly, “His death does not bring the closure, I wished it brought forth.” 

“Brother.” Thor sighs, he runs his fingertips over Nia’s forearm, the gesture brings more comfort to him than her.

Loki seats himself on the stool near Y/N’s bed. 

“I need to tell you why I left.” Loki takes her hand. 

“I don’t want to know—,”

“It is why the bond is scrambled,” Loki hears her heart stutter, her lips part as her jaw drops. 

“What did you do, Loki?” Y/N finds her voice, the tone rising as anger ebbs through her and interlaces the broken fragments of their bond. 

“I did it to protect you, your coven should not have survived earlier, Alexander would know, and it would not matter if you are my mate, so,”

Y/N felt Loki’s voice turn into a haunting echo. Her eyes shifted to Thor and Nia; they began to stretch farther away as the room began to expand. 

“What?” Her own voice an echo, her hands blur in and out, reminding her of how the drugs would take over. 

“Y/N?” Loki’s worried voice silently reaches her, she looks up at him, multiple Lokis are cupping her cheek. 

The scent of lavender fills her senses.

“Lavender?” She breaks the syllables as she vocalises. 

“What is going on?” Nia stands up as does Thor. 

The hospital room disappears.

Candles burning, lavender, crescent moon. 

Candles burning, lavender, crescent moon. 

A circle with candles. 

“North by the Fire, by the Air from the East, Earth of the South, West brings the Water, Spirit surrounds you, young witch and the protection of the moon, meet your coven in the astral realm we have much to do.” Clark’s voice greets her ears as their image of standing around a circle becomes clearer. 

In the physical realm, Loki lands on his knees. The stool makes a clang. 

“Brother!” Thor, pulls Loki upright. 

Loki wheezes, “She—,” he chokes on his words, the bond clutches at him as panic sears.

His side of the bond is burning painfully with worry. 

Bring her back, 

bring her back, 

bring her back

where is her soul? 

where is her soul? 

where is her soul?

“She’s unconscious.” Nia deems, gently letting go of her hand. 

“She is in the astral realm.” Thor explains, “If she stays there too long the bond may break. The soul bond is heavily weakened. I fear they may not get a chance again.” 

“Fuck. Could we astral and prevent it?” Nia hopes, her resolve breaks as her mate shakes his head. 

“We need to find the coven and stop them.” Thor hurriedly states. 

“The patients, Miles and Clark.” Loki lowers the guard rail, grabbing onto Y/N’s hand, momentarily relaxing at the contact. 

“Find Stephen he will have the patient records and addresses.” Loki contemplates shifting closer to Y/N. 

In the astral realm, Y/N finds dread seeping in, why does it feel as though something is being snatched away?

“What is going on? Is everything okay?” Y/N gazes at the three members. 

“Alexander Pierce is going on a rapid witch-hunt.” Miles informs her, she moves closer to the circle. 

“Is he here nearby?” Y/N looks between the three, there is a tug in her chest, as though a deep-rooted plant is being tugged from the soil. 

“Last known location was Romania, he usually converts those he deems useful, his gift is knowing if abilities get transferred to the vampire form of an individual.” Clark explains. 

“So, we need to prepare to take him down.” Y/N verbalises the unspoken sentiment.��

“Precisely.” Miles nods. 

“However, you need to train harder than before for harnessing your abilities.” Clark adds, a look of worry passes over his features. 

“Could we do that in the more physical realm? This drained me down four days… I can only imagine how much the astral realm impacts your energies.” The baby-witch suggests, a wince gracing her features at the sensation that is manifesting tenfold within her. 

“It is true, we need to practice in the physical realm.” Sierra agrees, “There is far too much risk remaining in this realm.”

“Also, you need to start your own grimoire.” 

“My own book or spells?” Y/N raises an eyebrow. 

“Basically, a guide, not all spells work for you, there are different banishments, hexes, protection spells that work and don’t work. Sort of like your techniques as a physio? You need to find the correct ones and practice.” Sierra smiles encouragingly. 

“I suggest starting with finding your grandmother’s Grimoire, and if you cannot find it start with protection spells.” Miles offers. 

“Okay.” 

“We need you to focus on this, so I suggest you divide time between your degree and your coven.” Clark’s words have an authoritative undertone. 

“Yes, getting Alexander off of our backs will be helpful to everyone.” Y/N agrees. 

“It will be, do not get distracted.” Clark sighs. 

“Your mate how is he?” Miles curiously wonders much to Clark’s displeasure. 

“The bond is messed up, I he was saying something right when, well…” Y/N gestures to the circle with her hands, her chest constricts again.

Sierra looks at Y/N pointedly, “Is something bothering you?” 

“I have this gnawing sensation in my chest as if something is getting uprooted.” She rubs over her sternum it does little to soothe her. 

“That is the bond being ripped.” Clark explains, Y/N widens her eyes. 

“No. What, no send me back.” Y/N pleads. 

“Why? Did he not leave you? Did he not mess with the bond?” Clark’s features have disapproval written all over them. 

“He is my mate.” 

“He left you.”

“That is between him and I to sort through.”

Miles’ eyes widen, “Clark you knew.” He says accusingly. 

“Oh, hell no, if her bond breaks, she is going to be in no position to be of any help.” Sierra yells almost. 

Y/N grips her head, the sensation increases in intensity, she can feel the beginning of the uprooting of the threads of the bond. 

“Send me back please.” She falls to her knees at a harsh tug, “Loki.” 

“Clark, close the circle.” Miles glares at him. 

“I will not.”

“Clark, close the circle, now. She could have long term trauma.” Sierra presses on, the readings she did deeply into the bonds have given her intensive knowledge. 

“Sierra.” Clark warns. 

Y/N hunches over, clutching her chest. 

Loki’s eyes prick with venom as Y/N’s unconscious body moves to clutch onto her chest. He knows she can feel it too. 

Everything he’s done to cause damage mocks him, he never wanted to lose her. 

The thread tugs harshly, the silver glow that formed goes towards bronze again, splotches of black appear. 

“Why is it turning black?” Y/N looks at the bronze thread that surrounds her with spots of shapeless black. 

“It’s breaking.” Sierra has tears in her eyes. 

“I’ll lose him, please, I’ll prioritise the coven, just please don’t let me lose him.” Y/N feels the warm tears cascade down her face. She finds herself crying on behalf of her mate, taking the share of his unshed tears. 

Loki pulls her body closer, wiping the tears that fall. If he could cry their tears would mix. 

“I’m so sorry, I did this to you, to us.” Loki presses his lips to her forehead. 

“If the bond is strong enough, I would have to turn you. I, I could not take that choice away, I fell for you, I love you so deeply from the bottom of my un-beating heart.” Loki wonders if she can hear. 

“I thought if I kept the bond hanging Alexander would spare you, I reached out to a witch. When i left, she kept scrambling the bond ever so slightly. But then, then you over dosed. 

“I felt my world shatter. Y/N I ran, ran back to you for holding you once more.

“Zemo said, the scramble was enough to know that you were mine, I made sure that my mark was upon you.”

Y/N hears Loki’s voice. 

Miles looks at Clark, Clark keeps his gaze on the fallen witch. 

Sierra glares openly at the high priest. 

“I wonder if you will forgive my actions, even if you find it in that heart of yours that encompasses all the kindness, I have ever been worthy of in my entire life. The affection that you gave me.” Loki pauses as pain tears through deeper between them, he shudders as does Y/N in the astral realm. 

“Clark please.” She heaves out a sob. 

“Even if you do forgive me, I will not forgive myself. I, I could have stayed and protected you. I could have told you the truth but when I saw the necklace, I knew I had to use the way decided before. He despises your coven, hates it with a vengeance. I could have protected you better, I could love you better.” Loki presses his lips over her cheeks and temple. 

“I could love you better, I could have given you the love you deserved to receive. Not what I gave to you instead.” Loki’s voice ceases. 

Y/N sobs brokenly, the flames upon the candles burn brighter and intensely. She needs to get back, the spells rhyme and have intent. She needs to get back to Loki. Y/N would deal with the insubordination to Clark later. 

She looks at Sierra, who nods understandingly. 

“Fire by the North guided to by stars, 

Wind by the East caressing my scars,”

“Stop it.” Clark warns. 

“Earth by the South our bodies you guard,

Water by the West you wash away foes who intend facade,”

“As your high priest, I—,”

“Spirit, guide me back to where I lay,

Moonlight, protect me on my returning way.”

Y/N visualises returning back to the hospital room, a valiant effort in ignoring the crumbling bond. 

Sierra pushes energy towards Y/N, letting her words echo. 

Miles’ jaw drops when the side Y/N is on begins turning back into the hospital room. 

Y/N keeps the visualisation on, a small moon guides her back to where her body lays in Loki’s arms. Her astral form strokes his cheek, Loki opens his eyes at the contact.

Y/N returns to her body, wrapping her arms around him with an urgency. Loki buries his head in the crook of her neck. 

“I’m sorry.” He sounds broken. 

Y/N strokes his cheek, her hand moving to his scalp, Loki’s eyes close at the familiar sensation. Sleep never came to him, but this? His Y/N’s fingertips softly moving through his hair, providing quiet comfort and love to him? This replaced his want for slumber. 

“We’ll talk about it all later. Okay? I hope I wasn’t too late…” Y/N presses a kiss to his head. 

“Its still weakened, not broken.” Loki pulls her closer, his lips brush over her neck.

Y/N feels relief when the stars slowly climb across her chest. They seem distant but they make their presence known. 

“Do you need to feed?” She continues her slow movement across his scalp. 

“No, not yet.” Loki breathes in her scent, the vanilla grounding him. 

They lay that way, months since they shared the intimacy of each other’s company. 

There is a knock on the door. 

“Strange.” Loki shifts the two of them into an upright position, Y/N stays close tucked into his side. 

“It is Doctor Strange.” The man corrects as he enters, her chart in hand, “How are you fairing?” He does a once over on Y/N. 

“A bit better now, earlier… I was traversing the astral plane with our bond almost breaking.” She summarises. 

“Hmm, yes, your best-friend and brother informed me. They are on the way to the given address. I suppose you haven’t contacted them yet in favour of being close.” The doctor gives them a pointed look. 

Y/N feels her cheeks warm in embarrassment. 

“Well, I advise that you both stay close, even if you put distance the bond will force you to seek the other out. Having undergone too much duress. You need to rest as well, two astral projections for this stage of your awakening, speak to your coven later.” Doctor Strange turns to Loki, “here.” He places down two blood bags. 

“Thank you.” Loki nods in appreciation. 

“Could you,” Y/N wonders if its the right thing to do but it just hit her how horrible of a friend she is, “Doctor Strange, could you please check on Emery?” 

“Are they not well? They are in the intensive care unit today for rounds.” His eyebrows furrow, worry lacing his features. 

“No, um, they wear a binder and well they might over use it usually I keep tabs I just saw the clock and well…” Y/N looks up at Loki when he squeezes her hand in assurance. 

“I will speak to them.” The Doctor nods, “I still expect the presentation of the case with the juniors taking the history.” He reminds as he exits. 

Loki eyes the bags, looking at Y/N. 

“You can do it… I’ll just close my eyes if that is comfortable for you. Kind of like a juice bag you know.” She giggles at the absurdity of the statement. 

Loki chuckles, “Very rich in iron this juice.” He plays along, shifting off of the bed to grab the bags. 

Y/N feels the stars receding, he is not even more than ten feet away. 

In a blur Loki is back next to her. 

“Was that as awful for you?” He cups her jaw, she nods. 

“It, it was as though missing you but it ached.” She informs, the stars slowly return to their place as they did whenever Loki was nearby. 

“The stars back yet?” Loki smiles as she nods, he makes a small tear on the bag, looking at her. 

“You know I’ve had you feed from me.” She reminds him. 

“That was an emergency.” 

“Still, it doesn’t put me off, you need this for your optimal strength.” 

Loki nods, bringing the bag close, the liquid coating his tongue, he hums as his fangs descend puncturing the bag further. 

He is aware of her warm hand intertwined with his left one. Rubbing light circles. Her free hand preoccupied with texting Nia and Thor to fall back. He moves onto the second bag, the discards both in the red hazard bin. 

Loki shifts their position again, Y/N faces Loki, his arm now around her waist. 

“You need rest, witchling—darling—Y/N.” He tells her, annoyed that he muddled over the affectionate terms. After her declaration he isn’t sure of what to say to her. 

Y/N strokes her thumb across his cheek. 

“You can use the nicknames.” She shifts closer towards him, her head tucked under his chin. 

Y/N relishes in his scent, no longer having to traverse through the memory to pretend he is close. 

“I missed you.” She confesses.

“I missed you as well.” He exhales, turning to place a kiss upon her wrist. 

The stars cascade between them, floating across their chests. 

— — — —

“They can’t let the human ever go on a mission can they?” Nia angrily mutters. 

“Well, it is for your safety.” Thor adds lightly. 

“Safety-schmafety, the day I decided to be with a vampire I think that went out the window.” Nia crosses her arms. 

Thor shakes his head as he makes the U-turn to head back to the hospital. 

“I’d protect you with my dying breath.”

“You aren’t allowed to say stuff like that.” Nia swats his arm. 

“It is true though. I mean right for the moment you dropped all the weights at the gym.” Thor teases, fondness blooms like a thousand tiny suns across their bond. 

“We were not going to speak of that.” Nia groans but smiles, “I was surprised at your strength.” 

“I was doing push ups.” Thor defends. 

“One handed.” Nia recalls the day as easily as breathing.

Seeing Thor, just made her feel as though she was harbouring a mini solar system within her entirely made up of bright burning suns.

Thor smiles to himself, his own personal sunshine next to him.

He reaches over, grabbing her hand over the console bringing it up to his lips.

“I’d protect you too.” Nia confesses, “Till the sun burned out from within me.”

“Nia…” Thor gazes at her intently, his senses taking care of the drive, “I’d protect you till the suns I harbour cease to exist.” Nia affirms.

Fourteen Months Ago.

Loki’s classroom is unusually quiet. He sprung on a test for them to annotate a poem they were to discuss. 

His green eyes trail over the students, thinking hard and long for formulating the correct answers. 

Bucky sits next to Y/N, a bold move to invade the space that Loki shares with her. 

Y/N sits in the second row towards the left corner, the first row is only occupied on the right corner. 

As though he called out to her, Y/N’s eyes move from the paper to Loki. He raises an eyebrow, questioningly. 

Y/N shakes her head looking back down, a frustrated sigh escaping past her lips. Bucky check up on her when he hears the sigh. Loki rolls his eyes, a grimace gracing his features. 

“Mr. Barnes, eyes on your own paper please.” Loki chides. 

Bucky returns his gaze to his own paper, Y/N looks towards him then toward Loki. 

The words Loki spoken on Saturday repeat themselves within her. 

Her heart lurches, bits and pieces that Loki had given her cloud her mind. 

Loki watches as she grows lost in thought. 

Is it not baffling? 

He was so unwilling to have someone forced to love him and now that she might be taken away by someone else, he can’t lose her? 

Loki breathes in deeply. 

She saw him in a light he had not bothered to see himself with, the assignment he traced the pages she changed it, never sent him the original, the one he had begun to read. 

Loki felt a small tickle of anxiety loom through the still forming bond. He focused upon Y/N. She was frantically writing away on the paper checking her watch for the time. 

“Shit, shit, shit.” Y/N knew the poem, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. The question Loki prepared was of two parts, the first to annotate the poem briefly and the second to write a minimum two hundred words for the appeal about the road less travelled upon, albeit it seemed she wouldn’t complete this test because the two hundred words never presented them to her and she only had ten minutes left. 

“Is anyone done?” Loki questions his class, a chorus of panicked ‘no’s returns to him, “Will increasing the time help?” He asks and Y/N’s head snaps up her eyes convey her need for time. 

“You have twenty minutes added so that gives you roughly a half hour, so I hope you all may try to cross two hundred words.” Loki takes a walk around the class as relieved sighs escape the frantic students. 

“Thank you.” Y/N lowly whispers as he passes by and Loki offers her a smile. 

Bucky Barnes’ hands shake, he blinks a few times. Gaze unfocused and this feeling of there being something dangerous near him takes his dread to tenfold. 

He moves his eyes around the room, the dread increases when he find Loki looking at his own watch. 

To be nervous of a professor is one thing but this weird feeling of dread was another thing entirely. 

He remembers his grandmother telling him she used to get these feelings of dread whenever supernatural creatures were around, he has half the mind to scoff. Yeah, the professor gave a weird old timely vibe but not enough to warrant him being a creature. 

Bucky sneaks a glance towards Y/N again. She’s gliding her pen across the paper and he makes sure to tell her a joke about lighting it on fire with the pace of friction against the paper. 

The test concludes and Loki begins to gather the papers from each row, when he reaches Y/N’s end he gives her warm smile. 

“I thought your paper would catch fire at the pace.” Loki chuckles as she blushes. Bucky frowns. 

“I um,” Y/N shrugs, giving a small giggle. 

Loki moves towards Bucky, when their hands meet as the paper is exchange Loki widens his eyes but quickly masks his discomfort where-as Bucky feels as though he has been burned. 

What the fuck?

“Dismissed.” Loki announces quickly returning to his desk on the podium, the students begin shuffling out. 

Y/N gathers her stationary slowly, wondering if she should speak to Loki now or take another day or two to give him a chance. 

While she raises her eyes to meet green, blue ones meet hers. 

“Bucky, hey!” She smiles brightly. 

“Hey there, you could qualify for frantic writing as an Olympic sport.” He teases lightly. She rolls her eyes but laughs. 

“I panicked.” Y/N explains. 

“I did too.” Bucky agrees, he hands her the pencil-case she was to place back into the bag. 

As their hands brush nothing occurs, Bucky deems maybe it was static that cause the reaction with the professor. 

“Listen Poetess, I was hoping,” Bucky pauses as Y/N intently gazes at him. 

Loki pretends to be busy organising the papers. His hearing focused on their conversation. 

“That um, the date I described? The bookstore one?” Bucky prompts as she nods. 

“The great intuitive insight of yours.” Y/N scrunches her nose as she teases and Bucky finds himself wanting to kiss her. 

“Yes, that very insight.” Suddenly his mouth dries and he wondered, if asking her out this way is right or wrong. 

Loki bites the inside of his cheek. 

Please say no. He silently pleads through their bond. 

“What about it?” Y/N smiles encouragingly, Bucky takes a deep breath. 

“Today? Would you like to meet there? In the evening?” He bites his lip; her eyes linger on them for a moment it is all quiet.

Loki holds his breath unknowingly, Y/N then breaks out into a grin nodding. 

“Is five-thirty, okay?” She wonders, Bucky nods enthusiastically. 

Loki groans lowly, had his confession had no impact? 

Or was she merely trying to not get attached to the vampire? 

Or was the bond really not forcing her at all?

The two walk in step towards the door to the classroom. 

“I have to run some errands so I’ll meet you there directly?” Y/N informs Bucky, his hand finds the small of her back as he lets her step out first. 

“Of course, though I would love to pick you up but we can keep that for next time.”

“Already making plans for a third date Mr. Barnes?”

“What can I say, I believe we will.” Bucky winks at her. 

“Oh, is that the intuition speaking?” Y/N raises an eyebrow, Bucky shrugs. 

“A magician never reveals his secrets.” Bucky gestures zipping his mouth shut and throwing the key. 

Y/N laughs, the mirth cascades over her, though she doesn’t feel the stars. 

They walk to the diverging hallway their destinations on opposite ends. 

Loki watches them, having stepped out for returning to his office. 

Bucky waves goodbye before leaving, Loki nears feeling the tendrils of remaining mirth from Y/N. 

She feels stars begin to glow over her, she turns around to find Loki walking in her direction. 

“Professor?” She says when he is nearer, Loki slows down to a stop in front of her. 

“Miss Y/L/N.” He greets noting the scarce students gracing the hallways. 

“I wanted to discuss the assignment, is now a good time?” Y/N deems speaking to him sooner than later is better for the two of them. 

Loki is taken aback at her sudden interest to speak to him. 

“Yes, I have an hour till lunch free I believe we can discuss your concerns.” Loki gestures towards the path of his office. 

They walk in step, Loki notices her lingering gaze upon him. 

He opens the door for her allowing her to step inside before him. 

Y/N steps to the side allowing him way to enter. 

Her eyes fall on his desk, a small blush coating her features about a certain train of thought. 

Loki feels a warmth bloom, he follows her gaze to the box of chocolates on his desk. 

“You kept the box?” Y/N wonders if he can sense the surprise in her voice. 

“You brought them for me.” He simply answers. “I kept a souvenir.” 

“Also, you need to sit I believe taking too much weight still is not advised?” He shifts the chair back and Y/N settles down. 

Loki takes his designated seat opposite to her. 

“So, what about the assignment?” He waits for her response. 

“Well, that was a ruse I actually wanted to um, discuss what happened… what you said…” Y/N begins hesitantly. 

“Oh, what about it?” Loki hopes to ground himself, suddenly nervous. 

“I, whenever you’re near I feel these stars? Its so strange like they wait for you?” Y/N chuckles at the absurdity. 

“Would it ease your nerves that I feel them too?” Loki softly smiles, she nods. 

“The weeks you came over and we spoke, I felt as though the silly crush I had may have some substance.” Y/N picks at the lint from her tights. 

“And then the night before you disappeared… we well kissed. When you went onto zero contact I thought, things were ruined.” She confesses. 

“I truly apologise for how I handled my communication; you deserve better.” Loki exhales, pursing his lips. 

“Thank you for saying that, I, I understand there are things you may have not wanted to share given your perception to how things are, or maybe your experiences,” 

“But I, I cannot um, I cannot accept being closed out or shunned from someone to whom I would give my heart.” She grips the handle of the chair then dares to look up at Loki. 

“Are you telling me you do not want to pursue us?” It takes everything in him to not want to confront these feelings to avoid them to bury them deep. 

Keep them there till he goes numb. 

Y/N’s eyes widen in panic, 

“Loki no I, I���m telling you that if we want to pursue this potential relationship, I need you to not be closed off but I understand that certain things will take time, and that I’m,” She takes an inhale. 

“I was once with someone, he never defined the relationship, whenever I asked for something more he would close off, then talk sweet nothings and try to manipulate it. If he needed anything? I’d be there but if and when the tables turned my effort wasn’t reciprocated. I cannot go through that.” 

“Well, I’m not going to do what that fool did to lose you.” Loki assures. 

Y/N smiles, Loki clears his throat. 

“Are you and Mister Barnes in the middle of a potential courtship?” Loki wonders curiously. 

“I will be letting him know that I’m not interested to pursue anything other than friendship.” Y/N informs, Loki nods. 

“I believe this means I have to take you on a date?” Loki gives her a warm smile, the one he always reserved for her. 

“If you want to, I’m not pushing you for anything that may be uncomfortable. Also, there is the case of you being my professor.” She says, returning to pick at the lint. 

“The course will end soon; we can go public here then I will inform the board two weeks after the course ends. Does that seem alright?” Loki wants to make her look into his eyes. 

Y/N nods, still not meeting his gaze. 

Loki stands, making his way towards her, he unbuttons his blazer before he kneels before Y/N. Gently taking her hands in between his own. 

“I know it may seem as though I do not want to be seen in public with you but, I do not want to put your future at this university at stake. I can’t ask that from you.” Loki intently looks at her as she raises her gaze to meet his own. 

“I don’t want your future here at stake either.” She reiterates, “We can wait to go public.” 

Loki kisses the back of her hand. 

“Do you have plans for lunch?” He enquires. 

Y/N nods, “Have to meet up with Nia, she wants a new dresser for the room.” 

“At this point the two of them need to buy two pieces of each furniture item.” Loki deadpanned. 

Y/N laughs, “How did they even manage to break a dresser?” 

“They even broke my rosewood writing desk.” Loki shakes his head. 

“That is bad.” 

“At least they did not venture into my room.”

Y/N watches Loki consider the thought and she does the same for her own room, both of them shudder and then break into a fit of laughter. 

— —- —- —-

James Buchanan Barnes was having an awful day. He went from a happy morning to a stupid test where his professor made him feel like his hand was burned. 

Then when he touched Y/N he felt a tingling buzz through him. 

But this right now takes the cake, he knows he left his history draft on his desk this morning, he purposely did because it was a shit draft. He was going to grovel in front of the professor for an extension but then he thought if he has the shit draft, he can make his case about it being a shit draft. 

After all Professor Ahmed though a strict and meticulous person taught them enough to recognise their own potential. 

So now he wonders holding the aforesaid shit draft in his hand, exactly how to grovel?

He really, really implores the depths of his mind as to how the fuck is it in his bag and not shit anymore. 

There is even a paragraph he wanted to type but never did get too because that idea struck him five seconds before he found the draft. 

‘I really wish I had a green pen right now.’ 

“Oh, I have a green pen, here you go.” Bucky offers the pen to the wide-eyed classmate. 

“Uh? Are you a psychic?” The student takes the said pen. 

“No, um why?” If this day gets any weirder Bucky promises he’s going to call his grandmother. 

“Well, I wished I had this very colour and you well, magically procured it.” 

“I’ve been told I’m intuitive…” Bucky shrugs. 

The conversation ends as Professor Ahmed enters the room, carrying her laptop and a few papers. 

Half an hour later, Bucky stands nervously as Professor Ahmed’s eyes scan over the shit but not shit draft, her hand fidgets with the treasured fountain pen with which she grades all their submitted assignments. 

‘If he could just re-arrange the paragraphs, he will have something solid.’ 

“I know the paragraphs are oddly placed, I wanted to ask for an extension I feel if I have just a few more hours. I know it is a strong paper.” Bucky scratches the back of his head. 

“You read my mind; I was just thinking to correct the flow.” She writes the comment in the margin. Then a praise for the paragraph that he wanted to write but hadn’t but it was still ever present. 

Professor Ahmed hands him back the paper with a proud look. 

“You keep doing this Mr. Barnes and I think we can discuss that academic position.”

Yup he will continue magically producing great drafts. Bucky smiles and nods. 

“Thank you, I’m sorry for cutting off your comment about the paragraph flow…”

“Mr. Barnes I never said anything, you initiated the conversation about what I was thinking.” Professor Ahmed smiles and dismisses him, Bucky blinks a few times then returns to his seat head in his hands. 

‘Should I just leave the pen there or ask him what is wrong?’

“You can just leave it there.” Bucky answers without looking up. 

The pen is returned and the classmate scurries off. 

Bucky realises he did not actually hear a verbal thought. 

He turns to face Maria Hill, another person in running for either the PhD position and the academic position. 

“Hey.” He greets, she takes off her glasses and smiles in response. 

“Hey, I heard the academic comment so if you’re outta the race for the PhD that is mine.” She warns teasingly. 

He chuckles dryly, “Can I ask you something and you won’t be weirded out?” 

“I’ve seen you scarf down 500ml of iced coffee during our TA phase I think it is tough to weird me out.” She looks over him warily, “Is it about the girl from your creative writing class?” 

She pokes his shoulder when he blushes. 

“Oh, someone is a smitten kitten.” Maria teases. 

“Well, I do have a date so let’s see how that goes.” Bucky answers nonchalantly. 

“So, what did you want to ask? Make out tips? Date tips?” 

“Oh, I have the perfect date down to the dot.” Bucky smugly grins, brushing lint off of his shoulder in confidence. 

“The confidence in here is at Everest.” Maria grins. 

“Okay, okay, so um chose one of the following and I’ll guess, red, blue, lavender, pink.” 

She looks at him pointedly. 

“Humour me please?” He requests. 

Maria goes over the options,

‘Lavender.’

“Lavender.” Bucky answers in synchronous with her thought

“Woah okay.” Maria is bewildered. 

“Okay next, think of a number between one and five thousand.” Bucky knows he might sound insane. 

‘Three-thousand eight hundred and fifty-six no fifty-one’

“Three-thousand eight hundred and fifty-six no, fifty one” Bucky says. 

“How the hell are you doing that!” Maria covers her mouth. 

“I really don’t know lucky guess?” 

“Even the switch of a number?” She raises an eyebrow. 

Yeah, he’s definitely calling Grandma Barnes. 

Bucky only shrugs in response, when his phone buzzes he is sure he replicates the shock Maria had upon her face when his grandmother’s picture flashes across the screen as she calls him. 

Most of the classroom is doing their own thing and Professor Ahmed is still going through papers. 

“Hey Gramma.” Bucky greets as a calm washed over him. 

“How is my little Bucky?” He can hear the smile in her voice. 

“I was thinking about you.” He says honestly. 

“I had a feeling, hence the call. Have you been guessing thoughts?” Her gentle voice questions. 

Bucky feels his shoulders sag, “I don’t know how am I being able to do so…” 

“Can you come down for a visit? Its better if we converse in person. You will get time to return back by five thirty.” 

“How do you—, never mind.” Bucky shakes his head knowing her uncanny ability. 

“I’ll see you in an hour Bucky.” Gramma says as they bid each other good bye. 

Present. 

Doctor Strange makes his way through the crowd. His chest feeling constricted, briefly wondering if the theory put forth by Loki holds water. 

The doors to the department, he uses his heightened hearing to locate the sole heartbeat in the empty department. Accompanied by ragged breathing. 

“Emery?” Stephen calls out. 

The screech of velcro and a groan originate from the back room. Stephen knocks on the door. 

“Emery? Are you okay?” Stephen calls out. 

“I—,” Emery sniffles, chest still feeling raw as they struggle to breathe. 

“Y/N’s awake, she asked me to check up on you. I know about the binder; do you need anything?” Stephen struggles to not rip the door off, their breathing pattern sounding off. 

“I—, I went over the limit, I want to take it off but I don’t, I don’t have anything oversized.” Emery’s broken voice comes through.

“Emery, I want you to please try to breathe in the limit of the binder. I will be back in 5 breaths.” Stephen assures.

“You will?” Emery wonders lightly tugging that the binder digging into their skin. 

“I promise.” 

Something about Stephen Strange’s presence calmed Emery. 

“Okay, I, I’ll start…” 

“Five breaths and I’ll be back, Inhale, please.” 

The small breath reaches his ears and Stephen rushes towards his office, with Emery’s second exhale. 

On the fourth exhale his blue shirt is in his hands, as Emery sighs between breaths Stephen knocks on the door. 

“I’ve got a shirt; it is in my size so I believe it should meet your over-sized criteria.” The doctor informs. 

“Okay… are you sure you’re okay with me, having it?” They ask, one hand on the door knob. 

Stephen places his hand on the doorknob as well. 

“Completely. You can keep it for however long it provides comfort. If you I could keep a set here in the event you require something oversized but do not have one.” The professor explains hoping his voice carried comfort. 

“I don’t mean to make it a habit.” They dryly chuckle. 

“Please don’t wear the binder outside of stipulated hours, I, I can understand your friendship with Y/N warrants further comfort but please do not hesitate to reach out in-case you need to speak to someone in her absence.” 

The lock clicks, Emery opens the door enough so that the shirt can be given into their hand.

Emery takes a breath, “Holy shit this is an expensive brand.” Their fingertips trace the label. 

“It will be very comfortable. I assure you. I will be in my office so you can change with ease,”

“Will you stay outside?” Emery requests. 

“Of course.” Stephen assures, stepping back near the door. 

The sound of fabric then Velcro reach his ears. 

Emery sighs with relief as the restrictive material finally parts with their skin. They try not to stare at the jagged lines indented onto their skin but the mirror in the far corner does pique curiosity. 

They clamber over with Doctor Strange’s shirt in hand. Staring at their own reflection and how the colour of the shirt brings out their skin in a way they never knew could. 

“How are you fairing, Emery?” Strange’s baritone of concern pushes an edge of comfort onto them. 

“I’m, I’m not okay but, I think I will be, thank you for the shirt,” they say as their hands move through the sleeves as they button it up. 

A laugh bubbles over from their belly. Strange smiles at the closed door. 

“Do not laugh.” Emery warns, as the knob turns. 

“I would never.” Strange promises as the door reveals Emery’s bright eyes and flushed face the shirt several sizes too big upon their frame. 

Stephen smiles endearingly, “The colour looks lovely upon you. Brings out the brightness in your eyes.” His breath hitches when Emery looks into his eyes with their own. 

A blush coats their cheeks, and they smile shyly. They tug at the sleeve of the shirt. 

“Have you eaten yet?” Stephen breaks out of the stupor. 

“Oh um, not, not yet. I’ve got some pasta I made; would you like to share?” Emery offers, “It’s, pesto so unless you’re allergic…”

“It is one of my favourites.” Stephen tells them truthfully, only limited human food brought him joy, “I have this spot I usually eat at, unless you want to stay inside?”

Emery stares at the taller man, his tone hopeful, “Is it on campus?” They look down at their own hands. 

“It is a park nearby.”

“Lead the way, I feel like fresh air would do me some good.” 

Stephen smiles, as does Emery. 

They use the communal kitchenette to head up their respective food, Stephen grabs his car keys to retrieve the blanket he carried to the park. 

Emery stays quiet for part of the walk, sneaking glances at Stephen ever so often. 

“Is something on your mind?” Stephen questions as they enter the park’s shrubbery covered archway. 

“Just, um, momentarily felt you’re taking pity on me.” Their hesitance at the admittance apparent. 

“Emery, I can understand why it would appear seemingly so, but please, know that I only offered because I would like to get your mind away from what happened. I understand those thoughts may return but, please I would never approach out of pity.” 

They’ve stopped walking, Stephen’s spot in mere feet away. 

Emery gazes into his blue eyes which hold an emotion they can’t fathom. Tears brim at the corner of their own eyes. 

“T-thank you. I, you’ve always been so inclusive and I never felt like an outsider in your department. Thank you.” Emery wipes the stray tears away, Stephen’s hand twitches by his side. 

“I believe everyone should have a safe space to be their truest self, not all are lucky enough to have that at home.” Stephen looks towards the lake that begins from his spot.

“Did, did your family not support something?” Emery blurts out as the pair begin walking in tandem again. 

“They did not support my desire for a career in medicine. My father was a miserly businessman and I could not find it in myself to fleece people.” Stephen explains, Emery grabs two corners of the blanket helping to set it down then the two lay the water bottles and food boxes. 

“I’m sorry, I can understand that must have been a tough fight.” Emery sighs, reaching out to provide a comforting touch to Stephen’s palm. They hover above as they wait for Stephen’s permission. 

The doctor nods, Emery places their hand upon his, eyes widening when they feel an electric pulse coursing between their palms. 

Fourteen Months Ago. 

Y/N stands near the display window of the bookstore. Eyeing the current top-rated books but nothing calls out to her. 

Bucky watches her from across the street where he stands in the shadows a truth about himself revealed. 

Bucky lifts his phone to his ear, watching as Y/N furrows her brows looking around before answering the call. 

“Hey,” She still looks around. 

“I’m not yet at the bookstore.” Bucky informs her, watching her shoulders sag in disappointment. 

“Will you be a while? I don’t mind waiting.” Her fingertips trace over the poetry book he had kept in mind for her. 

“No, I won’t be coming in, I’m taking a few months off.” He closes his eyes, at her sharp inhale. 

“Why? Is, is everything okay?” Y/N steps out of the bookshop, leaning against the wall her eyes on her boots. 

“I—, I wish I could explain better, but I can’t, it is a family thing in a nutshell.” 

“Oh, um it is not anyone who has fallen sick is it? Is it Gramma? Is she okay?” 

“No, no, nothing like that just, some work has come up and the entire family has to be there.” 

Y/N looks up to the evening sky. 

“Any idea when will you be back?” 

“No, it…is… indefinite.” Bucky takes a steadying breath.

“What about the course? And your academic or PhD position?” Y/N bites her lip with worry, he had been working so hard. 

“On hold. They promise to reward my hard-work if I return.”

“If?” Y/N wonders what could possibly cause this much of an uprooting in his life. 

“You always catch onto the finer things.” Bucky smiles knowingly. 

“Bucky, are you, are you not returning?”

“I will, I do not know when.” He assures. 

“Then, fuck. Why does this seem like a permanent goodbye?” Y/N runs her hands through her hair. 

“I know you have stronger feelings for someone else.” 

Bucky exhales as the shock on her face wears off. 

“Just, just please stay away from Loki after the course, I, he gives me a bad feeling.” 

“James, you’re throwing me off.” Y/N lets out a frustrated groan. 

“Are you leaving because of me not having strong enough feelings for you or are you leaving because there is something unavoidable? I, I never wanted to hurt you.” Y/N bites her lip, her throat closing up. 

“Please don’t cry.” Bucky requests, Y/N looks to the side and shakes her head, trying to shake the tears away. 

“Bucky,” she says his name as if it could be a reason. 

“I’m not leaving because of you. I can assure you that much. Although I hope I can come back to find you for the date to complete, Poetess.” 

Y/N closes her eyes, why did this hurt so much?

“Bucky please, I, can’t I see you? Before you leave?” She begs, there was always a blossoming friendship between them, it was as though they were at a crux in time with each other. 

“Y/N.” Bucky sighs, “It will be harder to leave.”

Y/N shakes her head, a bitter taste at how this evening was playing out and then her eyes meet his blue ones across the road. 

Bucky doesn’t speak, nor does Y/N, they can hear their breaths and watch the condensation of exhales as the air grows colder. 

Bucky feels his phone buzz, he pulls it away to see his uber is pulling up in a minute. 

Y/N’s eyes fall to the suitcase near his feet. 

“Why couldn’t you say goodbye to my face?” She finally finds her voice. 

The silver vehicle parks in front of him, the window lowered. 

“Uber for James Barnes?” The man calls out loud enough. 

Bucky looks back at Y/N, he knows his eyes are getting glassy. He knew this could have bloomed into something great, maybe not a relationship but a cherished friendship. 

Bucky nods at the driver the trunk popped open, mechanically he goes through the motions of placing his case in as Y/N watches her feet ache to run across and offer comfort but they stay planted into the ground. 

Bucky knows he could run to her and seek comfort but he knows that what awaits needs to be done on a priority. 

The brunette gets into the car, his hair slips out of the bun slightly when he lowers the window, the car slowly pushes into drive. 

Bucky’s voice breaks as he says his parting words, “Because I never wanted to say goodbye.” 

“Bucky, please.” The hold on her limbs breaks when he stops looking at her, Y/N steps forward but is pulled back by a pair of familiar arms as a few cars rush past her. 

“Y/N what do you think you were doing?! Going out into the street like that!” Thor exclaims, doing a once over, her eyes remain on the path that the silver car took, she looks at her phone and the call is cut, when she tries dialling Bucky’s number again a message of the phone being unavailable greets her. 

“He left.” 

“Who?”

“Bucky.” 

“The warlock—war thesis creative classmate?” Thor corrects himself quickly, he is relieved when he concludes Y/N is too distracted to catch on to his slip.

Y/N looks down, at her hands, “Are, are you heading home?” She questions. 

“Yes, Nia asked for a few things I just finished picking them up. Do you want to carpool?” Thor looks at her worried. 

“No, I um, I don’t want to intrude date night, I’m just going to be here for an hour or so, I’ll be back home later.” 

“You know we wouldn’t mind if you were at home. Are you feeling alright?” Thor places his hand on her arm, Y/N looks up at him, feigning a smile and nodding. 

“Yeah, just, just feeling a bit low. I’ll

Be fine around the books.”  She bids him goodbye and scurries into the bookstore. 

— — — 

Loki feels a rush of sadness surge through the bond. He pauses mid sip of his scotch and reading of the email sent by James Barnes. 

It coincided with their date time so what was going on? 

He grabs his jacket, ditching the need for his car in favour of his own bodily speed. 

He enters the bookstore as the intensity of the sadness heightens, Y/N sits tucked away in a corner a pile of books untouched. Intermittently sniffling. 

A small lone star presents itself in her chest and Y/N looks up to find Loki gazing at her with worry. 

“Did he hurt you?” Loki feels venom coat his tongue at the prospect of the warlock causing harm to her. 

“No. He left; I–, he knew I didn’t have deeper feelings but the way he just left without explaining anything. It is just, he stood there on the opposite side he never came over to speak.” A fresh batch of tears stain her cheeks and Loki leans in front of her, his thumb and index finger wiping them away. 

“I understand how the loss of a friendship feels, that to one that held prospects of being a long friendship.” Loki continues wiping away the tears that still spill, “It will hurt, till how long you choose that, a week, a month, a year. I know it will be hard today and tomorrow but maybe with time you may understand why he left. Even accept the way he left.” His assurance washes over her, the vampire knows when he comes clean about himself, she may be open to understanding the remaining supernatural entities that walk the earth. Then when the time came her own self.

Y/N nods, allowing Loki to comfort her. 

“Would you like me to read to you? We haven’t in a while.” Loki traces over the spines of the books she’s picked out. 

He pauses over the book of love by Rumi, 

“I hear nothing in my ear but your voice.

Heart has plundered mind of its eloquence.

Love writes a transparent calligraphy, so on

the empty page my soul can read and recollect.”

“You’ve read it?” Y/N smiles as Loki smiles at her. 

“I have.” 

“Do you have any other quotes from the book you find favourable?” Y/N watches as he sits next to her on the small couch. 

“Another which is taken from between a larger piece.” Loki admits, after a moment of thought. 

“Will you recite it?” She requests, he smiles. 

“Maybe another moment in time I will, first though, I need to know if you have eaten?” Loki gives her a pointed look when she attempts to lie. 

“No…” Y/N admits, playing with the zipper of her bag.

“I’ll get two coffees and some cake for you; I believe they have a new Nutella cake.” Loki laughs endearingly as her face breaks out into a beaming smile. 

He excuses himself to place the order.

Present.

Y/N sighs relieved as Doctor Strange texts Loki that Emery is alright and that he is even making sure they eat before going back home. 

Her head rests once again on his chest and the small glimmer of stars fix their places in the constellation that is the bond the vampire and human share. 

Loki presses his lips to her temple, Y/N feels a tug within her at the gesture she missed so dearly. 

“When I was apart from you,

this world did not exist, nor any other.” Loki declares, Y/N shifts her head to look up at him. Hazily the brain recalls their conversation about Rumi’s pieces and Loki’s promise to recite a piece he favoured. 

“Where there is ruin there is hope for a treasure.” Loki brushes his nose over her jaw. 

“Do you still think of yourself as lesser than you are?” Y/N questions once more. 

“I find that I am not worthy of several blessings that I have had the fortune to hold in my arms, you are one of them.” Loki admits. 

Y/N shifts, sitting up and facing Loki. 

“You are worthy.” She whispers, “Why can you not fathom that?”

“I have done things, I hurt you. Y/N, please—,” Loki pauses, the lingering scent of an unwanted presence descends into the room. 

“We need to leave, the vampire who attacked you is here.” 

In a blur Loki has her at the door, the patient scrubs are still what she wears, Loki hands her bag to her. 

Grabbing her close to him again he blurs outward, when he is at the edge of the forest, Loki finds his lower half pulled backward. 

Y/N whimpers as she’s ripped harshly away from her mate. 

“Loki!” Y/N screams, her back pressed against the chest of the vampire. 

Loki is quick to stand back up, “Leave her be.” He warns venom pooling in his mouth. 

“I just enjoy her taste, pretty boy.” The cloaked vampire shrugs, dragging Y/N away. 

Loki launches himself to grab the vampire only to find that an he has been entrapped in a vampire weave. 

“Fuck, fuck,” Loki punches relentlessly, the witch or warlock causing this needs to let him go for him to find her. 

Loki retrieves his phone texting both Stephen and Thor about what has occurred. 

He brings down his fists against the wall of the trap, the luminous wall shakes but does not relent. 

Loki feels his knuckles bruise and heal as he keeps trying to get out of the weave. 

Panic floods the bond and Loki cries out in pain at being helpless for his mate. 

—- —- — 

Y/N knows her spell should work. She’s constantly pressing her palms trying to get the shockwaves out to run but the depletion of her newly acquired energy is still lowered. 

Someone was watching them. 

“You know, I’ve tasted your blood before.” The wind whips around her, something in her mind reminds her of the impending danger the man’s voice brings. 

“You, the hospital.” Y/N realises, fear and panic trickle into her. She attempts her best to keep it at bay for Loki’s sake. 

“Yes. I plan on having a taste today.” He darkly chuckles as he turns her back towards a tree the wetness on the trunk seeps onto her skin through her light shirt, she shivers. 

“Mmhmm.” The vampire hums appreciatively, “I do love the fear I’m scenting; however, I prefer my blood a little more tainted, your healing bond so very delicious. I’m going to leave a present for your mate.”

The pill bottle shakes, Y/N freezes. 

“No, please, no, I’m—,” She begs, not those, not those. Fuck no please. 

“So much resistance? Oh no, no, no, we cannot have that can we?” He clutches her jaw, prying her mouth open at the pain. 

Two pills are forced and her mouth is clamped shut. Y/N pushes the pills to her lips over her teeth. 

“Resisting, are we? I can make you comply,” His weight is upon her, both her hands placed into his one, the vampire smiles appreciatively as her blood begins to be coated in the small amount of the little pills that are melting  

“Warlock a little compliance here.” The vampire demands to the unseen individual. 

Y/N feels her resolve and resistance diminish; the vampire pushes his thumb directing the pills onto her tongue. 

“Oh, have you tried injections?” 

Y/N’s eyes widen, her legs do not comply to the command of kicking the vampire nor do her hands recall the movement for the spell. 

Tears flow freely from her eyes, the vampire’s lips ghost over her throat. 

“I think we should try a little more, your mate is getting restless,” The mocking tone in the voice returns. 

“Please, don’t—,”

Her mouth and nose are covered, her hands drop by her sides. 

The vampire makes sure she struggles to breathe, at long last when she is begging for an inhale, he places a pinch of power over his thumb as he lets go of her nose, Y/N groans against the hand still covering her mouth. 

Her cries muffled as his fangs pierce her skin, drawing blood. 

The masked vampire continues to drink from her, humming appreciatively at the taste of her laced blood. 

Y/N’s body grows tired, a few more bite marks are littered over her neck souvenirs for Loki the vampire’s words echo. 

The cloaked man leaves her a crumpled mess on the floor of the forest. 

“Loki,” Y/N cries out weakly, all too reminiscent of her night in the forest. 

“Warlock let everything go.” The cloaked figure grabs the warlock, using speed to remove themselves from the forest. 

Loki punches the weave once again his hand passes through; he tries following the scent of the vampire then the scent of Y/N’s blood takes over. 

“No, no, no,” Loki falls to his knees near her frame. 

Y/N’s eyes glazed over as she stares at the treetops, her mind muddled. She feels cooler fingertips cradle her face, her body shivers at the contact. 

“Y/N? Can you look at me?” Loki questions. 

The words echo in her mind, as she turns to face him, she closes her eyes as the world begins to spin. Y/N clutches the damp ground to steady herself. 

“Do you want my blood?” Loki carefully manoeuvres her to sit up, Y/N feels weightless as she leans against his chest fully, the spinning does not stop. 

“Spinning. Treetops so pretty.” She informs him. 

The feign stars begin climbing, her eyes open slowly, meeting with the green of his eyes. 

Loki moves his lips over her neck, sealing the punctured wounds left. Anger boils within him and trickles into the bond. 

“I’m sorry.” Y/N whispers, her grip upon his shirt tightens. 

“Baby you do not apologise.” Loki strokes her cheek. The gesture soothes her in the slightest. 

“You’re angry.” 

“Not at you, never at you.” He assures her. 

“I could have trained harder.” She sniffles. 

“You’re still a new witch.” He reasons.

“It is called baby-witch.” She corrects, looking up at him, he’s still blurred around the edges. 

“Is it? I think I prefer witchling though.” He teases. 

Y/N grows quiet, Loki looks down to find her asleep. 

He wills himself to read the discarded paper that Y/N held when he reached. 

The ink is dried red, the scent belongs to the human he holds, a growl rumbles in his chest. 

‘by now you know i took a souvenir,

yes keep her close dear and near,

but my tongue craves her blood oh so sweet,

i will take her to the darkest trenches as i had before,

i might keep her alive or turn her into one of us forevermore,

i know it is the right of the mate to turn their human,

but you never craved immortality, nor did you want a mate,

so why do you have the right to seal her fate?

Loki, Loki, Loki she always does chant, 

begging you to come save her,

gaze at her now as you seal her wounds, 

her magick nor you are capable of protection,

enjoy the time i give you with her in fractions.’ 

-x-x-x-x-

A.N.: let me know what you think pleaseeee!

taglist open! just comment below to be added!

tagging: @camerons-specialinterest @stevesmewmew

[ripplestitchskein]

Bakugou’s behavior right before he dies is still so fucking suspicious and weird??

Right after AFO grabs him is when Bakugou gets the weird light in his eyes. Like his iris goes white, and at first I was “oh, like he’s just upset that he said that about being Izuku’s shadow”.

But then he completely ignores Jeanist when he’s trying to sew up his arm up and says “..Right” like he’s answering someone else. He seemed distracted, not defeated.

And he repeats that, “Right” in the next issue before he tells Jeanist to take care of everyone, not like he’s psyching himself up but like he’s coming to terms with something or replying to something, but like it also clearly states that he didn’t know his cluster attack was going to do that to his body, soooo wtf is that about? It seems very out of character. That’s what’s sat wrong with me this whole fucking time. Why would he say that if he didn’t know this was gonna happen?

It just seemed like he’s talking to someone, and it’s right after AFO grabs him and we’ve already established that All Might couldn’t communicate with the vestiges either until he was touching Midoriya in the hospital. And then we have this panel of 2nd user right after that when AFO starts talking about how angry he is.

And also he’s like talking to the All Might vestige and again he starts off with “Oh right,” like he’s mid conversation and continues to tell him about the card.

A few issues back the vestiges were talking to each other and plotting to do something to help Midoriya and I was like “that’s odd, how are you gonna do something to help him externally, you are literally in his head”.

It’s all fucking strange. Like if Bakugou was truly going to go out with a weird side effect of his quirk (which, fucking lame way to go imo, like wtf) it should have been during a moment of like regular Bakugou high intensity and then he like falls down, not having a peaceful moment where he calmly walks back into battle and fires off explosions without a peep, like he knew what was gonna happen even though the text tells us very explicitly he didn’t?

I just don’t get it. And it seems hella suspect. There’s shenanigans afoot.

I mean maybe I’m wrong and just being a deluded stan or whatever, but it just doesn’t add for me and it never has. It’s incongruent with the story so far, it’s a very meaningless death for a very important character especially considering how impactful he’s been throughout, and it’s a death that in no way suits the character themself. It’s like if he died right before battle from like, tetanus or something. It’s hardly better than an offscreen death of a major character. He didn’t save anyone. He didn’t change anything. He didn’t have an ironic death or a particularly emotional one. Like it’s emotional for us because we’re attached to him and he’s fucking dead but if another character we weren’t as attached to died in that exact same way where a little box of text had to explain why they died we’d be like “well that was anticlimactic, wtf why were we shown this?”

Even after reading the entire text straight through from beginning to end I think it’s even fucking more suspect now than I did when I just had the one issue and the synopsis. If the point of the death is that sometimes deaths are pointless and meaningless in a war or whatever or like pushing yourself too hard can lead right this than as a writer I have to question why would you put in that much time and effort developing a character like BK when you could use literally anyone else and get the same messaging across.

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

THE BOX IS NABOO

That’s it, I’m doing it, I’m writing that stupid meta I’ve had in the works for two and a half years, I’m sharing it with the world. I promised it for last Thursday, my poll was forever ago, but whatever! I’m writing that freaking thing.

(super duper long post, press j to skip)

Enter my rabbit hole.

First thing to establish: the Box makes no sense whatsoever in-universe.

((EDIT: Something I forgot to mention. IRL, the premise of a giant murder cube and the aesthetic - wall patterns, light designs, etc - of the episode come from the 1997 horror movie Cube, (see the episode’s wookieepedia page). However, while the two are very closely linked visually, the Box does not follow the movie structurally or narratively, as you can verify by simply reading the movie’s summary.))

Recap of the context for the "Box" episode (s4e17): Palpatine is planning his own kidnapping. It was never meant to succeed, and while the plan would obviously benefit him (making the Jedi look bad, pushing Anakin closer to the Dark Side, making Republic citizens more afraid -> more docile, etc...) his actual goal is never explained, and it’s weird that he’d go to such extreme lengths for results so minimal that we’re never told what they are.

So Palpatine asks Dooku to kidnap him at the Festival of Lights on Naboo. Dooku hires Moralo Eval to design a giant box-thingy to test bounty hunters to hire the best of them to kidnap Palpatine. Moralo then gets arrested to alert the Republic that something is afoot, and hires Cad Bane to break him out. Obi-Wan - undercover to learn Moralo’s plan - goes with them. They evade capture and go to Serenno, and Bane and Obi-Wan have to pass the box-thingy test. The level of brainkarked logic here... Truly on par with Megamind, Gru and Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

Setting aside the insane plot holes and utterly nonsensical behavior of the villains, the Box itself is moronic from a plot perspective. It’s insanely complex, obviously incredibly expensive and would have taken months (more like years but it’s a short war) to make when it’s not even needed for the dastardly plot! Just hire some guys who have already proven themselves against Jedi! Throw cash at Bane and Embo and a few others! Maybe attack them with your saber and see how they do! 

And after all that, Dooku still ends up trying to kidnap Palpatine on his own. I can’t even... 

So why does the Box exist? Well, apart from being a nerdy callback to Cube, giving us a good thrill and being generally awesome to look at, it has actual narrative purpose within the SW universe.

The box is Naboo.

What the Box lacks in plot relevance, it makes up for with its heavily symbolic meaning. It very closely follows Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s experiences on Naboo - but only certain parts, which I’ll explain later.

We start with clean, sterile environments, SW’s favored way of showing villainy.

Then we have the protagonists locked in a room as dioxis, a poison gas, pours in.

And then they escape... this way.

(Okay, here the shaft is down, not up. And it’s not a ventilation shaft per say, it’s the designed escape route. Same difference).

We then skip most of TPM (namely, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon discovering the droid army, finding Padmé, leaving Naboo, landing on Tatooine, going to Coruscant, etc, etc) to come back to Naboo and go directly to the lightsabers and catwalks.

(Note: in both scenes, Obi-Wan has to propel himself from a catwalk.)

In TPM and TCW, the catwalks are immediately followed by ray shields

And we finally end with the last scenes. Now, they don’t look the same but they are structurally identical. 

Obi-Wan is faced with a challenge unsuited for his abilities (facing Darth Maul // shooting three moving targets when he’s far more skilled with a blade than a blaster) on a narrow space above a melting pit/pit of fire. 

He first watches someone die failing to complete the task...

 ... and has to do it himself, faring much better than expected (holding his own against Maul // shooting all the targets easily). 

He then almost falls to his death and gets saved unexpectedly.

And then there’s the final showdown.

In both scenes, Obi-Wan is angry. And in TCW Dooku eggs him on, banking on his anger. (More on that later.) In both cases though, he centers himself and is able to overcome both his opponent and his own unbalance. But in TCW, he doesn’t go for the kill, because he doesn’t need to. 

The Box, as a literal character-explorator ex-machina, thus shows us Obi-Wan’s growth.  

In TPM, Obi-Wan follows Qui-Gon’s lead. In TCW, he is the leader. He identifies the gas, makes the plans. He doesn’t fall from catwalks anymore - he runs atop moving ones. He doesn’t stay stuck behind ray-shields, he finds the solution. (Btw, how did Moralo know what blood type Derrown the Exterminator was? There was a 50% chance of him dying - thus killing all of the bounty hunters. Was that an acceptable outcome? TCW I need answers!) He doesn’t slay his foes, because he’s become powerful enough, skilled enough and wise enough to survive (and win) without needing to kill.

He’s grown - and, even more interestingly, he’s also stayed the same. In the previous episodes, we see some of the dark aspects of Obi-Wan. How he - like all Force-wielders, all people - could lose himself if he stopped maintaining absolute control.

But in the Box, surrounded by the worst criminals of the Galaxy, the most ruthless, worthless people, he’s still kind and tries his best to keep them alive.

The Box is a reminder and a reassurance for the audience that Obi-Wan Kenobi is still there under Rako’s face. He hasn’t lost his compassion, his restrain. He’s still a Jedi. And he’s an awesome, badass one. 

And now, for what it tells us about Dooku! 

It’s much shorter, don’t worry. Basically, Dooku considers that the best way to pick “the best of the best” of the deadliest people in the Galaxy is making them go through what killed his Padawan. There, I’ve broken your hearts, you’re welcome. 

More seriously, Dooku is a manipulative ass. It’s pretty clear that he knows Rako is Obi-Wan, or at the very least suspects it. 

He has an interesting reaction upon learning Rako’s identity, he keeps praising him despite his usual distaste for low-lifes, he smirks secretively after Eval says “I’ll show you who’s weak” (not included there because it’s a close-up of Dooku’s lips and no one wants to see that) and he tells Rako he’s very disappointed when he doesn’t finish off Eval.

[Later]

(Look at this smug asshole - I can’t. YOUR GRANDSON IS THE BEST, WE KNOW, STOP ACTIVELY RUINING HIS LIFE ALREADY.)

(Dooku... why...)

Now obviously Dooku couldn’t have made the Box specifically for Obi-Wan, because it would have to have been designed months before the Council ever decided to send Obi-Wan undercover, but he has no qualms trying to use it to push Obi-Wan to the Dark Side. Ffs Dooku, making your spiritual grandson relive one of the most traumatic events of his life on the off chance that he’ll join you (and desecrate his Master’s memory in doing so) is not okay!

Final tidbits of analysis: I mentioned that not all of TPM is mirrored in the Box. What’s omitted is the droids (even though Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon fight B1′s and droidekas between the dioxis and the ventilation shafts) and anything pertaining to Sidious (all the political stuff on Coruscant). You’ll also note that the fake lightsabers are orange.

=> The Box distances itself from anything that connects Dooku to Naboo. Red lightsabers are the trademark of the Sith, so they’re not used. The bounty hunters will be facing Jedi, so logically the fake sabers should be green or blue - and yet they’re orange, the color closest to red without being red. It fits with Dooku’s special brand of dishonesty - he always tells bits of the real story but twists them just enough to absolve himself of any fault and to justify his choices. 

(”We can destroy the Sith” -> could maybe destroy Sidious with Obi-Wan, but fails to mention he’s a Sith Lord himself; “the Viceroy came to me for help, that’s why I’m attacking the Republic” -> political idealism is a small part of it, but fails to mention he’s Sidious’ underling and is playing the Viceroy like a fiddle; “Qui-Gon would have joined me” -> maybe, still fails to mention he’s working for the man who ordered Qui-Gon’s death; “I told you everything you needed to know” -> debatable, never said that Palps was Sidious; “Sifo-Dyas understood, that’s why he helped me” -> partly true, doesn’t admit to killing Sifo-Dyas right after getting his help)

So we have a twisted version of Naboo, droid-free (as droids are now irrevocably associated with Dooku, even if that wasn’t the case in TPM) and with sabers that aren’t quite red. Keep in mind that Dooku had already fallen by TPM. (We know this because he killed Sifo-Dyas and created the Clone Army - part of Sidious’ plan - when Valorum was still Chancellor, as per the episode The Lost One.) That means Dooku was (in)directly complicit in Qui-Gon’s death. And the Box doesn’t (=refuses to?) acknowledge that. 

(Also omitted in the Box are the Gungans and Tatooine. It makes sense, because Dooku probably wouldn’t have the full details regarding those parts of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan’s missio as they weren’t as public, and would see them as irrelevant if he did. He utterly despises Anakin, and Gungans are the type of people he always dismisses out of hand). 

Anyway, that’s my two cents about the Box. To quote Lucas...

“It’s like poetry. It rhymes.”

Thanks to @lethebantroubadour @impossiblybluebox​ @nonbinarywithaknife @ytoz​ and @kaitie85386​ for voting for this one. Next up is a compilation of the Jedi being casually tactile with each other (because they’re a warm and affectionate culture, dammit).

Also thanks to @laciefuyu​ for giving me gifs I ended up not using ^^; you rock anyway!

[dreadwulf]

prompt #1: The Green Knight

(Warning: Major Character Death. Not the Major Character you think. Be warned.)

The Green Chapel stands still and silent when the Golden Knight arrives.

Once he had expected a fine cathedral to await him at the of his journey, but by now he is unsurprised to find a crumbled ruin overgrown with ivy. Only the stone walls remain of this “chapel”. The sunken paving stones admit dirt and weeds between them enough that it is barely distinguishable from the forest floor, and the roof is long since fallen in. Everywhere it is overgrown with thick green leaves and vines, and surrounded by a canopy of trees that opens only enough to admit a slice of night sky directly above.

Ser Jaime Lannister enters watchfully, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

The Green Knight is nearly invisible to him at first: concealed in greenery, grown into the landscape as though part of it. The bark of his skin is encrusted with moss, leaving no visible gap between himself and the plants around him. Judging from the growth, the Knight has not moved in a long, long while. 

Has he stood exactly here for the entire year, waiting for him? It looks more like a statue, or a tree carving. Something long abandoned. Much longer than a single year.

“Ser Knight,” he announces, “I have arrived per our agreement.”

Silence. 

There is only him here, and a tree that looks only a little like a man.

He is early, Ser Jaime realizes. Will be it dawn of the day, or the very hour of their meeting? He may be here for some time. It will be hours to dawn, and it had been another sundown after that when the Green Knight had ridden into Robert’s court on his enormous steed. 

One year hence, the Knight had said. Well, at least he is not late.

The pre-dawn hours are quiet here, and the grove is peaceful. The trees overhead open out onto a pretty sprinkling of stars, and all the noise of the forest and the brook which has lead him here has faded away.  He can see why the locals call this the Green Chapel. It is the sort of place that encourages one to pray, and to contemplate, at least if one is given to introspection and piety. 

Which he is usually not.

The Golden Knight quickly grows restless. Waiting is not a skill of his. He is impatient by nature, impetuous and impulsive. Faced with delay he will rush things ahead, or abandon his course. Unless, as in this case, he has no choice but to wait, and then he will be overcome with unease. 

He paces. His fingers twitch. His gaze darts around, landing on this and that. 

There is no sign of movement from the Green Knight. 

If he had not seen him walking and talking, he might assume this to be only a sculpture, and not a living being. He might wonder if he had been tricked, and if some unseen enemy hovered nearby laughing at his predicament. But he has seen the Green Knight up close, and ran him through with his own blade, and watched as the great gnarled hands pulled the greatsword from his own breast as casually as a thorn from his finger, and tossed the weapon aside as though it were a child’s plaything.  

His hands curl around the same greatsword at his belt. He has carried it for a year, this sword. It was his prize for accepting the Green Knight’s challenge, and ostensibly he is here to return it. When he does, the knight will return him the same blow, and stab him through the heart. 

Was it worth it? What, after all, did he do with his fine sword? 

Ser Jaime sighs and sits on the wet ground. He can grow no more muddy and disheveled than he is already. He left King’s Landing in his extravagant golden armor, wearing his lion’s helm, and riding the finest horse in his stable. But he arrives in the Green Chapel on foot, with no helm, dressed in shabby clothing and battered bits of armor. Even his golden hair is shorn, and only a thin growth of hair remains of his famous golden curls. 

The only thing of value remaining to him is the sword. And to be quite honest, the Green Knight is welcome to it. If he could, he would exchange it for something much more valuable that he had found, and then lost, along the way.

It had taken many weeks to get him here. There were some diversions - misadventures, a strange episode in a Keep, and a good deal of wandering around lost - but he has come a very long way from Robert’s Court to find himself here. He had managed the journey only with the help of his squire.

The girl had joined him on the road on the very first day. She was part of the crowd that had followed him from the gates, those knight-hopefuls who so frequently followed his footsteps around the city. Most wanted some of his glory, hoped for it to spill onto them by mere proximity. Some wanted merely to see him meet his fate, others to be part of that tale if they could. But there was very little glory in this journey. They had been beset by bandits, wild animals, bad weather, and strange side-tracks from almost the very start

There had been six, even eight of them at a time, during the ride through the Westerlands, but as he traveled further and further from the capital and the weather worsened their number dwindled, and by the tenth night there was only her. Her name was Brienne. If she had another he has already forgotten it.

She was a strange girl, ungainly large, and dressed all in armor, in imitation of a knight. She had a face like rotten fruit, softly misshapen. Her straw-blonde hair, ruddy and pox-marked skin, and stubborn pout completed the picture. Her very presence proved subtly irritating. If a maid cannot be beautiful she might at least keep herself out of sight; or else be a servant, who are barely women to begin with.

His followers quickly decided to make a servant of her. This did not go well. Ser Jaime came upon her fighting three of the men on the third night. One of them had blood streaming from his nose already, another was sitting on the ground looking dazed from a blow to the head. The last was seemingly unfazed by the fate of the other two, and Ser Jaime observed him take a good punch to the chin that left him spitting out teeth. They were trying to steal her supper, she said. The girl should be cooking for us all, the men said. 

“She is my squire”, Ser Jaime told them, deciding upon it at that very moment. “She will cook supper for only me.”

“Like hell I will,” the ungrateful wench spat at him. 

Ser Jaime raised an eyebrow. “Do you wish to be a knight or not? First you must be a squire.”

She did at that. She did wish it, very much. He can see it in her eyes -- striking blue eyes, with a determined gaze. 

Brienne did cook his supper, the next night, over the campfire. Not very well, and he did not insist again. But she also tended his armor and sword, and that she did very well indeed. She handled his greatsword with tremendous respect and care, such that it touched him to see. He had long since stopped being impressed by the blade, after carrying it for a year. 

Brienne proved a loyal squire, if not the most typical one. When wolves attacked she proved herself courageous, stood herself well in front of older and more experienced men. When there was work to be done she would be first to do it, and without being asked: gathering firewood, tending the horses. Drudgery she avoided, but practical, necessary things she performed without complaint. 

She had very blue eyes. Sky eyes, clear and bright. He would have liked to look at them, except that she would be looking back, and that seemed to frighten her. She did not like to look him in the face. A shy maid, for all her armor and prickly temperament. He liked to tease her, and tell bawdy jokes with the other men until her face turned a pleasant pink.

A skirmish with the Brave Companions lost three of his would-be-knights and all of their horses,and it lead to their capture for a brief time. When they managed to escape, they were left traveling afoot, and without their supplies. His other followers drifted off then, losing their taste for adventure. Only the girl remained, and walked beside him along the road North uncomplaining through the long days ahead.

She was good with a blade, better than most. Not so good as Ser Jaime, who had a prodigious talent. But on the occasions he challenged her to spar with him, she got his blood up and roaring in a way he had not felt since he was a young man himself, and all his adventures before him.

She was kind. Too reserved to be gregarious, but generous in spirit. She took pity on every foundling, every poor farmer and milkmaid they encountered along the way. She wanted to help them, rescue them all; if he had not restrained her they would have been fighting for the honor of each individual cow from the Westerlands to the Neck. She was much disappointed that they hadn’t. What is a knight for, if not that?

She would learn, as he once had. The Knights of Robert’s Kingdom were more tarnished than a starry-eyed squire suspected. Heroes and legends in tales were only men in the flesh, and men with a bit of money and renown all went the same way. Given the best of everything they would indulge themselves, would grow greedy, would came to expect what had once been freely given. They fought not for gods and country but for glory, and mainly fought each other. They plundered wealth and women, sat by roaring fires, went slow, went soft, forgot hunger and killing cold. 

Honor was a facade, nothing more. To become a knight was to learn it. It made him glad she would never be knighted, and fail that lesson.

“Entertain me, squire,” he said to her as they rode side-by-side, needling her. “I have heard all of the songs and stories of this land, and they bore me. Tell me a tale of yourself, Squire Brienne. What adventures set you on this course to become a knight?”

She bowed her head. “I have no tales to tell, my lord. It is only a wish, and an aspiration. But I have no adventures but the one we are on now. But you, my lord, are a famous knight, and must have many stories to tell. I would be honored to hear them from your own lips.”

Ser Jaime had hundreds of tales. He has boasted of his adventures to innumerable audiences as they looked on him admiringly, the great Golden Knight. Wins at tourney, duels with other knights, riding to war for King Robert. But for some reason, as he turned them over in his mind, he discarded each of his favorite stories one by one. He did not want to tell them now; those stories are not for her.

“I also have no tales to tell,” he said.

“Are you not on a quest, my lord?” She looked over at him quizzically, her blue eyes innocent. “I hear tell you are riding to the Green Chapel in the north…”

“I am, and to meet the Green Knight. But even I am not so bold as to tell that tale when I do not yet know its ending. But it sounds like you could, Squire Brienne.”

Again she frowned at him for that title. But she did know the bare outlines of the story, how the strange Green Knight had rode into King Robert’s court and invited the bravest and boldest of his knights to face him in battle, to strike a single blow and receive a blow in return, and for it they would gain his greatsword as a prize. How the Golden Knight had taken up the challenge, and in a blow of great talent and precision stabbed the Golden Knight through the heart, finding the weakest point in his armor on a single try. But instead of falling down dead, the Green Knight had easily pulled the blade from his own chest and mounted his horse. He told the Golden Knight to meet him in one year at the Green Chapel, where he would return his blow. 

“And I see you do not hesitate to keep your word,” Brienne concluded the tale. “You are as bold and brave as all the stories say. But what will you do when you get there?” 

“Fight him, I suppose.” Ser Jaime’s hand tensed around the ruby-encrusted pommel of his borrowed sword. 

“Ser?” She blinked back at him in confusion.

“What, you expected I would meekly bow my head and be murdered? Of course not.” Ser Jaime’s shoulders shook. “Twas not a fair bargain, when he has such dark magic that he can take a sword through the heart and survive. I have no such magic, and it isn’t a fair exchange.”

“But you did not have to strike a deathblow. By the bounds of the agreement you might have only scratched him, and taken only a scratch in return.”

Well, yes. In hindsight, that would have been wiser. If he had taken the time to think it over, he might have put that together. But by nature he rarely takes that time. 

“He was a large and fearsome Knight, and I thought only to prevent the return blow. Of course if I had known he would survive it I would have acted differently. I know it now. And when I see the Knight this time I will fight him with everything I have, and he will fight me with everything He has, and we will see who is the victor.”

“But you made a promise…” She sounded faintly disappointed, and it irritated him greatly.

“It was a trick, girl. A trick to snare a knight by his honor. Would you have me die for a trick? What good will that serve? No, I will keep my appointment as promised, but he will have to work to land his blow against me. I’ll have my skill and my wit to defend me, as he had his magic.”

“Are you not afraid, Ser?”

“Afraid to fight? Never. It will be a fine duel, perhaps the finest of my life, and I am eager for it. It will be the battle that will make my legend, the kind that songs are sung of, and I look forward to that.”

Brienne said that she hoped to see it, and let the matter lie.

She did not see it, of course. They came to the Crossroads instead.

An inn stood at the crossroads, and cast-offs from the Riverlands sheltered there. Orphans and strays. Jaime and Brienne arrived only long enough to see a great many helpless faces before bandits came riding, meaning to plunder the kitchens, and carry off the women and children.

Jaime told the girls to run away as best they could, and aimed to do the same. If they were quick about it, the raiders couldn’t catch them all. 

Brienne, on the other hand, meant to defend them. They would not survive alone in the forest, she said, and if the bandits took away the food, the little ones would starve.  

“Better the bandits take them then, one or the other,” he said quickly, tugging at her. “But we had best retreat. We will not manage another fight in our condition, and not without more men.”

This was entirely reasonable, to him; better knights than he had often advised the same. There was no glory in failure, and certainly none in a pointless death in the middle of nowhere.

“No.” Brienne grew taller under his grasp, and would not be moved. “What good is a knight if he will not defend the innocent?”

“You stupid girl.” He holds her by the shoulders. “There is nothing you and I alone can do against so many men, no matter how skilled you are with a blade. They will surround us and cut us down -- it won’t even buy any time for your orphans. The best we can do is live to fight another day.”

“Someone must do something,” she says stubbornly. “I will not run.”

“Not to no avail! A battle is bravery, but this is suicide. It’s foolish, meaningless. It will make no difference whether you intervene or not - either way the women are taken and the children are killed. You will only add another body.”

“Someone must fight for them,” she insists. “Even if there is no hope. I am not enough, but if there is no one else, then it will be me.”

With that, she had shoved him in the larder, with a sudden and ferocious strength, and barred the door.

“Let me free, you stupid child!” He slammed his weight into the door sharply with his shoulder, enraged. 

He could hear her through the door, her voice steady and clear.

“Someone must fight for them. If there is no one else, then it will be me.”

“Damn you,” he swore at her. “Open the door and I will fight with you. Two against a dozen is better odds than one. Open the door!”

“You have an appointment to keep,” she said, and then there was silence.

Jaime could not see what happened after that, but he could hear it. He could hear the disdainful laughter of the brighands, and the drawing of many blades. He could hear for a time the blades clashing, and much shouting, and one unfamiliar cry of pain, and for a brief moment he was hopeful that she might prevail. She was a talented swordfighter. If they fought her one at a time he had no doubt she could best them.

He could tell, even without seeing, that they did not. The fight turned, became a slaughter. He heard a single cry that he knew in his gut was Brienne, taking a blow she would not survive. There came more noise then, more steel and blows, and then the screams of the women and children being dragged from the Inn. 

He screamed too. He wept, and clutched at his useless greatsword in a rage, wanting to throw himself through the door and impale himself on them like an arrow, these animals who would dare to touch a true knight. None of them seemed to hear him, or proved interested in the larder.

He didn’t know how long he had been left sitting there on the floor, with tears on his face and the earthy smell of raw meat weighting him down in the cool darkness. He waited for one of them, any of them, to remember him in the kitchens and come back, but no one did, and that was how he knew that no one remained. He wondered if he would be left there to rot. To moulder away with the bits of cheese and bread that remained there until he was nought but bones and a borrowed sword.

Eventually, quietly, a small boy with enormous eyes unbarred the door, having emerged from his hidey-hole only hours after the vicious intruders had left. Seeing Jaime huddled in the dark, he fled again and hid himself away in the Inn.

Jaime emerged into the twilight reluctantly. When he looked down the road, he imagined he could see them. The prisoners being taken away in the back of some wagon, women and children and women who were really children still, huddled together and weeping, down the long road and away. It was all for nothing, all of this. The brigands had taken them anyway.

There was no glory in this defeat. There was only a bloodstreaked trench in the mud where a terrible battle occurred, and in the middle of it a sad heap of metal. She was unrecognizable there, cut to pieces. Only a few strands of pale blonde hair remained to know her by.

The blacksmith’s armory had implements enough to break the cold ground. He dug a hole right beside the crossroads while the rain bucketed down on him. His chest hurt from the strangled sob caught in it. He put her in the hole and blanketed her again with the mud. If there had been flowers anywhere in that season in all the land he would have found them and laid them there above her grave. One day, he hoped, grass would grow. 

It was a meaningless gesture, and made no difference to the blue-eyed girl. But it meant something to Jaime.

It was not meaningless to them, the shivering children and the sad-faced women riding away in the wagons. They had looked back, mournfully, at the place in the road where her body lay. Looked back down the long road, into the distance, through the rain and the trees and the tramping feet of the bandits’ horses and out of sight, and they kept looking. They would look back long after the rain and wind had wiped away any traces of what had happened there. They would not forget. When the enemy came for them, someone took up a blade in their cause. Someone thought they mattered. Someone thought they were worth dying for. They did not face their fate alone. 

When evil comes, so long as at least one person stands against it, there is still some light left in the world. 

He left the shovel there in the road and went back to the Inn. It took some time to locate the boy and persuade him to come out of the trunk where he had hidden himself. He carried the boy with him North to the next village, where he left him wordlessly at the Sept, and turned North again, alone.

The rain never stops now. The ground is crusted with snow and the air is wet and mossy and somehow the rains never wash anything away. It only soaks into the dirt and grime and ice and blood and weighs it down. Makes it heavier. Makes everything impossibly heavy. 

There are more strange things that happen to him then: how the road curves and wanders beneath his feet and doubles him back to the start as though trying to throw him off his course. There were strange dreams, and visions, and he walks in a sort of fever. Nothing seems quite real after the Crossroads, nothing except the sword in his hand and his goal: the Green Chapel. He has an appointment to keep.

He grows only more determined to reach his destination. 

The nights grow colder. He wakes up shivering, rolling over, trying to wake the embers of the fire, and every time his eyes open they are looking for the foolish girl in her armor. They find only blackness and he remembers then the crossroads and the hole he dug besides the road.

He missed her terribly.

He misses her still, sitting here before the Green Knight. It is a persistent ache, a weight that grows heavier by the day. It makes him feel ancient to contemplate. He sounds like one of the rusty old knights who cluster around Robert, lamenting the roads not taken, the women they might have settled down with. Lost loves. It has been only days and yet it seems like years ago, and a road already overgrown and impassable. He can see it already, the enormity of his mistake. His life might have become something entirely different, improbably better. The opportunity came to him, and he wasted it. 

Brienne. The Maiden Knight. She could have been his lady love and his brother-at-arms all at once. Would anything have been so perfectly suited to him as that? He will never find her like again, and even if he did he would not want it; he will only want her, for the rest of his life. 

Jaime muses over these memories through the hours. The journey, the past, the world around him. Time seems to settle into a hazy blur.

The sun rises slowly, impossibly slowly. He cannot see it past the trees, but the world gradually brightens, with gentle insistence. The greens grow ever more lush and verdant all around him. The wall where the Green Knight stands turns from grim grey to a lively grass color, the dark ivy wound around in loops that seem to form an altar of deep mossy overgrowth around the still and sleeping form of the Knight.

His hands worry at the hilt of the greatsword that he had come to return.  He might leave the blade on the altar and go. Would that fulfill his word? 

What did Jaime do with his famous sword, during the year he had it? Only held it aloft for others to see. Used it to threaten, and to cajole. Boasted of it to other lords. But the only time he had just cause to draw it he had chosen to retreat instead, and in doing lost the only thing of any value he had ever found. 

If only he had gone with her. Agreed right at the first, without hesitation. If he had stood at her side it might have ended differently. One had no chance, but two, perhaps, might have survived. He might have taken her with him to the Green Chapel. He might have taken her home to the King. He might have seen her made a knight, and stood proudly beside her at the king’s table. The tales he might have made with her, he would be proud to tell.

The Knight’s form comes into clearer and clearer relief: looming over him, impossibly tall, improbably wide. 

Jaime knows with cold certainty that the Knight is going to wake very soon. As the light grows stronger, the Green Chapel is waking around him with a thousand tiny movements. He can almost make out the subtle sound of leaves uncurling to the sun, and worms crawling in the earth.

The sword, Oathkeeper, quivers in his hands, as though outraged. How did he dare to carry that blade to this place intending to lie? To break his promise? More and more he thinks he did not. He came here for something else entirely. 

Jaime finds, for the first time that he can remember, his hands are trembling. It is one thing to go to battle, but another entirely to go to an execution. His heart beats in his ears with a deep drumbeat of doom... doom... doom...

He’s not here to fight a duel, is he? What, then, is he here for?

Glory? Judgement? Mercy? Absolution? 

Or only the cold, mechanical means of his inevitable end? 

Was all this journey only for that? Is he truly here only to get a blade through his chest? And if so, might it be worth his while? After all, is there any better way for a knight to die? Will it not be a fitting end to his legend?

But he isn’t ready to die. Not willingly. Not without redeeming his honor, making something of himself. If he had another year… but would he do any more with that than he had the last? Than he has with all of the years thus far? Is there any amount of time that would make any more of himself than he has already?

The time he needed was these weeks on the road with Brienne. That showed him what kind of man he’d like to be. But he failed her when it mattered most. Perhaps he should be judged for that. Not a year from now, nor twenty. Today.

The sun rises higher in the sky, and paints the Green Chapel gold. The air warms, and birdsong calls to him on the breeze. The day is relentlessly pleasant, with a promise of endless more such days to follow. A bittersweet longing fills him. It has never seemed half so lovely to be alive as it does in this beautiful place. If only he could have brought her here.

I will be brave, he says to himself. Like Brienne.

All at once there is a great creaking sound of wood bending and tearing, and when Jaime looks up the green altar is moving. Green leaves tremble and wave purposefully, and twigs and small branches snap and fall away to rest in the dirt below. The trunk of the altar pulls itself free, excavates itself from the enclosure in the leaves and branches. Limbs pull free, and something nearly human rises out of the green, the bark of its skin glistening, newborn.

The Green Knight is standing.

Jaime looks up, and up, and up, from where he sits on the mossy floor of the green chapel, and his hand grips the hilt of his sword.

He is ready to fight, by instinct, and to flee, by sudden impulse. He is afraid, he realizes, afraid in a way he has never been before. There is more than a blow to the heart to fear here. There is the fate of his soul, which is suddenly entirely in question. Before his journey he had no doubt of his own worth as a knight, and now he is just as certain in the opposite direction. Is he worthy? He is not. He is not. 

Slowly, he stands. The sun shines down on him through the same corridor in the trees where he had watched the stars the night previous, and its warmth is a rebuke; why should the sun shine upon one such as him? He is the golden knight no more. He is only a man, a man with a sword that does not belong to him. 

His eyes raise last of all. 

Jaime finds through the golden light the Green Knight’s face. The eyes first, through a thin bloom of leaves and moss, and then the nose, the jawline. He has never seen it so clearly before, not even when he had stabbed her through the heart. With slow realization his eyes travel down and up again, taking in the shape of his host, and her nature.

The Green Knight is a woman? Why didn’t he realize it before?

It seems only too clear now. The slight narrowing of the waist and wrists, and in the face… not a pretty face, but undeniably feminine. Full lips, round cheeks, and the eyes...

Blue eyes. Beautiful blue, sad blue, noble and sorry. The lost blue of long-forgotten clear skies. 

When he sees them his hands stop shaking. All is well. His grand sword slips from his fingers and settles softly in the grass, sinks gently into the ground, is welcomed.

“It’s you,” he says. “I’m glad it’s you.”

The girl from the Crossroads is standing before him. 

He doesn’t understand how it is possible. Was she always the Knight? Was all an illusion? Was the Knight in disguise when he met her, or was the Knight once that girl? But it doesn’t matter. Whoever she is, she is here now, and it is good and right that this happen to him. 

Her voice is low and rusty, like a hinge that has not moved in many years, and slow in its opening.

“You... kept... our appointment,” the Knight creaks.

His mouth is gone dry. “One year hence. You gave me time enough. And so I am here.” 

He thinks he sees her smile, faintly. With the crackling sound of breaking branches, the Knight gestures to his feet.

“You... dropped your sword... my Lord.” Ser Jaime glances down at Oathkeeper, already disappearing beneath the twining vines on the forest floor. “Is it not time... for our blades to cross? A duel to make your legend?”

“I made you a promise,” he says faintly, and puts a hand over his unguarded heart. “It seems my word is all I have, and if it means nothing to anyone else, it means something to me.”

She smiles. An oaken hand reaches out and touches him on the face, gently. “My brave knight.”

Her eyes are the bluest skies he has ever seen. He is not afraid. Not anymore.

“Are you ready?” she asks him, still stroking his cheek.

“Yes.” He is eager for it now. “Strike your blow.”

“Straight through the heart,” she agrees. Then she reaches out with her other hand to touch the other side of his face.

She kisses him.

[midnightsconspiracy]

Office Romance?

Office Romance? - @midnightsconspiracy

Summary: It's Mouse’s first day in the 21st district. Jay introduces him to the whole team, except you who seems to always be out until you finally meet at Molly’s and completely hit it off

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2193

Requested: Nope but my requests are currently open

A/N: This is my first time writing for Mouse and the longest fic I’ve written, so hopefully everyone likes it! :)

Masterlist

It was Mouse’s first day in Intelligence, it was finally the day that he was going to turn his life around. No longer living in sketchy areas and gaining felonies but instead becoming a legit member of society and working for a reputable institution, the Chicago police department. He had been recommended to the boss by his friend and former military buddy Jay Halstead, who unlike himself, had managed to get a proper holding in society after being discharged from the Rangers. This was finally his chance to show Jay and everyone else who cares about him that he could do something else good with his life and that he was more than just his time in the military.

Meeting Jay outside the district, the two men embrace in a warm hug, briefing saying their hellos and reminiscing on old times before they ascended the stairs. They pasted Sergeant Platt, Jay giving her a small hello in which she ignored and Mouse, despite having only met her once, gave her a polite smile. Punching in the passcode alongside his handprint, he unlocked the door climbing the second set of stairs up to the place he would call ‘home’ for hopefully years to come. Reaching the top Jay paused, Mouse quick to follow his actions.

“Guys this is Mouse, Mouse this is the Unit. That’s Dawson, Lindsay, Olinsky, Atwater, Nadia, and Sergeant Voight’s in his office.” The people in the room all averted their gaze from their own individual work, with Voight even exiting his office to greet him as well, to greet the newest member of the team, all presenting him with a momentary smile, short greeting, or handshake.

“Oh and Y/LN and Ruzek are currently out chasing up a lead right now but should be back soon,” Jay quickly followed up, trying to familiarise his buddy up with as much as possible to make him as comfortable as he could, knowing mouse struggled with rejoining society.

“Ok-k, well it's good meeting everyone, and I hope I can be of assistance to you all,” he mumbled out nervously, he admired Jay and Voight for giving him this opportunity but it still didn’t stop the feelings that they had a level of superiority over him due to their jobs. Taking him downstairs to his own tech room, he prompted Mouse to take a look around to get accustomed to his surroundings.

“What do you think buddy?

“I think it will do the job just fine,” he smiled back to jay reassuring him that he could do this.

“Ok, well if you’re all good I’ve got work to do myself,” Jay announced before turning and leaving Mouse to his own devices, finally leaving him to prove himself worthy.

—————

Mouse’s day was hectic, to say the least. Members of the team were constantly in and out of the tech room or calling him, getting him to give them vital information as quickly as he possibly could. But he thrived in the conditions present, what previously was extreme anxiety when he first entered turned into adrenaline. He hadn’t experienced such a high-intensity situation since his time at the Rangers, but he loved it. The Rangers was the place he felt most at home and alive, but the ‘accident’ had caused him to be honourably discharged. He wanted to be back in Afghanistan with Jay and his other military buddies desperately, feeling as though he had a place there, that he was actually contributing something good to the world, but this would do for the time, this was the best thing for him right now.

From what he could figure out, the unit was dealing with a human trafficking case in which multiple girls were found dead by the Docks, thrown into a container, and starved to death. Pulling up the names of multiple different men, he stared into their eyes as the pictures came up on his screen and felt no remorse for them as he heard each man be dragged into the cage one by one. The team managed to successfully find lead after lead, deciding to either all roll out together or keep sending Ruzek and Y/LN out. It was already about halfway through the day and Mouse still had not met the said people, only occasionally hearing their voices or being told to send them the information he was finding.

—————

As the day further progressed things started to flatline, leads found previously being a bust and nobody seeming to find anything worthwhile. The whole team worked tireless upstairs as Mouse found them the material they needed downstairs. Finally, after an hour of absolutely nothing, Dawson managed to get vital information from a CI and so a feasible lead was afoot. As the others were gearing up and getting ready to finally make some arrests, Jay popped his head into Mouse’s tech cave.

“Mouse I need you to send me the information on Spencer Phillips ASAP,” he was just about to walk out when he turned his head slightly to utter a few final words to his friend,

“And good job buddy, we really appreciate it.” Mouse smiled as he looked up the information for Jay, maybe he was going something good for the world, especially if his dearest friend thought so.

—————

The lead had been successful and two arrests of notable people in a human trafficking ring were arrested. The case was not fully closed, the organisation still up and running, but the perpetrators of the murders were put away to never see a day in the sun again. That was enough for Voight to warrant the members of his team a break to go home, rest and in the younger detective's case visit the local bar, Molly’s. Coming back up to the main room Jay greeted Mouse, patting him on the back for a job well done, he had underestimated his friend, thinking that he may struggle with his job just as he had coped with his anxiety and PTSD after coming back from the Middle East. Walking further into the room Mouse finally got to see the infamous man who had manage to evade his line of sight for the whole working day, Adam Ruzek. Approaching him he finally got to introduce himself.

“Hi, it's nice to finally meet you”

“Yeah, you too Mouse, I feel like I’ve been swept off my feet the whole day, you coming to Molly’s”

“I wasn’t planning to but sure why not?” Mouse had a vague idea of what Molly’s was, Jay sometimes talking about the bar run by first responders, but he was excited to finally see it for himself. Turning to Jay, who was packing his stuff up at his desk, he assumed he would want to go to the bar alongside the rest of the team,

“Molly’s then?” He smirked knowing Jay would never turn him or drinking down,

“Of course.” Leaving the district together, the two guys headed in the direction of the bar relieved to finally get away from work and have some downtime. Unbeknown to them you were in the changing room with Kim chatting away, excited to go for a drink and ready to go upstairs to meet the new tech guy. Little did you know you would be very disappointed when you did so.

—————

Arriving at the bar the men settled into the unit's usual booth at the back of the bar, flagging down Hermann to get two beers so that they could finally unwind from a long day of stressful events.

“The rest of the team should be here shortly, but how was your first day buddy, tell me all,” Jay asked hoping that his friend liked the position so that he could work towards becoming an outstanding member of the community and chuffed that he was working alongside his best friend once more.

“It was good man, I don’t really know what else to say about it. Um..I finally felt as if I was doing something with myself, I felt that adrenaline I missed from the Rangers, but I miss it, the thrill, the relationships, everything really Jay.” Jay sighed not knowing what to say, annoyed at his friend for missing it, he had spent so long trying to pull Mouse out of that bad place, a constant cycle of anxiety, depression, and PTSD, that it hurt him that he wanted to go back. The tense situation was interrupted by the rest of the team arriving, taking up the rest of the room in the booth with Erin snuggling up to Jay and Adam getting up to buy a round for the table. All the usual suspects were there enjoying themselves, except one, you.

You had gone home to shower and get out of your work clothes before making your way to meet the rest of the team for some rest and relaxation, maybe nestling a few beers throughout the night. Making your way into the bar, you passed members of firehouse 51, making small talk with them before moving towards Hermann to get yourself an alcoholic beverage. Thanking him you turned to walk over to your unit's table, spotting an unfamiliar figure in the corner of the booth next to jay, which you could assume was the new tech guy Mouse.

“Christ Y/LN where have you been?” Your partner Adam boomed, already a little tipsy from the two beers he had consumed.

“Sorry I had to go home first, wanted to freshen up,” you smiled amused at how much of a lightweight Adam really was, despite claiming otherwise.

“Y/N this is Mouse, I don’t think you’ve met yet,” Jay interrupted you, drawing your attention away to introduce you to the nervous man beside him. Looking him dead in the eyes, you noticed how attractive he was, you had just presumed that Mouse would be less than average looking considering his measly nickname, but no, the man in front of you was undeniably handsome with a charming smile and deep blue eyes.

“Hi, it's nice to meet you, sorry I didn’t meet you earlier, seems like we were both at the wrong place at the wrong time,” you gave a shy smile, sitting down next to Kevin trying to look confident despite the nervousness you felt inside.

“I-its good to meet you to Y/N, seems like the universe is not in our favour huh?” He stuttered equally as nervous, for what you assumed was first-time jitters, but little did you know it was because he found you equally as attractive.

——————

Throughout the night you continued talking with all members of your unit but especially Mouse. You felt naturally drawn to him, not just because of your attraction but also the stories he told that fascinated you, some from his days in the rangers and other ones from his childhood. By the end of the night, you too had managed to move to sit next to each other, with the members of your unit seeing you hit it off immediately and so pushed you together hoping for another office romance. Completely enamoured by him, you didn’t even notice that the other people in the bar were starting to trickle out slowly and Hermann’s last order was thirty minutes ago. Finally noticing your surroundings after the bartender had called your name and told you it was closing time, you checked your watch noticing the late time. Turning to Mouse you smiled and softly spoke about the revelation,

“I didn’t even realise how late it was, maybe we should get out of here, wait wait! Not like that, well unless you want you.” Noticing what you had said, you shyly smiled hoping he wouldn’t think you were too weird.

“That sounds good,” he cheekily smirked moving out of the booth, allowing you to get out too and heading towards the doors of the bar, saying a brief goodnight to Hermann on your way out. You walked down the street together to where your cars were parked, going at a slow pace, trying to extend your time together for as long as possible. Locating your car you stood next to it as you went to say your goodbyes to the handsome man in front of you.

“Thank you for keeping me company tonight, I really enjoyed it”

“Yeah me too, but I was hoping we could do it again sometime, just you and me?” Completely taken aback you stuttered to think of your response, you weren’t not thrilled about it at all, just completely surprised that he liked you as you did him.

“I’d love to Mouse, give me your phone,” handing you his phone you put your number in, silently hoping he would be one of those guys that actually use your number instead of ignoring it completely. Proceeding to hand it back, you both stood in silence not knowing what to say. But in this situation, no words were needed, only actions. So when he leaned in to place his lips, you gladly reciprocated the affection, wrapping your arms around his neck and deepening the kiss. Little did you know this would lead to a lifetime of desire and devotion.

[lorelylantana]

First 20 Lines Tag Game

First Line of Your Last Twenty Stories

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line. Tag some people to play the next round!

Many thanks to the lovely @zeldaelmo for the tag, I’ve only got 13 works published so I’m going to pad things out with some WIPs, so without further ado~

1. The Subtleties of Fate

My sister shouldn’t be the Hylian Champion.

2. The Nuances of Destiny (Sequel to Subtleties of Fate)

The first thing I felt was the feeling of water draining away, and hand squeezing my shoulder and shaking gently.

3. A Private Indulgence

For all of the fineries expected of a princess, it was rare for Zelda to be seen in lace.

4. A Little Black Book

How did it come to this?

5. Zelda’s Resentment

Everyone knew that there was no love lost between Princess Zelda and her appointed knight.

6. Savageries of the Heart

Zelda always hesitated outside of the King Daphnes’ door.

7. Compulsion

His father wasn’t happy when Link was called to his office, a scowl etched into his brow.

8. Unconventional Observation

Zelda slipped into the bath with a sigh, letting the first quiet moment of the day calm her thoughts.

9. Spontaneous

What-

What in Hylia’s name did she just watch?

10. Luminescent

Link hated how his reputation was leveraged against the Princess.

11. A Blindsided Engagement

Calamity was soundly defeated, and the Kingdom of Hyrule was at peace, but King Rhoam knew something dark was afoot.

12. Supernaturally Suspect

The architects of Hyrule Castle were a very clever group indeed.

13. Secrecy

The Feast of Farore was an old tradition that dated back to a time in which the noble class had difficulty reproducing.

14. Exposed

It began, like so many scientific breakthroughs, with an accident.

15. Devoured

Zelda was dreaming of him again.

16. 300 follower celebration

Three days after Calamity’s defeat the sun was shining, the birds were singing along a cool breeze, and Link was sweating bullets. 

17. The Golden Gerudo

“Please, Mamai?”

“No, Little Bird, I need you here.”

“But-”

“Zelda” Urbosa said gently, taking her daughter by the shoulders, “ you’re the only person capable of greeting guests in my absence.

18. They Be Rivals

There was quite a commotion when the twin queens of Hyrule were born.

19. :3 Link

Touching her was a mistake. He knew it.

20. The Difference This is an unoffical sequel to one of @ghostgirl19posts’s Ganon’s Champion!Link series of oneshots which you can find here as chapters 2, 3, and 10)

Zelda sees the dead sincerity in his eyes when he speaks, but the relief at Ganon’s fall has sparked a rebellious streak in her.

I think the biggest pattern I can spot is using the first line to establish non-canon elements or other situational awareness lines. The first line is almost aways dedicated to establishing where we are in the canonical timeline or why this doesn’t take place in the canon at all. I find this interesting because I think this is something, at least as far as I’m concerned anyway, that seems unique to my fanfiction pieces. For original works I tend to favor the “cold open” method that pops up on some of the others.

I think my favorite first line is the one for my unpublished celebration fic, but of my published fics I have to go with A Private Indulgence.

Also it looks like I completely ditched first person after the first fics, which is mildly amusing.

I think I’ll tag @ghostgirl19posts and @airplanned if they haven’t played already.

[imaginesandinserts]

Irreverent Pt. 49 - Fate

Title: Irreverent Pt. 49 - Fate

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Reader Rating: M Words: ~4K

A/N: Flashback Chapter set between Chapter 44: Wasteland and Chapter 45: Je t’aime. 

Irreverent Series Masterlist

Contrary to popular belief, Aaron Hotchner's favorite place was not his oak-lined office at Quantico. No, his favorite place in DC was the Moongate Garden at the Smithsonian, preferably at sunset. It was the place he'd first appreciated the cherry blossom trees in full bloom, it was where he'd decided on George Washington for law school, and it had been the place he'd gone to, to await Rossi's call that he'd gotten the position on the BAU.

You didn't know this though. He'd never told you about the Moongate Garden at the Smithsonian. He'd never told anyone, not even Haley. He felt oddly protective of it - as though not telling anyone about it somehow preserved how special it was.

Aaron woke up on the morning of November 2nd to a cold bed, which was unusual to say the least. You only woke up early for work, and that too usually only after he'd forced you to. You'd told him that this problem only arose once the two of you got together. It was hard to want to leave bed when he made it warm with his presence.

He could hear some sounds coming from the kitchen - it sounded like you and Jack were already awake and making breakfast. He drags himself out of bed and looks towards the nightstand for his phone, but sees only the empty charging cord. Frowning, he looks around but doesn't see it anywhere else either.

He decides to go downstairs and see if you'd seen it anywhere. The scene that greets him is - chaotic to say the least. The entire living room ceiling is crowded with floating balloons and the kitchen is a mess. Both you and Jack look up to see him standing by the island - Jack was in the midst of pouring a glass of orange juice while you flipped pancakes - blueberry by the look of it.

You recover first. "Happy Birthday!" you exclaim, turning off the stove as you flip the last of the pancakes onto the serving platter.

Jack puts down the juice container and runs over to hug his father. "Happy Birthday, Dad!" he smiles wide, looking up at Aaron as his father hugs him back.

"You didn't have to go to so much trouble, you know," he says, gesturing towards the balloons and breakfast. He wasn't used to a fuss for his birthday.

You roll your eyes as you walk over to him, kissing him lightly on the lips for Jack's sake. His real birthday present was sitting in a small black bag in the back of your closet.

"Of course I did," you grin, as both him and Jack grab a seat at the island, Jack handing his father the glass of juice. You grabbed the pancakes and syrup before settling down on Jack's other side.

Jack had helped you plan out Aaron's birthday. The two of you had decided that breakfast followed by a Star Wars marathon with him and Jack was the perfect way to spend the day. You'd arranged for lunch to be delivered for them later, so after breakfast you quickly cleaned up and got ready while Jack dragged Aaron to the couch. You'd grabbed Aaron's work phone early on. There would be no cases today - not if you could help it.

As you got back downstairs, Aaron raised an eyebrow at you from his position on the couch. "Where do you think you're going?" he asks, gesturing at the fact that you're all dressed up while both him and Jack were still in their pajamas.

"Just some errands I have to run," you reply, keeping your tone casual. You knew he'd see right through it, but you weren't exactly about to admit to everything either.

He narrows his eyes in suspicion, a small smile betraying his otherwise serious face. Jack was still setting up for the movie, so Aaron gets up to walk you to the door. He has an inkling that something more is afoot as he walks through the dangling ribbons from all of the balloons.

"What've you got planned?" he asks, leaning against the door and blocking your exit route, just out of view of the living room.

You ignore his question, grabbing your keys. He grabs your waist tightly as you approach the door, causing your breath to hitch. You watch as his face breaks into a smirk at your reaction. You're wearing flat shoes so he looms over you entirely, pulling you closer. You turn your head to make sure Jack can't see, before meeting his eyes again. If that look was anything to go off of, your little outfit for tonight was sure to be discarded very quickly.

"Go. Spend the day with your son," you say sternly, going up on your toes to place a quick kiss to his cheek. He turns his head and captures your lips with his instead, hands moving from your waist to your back, nearly lifting you and leaving you breathless. You have to stop yourself from jumping up and wrapping your legs around his waist. You let him kiss you for a moment more, before drawing away and ducking under his arm to get to the door.

You give him a light push towards the living room, drawing the door shut behind you.

By four o'clock, Aaron and Jack had made it through three movies, lunch, and made a significant dent in the popcorn and candy you'd left. He reckoned old age was making him soft, since Jack was already on his third candy bar of the day and he had yet to say anything about it. His son had grabbed the third one hesitantly, glancing over at his father. Upon no objection, he'd quickly opened it and taken a large bite. Aaron had to suppress a laugh at that.

He was just about to pop in the next movie when the doorbell rang and he went to answer the door to Prentiss, who barged in without an invite and called for Jack. Aaron watched, confused, as his son greeted her and then raced upstairs to supposedly get ready.

"You should get ready too, Hotch," Prentiss says, making herself at home in the living room.

"What am I getting ready for, exactly?" He wasn't sure what was going on or why Prentiss was here but there was obviously a plan in place, given how his son had bounded upstairs to get dressed.

"Just wear something nice, casual. She's wearing red, if it matters," she smirks at him. The two of you matching was a constant source of mockery for the team.

Accepting that he wouldn't be getting any answers out of her, he goes upstairs to shower and get ready. He decides to wear the burgundy polo that you'd bought for him a few weeks ago. Apparently it was his color.

When he walks downstairs, he's greeted by you, dressed in a deep red dress that hugs your body. You definitely hadn't been wearing that when you left.

"Now will you tell me what the plan is?" he asks as he reaches the landing.

You shake your head no. It was too fun keeping him in the dark about this. Surprising Aaron was difficult and you knew you weren't actually pulling anything over on him. He was sure to at least suspect what he would be walking into tonight, but there was a small part of tonight that you thought would at least be somewhat unexpected.

"Turn around," you instruct, whipping a blindfold out of seemingly nowhere.

He raises an eyebrow at you, lips curling up in amusement as he turns around per your instructions. "I didn't realize the kinky part of the night was going to start so early."

Shaking your head with a laugh, you tie the blindfold over his eyes, securing a knot tightly at the back of his head. "Alright, that should stay. Grab my hand."

He turns back around and finds your soft waiting hand, grasping it tightly in his own and knitting your fingers through his. "If I trip and fall it is entirely your fault," he quips, lips still upturned as he allows you to lead him out the door and slowly down the front steps, taking them one at a time.

"Watch it. We wouldn't want that pretty face of yours to suddenly meet the concrete."

When you reach your car, you open the passenger door for him and help him in, making sure he's safely buckled in before going around to the other side. He looked quite adorable, seated there with the blindfold on, sitting with such an air of ease. Once you're in, you lean over, quickly capturing his lips with your own. He starts at your sudden touch, but is quick to reciprocate, tongue peaking out and brushing over your lower lip, begging your mouth open as he captures the lower lip between both of his. The gentle sucking sensation has your stomach swooping, a low moan escaping you as you ignore the middle console digging into your stomach while you're leaned over across it to get to him.

You pull back, his mouth following yours as far as possible until he's stopped by the seatbelt locking him in place. The sheer frustration on his face, brought upon by such a simple thing as a seatbelt, forces a laugh out as you gently push him back to be seated properly in his seat despite his protests.

"We can't have sex in the car right now, Aaron." You shake your head, buckling your own seatbelt into place.

"I wasn't suggesting we have sex in the car. The house is right there. We could just head back in."

"Hmm, tempting. But no. We have plans tonight."

"Ah yes, the surprise birthday par–" He stops, having realized that he'd given away that he already knows that all of your friends are awaiting his arrival at some undisclosed location.

You chuckle lightly, reaching over and squeezing his hand that's resting on the center console. "It's alright. I figured you knew about that already."

"Great. Can I take the blindfold off then?" He looks at you with a small pout, thinking you'll just give in.

"Do you know where the party is?" you ask, eyes narrowed, not that he could see. Emily better not have given it away when she came to grab Jack.

There's a silence before he finally gives in. "…No."

"The blindfold stays on."

With that said, you pull out of the driveway and onto the street, towards your destination.

Aaron tried to mentally keep track of the turns you're taking at first. A left and then two rights. Then onto the freeway ramp. He can only be sure of the first few exits and after that he's in the dark about where you're headed. Which was exactly your intention. Thus the blindfold.

You've turned the music to a playlist with any song with the word Birthday in it. There aren't a lot and it isn't long until Birthday Sex is playing, at which he looks over at you expectantly. "Is that going to be happening tonight?" There's some amount of humor in his voice as he asks, his shoulders actually moving along to the beat of the music unconsciously.

You look over at him, taking in the smile playing at his mouth. "Sex? Probably. If you behave," you tell him, turning off the freeway finally.  

He snorts. As if you'd hold out on sex with him on his birthday. As if you'd ever held off. Well, that wasn't entirely true he supposed. You took far too much pleasure out of driving him insane throughout the day when you could. Putting it off again and again until he becomes so wholly overcome with need and built up frustration that he simply couldn't wait any longer. That tactic had resulted in some pretty sordid sex late night in the gun range a couple of months back. You were both turned on by weapons and excellent marksmanship. Figures.

You pulled into a parking lot and stop the car, before quickly running over to the other side so you could help Aaron before he hurts himself trying to get out by himself. Grasping his hand once more, you start to lead him down the pathway, your stomach flip-flopping nervously as you did.

Aaron can feel a light breeze blowing around and hear the swirl of leaves being carried around across the pavement. Your hand guides him along as he walks beside you, somehow knowing better than to joke anymore. There's a giddy energy that's settled between the two of you and he has an odd feeling that whatever this is – where ever you've brought him – it's important.

You lead him down the pathway and when you near your final destination, you stop him, turning to grab both of his hands and walking backwards slowly.

Aaron is careful to walk only where you lead him, subconsciously aware enough of his surroundings to know to be careful, as the two of you carefully take the last few steps, your hands guiding him. His heart rate picks up when you stop and gently lower your grasped hands, releasing his. He can feel his skin breaking out into goose bumps, an eerily peaceful quiet blanketing the two of you.

"Okay, you can take it off now."

Your hushed voice adds to his strange feeling as he lifts both arms, nimbly untying the knot at the back of his head and removing the cloth. He blinks as he takes it all in. The light of an approaching sunset, like spilled honey, coating the entire scene with its flaxen rays. He turns, steadily in place. You'd brought him down the walkway, to the center, the two of you standing in the middle of the small pink granite island surrounded by the black waters of the pool. The trees are bare at the moment, having shed all of their leaves for the season, but he could imagine them in full bloom – pink and full, enveloping the grounds with their sweet scent. At either corner, he can see the two arched granite moongates, adorning the garden with their presence.

He'd never been here when it was entirely unoccupied before. He does a full turn, taking it all in. As he comes back to face you, he can see you looking up at him, waiting and allowing him to truly bask in the moment – impress the memory of this into his spirit.

"You're probably wondering why I brought you here," you start, anxiously watching his expression, doing your best to focus and also pick up on any minute changes in Aaron as you do. At his short nod, you continue. "When I first came to DC, during my first month of training, I sort of stumbled upon it while trying to find a place to eat lunch one weekend. It was late summer and there were so many people here, but I managed to steal a bench after a few minutes and I just sat there and watched people. I think I sat there for hours, honestly. It was like, I sat down and I felt weirdly at peace, I guess?" Your voice gives away just how nervous you are, explaining this to him. How you're second guessing bringing him here in the first place. It was probably stupid. However, Aaron just nods again, so you carry on. "Then I just kept coming back, I guess. When you called me that day, after my interview, I was here. Me being here when I got that call from you – I suppose it felt like a sign of some sort. Not then, but later, when I let go of all the stuff with my father. It was like the universe had tried to tell me that this could be a place where I could be happy."

Aaron had listened raptly as you explained, a tight bubble growing in his chest as you spoke and explained how this place – his place – meant a lot to you. Because it was also your place. He reaches for your hands once more, leaning down and grasping them warmly within his own before brushing his lips against your plush, waiting ones. Your eyes flutter shut as he kisses you gently, a subtle symphony of feeling coursing like energy, flowing from you to him.

"You wanted to share this with me?" he murmurs, drawing away barely an inch, his breathe mingling with yours.

"It's special to me and I wanted to share it with you because you're part of the reason why it's so very special." Your lips touch his as you explain and he resists the urge to echo them back to you. This place is indeed exceptionally special.

He kisses you again, doing his best to make sure this is a memory that he will be able to recall with complete ease. The garden, the breeze, the fading sunlight, and you.

The two of you slowly meander back to the garden and find a bench to sit on to take in the rest of the sunset. From the back gardens, Aaron can hear the beginnings of a crowd. You tell him that the two of you aren't expected for a while. That you can remain in your small oasis until the sun goes down.

"Thank you for sharing this with me." His thumb rubs circles on your hand as you sit side by side on the oak bench. Above you, the azure sky gives way to the oncoming dusk - amber and gold overlayed with rose and lilac, all interlaced together in delicate harmony.

You hum and tuck into his side as he brings an arm to wrap around your shoulders.

"Can I share something with you?" he asks, unsure if now was the exact right time. The thought has been rattling in the back of his mind for some time now and this, you and him, here and now, he wants to dispel any ideas that might ever contradict this reality. The only reality that he wants.

You nod, pressing a quick kiss to his shoulder as you do, lips hovering by the fabric of his shirt, before looking up to meet his eyes.

"I might be wrong about this, but I think you have this idea – incorrect as it might be – that us being together is a direct product of Haley's absence."

You suck in a breath, not having expected him to have caught on to, or address this. Ever.

Aaron can see a slight tremble to your hands, clasped tightly in your lap. Your eyes wide as you stare at him, tethered to his, unable to look away if you tried.

"I want you to know, that you and me – I would've fallen for you no matter what. Whether or not Haley was around, whether or not she and I were still together, I would've fallen for you entirely. Regardless of anything." The confession isn't followed by guilt. Merely a sense of rightness creating a growing hum of warmth in his chest as he watches you.

You're unsure how to respond, blinking up at him to try and take it all in. "You're far too honorable for anything to have happened if you and Haley were still together." He would've never betrayed her like that. It went against his very nature.

He smiles slightly at your statement. You're not wrong either. "Maybe. But you should know, even she saw it. How utterly in love with you I was. She saw it long before I ever did."

You lick your lips, your heart beating rapidly at everything he'd laid out. So plainly. As though it was just that simple. As though there could be no contradiction. As though there would be no universal karmic retribution sought for saying something so deeply and darkly and wholly truthful.

"I'm telling you this, because I never want you to doubt what we have. You are not a consolation prize or the understudy that's filling in." His other hand reaches out and grasps both of yours. Calloused palms to soft skin. Covering them in an embrace that felt so very intimate despite its innocence.

It's nearly sickening how well he knows how you work. What you think. Because being loved – at the right time by the right person in the right place – the serendipity of it all like a fluke – that's never been meant for you.

He presses a kiss to your forehead, his lips lingering before pressing once more. "I am in love with you, sweetheart. Wholly, fully, completely in love with you. Only you."

You could feel the weight of his words. Aaron would have loved you no matter what. That was the gospel truth of the matter. You nod – trying to believe him – compelling the feeling of being loved by him to permeate through all of you. Entering your body, perfusing through your senses, penetrating your soul. Because if being loved by him was mere happenstance – a stroke of good luck accidentally bestowed upon you – you'll take it and run. Run before anyone could catch you with something so precious. Before it could be taken away.

The two of you sit on that bench until the sun goes down, before standing to walk towards the back lawn where your friends were waiting for you. Aaron allows you to lead him closer to the din – the voices and noise of the crowd getting louder and louder as you approach. He makes sure your hand is always in his as the two of you are bombarded by people – shouts of Happy Birthday, drinks thrust into your hands, and a happy little boy rushing up to you both, excited as can be.

*------------*

Fate was an odd concept for him, someone so used to holding the right cards no matter who shuffled the deck. Fate implied that everything that happens – from the falling of a leaf to the birth of a child – was all predetermined by some unknown, invisible, unquestionable higher power. It suggested that there was no purpose to anything he tried and failed to accomplish – the people who met death because he hadn't been quick enough to the draw, the killers who went free because he fell short in drawing the correct profile, friends who'd fallen by his side because he hadn't been able to cover them. Fate insinuated that his son was always destined to lose his mother, no matter how hard he tried to protect him from the leviathans that roamed the earth. Fate was his one constant adversary through it all.

Perhaps it spoke to the double-sided nature of a true foe, because when it came to you, Fate was his one true friend. His solace against the persistent fear that he might lose you. Worse still, never have found you at all. Fate brought you to him, your presence blessed by providence itself. Had it been left to him – weak, fallible, human, him  – there was a chance that it might not have worked out.

When it came to you – only you – he had to trust that Fate had brought you to him, and always would.