#setting up how boring Claire's life is not because it objectively is but because she personally is bored to death by every aspect of it

[unhelpfulfemme]

There's no plot beat more unsatisfying than a protagonist who is trying to escape the Cool Adventurous Setting for some reason. I get that it's sometimes realistic for them to do that but it's really difficult to root for someone or get emotionally invested in their success when their main goal is to get away from all the stuff you find interesting to watch/read about.

You get about the same frustrated feeling like when you're at a party and hitting it off with a person but the friend you're with is whining about wanting to go home.

[scapegrace74-blog]

New Ways of Turning into Stone, Chapter 4

A/N  Some strong reactions to the last chapter, which I admit caught me by surprise.   Writing is a funny craft, where you spend a lot of time and effort trying to show your reader exactly the picture you have in your mind, but then also have to surrender to each reader’s interpretation of what you wrote.  That said, some interpretations miss the mark entirely, and for that reason this chapter is entitled “False Assumptions”.   Trigger warning for childhood disease.

Jamie’s weekly appointments continued through the grey slumber of late April and into the wakening month of May.  Thursday became Claire’s favourite day of the week, for reasons she didn’t care to scrutinize too closely.

With regularity came a certain brand of predictability.  Their appointments took one of two forms, she realized.  Some days Jamie was full of life, witty and exasperating by turns.  He would spin long yarns about some trivial aspect of his life, fascinating tales that turned out to be nothing more than surface reflections, revealing little of the murky depths beneath.  He was also adept at using his considerable verbal charm to draw her into divulging more about herself than she ought.  Those visits left her equally frustrated and challenged.

The rest of the time her patient arrived with a weary slump, the thousand watt bulb of his personality dimmed to an occasional flicker.  Given his offhand comment about whisky and women, she tried not to ponder if he was hungover or suffering from the effects of an all-night hook-up.  From a diagnostic point of view these days of low ebb were beneficial because Jamie was far more likely to offer some nugget of inner revelation, truth sneaking out through the cracks of his weakened defences.

“I was away on business, in Hong Kong, when my Da passed,” he said on one such afternoon, the skin below his eyes drawn tight and the copper in his hair somehow muted.

“Did it happen suddenly?” 

“No’ really.  Jen had been at me fer months tae come hame, sayin’ that Da was workin’ himself tae death.”   Jamie looked out the window, eyes reflecting the overcast skies beyond.  “I ignored her.  Too wrapped up in my own grand self tae pay any heed.  Twas Ian, my brother-in-law, who called tae say Da had dropped in the pasture.  Massive coronary.  I caught the first flight back, but he was gone before I landed.”

She watched Jamie’s face closely as he spoke, but beyond the understandable emotion of reliving the sudden loss of a parent, he remained inscrutable.  The urge to draw him out overcame the deference she paid to Jamie’s well-defined boundaries.

“Do you think you’re to blame for his death?” she asked, half-expecting to be met with silence or a nimble deflection.

Jamie shook his head ruefully.

“Nah.  I dinna think I’m tae blame.  I ken it.  I was the only surviving son, ye see?  In the Highlands, tradition is everything, an’ a Fraser man had worked those lands fer generations.  I was only meant tae complete my studies abroad, an’ then return tae Lallybroch and take o’er from Da.  Instead, I left my sister an’ Ian tae watch o’er the farm while I played the business tycoon.”

“Is Lallybroch still in your family?” she wondered aloud, the name rolling about in her mouth like marbles.  

“Jenny and Ian couldna keep it.  I wasna well enough tae object, an’ they sold tae a developer.  It’s some kind of corporate wellness retreat now,” he finished with a distasteful grimace.

For every disclosure Jamie made, two more questions arose in its wake, like hacking away at a many-headed Hydra.  She wished she could delve further, but the chime from her computer announced the end of the session.

“Will I see you next week, Jamie?” she asked as he reluctantly rose to leave.

“Aye,” said with a sad smile.  “I’ll be here.”

***

The following Tuesday, Claire took the afternoon off work to perform an errand she’d long been avoiding.

Her departure from the Royal Hospital for Children had been so precipitous, she hadn’t filed the necessary paperwork to close her employment file.  The Human Resources department had been pestering her to complete the process for months.  The threat of holding up the transfer of her accreditation finally forced her hand.

To her great relief, the personnel offices were nowhere near the actual wards.  They lay at the end of a long white hallway broken by large windows looking into a series of meeting and activity rooms.  Her plan was to get in, sign the damn forms, and leave without running into any former colleagues or patients.   

The sun slanting into one of these sparsely furnished rooms glanced off the top of a bent head, causing it to glow like a freshly minted penny.  She stopped and stared, trying to reconcile the image of James Fraser seated in a too-small plastic chair, surrounded by a group of hospital-gowned children.

He must have caught sight of her while she stood gaping.  Running to the door before she could find the motor function to turn around, he called out joyfully from behind a blue hospital mask.

“Doctor Beauchamp!  Fancy meeting ye here.”

She mumbled something incoherent, damning herself for the blush she felt enveloping her cheeks.   Behind Jamie, a row of dewy eyes watched on.   She recognized the paper-thin skin and missing hair of chemotherapy patients, and a salty knot rose in her throat.

“Can ye spare a few minutes? Ye’re jes the pair of steady hands we need.”

She longed to decline, to disappear, to come up with a plausible excuse why she couldn’t enter that room.  Her heart thumped angrily in her chest, warning of its fragile state.

Seeing her conflict, Jamie extended a welcoming hand.

“Come, Sassenach.  The lassies would love tae meet ye.”

The space smelled of sterile laundry and sawdust.  With a habit borne of years of practice, Claire disinfected her hands in the small utility sink and donned a spare mask from the nearby dispenser, all while wondering what the hell she was doing.

The children were seated on colourful chairs arranged around a low table, its surface covered in pieces of pre-cut lumber, colourful pots of paint, a glue gun and all manner of cheap decorations such as you would find at a craft store.  The little girls ranged in age from pre-school to young teen, but they all looked at Jamie as though he’d hung the moon as he addressed them.

“Ladies, I’d like ye tae meet Doctor Beauchamp.  She’s a braw doctor but I bet she kens next tae nothing about woodwork.  Ye’ll have tae show her how it’s done.”

A chorus of nervous giggles was the only response.  Claire knew from experience that being a medical professional wasn’t going to endear her to children who spent much of their lives being essentially tortured in the name of science, hoping for some kind of miracle.

“Hello, everyone,” she waved meekly.  “You can call me Miss Claire, if you like.  Now, whatever are you doing with all this wood?”

It turned out that Jamie was supervising the construction of a half-dozen birdhouses.  He had pre-cut the lumber for easy assembly, but was assisting each girl to create a custom masterpiece that would hang outside her hospital window.  With the patience and steady manner of a primary school teacher, Jamie led the group through each step.  

A waifish girl of perhaps six sat directly to Claire’s left, her bare scalp covered by a brightly coloured bandana, offset by a huge pair of peacock-blue eyes that glimmered above her mask.  Eyes that were the mirror of the ones that visited her office every Thursday.  Something heavy settled inside her ribs.

“What’s your name, sweetie?” she asked in a low voice as she pushed an open pot of sky blue paint away from the table’s edge.  Small hands busied themselves pulling apart a package of cotton balls that looked suspiciously like the ones kept in the hospital’s supply cabinet.

“Margaret Murray, Doctor, errr, Miss Claire,” came the timid reply.  

Not Fraser, then.  But that didn’t necessarily mean anything.  She snuck a glance across the table at Jamie, who was just then teasing the youngest girl by tickling her cheeks with a fake feather.  Despite her heavy thoughts, she couldn’t help but smile.  That smile faltered when she noticed that the inside of Jamie’s elbows bore a matching set of fresh bandages.   A series of puzzle pieces tumbled into place.

Perhaps sensing the weight of her scrutiny, Jamie looked their way, whistling in admiration when he saw Maggie’s near-complete birdhouse.

“Tis a fine hame ye’ve built fer yer wee birds, Maggie.  What is all yon white fluff for?”

“Tis clouds, Uncle Jamie,” Maggie replied with the certainty of childhood.  “I dinna want the birdies tae miss the sky, even when they arenna flyin’.”

Claire watched the words hit him as surely as though they had been bullets.  A frozen gasp, a shudder that travelled the length of his body and the crest of tears that he tried valiantly to blink away.

“Aye, ye’re right, a nighean.  Any bird would be fair honoured tae sleep in yer skyhouse,” he managed to reply, voice bouldery with contained emotion.

When each birdhouse was complete and left along the window ledge to dry, Jamie set his small crew of helpers the task of clearing up the mess.   Claire stood next to him as he loaded his tools back into a small carrying case.

“Thanks for inviting me to join you, Jamie.  It was... well, it was unexpectedly wonderful,” she admitted.

“Ye’re most welcome, Doctor Beauchamp.  We couldna have managed wi’out yer steady hand manning the glue gun,” he teased.

“You’re not my patient here, Jamie.  You don’t need to use my title,” she said, a bit vexed by his formality.

“Aye, but it doesna feel right tae call ye by yer given name either.  An’ Miss Claire is jes weird.”

She had to acknowledge that he had a point.

“What was it you called me earlier?  Sassa-something?”

“Sassenach.  My Da woulda skelped my hide if he heard me call a lady by that name,” he said ruefully.

“Why, does it mean something terribly offensive?”  She was almost afraid to know, having enjoyed the delusion that Jamie felt as fondly towards her as she did towards him.

“Nah, tis jes an old-fashioned word for an English person in Scotland.  Seemed tae suit ye, is all.”  He shrugged, seemingly embarrassed by the explanation.

“Well then, Sassenach it is.  When I’m not on the clock, that is.”

Jamie’s eyes danced above his mask the way they did when he smiled, and she imagined hers replied in much the same way.  A long moment passed when nothing was said, neither of them looking away.

“You’re her platelet donor,” she said at last.  “Maggie’s, I mean.”

“Aye.  Every week while she’s in hospital for chemotherapy.  Tis the least I can do.”

It was an explanation that fit all the facts, but one that she never would have guessed.  Jamie had always worn long sleeves to his appointments, but she was certain the weeks when he was haggard and worn out coincided with the times he was donating the litres of blood necessary to distill into the platelet concentrate that would then be injected into Maggie’s body, helping her combat the poisonous effects of her chemotherapy.

“Whisky, women and song?” she prodded, relieved and yet frustrated that his offhand comment had kept her from seeing the truth.  “Why didn’t you just tell me, Jamie?”

“I didna want yer pity, Sassenach.  Fer once in my life, tis no’ about me, ye ken?  I didna want ye lookin’ at me like I was some kind of hero.”

She held back her reaction that his was a textbook definition of heroism, and instead asked the next obvious question.

“Are you a compatible bone marrow donor as well?”

Jamie shook his head slowly.  Although he was a close match, he explained, it wasn’t close enough.   Maggie’s older brother, Wee Jamie, was a perfect match but the law prohibited him from becoming a donor until he was at least sixteen, in seven long years.

“We’re jes tryin’ tae buy her enough time,” he said sadly before stepping out of the room, explaining he’d be back momentarily.

Claire stood in a daze, running through everything she’d assumed about Jamie in light of these newest facts.  A light tug on her hand drew her back into the moment.  Maggie was looking up at her with wide, trusting eyes.

“Are ye the Sassenach lady Uncle Jamie and my Mam argue about?”

“I suppose I might be,” she replied, curious what had been said between the siblings that Maggie had overheard.

“Are ye a heart doctor?” Maggie continued.

“Well, no.  Not exactly.  I’m the kind of doctor who helps people who are sad, and I try to find a way for them to be happy again.”  It sounded so easy when explaining it to a six year old.

“Sometimes Mam and Da talk about Uncle Jamie when they dinna ken I’m listenin’.  I’m verra good at sneakin’,” Maggie confided, and Claire couldn’t help but smile.  What a precious child.    “I’m sure you are,” she replied warmly, a hand coming to rest gently on the tiny cloth-covered head.

“Mam says Uncle Jamie is more stubborn than a mule and that he canna see past his own big heid,” Maggie continued.  Claire couldn’t say that she disagreed with that assessment.

“But Da says Uncle Jamie’s heart has been broken too many times, and thas’ why he’s given up on living.  Can ye fix his heart, Miss Claire, so that it isna broken any more?”

She couldn’t have stopped her tears if she tried.   She knelt on the floor and gathered Maggie’s thin, fragile body in her arms.

“Oh, Maggie.  I’m certainly going to try.”

[bad-bitch-beauchamp]

Songs About Me: Theories & Scones (CH8)

Claire, Geillis, and Joe theorize Claire's relationship with Jamie, and what’s missing. Just a quick chapter today, but it’s leading up the biggest one yet! 

READ ON AO3

CHAPTER EIGHT

Claire’s bedroom, a cold morning in early December, Louisburg Square, Beacon Hill, Boston

Two months had passed since Claire and Jamie met at the 21st Amendment. In two months, their relationship went into hyperspeed. With every revelation of how they had just missed each other not just in Boston, but all over the world for decades now, they fell harder for each other. What started as one packed weekend with karaoke, a drunken dinner, a late night walk in the park, and visits to each other’s respective businesses, they found themselves starving for more connection. In the time they could get away from the demanding schedules of being small business owners, they were with each other. The pressure of dating someone new and needing to impress one another quickly gave way to the comfort of takeout meals, board games, and Jamie’s cooking at one of their townhouses. Jamie told her of his home in Scotland and his adventures bagging munros all through college, Claire recounted stories of traveling all over the world with her uncle, and they filled in the blanks of their lives together. Time together was easy, natural. The way a good relationship is supposed to feel. Every Saturday night since the one they’d met, they’d wander the few blocks over to the 21st Amendment to meet Geillis, Joe, Rupert, and Angus for karaoke. Only once did they miss their standing date, and only just: Claire was ready to open the door to the bar when Jamie pulled her back in a whirl and kissed her senseless for the next thirty minutes around the corner. There was only one thing missing from their relationship now… 

On a rare morning she wasn’t at the shop or with Jamie, Claire was engaging in a time-honored tradition with her two best friends. Joe and Geillis were Claire’s go-to advisers on everything in her life. They were the only two people in the world to tell her she should leave Frank and move to Boston. They were the two people to tell her she should start her greenhouse and plant shop. They were the two people who convinced her to continue writing music. They were her everything this morning, they were trying their best to convince her of what everyone but her seemed to see in her budding relationship with one James Fraser. Joe had worked a long shift at the hospital and was calling into the girl’s discussion from his car. Claire had been tossing and turning on her bed while Geillis laid with her back on the floor and legs up against the bed, snacking on scones she brought from the bakery down the block. English breakfast and catching up had been the group’s little routine since they were all in school in Oxford. No matter what the week held, they’d set aside an hour (that inevitably morphed into all morning and most of the afternoon) to sit around, relax, and eat. When Claire and Geillis moved to the states, they continued the tradition. When Joe moved to Boston to work at the hospital, their group was reunited and English breakfast Sundays felt right again. Even when one of them couldn’t make the physical date, they always had at least a few minutes to shove down some kind of British snack and catch up. The conversations ranged from old classmates to how the Americans ruin tea (Joe objected to this, but always agreed in the end), and today’s topic landed squarely on Claire’s relationship with Jamie.

“So things really are going well then?” Joe asked from the phone screen in Claire’s hand.

“For as quickly as things started, yes. Things are going more than well, I think,” Claire responded.

“It’s obvious the lad is crazy about ye -- his eyeballs may as weel be superglued to ye every time we go out. It’d be disgusting if it weren’t sweet how he hangs on yer every word,” Geillis offered.

“I think you mean his eyes are glued to Claire’s ass , friend,” Joe cut in, making the girls giggle.

“I cannae imagine how good that man is in bed,” Geillis sighed. Claire shifted to her stomach, facing the end of the bed when Geillis sat and propper her elbows up to cradle her chin. “Speaking of, it’s been over two months since ye two got together, and we’ve still yet to hear the juicy details!”  

The wheels in Claire’s head spun quickly to try to play off her increasing anxiety to answer. “Details about what?”

Geillis scoffed loudly and Joe laughed through the phone. “Oh come on, you know exactly what!” Joe teased.

“Ye cannae possibly tell me that a man like Jamie Fraser is not an absolute god. Jes’ look at him! And the way he looks at ye, like he wants to devour ye … after that night of dancing at the 21st a few weeks back, I can imagine what that big, strong body can do and I’m dying for the details!” Claire threw a pillow down at Geillis, laughing at her friend.

“Use your own imagination! I see you go home with Angus more nights than not!”

“And Angus is more than fine, but that’s no’ what we’re discussing here! Plus, Angus doesna have the same… everything Jamie has about him!”

“Come on Claire, spill! We’re dying over here and it’s been two whole months now!” Joe practically begged.

“Unless,” Geillis scooted up to Claire on the bed, sitting cross legged across from her and her garden green eyes boring into Claire, “they haven’t had sex yet. Mebbe there’s nothing to tell?” Geillis continued to search her friend’s reddening face.

“Alright, fine! Are you happy?” Claire threw her hands up in resignation. “It’s been weeks of dates and late nights and practically all our free time spent together, but still nothing!” It was no secret to her friends that Claire had enjoyed her fair share of men since they’d known her. Traveling the world with her uncle had provided her with a slew of fascinating new people: her first kiss was at age twelve in Cairo on an expeditionary dig, her first time having sex was in Thailand with a boy who’s father worked with her uncle, and the names of lovers and crushes littered her diaries in the years between. In college, the friends had embarked on a backpacking trip across Europe where all three had their share of fun, but none so much as Claire. For her, embracing her sexuality made her feel empowered, desirable, powerful. Once she met Frank, everything changed -- through constant beratement, displeasure at her body, and emotional abuse, she no longer felt that same sense of power she’d long found within herself. Geillis and Joe had tried to set her up again in Boston, but Claire resigned herself to her work. The hurt from Frank had made it too difficult to be in bed with anyone else. I’ll be ready again when the right person comes along, she’d told them.

“Ye mean to tell me ye haven’t shagged the brains out of that man?” Geillis asked, shocked. “If it were me, I would’ve had him under me ages ago!”

“It’s not that I haven’t tried,” Claire sighed. “Jamie’s the first person I’ve wanted to be with since Frank. I’ve tried to move things along when we’re together, but he always puts a stop to it and I honestly don’t know why.”

“Puts a stop to it, how?” Joe questioned. “Because god knows it isn’t that he doesn’t want you. Anyone with eyes can see how head over heels he is with you.”

“The only way I can describe it is that he almost… panics?” Claire shrugged. “I mean, I guess we haven’t had the “are we exclusive” conversation yet, and there’s this girl that always pops up on his phone.”

“Want me to beat her up for ye?” Geillis casually asked, stuffing her face with another scone.

“Christ, Geillis, I don’t even know that she’s a threat! It’s just a small thing I’ve noticed. It’s not like he’s hiding his phone or anything, so I’m sure it’s not a big deal, but…”

“But you are a little worried about it,” finished Joe.

“Fine. A little. Maybe that’s why he always shuts me down.”

“Here’s what ye do: ye just need to ask him about it. Point blank. There’s something he’s not telling ye, and it’s either that he’s got some girl on the hook, or he’s a virgin or something. There’s literally nae other reason to have ye by now,” Geillis offered.

“We’re supposed to meet up for dinner at his place tonight… I think you’re right. It’s time to figure out what’s going on.”

[rainythefox]

Nightfall (CH.16)

Synopsis: Pre-Resident Evil 1, slight-AU/Canon Divergence. Claire Redfield comes home to visit her  brother Chris for the holidays but gets caught up in a dangerous game of  cat and mouse with Albert Wesker, the Captain of STARS, after stumbling  upon dark secrets. She can’t call the law; Wesker is the law, and she  can’t tell Chris. She is trapped…Claire/Wesker & Slight Chris/Jill (There’s Wesker & William Bromance too lol). Rated M for smut, language, violence, adult content.

AO3 Link

Chapter 16: Mine

Warning: this chapter contains lots of smut. You’ve been warned, okay? Okay! :P Because of this, only the first section of the chapter is available on Tumblr. Please follow the link to AO3 to read the rest. Thank you! :)

Okay, she knew her luck had taken a big dump recently, but this was ridiculous! If she thought the university job was difficult, she promptly changed her mind. That was a walk in the park compared to this. Claire stared at all the people. The exquisite party was happening at the ritzy Orient Restaurant on the second floor of the most luxurious hotel in the city, Central Hotel.

There had to be close to a hundred people here! The whole restaurant was closed to cater for the invitation-only event. Why did she even assume this “Christmas Party” was going to be just a group of rich, old dudes bragging all night? With how her luck has been, she should've known better!

Claire gaped at the man beside her who was unfortunately the closest thing she had to a friend at the moment. She recalled William’s little “briefing” on the drive over here.

“The party’s not gonna be that big. Just a simple “get in, get out”. You’ll be home in no time! Actually, you’ll probably be at Al’s home in no time!”

He was still rubbing his arm where she decked him.

“This is nothing like how you explained it!” she hissed.

But the mad scientist only half-heard her, his eyes lit up as though he was a kid about to enter his very first amusement park. Something in here was on his kill list because Claire overheard he wasn’t a stranger to parties, at least not to parties like this that could get him something he wanted. 

William was actually quite handsome all cleaned up in his suit. Claire had grown accustomed to his usual disheveled appearance that made him attractive in his own way.

He grinned slyly. “Oh relax, sweetheart. You’ll be fine. Most of these people are total bores…losers just out trying to feel important. They got nothing on you!” He winked at her. “You know what to do, who to find. Ada’s on your earpiece and Al and I are here to watch your back. Don’t worry. Al _definitely _won’t let you out of his sight. Just…don’t distract him too much. I need him focused tonight.”

“Are you fu-”

“Erica!” William nearly squealed, waving both arms and abruptly abandoning her. “Is that gown designed by Broca’s aphasia? Because I’m speechless!” 

Claire glared at the fickle bastard as he ditched her to join some other people standing around talking and drinking. She was on her own for now.

“Forget about him, Claire. Just focus on getting to Bennett. Best not drag this out longer than we have to and risk exposing ourselves,” Ada said on her earpiece.

“Okay,” she mumbled, and got into character, her natural Redfield bravado and assurance making it easy to stroll through the party like she owned the place.

It was a beautiful Asian restaurant. Most of the dark tables were accented with candles and glasses. The lounge-like chairs were colorful and comfy, and the tall ceilings gave way to soft LED string lights, oriental paintings and sectioned lattices. In warmer seasons, the same kind of setup could be seen on the massive balcony, but it was currently closed off.

She felt many eyes on her as she started her objective. But she only cared about one set of eyes as she discreetly scanned the place for them.

This many people here was both a blessing and a curse for her mission, and it could go either way real quick at any time. More people meant no room for mistakes, too many eyes. But on the other hand, this many people distracted amongst themselves could make it easy to get away with nearly anything.

Claire soon found the eyes she had been seeking, felt the familiar, pleasing burn on her skin they always caused. She traced them to an area with more people, where a grand, gold statue of Lord Yama sat. Directly in front of the god of death, Wesker was encircled by a small group, mostly beautiful women, and he charmed them effortlessly.

The younger Redfield had to keep herself from staring, also charmed by his chameleon smile, good looks, and striking black suit. Her nerves tingled from simmering blood. She couldn’t believe it. She was actually jealous?! Claire was angry with herself. How could she possibly feel anything of the sort over the man that was blackmailing her?

Besides...she knew Wesker well enough by now to know that it was all pretense. She was sickened and enthralled by how easily he could deceive and influence people. Ada was right. His calculating mind, his clever tongue, those were his deadliest weapons; not his hands, not his gun.

The statue of Yama was simply a backdrop to the true god of death in the room. His admirers probably had no clue and listened intently. The women batted their eyes, pushed out their chests, even the ones who had dates. And those men did nothing about it, perhaps too enthralled themselves or maybe it was the fact that Wesker had an uncanny ability to make most men around him submissive.

He may have looked like he was paying attention to them, his eyes concealed behind black shades, but Claire knew he was watching her. All of her. Every breath, every step, he was in complete tune. Something about that lit a fire in her belly so fierce, she trembled.

The jealousy she felt instantly crumbled. It didn’t matter if those women were rich or prettier or dressed in nicer dresses. They meant nothing to him. Not like she did.

And why was that, exactly?

Claire frowned, faltering mid-step, eyes still locked on Wesker across the room when she should've been moving on. She had some suspicions, if her gut and Ada and William were anything to go by. 

More importantly, why do you care?

“Claire?! Earth to Claire, hello?”

“Huh?”

“You aren’t exactly being inconspicuous staying in one spot drooling over Albert.”

Claire’s face flushed and she briskly walked away with a huff. “I’m not drooling!”

The first place she needed to check for her target would be the bar. Typical. It was in the back of the restaurant, low-lit, a massive, semi-circled bar with a marble countertop up against an airbrushed wall depicting a dragon floating through the clouds.

“Whatever you say, hun.”

Claire bit her tongue, taking a deep breath. “I was just happy to see him chatting up other women. Less problems for me.”

Ada sighed. “Claire, fishing is beneath you. First, they aren’t his type. More importantly, Albert detests easy women.”

That wasn’t her intention. “I wasn’t-”

“Unfortunately and fortunately for you, you are his type and are as difficult as they come. I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but you’re as close to obsession as he’s going to get romantically.”

The only fortune she could come up with was that it was unlikely Wesker would kill her. But obsession through people with sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies like Wesker were never a good thing. Her life might be spared at the end of all this...but at what cost?

Claire briskly pushed that thought aside, something cold and heavy dropping in the pit of her stomach. She needed to focus on finding Bennett and getting this over with. That was her excuse. After all, she wasn’t ready to acknowledge that her own growing infatuation would likely veer her into her captor’s arms for good.

She looked around the bar area. There were all kinds of high-status people attending Bard’s Christmas party. Doctors, politicians, city officials, even Mayor Warren and Chief Irons were here.

She recognized Mueller from Raccoon University having a casual conversation with the man that had to be her target. A picture was never granted, but a detailed description allowed her to quickly analyze him. It had to be him. Tall, average build, auburn hair and an anchor beard. He chatted with Mueller with a drink in his hand.

Just as Claire stepped their way, a strong grip snatched her wrist. She was spun around, coming face-to-face with Nathaniel Bard. He looked fine since the anaphylaxis she put him through with the shrimp, but the creep wasn't happy one bit with her, still keeping a painful grip on her arm.

"I knew I'd see your face again, girl. What happened at the university is all your fault."

Claire glared at him. "You're gonna be hurting more if you don't let me go right now."

The music and all the guests chatting around them helped conceal her threat from eavesdropping ears but the Spencer Memorial doctor heard her clearly.

He considered challenging her, lips pursing, but soon let her go after his eyes scanned the numerous faces within the party. "I know you're working with those two bastards. You have no idea how much harm you’ve caused me and several of my colleagues. Lowery was a good man, understand? He had a family. And now I’m trapped doing those two psychos’ bidding.”

“Maybe you aren’t the only one who is trapped.”

“Well then there’s more to your pretty face, isn’t there? They wouldn’t risk it otherwise.”

Who the fuck did this guy think he was? Claire clenched a fist, as it took all of her willpower not to break his damn nose. She had a job to do here. If she caused a scene in the middle of this party, especially with the man hosting it, then she could kiss her freedom and potentially Chris’s life goodbye.

She did let him in on what he was narrowly missing out on by grabbing his hand and twisting it slightly, squeezing hard on a pressure point. Just enough to make it really hurt, just enough to get her point across while looking like she was just holding his hand to nearly everyone else. “If my life didn’t hinge on fulfilling this job, you’d be on the floor with a broken fucking face, do you understand me?”

“Damn, Claire. I like your style,” Ada chimed in.

The younger Redfield ignored her and smiled, showing the guests they were having a pleasant conversation. Bard hissed in pain, quickly nodding. Claire released him and he jerked his hand away, shaking it off with a grimace.

“Listen, I’ll make the job easy for you. Just...do what you need to do and get out of here. Take those assholes with you. And never show your face at one of my social events ever again.”

“I’d love to, but it’s not my call. But...I have a feeling you know exactly who you can talk to about that.”

Bard scowled, rubbing his injured hand. He muttered something under his breath and motioned her to follow him, heading towards Bennett and Mueller in the back of the bar. “C’mon, and follow my lead.”

“Ugh, he better not screw this up.”

Bard put on a welcoming smile once they reached Mueller and Bennett’s table. Mueller recognized her, but didn’t say anything. She barely got a moment’s glare from him before he flashed Bard a guarded look, as if asking “what are you up to now?” The two men stood and the doctor shook their hands.

“Mr. Bennett! I trust you are enjoying the party? What kind of host would I be if I was neglecting my honored guest?”

He looked to be in his thirties maybe. His smile was warm as he nodded. He noticed Claire nearly right away, and there was a definite reaction of some kind. Attraction, she guessed, immediate infatuation. Great…

“Oh yes,” he said in a European accent. “I am grateful to you and Greg’s hospitality. You’ve made being so far from home much more bearable.”

“Good, good! It’s a shame your business partner couldn’t join us this evening. But I’m sure he had his reasons. You two are busy men, after all!”

Bennett nodded, composed yet amiable. “That we are. I’m sorry, but I have to ask, who is this beautiful young lady you have with you?”

Bard didn’t skip a beat in his front, presenting her with a grin like she was a piece of treasure up for auction.

“I know, stunning right? This is Elza. She’s one of my...assistants.”

The European man held out his hand with a handsome, friendly smile. It could’ve fooled anyone, and it almost fooled her. But her gut constricted at the last moment, her first indication something wasn’t right about this guy.

He took her hand and kissed it softly. “It is my utmost pleasure, Miss Elza. I’m Stephan Bennett. Please, just call me Stephan.”

Claire put on the sweetest smile she could muster, batting her lashes. “The pleasure’s all mine, Stephan.”

He looked her over, and although he was an attractive man, it made her skin crawl.

“Has Greg taken you up to your suite yet?” Bard asked cordially. “I’ve left you a little treat as a thank you for choosing to stay the night in Raccoon City’s famous Central Hotel!” 

Bennett ripped his eyes from Claire and shook his head at the host. “No, sir. I got the keycard to the room earlier, but wanted to check out the party before retreating for the night.” He presented a friendly, almost sheepish smile. “Honestly, I’m still a little messed up with the time zone changes. I didn’t think it would affect me this much.”

“That’s not a problem. My assistant and I will escort you up there. There’s a little bit of business I’d like to discuss with you anyway,” Bard replied.

“What about your party?”

“Eh, they’ll entertain themselves! Greg will take care of things while I’m gone. It won’t be but a few minutes.” Bennett glanced at Claire, expression unreadable, and Bard quickly added. “My assistant is completely trustworthy, don’t worry. She knows about our research.”

Bennett nodded, relieved. “Alright, lead the way, Nathaniel.”

Claire was uncertain what to do as Mueller shook hands with Bennett and bid them good night before heading for the bar. Her job was to stick a bug on the European businessman, probably so Wesker and William could track him straight to Aaron Roth. Leaving the party just tossed her whole plan into the garbage. This just got way riskier.

Nothing like winging a mission where my life’s literally at stake. What’s the worst that can happen?

“Great,” Ada whispered in her ear, not helping Claire’s gut feeling. “Wesker’s watching and listening through your piece. He says it’s fine. Just get that bug on Bennett without him knowing.”

Was that supposed to make her feel better that Wesker said it was fine? And how exactly was he able to do that anyway? That just made her earlier conversation with Ada a lot more awkward...

With a slight tick of her jaw, Claire composed herself with a friendly smile and followed the two men out of the restaurant and into the fancy, historical hotel.

They went to the lobby, a grand room with high ceilings, bright lights, and expensive carpet and decor. The elevator ride to the fifth floor seemed extra crowded, even though there were just three of them. Bard and Bennett chatted normally about their lives and careers. Claire didn’t like the frequent glances Bennett gave her. She waited for an opportunity, stayed vigilant with that inkling sprouting in her gut.

It got worse when Ada told her she lost visual on her from their location.

Wesker’s making you do this alone because he wants to see how you do, said a small voice in the back of her head. She didn’t have proof, but she wouldn’t put it past him.

She gave vague answers when Bennett asked her something, either curious and flirting or digging and deceiving. She wasn’t exactly sure.

Bennett scanned his card and held the door open to the big, two-bedroom suite. Bard strolled right on in but Claire hesitated, not wanting to put her back to these men. When she did, she felt his eyes all over her, and when he closed the door, he purposely brushed her to get by.

They stepped into the spacious living room first, accented with a bar and impressive kitchen. There was a home theater set up in the den, opposite a wall of glass that displayed downtown Raccoon City. Dark buildings silhouetted within soft glows of lights of all colors. Speckles of white rained down softly outside.

“You meant it when you said this suite had a view,” Bennett stated, drawn to the panorama.

Bard gave her a look, dipped his head in the direction of his “guest”, as if urging her to get her business done. Claire glared at him as he turned off to the bar instead.

“Yes, I did! And over here, something just for you, Mr. Bennett. Your favorite wine. All the way from home!”

“I don’t like this. Are you okay? Cough if you are.”

“How thoughtful of you, Dr. Bard. Thank you. You’ve gone out of your way to make me feel at home here.”

Claire didn’t like it either. She looked around, keeping up her appearance as she joined the men at the bar. She didn’t see any danger, but something like it was lurking about. Whatever it was, she was fine for now.

She coughed. “Oh, excuse me.”

Bennett watched her more than Bard, but she still couldn’t read his expression. Bard took the fancy bottle out of the container of ice. “Shall we have a glass while we talk?”

“Yes. I’d like that.”

That clicked an idea in her brain. Claire put a hand on Bard’s arm, mustering up the realest fake friendly smile she could handle, looking between the two men under thick lashes. “How about you gentlemen take a seat, get comfortable? Let me serve you.”

Bennett’s smile held something darker, but it was gone in a flash. Bard looked at her funny, but composed himself and slowly put the wine down on the counter. “Of course, Elza! You’re always the sweetest thing! Come, Stephan, over here.”

“What do you have planned, exactly?” Ada asked. “Ugh, I hate going by sound alone.”

Her cohorts had lied to her, she realized. William promised Wesker wouldn’t let her out of his sight and Ada said she would watch over her. Wesker didn’t say much to her before the party, but disclosed if she did what she was told, she would be fine. She was alone here and certainly felt something other than “fine” was coming her way.

The doctor and his guest went to the lounge chairs nearby, sitting across from each other. It was the perfect way for Claire to bug Bennett without him knowing. She opened the white wine and poured their glasses, giving them time to get settled in their seats and start talking. The more distracted they were, the better. It also gave her a moment to get the tiny tracking device ready.

The younger Redfield served Bennett first. She caressed her fingers up his arm, across his shoulder, stopped at the back of his neck, squeezing his collar gently. Her flirtatious smile was enough to distract him from Bard when she handed him his drink. She didn’t remain long, crossing to Bard and giving him his drink with the same smile, the same caress that made her skin crawl. She left them and returned to the bar, gathering up the wine bottle and ice bucket and placing them on the table in between the two men.

Claire eavesdropped on their conversation, but a lot of it made no sense to her. Big research, Sheena and Rockfort Island, Roth, Ashfords, prototypes, T-series. All similar topics that Wesker and William discussed and were involved with.

“You know, it’s strange how all of our business associates keep coming up dead or missing since we’ve been in town,” Bennett said after a long sip of his wine.

Bard grew quiet, confused, his fingers clenching around his wine glass. “What…do you mean?”

The European man looked at Claire, like he knew all of her secrets, not near as charming now. “You know what happened to them...don’t you, Miss Walker? Or should I call you Miss Redfield?”

Claire stiffened, nails digging into the chair arms. She dared not blink, glaring at him, keeping calm, but reeling underneath on how to react. He knew her name. Her _real _name.

Shit!

“Shit!” Ada echoed in her ear. “Claire, don’t do anything rash. Hang in there.”

It wasn’t as though she had much of a choice. She was on her own. Bard’s alarmed face told her everything. He was just as surprised as her, but would be too much of a coward to help her.

Claire took a deep breath. “I don’t know what happened to them.”

“I think Dr. Lowery would say otherwise.”

“How do you know my real name?”

The European businessman crossed one leg casually, swishing the wine in his glass, sharp eyes on her. “All it took was a little digging. You really shouldn’t use your mother’s maiden name as an alias, darling. Especially one as unique as hers.”

Cold steel bumped the back of her head. A gun.

Wesker had told her the same thing. Warned her.

She was careless to use it after not being prepared at the university. Now she was in real danger. The other wolves that Wesker claimed he was protecting her from had stalked her right into a corner. Then again, maybe he wasn’t expecting _this _pack. Or maybe he had and was ready to give her up as tribute for his own motives…

“Uh, Stephan, what’s going on, is t-this necessary?” Bard asked.

“Quiet, or you’ll have one to your head also.” Bennett motioned for Claire to stand. “My business partner, Aaron, would like to speak to you one-on-one, Miss Redfield. You have the time, right? You can help fill the gaps on what’s been happening to our dealings. We’re getting warm, but it seems as though everyone is too afraid to give us answers. Whoever you’re working for, we’ll cut you a nice deal if you expose them.”

Claire kept his gaze, defiant, silent. She had no choice but to comply. She had no weapons on her, no way to hide one in this dress. She slowly moved her hands down to her sides, preparing to push herself up, and felt it. The cold, metal coil of a corkscrew. She forgot she had brought it with her while serving the drinks.

Snatching it up between her fingers, she stood. The man who had the gun to her head pulled her out away from the chair. Bennett rose from his seat, finishing his drink and setting the empty glass down.

Bard shot up as well, looking between Claire and his guest, panicking. “Wh-What are you doing?”

There were two other men in suits now. They must’ve been hiding in the suite this whole time. Although they didn’t have weapons drawn, they were probably packing like the one behind her.

“Nathaniel, lying to me that she is your assistant? After what happened to Simon, I’m shocked. Someone’s got you cowering and afraid, just like Greg. Just like our friend the Police Chief.”

“I-It’s n-not what you think.”

Bennett nodded to the other men. They grabbed Bard by the arms, containing him. The European man pulled a gun equipped with a silencer from his suit jacket.

The doctor fought his captors. “Wait! No!”

Claire stabbed the man behind her in the groin with the corkscrew. He cried out as she spun, disarming him and shoving him away where he tumbled to the floor. She grabbed the bottle of wine and threw it at Bennett’s head just as he switched his gun on her. The bottle shattered on his face.

She didn’t get far with running. Not in that dress, not in those heels, before she was snatched by his men. A bash above her temple instantly made the world spin. Still, she fought, as weak as she suddenly felt.

Bennett was soaked, his face earning a few gashes from broken glass, blood mixing with golden-colored wine. He cursed, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He grabbed her neck, squeezing hard.

“You little bitch! You’re lucky Aaron wants to speak with you, or you’d be dead!”

That’s when his arm snapped. Like a twig. He screamed. Claire, her vision still hazy from the blow to her head, realized he was attacked. His men were attacked; she was let go. A few blinks and she saw Wesker using some sort of martial arts to swiftly dispose of them. Not Bennett though. He raced away to his escape while holding his limp arm that flopped uselessly as he ran.

The STARS Captain had killed the other three. In seconds. With his hands. He paused, looking to the door where Bennett had fled, as if deciding whether to pursue him. He was over it in seconds though, grabbing her and pulling her to him. Not as rough as she had expected, but gentle wasn’t really in his nature.

“Hold still,” he commanded. She felt his hand on her head. He must’ve been examining the clout she had received. “Are you alright?”

There was some blood on his hand when he withdrew it, and she felt it trickling in her hair. It must’ve been just a small cut, otherwise it would’ve been all over her face by now.

“Yeah,” she said. And she was. It had only made her light-headed for a minute or so.

The nearby chair squeaked as it scooted on the carpet, and a muffled curse came from the other side. Wesker finally looked away from her, jaw clenching. He marched over to the furniture and kicked it. The chair crashed and skidded several feet away. Wesker seized Bard by the collar and picked him up, slamming him into the nearby bar counter. The sound his body made hitting the granite countertop made her flinch, and Bard’s yelp confirmed it.

“Wesker, wait, please! I d-didn’t know! I didn’t! I swear! He was gonna kill me too!”

“He was,” Claire confirmed. 

She had no idea why she defended the asshole, especially when he didn’t offer her any help before. But she could tell he was telling the truth. Wesker paused, but didn’t look at her, probably contemplating what to do with the doctor as he shuddered in his hands.

“Consider your...contract extended indefinitely,” Wesker growled, and shoved him over the other side of the bar. He put a couple fingers up to his ear, the same hidden piece she had. “Ada, William, we’re finished here. Ada, track Bennett. William, tell Irons he has a mess to clean up with Bard and Mueller.”

Bard got to his feet, shaken, his surprised eyes finding hers. The younger Redfield glared at him, a silent message he understood. She had spared him a cruel fate from the Devil. But she wouldn’t do it again.

She returned her gaze to the three bodies around her feet. The one she stabbed with the corkscrew had a snapped neck. The other two looked as though they had suddenly dropped dead, nothing to attribute to the hands of the STARS Captain. But she had seen it with her own eyes. And although it shouldn’t have, it lit a fierce fire in her lower belly, spreading when his arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her towards the door.

The flames were fanned when he whispered in her ear, his hand squeezing her hip. “You did exceptionally well, dear heart. You make me proud.”

When Ada told her Wesker would want to take her home after seeing her in her dress, she had denied wanting him to, denied she wanted to go home with him willingly. But after what she saw, how he held her close to him like she was his, and his alone, how his breath upon her ear titillated her, made her receptive to him only, she could no longer deny it.

Claire wouldn’t be able to stand the drive there. She wanted him. Wanted him to take her. She was a liar; it wasn’t just a one-time fling or a mistake. It was going to happen again. And she wanted it to, and would do nothing to stop it.

[poison--ivory]

Uninviting Cataclysm (Alastor x Reader) Chapter 4

Part 1: link

Part 2: link

Part 3: link

For the next few weeks of your relationship with Alastor went from being worried about your well being to having hope that your life wasn't just a masterpiece of disaster. Things were finally looking up for you. Throughout those few weeks you got closer to Al, Mimzy, and Husk. Mimzy took some time to warm up to you and gave you the occasional threat now and again. You came to the conclusion that she cared for Al in a way that an older sibling protected their younger sibling. You can kind of see from her stand point of some random bim coming about and being the object of his affection.

      You felt the same way when Issacs's girl erratically showed up one night. They both came home from hitting the town and getting liquored up. Mama was a wreck that night yelling and hitting Isaac with her small hands. Papa escorted the young lady to the guest room, deeming her not stout enough to carry herself back home. Ever since that night you saw the young couple in a dimmer light. Losing some respect for your elder twin in the process.

 Husk on the other hand warmed up to pretty fast. Every time Al brings you back to the club, Husk and yourself play a couple of card games, losers usually paid for lunch. Teaching you how to deal all the way to keeping a straight face. He's a nice guy altogether, crunchy on the exterior and soft on the interior. But, you estimated that Al didn't like you talking with Husk for too long. He even goes out of his way to break up any sort of  conversation if he sees you two getting too close.

But, the most valuable information you received these scarce weeks were from the man himself.

 Alastor, the radio man is very hands on with you especially your waist. He wraps his lanky arms around your petite waist and gives you a strong, short squeeze before cuddling next to you. The only problem is he has to initiate the touching and he gets pissed easily. Al got so irritated when you gave him a shocking hug from behind and gave you a stern lecture with a small pat on the behind. You figured he hated people touching him without permission. To prove this theory you tried holding his hand when the two of you were alone. He yanked that arm back so fast all you saw was a blur. It took you around thirty minutes to get him to calm himself down. He spent the rest of the day with his hands in his pockets whenever you came into the room.

  Your courtier would never take you to his house, but he would happily go to your home and chat with the family. You were quite perplexed that your papa liked him. He's the type of dad that gets mad if his little girl even has a crush on another boy. Yet, it didn't stop there, even your brother found him likable. You're very liberated that they all seem to get along, but you were a little disappointed that they weren't as protective as you would think. Nonetheless, you felt very fulfilled with your man that day.

  Going on small dates are pretty joyful considering Al knows how to keep the fun going. If you even look like you're bored or uninterested he makes either witted jokes or invades your personal space in an attempt to fluster you. On some nights if you're really lucky he does more than just kiss you goodnight.

      Next, you seem to notice whenever family is brought up he talks about his mother in a very bright light. But, he never talks about his father. You brought it up to him and he dismissively walked around the whole topic. So, you never brought it back up instead you got him to talk about his mom. Apparently he gets most of his personality from his mother, Abigail. She taught him how to make jambalaya, singing, his etiquette knowledge and that prize winning smile that adores his features. This guy brings up his mother with such admiration that makes you question it sometimes. It's not that you mind his banter, in fact you found it amusing to hear him talk so fondly about her. You won't lie about feeling a little jealous from their closeness.

He's definitely a Mama's Boy .

 The last details you noticed were the really late night hunting he does. That lean frame of his is covered in scratches and small bruises. He tells you that most of his scars come from deer or jagged tree branches. It didn't explain the scratch marks on his neck. He told you those marks on his neck are from your guys last intimate moment together and without questioning him you believed his word. You don't remember clawing his skin. You left it at that and took him inside to mend his sore muscles.

   Blood underneath his finger nails took you aback, when he took his gloves off. You offered to help clean them, but he was really reluctant to even let you stare at them. You just wanted to help, but he thought otherwise. He stared at you from the corner of his eye before giving you a loud laugh and a resounding 'No.'. Like everything else in your relationship you just let it go without any further question.

 You should've known better.

    Nearing the end of June, with most people trying to find efficient ways of keeping cool. You were inside a hot kitchen all day baking a whole batch of beignets for a special little boy. Joseph's last night here was today and you wanted to make it fantastic for him. So, you invited all his school friends, neighbors and some of Claire's friends. You were going to spend most of your hard earned money on his go away party, however Al stepped in to pay for most of the expenses. He even invited Mimzy and Husk for entertainment wise. That incident still gave you butterflies and a genuine smile on your face.

     The only thing you needed to do was powder the pastries and get ready for the night of fun. Sprinkling the canister of sugar powder upon the delightful treats. Setting aside the sugary French styled doughnuts with a covering, taking long strides to the staircase you made it to your room to gather a simple long sleeved dress. Then, managed to freshen up with a nice bath and some light makeup. Packing the beignets in a proper container and double checking the  security of the vessel. Alastor should be coming by to pick you up in his newly repaired car, but the person at the door was not your Al. But, your dear friend Husky. He adored a simple white button up dress shirt, black slacks with polished black dress shoes and pulled together with dark gray suspenders.

"Ya ready, doll?" Blowing the rest his gasper smoke into the night air, He leaned his arm out for you to take.

"Where's Al," Taking his arm with a worried look on your face. ",did something happen?" He waved his hand off into the distance before giving you a slightly direct answer.

"He had some last minute stuff he had to take care of." You both stepped in his dark boiler and sped off down the pathway. "Don't worry he'll make it back in time for the party. Fucker lectured me about being late and look at what he's doing now." He scoffed.

"Well, thank you. For taking me in his place, Husk. I really appreciate it." Flashing him your most sincere smiles. His cheeks flushed a modest hue of pink before he scowled. Grumbling a quiet ‘welcome’ before his gaze drifted towards the road. The path ahead grew bumpier by every turn down a lane leading through the thick woods. We scheduled for the party to be held near the bayou at mid evening. So, by the time the party starts the sun should be setting.

   Husk and you managed to keep conversation up with the occasional bits of quietness here or there. Talking to Husk is like talking to your other self. Sometimes you could say the most random shit and he’ll come back with a response that will put a smile to your face. He’s basically like your second big brother with a small(not at all) drinking problem.

“So, when are you getting this car repaired,” The boiler hitting a jagged rock before settling back in place. “Because this gal has seen better days and probably a near death in its future.” You murmured under your breath.

“Fucking inherited this piece of junk from my old man. Shitty old fucker couldn’t even buy me a new one.” A loud, deep growl came from his throat and through one arm off the wheel, “Bought himself a new car, while I’m struggling to get to work and back.” He scowled and gave a great sigh before stating he needed a drink.

“I’m pretty sure there’s going to be lots of liquor, especially from those old geezers.” You knew that Mrs. Claire and her friends would sit outside their houses at dusk drinking away on those rickety porches getting buzzed. You know this because your papa used to take you out and sat you down on the weathered wood while he got tipsy with his friends. One sundown you took a sip of a stray bottle they left unattended, you being a small child decided it would be experimental to drink the loopy juice. You took one sip and gagged, spitting saliva and finally throwing up. Mama was so pissed, and wouldn’t let him go drink for months.

“Good fucking need it.” He seemed to ease up a bit just by the mention of booze.

“Why are you so wound up tonight anyway.” Raising an eyebrow over in his direction.

“Alastor didn’t tell me until last minute that I had to pick you up and I was already three-fourths of the way to the party.” His fingers gripped his hair, then slowly combed through it. “ Fucking asshole wasn’t even remorseful.” Adding in a quiet jackass in his blur of curses.

“What exactly did he say he was doing tonight, if you don’t mind me asking.” Conscious of his body language you observed his hands tighten on the steering wheel, his posture straighten for just a  second then went back to hunching. Husk’s Adams apple bobbed down and up, you wanted to chalk it up to him yearning for his alcohol. “It’s not something dangerous right?”

“Nah, it’s nothing dangerous he just had to run some errands and I guess he had more on his platter than expected.” He reassured you, his hand rubbed the top of your hands.

“I know he’s spontaneous, but this is kind of unexpected of him. He seems to love get-togethers or any social event with music.” You did have hopes for the two of you spending the night together. Maybe lay down on the grass and star gaze and probably watch Husk get drunk. “We do have time before the party, we could go and help him finish what he needs done.”

“No!” He groaned, slightly pulling on his face. “He already has Mimzy helpin’ him, and he would get pissed if I just brought you by.”

You really didn’t understand why you couldn’t drop by to help.

   If it was a work matter you would have noticed or heard about the situation, but nothing eventful really happened this week. The victims of the Bayou Killer reduced their number of murdered victims these past handful of weeks. Which makes you feel somewhat safe tonight and that’s sort of why you're throwing this party.

Maybe you're just reading too far into the situation and Al’s going to be just a few minutes late.

“It’s fine I know first hand how Al can get a little irked when people don’t follow his instruction.” Managing a small smile to your lips. “I was just a little curious about the whole ordeal.”

Inhaling a deep breath Husk created a deep groan that emitted from his throat. “Don’t beat yourself up, (y/n). Being curious about your lover is perfectly fine.” Taking another puff from his gasper and letting the smoke trail out the window. “ And to be clear here, he’s an asshole and you're just the clueless moth flying towards his flame.”

 Furrowing your eyebrows, “What’s that supposed to mean?”, you demanded.

   Husk made another groan emit from his throat, he’s been doing that a lot tonight. But, you never really see Husk worried, he’s usually either angry, smug or on the occasion vulnerable. He gets you overwhelmed with fear when he talks so lowly about himself, the whole scene of him with bottles on bottles lying next to his passed out body makes your chest clench.

“I’m not insulting ya it’s just,” He twirled his wrist in a small circle, “Al’s not some dandy who needs your concern. To be completely honest you deserve a fellow who would settle down and have a nice family one day.”

“What makes you think Alastor doesn’t want to have a family with me.” You tightly crossed your arms over your chest, “Did he mention any of this to you?”

“No, no when you have been with Al as long as I have you tend to pick up all of his quirks.” Another deep puff and that stick was gone. The smoke came out in rings carried off by the wind. “And his motives.”

    Opening your mouth to counter his claim, the upcoming lights flashed in your eyes. The lanterns strung up on steel poles lined along the large land area. You could already see a large portion of people starting in on their fun evening.

      Husk pulled over to the side where a small portion of boilers settled at. He stepped out and walked over to your side, wrapping his arm around your frame leading you down the path of bright lights. Prior to leaving you snatched the beignets from dash nearly pushing them out your mind beforehand.

      Joseph seemed like he’s having a despairing time with his friends. While they all played together, he sat himself down on one of the benches. Face cast away from them and back hunched over to rest his head on his arms. His little head turned towards your way, eyes closed, brows furrowed and crunching his nose up.

His gaze met yours and that little cannon rammed right into your gut. The air nearly left your lungs, but you deliberately gained your stance. “How’s the going away boy doing?” Returning his tight squeeze with an equally suffocating grasp. Little hands pulled on dress and a small face nuzzled into your side, Joseph’s petite face stared up at you, whites of the eyes turned pinkish. “Oh, honey, I know moving is really isolated, but look on the bright side. You can spend time with your cousins and experience new places.”

“It’s not the same.” His little voice raised a very squeaky octave. “They all make fun of me whenever I visit. They call me a baby for still sleepin’ in the same room as granny, they even called me daisy.” Shoving his face back into your hip, a large shiver went throughout his small body.

        You know from great experience about family troubles, but comparing your situation to Joseph’s would be like comparing a gator to a croc. They may look the same on the outside, but they have major differences. His family was more docile like a gator, while your biological parents were more like crocodiles, very aggressive and annoyed by others in their space. But, this isn’t your family, thank god, this is about your favorite little guy right now.

I should stop doing this to myself.

“I know this is hard for you and we can’t really change your granny mind any time soon.” Ushering him back over to the bench sitting him down next to you. “But, you still mail and call to us everyday if you want to. It might just make you feel better about being so far away from all the wondrous folk down here.”

“You really think that’ll work.” He raised an eyebrow.

“Well, yes I do think that’ll work just fine.” Stroking his hair out his face in the process rubbing the stray tears. “So, how does that sound.”

He slothfully nodded, looking up at the night sky. “I could have Aunt Shirley write my letters though. My penmanship is dreadful.” he quietly added, giving a small smirk direct at you.

    Shooting straight up, with a small bounce you pulled Joseph to his feet. “Now I made this party happen and got you to stay up late, just for you to pout and cry.” Flicking his nose you gave a soft smile. “How about we make this night better with a sweet treat.” You showcased the container and popped the lid off. The aroma of powder sugar met Joseph and your noses. His eyes shined a tad bit and that tiny smile that hung from the corner of his lips gave way of his joy. He sure did love these sugary confections.

“Thank you, (y/n). You made this night a whole lot better.” He gratefully took a beignet and practically shoved the pastry in his mouth. Humming that the French doughnut was indeed good.

     Walking off and setting the plate down you pinpointed Husk Downing himself with silly juice with some of the older guests. Deciding not being surrounded by drunk people was a good idea you made the decision of mingling with Floyd. He was probably the most reasonable person to approach. Upon seeing you he gestured to the empty seat next to him you gratefully took the offer.

“So, how has the night been faring you, Floyd.” Giving him a kind smile and gestured towards the party. “ Having fun?”

  He gave a noticeable shrug before answering, “I kind of wanted to stay home. But, you know how Clay can be.” He took another swig of punch. “Not that I don’t want to be here. I’m just tired from this week, ya know.”

“It’s fine to be tired. I’m pretty sure we're all tired from the month with the past killings.” A small groan came from your throat. “Why do you think the killings stopped all a sudden?”

“I feel like the fucker wants to put everyone on the edge of their seats and while we’re all nice and happy they’ll find another body.” Floyd’s outlook was depressing, but you won’t lie about thinking that way, too.

“You really think they’ll find one.” You questioned. All you got in return was a short and assertive nod.

“Mrs.Claire has a smart idea of sending her grandkid to Arkansas, especially in the condition she’s in. Barely can afford to feed one person on her salary.”

     Nodding you agreed with Floyd, Mrs.Claire does need help and sending Joseph to Arkansas would be her first step. You spent about the next hour talking to Floyd, Clay and his dame, Mama and Papa, your brother, Mrs. Claire and a surprising still standing upright husk. You grew worried about Al once you knew how much time flew by. Husk reassuring you that he’ll come later or in a few minutes. By the second hour it was already eleven o’ clock and by now you were more furious than worried. You decide to cool your mind with a few drinks and maybe a little liquor to ease your troubles. By your fourth drink you were a little tipsy and hanging off of Husk to keep yourself standing. You weren’t drunk. But you felt that if you let go you would fall straight into the dirt below.

       Suddenly, hands blocked your view. “Guess who, darling.” In your inebriated state you uncontrollably giggled. The anger is still there ;like a grain of stubborn sand in a bag. But, not so much as before. Turning around you pulled him into your chest.

“You said a couple minutes late, liar.” You huffed.

“I’m sorry, love, but something came up and I couldn’t leave it hastily finished.” A huge smile plastered his face, teeth and all. “ Do you think you could forgive me?”

“Well, I don’t know.” Liquid courage gave you the confidence of trailing your fingers along his chest. “ Maybe if I get something to ease my anger.”

Al’s eyes widened and that sharp smile turned into a smirk. “My little bearcat is getting handsy this evening.” He maneuvered his arm around your waist pulling you into his side. “Maybe I should take you home. Come here now chere.” He strolled back to his car with you in tow.

Maybe I should’ve been more cautious back then.

[hyperfixateandchill]

aaand because I can’t stop thinking about it i’ve written down my ranking of post-finale deancas scenarios including a non-exhaustive list of pros and cons for each. read on at your own discretion.

1st place: Deancas open up the new Roadhouse. My personal favorite because, again, Dean’s canon dream. I think Dean would LOVE running his own bar and playing host and serving people food and drinks is basically his love language. Cas isn’t as into the bar vibe specifically but he enjoys seeing people come and go and getting to know the locals who come by and just being with Dean. They get to stay connected to the hunting world without being actual hunters which is probably the perfect win win situation for them.

Other Pros of the Bar scenario (i’ve thought about this a lot): Claire and Kaia come by increasingly often to visit until eventually Claire basically works part-time at the Roadhouse when she’s not off hunting and Dean starts only semi-ironically calling it the “family business.” Claire puts up pride flag stickers on the front door and Dean makes a thing of it at first but then warms up to the idea. People start catching on and now local queer people will come from several towns over to visit the bar because there aren’t exactly that many queer friendly spaces in their corner of Kansas. Then it’s pride month and Claire and Kaia secretly update the bar’s online info to explicitly draw in queer customers and on the evening of the nearest pride march the bar is PACKED with all the local gays and Cas has the pop music blaring and he will NOT let Dean change it but it’s ok because Dean’s made friends with a drag queen who’s a professional comedian and now they’re comparing calendars to see when she might be able to come do a set at the Roadhouse and basically their bar is now a gay bar. “LGBT friendly”, Dean insists, because 1. he’s not gay and 2. he still caters to the local straights and the hunters. but now hunters come in and end up sitting 2 stools away from a flamboyant!gay and some are slightly weirded out but most don’t care at all and all of them end up making some kind of comment about how they’d heard about Dean Winchester and his angel... guess it’s true huh? And Dean shoots them a cocky grin and says ‘yep’ but he still holds to the rule that pop music is only allowed on tuesdays and thursdays and maybe very late at night on the weekends when everybody’s drunk and dancing. The Roadhouse is a second home to Dean and it’s the perfect mix of middle american dive, hunter’s hangout and lgbt space, and that’s literally DEAN so it’s perfect and he gets to work with his family by his side and be a part of a community (or several) and he feels useful and happy.

Cons of the Bar scenario: Doesn’t work great with having a small child or hobbies. very long hours and unusual work schedule. would encourage Dean’s drinking habit. I.e. it might be more intense than some alternatives (unless the bar is more cafe/diner during the day and Claire/Kaia/whatever other youngins can mind the place on their own if deancas aren’t in and the bar is located quite close to their house to they can come and go).

Overall works pretty well for a more active/energetic take on deancas’s lives post-finale. 8/10

2nd place: Mix of mechanic!Dean and retired!deancas. Dean’s never had a proper job before or much of a social circle who aren’t hunters, so I find it hard to imagine Dean working at an autoshop and playing mr. normie with his coworkers. Same with Cas and a regular job.

What I can imagine, however, is Dean having his own small business where he fixes up old cars (for like, vintage car enthusiasts). It starts as a hobby but then he realizes people would pay him to do it so now it’s a business. Deancas obviously have a a house on a big plot of land near the woods and a lakeside, so there’s plenty of outdoor space for him to set up a small shop and most of his customers call ahead so he doesn’t have people just coming in anyway. The work is not quite enough to pay all the bills but again, Charlie’s magic credit card, so who cares. Cas gardens and beekeeps and occasionally sells the extras at the local farmer’s market. Dean cooks and fishes and uses Cas’s ingredients whenever possible. They spend their days on their own property, doing their hobbies on their own time and making enough money from them that they don’t feel useless and still have plenty of time left to get over-involved in Jack’s pta. It’s a very calm, contented life. the millennial hipster dream, fulfilled by two 40-some year old dads.

Pros: deancas getting to spend their days doing what they love, being ridiculously domestic and married (even if they’re not officially married), both being absolute malewives in their own ways and it’s disgustingly sweet.

Cons: this scenario doesn’t have quite as much excitement and opportunity for shenanigans as the bar scenario. Less connection to a community, more living like hermits. Dean might appreciate the more social atmosphere of a bar. Cas might be equally happy either way, but he’d probably like having Claire help them out at the bar so that’s a plus for him.

Overall a good scenario for a more placid semi-retired life. 7/10

3rd place: a bait and switch. Cas is the one who ends up still having something you could call a ‘job’, Dean is the househusband. It starts with deancas still helping saileen with HOL (hunters of letters) stuff but eventually Dean is very decided that he wants out now that things are in good hands. Cas agrees with him but still consults with the hol network since he’s got all that lore knowledge. Dean very occasionally helps with research/strategy for a hunt but that’s IT no more hunting for him, and so it ends up that Cas still comes by the bunker fairly often and works from home the rest of the time on research and translations etc and Dean’s 100% amateur chef-in-training and papa bear because now nobody can look down on him for being a housewife (or nobody he gives a shit about anyway) so he’s gone all in. and whenever he comes by the bunker these days is after he’s picked up Jack from school and he comes to join their family to cook them all dinner while they finish up the work.

Pros: love me a Dean who’s gotten over his hypermasculinity and is now comfortable with doing whatever he likes even if (sometimes specially if) that thing is considered stereotypically feminine. It’s his big fuck you to his dad and it’s the life mary had wanted when she was young and dean is mary and therefore he’s honoring her memory when he spends his days on a bright airy kitchen making lunch for his 4 year old and waiting for his ex-soldier husband he adores to come home and doing not one bit of hunting. except dean never had to lie about his past and cut ties with his hunter family to get this. which is why this time for him it works, when it didn’t for mary or sam. love that energy.

Cons: Dean is not in fact just a malewife and would probably still want some more action in his life. might feel kinda useless with Cas having a ‘thing’ to do when he doesn’t. Cas would be perfectly happy regardless though.

Overall heartwarming and sweet but not as realistic: 6/10

4th: Disheveled-magic-shop-owner!Cas (+ Sam and Dean). Just thought of this. Cas knows his shit about spell ingredients and magical objects and supernatural weapons, probably more than even Sam. And Cas gardens. And Cas most likely enjoys pinterest and mom blogs and finds out about etsy... So Cas may or may not start growing/hoarding specific goods he knows are useful in the hunting world. at first it’s just to help HOL out but eventually Dean realizes like... we could profit off of this? And Cas eye-rolls because he doesn’t care but then again he knows his shit so he sets up a poorly-designed website to sell hunting stuff. and maybe Sam goes in on it with him because Sam also knows his shit and it’s kind of cute because they work together and Dean probably does the mechanic/barkeep/househusband thing though he does help with making the special bullets and dropping off parcels at the post office and so on. And maybe eventually they open up a small magic shop where they sell their shit. And maybe the shop is next door to the Roadhouse and it’s all become ‘your one-stop shop for everything a hunter might need’ (and you know the gays like their new age shit too so it all works), and the bunker isn’t even far away either and all three business are interconnected, the ‘family business’ that AU John Winchester of Hunter Corp wished he’d created.

Pros: Cas gets to do a thing he’s knowledgeable and passionate about and Deancas get to leave hunting while staying adjacent to the community. Cas as a disheveled shopkeep who’s not particularly nice to customers but who provides them with insights and mysterious comments that make people certain he must be legit.

Cons: Cas using his knowledge of the supernatural to profit off of hunters sounds too capitalist and not very Cas-like. He would be the type to gladly give people stuff for free and methinks that Dean and Sam would feel that way too. Cas helping with HOL stuff is basically established in options 1-3 already and so is him gardening for potentially useful ingredients. He doesn’t need to sell this stuff in a shop.

Overall makes sense theoretically but doesn’t vibe well for me. 5/10

5th: full on retirees, doing basically the same things as no 2 except with maybe some more travelling and less caring about making money from any of it.

Pros: the “and they lived happily ever after” they deserve after all the shit they’ve been through.

Cons: boring. uneventful. Dean and Cas are still quite young and neither’s had a chance at something even resembling a normal life for more than a couple of months at a time. They should get more of a middle aged married life experience before moving on to full retirement.

Overall valid but less interesting: 4/10

6th: Cas gets a job at a local library or shop, Dean is either a mechanic or a househusband. To preface, if Cas were to get a job out there in the world, my favorite would be like a magic shop or a bookshop with *unique* books. But I find that unlikely unless Cas is running his own shop (see 4th place for that). So here we’re talking about a regular normie shop.

Pros: Cas has a job he likes and feels useful in? And he’s not completely tied down to Dean all the time (though not sure that counts as a pro). More of the ‘normal life’ vibes.

Cons: Cas working at a random bookstore or library or shop or whatever would be passably interesting but not as fulfilling or useful or fun as any of the other options.

Overall valid but not interesting or all that heartwarming. 2/10

6th: deancas don’t know any life outside of hunting so they keep on doing it, except now with lower stakes than before and they go on less actual hunts.

pros: umm... consistency? they keep working closely with saileen and the new hunters who start coming by/moving into the bunker.

cons: everything. Dean’s wanted out and he should get it. Cas literally died several times over and he should get to experience a human life with the man he loves and not just do more dangerous shit.

Overall a terrible idea. 1/10 (because 0/10 would be the Cas never comes back and Dean dies and goes to heaven scenario)

[atopearth]

The Legend of Dragoon Part 2 - Platinum Shadow

Since Doel told us to venture to Tiberoa for answers, it's time we got a change of environment! No more Serdio and war~ but crazy princesses! Hmm, was Princess Emille a fake? Hmm, so the Moon that Never Sets is called that because it's not affected by time such as day or night, and when it glows red after 108 years, a Moon Child appears, but I guess so does the Black Monster? Btw, Albert is such a dork that it's so cute lmao, I loved how when they were talking about how Haschel's daughter and Dart's mother are both called Claire, and whilst Rose was saying it was impossible for them to be related considering their appearances, Albert starting going on a rant on an analysis of the possibility and how their skulls were different lmao. And omgg it's kinda crazy, but I never thought about the possibility of a Dragoon Spirit getting stolen by thieves! Sad that I can't level up my Dragoon level now lol. It's kinda crazy to think that such a beautiful green and flowery town like Donau has been taken over by bandits... I guess it's understandable why Lynn (Mayor's son) would go to the Gehrich Gang's Hideout to persuade them to get lost, but seriously, that's so dangerous and highly unlikely to work! Ohh okay, the gang hasn't taken over the city yet, just very hostile and leaving their people there I guess? Meru is such a happy ball of positivity and beauty loll. I used to always think she was super pretty and cute though, she's also really strong! I wasn't too fond of her Additions but I guess her cuteness makes up for it, and she's a pretty hilarious person lol. I see... Princess Lisa knows through astrology that Princess Emille is somehow related to the Gehrich Gang and it even told her to never hand over the moon, probably meaning the Moon Dagger heirloom that will be passed on to Princess Emille soon. Btw, lmao at how well Meru and Haschel get along, they're both like kids getting excited over the royal dinner feast hahaha. It's kinda crazy though, if Lisa can see so many things through astrology, I guess there is a good reason as to why this whole town worships the stars so vehemently.

I honestly didn't expect/completely forgot Gehrich was Haschel's former disciple that got kicked out for not using martial arts with a good heart. It's kinda saddening that he ended up a leader of bandits, but I guess at least in the end, Haschel found him and was able to make him understand that the Rouge School arts weren't to be used for things like this... I didn't realise that Kongol actually followed Emperor Doel for a good reason! Emperor Doel told him that he wanted to make a land where all species could be equal, and Kongol believed in his strength in being able to bring that, but now that he was defeated by Dart, he wants to understand Dart’s strength now. I didn't think that the humans actually killed all the Gigantos aside from Kongol in this place/home of the Gigantos. You would think that since they were oppressed by Winglies before, they would understand the pain of losing people, but no, they killed them... I feel sorry for Kongol, he just wants to fight against bad people like the ones who killed his family and friends... Speaking of Kongol though, him saving the gang by holding that super heavy stone axe/pillar that came from that humongous status was crazy! He even flung it away so easily! I'm not sure how we defeated him before considering he had strength like that lol!

Aww so nice to see Lynn and Kate's wedding! Also really cool to know that whilst Dart and party were gone, the Mayor and all the adults rose up and went against the bandits in town and successfully kicked them out! Nice to know that Dart inspired them to do their best to protect their own town. Shana catching the bouquet was cute. Omggg, I can't remember but dang, you get Kongol's Golden Dragoon Spirit at the rip off market seller in Lohan! It's 1000G which is easy to get by now but wow, apparently you can get to near the end of the game without even realising this is where you get it! Which kinda sucks tbh lol. Apparently there were hints but it must have totally flown off my head because I had no idea lmao. I honestly can't believe King Zior is even allowing these bandit friends of Emille to be knights for the ceremony, like is he crazy or is he a fake? Or does he need to allow all this to save the real princess? Dodging the bandit guards to get to Princess Lisa and the real Princess Emille aren't too hard, but I do admit it's annoying haha. Wow, no wonder it was practically impossible to find the real Princess Emille, she was locked inside a magical dimension within the portrait of herself in her room! Wow, boy am I glad I stocked up on Healing Breeze because Lenus aka fake Princess Emille does crazy damage to all! She has so many turns as well! Maybe it would have been easier if my Albert actually had the SP to turn into a Dragoon though lmao, but still, she's pretty nuts haha. I knew I didn't remember wrong, Meru is a Wingly just like Lenus (since Lenus could tell), but I guess it's understandable of her to hide it from the party for now. Hmm, so after the defeat of the Winglies, the three countries Serdio, Tiberoa and Mille Seseau were formed, and the surviving Winglies sent a divine object of the moon as a proof of peace. Anyway, I guess King Zior was too blinded by his love for his daughter Emille that he didn't care what she was like to realise it was a fake lmao.

Aww it's so cute to run around with Shana on the Queen Fury. Lmao at the chopping vegetables mini game, legit thought it would give me something good after winning but it gives me 1G LOL. All my hard work for a scrap lol. I love how enthusiastic and hardworking everyone on the ship is though! They're so passionate about their work whether it be cleaning or shoving fuel etc, they're really trying their best to catch up to Lenus (and get the Moon Dagger back). Sometimes I feel sorry for how blunt Shana is about her feelings towards Dart but he's just constantly thinking about the Black Monster etc. I guess it's understandable though, he probably thinks that if he starts thinking of stuff like romance, he wouldn't be able to fully focus on the war and everything. I really enjoy talking to all the different sailors with the different characters though! It's so cool how some of the dialogue changes haha! Lmaoo at Meru annoying Dart and Shana to play with her because she's bored, yet when you talk to her with Rose (and she tells Meru they can train together), Meru says she'll behave hahahaha. I wonder what made Rose change if she says that she used to be as innocent as Shana, only caring about her love and hoping that it'll bear fruit? Did Rose's partner die and that's why she tells Shana to never let Dart go? Omg..to think that 25 years ago, Haschel's harsh training caused Claire to accidentally end up killing her training partner since she tried her best to fulfil her father's expectations of her as the heir to the Rouge School... He shouted at her to get out of his sight and lost her forever... It's quite terrible... Lmao at Kongol just ignoring Meru if you talk to her with him hahahah. LOL at Meru throwing a pillow at Albert! Guess he's the easiest to bully even though he’s a king lol. Hahahah I love how everyone sympathises with Dart being the babysitter of Meru when she forces him to run around with him on the ship lol. The Phantom Ship looks really cool but scary at the same time! It's kinda cool how ghost knights protected Shana from skeletons. Okay, that mini game with the chest is so not worth the time lol! It's so hard to guess! Anyway, I checked the rewards and it really only gives you crappy stuff that I don't care about lol, don't need Ultimate Wargod because I can do my Additions just fine anyway lol. So, is the princess of Mille Seseau that this whole ship tried to protect from the Black Monster 18 years ago actually Shana? Rose is probably the Black Monster, but is Zieg the first Red Eyed Dragoon that she supposedly fell in love with but couldn't save for some reason? Was Rose a part of the Dragon Campaign 11,000 years ago? Her and her comrades seemed to be fighting Virages or something? They all died and Zieg turned into stone? I guess you can see why Rose is so attached to Dart if they're so similar. But I wonder, did the Black Monster appear because Rose wasn't able to control the insanity of the Dragoon due to her grief of losing her friends or something?

Lmao when Rose said she'd annihilate all the monsters to protect Pete and his mother (people who saved Dart and Rose after they fell off the Queen Fury when the Phantom Ship sunk). Hahahaha Pete was so funny to say that Rose should confess to Dart because he saw her take care of Dart lovingly in the cave. Hahahah I love how you can go to the hot springs in Fueno and the person soaking in it screams lmaoo. Aww it's so cool and cute how the merchant for the item shop and the weapon shop are the same person! He just goes upstairs to talk to you if want weapons lmao. I love how happy and hyper Meru is to see Dart and Rose alive haha. Aww, it was really sweet of Dart to hug her since she was crying and he felt bad for worrying her. Lmaooo at Meru, Haschel and Albert peeking in on them though lol!!! I think it was really cute how when Dart caught them, they all ran away, but Meru came back to close the door for them lmao. Honestly though, despite how much of a damsel in distress Shana is, I think she really warms up to you as a character. Sure, she's weak and everything, but she's just really sweet and normal, it's hard to not like her. She has that warmth to her that the others lack. Ohh, so Lenus had the Sea Dragoon Spirit! Anyway, she was so much stronger before! Her Dragoon form is so much easier to manage lol, she should have just stayed in her Wingly form. Poor girl though, she gave her life for Lloyd but I honestly doubt he really appreciates it. I think Dart was really touched when Shana ran to protect him when Lenus tried to kill Dart with the last bit of her strength though, it was kinda cute. Lmao at Meru being so happy for truly being a part of the gang as a Dragoon now though haha. Aww it's so cute how Albert was so enamoured with Princess Emille. I can understand though, she's really graceful, beautiful and kind, who wouldn't like her?! But I think the whole family is great! I love how King Zior didn't care about Dart and them not being able to retrieve the Moon Dagger because he believes that it's just a symbol and isn't as important as them being the heroes that saved all the town's from the terror of the Sea Dragon and the fake Emille. Awww, it's so cute how Dart has finally realised his feelings for Shana but he keeps getting interrupted when he wants to tell her lmao. Shana is so brave though, she totally and straightforwardly told him again that she loves him and that it doesn't matter if he views her as a baby sister. I hope they get together soon! Lmao at both Haschel and Meru being kids stealing food from the kitchen hahaha. Albert bonding with Emille in her room was so adorable lmao. Rose chuckling to herself thinking about things was so cuteee, I love how soft she is becoming now. Kongol training in the training centre being happy that he's got friends of different species now was so adorable too. Aww, Princess Emille is willing to wait for Albert to come back from his journey! They're so sweet! Aww he finally got to tell Shana that her wish is the same as his whilst she was wearing a beautiful dress~~ Such a cute and happy banquet!

Overall, this chapter was really nice. I loved the whole Wingly introduction to the story, getting to know more about Rose, but also interacting with Meru and Kongol! I really love how cute everyone is and how different they all are, but how nice they all work together. Btw, I farmed Shana's Dragoon level to 5 to see her skills and dang, White Silver Dragon does damage and heals you to full life! Pretty strong! It was so easy to farm it on the Phantom Ship btw, since you have access to a save point, resting and constant monsters lol. I just wanted to see it before Miranda came along because I remember not liking her lmao. I think the best thing about this chapter is seeing everyone’s growth as a character, mainly Shana and Rose because Shana solidifies her resolve to be beside Dart no matter what, whereas Rose is warming up to everyone (especially Dart) whether she likes it or not. Another cute thing I loved to see was Albert finding his love Princess Emille, they’re both so wonderfully graceful and I find it adorable how Princess Emille loves listening to Albert when everyone else thinks he talks too much in a long-winded way hahaha. I also really liked the Queen Fury part because it really helped to understand everyone’s worries as well as what they’re searching for on this journey, it just made me understand them a bit more individually and I really enjoyed that. Now I feel super bad for hating Kongol as a kid when I was young just because he was ugly LOL, I was such a vain kid! Kongol is like such an innocent, pure and kind guy, I love him lol. Technically though, I love all the characters already haha.

[three-drink-amy]

If After All These Years, You’d Like to Meet

note: I am about to be pretty busy so I wanted to get this chapter out before that happens! I hope you all enjoyed it! Your support on this fic has been so wonderful and so encouraging. This was my first fic for this fandom and it's been an incredible experience. I don't think I'd have written 21 chapters and over 100k words on this story if it hadn't been for the response I've gotten. So truly, thank you! 

That being said, we're in the home stretch on this one. There's one chapter left!

master list - AO3

Chapter Twenty-One

Claire opened the door to see Jamie still sitting on the couch. “Well someone must be enjoying unemployment. I’m fairly certain that’s the same place I left you in this morning,” she teased.

Jamie leaned his head on the back of the couch to meet her for a kiss as she walked by. “Aye, I am in the same place, but I’ll have ye know I did get up and move occasionally. Mainly to piss.”

Claire laughed as she set her stuff down at the kitchen table. “You lazy bum.”

Jamie looked over at her and scoffed. “Hey! This is the first time I’ve gotten to be truly lazy in eight years. I’m milking it! I won’t start the new job for a few weeks.”

Claire threw herself down on the couch next to him, her legs spilling over his lap. “Honestly, I’m just teasing you because I’m a bit jealous.” Jamie grinned, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “I’m surprised you didn’t go for a run.”

“Oh, I did. Light 10k,” he informed her, running his hand along her arm. Claire rolled her eyes at him. “So I was going to call ye at work but then I looked at the clock and figured ye’d be leaving soon. Do you think ye’d be able to take off the weekend of the 12-14th?”

“Of July?”

“Yes, of July,” Jamie clarified.

“I already took it off. Do you think I don’t know what that weekend is?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

He grinned, kissing her on the nose. “Nah, I figured ye would.”

“So what are you thinking? I’m imagining if you asked, you’re thinking something.”

“Well, aye. I thought we’d go to Scotland,” Jamie offered.

Claire watched him for a moment. “Are you sure you wouldn’t just rather stay here?”

Jamie frowned. “What do ye have against Scotland, Sassenach?”

“Well nothing. You know I love it there, but we’ll already be there this weekend. And that’s only two weeks later. It’s just a lot of up and back,” Claire said, standing up to go get some water.

“Perhaps I’m missing something. Why are we going up this weekend? Since when are we going up this weekend?” Jamie asked, staring at her as she returned to the couch.

“Jamie, it’s your niece’s -”

“You can just say our niece,” he interrupted.

Claire grinned at him with a shake of her head. “Fine. Jamie, it’s our niece’s first birthday. Don’t you think we should be there?”

“Ye ken what I jus’ realized?”

Claire rolled her eyes as she sat back down. “What did you just realize?”

“That wee Janet will no’ know ye as anything other but her Auntie Claire,” he informed her with a fond smile on his face.

“That’s sweet,” Claire agreed. “But let’s get back to her birthday. Why do you think we’re not going? Jamie, did you forget about her birthday?”

“No, of course I didna forget. I suppose I forgot to tell ye that Jenny said we shouldn’t come,” Jamie said. “She figured we’d come up for our anniversary and so they planned a birthday for wee Janet that was just the Murray family. No Frasers allowed, apparently.”

Claire frowned at Jamie. “She doesn’t want us there? But we’re family.”

Jamie shrugged. “I dinna ken. Perhaps she’s planning to tell the children there’s to be another one.”

Claire smacked Jamie on the arm. “You’re terrible.”

“What do ye expect of me? Ye’re the one I’ve been making bets with on when it’ll happen!”

“So we’re really not going?” Claire asked. “It’ll be that weekend instead of this weekend?”

Jamie nodded. “Aye, if ye like.”

“I guess that’s better. I don’t want to pack this week anyway,” Claire remarked, relaxing into the couch against Jamie.

“Perfect.”

Jamie pressed play on the show he was watching before Claire walked in. She snuggled in next to him, her arms coming around his waist. He’d breathe easier when all the secrets were out. But for now, he felt guilty lying to her. He also felt guilty for making Jenny lie to her, as Claire would no doubt call to confirm these plans with Jenny. But she’d understand in the end. Big things were coming, she just didn’t know it.

~~~

It was odd to Jamie to be waiting outside his own flat, but he didn’t feel right just letting himself in. John should be there any minute. Checking his watch, he started to get irritated that John was late. He had to get home before Claire did.

A loud set of footsteps signalled John’s arrival. “Sorry I’m late!” John yelled as he ran towards the door. “My therapist would not stop talking today! It was like I did my part and then she needed to do an hour too.” He shook his head in annoyance. “Anyway, sorry.”

“Ye’re fine. I just need to make sure I get home before Claire.” John nodded, opening the door for Jamie. “So how is therapy going? If ye dinna mind me asking.”

“I think it’s going well. Even when I don’t want to talk about dark stuff it’s nice to just talk to someone,” John commented.

Jamie frowned at him. “Ye ken ye have friends to talk to for free about yer daily life.”

John laughed. “Oh I know. But sometimes it just all links back. I’m doing good though. I mean it’s been five months since the attack and three months in therapy. My therapist says I’m making good progress which is always nice to hear.”

Jamie walked back out of his old bedroom and nodded at John. “Aye, that is nice to hear. I’m proud of ye, John. I ken it was hard to take that step.”

“Thank you,” he said, a touched look on his face. “Probably wouldn’t have done so without you and Claire.”

Jamie nodded, choking back some emotion. “We’re always here for ye.”

“That’s why they call you my parents,” John joked. He looked at Jamie’s hand. “Got what you needed?”

Jamie held up the fist clenched around the object he’d come to claim. “Aye, I do. Thank ye for keeping it.”

“Not a problem,” John waved off, walking Jamie toward the door. “Talk soon?”

“We will. I’ll see ye,” Jamie said with a clap on his back before walking out the door.

~~~

Jamie and Claire had arrived at Lallybroch and were putting their bags down in the room they always shared. Jamie threw himself down on the bed with a sigh. “Wow, to think that one year ago today, we were just two fools who thought we’d never work it out.”

Claire laughed as she rifled through her bag. “I think we’ve done a pretty good job,” she mused.

Jamie jumped up off the bed, walking up behind her, and putting his arms around her. “I’d say would have to agree, mo nighean donn,” he whispered in her ear. She turned with a grin, meeting him for a quick kiss. “If it hadna happened here, when do ye think we’d have finally confessed our deep dark secrets to each other?” Jamie wondered aloud.

Claire laughed, her arms holding his. “You know I’ve wondered that before.” She turned around in his arms, her hands clasping at his neck. “I feel like we both just hit a breaking point and couldn’t keep it in any longer.”

Jamie nodded thoughtfully. “I’m fairly certain if it hadn’t happened any sooner than it did, John and likely the rest of our friends, would have locked us in a room until we could figure it out.”

Claire laid her head on his shoulder as she laughed at that mental image. “You know, I could definitely have seen them doing that. God, they were so annoying.”

Jamie kissed her forehead. “I dinna ken about that. They were on to something.”

Claire smiled with a hum. “You might be right.”

They stood there for a long moment in the quiet of their room, holding each other, both mentally reflecting on the past year of their shared life. After a while, Claire pulled back, looking up to meet Jamie’s gaze. “I love you,” she said simply. With a quick kiss, she parted, the need to feel helpful growing too strong.

“I’ll be down in a minute,” Jamie told her as she walked out the door. Once the sound of her footsteps disappeared, he turned to his suitcase and grabbed the one thing he wouldn’t let her see. He hid it in their room before going down to visit with his family.

~~~

They’d spent the rest of Friday and up til the afternoon Saturday just spending time with the kids. Claire had been surprised that Jamie hadn’t asked for any of her time alone. But as she also enjoyed spending time with the children who Jamie already called her nieces and nephews, she didn’t mind. Jenny and Ian had been very busy with projects they wouldn’t let Claire or Jamie anywhere near, so it helped to entertain the kids. Claire tried to think of the silly games she and Jamie had played as a child. There was a definite chance that Jenny would kill them if they taught her children some of their rowdier games.

The evening was rolling in on Saturday and Claire strolled into the kitchen, ready to help Jenny. Her head snapped up at the sound of Claire’s arrival. “What are ye doing here?”

“I came to help with dinner.”

“Do I look like a woman who needs help making dinner? Are ye saying that I’m insufficient on my own?” Jenny seemed heated and Claire had no clue why.

“Look, Jenny, I’m not trying to start anything. I just wanted to be helpful,” she said, her hands raised.

“Well let me tell ye how ye can help,” Jenny offered. Claire nodded for her to continue. “Ye can get the hell out of my kitchen!”

“Jenny, seriously, what’s going on?”

“Claire, I dinna want ye in here. Get out of my kitchen!” she nearly screeched.

Claire was staring at her friend and nearly sister, completely confused. She was about to press the issue when Jamie walked in. “What’s going on?”

“Get her out of here,” Jenny demanded. “I dinna want her in my kitchen.”

Claire looked to Jamie, hoping he’d set his sister straight. His face bore no expression. He simply shrugged and gestured for Claire to follow him. “Why don’t we go for a walk?”

“Jamie, what was that?” she asked as she followed him out of the kitchen. “I’ve never seen Jenny like that.”

“Eh, sometimes she’s jus’ no’ a great hostess. It’ll be fine. We can just go for a walk before dinner,” Jamie suggested again. Claire shrugged and followed him out of the house.

They started walking across the vast Lallybroch lands. Jamie’s hand quickly took hold of Claire’s, lacing their fingers together. The sun was getting lower in the sky, but not low enough to set just yet. Even if Claire was still distracted a bit by Jenny’s outburst, she couldn’t deny that it was a beautiful evening.

Jamie slowed down as they approached a big tree near the back of the house. “Do ye recall this place?” Claire smiled fondly at the memories with a nod. “We’d all dare each other of who could get highest in the tree.”

Claire laughed loudly. “Ian was the winner for the longest time until he fell from a lower branch and then was afraid of heights.”

“How he only managed to break his arm and no’ his neck is still a miracle,” Jamie recalled.

“And then your mother wouldn’t let us anywhere near this tree for months,” Claire added, giving the tree a pat. “Should we climb it now?” Claire asked with a devious grin.

Jamie looked down at Claire’s sandals on her feet and her loose top. “Ye’re hardly in climbing clothes, Sassenach.”

“Spoilsport,” Claire muttered, taking his hand again as he started to walk from the tree.

They kept walking, stopping occasionally as Jamie pointed out spots on the estate from their past. It was a nice little stroll down memory lane. Most of the memories made Claire smile, if not laugh outright. Each time they moved onto a different place, she tucked herself a bit closer into Jamie’s side.

Jamie turned to start going up a steep, uneven hill. He held out a hand to stop Claire, instead having her climb on his back. He carried her up the hill and set her down once they reached whatever destination he was hoping to find. “Do ye remember this place?” Jamie asked.

“I’m not even quite sure where we are,” Claire admitted. Jamie pulled back a curtain of foliage, revealing the cave they’d hidden in as kids. “Oh my god, I’d forgotten about the cave.”

“I thought ye might have,” Jamie said, pulling out his phone to shine a flashlight. Claire took his offered hand and followed him in there. They both ducked down, afraid to hit their heads. Both of them were significantly taller than the last time they’d been in there.

Claire sat down on the floor at the back of the shallow cave. Jamie plopped down next to her. She wrapped her arm through his, leaning her head on his shoulder. “You know the last time I was in here?” Jamie leaned his head against hers. “It was the day after my parents died. Uncle Lamb started talking about how we’d have to go back to England for a bit before we moved on to India. But I didn’t want to go,” Claire recalled. “I ran out of my parents’ house with my backpack and I found myself here.”

“I recall,” Jamie said. “Uncle Lamb came to the house hoping to find ye and my parents had no clue where ye could be. I wouldna tell any of them where I thought ye might be, but I came to find ye here.” A silence hung between them. “Twas when ye told me ye’d be leaving.”

Her hand squeezed around his arm. “I believe I told you that they wanted me to leave, but I’d decided I could just live here and you could bring me food three times a day.”

Jamie laughed at the memory. “That sounds about right. I’d have done so.”

Claire breathed out a laugh, turning her head to plant a kiss on his shoulder. “I know you would have.”

“Twas no’ long after that day that I started begging Uncle Lamb and my parents to let ye stay here,” Jamie remembered.

They sat in silence for a few minutes before they stood and made their way from the cave. Walking back down the rocky hill, they continued on the walk down memory lane.

Jamie had slowed in the middle of a big field, his eyes narrowing. Claire turned around and watched him. He stepped a couple of paces closer to her, looking around critically. She had no idea what he was doing. “Aha!” he said suddenly, gesturing for her to join him. He grabbed her arms and made her stand right in front of him. “Right in this spot, one year ago, tomorrow, was where it all began,” he said with a broad grin on his face.

Claire looked around, trying to see if she recognized their surroundings as well as he did. “How can you even tell? It was so dark that night.”

Jamie shrugged. “I just do.”

Claire rolled her eyes with a shake of her head, an amused smile on her face. “Well, seeing as you didn’t bring a blanket, I’m afraid we won’t be having a repeat of those events. I refuse to have sex straight on the grass.”

Jamie pulled her close, whispering against her lips. “What if I let ye be on top?” His lips met hers for a long, heated kiss. The thought lingered on Claire’s mind as Jamie’s hands roamed across her body, landing firmly on her behind.

“We can’t,” she decided, pulling away from him just a bit. “We’ll miss dinner.”

Jamie shook his head. “I kent ye’d say that.”

“Well your sister is already mad at me for something stupid,” Claire reminded him. “I don’t want to make it worse by missing the dinner she cooked.”

Jamie laughed and took her hand again. “I see yer point.” Together, they started walking back towards the house.

There had been a couple more points Jamie had pointed out from their childhood adventures. It amazed Claire how sharp his memory was for that time so many years ago. She loved listening to the stories he told of them as kids, especially the ones she’d forgotten.

The sun was getting even lower in the sky, ducking behind the tall home, throwing the courtyard by the front door into shadow. Jamie led Claire under the archway and paused in the middle of the courtyard. “I think of all the spots, this is the most important one,” Jamie mused.

“Why’s that?” Claire asked.

“Because I was standing right about…” he backed up a few paces, “here the first time I ever saw you.” Claire smiled, a tilt to her head as she stared at him. “I remember thinking ye looked nervous to be here. My mam told me that ye were going to be my new friend and that we’d get to spend a lot of time together. And even then, even at four years old, I was excited about it. If only I’d known then what awaited us…”

Claire smiled at Jamie. She was about to reply when a sudden burst of light came from above them. Looking up, she saw several strings of lights, hung criss crossed above the courtyard, suddenly lit and twinkling at them. She stared at them with a confused laugh before turning to look at Jamie. But he wasn’t in the same place she’d last seen him.

He was down on one knee.

She laid a hand over her heart as tears formed behind her eyes. He hadn’t even spoken yet and she was already going to cry. She didn’t used to be such an emotional person.

“Claire Beauchamp,” he started, seemingly choked up as well, “ye’ve been one of the most important parts of my life since we were kids. Our mothers may have forced us together at first, but I believe it was fate that brought us back together last year. I canna imagine spending my life wi’ anyone but ye. Ye’re the perfect match for me and I like to think that I’m yers as well.”

Claire wiped away a tear, nodding insistently at him. “You are,” she whispered.

“Each day I wake up and I find I love ye more than I did the day before,” he continued. “Ye’re a rare woman, Claire, and I still canna believe ye’ve chosen to be mine. But I promise ye, I’ll do everything in my power to make ye as happy as possible.” He took a deep breath, holding his left hand up higher, a ring glinting between his fingers. “Will ye marry me?”

She cleared her throat, afraid she’d have no voice. “Of course I will,” she rasped. Jamie jumped up off his knee, closing the distance between them immediately. They met for a passionate, yet messy kiss full of emotion and promise. When they broke apart, Jamie took the time to slide the ring on her finger. “God, I love you,” she whispered, pulling him in for another kiss.

They were interrupted by the sounds of pots and pans banging together accompanied by a cacophony of cheers pouring out of Lallybroch. Claire turned, expecting to see Ian and Jenny. She was shocked to find all of their friends standing behind the Murrays, all cheering for the two of them. Claire looked over at Jamie, completely shocked. “What on earth? How are they all here?”

Jamie grinned. “I’ve been planning this for a bit now,” he admitted.

The two of them walked closer to the group waiting for them on the stairs. It was at that moment that Claire noticed Joe and Gayle among the group. “You two are even here?” she cried.

They bore matching smiles as they nodded. “Jamie asked me back in Boston,” Joe told her. “When he said what he was planning, we couldn’t miss it.”

Claire stared at all of them, truly touched by all the secrets they’d kept and all the planning that had gone into such a special moment. To have all of their friends there made it even better.

“You’re engaged!” Louise cried, wrapping Claire in a hug.

Geillis hugged the both of them, rubbing a hand up and down Claire’s back. “I’m so happy for the both of ye,” she said, also looking over at Jamie.

“Claire, I have to ask,” John started, “did you see it coming?”

Claire separated from Louise and looked at John. “Honestly, not at all.” She grinned, wrapping an arm around Jamie’s waist. “I guess it’s to Jamie’s credit that he’s sappy and sentimental all the time. I wasn’t suspicious by him wanting to take a walk down memory lane.”

Jamie laughed, placing a kiss on her temple.

“Congratulations, ye two,” Jenny cheered as they walked toward the stairs. “There’s a bit more waiting inside, so perhaps we should all go in.” The group turned to go back in the house. Jenny pulled Claire from Jamie’s embrace, giving her a hug of her own. “I’m sorry I yelled at ye earlier. Twas all part of Jamie’s plan to get ye out of the house.”

Claire laughed, hugging Jenny tighter. “I knew something was off with you! Now it all makes sense! If you yelled at me like that in front of Jamie, he’d normally tell you off for it.”

Jenny laughed, wrapping a hand around Claire’s shoulder as they moved into the house. “Aye, usually he would. Except when it’s his idea.”

Jenny led her into the living room where Jamie was grinning broadly at her. She looked past him and noticed the multitude of decorations strung across the room. Her jaw dropped as she took it all in. There were pictures of her and Jamie all hanging in the room. The biggest one was placed on the mantle. It was a blown up version of the picture of their childhood fake wedding. Claire burst out laughing, walking over to look at it closer.

Ian pressed a glass of champagne in her hand. “That’s there to remind ye that this is no’ yer first wedding to Jamie,” he said with a grin.

Claire laughed harder, hugging Ian. She turned and faced the room. “I truly can’t believe this. I can’t believe that you’re all here. I can’t believe you all apparently kept this very large secret from me for a long time.�� They all laughed. Jamie walked over and stood next to her. Her next comment was just for him. “And I can’t believe I get to marry my best friend.” He leaned his forehead against hers, sharing a sweet moment.

“I thought you were marrying Jamie,” John interrupted, “not me.”

“I’m sorry, but are ye saying ye think ye’re Claire’s best friend?” Geillis asked. “I’m afraid that post has been filled since her first year of uni.”

“Yeah, by me!” Louise interjected, her hand raised.

“Oh boy,” Claire sighed.

“Picking your maid of honor is going to be really fun,” Hector commented before taking a sip of his champagne. The others laughed.

“Tis a good thing Jamie already kens who his best man is,” Rupert stated, winking at Jamie.

Jamie looked nervously at Claire before he faked a smile for Rupert. “Sure I do,” he lied. Claire didn’t miss Ian’s glare at Rupert.

Jamie leaned in, whispering to Claire. “Perhaps we should elope.”

Claire laughed. “Ooh, or perhaps we should just go with outsiders. Strangers. That would really throw them all off.”

Jamie laughed, holding her closer. “I like the way ye think.”

Thankfully the conversation shifted as everyone started eating and celebrating Jamie and Claire’s engagement. They sat around telling their favorite stories from before and after they’d become a couple. Jenny and Ian had particularly funny stories about them as children. Claire felt so surrounded by love and friendship and was truly amazed by it.

“I just feel the need to state, for the record, that I called this from the first night,” Louise exclaimed for the room. “I called it!”

“No you didn’t,” Claire scoffed. “You just accused me of falling for Jamie.”

“I was there,” Joe said, “and Claire’s right. That was what you said.”

“Okay, then I called that you’d fall for Jamie,” Louise corrected.

“Well then you should have put that on the record a full year ago, Louise,” Willie pointed out. “Tis no good now.”

“Aye, we already all ken that Claire obviously fell for Jamie. Yer news isna groundbreaking,” Angus agreed.

Louise rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

“I think we all saw this coming, Louise,” John stated. “Anyone with eyes, really.”

“Okay, we can stop now,” Jamie said before taking a sip of his champagne.

In true fashion, their friends carried on well past when they should have. But nothing could dampen the pure joy between Jamie and Claire. Even if they’d already known it in their hearts, their futures were now officially with the other. Claire wiggled her ring finger, watching the ring sparkle in the light. She looked up to see that Jamie had caught her doing so, an appreciative smile on his face. “I love you,” she whispered just so he could hear.

Jamie leaned in close enough to kiss her. “I love ye, too,” he whispered against her lips before sealing them.

As their friends started to leave, they left one last surprise for the couple. “Really, this is more a gift for Jenny and Ian,” Rupert explained, “but tis a gift for the both of ye as well.” John handed them a key.

“What’s this?” Jamie asked.

“We got ye a room,” Geillis explained.

“Yeah, there’s this sweet bed and breakfast in the village,” Louise told them. “You’ll be staying there.”

Jamie and Claire exchanged similar touched looks before glancing back to their friends. “That’s so thoughtful. Ye truly didna have to do that.”

“Well, like I said, tis more a gift for Jenny and Ian,” Rupert repeated with a wink.

Claire wrinkled her nose at him. Though she couldn’t deny that in the hours since Jamie’d proposed, she’d silently lamented that they were staying in a house with five children and two other adults.

Their group parted, congratulating them again, promising to celebrate again in London.

It wasn’t too much later, but not soon enough, that Claire and Jamie were walking into the bed and breakfast where their friends had gotten them a room. “It was such a nice thought to have them all there,” Claire mused, noting Jamie’s planning. Jamie looked over at her and grinned as they walked up the stairs. “I can’t believe Joe and Gayle came all the way here for it.”

“Joe said they wouldna miss it. But they also are going to be spending the rest of the week on vacation here in Scotland. It wasna just for the weekend,” Jamie informed her. “I gave them a list of places to see.”

“Oh good,” Claire replied. “Coming all the way here for a weekend would have just been insane.”

“Oh aye,” Jamie murmured, pausing his steps as he found their room. “Are ye ready, Dr. future Mrs. Fraser?”

Claire laughed loudly. “Just going to blend all the titles in there, hmm?”

“Yes, that’s what I was thinking.”

He opened the door, motioning for her to go first. Jamie had barely gotten in the room when Claire met him in a heated embrace, pushing him back against the door, closing it with their bodies. One of her legs was already wrapped around his hip as they kissed sinfully, their hands everywhere on the other. Before they even left the door, both of them started relieving the other of their clothes. Jamie’s kisses, like his hands, were everywhere. Claire moaned under his attentions. They were too far from the bed. She tried to direct them that way. Jamie’s hands slid down her back and under her arse as he bent to pick her up, meeting her for another long kiss.

Claire broke away from him before he could lay her on the bed, looking down at him earnestly. “I am so excited to spend the rest of my life with you,” she breathed. “I love you so much.”

Jamie’s mouth flicked up into a grin as he laid her down on the bed, quickly climbing over her. “I love ye, too, mo nighean donn. So much.” He began kissing his way down her body, stopping in the places he knew she enjoyed. “Ye’re going to be my wife,” he said into her neck. “How did I get so lucky?”

Claire wrapped her arms and legs around him, moving to flip them over on the bed. “We’re both lucky, my dear. Also, I believe you promised earlier that I’d get to be on top,” she reminded him with a sultry grin before she bent down to close the distance between them.

He clutched her closer to him, their hips grinding against each other before she finally reached down and guided him inside her. She cried out, her head bent back. They moved together, rocking, grinding, sliding against the other. Jamie’s hands squeezed her hips so tightly, she was sure she’d have bruises in the morning. She couldn’t find the energy to care about it when he was still thrusting into her madly.

“Sassenach,” he called out, “give me yer mouth.”

She followed his request, laying herself against him, meeting him for a long, languid kiss as they continued to race closer to their climax.

They laid spent next to each other, still basking in the afterglow of their private celebration. Jamie’s arms held her against him, his fingers running up and down her arm.

Claire held her hand up in the air as they both looked at her left hand and it’s new addition. “You know it’s got a good ring to it.”

Jamie kissed the side of her head. “What does?”

Claire looked back at him, an excited smile on her face. “Claire Fraser.”

Next chapter

[gotham-ruaidh]

Truth to Triumph

Previously…

Chapter 2: The Aftermath

June 30, 1904

The front page of The World - Evening Edition, June 15, 1904.

On the evening of June 15, The World – Evening Edition bore three-inch headlines blaring the bare facts about the disaster and preliminary estimates on the loss of life – LIST OF SLOCUM’S DEAD NOW MAY REACH 1,000. Counts of the bodies that had come ashore on all the different islands. Details about the information bureau the paper had set up on East Sixth Street, the heart of the Kleindeutschland – Little Germany – neighborhood where most passengers were from.

 The story of four-year-old Lizzie Krieger:

 Out of the peril from fire and water came four-year-old Lizzie Krieger without a smudge on her red gown, without a stain on her placid pretty face. She was taken to the Alexander avenue station, where she sat for two hours in a room in which dead women and children were laid out in three long rows.

 Her big brown eyes swept over the crowd, as it surged in and out seeking to identify perhaps the dead. To all inquiries she had but one reply:

 “My mamma is all burned up. I saw her burn.”

 Over 1,300 people – most of them German immigrants or German-speaking families – were on the General Slocum when it caught fire. Their church had rented the boat for a pleasure cruise, on their way to a church-sponsored picnic on Long Island. As it was a Wednesday – and the middle of the working week – the majority of passengers were women and children, as their husbands and fathers could not afford to take the time off work to join them.

 There was still much to discover about the tragedy itself – why it had happened, why it had been so catastrophic, who was to be held accountable.

 But in the days immediately following the tragedy, as Jamie Fraser continued to relay facts back to Park Row from people he interviewed in Yorkville and Kleindeutschland and North Brother Island and Rikers Island – another story formed in his mind.

 Not to rehash the details of the tragedy itself – but rather to share an account of the aftermath on North Brother Island. Cleverly focused on individual stories of survivors, and those assisting in the recovery.

 The mother who found her child at the end of the day – with severe burns to her arms, but otherwise unharmed.

 The hospital orderly who went mad when he realized the body he had pulled from the water was his sister-in-law.

 The nurse who soothed screaming, confused children as she treated their burns.

 The fire of Dr. Claire Beauchamp – one of the only women practicing medicine in the entire city – and her drive and determination to save as many people as possible.

 All the personal stories were touching – but none resonated with him as much as Dr. Beauchamp.

 He had spoken with her for all of three minutes on the day of the disaster, completely by chance. But something powerful about her called to him – something mysterious.

 The article was a sensation – he was the toast of the town. Mr. Pulitzer very publicly donated the proceeds for the entire week’s newspaper sales to a fund he had set up to support Slocum survivors and their families.

 The weeks after the Slocum disaster were the most success Jamie had had in his career.

 And yet all he wanted was to see her again.

 To speak with her properly. To get to know her.

 So many unanswered questions.

 How she was trained as a doctor. How she came to be on that island. How she was ever able to survive the gruesomeness of that day – that day that still haunted his dreams.

 So two weeks after the tragedy, he found himself yet again on a boat steaming up the East River to North Brother Island…only this time, it was an overcast day, and no bodies impeded the man at the tiller.

 He landed at the same dock on the island – but it was not the same. Quiet and peaceful; a few patients out and about, strolling by the riverside. Suddenly he felt foolish as he disembarked – he had no real plan, no objective other than to see her straightaway. He didn’t even know if she’d be there.

 He’d done all his basic background research, of course. Late one night, when he had been working too much to unsuccessfully keep her face from his mind, he spent a few hours down in the basement of the World’s building on Park Row, digging through the dusty archives, sneezing along with Willie Coulter, the bespectacled clerk who enjoyed telling the newsboys about the time he had met Abe Lincoln as a young reporter covering the Cooper Union speech in 1860.

 The Beauchamp family was respectable, if not yet counted among the so-called “400” of elite New York society. Claire’s father Henry Beauchamp was an architect who designed and supervised construction of the mansions springing up along Fifth Avenue – for the Vanderbilts, the Morgans, the Dyckmans, the Astors – the crème de la crème of high society. His wife Julia was wealthy in her own right, her late father Lambert Moriston having been a merchant with roots in New York for over two hundred years; Julia’s brother Quentin Lambert still ran the family emporium, a small yet prosperous shop on the exclusive Ladies Mile and in the shadow of the new, odd Flatiron Building off Madison Square.

 All of this was a matter of public record – Henry’s commissions, quotes from his very satisfied clients, advertisements for Moriston’s latest shipments of furs from Canada and hats from Paris.

 And Claire – an only child, the apple of her parents’ eye. Unlike most girls – women – of her age and means, rarely was her name found in the society pages. Rather, Jamie came across references to her charitable works; how she graduated first in her class at Barnard College, then how she was the first woman admitted to study medicine at the New York University, graduating at the top of her class. There was no mention of how long she had held the position at the sanitarium on North Brother Island, but everyone knew that it was where doctors went when they wanted a challenge.

 Or had no other options. For there was only one mention Jamie could find that even hinted at her personal life – a six-year-old announcement of her engagement to one Jonathan Wolverton Randall, professor of history at Columbia. The second son of Denys “Railroad” Randall, a close business associate of the Vanderbilt family, Jack’s elder brother Edward had followed in their father’s footsteps, rising in the ranks of the family’s railroad empire, which operated under the banner of Wentworth Industries. Edward Randall had even expanded its interests into shipping, no doubt to take advantage of the hundreds of ships bringing thousands upon thousands of immigrants to New York every month. With his elder brother otherwise occupied, Jack was left to follow his own pursuits – classical history, as well as (presumably) the beautiful Barnard students he often taught across the street from his office at Columbia.

 From his work at the newspaper, Jamie knew that the Randalls, who to all outward appearances oversaw a well-run firm, still were the subject of frequent rumors of ill-advised side investments. Much like how one of the Vanderbilt’s poor investment decisions had nearly bankrupted one of the family businesses twenty years before, the Randalls had avoided scandal only by very tightly closing ranks and pitching in to bridge the gap.

 Jamie couldn’t find any record of a marriage announcement for Jack and Claire – just a breathless society column spilling the details of the broken Randall/Beauchamp engagement, scarcely three months after it had been announced.

 And then because he couldn’t help himself, he found Randall’s other announcements – specifically, for his subsequent engagement and marriage, just a year later, to Mary Hawkins, the only child of Edward Hawkins, a partner in Wentworth Industries.

 Somewhere to Jamie’s left, a large fish splashed out of the water – returning his meandering mind to the present. He knew he had gone too far in trying to find out everything he could about the mysterious Dr. Claire Beauchamp – but something about her drew her to him. Something that spoke to him, even in their few brief moments together. Called to him. Pushed him to find more, to learn more, to understand more.

 He wanted to know her. Not just to write a feature article on her – Lord knew, the editors would be all over it. But to truly know her.

 What was it that drew him to her, so strongly?

 And dare he be so forward with her, even if he was lucky enough to find her today? Of course he could comfortably explain his visit in the context of a new article he was writing, now that the Slocum stories were dying down. What was life really like in the sanitariums and isolation hospitals that dotted the tiny islands in the East River? Just hundreds of yards away from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, yet so very far away in terms of who the people were, their living standards, how they came to be there – and what their fate would be once they were released, if they ever were released…

 Fifteen minutes later he was still pondering that question, after wandering the corridors, finding the nurses’ station, and inquiring after Dr. Beauchamp.

 But just then, she whirled around the corner and into the hallway – and nearly collided with him.

 “Hello.” His confident voice cracked just a bit. “Do you remember me?”

 She frowned, one hand on her hip. “You’re the idiot reporter who interrupted me when we were dealing with the Slocum survivors.”

 He coughed. “Yes. I was wondering, Dr. Beauchamp – ”

 “I don’t know why the hell you’ve come back. I’m in the middle of a shift and I’m doing rounds. Some of the victims are still here, you know – I’ve been extra vigilant with them, if you care to report on that.”

 He squared his chin. Knowing he had seconds to capture her attention, or risk losing it forever. “I’d like to speak with you again, Doctor. You really impressed me when I was here last – it’s inspired me to write a follow-up article, maybe even an entire series, about places like this hospital. To understand how they came to be, and how people come to be here. I wanted to start with you, if that would be all right.”

 She narrowed her eyes. “What are you getting at? What’s your endgame?”

 Feeling naked, he said the first words that came to mind. “I just want to understand how you came to be here. I’ll speak with other doctors or nurses or whoever you think would be appropriate. But I wanted to start with you.”

 A nurse bounded around the corner, plowing into his shoulder. Quickly he regained his footing. Watching her watch him, appraise him.

 “You’ll have to wait until my shift is over in an hour.”

 “That’s fine. Tell me where I can wait.”

 She pondered this for a long moment. “There are a few benches outside the east wing – I go there on my breaks. It’s quiet. I’ll find you there.”

 He nodded his thanks – but she was already gone.

[ownworldresident]

Side by Side. Chapter 13: Honesty

King Liam x Rayne (MC): With new additions to their family, Rayne and  Liam re-evaluate their relationship dynamic.

Disclaimer: Most ��characters are the property of Pixelberry studios. I am just borrowing them and will return them when I am done.

MASTERLIST

Side by Side Masterlist

Coming to you after a long hiatus from this series. I felt super angsty over the weekend so finally got back into it. Enjoy!

Rayne was in the gardens. Her feet took her on familiar paved routes past hedgerows and roses as her mind fought itself and she sat contemplatively in the background.

Do it now. Do it now. The voice that had sat within her for so long was getting louder, stoked by her friends. Until now she thought it had been quieted. After that dinner with Liam she had assumed that the voice was sated. Do it now. Evidently she was wrong and, really, she had already known that. Do it now.

It doesn’t matter. That was the other voice. It doesn’t matter, and too much is at risk. That voice had always been dominant, but in the background, whilst she went about her days. Too much is at risk. If she spoke to him, completely honestly, it could change a lot, and she liked where she was. Liked where they were, where they could spend time with each other and with the twins uninhibited. It doesn’t matter. Keep it safe, don’t do anything, stay safe. Too much is at risk.

There were three days until the trial, and Rayne had foolishly assumed that the time between her attacking Madeleine and watching the woman tried and sentenced would be relatively calm. Of course her friends would descend. They cared too much not to, but they were wrong. Clair and Drake, and Olivia and Leo, were wrong, because what Rayne and Liam had right now was better than it ever had been, and she could not threaten that.

Abruptly Rayne reached the gazebo and stood staring at it. She loved this gazebo, it had a few claims on her. The grapefruit coloured climbing roses starting to wrap around the closest two posts had been Liam’s birthday present to her a few months ago. He had surprised her with them, she had mentioned how much she loved the varietal back on the engagement tour, almost a year beforehand, and Liam had remembered. Now she leant before the two first blooms on one bush and inhaled the sweet scent, standing a few moments later with a smile and a sigh. She could never deserve him, never deserve such kindness after how she had treated him. Harbouring resentment from how she had been treated was not a pass to keep hurting him and she was so glad that the woman oppressing them was gone. The bloom had only come out a couple of days ago, she and Leo and Evie and Liam had found them and taken a couple back to their suite. A constant reminder of how thoughtful and generous this man of hers was, even when she sidelined his love.

When she turned back to the palace it was with a determined eye.

Do it now.

Too much is at risk.

 ---

The courtroom was full. Rarely did every member of the council come to a trial, or even every meeting, but this case was exceptional, and worthy of making the effort, and finding the extra chairs.

They filled both sides and the back of the room. At the front, taking centre stage, was Liam. Several feet to his left were Rayne, Leo and Regina. Several feet to his right were Drake, Clair, Olivia, and Maxwell. Liam turned to his friends, who nodded and smiled encouragingly, with Clair narrowing her eyes and glancing at Rayne. Intending to have done so anyway, Liam followed her gaze, and settled his on Rayne’s brown eyes, shining, smiling. He felt his confidence bolstered by the intensity of her gaze, of her belief in him. Smiling back, he nodded briefly to Regina and Leo as well, then turned to the court.

“Attention please,” the room’s relaxed conversational din quieted, not even a whisper, and the change and attention he commanded still sent a chill through him. After all this time, especially now, he was reminded starkly of his position by moments like this, where he sometimes forgot its weight when he was with his family. He smiled, “thank you.” In order to keep this formal, he had not placed Rayne as close as he would like, not yet. The focus needed to be on the trial, and not on their relationship. He nodded to the guards at the back of the room.

“Bring her in.”

 ---

Liam was in his office. It wasn’t where he would rather be, but things piled up during absence. He sighed, leaning forward on his elbow, fingers threading through his hair as he wrote. Terrible for long term focus to sit this way but the work seemed so dull and menial and repetitive when there was such a priority elsewhere for him. Logistics for the trial, applications for event permits, requests for an audience, even press conferences... The more time he spent with his young family, the less significant these tasks seemed. Less important, when his family was there now, and needed him more.

A message came through on his mobile and he stared at it for a moment. Confusion and surprise were gradually supplanted by relief and a smile and he stood and moved around his desk. There was no longer a meeting today and he was glad of it, because he had a more important job to do. Turning back, he placed his pen down and organised the papers he had been writing. There were still a few tabs open on his laptop, he remembered as he closed it, from when he had been searching for a short trip away with Rayne so long ago. Back before these most recent events had happened and the complicated life he had had had been known.

Now there was something else to do, that he should have done a long time ago, but which still set his heart pounding. It was easy enough objectively but would be nowhere near easy in practise. Confident in spite of this, Liam walked out through the quiet halls and towards the back entrance to the palace. He didn’t need to ask his friend if the same two people who had come to him had gone to Rayne. Drake was their closest mutual friend and her friend, Clair, was unlikely to hold back from speaking to her, either.

There was a smile still on Liam’s face as he reached the hall leading onto the gardens. Clair had insisted on looking after the twins herself, eager for time alone with her godchildren, and Rayne had taken the opportunity to go walking while the weather was still fine. Standing at the entrance he folded his arms and breathed the fresh air, leaning on the huge doorway and watching Rayne at the gazebo. He could only just see it from here, watching her kneeling before the rose he’d had planted for her, and she kneeled there for at least a minute before standing and turning back to the palace. She wouldn’t see him from here, and didn’t usually use the main back entrance, so Liam snaked around the corner to meet her as she headed towards the entrance to the royal wing. It was a relatively unassuming entrance, preferable to her ever since she had taken up residence there.

“Good morning.” Liam said softly, crinkling his eyes as he smiled at her and receiving the same in return as she turned from her path to face him.

“Good morning my love.” Rayne altered her route and came towards him. There was that same bare sincerity in her gaze that he felt, and he met her with outstretched arms, holding her against his chest as she hugged him tightly. They stayed that way for a long time, and he could feel and hear her breathing as she would him. When he let her go, he kissed her forehead, and squeezed her hands.

“We should talk.” She nodded even as he spoke and leant up to kiss him.

“Yes.” Liam smiled wider even as he felt his chest tighten and saw her lip quiver. Before either could comment he led her back towards the palace entrance by her hand.

 ---

With a bored, unimpressed smile, Madeleine came into the crowded room and glanced around at the attendees with distaste. There were members of the press in the crowd, and her smile did not change as their flashbulbs went off. They photographed Liam as well, and Rayne, and even Drake and Clair for some reason. Drake kept his focus on Liam, who looked down at the disgraced former queen.

“Countess Madeleine of Fydelia.” the woman recoiled at the use of her former title. A reminder that she wasn’t a queen anymore. Drake smirked, then frowned as he felt thin fingers thread through his own. Turning his head he saw that Olivia looked, not at him, but at Madeleine with that characteristic contempt for those she did not consider worthy. It was chilling. Drake squeezed her hand and smiled, then turned back to the trial. Liam continued, “you stand accused of fraud, treason, and high treason. You have threatened the livelihoods of Lady Rayne, Crown Prince Leo, and Princess Evelyn, and you have endangered my life as well. You understand the severity of this, of course.”

“Of course.” Madeleine said, and from the outside it would seem to be understanding and cooperation but Drake, like Liam, Olivia, Leo, and Maxwell, had known her long enough. Madeleine was seething, “If I had committed these crimes, that would be very severe, particularly as Queen,” she looked around at the court and council and press assembled, “you are fortunate, then, that I was not responsible.”

---

Rayne allowed Liam to lead her through the palace to one of the parlours on the ground floor that overlooked the maze. Her heart beat fast and her breathing was quick and not just from the speed of their walk. Liam paused a few feet into the room and let go of her hand before standing tall and turning to her. She closed the door and stepped up to him and smiled nervously. No more barriers. Do it now, too much is at risk.

“I ne-”

“-Ray-” she paused as did Liam after he spoke over her. It broke the tension a little, and she smiled and moved further into the room towards the large window. It was starting to rain now, she was glad she had come in when she did. Turning back she smirked as he chuckled and shook his head, then came over quickly, “Rayne...” arms tight around her waist Liam lifted and spun her, and with her laugh left every bit of nervous energy.

“I love you so much,” Rayne leant up when he set her down to kiss him, then took a deep breath, “we should talk, though.”

“Yes, we should. Come.” He walked her over to the couch and sat beside her. After a moment of fiddling with her hand against the space between them, Liam sighed, “I guess this has been a long time coming.”

“But now is the right time,” Rayne wasn’t sure exactly what Liam was going to tell her, or ask her, but regardless she needed to hear it, “I’ll go first, is that okay?” she said it before she could decide otherwise and watched him nod.

“Of course,” Liam’s voice was gentle, “take your time.”

“Thanks,” she took a deep breath, “I’m scared.” Liam looked surprised for a moment, then blinked and nodded for her to continue, “I know that you’ve been bringing your work home to let me help because you want to show me what I can do. I know that.” It hadn’t been difficult to discern that it wasn’t for her safety like he had made it appear, but for the chance to have her contribute to the running of the kingdom. He wanted her to run it with him still, she was sure, “I don’t mind love, I want to help, but truly I already knew that I was capable of that, of – of governance...” Rayne looked away, that was stating it overtly, and she didn’t want him to take it as her admission to being ready for anything like what she had already been doing for weeks...

“I’m glad,” Liam’s voice was light, and she turned back to him frowning, “you are incredibly intelligent Rayne, enough to know what you are capable of.” He lifted a hand to caress her cheek, then stood and stepped away, “I know you aren’t finished but let me interrupt for a moment,” Liam reached the window with his hands before his back and turned for confirmation. Though her hands shook Rayne nodded from the couch, “thank you. We are completely honest here love. I am not going to withhold anything and so I am sorry if this hurts to hear.”

 ---

Liam narrowed his gaze and watched Madeleine closely. Every eye was on him, some friendly, some less so, most scrutinising. They had brought her here for this charge and though it was not unheard of to oppose the charge despite their truth, it was surprising that she would do so when she could – would – be so openly disproven.

“Is this your plea, then?” he said carefully, still projecting his voice. Out the corner of his eye Liam saw Rayne looking to him encouragingly and it bolstered his confidence. Of course Madeleine would try to undermine him here, it was her nature to do so.

“This is the truth, Liam. Perhaps if you dedicated more time to your wife and less time to your mistress you would know when I spoke the truth.” The corner of Madeleine’s mouth curved into a cold smile and Liam breathed deep as he considered an answer. The ride he had been on in the last few days emotionally had been draining and the defences he usually had and should have for people like this woman. Resisting the urge to look to Rayne, Liam took a moment to clear his throat and reorder the notes before him where he sat.

“I will consider it your plea, then.” Liam ran over his options and decided to proceed, rather than enable her further, “we have a few testimonies to hear. Madeleine if you could take a seat, Councillor Glaugh could you please come to the front.” There were several councillors who had been present the day Madeleine had attempted to force through the custody form who were willing to make a statement. He would hear three of them, and then they would start questioning.

 ---

Carefully he watched Rayne for her reaction. She was sitting very still, but her face had paled, and her hands were shaking. This was why they kept their secrets. To avoid this, but avoiding it wasn’t healthy.

“Go ahead.” She whispered, not looking at him but at a vase on the table beside him. Liam sighed.

“I want to marry you.” He said, then waited. And waited. And waited and it seemed as if the room had stood still before finally, mercifully, Rayne nodded. Liam stood tall and nodded to himself, “Rayne all I ever wanted was you. However I could. Having you with me in this life is truly a gift and I am thankful for it with every breath I take,” he moved over to her again and met her gaze. Rayne’s lip quivered and she bit on it, but there were still tears in her eyes. Every time he thought of her as his wife his heart beat fast is if in its own anticipation, but she was in front of him this time and heard him and he could only hope that she couldn’t hear it, “I am telling you this so that you know it, not because I want to sway you.”

“I know.” Rayne lifted her hand and ran it across his cheek, and he had to smile at the contact, “thank you for telling me, and I...” she stood now and hugged herself and looked away from him, “I’m scared because I know what I can do and how much I want to help and I know that you want more...” she looked down at the rug and Liam resisted the urge to object, or to wipe the tears off her cheeks. After a moment in which he held his breath, Rayne turned back, “I don’t think I can do both. That is what I am afraid of. But I know that I can, but I don’t think...” she shook her head and frowned, frustrated, “it’s the same goddamn roundabout I’ve been in for weeks. Months even. I know that I can help, but I don’t think I can do it all, but I know that I can, but I already told you I couldn’t... and then I ignored that because I knew you weren’t going to ask me, and I could pretend it was okay and I did. I pretended everything was okay just like you did with Madeleine even though it wasn’t.”

It was as if a dam had broken and Rayne couldn’t stop. Liam watched her patiently, listening and trying to absorb what she said as still she hugged herself and looked frustrated. Rayne knew she was capable of being queen, but she decided despite that that she couldn’t. And everything he had said to assure her that it was okay had only contributed to crippling her, to supporting her belief that she wasn’t good enough.

“I left it, and you didn’t ask, and it was comfortable, I was safe. But they,” she laughed, “our friends didn’t believe that, did they?” she looked at him again and he smiled as he saw her arms relaxing.

“They have a habit of being right. I suppose we should be grateful to them.” He sighed, wondering how the hell they could make it up to Drake and Leo and the others for being so relentlessly stubborn.

 ---

At Olivia’s request, they had included a live polygraph at this stage in the trial. Madeleine was back at the centre of the room, and there was a technician on the other side of the table she sat at, fixing everything in place. After a few moments the man turned and nodded to Liam.

“Countess Madeleine.” Liam stood tall and looked hard at the ex-queen, who met the gaze unflinching, “you know how this works.”

“You are not the only one who has met a Nevrakis, Liam.” She scowled, and Rayne watched her glare at Olivia, who promptly flipped her off. Liam continued.

“Let’s begin then. Did you attempt to pass a custody form through the council on October the 26th?” the crowd watched Madeleine, but Rayne kept her gaze on Liam. The day they had finally released everything to each other had left them a little tense. Their relationship had never been stronger, but the shift in what they knew had taken some time to adjust to. They hadn’t shared a bed that night. They had taken time to themselves.

“Yes.” Madeleine said, and they watched the polygraph start recording.

“Did you intend to remove Rayne’s right to see them?”

“Yes.” Rayne met her gaze and felt her clenched fists shaking, turning when Leo put a hand on her arm.

‘Are you okay?’ he mouthed, concerned. Rayne nodded, and Leo squeezed her arm before releasing. No, she wasn’t okay, she wanted to hit that woman again. A lot harder this time.

“Did you force me to sign that form?” the room collectively held their breath and Madeleine smirked at Liam.

“No.” they waited as the machine whirled, then the technician turned to Liam and nodded.

“What...” she heard Leo say, suddenly feeling faint.

“Who was responsible?” the polygraph would only confirm answers to yes or no questions, but it didn’t mean Liam had to stick to those.

“Why, the young royal’s grandmother, of course.” Madeleine glanced up at Rayne as the focus was suddenly on Regina. A sinking feeling came over her as her stomach knotted itself.

“I did no such thing.” Regina said firmly, and up close Rayne and Leo saw how taken aback she was, “think again, Countess.”

“Oh that won’t be necessary Queen Mother,” Madeleine said, “I refer to their blood grandmother.” She looked back to Liam, who’s expression was stoic. Rayne’s breathing was shaky and a moment later she heard Leo swear and he squeezed her hand.

“Was Genevieve O’Mara involved in my poisoning?” he said steadily. The room was eerily silent again as they waited with bated breath for the answer. In her heart, Rayne already knew it.

“Yes.” The machine whirled, time slowed down and sound drowned out as the technician turned to Liam.

He nodded.

Every eye in the room fell on Rayne. No. Regardless of how little she thought of Genevieve, her mother wouldn’t descend to this.

She met Liam’s gaze and he seemed miles away. All she could hear was her own breathing and heartbeat and all she could see was his face. Please. No.

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[rosecorcoranwrites]

MacGuffins Matter

If you know what a MacGuffin is, you're probably thinking that they actually don't matter in the slightest and that I'm full of nonsense. If you don't know what a MacGuffin is, here's a definition from Merriam-Webster: an object, event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance. The most famous example is the Maltese Falcon, in the film of the same name. It sets the plot in motion, in that every character wants the statue for himself, but lacks intrinsic value in that "the Maltese Falcon" could be swapped out for the treasure of your choice: the Abyssinian Monkey, the Peruvian Chinchilla, the MacGuffian Beast.

Technically, a MacGuffin only lacks intrinsic value in the meta sense, as the characters themselves obviously want the object for some reason. The Harry Potter books, I think, are perfect examples of well-done MacGuffins (except the last book, but more on that later). The Philosopher's Stone in the first book is a powerful magic item that grants perpetual life, so it makes sense for it to be under lock and key, and for Voldemort to want it. In the meta-narrative, it's just an object that provides a mystery for Harry & Co. to investigate. Rowling does something similar with the horcruxes, which are vitally important to stopping Voldemort, ie, are a convenient way to provide a challenging search for our heroes in the final book.

And yet, many authors don't treat MacGuffins like they matter. Because I overanalyze every bit of media I consume, I've noticed two trends of late wherein MacGuffins are misused, and I'm here to tell you all why this is a problem.

The first trend is when the writers forget why the MacGuffin matters to the characters. This occurs when a plot revolving around a MacGuffin stops dead in its tracks, sometimes for chapters or episodes on end, for no discernible reason. Now, I can give some leeway to dawdling around in comedies, since their purpose is to provide laughs rather than tension. In Slayers Next, for example, the characters are looking for the Claire Bible, a MacGuffin of untold power, but spend 90% of the plot derping around getting into ridiculous situations. To be fair, most of these situations are, in fact, because they are looking for the Claire Bible but keep getting false leads. The only arc where they actually stay in one place for multiple episodes is when they learn that the father of one of the characters has been assassinated and have to investigate. Notice, something intrinsically important—solving the murder of an important character—briefly takes precedence over finding the non-intrinsically important plot device. This diversion works, first, because the diversion is deeply personal and, second, because finding the MacGuffin is not time sensitive, as far as the characters know.

On the other hand, you have Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where the characters camp in the woods for-seemingly-ever. This isn't a comedy, and what's more, lives are at stake. Every minute that Voldemort isn't killed is a chance for him and the Death Eaters to murder muggles and muggleborns. Yet, we the audience are treated to five million chapters (perhaps I exaggerate) of the characters sitting around wondering what to do next. What's even more frustrating is that the non-camping-in-the-woods parts of that book are so interesting: infiltrating the Ministry of Magic, escaping Malfoy Manor, breaking into Gringotts, returning to Hogwarts. I will be the first to say that a story needs downtime as well as action, but the chapters in the woods felt not like downtime, but wasted time: we learned that Ron has feelings of inadequacy, as well as a strong loyalty to his family, which we already knew; we learn that Harry is willing to brave freezing water to get important stuff, which we already knew; we learn, retroactively, that Snape's patronus is a doe because he loved Lily, which... Wait, why would he associate her with the female version of the animal her husband turns into? As usual, I digress...

Anyway, these chapters make the plot stop dead, making us wonder why the characters aren't doing more to find the horcruxes. They know some of the horcruxes are associated with the Hogwarts founders, so why not seek out a historian? They know they need some serious power to destroy them, so why not seek out a powerful wizard? Why not do something? You could easily argue that they were trying, but I'm not blaming the characters, I'm blaming the writer. She gave us these MacGuffins, but rather than use them to drive the plot, she lets the plot slowly, agonizingly crawl forward due to happenstance. The characters happen to overhear that the sword in Lestrange's vault was a fake, and then they happen to have the real one delivered right to them. Harry happens to be correct in his unsubstatiated theory that Helga Hufflepuff's cup might actually be in the vault, and then they happen to fly to Hogwarts where it just so happens that a ghost knows where the diadem is. Although they do take action once they know where a Horcrux is, they do nothing to actually try and find out where they are. Voldemort showing up at he end with Nagini in tow, by this point, is a convenience rather than a threat, because they don't have to bother finding him!

A more recent example is in Tangled: The Series, season two. The characters have a MacGuffin: nigh-unbreakable black rocks that are spreading across the land and that have a magical connection to the flower that saved Rapunzel's mom during childbirth. The characters are questing to find out what, exactly, these black rocks are all about. Much like Slayers, the series is rather lighthearted and episodic, so it's okay for them to take random side adventures here and there, since they are traveling and thus encountering various people and creatures. What is not okay is for them to get shipwrecked and stranded on a island for three episodes! The writers chose to do this, chose to have the characters stay in one spot rather than journey toward their goal. Like the horcruxes in Harry Potter, the black rocks are somewhat time sensitive, as they've eaten up swaths of land that people need for farming and living and whatnot. There is also a certain side character who shall remain nameless (no spoilers; watch the series!) who very much needs them to figure out how to undo the damage the rocks have done, ASAP. Dropping the main characters on the island makes it seem as if the writers forgot that all those people affected by the rocks exist. Yes, technically the MacGuffin doesn't have intrinsic value—they could be purple rocks or black thorns or whatever—but whatever they are, they do have value to the characters in that there is a pressing mystery to be solved.

And that is why dawdling in a MacGuffin-based story is so frustrating. The MacGuffin spurs the plot; forgetting about the MacGuffin stalls the plot. Worse, it erases the value the characters put on the MacGuffin, which undercuts the realism of the story and, at times, can make the characters seem not fully invested in whatever their mission is. The only thing that should divert the characters from this mission is something even more urgent that, in the best case scenario, in some way will end up relating to or enhancing the plot.

Worse than stalling, however, is adding more MacGuffins before the first ones are dealt with. Again, we can look at Deathly Hallows. In each of the first six books of the series, a MacGuffin of one sort or another is introduced and then found by the end of the book. Book six, along with establishing and then revealing the identity of the Half-Blood Prince, also introduces the concept of horcruxes. Ah, thinks the audience, so these will be the five MacGuffins that Harry is looking for in the last book (as two of the seven have already been destroyed). But alas! In the final volume, we are introduced to three extra MacGuffins: the Deathly Hallows, in the form of Harry's invisibility cloak, the stone in Marvolo's ring, and the most MacGuffiny of all, the Elder Wand. Despite the fact that the horcruxes are a rather pressing matter, much story time is spent discussing the Deathly Hallows, their origin, Dumbledore's and Grindlewald's connection to them, the fact that the ring shows you wraiths that entice you to throw your life away, how Voldemort wants the Elder Wand but Harry's actually the master of it, and other things which completely divert from the actual plot of the book.

I'll come right out and say it: nothing about the Deathly Hallows actually adds to the story. In fact, I argue that they detracts from the message of the series as a whole. Is love the ultimate weapon against evil? Nope, you just need to become master of the Elder Wand! Is a focus on blood lineage a bunch of hokum? Not at all, because Harry and Voldemort are secretly related to the three brothers! But I digress once again.

The main reason Rowling should not have introduced these three MacGuffins was that she already had five, which get left by the wayside due to so much focus on the Hallows. Let me rephrase that: the reason she should not have introduced this new plot line was she already had a complicated plot line that gets diverted by this new addition. Chapters that could be used by our heroes to look for horcruxes are spent focusing on who is currently in charge of the Elder Wand. It's like the author is saying, "Yeah, I introduced a prophecy regarding Harry, and the idea that love is more powerful than magic, and that you have to slowly destroy Voldemort one piece at a time, but all that is boring. Here's a one-hit-one-kill-wonder weapon. Wouldn't you rather read about that?" Maybe I would, if that was what was introduced as the means of ending Voldemort. But it wasn't. Horcruxes were. Focus, Rowling, focus!

Lest you think I'm only picking on Harry Potter (I really do like the series, I promise!), lets take a look at another story with far too many MacGuffins: RWBY. The first several seasons of the show were pretty low-key fantasy school type plots, with magical fighting thrown in. We were introduced to our first set of MacGuffins in season three, in the form of the four maidens: Spring, Winter, Summer, and Fall. At the end of the season, the spirit of the Fall Maiden was transferred to a new host, leaving us to assume that in subsequent seasons we might be introduced to the other three maidens, who the good guys and the bad guys want for... reasons? It's a little vague, but still intriguing. We meet one of the other maidens in season five and it looks like we might be on our way to—Oh, just kidding; she leaves the show and our heroes and villains have a new MacGuffin that they want: four relics that are housed under the four schools. So they coincide with the maidens? No? O-okay, well, I guess in the next seasons, they'll be looking for the maidens and the relics, and—Nope! Gods! There are two Manichean gods who destroyed the world and will destroy it again if the relics are brought together and humanity is still fighting, so that's why the good guys are gathering them... during a war? What? Wait, where are the maidens? Where is the plot? What's happening? A lot of viewers jumped ship at this point, and although I'm going to stick with the show (I have a high nonsense threshold), I don't blame them. It's gone off the rails. We don't know what the characters want, other than the relics, but we don't really know why they want them, since, as long as the relics aren't brought together, everything is hunky dory. Truly, truly, I do not know what the writers were thinking introducing so many plot lines. The Maiden MacGuffins were driving the plot, but by introducing the Relic MacGuffins, it necessarily diverts the plot elsewhere.

One final clarification: I'm not saying that a story can't have multiple plot lines. I love stories where each character wants something different, and thus leads the narrative in different directions. What I'm against is letting any of those storylines die on the vine, which is what happens when MacGuffins are forgotten and characters either sit around not going after them or run off after new ones. This makes the audience assume that the MacGuffin isn't important to the characters, that it has no intrinsic or narrative value, and that it doesn't matter. What writers need to ask themselves is, if it's that unimportant to characters and doesn't drive the plot, why include it to begin with?

[yarnings]

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful

But if you let that keep you in by the fire, you’ll have a very boring winter. I’m posting None So Scots early, because this story kind of turned into two parts’ worth of writing, and the writing workshop bit shows up in the second part, so I’m posting this today. (In other words, check back tomorrow for the epic conclusion of this gripping tale.)

As always, I am more than happy to get feedback on what does and doesn’t work. If you know anything at all about life in Cape Breton and something about this sounds odd, I probably messed up, and you letting me know will help improve future instalments. Same applies to if you know anything about British culture, and Claire seems off. In addition, if you feel that this is perpetuating harmful norms, please let me know what I did so I can try to avoid it in the future.

Previously

Jamie Fraser was never quite sure just how well his mother knew what he was thinking. Logic said that she couldn’t know everything about what was in his head at any given moment. But logic couldn’t explain the consistently inconvenient timing she’d had when he was a teenager, and knew just the wrong time to knock on his door to tell him it was time to get up, or bang on the bathroom door to tell him to finish his shower. And now there was this request to take Claire skating.

Maybe she was telling the truth that she picked him because he was relatively close to Claire’s age, and, unlike Jenny, didn’t have kids keeping him busy. Or maybe she knew how he felt about Claire, and was trying to help him out by pushing them together. Whatever the cause, he was once again picking Claire up, this time with a pair of skates in Claire’s size that his mother has found somewhere, and her old hockey helmet that she had sent along. “She’s a doctor, she’d be worried about concussions, wouldn’t she?”

Claire was waiting outside when he pulled up to her building, well bundled against the weather, with a long winter jacket, hat, gloves and scarf. It wasn’t particularly cold, but the salt air meant that the damp chill persisted even as the temperature dropped below zero. As she got into the passenger seat of Jamie’s car (getting the right door on the first try this time), she pulled the scarf down to her neck. “Jamie! So good to see you again.”

Jamie grinned at her, and turned around, pulling back into the road. “My mom says that she promised you an introduction to the fun side of winter. Hopefully she warned you that she was delegating it.”

“She had offered to drive out herself originally! All the way from Lallybroch in this snow! She’s already going so far above and beyond what I was promised, I couldn’t possibly make her do that. She offered to ask if you’d do it instead.”

Jamie looked at her quizzically. “I don’t object to the trip – I probably wouldn’t have dug my skates out this winter otherwise, and teaching you will let me disguise how shaky I am. But the farm’s only about forty-five minutes away, and the snow isn’t expected to get any worse.”

Claire shook her head. “Culture shock, I guess. The idea of travelling that long just to go skating seems extreme to me. And I’m still trying to believe that this is an unusually heavy winter for snow. I was almost expecting you to cancel, even without having to drive through the countryside, from the snow we’re having.”

Jamie laughed at that. “And after how many years will you stop trying to tell yourself that? Or are you going to keep telling yourself that until you escape back to England?”

“I’m here for good, if I can survive your winters. Although I’m not quite sure I understand the concept of living in one country for such a long period of time. Figures I’d pick one that gets obscene amounts of snow to try it out in.” Claire shook her head, and asked after Jamie’s work.

Once they had arrived at the park and gotten out of the car, Jamie directed her towards a bench beside the open-air rink, with rubber mats on the ground between it and the ice. He got his skates on while she was getting her feet into hers, and offered to tighten the laces for her with his hook.

“Milord Strawberry! Hi! What are you doing here?”

Jamie looked up at the boy who had appeared out of the rotating mass of skaters and was now standing at the edge of the ice, grinning at them.

“Fergus! Good to see you. You and Glenda decided to come skating I see.”

“Yep we did! And who’s this? Est-elle ta blonde*?”

Jamie’s face went red. “Clau- Fergus!” he bit out angrily. He glanced at Claire. Just how good was her French? Hopefully she didn’t understand the slang. She just smiled at Fergus and leaned closer to the boy, as if she was about to tell him a secret.

“No, I’m not his girlfriend. I’m Dr. Beauchamp. You can call me Claire if you’d like. I haven’t decided yet if I should ask him to be my boyfriend. What do you think?”

The boy’s face turned thoughtful. “I think you should, but only if he’s a good kisser. He isn’t as pretty as you, but he’s taller. And I’d let you call me Fergus, like he does.” Jamie was sputtering by now, but he was saved from having to reply by a middle-aged woman who had drifted up to listen to the conversation.

“Claudel! Leave Mr. Fraser and his friend alone! And keep moving before I freeze.”

After the duo had skated on, Claire looked at Jamie with a twinkle in her eye. “Are you ready for a test then, Mr. Fraser?” Jamie gave a stunned nod, and let her skate fall to the ground so he could lean towards her.

Claire had intended for the kiss to be only a brief and ceremonial touching of lips, a test that she could declare he’d passed, letting his consent to the kiss give her the signal she needed that he was interested too, and wouldn’t mind if she asked him out. But his mouth was soft and warm and she moved instinctively toward him, only vaguely conscious of the public place until her balance shifted, and she would have fallen on top of Jamie if he hadn’t put his arms up in time to steady her. They drew apart, and smiled nervously at each other. Jamie’s smile turned into a smirk.

“Did I pass?”

Claire grinned back at him. “Hmmm… good enough. Is this a date then?”

Jamie grimaced. “Only if you don’t give me a hard time about my mom setting it up!”

Claire laughed as Jamie finished tightening her laces. He held her hand and helped her walk over to the ice, and continued to hold her up as she wobbled. He took her to the centre of the rink, inside where skaters were circling on the outside, and showed her how to push with her skates. He let her practice that until he noticed her eyeing the preschooler using a frame made from PVC pipes for support.

“Do they make those for adults?”

“No such luck. Every attempt to bring such a product to market has been sabotaged by young men who don’t want to risk losing the excuse to hold on to their date ‘for support’.”

Claire burst out laughing. “Wait, what? You had me going for a minute there. But if that’s how it works…” She held her hands out and Jamie took them in both of his, skating backwards in front of her as she slowly skated forwards.

By the time she was confident enough to feel up for joining the main group of people circling the rink, they had to clear off the ice while it was resurfaced. Jamie and Claire sat side by side on one of the benches, his arm around her shoulders as she snuggled into his side. (“It’s bloody cold out here! Can I steal some body heat?”)

“Who was that boy, anyhow, Jamie?”

Next

*Fergus is asking in a very slangy and not very respectful manner if Claire is Jamie’s girlfriend

[eisforeidolon]

Episode: Gods and Monsters

Okay, so my ultimate feeling about this one was that there was five, maybe ten minutes of worthwhile episode actually in there.  To be fair, a lot of it didn't feel like it was actively terrible to me, just kind of wheels-spinning pointless.

I think I've already talked about the mirror scene?  I have to admit it didn't have much of an impact since I'd already been spoiled for it.  It was done well, there just wasn't a whole lot to it.  Though I did get a certain amount of amusement out of wondering if Michael was regularly playing dress up with Dean in fancy clothes to lure in monsters for his experiments (a whole grave pit full!).  Which made me wonder about how many monsters we've seen recognize the Winchesters on sight and if that had happened. Watching that would have been a lot more entertaining for me than most of this episode.  

Why be the hunted when you can be the hunter?  Why write original dialogue when you can just throw out bad clichés!  Again, while I can appreciate Jensen's acting, I just am not compelled by this whole super monsters storyline.  Not least because I suspect that it's Dabb and co.'s way of getting what they wanted to do with Wayward - throw out all the rules so they could just lazily make shit up as they go along.  Not to mention it's so blatantly cribbed off the Eve plot.  Maybe they’re thinking Michael will seem more ominous if they rarely show him, like the shark in Jaws, but it’s just leaving him pretty flat and generic as a villain.  I do think it's pretty funny the first thing Dean does after Michael skedaddles is take off the silly hat.  

I feel like I should have something to say about Sam hunting for Michael with AU!Bobby and Mary?  Except I don't, really.  What little of it there was didn't make much of an impact.  It felt like any other set of scenes where the brothers split up to investigate but AU!Bobby and Mary were … there, I guess.  The only real thought I had about it was that the “joke” of Bobby forgetting what DNA was exemplified what Mark Sheppard said about the writers trying to force humor in rather than letting it organically happen.  Though, hey, at least it got Nick off my screen for a little while here and there.

Speaking of which, I guess it’s time to talk about the majority of the episode, which could easily be titled Castiel’s Adventures as the Worst Babysitter Ever.  Yet it was even less entertaining than that sounds.

Have I mentioned lately how much I just absolutely do not give a single fuck about Nick or Lucifer or any further characters on SPN handed to Mark Pellegrino to artificially keep him around?  The whole attempt at a touchy-feely moment with him whining at Castiel is just fucking interminable and incredibly boring.  Vessels get amnesia about what happened before they were possessed now … so Pellegrino can ham his hammiest through another quote unquote storyline.  Yay.  The thing is, I would maybe be interested in the idea of exploring how long-term possession affects a vessel after the fact in terms of mental state/memory/whatever … if it was literally any other character. The whole, “Nick magically doesn't know his family's dead, on noes! Nick randomly killed a guy, oh noes!”  Holy crap, I don't care.  I don't have anything personal against Pellegrino or anything negative to say about his talent as an actor, but at this point I would automatically opt out of literally anything he's in I am so sick of his face.

I tuned out through most of it (hey, at least this sweater's getting closer to done).  The only part that really even seems worthy of comment is how having Nick call Castiel out on his using Jimmy Novak becomes just another excuse for the writers to try to retcon sympathy into Castiel's past acts.  I don't think we need to harp, however many seasons later, on Castiel screwing the Novak family.  If we are going to bring it up, though?  Let's not keep playing this game where we try to turn it into a pity party for poor woobie Castiel.  This is just like what they did with Mary's deal, they brought her back and made her stone cold to her sons just to get to a resolution justifying a deal that was … perfectly understandable in the first place!  Likewise, I think most of us were clear that Castiel was a different creature in season four that didn't have the perspective to consider the consequences to Jimmy as a person.  Trying to go backwards, first with rewriting the rules of angelic possession to give him a special exception vessel (it’s okay I took Jimmy’s life away, he’s in heaven now!) and here playing it like, “Oh, look at my teary-eyed sad face!  Pity me, I'm just so very sad I ruined three human's lives!”  I mean, it’s canon that Claire was praying to him for literal years for help and he apparently just tuned it out until it was convenient to deal with her and hasn’t bothered with her since the Winchesters foisted her on Jody.  Poor Castiel!  Again, this is actively less sympathetic to me than if the writers had just left the whole thing untouched as understandable choices firmly in the past.

The absurdity of the conversations between Castiel and Nick is not helped by the idiocy of how of literally everyone there, Castiel is the one who should be least perturbed by an inability to separate Lucifer and Nick.  Come on, he's an angel himself, the idea that he's got some kind of human hangup about a clearly human Nick when we've seen angels recognize each other in different vessels is just absurd.  The same old bullshit the writers keep pulling now where Castiel is human-like when it's convenient and angel-like when it's convenient.  

I think Castiel's pep talks to Jack were at least a little better done, but that doesn't say much.  It also would have been more heartwarming for Castiel to go on about how Dean and Sam had to struggle and learn for years to get where they are if it wasn't plugged in by writers who think the best possible new characters are ones that become the most awesome hunters pretty much immediately with no indication any work or effort was involved.  If I wasn't so bitter about that and more actively invested in Castiel (whoever he is this week) and Jack (who I feel I barely know, still) I probably would have liked those scenes a lot more. 

Then again, considering the immediate mood whiplash at the end with Jack's turn from cuddly woobie to, “Hey, let's kill Dean”?  Maybe not.  No, I don't think Dean would want it any other way, but that's some impressively compelling proof you're a counterfeit Winchester, kid.

The actress playing the vampire Michael let escape did a pretty good job of making what Michael was doing sound scary and ominous.  Likewise, the couple playing Kelly's parents were convincingly warm and lovely people that made that whole scene more poignant than it might have otherwise been relying on the writing alone.  It was actually a pretty good mix of heartwarming and sad - but also with a palpable edge of uncomfortable deception, considering who Jack really was.  Calvert's performance was solid there, too, I just can't help but be annoyed that once again, Kelly seems like more of a 3D character now she's dead. 

I’m never going to care about Nick, but most of this?  If it had been side plots or individual scenes from other better episodes, I’d have no objection.  As an episode itself, though, it just feels like a bunch of minor asides put together to kill the available time, which is a baffling choice in a season that will have three less episodes.

[squirrellybaby67]

Little Ditty About Jackie & Diane (Part 2)

Part 1

Summary: The boys are not going to let Jackie (OFC) go without a fight.

Word Count: 1,891

Warnings: Language?

Alone - Heart

I wiped my knife off on my jeans and took a last look around the bar the monsters had made their clubhouse. The corpses laying around decapitated and bloodied. We had went in hot with a plan and the plan had actually went our way which was why every single one of us was walking away from this one intact. I walked over to the jukebox, putting in some change and selecting a song before turning around to find all of my newfound hunter friends giving me a puzzled look. "The booze in this place ain't going to drink itself," I shrugged, "It'd be alcohol abuse to torch the place without drinking, right?" Dean nodded his head with his 'Well she has a point,' face as I rounded the bar to start tending drink orders.

"We oughta take some of this back home with us," Sam said as I sat a beer down in front of him.

"Home?" I asked as I poured myself a shot of whiskey.

"The bunker," Sam answered, looking around at the hunters that were dragging bodies into another room.

"Ah, yes, I forget that some of us actually have normal lives and roots in a place," I let out a light chuckle before handing a beer to Jody who had sat down next to Sam.

"You could too, you know," Jody said, pointing the neck of her beer at me before taking a drink.

"I've tried the normal life, got boring real quick," I shrugged.

"God, you sound like my brother," Sam laughed.

"I get stir crazy if I stay in one place too long," I said before pouring out a few more shots for myself.

"That's because you are on your own," Jody added before speaking again, "If you had someone hunting with you, living with you, a roommate maybe, you wouldn't be so bored."

"You going to hand over Claire to be my roomie?" I questioned, giving her a raised eyebrow before downing another shot.

"Not a chance," Jody laughed before taking another swig of her beer.

"You could always stay with us," Sam offered. I shot him my best 'yeah right' face before drinking the other shot in front of me. "I'm serious," he added, "We have plenty of room. Most of the hunters we had staying with us have all found other places to live."

"I'm sure you are serious, but I'm also sure that Dean would object to your offer and I'm not about to get into any family drama," I said before excusing myself to hand out more drinks.

"Nice work today," Dean said as I passed him a shot and a beer.

"Thanks, you didn't do so bad yourself," I smiled, pouring myself a shot and cheersing him. "There is a bunch of unopened booze in the back, figured you and Sam can take it back to the bunker."

"You aren't coming back?" Dean asked as he took a drink of his beer.

"Nah," I shook my head, "I'm better off alone."

"That's a lie," Dean quickly remarked.

"What?" I gave him a puzzled look leaning back against the shelf that held the open bottles of liquor.

"No one is better off alone," Dean stated, his face every bit as serious as the words that came out of his mouth.

"I've done fine on my own," I replied.

"And after today, I don't doubt it. But take it from someone who has been where you are, just because you are getting along just fine alone doesn't mean you have to keep it that way." Dean said before turning sideways in his seat. "All these people are friends, family even, because family doesn't end with blood. I've been down so many times that I'd stopped knowing which way is up. And if it hadn't been for Sammy or the rest of them, I probably wouldn't be sitting here now." He looked around the room at the hunters laughing and talking amongst themselves. "Sometimes it's nice to know you've got people, that have your back, around."

"I guess," I said, looking down to Jody, Donna, and Sam laughing hysterically at something another hunter had said.

"Look, I'm not going to beg you to stay. I know you can hold your own. But after today, I'm starting to think it ain't so safe for any of us to be out there alone." Dean said leaning against the bar on his elbows. "Just know the offer stands."

"Thanks," I said, giving him a tight lipped smile. I knew exactly what he was talking about. Although we were all still breathing, and most of us were without a scratch, it didn't erase the fact that there were a few too many moments when I could've been dead today if it hadn't been for someone watching my back. "I'll think about it," I said before picking up a beer and tipping it towards him in acknowledgement which he did as well.

After everyone had drank all of the open liquor, I set out to handing out the unused booze to all of the hunters to take home before setting fire to the building to cover up the bloody mess that had happened there. We all stood at a great distance away from the blazing building, everyone having a last beer before hitting the road.

"So what are you doing after this?" Dean asked as he walked up to me.

"Are you seriously asking that question or are you trying to pick me up again?" I asked with a chuckle.

"Does it have to be either?" Dean retorted as he leaned against the front fender of my car.

"Well, on that note, I will be on my way," I said, chucking my beer into the fire and reaching for the keys in the back pocket of my jeans. But they weren't there. My stomach dropped and I felt like I was about to throw up as I thought the worst case scenario. Please tell me I hadn't lost them in the fight and they were currently melting in that building.

"You looking for these?" Dean asked, a devious grin on his face as my keys dangled from one of is long fingers.

"How?" I breathed out.

"Did you forget in the past twenty-four hours, how smooth I am?" Dean winked.

"Can I please have my keys?" I sighed, holding my hand out to him.

"Come back to the bunker," he said in a serious tone.

"Are you seriously trying to get me into your bed, using my keys for trade?" I asked, giving him my best bitchface.

"Would it work?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow as that smirk reappeared.

"Not gonna happen," I laughed, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Guess I'll take them then," he said,  placing the keys into his front pocket. "I'm sure Baby would love to have a friend in the garage," he added as he started to walk away.

"God dammit, Dean!" I shouted before taking off in a sprint after him. But he was quick to start off in a run too. I chased him as he weaved around all of the vehicles, everyone laughing at the two of us acting like children. I stopped on the passenger side of his car, he on the drivers side as we silently gave each other the stare down. I waited for him to make a move, but he didn't so I pounced, making a run for him around the back of the Impala and he ran the other way. I slipped on some stray leaves as I rounded the corner and landed flat on my back. "Fuck!" I shouted, laying there for a few moments to catch my breath.

"Shit, are you okay?" Dean asked as he rounded the corner of the car and knelt down beside me. I took this opportunity to get him, lifting my right leg up as quick as I could and hooking it under his arm. He flipped onto his back and I quickly sat up, straddling his chest, and reached into his pocket for my keys. "A little to the left," Dean laughed as I pulled the keys from his pocket. Without a word I gave his groin a light slap before standing up. He reached down, cupping himself as he rolled over onto his side.

"That's for threatening Diane," I growled as I walked away.

"Who the hell is Diane?" Dean grunted out as he stood up and dusted himself off.

"The baddest bitch of them all," I answered as I opened my car door. "A grade-A piece of American muscle," I said, trying to toss his words from the night we met back at him. I started the engine after climbing in, said goodbye to everyone, and decided I'd stay at the hotel one more night before hitting the road.

~~~

Nothing. Two hours of checking news outlets for any kind of lead for a case and absolutely nothing. I sighed, setting my laptop to the side before getting up off the bed and retrieving a bottle of water from the mini-fridge. I was just about to sit back down on the bed and start round two of research when there was a knock on the door of my hotel room. I grabbed my gun off of the table and made my way to the door with feather-light steps before peeking through the peephole.

"Sam?" I was puzzled, wondering how in the hell he had tracked me down. "What are you doing here?" I asked as I opened the door.

"Jody told me this was where you had been staying so I took a chance you might still be here," Sam said as I opened the door wider so he could come in. "I hope that's okay," he added as he walked through the door.

"I just wasn't expecting anyone is all," I answered him, closing the door behind me. He stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, his hands deep in the pocket of his jeans as he looked around the place. "You can sit," I told him as I sat down in one of the chairs that sat at the table in the room.

"I just wanted to talk to you before you left," Sam explained as he sat down across from me and I gave him a nod to continue. "Listen Jackie, Jody sees something in you and I have to say after today, I see it too. You are a damn good hunter, but this lifestyle can wear on you. I'm not here to give you the "we need people" speech but it's true," I sighed, running my hand over my face and then looking back at him. "Just give me 48 hours to show you what it's like to have a family... To have someone in your corner and if you decide to leave, then I won't stop you," he paused. "As for Dean, I know he can come off strong, but there are a lot of miles of hurt under that facade and if you give him a chance, he'll be the best friend you ever had."

"48 hours?" I asked, unsure exactly what could unfold in just two days that could possibly change my mind.

"I swear," Sam said, holding his hands up in surrender.

"Fine."

[veneataur]

Prompt: Kidnapped (day 7)

Fandom: Salvation

Title: A New Start

A/N: This was supposed to be a humorous story but I was watching the last couple episodes of season 2 and I got mad about some things that happened. This is not an ‘everbody is friends’ story. I don’t want to spoil anything and this isn’t intended to absolve some characters of their actions. Pretty much everyone’s done something illegal by this point in the series, but I do have some questions about the actions of certain characters.

Oh, and I think I forgot the whump. So, perhaps light emotional whump? Sorry, I got caught up in my frustration. Maybe I need to ease up on my re-watching of the show.

“Darius, give it back to me,” Harris says, storming into the Treehouse where Darius is examining some plans on his desk with Liam.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Harris.” Darius doesn’t look up.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Now give me back my phone. I don’t even want to know why you’ve taken it or how you got it.”

“How do you even know I’m the one who has it?”

“Who else would take it? And I tracked it here. Now give it back to me. I have a lot of meetings to be in today and I can’t afford to delay getting to the Pentagon anymore.”

“Fine.” Darius sighs but takes Harris’ phone from the drawer on his desk and hands it over. Harris examines it briefly, noting that nothing looks out of the ordinary on the outside. It even unlocks to his fingerprint.

“Are there going to be any surprises on here?”

“How am I supposed to know what sort of emails and texts you get during the day,” Darius says, shrugging his shoulders.

“I’d better not find that you messed with anything.”

“Just some upgrades. Nothing harmful. I promise.”

Harris doesn’t completely believe Darius but lets it go for now because he really does have meetings to get to. His first inkling that the upgrades were not upgrades comes when he gets out of his second meeting of the morning and checks his email on the way back to his office. Before he has a chance to check the string of emails that pop up the hallway is filled with the lyrics from “I’m Too Sexy for my Shirt” and his screen is plastered with images Claire took. He doesn’t know how Darius got those photos but he knows that it’s Darius to blame. While the lyrics are still sounding, because he can’t figure out how to turn them off, he quickly dials Darius and dashes to his office, ignoring the snickering around him.

“Darius, what the hell.”

“I’m busy working on plans, Harris. I’m afraid I don’t have time to talk. Enjoy your upgrades,” Darius says a smirk in his voice and hangs up the phone. Harris sighs and glares at his phone, which has now stopped making noise but his background has been replaced with the posed shirtless image of him.

“Damn it, Darius.”

He shuts off his phone to save him any further surprises, calling his secretary to let her know that his phone is broken and will be off for the rest of the day. Then he gets to work, sorting through his emails, responding to what’s necessary, and completing reports.

Then, “I’m a Barbie Girl” sounds loudly through the office just as his secretary walks through. Grace is calling and even as he answers the call, the song continues.

“Harris? Where are you? What is that noise,” Grace asks.

“Just a gift from Darius,” Harris says with a grimace. He sees the secretary leave out of the corner of his eye and the door close, but not before he hears even more laughing.

“He got to your phone, too?”

“I don’t even know how he got a hold of it. Wait.” Harris pauses. “He got to yours as well?”

“Yes. Yesterday. It’s still acting up, but don’t worry the worst of it will only last for the day.”

“A day? Do you know what chaos his upgrades have already caused?”

“I can imagine. And don’t try getting him to take care of it. He’ll just say that he’s busy,” Grace says.

“Yeah, I got that sense when I called him earlier. Do you know why he did this? Is this just him being bored and pulling a prank?”

“No. He never said anything.”

“Well, after work I’m going over to question him. He can’t just do this. You’re welcome to come if you’d like.”

“Five o’clock work?”

“A quarter after. I’ll drive us over.” Harris ends the call after that and tries to go back to work. His phone wreaks havoc with those attempts. It goes off randomly, plays tunes ranging from “Wild Thing” to “Row, Row, Row your boat.” The early afternoon is spent going from “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” on repeat to his phone flashing as though it were a disco ball.

Rather than be embarrassed by his phone, he leaves it in his office when he goes to his next meeting. His secretary comes in halfway through, his phone in hand as it blares out “I’m Too Sexy for my Body.”

“You have to do something with it, sir. It won’t stop. It’s disrupting the offices.”

He thanks her, embarrassment clear as he tries to hide the phone. She leaves quickly.

“My phone has had a malfunction,” he tells the generals he’s meeting with. “I apologize for the noise and disruption.”

“Can you simply shut it off,” one of the generals asks with barely hidden irritation.

“I’ve tried. I’ve been in touch with tech support and they don’t have a solution,” Harris adds when there’s a collective sigh of irritation. “I’ll be going to see Mr. Tanz after work today to get him to find a solution.”

“Surely the phone will simply go dead soon.”

“It’s still at near a full charge. I don’t know what’s going on with it. I’m very sorry about the disruptions.”

The meeting doesn’t last long after that, especially when “The Ketchup Song” begins blaring. The generals leave quicker than the song can restart and Harris finds himself sitting at an empty table with the urge to throw his phone across the room. He won’t give Darius that satisfaction, whatever the man’s plan is in sabotaging his and Grace’s phones.

Mid-afternoon finds him back in his office, trying to work but he can’t take the racket and tries to call Darius. He gets TESS reading nursery rhymes. Because it’s better than the songs and disco lights, he lets it go on speaker. It works until his phone screams and he nearly falls out of his chair, cursing Darius all the way. Then, the Hamster Dance begins with his phone running the antiquated animation. It takes several rounds, but Harris blocks the tone out and is able to get back to work. Until the song changes and a routine quickly develops. The song repeats for a random period of time; he has timed the segments and there’s no rhyme or reason behind how long it repeats except that it’s just slightly longer than the time it takes for Harris to adjust to the tune and block it out.

By a quarter to five, he’s cursing Darius and calls Grace to meet with her early. She’s ready as her phone has apparently taken a turn for the worse again and is now blaring out “I am a gummi bear” in a variety of languages, particularly Russian.

“What the hell, Darius,” they say in near unison as they exit the elevator to the Treehouse. Darius is still at work at his drafting table. He sets his pen aside and looks up at them as they enter, hands intertwined and resting comfortably in his lap. He has an expectant look on his face.

“Do you know how much trouble you caused today with your little prank,” Harris asks.

“And for the last two days with me,” Grace says.

“What do you think you were doing? This could’ve caused a major incident.”

“Please, I planned for such occurrences. Nothing but some meetings went on with either of you today and yesterday,” Darius says.

“Why, Darius? Was this just some little prank of yours,” Harris asks.

“No, it was a plot to disrupt your lives.” Darius has a stern look.

“Disrupt our lives, why,” Grace asks.

“To get you here. Both of you.”

“You could’ve just asked nicely,” Harris says.

“Just like you nicely made sure that Liam and Alycia were taken care of when the world was coming to an end? Those two sacrificed a lot including their personal safety to protect this world and you leave them to die?” Darius is standing as his voice rises in clear anger.

“And don’t forget the lack of plans for Darius,” Liam says, stepping out of the kitchen with Alycia.

“You two were supposed to go downstairs,” Darius says.

“We knew what you were up to and someone has to stand up for you, too,” Alycia says. “You were going to leave him to die when he was helpless. You two were damn lucky that he woke up when he did or you would’ve been responsible for his death.”

Harris huffs, running a hand across his mouth as he thinks. “What did you expect us to do? There were limited spaces and those were for personnel and immediate family.”

“You two got married, damn it,” Liam yells. “You got married just so you could save Grace and Zoe. Surely something could’ve been done for Darius. I mean he was tortured a couple times to save this planet, he spent his life savings to build technology that would save us, he was fucking willing to die to save everyone. He’s given this planet everything and you two left him out to die.”

“Okay. So, what are we supposed to do now,” Grace asks. “What do you expect us to do? What’s done is done.”

“Yes, what’s done is done,” Darius says in a calculated tone. “Tanz Industries will continue to work with the government on the issue of the space object, but all other ventures are done. Effective immediately. Klarissa sent the paperwork over just after you left.”

“Darius?” There’s a bit of fear in Grace’s question.

“And, we’re done. I’m done with the two of you. I know what the situation was and I can understand the difficulties and the need to put your daughter first but you don’t leave two of the most important scientists on the outside and keep my respect. They have more than earned a space and would’ve been more valuable than any politician you stuck down there,” Darius says emphatically.

“We’re done, too,” Alycia says. “We talked about it. You don’t leave Darius Tanz out either.”

“Darius,” Grace says, tears ready to fall.

“You made your choice, Grace. Please leave before I ask my new head of security to escort you out and if either of you wish to get in touch with me, make sure you contact Klarissa first. I wish you two the happiest of lives together.” He forces as much sincerity into that as possible. He does mean it, on some level, but he still does feel for Grace.

Harris nods stoically and Grace mutters an okay before they turn to leave. At the elevator, Harris asks about the phones.

“TESS,” Darius says, hands in his pockets and a forced smile on his face.

“As you wish, Darius.” Both of the phones make a loud explosive noise and vibrate more than usual before returning to normal service. There are no thanks or goodbyes as the two leave, but when the elevator doors close on them, the three in the Treehouse let out a collective breath.

“Are you sure about cutting off everything with the government,” Liam asks. “They were your biggest income.”

“You two are far more important than contracts and money. And besides, Tanz Industries has far more credibility than the US government. I have governments and organizations across the world wanting to work with me. Money won’t be an issue. Manpower will be. And if you two are still available, you have a place here as department heads with shares in the company.”

“Yeah, of course,” Alycia says. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to go and I’d rather work with family than not.”

“Me, too. What’s our first project,” Liam asks.

“Taking a break,” Darius says.

“What? We’ve been working on plans all day. You were working with us on uses for the nanotech.”

“Yes, and it will be here when we get back. I think we’ve earned a vacation. Somewhere warm and distinctly non-US?”

“I can’t,” Alycia says. “All of my information was leaked. I’m a target outside of here.”

“No, you’re not. I went to the President. I told him of your work to save the planet.”

“And he agreed?”

“After I threatened to go public with how he treated the two of you and myself, for extra measure. The minor incidents are still on your record, but the major ones that were arrestable offenses are gone. From any government. You’re free to travel and you have a brand new passport.”

“Darius… I… Thanks. Thank you.”

“It’s the least I could do for all you did to protect the planet. And you deserve to have a home and a country. You can become a US citizen, even, if you wish. The paperwork just needs your signature.”

Alycia is quiet for a moment as she gets her emotions under control.

“So, where’re we going,” she finally asks, smiling as she looks up at Darius and Liam.

“I’d thought the Mediterranean might be a nice change. The islands are beautiful from what I’ve been told.”

“Sounds good.”

“Liam?”

“A trip out of the country with my boss and best friend? I’m in.”

“Let’s consider us colleagues. You’ve still got some things to learn, but both of you done enough and learned enough to be considered equals.”

[blueskyheadleft010]

The Heart Stone [Chp 1]

[Ao3] [P] [You Are Here] [2]

“But how can he do that?” Toby asked looking confused, “Aren’t trolls, even those from the Darklands, weak to sunlight?”

“Especially those from the Darklands.” Blinky added, as everyone looked befuddled.

He was in the pit again, fighting that thing…

It swung at him with its sword, revealing a set of fangs grinning back at him as Jim parried at the last moment while they leaped. Jim was ready this time, calling out his dual blades as he flung them at the being, narrowly missing by an inch as they landed and rolled. A low growl emanates from it as it stands up, drawing out its own pair of dual blades and flinging them at Jim.

Jim summoned his shield, the blades bouncing off as they returned to the sender.

“Is that all you got?!” Jim panted, his breath sounding ragged and harsh as a layer of sweat ran down his brow.

The creature roared as it lunged forwards and Jim put the shield between them. They fell, faces inches apart from each other as the being snarled and flicked spit on him as Jim reflexively winced.

Whatever this thing was, he could barely see it. He could tell it had an outline similar in height to his own, but his sword only illuminated so much.

Again, more growling, but this time Jim could tell something in its demeanor had changed. It yanked the shield from his grip suddenly, sending it skittering away as it vanished in a wisp of blue light and Jim crossed his arms to block another blow.

The hits hurt, and he swore he felt a bone fracture somewhere, but this admittedly wasn’t as painful as when Draal actually hit him.

Claws lashed out too close to his throat as Jim reflexively flipped backward, pulling off an impressive handstand, as he landed a little rough on the ground.

“Not one for conversations much, huh?” Jim huffed, his legs trembling a bit in his exhaustion but he refused to give in. He could make a jawline out, highlighted by the red glow of a familiar looking object on its chest mirroring his own. He didn’t need to see the eyes or really anything else to know who he was facing.

Smirking with a slight underbite on the right, the shadow version of himself summoned his blade and swung. Jim returned it with his own blade.

The time for banter was over. Clearly only one would escape this conflict alive, and Jim swore he’d be the one.

Of course, fate had other ideas.

Sliding the red sword down closer towards Jim's hilt, his shadow tapped the handle roughly and jerked it out of Jim’s grip as he stared in surprise, dumbfounded before he stuck. They were close to each other again. One holy warrior of the day and one damned knight of the night locked in combat as the black pawn moved forwards.

By the time Jim had figured out that the shadow intended to lunge right for the throat, he’d already moved, inches away from becoming the winner as Jim’s vision narrowed in on the enemy and-

Jim screamed, flailing in bed as his heart raced and his left hand smacked into something.

“Ah! Ow, ow, that was my nose.” Barbra groaned, as she backed up and pinched the bridge of her nose to stave off the pain.

“Mom…” Jim blinked awake as the nightmare quickly vanished from his thoughts, replaced with concern over his parent.

“If I’d known this was going to happen, I’d have knocked.” Barbra sighed, as she continued to hold her nose as Jim grimaced.

“Sorry, I had a… A nightmare.” Jim explained as he looked at her confused, “Uh, did you need something?” He asked, his hand gripping something smooth under his sheets as he hastily slid the amulet under his pillow.

“It’s almost time for school and you weren’t up. I was worried.” Barbra frowned, in a rare non-disappointed/frustrated way. “You were mumbling in your sleep.” She lowered her voice as she said this.

“Really? I don’t remember much about what I was dreaming.” Jim said innocently as his eyes darted back to his pillow before he looked back at his mom.

“If you ever want to talk about it…" Barbra paused, "I’m here if you need me." She said, as the pain on her face ebbed and she smiled at Jim. “You keep that kind of thing up and you’ll become Arcadia’s next top boxer.” She playfully nudged Jim’s shoulder as he chuckled.

“Guess I’d better sign up then,” He teased, prompting another small chuckle from his mom, “Wouldn’t want to keep the fans waiting.” He grinned as Barbra finally got up off the bed and moved back over to the door.

“I’m sure they can wait. School’s in an hour by the way and I made pancakes.” She said as Jim inwardly groaned at the thought of having to endure another Barbra Lake specialty.

“Thanks, mom. I’ll be down a bit.” Jim said, as his mom closed the door after saying she loved him. Jim carefully slid the amulet out from under his pillow. “Why did you appear?” He whispered quietly as he thumbed the edge of it, feeling the places where the metal gave way to gaps and vice versa.

Jim had a vague idea it had to do with him dreaming about fighting himself in the pit, the stress probably causing him to summon the amulet subconsciously, but the fact it had happened at all was the problem. All it would take would be one time that Barbra walks in on him having a nightmare and the secret would be out. Not that he had a problem telling his mother, he’d done it once already with the help of Strickler, but seeing the pain she had to go through just because she got involved in Trollhunter business wasn’t worth having her go through it again. There might not be a second time I can save her. He grimaced, sliding the amulet into his pack as he got up and changed clothing for the day.

The shrill sound of the end of day bell grated on Claire’s nerves as she bit back a hiss as her head pounded in agony.

“Finally, I’m ready for some action.” Toby sighed relieved as Claire wished she could share his enthusiasm. She’d been asleep since one that morning and it was seeping through her day life. Not that she had anything against her job, she just wished it had better hours. (Vendel would’ve laughed at her behavior, and Not-Enrique would’ve told her to stop being such whiny baby.)

Speaking of the changeling, she had to head home and pick him up. Even though she’d gotten her real brother back, Not-Enrique had been staying in her room frequently, transforming her once organized walk-in closet into a literal troll habitat, complete with soggy socks. She was grateful she was in charge of laundry. The thought of her parents discovering such a mess… It sent shivers down her spine.

Jim and Toby had agreed to meet her back at Arcadia forest later, Claire utilizing her shadow staff to cut the time it would take to walk, as she gathered anything she might need. She assumed the boys were doing something similar.

“Evenin’ sis, ready to go kick some hiney?” Not Enrique asked as she knocked on the closet door and the little changeling opened it.

“We’re not kicking anyone’s hiney, were just going to help Trollmarket find a better place to live,” Claire explained as the changeling hopped on her back as she summoned a portal.

“Awwww, not even a little tension?” He asked, “It be getting rather boring around here. I’m starving for somethin’ to happen.” Claire shook her head and chuckled, “Maybe next time.” She said encouragingly as they hopped through the portal and landed with ease near the edge of the forest.

“Hey.” Jim waved as he and Toby ran up to greet her.

“Hey.” Claire waved back as Not-Enrique hopped off her shoulder and joined them.

“So this is the place, huh?” Not-Enrique asked as they turned towards the entrance of a massive cave.

Claire studied it intently, “I didn’t know Arcadia even had a cave this big.” She said surprised.

“That’s because it doesn’t,” Blinky said from ahead of them as he stepped out of the cave into the light carrying a large yellow umbrella they’d had given him yesterday. The trio looked at the troll confused. “This is the work of illusion magic Bagdwella put together to shield any prying eye away from our temporary base.” Blinky quickly explained as the troll in question exited the entrance also carrying an umbrella. She smiled upon seeing the humans.

“It’s just a little something I had on me.” She said supercilious, “Some Snake Oil, aluminum powder, and a touch of wasp venom and we got a three-day illusion powerful enough to fool even the sharpest of eyes.” She explained as she failed to hide the grin on her face.

“The real entrance is just a little further ahead; mind your step on the way down,” Blinky explained as he helped the humans maneuver through the illusion and into the actual cave.

Blinky was right about being careful, Claire thought. The low ceiling staircase left them half the time hunched over, and the trolls weren’t faring much better. Poor Blinks had to get on his hands and knees at one point to even squeeze through.

“I’d say we’d take the time to chisel out a better entrance, but since this isn’t a permanent residence it’s rather moot to do so,” Blinky spoke between the discussions and grunting of navigating the cave.

“I like it. Makes me feel special.” Not-Enrique grinned as he clearly was enjoying everyone crouching down at his level. Everyone sent death glares his way before he quickly ran on ahead of them.

Eventually, the cave opened up, revealing the remaining survivors of Trollmarket moving around attending to things or snoozing on the ground. Clair spotted Arrgh on the right, his back to them as he appeared to be having a discussion with a few other trolls at a rock table. She couldn’t hear what was being said, but she could see more than a few troubled faces huddled over that way.

“Wingman!” Toby called as he ran towards the troll in question with his arms stretched out. Arrgh turned around quizzically at the sound of his name being called before he spotted the boy and a large smile revealed itself.

“Wing, man.” Arrgh repeated, as he quickly excused himself from the table and tromped over to hug Toby. They stayed like this for a bit before Arrgh eventually set Toby back on the ground and stood up to eye the others. Claire gave a friendly hello to Arrgh before turning to face the rest of her group.

“Blinky says you guys had some sort of idea about what Gunmar’s doing?” Jim asked Arrgh once everyone settled down and a few trolls helped put together a sort of ‘strategy table’ for the team to sit at. Not-Enrique hopped back up on Claire’s shoulder, much to her annoyance as he cracked a knowing grin at her as he made himself comfortable.

“Indeed, Master Jim. Gunmar has likely gone after the hearthstone situated in the center of Trollmarket by now, and according to a few trolls who were closest to Usurna when she announced Gunmar’s entrance, this is just the tip of the geode.” Blinky said as he emphasized his wording by pointing a claw down at the table.

“Gunmar, wants, blood, shed.” Arrgh replied, as Blinky’s ears lowered and he grimaced at Arrgh.

“More accurately, we believe he is attempting to ‘recruit’ as many trolls into his army before he lays waste to the surface,” Blinky explained in a less blunt manner.

“But how can he do that?” Toby asked looking confused, “Aren’t trolls, even those from the Darklands, weak to sunlight?”

“Especially those from the Darklands,” Blinky added, as everyone looked befuddled. “It is likely Gunmar has a plan to counter this, though I’m not aware of any spell, potion, or magical artifact that can grant full immunity to sunlight. Darkland trolls, or really any troll, that has been exposed to no lighting in over a decade become more susceptible to direct exposure of sunrays.” Blinky added, “Meaning they’d likely wait to attack at nighttime.” He explained.

“So, he could attack Arcadia at dawn,” Jim said as his eyes shifted back and forth across the table, the pieces coming together inside his mind.

“Possible. Though if Dictatious is still Gunamar’s right-hand man, then it may not be any time in the immediate future.” Blinky reassured.

“What has that got to do with anything?” Claire asked intrigued as Blinky looked away from her gaze uncertain.

“Likely, Gunmar will want to strike when it is most in his favor. My brother is known for surveying all he can about a problem before he decides upon a solution. Gunmar will hear him out before he decides what to do. For now, we must remain alert and on guard, until we can gather more clues about what they are doing.” He said as Arrgh nodded in agreement.

“Having said that,” Blinky’s frown shifted into a slight smirk as he eyed Jim and the other humans, “I spoke with a few others of Trollmarket, and we agreed it would be best to move a little west from here where the hills are much higher and a proper cave can be constructed.” He said as he tapped his large decorative shepherd's rod on the stone floor.

“That’s great you guys! What do we need to do to help?” Jim offered excitedly.

“Mmmmnn, move, cargo.” Arrgh grunted in thought as the humans sighed crestfallen.

“An excellent suggestion!” Blink clapped two of his hands together, “While we’re creating the entrance, we’ll need someone to make sure what little cargo we’ve collected is transported safely.” Blinky said as his eyes glazed over and he began muttering to himself.

“So, what kind of cargo are we talkin’ about?” Toby chuckled nervously. Arrgh gave him a wide grin.

Dwärkstones?!? You want us to haul a massive number of rock grenades up a mountain?!?” Toby huffed tiredly as he pushed another box onto a makeshift sled.

“Normally I’d say no, but considering the delicate nature of the equipment, coupled with the fact that it requires precision movement out here in direct sunlight, I’m entrusting you to deliver some of the most crucial cargo we have left,” Blinky said looking both relieved and trusting.

“Not that I’m complaining Blinky,” Claire piped in, “But couldn’t we just… I don’t know, move it when it’s nightfall?” She asked.

“Well sure, if you want splinters littering the entire forest!” Not-Enrique chirped as he poked his head overtop a crate. Blinky frowned at the changeling and picked him up by the scruff and set him aside.

“We may be able to move about in the dark, but that doesn’t mean we can always see what’s in front of us,” Blinky explained. “Moving it now, while most of Trollmarket is migrating to our new site, is the safest option. Don’t worry, we’ll be right behind you should anything go wrong!” Blinky said cheerfully as Toby just groaned.

Twenty minutes of loading rock grenades onto a sled later, and they were off. Blinky tagging behind them as Arrgh pulled the rope secured to the sled and Not-Enrique hitched a ride on it.

Claire was in charge of helping Toby keep the sled stable while they walked, and Jim was providing Arrgh insight in the directions he was moving to ensure they didn’t go over uneasy terrain.

They eventually made it to where the entrance of the new cave site was and Claire had to stop for a moment to admire the handiwork.

The entrance was small and unassuming, with a round wooden door carved to fit over the frame and troll lettering decorating the rim. Suffice to say it could still easily fit someone Arrgh’s size or a bit bigger through it, but definitely not someone like Gunmar.

Entering the cave there was another large metal door, looking freshly crafted judging the lack of scratches on it, that opened to Trollmarket properly as they all stepped inside.

“We’ve learned since the last time,” Blinky spoke as Claire looked at all the lanterns spiraling down from the ceiling, “This is our emergency exit in case of another invasion, so we don’t have to rely on horngazels solely. It is likely we’ll conceal the entrance proper given a few days’ time.” He said as they dropped off the cargo and Blinky lead them around a corner.

They entered a small sectioned off area of the cave via a shower curtain, into what Claire assumed was Blinky’s headquarters. “I’ve been doing some more research into the text about the triumbric stones from my little ‘notepad’ app on this cellular device, and noticed something odd.” Blinky frowned as he scrolled through the images on his phone.

“Three words are specifically scored with a small dot beside the letters, spelling out, in chronological order, Daylight Forces Prevail.” Blinky showed everyone as he sighed and scratched his head. “I have no idea why these three words would be singled out, but I have the distinct feeling it will lead us to something Bodus wanted his readers to find out.” He said as he closed out the app.

“Daylight forces prevail,” Jim muttered as he stroked his chin.

“Sounds like a message of hope.” Claire chimed in as Blinky nodded.

“Indeed. I’m going to spend some time scoping out what I have stored of my texts here on my device and see if anything comes up.” Blinky said as he began hefting some stray objects and boxes about. “Keep an ear to the ground and an eye open just in case.” And with that, they were dismissed.

Arrgh bent over to sniff Jim as they left, making the boy awkwardly squawk in surprise as Toby asked what Arrgh was doing.

“Smells, weird.” Arrgh said, like that would explain things and Jim and Toby shared a look together.

“It’s probably just the sweat from working outside in the sun. I’ll go home and take a shower since I reek bad enough for Arrgh’s sense to pick up on to.” Jim laughed as he pulled out a horngazel and walked through the entrance.

The sun had already set by now, and the last slivers of color were all that remained.

Claire checked her clock and saw it was eight thirty.

“Shoot. My parents are gonna be home by nine, I’d better go.” Claire excused herself as everyone waved goodbye. She didn’t bother waiting for Not-Enrique to appear, figuring the little green troll could find his way back just fine.

“I’d better head home too.” Jim sighed, “Mom’s probably back home from work by now and I don’t need another lecture about staying out past curfew.” He grumbled. Toby looked at Jim worried.

“Or you could, I don’t know, just tell her the truth?” Toby offered as Jim scowled at him.

“I don’t think so.” Jim spoke, “You saws what happened with Strickler. The less she knows, the safer she is.” He explained.

“But Strickler’s not around anymore right? I mean, now’s the perfect chance to tell her! We could even go with you and show her Trollmarket 2.0!” Toby offered as Jim’s left eye twitched.

“No Tobes. Not right now.” He snapped, making Toby look slightly frightened as he took a few steps back closer towards Arrgh. Jim saw this and felt guilty.

“Look, Gunmar’s still after us and mom could end up being the next target if he finds out.” He huffed, “I can’t do that to her. Not after everything we’ve been through.” A stray tear flowed down his cheek.

Toby didn’t press the issue any further, “Okay man. We’ll just put that plan on the ol’ backburner yeah?” He chuckled sheepishly as Jim seemed to be recomposing himself. “You go get some rest. Tomorrow’s Saturday bro! Let’s go treat ourselves to some celebration milkshakes at Riley’s!” He grinned as Jim mimicked his enthusiasm.

“Yeah, okay. Sure, milkshakes at Riley’s tomorrow sounds like a plan.” He grinned back as Toby waved goodbye and both he and Arrgh headed back home.

Jim lingered a few minutes longer, pulling himself together as he steadied his breathing. “I promise once this is over, I’ll tell mom everything.” He swore to himself as he looked up at the night sky briefly before he started to walk back home.