#she hasn’t ‘fallen for them’ up to the point where things ‘reset’

[valleynix]

are you saying cassandra hadn’t fallen for reader yet in the other timeline :'(

she was getting there!! still trying to figure out her feelings and how she really felt (whether she just enjoyed teasing them and getting a reaction or if she actually wanted something with them)

she did genuinely care about them before, but she’s also a little shit and loved teasing tf out of them too

[juju-on-that-yeet]

At My Worst (Chapter 1)

Work Summary: Thanks to his enduring popularity in the fandom, The Author pops back into existence and the egos must suddenly contend with someone they thought was gone forever coming back from the dead. No one is more shocked than Dr. Iplier, who can't help but remember how things used to be - and slowly fall back into bad habits, despite his better judgement.

Warnings: Mild descriptions of past violence/discussions of death (more tags on AO3)

Read on AO3

Enjoy!

~

Last he knew, Dark was ripping his eyes out.

Then, he was nowhere and nothing.

Now, he suddenly is, where before he wasn’t, and the rush of sensation returning is terrifying and paralyzing. But he still knows who he is, he knows his name and that he’s a figment, and he remembers his life. Rather, his previous life, he suspects.

It doesn’t take long for The Author to get his thoughts back in order and regain the presence of mind to look around. He appeared standing, and somehow didn’t fall, but he doesn’t trust his legs enough to move just yet. He’s surprised by the fact that he can look around, that the eyes he viscerally recalls losing are back in his head, fully functional. The area he’s in looks familiar, reminds him of the forest his cabin sat in, but it becomes apparent that the place is different now. The trees are less wild, the ground more even. He’s standing on a path, perhaps a nature walk or hiking trail. Last he remembers, there were no such trails in his woods.

He finally walks, letting his instincts take him to where his cabin should be, though he already has a feeling it won’t be found. Sure enough, he goes as far as he can down the trail, leaves the path and goes onward, and eventually finds himself at the edge of a neighborhood. Where the cabin used to be is a two-floor house, probably built for a family with kids, and in the surrounding street are even more such houses.

Author doesn’t know how much time has passed, but clearly, it’s been a long time since his cabin stood. He has to wonder what became of his books, his life’s work. Were they saved by the other egos, or are they forever lost?

For a moment, he isn’t sure what to do. But he’s a clever man, so he thinks. If he exists, surely the other egos must be around somewhere, too. All he has to do is find them. But if they aren’t here, then where?

He walks back the way he came, back to the trail, passing the place he appeared in and continuing onward. By the time he makes it to the trail’s beginning, night has fallen, and the parking lot by the trail is empty. He walks past the parking lot, comes to a road, and walks. It’s not so late that no cars are driving, at least; it only takes a few whizzing by his upturned thumb before one decides to stop.

“Where you headed?” asks the driver, an ordinary-looking man with a moustache. Author wonders how entertaining he’d be in a story.

“LA,” Author says, settling into the passenger seat like he belongs. For having not existed at all twelve hours ago, his easy confidence returns quickly.

“Heh, aren’t we all?” the man chuckles, pulling off the roadside to start driving. “Anywhere in particular? I can put it in my GPS.”

“Not really,” Author says, “Just get me to the city and I’ll take it from there.”

The man shrugs, but doesn’t pry. Maybe he wouldn’t be a protagonist, but possibly a character just there to help the protagonist along, as he is now. Then again, his unquestioning nature would make him easy death fodder, too.

On the way to the city, Author tries to look around the car, just to see if he can figure out what day it is. The radio playing tells him the day of the week and the month before long, but he can’t figure out the year. It’s not a terribly long drive to the city (Author remembers how long it took to get to Dr. Iplier’s clinic, and the distance isn’t that different) (Oh, Dr. Iplier, he must be somewhere too, does he still hate Author for what he’s done?), and once he gets there, Author has but one favor to ask.

“Thanks for the ride, but quick question,” he begins as he unbuckles his seatbelt, “Any chance you have a pen and a notebook in your car I can have? Or even just a sheet of paper and something to write with?”

“Uh, sure,” the man answers, confused by the request but not so much that he won’t grant it. He rummages through the glove compartment until he pulls a notebook with some corporate logo, and a pen with the same branding. “Have these, got them from work a long time ago but I don’t need them.”

“Perfect!” Author exclaims, taking the notebook and pen. He flips through the notebook, taking in the sight of blank pages, empty canvases, ready for him to make his own. “Have a good one, man.”

The man nods, rolls up his window, and drives off, leaving Author standing on a random sidewalk just inside Los Angeles. But he’s not bothered, because he finally has his tools. He can do anything or get anywhere. He knows that Dr. Iplier’s clinic has likely gone the way of his own cabin if it’s been too long, but the egos must be somewhere in the city. Author doesn’t know why he feels that way, but he supposes his instincts have the right idea. He’s always been a creature of impulse, so he does exactly what he did when the sun was up and lets his legs carry him where they may.

When he gets hungry, he enters a fast food restaurant and opens his notebook again, this time to write. While in line, he reads the cashier’s nametag and puts pen to paper: When The Author reaches the front of the line and orders, Stella pays for his meal herself. And she does, without skipping a beat. Author stays in the building to eat, and internally snickers at the confused look he sees on Stella’s face when she realizes what she did, seemingly for no reason.

As far as Author can perceive, it hasn’t been very long at all since he last used his power. But his body can tell it’s been a long time, somewhere deep in his mind knows it’s been forever since he picked up a pen and changed reality to suit his needs. A part of him is glad he’s still got it, but how could he ever lose it in the first place?

Back to walking. It’s late at night, but his mind is too active to be tired. It wouldn’t be the first time he was up all night, whether pacing his cabin trying to untangle the next scene of a story, or painting LA red in search of inspiration, or tormenting a character in the woods, or staying up with Dr. Iplier until the sun came up and he had to return to his clinic in the early hours, yawning through a cup of coffee. Thinking of his doctor only makes Author’s mind buzz even more. How long has it been, truly? What must Dr. Iplier be like now? Can they start over again, now that Author’s been reset?

The more Author walks, the more he feels a pull to keep going. It’s as if there’s a GPS unit inside his brain, telling him which way to go. He has no clue where he’ll end up, but he follows anyway, not having anywhere else to go. Besides, perhaps he’s being led to the other egos, maybe some element of himself is being drawn to them. He still knows that he’s a figment, of course, and that being a figment makes him a little more magical than the average human, a little more special, even ignoring his reality-bending powers. Part of him wants to use his writing to get into a locked car and drive to where the magic inside him is leading, but even at this hour, he knows it’d be quicker to walk.

It’s morning by the time Author feels he’s gotten somewhere, nearly a day has passed since he found himself alive again. By now, the streets are once again full of people and cars, and the swelling sounds of conversation and car horns remind him of his trips into the city with Dr. Iplier. His feet finally come to a stop in front of a huge building. It doesn’t look very different from the other corporate skyscrapers standing along the street and stretching into the horizon, but it radiates magic. It’s a beacon, and Author can tell just by looking at it that this is where he’s meant to be, this is the place he’s meant to stay.

He’s startled out of his reverie by someone bumping into him, barking at him to watch it, and moving hurriedly along. Author is disgruntled, but has little time to get angry before yet another person does the same thing. He moves out of the way of traffic to stand under the magical building’s awning, away from the crowd. Amazingly, no one even seems to see him anymore. No one acknowledges him, or even looks at the building Author is standing in front of. Whatever magic it has, humans can’t see it. Perhaps that’s the point, perhaps the building’s magic is keeping it hidden. Author can’t help but be impressed. If he’s right, it must be Dark and Wilford’s doing; no one else would have enough power. Still, keeping a building shrouded constantly would take a lot of energy, and though Dark and Wilford are powerful, they aren’t powerful enough for something as big as this as far as Author remembers.

As if he needed more confirmation that it’s been a long time since he last existed.

Still, he’s made it to where he wants to be, and he’s not about to stop moving forward now. He walks to the door, pushes the double-doors open, and steps inside.

The doors open up into a wide lobby, high-ceilinged. Off to one side is another set of doors, wooden and old-looking. There’s quite a few other, more typical doors along the back wall, a couple labeled that lead to staircases and some without labels that likely lead to other rooms. There’s also an elevator in the center of the wall. The lobby is much bigger than the outside of the building would suggest, and Author has to assume it’s more magic at work. He has no more time to wonder, because one of the unlabeled doors opens.

Out steps another man, with hair swooped low and orange sunglasses and a tank top with the Bing logo on it, of all things. He stops mid-step at the sight of Author, and Author can’t help but pause, too. He doesn’t know who this person is, but he can tell he’s a figment. Not only that, there’s something too familiar in his hair, his face, his height. This figment is another one of Mark’s.

Author already felt like he’d found the right place, but now he knows for sure.

“Woah, how’d you get in here??” asks the figment, walking up to Author as his shock gives way to confusion. “Wait, are you a new ego?”

“You could say that,” Author replies with a shrug.

“Oh, sick!” the figment exclaims, now grinning with excitement. He reaches out to shake Author’s hand, and his grip is stronger than Author expects. “My name’s Bingiplier, but like, everyone calls me Bing. What’s your name, dude?”

“The Author,” Author answers, a little bewildered by Bing’s energy. Granted, he certainly seems like someone Mark would conjure up as a joke, but most of the true joke egos barely lasted a week.

“Oh cool, you write and stuff?” Bing asks. He frowns for a moment. “I gotta admit, though, I’m totally blanking on what video you’re from. I don’t watch all of Mark’s videos, but like, I don’t think anyone was expecting a newbie to show up soon.”

“I do write,” Author replies, though his mind is buzzing with the new information. No one’s expecting him? Then how is he here? “I can reality-bend with writing. I write it, and it happens.”

“Nice!” Bing says, “That’s, like, super-powerful. We haven’t had a real reality-bender show up in ages. Actually, your deal kinda reminds me of The–”

“Hey.”

A monotone voice, deeper than Bing’s, interrupts. Author and Bing both look to see someone else approaching. Author can’t help but grin, because this is an ego he recognizes. Googleplier’s hair is still long and shaggy, he still has his glasses, and even though figments don’t truly age, he looks older somehow, more mature. He’s not glitching the way he did when Author knew him, and his jaw is stronger, his stature more imposing. It takes a moment for Google to see Author past Bing, and it takes a moment more for him to register what he’s seeing. His eyes widen behind his glasses.

“Author? Seriously?” Google asks, incredulous.

“Wait, you know about him? Did I just miss the memo on a new ego coming or something?” Bing whines before glaring at Google. “Are you here for an actual reason, or just to butt into my conversation?”

“Ollie wants you, you won’t answer his pings, and the others are still charging,” Google answers, deadpan. Bing pauses a moment, face screwed up in confusion, before understanding slowly dawns.

“Oh, he did ping me. I was busy talking to the new guy.”

“Ping you?” Author interjects.

“Oh yeah, I’m an android!” Bing says brightly. “So’s Google, but he’s just the old default.”

“Leave already before you get dismantled,” Google growls at Bing, but his eyes don’t leave Author.

“Ugh, fine,” Bing sighs. He flashes Author a peace sign as he walks away. “See ya round, dude!”

Google waits until Bing is out of sight before approaching The Author.

“How are you here?” he asks, more bewildered than Author has ever seen him.

“You tell me,” Author scoffs, “You were always the know-it-all. All I know is that one second I didn’t exist, and the next second I did.”

“How long ago was that?”

“About a day? Popped into the woods where my cabin used to be.” Author stares hard at Google. “How long has it been? Since Dark tore my eyes out?”

Google hesitates for a long moment before responding.

“Six years,” he says.

Author’s jaw drops.

“Six years??” he gasps.

“Six years,” Google repeats. “It’s 2021, now.”

“When did Bing show up?”

“2017. Four years ago.” Google thinks for a moment. “Technically, that makes him older than you.”

Google’s right. Author was only a couple years old when Dark killed him. At this point, he’s been dead longer than he’s been alive.

“Jesus Christ,” Author mutters. He can hardly wrap his head around it.

“Jesus Christ is right,” Google growls, “How the hell did you get here? You died. You faded away.”

“I already told you I don’t know!” Author snaps. Google gives him a look like he doesn’t believe him. “Look, I appeared, I felt the urge to come here, and now here I am. So now what?”

“Now I have to take you to Dark.”

“Yeah, no. I remember how our last interaction went.”

“You have to,” Google sighs, clearly resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Every new ego has to meet with him–”

“I’m not new.”

“–And besides, nothing in this building happens without him knowing. I don’t like dealing with him either, but I’m not about to get in trouble for not telling him about you.”

“No choice, huh?” Author sighs. “Alright, let’s get this over with, I guess.”

Google leads Author to the elevator in silence. He presses the button for the sixth floor – the highest one – as Author thinks.

Six years. He still can’t conceive of it. Even for a normal human that’s a decent chunk of time, but for a figment, it’s like a lifetime. Plenty of figments don’t even make it to six years old…though clearly, Google and Dark have, and Author has to wonder who else has. Six years and six floors of this building means a lot of new people.

“Figures you and Dark stuck around,” Author muses to Google, “The fans always do love the grumpy ones. And now there’s Bing, and that “Ollie” and the “others” you mentioned…”

“That would be Oliver, Chrome, and Plus,” Google says, “The three of them are androids, other Google units, in fact.” That fact makes Author bark out a laugh.

“You got clones, now??” he snorts, “That’s awesome. Think I could borrow one for a story?”

“No.” Google’s response is instant, paired with eyes glowing icy blue.

“Alright, alright,” Author sighs, “Six years and you still haven’t gotten a sense of humor.” He pauses for a moment. “How many of us are there now?”

Last Author recalls, there were eight, including himself. Google barely needs a moment to mentally calculate it before he has an answer.

“Twenty-one,” Google answers.

“Twenty-one??” Author exclaims, jaw dropping.

“Twenty-two, now, with you. There’d be even more, but some have faded away.”

“Is anyone I knew gone now?”

“No, the oldest ones are still here.”

That means Dr. Iplier is still here. Author can’t help but feel relieved. He’s not sure what he’d do if he found out Dr. Iplier had faded away sometime during his absence. He’s so cheered by the thought that he forgets why he’s in the elevator until it finally stops at the top floor.

Right. Dark’s still here, too.

“I’ve already sent Dark an internal ping,” Google says as he leads Author out of the elevator. “He’s expecting you now.”

“Snitch,” Author mutters under his breath. Google rolls his eyes, but he chooses not to respond verbally.

The pair pass several doors as they walk, and Author wonders how many of them lead into the bedrooms of egos he hasn’t met. He wonders what Dark is like now. After all, Google seems to have barely changed aside from no longer glitching constantly. But he remembers how the people outside couldn’t even see this building, remembers the sheer size of the place, and knows that Dark must be much more powerful than he used to be to be able to pull it off. Too soon, Google and Author arrive at a door that’s much nicer than the others so far. Google knocks, something that the Google Author remembers would hardly ever do.

“Come in,” says a deep voice from inside. An older voice, but the same one that Author remembers well.

Google opens the door, and The Author steps inside.

Dark is not like Google. He doesn’t look the same as he did before. His hair is longer, swooped to the side. His eyes are still deep brown, nearly black. He’s wearing a suit and tie now, his skin is gray. Most striking is his aura. Where it used to be minimal, only wisps of smoke that showed themselves occasionally, it is now a swarming mass of writhing black tendrils surrounding him. It shakes even as Dark stares evenly at Author from behind a large wooden desk. Dark’s expression is cool and calm, and his hands are folded on his desk, but there’s tension in his shoulders and a hardness in his eyes.

“You’re dismissed, Google,” Dark says to Google, “But do not mention this to anyone.”

Author glances at Google, who nods and leaves, closing the door behind him, leaving Author and Dark alone.

“So,” Author says breezily, pushing down and hiding his discomfort. He’s not scared, but he does feel awkward, and a little annoyed to have to see Dark at all. “Nice place you got here.” He flops into a chair in front of Dark’s desk. “I hear there’s twenty-two of us now, crazy how time flies.”

“Exactly how did you come back?” Dark asks, without a hint of humor.

“I told Google like three times, I don’t know!” Author says, his annoyance getting the better of him. He takes a breath and calms before continuing. “I don’t know. I woke up in a forest, the same one where my cabin is. Or used to be, it’s just houses there now. I hitched a ride to the city and walked until I got here. It’s been about a day since I woke up.”

“I see.” Dark sighs, leaning back slightly in his seat. “This has never happened before.”

“I’ve gathered that.” Author frowns at Dark. “I might as well address the elephant in the room. Are you gonna pull out my eyes again or what?”

“No,” Dark answers, voice tight and aura swarming faster, “I will not. Things have changed since then, that is no longer how I deal with unruliness.”

“Is that what you call it?” Author mutters, “‘Dealing with unruliness?’ Does that make you feel justified for killing me?”

“You’ve been gone for six years,” Dark snaps, “Don’t pretend you know anything!” All at once, Dark’s form cracks, a shadow of himself turns away to scream in frustration. The scream is cut short, the whole thing lasts only a moment. Despite himself, Author nearly jumps out of his skin.

“What the hell was that!?” he shouts.

Dark settles himself, chuckling quietly. His aura calms somewhat, but it continues to churn the air.

“As I said, things have changed.” Dark rolls his neck, it cracks like the vertebrae are clacking against each other. “To put it in a way you would understand, my story has been rewritten in recent years. There’s a lot for you to catch up on.”

“I’ll pass,” Author retorts, “I’m not about to stick around here with you.”

“I’m afraid you have no choice.” Dark’s eyes go steely. “You may have guessed from the large number of us that Mark is much more popular than he used to be, which means we need to be more careful. You recall my desire to unite us all in a single building.”

“The building I died in, right?” Author snaps.

“Yes,” Dark replies coldly, undeterred by Author’s attempt to fluster him. “This building, in fact. The more popular Mark gets, the more recognizable we become, and the more vital it is for us to avoid attention. This building is imbued with magic to prevent humans from seeing or entering, and there are rules about the ways in which we may interact with them.”

“If you’re gonna tell me I can’t write my stories–”

“You can write as many stories as you like,” Dark says smoothly, “And you may use humans as…protagonists, if you so choose. But your stories may not be published, and you may not develop close relationships with humans.”

“And if I break the rules?”

“You get to visit my void.” Dark grins. “A place made of pitch, so dark you cannot see your hand in front of your face, cold and just quiet enough to hear its voices. It only takes a few hours to break someone weak. For someone strong, maybe a week.” He tilts his head. “I suspect a day or two in there, with no one to control and nothing to do, will drive you mad. At the end of a week you’d be tearing off your own skin just to feel.”

Author wants to scoff at the dramatics, but there’s something in Dark’s eyes and posture that makes him believe it.

“What if I leave anyway?” Author asks, “Strike out far away and find my own place?”

“Then you’ll have all twenty-one of us looking for you, whether actively searching or keeping an eye out. Once you’re found, the punishment would be immense. We’ve had egos run off before. The longest one ever stayed lost was eighteen days. Perhaps you could last longer, but your punishment would be that much longer as well. And if my void does not deter you, there’s a holding cell in the basement that’s designed to cancel out magic and keep figments contained indefinitely, where you can stay until you come to your senses.”

Author glowers, considering. It’s clear that he has no choice but to go along with the arrangement, but he’s too stubborn to give in yet.

“Any other rules I should know about?” he asks derisively, “Is there a dress code? Do I have to ask you if I want dessert after dinner?”

Dark glares at Author for a long moment.

“My, not even death could change you.”

He lets his own words hang in the air before continuing.

“The other main rule here is that you cannot harm another ego. Self-defense or defense of another ego won’t be punished, but aggression and attacks will.”

“That’s rich, coming from the one who tore my eyes out,” Author growls.

“You can watch your attitude,” Dark snaps, voice dangerous and aura waving wildly. “I’m still the leader, and you still need to respect me. You may not have changed, but I have, and I am much stronger than you can imagine. If you continue to draw my ire, you will find out just how much stronger I’ve become.”

Dark wasn’t nearly this imposing back in Author’s heyday. He didn’t have this maturity, this intimidating tone of voice, this simmering rage that only shows itself in bursts. He used to be pettier, whiny, more mean than cruel. There was a reason Author didn’t fear him, and it was that he could tell, clear as day, that Dark was threatened by him. But the Dark that sits before Author now is not threatened. He’s angry, but not defensive. He means every word he’s said to Author, and Author knows that Dark will make him regret pushing his buttons if he persists.

So he stays silent for a long moment, and Dark’s aura gradually calms, and his expression smooths back out.

“Good, we understand each other,” he says, “Now, you need to meet the other egos. I’ll call a meeting for the others.”

“Google said the others I was around with are still here,” Author says, remembering, “Are they coming, too?”

“Yes,” Dark says, “But their meeting alerts will have…context. They’ll know it’s you before they arrive.” He sighs then, raises a hand to rub his forehead. “Speaking of context, there’s something you should know before this meeting occurs.”

“What’s that?” Author asks, curious. Perhaps a little nervous, given Dark’s behavior, but he’d never admit it.

“After you died, a new ego appeared, one who looked somewhat like you, who had no eyes. It came about that he had all your memories, but he wasn’t you, isn’t you. His name is The Host, and as far as we all knew…you became him, you were reborn as him.”

Author thought he was done being surprised, being shocked. But this revelation is the worst of all. He became someone else? There’s an ego here that has his same history, and the six years he missed on top of that? A clone like Google has, but one that has a different life, has a life at all. Someone who’s The Author, but isn’t. Someone The Author was supposed to be. The one who came from the ashes of Author’s death. While he spent six years in darkness, this other him, this Host, was living the life that should’ve been his. It only gets worse the more Dark explains. Author hardly perceives Dark’s words, but he perceives their meaning, especially when another name is mentioned. The shock builds and deepens.

It’s not enough that Host now has Author’s body, his memories, his life.

He has his love, too.

His doctor.

Dark explains that Dr. Iplier and Host have been in a relationship for years, and something inside Author crumbles.

This is the man he was so excited to see again, the man he’d hoped he could start over with once he found him. He’d dreamed of that on his long walk to the building, dreamed of Dr. Iplier lighting up at the sight of him, dreamed of them both apologizing to each other for how they ended things, dreamed of them reconnecting, rekindling, loving each other all over again. But the dream shatters further the more Dark speaks, and the more Dark speaks, the more Author’s vision tunnels and the louder the blood rushes in his ears. Dr. Iplier didn’t wait for him. He moved on. He moved on with this facsimile of Author, and did so a long time ago.

Author doesn’t hear what else Dark says, he’s too busy thinking. But no matter how much he thinks the situation over, he can’t accept it. He won’t allow this ache in his chest, this burning in the back of his eyes. Dr. Iplier may have moved on, but some part of him must still love Author, if he moved on with the newer version of him. The way they loved each other was like nothing else, even six years later there’s no way Dr. Iplier has forgotten Author, has forgotten what their love felt like, has stopped missing it. Author will find his way back to him somehow, fix their relationship and fix his own breaking heart.

There has to be a reason Author came back to life. There’s no possible way him and Dr. Iplier could end like this. And Author may be a lot of things, but he’s not a quitter.

He can’t give up on Dr. Iplier, his heart won’t let him.

[treason-and-plot]

BELATED REPLIES TO ROY AND SAOIRSE

@skyburned

Very well done for a break-up. It takes courage to do one, and I’m interested in where you’re going to take this. I love that park. Just the right amount of detail and color, the roofs poking up to establish locale, without distracting from a very still, low-action moment. Inspirational!

You’re right about it taking courage…but it’s equally as hard to flog a dead horse. Thank you as always for your lovely words! The park is actually located in a little clearing just behind Saoirse’s workplace, and the roof is that of the clinic, lol!

@ktarsims

Possibly the most honest conversation Roy has had in his life. I think Roy is mistaken though. I think his experiences in life have left his definitions of ‘intimate partner’ and ‘house keeper’ mixed and in some cases without clearly delineated lines. Sonia, after all, is a master house keeper. She runs the house superbly, looks after the kids, cooks divinely… his expectations of a partner are… well… much like what many people would expect of a housekeeper, with sex thrown into the mix.

So while it’s certainly not his intent… or how he’s consciously thinking of Saoirse, it’s also not surprising that she feels that to some extent. I think for Roy, subconsciously, expectations of the two roles bear some similarities. Saoirse hasn’t taken the time to delve deep enough to consider any of that though. After all, in her life, the only Housekeeper was herself, and her point of view is very different. At least, that’s where my thoughts are right now. I’m not entirely caught up. 😋

IMO though, most of Roy’s ‘compromises’ have been him realizing he had inaccurate expectations. He assumed and expected a lot of things, and has felt very put upon each time he realized his assumptions were wrong or unspoken expectations wouldn’t be met. Saoirse wasn’t sure what to expect, and has had a hard time dealing with his assumptions and expectations, and trying to create enough space for him to see her and their relationship for what it is rather than the wild fantasies in his head.

That’s a fascinating take! I must admit it hasn’t occurred to me, but I can see that it does make sense, especially when you consider his immersion in mysogynistic ‘jock culture’ as a football- loving teen, and the fact that his first sexual experience was with Saoirse the Housekeeper. However Roy was quite happy to pay for sex when Sonia wouldn’t give it to him, and accepted her lack of interest in his penis with equanimity for the most part. (Until she actually left him for Claire...and then his revenge was swift and savage). When it came to Saoirse though he definitely had a lot of wild fantasies, fuelled by frequent hot and heavy FaceTime sessions. I would not say he had unrealistic expectations though…neither of them knew what to expect, and for Roy, that was part of the appeal. But yes, Saoirse had a hard time balancing being in a new relationship with trying to hold on to her identity. Roy had no such issues. One of his greatest strengths is his sense of self, and not many things have been able to shake that. (Notable exceptions include his doomed love affair with Naomi, and the time he found out that Sonia had cheated on him…with a man.)

@amuhav​

honestly, a break from each other *would* be the best idea. they need a reset and come back at it with clearer heads.

Absolutely! Roy in particular really needs to focus on other stuff for a while...Saoirse has been a little bit of an unhealthy obsession. It's good that some of the scales have fallen from his eyes.

[fallen-gravity]

Fightin’ Back Chapter 6

Chapter Summary:  Seeing Stan's memory erased is the only time any of us have ever seen Ford cry.

Chapter Notes: and this chapter makes six! I would like to give a personal thank you to every one of my readers who has stuck with me through this story from the very chapter, and all of my friends on discord for encouraging me to keep writing in times where I thought I was going to give up. 

This story marks the first multi-chapter fic I've already sought through to the very end, and it makes me so, so happy that all of you are here to experience it with me. Thank you once again for taking this journey to me, and we're wrapping up this arc with Weirdmageddon 3.

The soft, desperate sound of choked sobs is unmistakable as it slices through the quiet night air like a knife. Dipper’s eyes pop open at the sound, and he sits up in his sleeping bag in the living room. He hadn’t been crying in his sleep, had he? He brings a tentative hand to pat as his cheeks, but no, they’re perfectly dry.

But…if that hadn’t been him, then…

He turns his glance towards Mabel’s sleeping bag beside his. She sure looks like she’s asleep, but she’s got her back turned towards him, and he knows for a fact that’s usually a sign that she’s hiding something.

“Mabel?” he whispers loudly. “Are you okay?”

She jumps, but when she shifts to face him she doesn’t look like she’d been crying either. “That’s not you?” She squints towards him as she sits up. “I’ve been sitting here for like, five minutes trying to figure out how to wake you up without scaring you”

“But…” Dipper shakes his head. “What else could it be?”

Mabel scratches at her head. “Maybe the unicorn barrier broke and the shack itself is crying?”

Dipper shakes his head. “Couldn’t be. Grunkle Ford said that if everything reset after Weirdmageddon then the unicorn barrier should’ve come back too”

“Not everything” she murmurs into her sleeping bag, and Dipper sighs as he turns his glance towards Stan’s recliner.

Which is…empty.

When it hadn’t been when they fell asleep.

Dipper’s up to his feet before he knows it, and between one blink and the next Mabel is on her feet too. “Where do you think he could’ve gone? Do you know how dangerous it is for Stan to be wandering around town like this? At this time of night?”

He doesn’t realize he’s pacing back and forth until he feels Mabel’s hand gently gripping at his shoulder. “Woah, take it easy there, bro-bro. I’m sure we’re just overthinking things. I mean, he couldn’t have gone that far in two hours, right?”

“Mabel! You’re not helping!” he starts pacing back and forth again. “He could be anywhere! He could walk right into the lake and drown, or into the manotaur cave, or-”

“In the kitchen?”

“What?”

Mabel points towards the kitchen lights that’ve been flicked on. Dipper takes her hand in his own and runs towards the kitchen before she has time to protest. Stan’s nowhere in sight, but Ford is sitting at the table with his head buried in his arms. At first glance, Dipper would think he must’ve fallen asleep writing additions in his journal again, but at a second, closer look, he can see that his shoulders are trembling. If he really listens, he can hear the hitched breaths barely escaping him.

Dipper takes a cautious step towards him. “Grunkle Ford?”

Ford bolts upright, messily scrubbing at his eyes. “Dipper?”

“And Mabel” Mabel waves hello, and takes a seat at the table beside Ford. “Is everything okay, Grunkle Ford?”  She places a gentle hand on his arm, and a broken sigh escapes him as he reaches a hand to hers and squeezes it gently. He squeezes his eyes shut, like he’s milliseconds away from breaking down again.

“I’ve tried everything,” he swallows. “I’ve tried reverse engineering the memory gun, I’ve tried showing him pages from our old high school yearbook, I’ve even tried…” he exhales sharply. “I’ve even tried bringing him downstairs to see if…coming into contact with any of the portal remains would be enough to trigger a tactile memory, but nothing’s working.” He buries his face back into his arms, muttering an indecipherable self-deprecating comment into the sleeve of his sweater.

Dipper takes a seat on the other side of Ford, and shares a melancholy glance with Mabel. She nods, and he places a gentle hand on Ford’s shoulder.  He doesn’t flinch, but he doesn’t reciprocate the gesture either. “Hey, Grunkle Ford? What if Mabel and I took over for a little bit?”

“We ate a ton of Grunkle Stan’s apocalypse meat before we came to rescue you from the Fearamid, and we’ve been asleep for the past two hours. Now, I may not have been turned into a gold statue myself, but it didn’t look to me like you were getting any sleep when you were petrified in place for like, three days”

A soft chuckle escapes Ford as he sits up and wipes at his eyes with his wrist. “Thank you, but…” he shakes his head. “It wouldn’t be fair of me to ask for your help” He twines his hands together. “You’ve already been through enough as it is because of me”

“Nonsense,” Mabel insists, standing to tug Ford to his feet. He complies, and she begins dragging him towards Stan’s bedroom. A quick glance over her shoulder at Dipper, and he’s standing to his feet to take Ford’s unoccupied hand in his own. “You take the night off. Dipper and I can take over and sleep in shifts until you’re rested enough to take over for us”

“Are you sure?” Ford frowns as he steps through the doorway of Stan’s bedroom. “I’d hate to burden you with such an emotionally tolling responsibility”

Mabel pulls her hand away from Ford’s to pull back the blankets on the bed and pats at the pillow. Ford’s lips twitch downward like he doesn’t think it’s a good idea, but his exhausted body moves on autopilot and makes that decision for him. He practically flops over on the bed, and Mabel smiles as she covers him back up with the blanket.

“You can never be a burden to us, Grunkle Ford” Mabel whispers, and leans to plant a soft kiss on his forehead. “Besides! Dipper and I are used to this. We’ve been taking care of Grunkle Stan and keeping him out of danger practically all summer.” She delicately reaches to remove his glasses for him, and places them on Stan’s nightstand. She places a gentle hand on Ford’s shoulder, and turns towards Dipper.

“You think you can take the first shift with Stan? Something tells me he won’t fall asleep unless someone stays in here with him.”

Dipper’s glance turns to Ford. His eyes are still red and puffy from crying, and there’s a miserable expression plastered to his face. His chest is rising and falling in a scattered pattern, like one poorly-phrased sentence is all it’ll take to push him over the edge again.

“Sure,” Dipper replies, placing a gentle hand beside Mabel’s on Ford’s shoulder. “I’ll yell if anything goes wrong, okay? Where is he?”

“In my study room” Ford’s reply is muffled by his pillow. “I was going to bring him in here, but...” he squishes his face even further into the pillow. “I just didn’t have the heart to step foot in here alone”

Oh.

Dipper sighs. “I get it. I don’t think I would’ve had the heart to bring him in here either,” he takes a knee so he can make better eye contact with Ford. “But honestly, from me and Mabel both, thank you so much for what you’ve already done for him. I think he appreciates it a lot”

The laugh that escapes Ford’s lips is cold and bitter. “Thank you,” he echoes. “And here I thought those words couldn’t possibly hurt me any more than they already have”

Dipper’s sure Ford probably hadn’t meant to say that loud enough for him to hear, so instead of responding Dipper leans forward and throws his arms around Ford in a hug. Ford doesn’t reciprocate, but he doesn’t quite pull away from the gesture either. “I’ll come back to see how you’re doing in a few hours if you’re still awake, okay?” he whispers as he gives Ford an affectionate squeeze before he stands to his feet. Without waiting for a response he knows isn’t coming, Dipper turns heel and walks out the door.

Stan’s sitting up straight with his hands folded neatly together when Dipper steps into the room. “Hey!” he flashes a grin, but it quickly falls when he struggles to come up with a name. “…Where’d the tall guy go? Y’know, the guy who looks like he hasn’t slept in years?”

Dipper can’t help the laugh that escapes him. It’s reassuring that his sense of humor is just as harsh as it’s always been, that’s for sure. “Just fell asleep, if you’re willing to believe” he steps forward and takes a seat beside Stan on the couch. “He thought it’d be a good idea if someone came in and checked in on you, though”

“Oh.” Stan’s lip is a tight line, like he knows Dipper isn’t telling him the complete truth. “I dunno. Think I’m starting to get a headache from all these questions. Was gettin’ close to playing along and pretending I knew what he was talking about before he suddenly stood up and walked out of the room without a word about where he was going”

“I see…” Dipper’s voice trails off awkwardly, and he shakes his head. “Okay, but what about…physically? Is there anything I can help you with in that department?”

“Oof,” Stan practically collapses back against the couch, like just asking was enough to make every muscle in his body ache at once. “Was starting to wonder when someone would ask. S’kinda awkward to ask for a cup of water when you’re surrounded by people who start sobbing every time you make eye contact with them, am I right?” He gently nudges Dipper with his elbow, but his expression falls when Dipper does not start laughing with him.

“Right, I can imagine,” Dipper flashes him a fake smile to spare Stan’s feelings, and stands to his feet. “Anything else, while I’m already out of the room?”

“Medicine, if you’ve got any” Stan groans. “I’ve had a killer headache for the past hour. Feels like I’ve been shot to the head” he dramatically brings his wrist to his forehead, and Dipper tries his hardest to choke down the sob that builds in his throat at his choice of phrasing. Turns out it didn’t matter either way, because when he notices the horrible burn marks all over his wrist and hand the sound escapes him anyway.

“Oh my gosh, Stan, your wrist!” Dipper cries, collapsing to his knees at the sight. He reaches for Stan’s wrist, pauses for a moment, but decides it’d probably be better to leave them alone. “No wonder you have a headache! Anyone else would’ve passed out from that kind of burn ten minutes ago!”

“My wrist?” Stan stares at him blankly for a moment, before pulling his wrist from his forehead to look at it. “Huh,” he says nonchalantly. “Guess I was too busy being interrogated by the guy in the red turtleneck to notice”

Dipper stands to leave, and pauses in the doorway. “I’ll be right back, okay? Don’t move”

Stan huffs. “I don’t have that many options as far as places to go, kid”

“Right, right…” Dipper murmurs, and pats the doorframe as he rounds the corner. As he walks towards the kitchen, he nearly collides with Mabel slinking her way out of Stan’s bedroom.

“How is he?” she asks, folding her hands together.

Dipper scrubs a hand down his face. “Just as bad as Grunkle Ford said. How’s Grunkle Ford doing? I thought he didn’t want to be alone”

“Oh, he doesn’t! I just wanted to get him an extra blanket and Waddles to keep him extra company”

Dipper smirks. “I don’t know how comfortable he’d be with a pig crawling into bed with him”

Mabel gasps. “Waddles is a gentleman! Don’t knock cuddling him to sleep ‘til you try it. Besides, if Waddles already loves Stan, I’m sure it’s only inevitable that he’ll love Ford, too!”

“Yeah, well good luck convincing Ford of that”

“Will do!” she grins, and bounces off in the opposite direction.

Dipper rolls his eyes affectionately, and makes his way towards the bathroom to grab the burn cream and ace bandages. Dipper knew that Bill’s hand always became engulfed with blue flames each time he shook hands with somebody to make a deal, but he never knew those flames could ever cause any real harm to those who shook his hand. Even when he shook Bill’s hand the morning of Mabel’s puppet show, the flames to him felt ice cold, as if he were coming into contact with a ghost.

Though, Dipper recalls with a shudder, that very well could’ve just as easily been the feeling of his own soul being ripped from his body.

He shakes that thought off by slamming the medicine cupboard shut. No, that’s not important right now. He’s got plenty of time to have an existential crisis about that later. He pockets the medicine and bandages and slams the bathroom door shut on his way out for extra measures.

“Took you long enough,” Stan smirks when he comes back into the room. “Was starting to think that you fell asleep on me too”

Dipper hums in acknowledgement, and takes a knee again. He pops open the cover of the burn cream, and wordlessly offers out his hand to Stan. Stan frowns, but complies and places his hand on top of Dipper’s. For a few moments the two of them sit in silence as Dipper covers the worst of Stan’s burn in cream, until Stan suddenly clears his throat.

“Hey…” he pauses for a brief moment. “…Dipper, thanks for uh, helping me out. Don’t mean to come across as aggressive. I make jokes when I’m uncomfortable.”

Dipper’s about to brush the comment off with a quick “It’s fine, I get it,”, but his heart nearly stops in his chest when he fully processes what Stan just said.

“What did you just call me?” he asks, and can’t seem to keep the shake out of his voice.

“Dipper?” Stan shrugs, and taps at his own forehead. “Y’got a mark on your forehead that looks like the big dipper, I figured that’s an easier nickname to remember then just calling you kid”

“…Oh” Dipper’s half-smile slips off his face, and Stan’s expression falls as well.

“What, do kids at school bully you with that nickname? There something else you want me to call you instead?”

“No!” Dipper nearly shouts, and his cheeks tint pink as he clears his throat to correct himself. “I mean no, Dipper’s fine”.  He clicks the container of the burn cream shut, and places it down on the ground beside him as he begins wrapping Stan’s wrist with the bandage. “Kids at school tend to call me everything but Dipper. I’m just lucky my sister is less afraid of getting detention for punching a kid in the face then I am”

“Hah!” Stan barks, slapping the armrest of the couch with his uninjured hand. “That reminds me of a story from when I was a kid. Y’see-” he starts, but as soon as he shifts his position to get more comfortable he’s overcome with a sudden violent coughing fit. He curls in on himself, and Dipper doesn’t miss the way he’s tightly gripping at his chest.

…What was that advice Stan had given him about rib injuries earlier this summer? Dipper scratches at his head, looking around the room for some sort of reminder, and his eyes fall on a couch cushion that’s been kicked to the ground.

That’s right.

“Here,” Dipper hands him the cushion. “Someone told me that holding these to your chest while you cough will make it hurt less,” he says, and gestures with a thumb towards the kitchen. “I’ll go see if the fridge is still working so I can bring you an ice pack”

Stan raises an eyebrow, but takes the cushion from Dipper and places it against his chest. “What, you some kind of doctor in training or somethin’?”

“No,” Dipper shrugs as he backs out of the door. “Just learned from a pretty great caretaker, is all”

As Dipper rounds the corner towards the kitchen, he notices the door to Stan’s bedroom is cracked open. He peeks his head inside, and sure enough, Waddles is curled up on the bed, fast asleep underneath Ford’s arm. Mabel is sitting in a chair that she pulled up beside them, her eyes interchangeably fluttering open and closed.

He knocks lightly on the doorframe so as not to wake Ford. “Pssst, Mabel!”

She jumps, rubbing at her eyes. “Dipper? Is it time to swap shifts already?”

“Not yet,” he shakes his head. “But I need to talk to you.”

“Oh,” she hops off of her chair, and closes the door gently behind her as she follows Dipper into the hallway. “Okay, but make it quick before Waddles senses I’m missing and wakes Grunkle Ford”  

“That’s just the thing,” Dipper whispers. “It’s about Grunkle Stan”

“What?” she whisper-shouts. “What happened to him? Is he okay?”

Dipper raises his hands in the air defensively. “Nothing! Nothing happened to him, he’s fine” he rubs at the back of his neck. “Better then fine, actually.  I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but I think he’s starting to get his memory back”

Mabel’s eyes go huge. “Really?” she nearly shouts, before slamming her hand over her mouth. She grabs Dipper’s hand and drags him into the kitchen. “Really?” she asks again, quieter this time. “That’s great! What makes you say that?”

“Well I can’t say for sure,” Dipper opens the freezer door and feels around for a bag of frozen peas. “But…he just called me Dipper” he tosses a half-empty bag back and forth in his hands to judge its temperature. “And I think he was going to tell me a story about Grunkle Ford just before I left the room”

“That’s great!” Mabel grins. “How’d you get it out of him? I thought Grunkle Ford said he’d tried everything!”

“He did,” Dipper takes a seat at the table. “That’s why I don’t want to get my hopes up. All I did was just…let him talk” he sighs. “I want to be just as excited about this as you, but…I don’t want it to turn out to just be one big coincidence”

Mabel takes a seat at the table beside him. “There must be something we’re missing. What did Grunkle Ford say he already tried?”

“He showed him every page of their high school yearbook, Mabel, I’m not sure we can get any more direct then that”

“Hmmm…” Mabel taps at her chin, taking a glance around the room as if the answer’s going to be right in the room with them. A minute passes before she stops, and turns to Dipper in the arm. “That’s it! Dipper, I’ve figured it out!”

“You have?”

“Yeah!” She beams. “Dipper, don’t you see? The reason nothing worked with Grunkle Ford is because it was too much! Reading him an entire yearbook? Bringing him downstairs to the lab and rambling on about an interdimensional portal? It’s no wonder Stan hasn’t been able to pay attention! He needs to figure these things out one at a time, not all at once!”

Dipper gasps. “That’s why he kept complaining about having a headache! He was processing too much information in one go! Mabel, you’re a genius!”

“Pssh,” Mabel waves a hand in the air. “I know”

Dipper hops down from the chair and walks to open the pantry door. He pushes aside what’s left of the canned meat and the boxes of pasta, and grins when he finds what he’s looking for. “Aha!” he beams, pulling an unopened bag of toffee peanuts and a can of Pitt Cola out of the pantry. “Thanks Mabel!” he shouts, and grabs the bag of frozen peas off of the table as he sprints back to Ford’s study room.

~~

“Hey,” Dipper says as he pushes his way back into Ford’s study room. “Sorry that took so long, I was trying to multitask and get you some food, but this is all we could find”. Dipper drops the bag of peas onto the couch carelessly, and offers the bag of toffee peanuts and the can of soda directly to Stan.

Stan’s eyes go wide at the sight, and he snatches the bag out of Dipper’s hand, ravenously tearing it open. “You kiddin’?” he shovels a handful of toffee peanuts into his mouth. “I’d kill for these things. Haven’t had ‘em since…” he pauses, the bag dropping carelessly to his lap. He scratches at his head, his face scrunching up in a blend of concentration and confusion, before he sits back against the backrest of the couch. “…Since I was a kid, at least”

“Yeah?” Dipper sits on the couch beside Stan, handing him his makeshift ice pack. “What was that like?”

Stan snorts. “What, the last time I had toffee peanuts? Surprised I remember them at all, since Pa always said no when I asked for ‘em. How am I supposed to remember how I felt when I always had to sneak my allowance out of the house to buy ‘em at all?”

It’s working.

Dipper laughs, shaking his head. “I meant your childhood, but if you want to go into the minute details, then be my guest” He shifts in his seat to turn towards Stan. “What about the story you were about to tell me before I left the room?”

Stan grins, and he shifts in his chair too, careful to keep his ice pack in its place. “Well, I took a lotta boxing classes as a kid, y’see? Pa thought it would be good if I learned to defend myself, ‘cause he was sick of seein’ me come home with black eye after black eye. But what Pa doesn’t know is that the reason I was comin’ home with them at all is because I was already defending myself plenty.” He puffs out his chest as best he can. “All those classes were doing was teaching me how to throw even harder punches at those bullies. But wouldn’t ya know it? I didn’t tell a soul at school I was takin’ those classes at all. So one day when I was about eleven years old, Crampelter and his gang were harassing my brother, so I-”

The cocky grin on Stan’s face falls off of his face and shatters to the ground in thousands of broken pieces. His face goes through about a dozen different expressions in a number of seconds, and his eyes are darting around the room like he’s looking desperately for something that isn’t there.

“My-my brother, he-” Stan stutters, tightly gripping at the cushions of the couch. “Years later, he sent me this…this postcard, and I-” he holds his hands out in front of him like he’s holding the ghost of it in his hands, and violently shakes his head. He turns his gaze towards Dipper again, and his chest is rising and falling rapidly like he’s in the midst of a panic attack. He holds out his hands, and they’re trembling.  “Wh-what’s happening to me?”

“Woah, woah, Stan, you’re okay! Everything’s okay” Dipper grips his shaking hands. “Just…keep going. Keep telling me about your brother”

Stan sighs. “He’s more than just my brother, kid. He’s my twin brother. He sent me this postcard telling me to get to his place as urgently as possible, but then there was this big fight, and…” his voice drifts off. “It’s all my fault,” he whispers urgently, dropping his head in his hands.

Dipper frowns, unsure what to do. He knows he can’t just wake up Ford and bring him in the room, because that’s just going to cause Stan to panic even more. He’ll think he’s dreaming, or that Ford is some kind of guilt-induced hallucination.  The most he can do is get Stan to keep talking, because if he keeps talking and keeps remembering it’s only inevitable that he’ll remember Ford is okay too.

Dipper scooches closer to Stan on the couch, and gently places a hand on Stan’s leg, wordlessly encouraging him to continue. Stan flinches at the gentle gesture, but messily scrubs at his face with his wrist as he clears his throat. “He got sucked into this…portal…thingy. I tried for hours to turn it back on, but nothing budged.” He shakes his head. “So I had to resort to the only option I had left. He’s a scientist, y’see? And he kept all his research in a series of journals. I figured he had to have the blue prints for the portal somewhere in those things.  So I searched, and I searched, and I put the thing back together with what I had, but…” he trails off. “I haven’t seen him since”

“Well…” Dipper starts, trying to encourage him to keep remembering. “What’ve you been doing since? You can’t just be spending every day trying to get it to work, right?”

Stan raises an eyebrow. “Whaddya take me for, some kind of hermit? I still gotta earn money to feed myself somehow, and if my time living in…” he pauses. “Uh, acting…college. Yeah. If I’ve learned anything from acting school, it’s how to con suckers out of their money. So I turned my brother’s house into a tourist trap to scam the suckers who live here into paying my bills for me.”

He shakes his head, and a warm smile overtakes his face. “It was gettin’ real monotonous, lemme tell ‘ya. Then wouldn’t you know it? Just as I was starting to give up hope, I get a phone call from a hospital in California telling me to get down there as soon as I could. Figured I had nothing left to lose, so I closed down shop for a few days and made the eight hour drive to California myself.”

Stan’s tearing up again. “And wouldn’t you know it? My niece-in law had twins. A boy and a girl” he nudges Dipper. “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say they’re about your age, kid. Wonder if you’d get along with them. Now, they named the boy Mason, but they didn’t call him that when they were talking to family. They wanted to distinguish him from his sister, y’see, and he had a real funny looking birthmark on his forehead, so they called him-”

And all at once, he’s going through the same motions he had when he’d first mentioned Ford’s name. His expression is changing, and twisting, and his eyes are darting around the room until they land on Dipper. He opens his mouth to say something, closes it, and opens it again. He sits there for what feels like minutes, looking like a fish out water.

But then the fog clears from Stan’s eyes, and Dipper is suddenly crushed in such a tight hug that he can’t breathe.

“Dipper!” Stan shouts. “You crazy, stubborn maniac, you’re okay!” He barks loudly in laughter, and squeezes Dipper even tighter. “I can’t believe it! I’d thought I lost you for good! There was blue fire everywhere, and then a flash of bright white, and-”

He jumps to his feet, knocking the toffee peanuts and the ice pack for his chest to the floor. “Mabel!!  Mabel was there, in-in this forest clearing, asking if I was okay, and-” he freezes. He turns back towards Dipper, and takes a knee. “and Ford! Where’s Ford?”

Dipper laughs. “Fast asleep, if you’re willing to believe,” he says, and before Stan can stand to his feet or do anything else spontaneous, he throws his arms around Stan’s neck, clinging to him tightly.

“Heh,” Stan laughs, and brings his arms around Dipper to return the hug. “I missed you too, kiddo,” he whispers, and pulls away to ruffle up Dipper’s hair. “Feels good to know you’ve been taking care while I was gone”

Dipper doesn’t respond to that, just chuckles wetly before throwing his arms around Stan once more.

[fabulouspotatosister]

Reset - Part Five: Back to Normal

a/n:  Finally, we're here at the end of this fic! It's been super fun getting to revisit this fic and my love for Eleven, and writing this has been super fun too! Thanks so much everyone for enjoying this fic, and I hope you enjoy the final part!  Credit to @kisstherainwriting​ for "Forbidden Orbits", the Doctor's favorite romance novel. Used to be his favorite romance novel. Haha. Again, enjoy!

word count: 4,415

[Part One] [Part Two] [Part Three] [Part Four] [Part Five: You are here!!]

gif credit: @mcgonagalle​

"I promised you a beach trip, didn't I?"

 You squint at the metallic panel in front of you as saltwater sprays your face. It's set into the sand, its metal surface pristine and shiny despite all the water that must be covering it on a daily basis.

 The Doctor laughs and peers down at the panel. "Welcome to Helnypso! I do hope this place isn't abandoned."

 At the sound of his voice, the panel flickers to life with a display that reads Helnypso Resorts: Have a Whole Planet to Yourself.

 "Welcome to Helnypso," a tinny voice says. "Identification, please?"

 You raise your eyebrows and turn to face the Doctor. "I don't think we ever made a reservation."

 "No, we didn't," The Doctor says. He fishes his sonic screwdriver and psychic paper out of his coat - he presses the psychic paper against the panel with one hand while he points the sonic screwdriver with the other. He grins at you with his "oh-I'm-so-impressive" face the whole time. "I think you'll find our credentials are all up to code. The Doctor and his companion."

 Companion. You just smile back at him and hope that he doesn't notice your eyes. "That's me!"

 There's a slight pause, then a mechanical whirr as the panel processes your information - then the panel speaks again. "Sir, I beg to differ."

 The Doctor pauses and frowns. "Excuse me?"

 The voice from the panel makes a strangled noise, then something like a cough. "You say she's your companion, but here it says that she's… she's your wife."

 A heavy silence falls. All you hear is the sound of the waves crashing against the endless beach and your heartbeat beating loud and steady in your chest. You can't deny the shiver that goes up your spine at the word wife, and you can't tell whether it's a good shiver or a bad one.

 And the Doctor - his hair blowing in the breeze, his face a little damp from the spray of the ocean, is as unreadable as ever.

 "Well," the Doctor starts, glancing at you, "sorry. That's on me. Yes, she's my wife."

 He pockets the psychic paper before you can snatch it out of his hands and ask him about it.

 ---

 "Unpaid bills!" The Doctor laughs as he stumbles into the console room. "I'll admit, that's a first for me."

 You cough and run a hand through your hair, shaking the sand out - it falls onto the floor and starts making a small pile at your feet. "Why did you even agree on the Sweethearts Package if we weren't gonna pay for it?"

 The Doctor straightens and pats the front of his coat. Grains of sand flutter to the floor. "I can never resist a good discount."

 You shake your head and sigh, but you're smiling. "We can't go back there again."

 "Yes, they'd arrest us and I hear the death penalty is very popular in that system." The Doctor grimaces, claps his hands together, and bounds towards the console, already fiddling with the countless levers and buttons. His smile widens as the TARDIS sets off, the ship shaking slightly as it takes off of the planet. "Ah, it doesn't matter. There are better hotel planets. We could try Henestea, or Alreneth - absolutely beautiful places -  Henestea has treehouses, love a good treehouse -"

 Are we going back to normal now?

 You find the answer to that question watching the Doctor ramble on about different resort planets - to him, it seems to be a resounding yes. His voice fades into the background and you feel something looming above you, something heavy and crushing that you're not sure you can deal with right now. Not when the Doctor looks so happy.

 It's been non-stop since you escaped the Director - Helnypso was just the third stop in what you felt like was a long list of distractions. Time is arbitrary on a time machine, but you know it's been a while since then - a long while of running away. When the Doctor looks up at you, you plaster a smile on your face.

 "Uh, Doctor, I was thinking -" You clasp your hands together, resting them right where your traitorous heart is, and you smile because if you're smiling, he's not going to notice anything wrong. "You could pick where to go this time."

 "Well, you're a bundle of joy." He pouts. "It never turns out well when I pick."

 "Yeah - I don't think it matters, though," you say, trying to keep your voice steady. "You know, something always happens, and all that."

 The Doctor sighs, and nods his head towards a set of switches - you reach over and flick them up in rapid succession. The TARDIS stops shaking and stabilizes, probably drifting in space. "I suppose there is.”

 Whatever was hanging above has fallen - a heavy blanket of tension, a tension you haven't talked about properly for days since you escaped. The TARDIS has never felt so cold - or is it just you? The Doctor looks just fine. But you can never really tell with the Doctor.

 "I'll, uh -" Your voice cuts through the silence. "Get all this sand out, and then - maybe get some rest, while you decide."

 It comes through more like a question. The Doctor nods, and the light of the TARDIS shifts, suddenly a little bit darker. He moves to a different spot on the console, turning away from you. "Right. You humans and your sleep. Go ahead."

 The first step away from him feels like denial. The second step sparks a bit of anger in your heart, but by the third step you've pointed the anger away from him and right at yourself.

 "Okay," you manage, your voice small, and you think you see him take a deep breath in, and hold it. "I'll be back."

 Not soon, you think as you walk out of the console room. You don't look back. You don't see that the Doctor does.

 You're still angry, practically fuming, by the time you've carried yourself into the TARDIS hallways. The lines between anger, guilt, and embarrassment have all blurred and are now mixing in you like the world's messiest cocktail - what were you thinking, believing that one strange adventure would change anything between you?

 It isn't until the fifth minute of walking that you realize you haven't found a door yet. The TARDIS hallways are massive and endless, always leading to different places, never predictable. It made going from one room to another fun, usually - but you had been walking for five minutes, doing nothing but wallowing in your own feelings.

 "Look, I just want to sleep, okay?" you call out. The TARDIS had a mind of her own, and she could be quite snappy if she wanted to. "Can you please put my room a little bit closer?"

 Your voice echoes throughout the hallway - the only response you get is the faint humming of the TARDIS. You sigh and squeeze your eyes shut.

 "What, are you mad at me?" You walk a little bit further, wrapping your arms around yourself. The TARDIS still feels cold, and you're still in clothes ready for a beach planet. "Look, I haven't upset the Doctor, if that's what you're worried about."

 Or had you? Again, you could never really tell with the Doctor - sure, he had his moments, moments of happiness, anger, and sadness, but within the confines of the TARDIS you rarely saw those things at all. He was always somewhere else, fiddling with the console, keeping himself busy.

 Maybe you had upset him and he just wasn't saying anything about it. But the Doctor would let you know if he was cross with you, he always had. If he really was upset, what made this time any different from the others?

 You groan inwardly.

 Lost in your thoughts, you don't notice that the hallway has shortened in front of you. You stop and look up - in front of you is a set of big wooden doors. They look worn with age and behind them you can hear the sound of a fireplace crackling.

 "Where have you led me now?" you ask. The TARDIS still doesn't respond, but you feel a little better - curiosity is a better feeling than anger. You press your hands against the wood and trace its surface.

 You're not prepared for what you see when you gently push open the doors. You see books, shelves and shelves of books that seem to go on for miles. Tables piled high with books and papers, some empty and some full of scribbles written in alphabets that you don't recognize. Your gaze keeps travelling upwards, and the bookshelves just keep on going higher, staircases and ladders spiraling higher and higher into the air.

 So this was it then - the legendary TARDIS library. A whoosh of breath escapes you. You'd only heard of it in passing, and now that you were finally here it felt like stepping into the TARDIS for the first time. I hope you're not too jealous about that, you think, hoping the TARDIS can hear you.

 The room's warm, and it smells amazing. You wander through the room, tracing the spines of books and marveling at just how many there are - the books are in different shapes and sizes, some of them thicker than three pillows stacked together and some of them as thin as a single sheet of paper.

 The lights get dimmer and dimmer as you continue to walk. You feel like you're being drawn to something - when you stop at a random shelf to look at the titles something tells you to keep walking, and so you do.

 The shelves open up into what can only be described as a "reading spot". There are a few desks strewn around, but at the front of the space is a crackling fireplace, surrounded by several comfy-looking chairs.

 The whole place feels closed off, separate from the rest of the library. You walk up to the bookshelves, finding them covered in a thin layer of dust. Whatever this part of the library is, the Doctor hasn't been here in years. Your curiosity only builds, and you pick out a random book.

 One glance at the cover is enough to make you snort. It's one of those cringey romance novels, with the shirtless buff men and fainting ladies painted on the covers. "Forbidden Orbits", it reads on the front, in the same gilded font that these kinds of novels always seem to use.

 The book opens with much resistance - it hasn't been opened in a while, and its pages are yellowed, and you can spot dog-ear folds every few pages. You raise your eyebrows, though, by the end of the book - its last page is still there, miraculously intact.

 It dates the book to a time before the Doctor ripped out the final pages of books, and as far as you knew, he had always been doing that. The Doctor didn't seem like the type to read fluffy romance novels, but perhaps another Doctor had been.

 You skim through the rest of the books close to it and they all seem to be in the same category. You stifle another laugh with your hand.

 You carry the book with you and settle yourself into one of the comfy chairs. It almost swallows you - you sink right into the plush thing, and you choke out a laugh. But you're comfortable, so you flip the book back to its very first page and start reading.

 You don't mean to start falling asleep. You really don't. But the warmth of the fireplace, the faint hum of the TARDIS, and how incredibly comfy this chair combined is enough to make your eyelids grow heavy. You slip into a dreamless sleep, "Forbidden Orbits" still open in your lap.

 ---

 The TARDIS puts the library a little closer for the Doctor.

 He's not good at waiting. He's never been good at waiting. In fact, if there was a list of things he wasn't good at, waiting would be at the very top. And when he waits, the Doctor notices things. So the Doctor notices that you've been gone for a little too long, and he starts to worry.

 Now that, he's good at. Worrying about you, especially. He practically runs out of the console room and the first door he sees are the doors of the TARDIS library. The doors open for him without even a creak, and when the Doctor steps in he notices a little sound.

 He follows the sound, and when the lights start to get dimmer and the ceiling starts to get lower he starts to worry again, but for an entirely different reason. He's told the TARDIS to put that old wing of the library far away - old shame, he calls it, stuff that he'd never admit he enjoyed at the time - and if you've found it, he's in for a full day of teasing that he can't handle.

 He peeks from behind a shelf and a weight lifts off his hearts - the sound is just the sound of your soft breaths, and you're fast asleep.

 The Doctor's never walked this quietly before. He walks up to your sleeping form, sprawled out on a chair, and he feels an unexplainable fondness fill his hearts. He reaches out, gingerly, and brushes your hair away from your face. His hand catches on your temple, where you've haphazardly placed a bandage over the wound left by the simulation, and he frowns. Did he never get a good look at that?

 The Doctor's gaze travels down, to your lap, and his face burns. "Forbidden Orbits" lays open in your lap, on the twentieth page. He snatches it up and throws it back into the bookshelf, where it belongs.

 ---

 "Hey..."

 You groan and squeeze your eyes shut, clumsy fingers grabbing at whatever's trying to disturb your precious sleep. The crackling of the fireplace has died down, and you shift in your seat. Your brain is protesting, but your mouth hasn't quite caught up yet, so all you can do is mumble disjointedly and hope that your message is clear: "Please don't wake me up yet."

 You were having such a nice dream too - the events of the dream are hazy now, and when you try to grab at them they blow away into nothingness. But the dream's left a warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart.

 You hear an amused huff, and feel a hand cup your cheek. You melt into the touch, a satisfied noise finding its way out of your mouth, and you smile. "Good dreams?"

 You hum in reply. There's another amused huff, and a thumb starts to gently rub your cheek. "You need to wake up now, I've got to take a look at you."

 "Don't wanna," you mumble, still trying to hold on to that warm and fuzzy feeling. You're still so comfortable, nestled in the soft fabric of your chair, and you really never want to leave. "Comfy. Tired."

 "I know." The hand on your cheek disappears, and the skin of your face feels cold. "That's my fault, a little bit. But come on, I gotta move you. It's easier if you're awake."

 You open your eyes and peek up through your eyelashes - your vision clears, and you see the Doctor kneeling in front of you.

 He smiles at you, gently, and it's brilliant. He looks a little flustered, his hair messy like he's been running his hands through it, but he's never looked better. You smile dopily at him, still a little bit sleep-addled, and he laughs softly. "Hey, sleepyhead," he says, and all you can think is that you could never get tired of looking at him.

 "Hey," you mumble, pushing yourself upright with your elbows. "Sorry. It's just so comfy here, I just drifted off..."

 "I don't blame you." The Doctor looks around, his smile growing wider. "It's a wonderful place to take a nap in."

 Your hands fall into your lap, and it's - empty… You raise an eyebrow. "Hang on, where's the book I was reading...? What was the title again? Forbidden -"

 You look up at the Doctor and he sputters, flushing a bright red. He hushes you before you can get the whole title out, raising his hands to cover your mouth - you catch his hands in yours, laughing.

 "You weren't meant to see that," he stutters, "or this entire wing. I thought I told the TARDIS to seal this up - did she put you up to this? Maybe I can find a way to jettison this entire area off the ship -"

 "It's fine," you say, still laughing. The Doctor doesn't look calmed by that, his eyes still wide and frantic. It's fun seeing the Doctor all ruffled. "Your secret is safe with me."

 "And it should stay that way," the Doctor huffs. He pries his hands out of yours, sticking them in his coat. Then, a little louder, "Anyway, I said I was going to take a look at you, so here I am."

 "Why?"

 The Doctor raises his eyebrows and nods at you, pulling out a bottle of liquid and a patch of cloth. "Your temple's still hurt."

 Your reach up and touch the plaster - you'd thrown it on just before the Doctor dragged you to Helnypso - and you wince.

 "Trust me," the Doctor says, uncapping the bottle and pouring it onto the cloth, "I'm a doctor."

 "Thought you were the Doctor," you say, and the Doctor laughs.

 "I am!" He puts the cap back on the bottle and stuffs it back into his coat. His coat has to be bigger on the inside too. "I've got the title, I should put it to good use. I'll take off the plaster now, alright?"

 It doesn't feel right under there, and dread settles into the bottom of your stomach at the thought of taking it off. The Doctor reaches over and pats your knee, giving you another patient smile.

 "You'll be fine," he says, "won't hurt a bit."

 Carefully, he reaches over and peels the plaster off - it stings, but not enough to really hurt. When the whole thing comes off, the Doctor makes a face at it and sets it to the side, hopefully to be thrown away later.

 "Right, turn your face to the side for me, please?"

 You follow, and the Doctor reaches out with the wet cloth. It smells a lot like alcohol, and alcohol on a wound means a lot of pain - you shrink back a little. "What is it?"

 "Oh, this?" The Doctor pulls back and brings the cloth to his nose, cringing at the smell. "Just a disinfectant. It should clean your wound up nicely, get rid of anything that might be hiding in there. Don't worry."

 You try not to worry as the Doctor reaches out again and presses the cloth onto your temple. It feels like ice against your skin, but there isn't any pain. You let yourself relax, your shoulders dropping, and you let out the breath you didn't know you were holding.

 "Did I mention it's got nanobots in it?" the Doctor says nonchalantly, still pressing the cloth against your temple. As he says that, your wound starts to tingle, like little sparks of static electricity. "Little robots stitching your skin up for you. Like a mini-construction team, except for your body. I got it as a gift from some interstellar nurses, I never did give them anything back..."

 The Doctor peels the cloth off of your temple and sticks his hand in his coat again, this time pulling out a thin bandage. He presses it against your skin, and you feel it harden and grow taut, almost pulling at your skin.

 "And an Instant Bandage. From the same nurses, too. Revolutionary, the lot of them." The Doctor leans away, clapping his hands together. He's got his "oh-I'm-so-impressive" face on again, and you have to admit - you are impressed. "Well?"

 "Well," you echo. You can't really find any words, and the Doctor takes it as a compliment. "Thanks."

 "Oh, it's nothing." The Doctor smooths the bandage out. His hand lingers on your skin for just a second before he pulls away, dropping his hands to his sides. "I'm just looking out for you."

 "Still - thank you," you say, and you don't miss the way the Doctor's eyes crinkle in a tiny smile. "Really."

 "Yeah," the Doctor says quietly, and you settle into another silence, this one more comfortable than the last. There's still a tension in the air, but it isn't so thick anymore, driven away by the coziness of the fireplace. You can feel the Doctor's eyes on you, even when you glance away.

 The Doctor's voice breaks the silence, soft but sudden. "You're very loud."

 "What's that supposed to mean?"

 The Doctor startles, his eyes widening. "Sorry, sorry - it's just -" he stammers, blinking quickly, "-your thoughts, they're very loud sometimes."

 You can't stop the flicker of panic that jump-starts your heart into overdrive. "You - could hear what I was thinking?"

 "I swear, I didn't mean to!" the Doctor says quickly, holding up his hands, "I promised I wasn't going to go looking where I wasn't supposed to. I did. And for that I am so sorry."

 Curiosity overwhelms your fear for a second - "What did you hear?" you ask, before you can stop yourself.

 The Doctor stares at you, big green eyes still wide with apprehension. His mouth sets into a hard line. "Something about going back to normal," he says, his voice low.

 I didn't even know I was still thinking about that. You frown, your chest growing heavy with the weight of - what is it? Guilt? Sadness? Embarrassment? All three? Your heart's still a mess, and the Doctor's stuck himself in there and mixed everything up.

 "Yeah," you say, pursing your lips in an awkward smile. "I was thinking about that. It's nothing."

 "It can't be nothing," The Doctor insists. He's closer to you now, resting his hands on the arms of the chair. "I -" His voice breaks off, and he looks up, almost frustrated. "I care about you, and so whatever you're feeling can't be nothing."

 Now, the caring bit isn't a surprise. The Doctor has always cared for you, even when it had only been hours since you'd met. What's surprising is the conviction in his voice, the way he says it like a promise, and how much it sounds like -

 The Doctor raises his hand to brush his thumb against your temple, his touch trailing down until his hand cups your cheek. "All of that," he says, "everything that happened. I could take it away, and we'd be back to normal. If that's what you want."

 A reset. "No," you blurt out, meeting the Doctor's eyes. "No, that's not what I want."

 "What do you want, then?" the Doctor asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

 Behind him, the fireplace roars, and so does something in your heart. "Don't you know?"

 Something flickers across the Doctor's face - a shadow, an emotion you can't catch. “Don’t lie.”

 “I'm not lying," you say. You stare at him, lifting your own hands to wrap around his wrist. "And if I was, you'd know."

 You're trembling as your fingers curl around his wrist, your heart beating at a million miles per hour, loud enough to have it thumping in your ears. Slowly, you drag the Doctor's hand down until it reaches your mouth, and then - an echo - you squeeze your eyes shut and press your lips to the inside of his palm.

 "I meant what I said," you whisper against his skin, "on the ship. I wasn't lying."

 "You weren't," the Doctor says. His voice shakes a little.

 You open your eyes to look at him, and you counter his watery gaze with your own. The Doctor blinks, gently pulling his hand out of your grasp only to wipe away a tear. "Don't cry," he says.

 "M'not crying," you sniffle, managing a smile. "Sorry."

 "No, none of that," the Doctor chides. He leans forward, pressing a kiss to your forehead - then, lower, pressing a kiss to your cheek, right underneath your eye, like trying to wipe away tears. The Doctor's lips brush against the corner of your mouth and you shudder.

 "None of that," he says again, his breath warm against your face. He peers at you, raising his eyebrows in a silent question.

 You nod slowly - you've never been so sure about anything in your life, not since the day you decided to run away and join the Doctor among the stars - and the Doctor leans in and captures your lips with his.

 It feels real and is real this time, and you savor every second of it. The Doctor cups his face in your hands as he kisses you, drawing you even closer to him, and drowning is nothing compared to this, you think. He breaks the kiss for a second, making a wordless noise of satisfaction, and when he kisses you again you can feel him smiling.

 You're both breathless when you pull away. The Doctor's grinning widely, still holding your face in his hands.

 "My hearts," he murmurs, "both of them yours."

 "Well, my one heart pales in comparison to your two, doesn't it?" you ask, and the Doctor laughs again. "Don't worry. It's still yours."

 The Doctor hums in reply. Then, softly, like a promise: "I love you."

 You feel your heart swell, and when you breathe out you feel like a weight's been lifted from your shoulders. This, this is what you wanted all along - you let a smile spread across your face. It isn't a dream anymore, or an act. "I love you too. But you know that, don't you?"

 He laughs and presses his forehead against yours. "Can I kiss you again?"

 You wrap your hands around his suspenders and tug him closer – you never have to pretend again. "You never have to ask."

    “You know, I do think Mrs. Doctor does have a nice ring to it.”

 “Doctor!”

Taglist: @starlingelliot​, @hufflepuff-always-and-forever​, @littlemissslytherinprincess​, @just-a-nat​

[allsassnoclass]

“Every day you wake up and make it my problem” Luke to Ashton

alrighty a theatre au for the only person in the theatre department who can handle me <3

Opening night brings a palpable excitement in the air, a nervous energy that can only naturally be produced at this point in the production process.  The scenes have been blocked, the lines memorized, the sets built, the costumes sewn, and every piece of design meticulously brought together to create something ready for sharing.  As Luke hangs up the laundered costume pieces and ensures that the dressing rooms are prepared for the night, he can already feel the excitement amongst the crew milling about.  It will only be compounded once the actors arrive for the night.

Luke has his sewing kit, numerous pins, extra hairspray, and a bite light.  There aren't many quick changes in Hamlet, and all of them have been easily doable in dress rehearsals.  He's ready.

When he wanders out to backstage, Calum and Michael seem to be ready, too.  Calum is sitting on the acting block Michael has commandeered as his seat since tech, scrolling through his phone while Michael goes through his pre-show duties on the other side of the stage.

"Ready for tonight?" Luke asks, making Calum jump.

"Yeah.  Is the laundry up?"

"Costumes are all clean and accounted for," Luke says.  "If you want an empty dressing room, now is your time."

He stands and stretches, wandering over to the dressing rooms.  Luke takes his spot and watches Michael  continue to double-check props on the other side of the stage.  Once satisfied, he heads back over, stopping short when he sees Luke.

"You're not my boyfriend," Michael says.

"He went to go get ready before the rush," Luke says.  "Ready for tonight?"

"Very," Michael says.  "No one has broken anything yet, which is a bit worrying, but I'm fucking ready to open."

"No one's broken any props or sets, you mean.  I've had to resew numerous buttons and seams.  Ashton can barely keep his clothes on."

"I bet you like that," Michael says, waggling his eyebrows.  Luke flips him off, too used to Michael's teasing to be truly bothered.  Ever since he first saw their lead actor and tripped over his own feet he hasn't known peace.

In his defense, Ashton is very beautiful.  It is not Luke's fault that he got flustered during their first interaction.  At least he was only writing down measurements instead of having to take them, because being that close to him without time to mentally prepare would have been embarrassing for everyone.  (If he still has to take a few breaths when helping Ashton get on his more intricate costumes, that's his business, especially because being under the stage lights only enhances all of Ashton's best features.)

"Ashton gets to make out with your boyfriend every night.  Stop laughing," he says flatly.

"Yeah, and it's fucking hot," Michael says, nudging Luke out of his seat.

Luke rolls his eyes.  Reducing the relationship between Hamlet and Horatio to a "fucking hot" make out scene is a disservice to all of the painstaking work that Ashton, Calum, and the director have done to seamlessly incorporate it into the story without alienating or reducing Ophelia, but Michael isn't exactly wrong.

Ashton seems like a good kisser.  Luke wants to know what it'd be like to be on the receiving end of that when there's no acting involved.

Luke kills time with Michael until he has to go on headset, signaling that it's late enough that Luke should probably check on the actors.  Gertrude's zipper on her dress keeps getting jammed to the point where Luke is really considering replacing it.  It works most of the time, but Luke is getting sick of having to finagle it.  He helps her get it up and makes a note to replace it before tomorrow, then he heads to men's dress, ready to camp out until someone else needs him

"Luke!" Ashton greets exuberantly as soon as he steps in the door.  He has his makeup on, just simple things to ensure he doesn't get washed out under the stage lights, but he looks stunning.  He isn't even in his main costume yet, an intricate black tunic with gold embroidery meant to blur the line between historical and contemporary like everything else in the show, but Luke wants to swoon.

"Hi."

"Thanks for fixing my buttons," he says.  "Again."

"Try not to rip them off tonight," Luke says.

"I always try," Ashton says.  Somehow, Luke still feels like he's going to be fixing a button.  Ashton doesn't restrain himself onstage.  It makes him captivating to watch, but it also means that unnecessary rips and button tears occur, sometimes in ways that Luke thinks should be impossible.  Being wardrobe head for this production has taught him many new ways to break a costume.

He helps the actors here and there with things like hair or specialty makeup, distracting himself from Ashton changing in the background and passing the time until the actors go to warm ups.  Rosencrantz has managed to misplace his socks because he hadn't zipped his laundry bag when he gave it to be washed and Gildenstern can't find one of her shoes, but otherwise there isn't much for Luke to do with this show.  He wanders out by Michael, knowing by now where he can stand to watch from offstage and when he'll have to move so he's not in the way.

When the lights go down and the warnings about flash photography and food in the theater play over the loudspeaker, Luke's heart starts thumping harder in his chest.  Michael turns on the fog machine for a bit of haze at the beginning, Bernardo and Francisco take their places onstage, and the play begins.

Even after having seen the show during the crew view and hearing it over the monitors backstage every night since, he manages to get lost in the story.  Each performer is on top of things tonight, none more so than Ashton.  From the moment he steps out on stage the charismatic actor is gone, replaced by a moody but no less magnetic Hamlet.  His grief and anger is palpable in his introductory scene, and his relief at seeing Horatio for the first time perfectly sets up their dependency in the rest of the show.  His scene with the ghost is heartbreaking, and Luke finds himself subconsciously biting his lip and leaning forward, wanting nothing more than to erase his pain.  Hamlet is enamored by Ophelia and broken by her betrayal, and every soliloquy is captivating.  No one can command a stage like Ashton Irwin.

Intermission sees Luke attending to his actual job as a dresser, helping with the laces on a few costumes and checking with all the actors to be sure there's no issues.  Ashton grabs his shoulders and blurts an excited sentence about crowd reactions, then immediately goes backstage to get "back into the Hamlet zone."  Calum watches this interaction with raised eyebrows.  When he heads backstage, Luke hopes he's not going to gossip with Michael.

The second half of the show goes just as smoothly as the first.  Michael has him take care of the actress playing Oscric when she feels a little bit faint, but once she gets more water in her she perks back up and Luke can return to watching Ashton's breakdown on stage.  The ending duel scene is more polished and realistic than they've ever done it, but it's Horatio's final moments with Hamlet that leave Luke speechless.  Something about Calum cradling Ashton in his arms while Ashton commands him to stay alive and tell his story has Luke tearing up.

He leaves during curtain call to grab the laundry bag and set himself up outside the dressing rooms, ready to take everything that needs to be washed.  It feels anticlimactic to have the first night of the show done, but Luke typically doesn't feel the same sense of accomplishment as the actors do after each individual performance.  It never truly hits him until strike, when he has to put everything away and reset the theatre and costume space to prepare for the next show.  Luke congratulates every actor that passes and waits for them all to leave so he can go home.  There's no one waiting for him in the audience tonight and he wasn't told about any after-parties, so he's looking forward to getting sleep before returning to the costume shop tomorrow to take care of the notes he has.

"Ashton's the last one in men's dress," Calum says when he hands in his own laundry.  "He asked me to send you in."

Luke had been hoping that Ashton would be able to make it an entire show without a costume mishap.  Apparently that hope had been misguided.

"It's Luke," he announces, knocking on the door.

"Come in!"

Ashton is pulling on a t-shirt, giving Luke an accidental glimpse at the dimples in his lower back.  When he turns around he looks sheepish.

"I lost a button during the duel."

Luke sighs.

"I promise I'm not deliberately being destructive," Ashton says.  "I'm not trying to make more work for you."

"Yet every day you wake up and make it my problem," Luke says.  "Can I see which button?"

Ashton brings him his dueling vest, pointing out where a simple black button had fallen.  Luke will walk by the stage to see if it's still there or Michael found it, but if not then it won't be difficult to replace.

"I'm really sorry," Ashton says, still standing close.  "I swear I won't make you fix my costume tomorrow."

"Don't make promises you can't keep," Luke says.  "You have the worst track record with costumes out of everyone I've ever worked with."

"Well, I need some excuse to keep talking to you."

Luke blinks at him.

"That was a joke.  I mean, I do love having a reason to talk to you, but it'd be shitty of me to be deliberately making your job hard."

"Oh," Luke says.  "You don't need a reason to talk to me.  You can just do it."

"There's not a lot of time for it in the middle of a show," Ashton says.  "Unless you'd want to see me outside of work sometime?  Say, for a coffee or dinner?  As a date?"

"Me?" Luke asks.  Ashton makes a show of looking around the empty dressing room.

"I don't see any other tall, attractive blond men named Luke who keep putting my clothing back together."

Luke smiles, not trying to hide his excitement.  He's a shit actor anyway, and Ashton would see right through him.

"I could do that, but only if you stop ruining your costumes every night.  Make it through tomorrow with no mishaps and we'll go on a date."

"You drive a hard bargain, Hemmings, but I'll try my best.  For you, I'd sew everything back together myself if I had to."

"Please don't," Luke says.

"You don't trust me?" Ashton pouts.

"No," Luke laughs.  "You keep destroying your costumes.  I'm not about to trust you to fix them correctly."

Ashton shrugs.  "Yeah, okay.  I'm not a good sewer, anyway."

"That's what you have me for," Luke says.  Ashton smiles, just as dazzling under the dressing room lights as it is onstage.  It takes Luke's breath away, just a little.

The dressing room door opens, bringing Luke back to Earth.  Calum pokes his head in.

"Hey Ash, your siblings want to see you.  Stop flirting with Luke and get out here."  He doesn't wait for a response, thankfully leaving them alone again for another moment.  Ashton ducks his head, scuffing his shoes against the floor.

"I shouldn't keep them waiting," he says.

"It's hard being a star," Luke replies.  It makes Ashton smile again, which is an exhilarating experience in of itself.

"We'll check in about the date tomorrow," Ashton says.  "No more costume mishaps, cross my heart."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Luke teases.  Ashton snorts.

"Have a good night, Luke.  Congrats on the show."

"You too," Luke says.  "You're really amazing up there."

"Thank goodness," Ashton says.  "It'd be a bit late to replace me otherwise."

Luke rolls his eyes with a smile.  "Get out of here, superstar.  Go see your family."

Ashton blows him a kiss and ducks into a bow with a flourish on the way out the door.  Luke stands in the middle of the dressing room, running his finger over the spot on Ashton's vest where the button is missing.  He should probably be annoyed, but he's not.  He's going on a date with Ashton at some point, and that's worth all of the lost buttons and torn costumes in the entire production.

[allie1804-fan]

The Middle of the Road (Chapter 13)

Warnings: None just romance

Chapter 1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7,  8 , 9, 10, 11 , 12 13

Eventually they got up to eat, feasting on one of Keanu’s favourite breakfasts - French toast  - and freshly brewed coffee out on the terrace  - it was nearly 11 by the time they ate so it was warm enough to sit out. Later they were planning a hike up into the woods then back down to the lake for a picnic. Emily had packed 2 of his favourite things for lunch: Heinz tomato soup and  pastrami to go in a rye bread sandwich including all the trimmings: Sauerkraut, Russian dressing, mustard and dill pickles. He loved her for being so thoughtful.

Before they left, they checked in with Chloe and John that all was well with their children which it was. That night, they would return them home where Karina and Keanu’s mom would take over the babysitting.  With their minds put at rest, Emily and Keanu set off up into the woods behind the cabin, taking a route about half-way up the mountain before looping round and back down to the lake shore. 

For the first hour or so they were largely quiet, enjoying the open air, just commenting occasionally on the plant life and vistas. Eventually, Emily suggested they start to tackle some of the issues they had put on the table the week before.

“So maybe we should start by thinking about how we handle the situation now – I mean while I’m still feeding Hannah and not working and you have stuff to do but you’re not filming. I don’t really like the idea of being regimented but it might help if we lay some markers down. It feels like because we didn’t, that’s why things slipped off the radar without us meaning them to.”

“And the children need routine I guess, so yeah that makes sense  - and it appeals to the Virgo in me!”

“yeah” she laughed “Mr regimented sock draw!”

“hey, leave my sock draw be”

It was good to have some light-hearted banter to punctuate the discussion. They continued and agreed on designated days for her writing and his gym when they were all in LA.  Swapping days was allowed, but ideally to be an exception only so everyone knew where they stood. It didn’t sit well with him to demand that others working on his projects fit in with him, but he reluctantly agreed that his status was high enough for him to be able to ask for that so they could make the routine stick.

For the time being, Emily wasn’t ready to throw her hat in the ring for live projects, but she thought in around 4 months time, when Johnny would be 2 and Hannah had turned 1, she would contact her agent about working again. 

If she did get a script she really wanted to do, whether just to get her name out there again or if she really loved it, then they would probably need to think about childcare options since Keanu did have a film coming soon as well as Arch and some production commitments with Company films.  She didn’t need to work for the money clearly, but so she had her own life and her own creative outlet. It was one of the things they had talked about last week – that her sense of self wasn’t complete without writing just like his without acting. He’d fallen in love with Emily the writer and he wanted her to have that back as well as the new identity of mother to their children.

For childcare, a nanny was an obvious option but Emily had concerns about finding the right one given they didn’t need someone full time all year round but they would possibly need someone full time every now and then.

“We can pay someone a full-time rate though even if we don’t need them full time” Keanu stated.

“Yeah I know, but is a good nanny going to want to be paid to do nothing sometimes? Or maybe there are people who do this on an occasional basis to supplement their income? I guess that is a question we can tackle when we have an actual need.”

They agreed to park it for now. As the children got older there would be more social settings they could go to and then of course kindergarten and school.

“What about when you go on location?  Would you want us to travel with you? Us all being there  might be a bit much for you after long days on set – I know you get so focussed”

“yeah but before I didn’t have them to think about  - the last film was in LA so I haven’t ever had to film and be far from them so it’s kind of an unknown. I mean if it’s a long shoot,  it would be hard on us all for me to be away without you. And when they’re older you’ll have to stay home if they’re in school”

“What do you mean “if” they’re in school?” she raised an eyebrow “Are we going off grid?”

“naaah  - I meant that some kids are home schooled or tutored – but I dunno,  doesn’t that strike you as a bit weird? I mean you know I didn’t enjoy school, the education part I mean, but the social thing is key. I don’t want them to grow up weird!”

“Me neither. I mean maybe sometimes we’d take them out of school for a bit when they’re younger if the experience they’d get from travelling with you to a shoot would be valuable, you know but I’d want to be in a house not a hotel if it was more than just a week. A hotel would soon lose its appeal after a few days!”

“Sure, I’ve been in a rented house or apartment on shoots for a while now – I’m less of a gypsy boy these days. You’ve tamed me I think!  Anyway, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Like we said before, when we were actually planning on having kids, we did say I’d cut back so I can’t see me doing more than one location film a year from now on. I don’t want to miss them growing up. It’s not like we need the experience or the money. And it was fine,  you know last year just making one small film.”

By the time they stopped for lunch by the lake, most of the points had been talked through and they could enjoy their lunch.

“You know, that whole conversation and the conflicts were so much more simple to resolve than I’d imagined, now that we’re actually talking” Emily marvelled.

“and listening,  that’s the difference – I know I spent time second guessing what you wanted or worse assuming rather than just coming to you with my questions.  Could have saved ourselves a whole lot of heartache!”

Em leaned over to kiss him.

“Ewwww you taste of pickle!”

“Your fault, you made me my sandwich!”

“touche”

“Sorry but that’s what you signed up for!”

“I don’t recall signing anything!” she laughed.

“would you like to?”

“What? Sign a contract to kiss you even when you eat pickle?!”

“No, Em, I mean would you like to marry me?”

“what?!” Em’s eyes were wide with shock “ what are you talking about?”

Keanu’s mind was racing, trying yet again to second guess her thoughts. He pressed ahead again, just to make it clear what he was saying.

 “Em, I mean, will you marry me?”

 “But we never ……I mean I know it was years ago when we discussed it, but we said we didn’t need the piece of paper” she stuttered

 “I know, but now, it feels right”

 “Why?”

 “You don’t want to, it’s OK” he said frowning slightly

 “No, no that’s not it at all, not what I meant at all” she repeated for emphasis and took his hand in hers, “but  I asked you why”

He sighed,  relieved,  then took a moment to steady himself. He’d surprised himself by asking the question and then when she hadn’t just said yes straight away, it had thrown him off. She was right though, they’d always said they didn’t need a piece of paper, and when they’d got pregnant with Jonathan, they had other things on their mind, like just making it through to having a heathy baby. Once he was born, they had been in the thick of having a new-born and shortly after that, pregnant again with Hannah.  There had been no room to think about marriage or for that matter to really prioritise their relationship.  Now was time for a reset.

“Emily, ever since we started trying for kids, it’s like “us” hasn’t been the priority, but we’re lucky, we’ve got through it, so far at least and we still love each other. And the love I have for you, the connection mentally and physically, I’ve never had that before, not with anyone and I can’t imagine it, and I don’t want it with anyone else. That intimacy we have, it’s so special, so wonderful and I just think I want to celebrate it, to make a public commitment to you, to us. And I know a piece of paper won’t make it secure, only we can do that. But for the kids, as they grow up. I think the solidity of parents who are in love AND married would be helpful to them too. So, errrm, that’s why!”

Tears were running down Emily’s face by the time he finished his speech. She pulled herself together and knelt up in front of him, taking his face into her hands.

“How, just tell me how I got so lucky to fall in love with you? Yes, Keanu I’ll marry you, in a heartbeat I’ll marry you”

A gentle kiss sealed the deal.

“Yes?”  he kissed her again

“Yes!”

 “You’re sure?”

 “Yes, one hundred percent yes, a thousand percent no, make that a million percent, yes!”

@penwieldingdreamer @fortheloveoffanfic @kindainlovewithkeanu @ladyreapermc @witty-wallflower @gatsbynouvel @bitchyslut99 @keanureevesisbae @omg-imagine @iworshipkeanureeves @fics-not-tragedies @ficsnroses @kindainlovewithkeanu @paperplanesandwallflowers

[scribbles97]

Left Behind -- Chapter 10

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 13

Read On Ao3

@gumnut-logic again, thankees for all your help with this as always and my constant poking :D <3 

The sun was setting somewhere on the distant skyline, bathing the balcony in a gold glow and warming Lucy’s skin as she reclined back on the lounger. It was good to get out in the fresh air, or at least the open air. Being in the city still tasted wrong and foreign after the purity of the Island. 

Part of her wished she was there now, able to talk to Sally face to face rather than across the bluish tint of the hologram. 

“The clinical records got emailed across,” Sally was confirming as Lucy watched the horizon, “I’m not concerned about Tanusha’s after care, but Kyrano may need a longer term program.”

Lucy snorted and shook her head, knowing that Kyrano had a different plan for his recovery. The man had been saying as much since that morning, not even twenty-four hours after his injury and he had been planning where he would be off to next. 

“He says he’s not coming back to the Island yet. That he wants to get away from things and get back to a proper balance.”

Across the comm Sally shrugged, “It’s what he did after Onaha died, are you surprised that this is any different?”

The older woman had a point, still Kyrano was taking Jeff’s disappearance personally, like he was the one to blame despite them all knowing better. Anger and frustration had taken over the usually calm man’s personality leaving him a shadow of his former self. Lucy knew the time away in Malaysia would be what he needed, a chance to reset himself and find that balance once more. 

“I worry he’ll go after his brother again.” She admitted quietly, “That if I let him go and something happens to him, it will be down to me for letting him go.”

“Would Lee go with him?” Sally suggested, nodding in quiet agreement, “I know he isn’t the most like Kyrano, but maybe it’s what they both could do with?”

She hadn’t considered it, and at the initial suggestion could have scoffed at the idea of her brother going along to some quiet reflective sanctuary. 

Lee was still uptight though, snapping at everything and everyone, maybe some space away from home and a chance to grieve away from his family was just what he needed. 

“He snapped at Val for talking a certain way today,” Sally added, “Luce, he hasn’t been this bad since Val’s accident. I tried talking to him but he just won’t have any of it, sooner or later something is going to give.”

She sighed and nodded, not sure she was quite up to the task herself, “Do you think you could suggest it?” She asked hopefully, “Test the water? Being out here and getting ready for the passing out on Saturday… I wouldn’t say I was in the best place to bring it up.”

“Of course dear, I’ll get onto it later.” Sally smiled, briefly before her face fell to concern, “How are things coming together for the parade? Scott said something about there only being a small number this year?”

Lucy shrugged, the final details had been discussed on another call earlier in the day. It wasn’t something she had been looking forward to in the last few weeks. Passing out was Jeff’s department, the big brain behind IR, the one to give the speech and award the badges to their newest team members. He had always made a point of writing the speech himself, tweaking and altering it right up until the moment before he gave it, always going to her for suggestions. This one was meant to be even more special. 

This one a father was meant to present the badge to his eldest son. 

Instead it would be Lucy herself, the one that had always been happily, quiet in the background. She would still be just as honoured and proud to present the badge to Scott, but both would know who was meant to give the salute that day. 

“I think a few dropped for various reasons,” she murmured, “The recruitment and training team are looking through it, they mentioned something about the change in the GDF recruitment a few years ago being part of it.”

“Nothing to be over concerned about then?” Sally nodded, “The GDF recruitment was always a fallback for those that dropped out. You and I both know it.”

Lucy had to smile, “Jeff always said, ridiculously high achievers only. Should have put that on the prospectus.”

“We can’t exactly trust anyone else with what we do,” Sally sighed, “It’s a hard business.”

She only had to think about the last few weeks to be able to agree.

“Is everything in place there to transfer lead command to Beta crew?” She asked, knowing Sally had the art of communications down to a T, even if it weren’t her preferred field.

“All organised,” Sally nodded with a smile, “The three of us will be at Roca to meet you on the day.”

“...isn’t exactly a good time to tell her-- shit.”

She turned at Virgil’s voice as he hesitated in the doorway to the balcony, raising an eyebrow at him in question.

“I’ll call you back, Sally.” She murmured, not taking her gaze from her dark haired son as he turned to head back inside.

“Virgil.” She called after him, “Out here please.”

His shoulders fell and she was sure she could hear the curses in his head out loud.

“I’ll talk to you later, Alice.”

Swinging her legs around on the lounger, she sat up and patted the cushion next to her, “Come sit kiddo.”

His sigh was heavy as he sunk down next to her, rolling his eyes as he did so.

“How’s Alice?”

His shrug was non committal, all too hopeful that he could brush her off and escape the conversation. 

“She’s fine, was just filling me in on what I’ve missed this week.”

Lucy didn’t buy it. She had never gotten a chance to catch up with him after the alleged night filled with school work she had thought he had been on top of. Virgil was diligent in his studies, he had a schedule she knew he kept to with slots in the day spaced for food and relaxation. 

There definitely wasn’t any night time studying on that schedule. The young man valued sleep too much.

“I thought she wasn’t the type of girl to keep you up at all hours of the night,” She nodded, “So what’s been stopping you from sleeping?”

He shrugged again, avoiding her as she tilted her head to look at him. It wasn’t like him to be so distant from her, so unwilling to discuss anything especially when something was clearly bothering him. 

She wondered if it was grief that was keeping him up at night. 

“I just want to help, kid,” She murmured, reaching out to take his hand, “If anything’s too much for you, you can tell me. If college is too hard, or you’re just not cop--”

He shook his head, a small smile gracing his mouth as he looked across to her, “It’s not that Mom.”

Holding his gaze, she frowned hard at him. If it wasn’t college and it wasn’t grief, she wasn’t sure where to go next. He didn’t have any romantic partners that she was aware of.

Unless…

“You haven’t fallen out with Alice have you?”

He looked away suddenly, shaking his head in a dead giveaway, “No, not really.”

Like his father, Virgil had always been a terrible liar. 

Lucy was glad she’d had a chance to catch up on some of the IR reports handed over to her that week.

“You know she’s been offered a place on the next intake of engineers?”

His nod was quick as he pursed his lips, “She’d mentioned that she had applied. Wasn’t sure she’d got on it yet.”

Lucy shrugged, “I got sent through the prospective successful applicants, the academic board are just waiting on me to sign them off.”

The way his eyes snapped up to her, quick and wide and full of a sudden panic she hadn’t expected. 

Oh. 

“I only had chance to look at the astronauts and engineers this morning,” She told him, pretending not to watch his reaction, “They’re always the shortest lists.”

It was a lie, she always went for the Basic Training list first, eager to complete the most thorough of checks on those that hope to one day work in the field as an IR operative. 

He sifted next to her, so clearly uncomfortable and not at his usual ease. It didn’t take much guess work to try and figure out just what had him so pent up.

Tilting her head she eyes him, “Any idea who might have applied for the basic training program? The board said there was a good selection this year.”

He still wouldn’t look at her as he shrugged, hands fiddling with the seam of the cushion. 

“Please don’t be mad.”

She was quick to shake her head, mad was anything but the issue. When she had been presented with the list of thirty-eight students that had the qualifications to join IR, only one had been flagged up as undergoing further investigations before being offered a place on the course. 

Augustus Taylor. 

It was only that she had seen Virgil’s newly cropped hair the previous evening that had allowed her to place the man in the ID photo. Cleverly photoshopped, chin more rounded, eye colour just off in the wrong tone of brown, and so subtle that the initial team hadn’t caught on to the edited image.

“I’m not mad Kiddo,” She frowned, reaching out to his arm, “I mean… I want to know why, but I’m not mad.”

He sighed and leant into her touch, hesitating for a long moment before he shook his head and everything came tumbling out, “I didn’t want it to be on the basis of who I am. Just because I’m a Tracy I shouldn’t have automatic rights to get onto the program, especially if…” 

He trailed off suddenly, pulling away as he sat straight again, eyes going to the deepening orange glow on the horizon. 

“If?” Lucy prompted gently, slipping her arm around his broad shoulders. 

Sniffing, he shook his head, “I wasn’t sure I’d be good enough for the tests to get in. I didn’t want to disappoint you if I screwed them up.”

She had more faith in him than that. All her boys had a certain degree of common sense, of logic and Virgil the most caring nature of them all. Maybe she was biased, but she knew he needn’t have worried.

“You really think any of you boys could disappoint me?”

He swallowed as he shrugged, “Scott gets his badge next week.”

Lucy shrugged in return, “And what has that got to do with you getting on to the program? Have I not told you before? You are not your brothers. You are entitled to your own path in life with your own successes and failures that are of no comparison to anyone else's.”

Looking down, he nodded, cheeks a deepening colour of read as he smiled a little, ‘Yeah, I remember.”

She turned to him, taking both of his hands in hers and waiting until she knew she had his full attention. He needed to hear her words for exactly what they were, without them being filtered through the doubt that had clearly settled in his mind. 

“If this is what you want to do, then you go for it son. If you change your mind or it goes wrong or it’s harder than you anticipated nobody is going to be disappointed. You do this for you, okay?”

Taking him in her arms as he sniffled again, she hugged him tight, “We’ll always be proud of you kid, don’t forget that.”

[ferryboatpeak]

Please please please write the loop hazoff fic, the outline alone was amazing!

anon! can i rap atcha for a bit? because i got the last half of this fic so, so wrong! please accept the following revisions. (thank you to @ticklefightharry​ for putting up with my immediate rescission of the last plot summary and the three subsequent alternate versions.)

so remember the scene where harry falls asleep in Jeff’s old room? i realized that’s got to be way more pivotal. I think Harry has to have reached a point where he’s been pretty upfront with Jeff about being in a Loop– like, starting their days with a recap of “hey, I’m in a Loop, here’s what we’ve been talking about…” (which is a huge relief for Jeff because he doesn’t have to focus so much on pretending to start from scratch every day.) And at this point they’ve pretty much got their plans hashed out, and Harry’s feeling pretty good about it. Maybe he hasn’t found his soulmate yet, but for the first time ever he’s thinking clearly about what happens after 1D, and realizing that there are good people who can be in his corner.

So that morning he shows up at Jeff’s office per usual, and maybe instead of their typical brainstorming/strategy sessions Harry convinces Jeff to take him to lunch, show him a bit of LA? And Jeff takes him somewhere personal and endearing (help me out, LA people, I honestly have no idea what could be personal and endearing in LA). Maybe for lunch Harry’s expecting someplace trendy (the kind of places he associates with LA, the kind of places industry people usually take him to impress), and instead Jeff takes him to the Apple Pan, tells him about how his parents used to go there when they were dating.

Soooooooo, I think Glenne is in this verse. I think that she and Jeff know they aren’t soulmates but they’ve got a fulfilling partnership anyway. They’ve always kind of known that things would have to end if one of them went into a Loop, but they’ve never actually talked about how to do that gracefully. So when Jeff gets into the Loop with Harry, he’s waking up every morning with Glenne, and he can’t just break up with her, because he needs her at the party every night or else Harry’s going to catch on that Jeff’s only pretending that every day’s the same to him. Glenne’s presence in Jeff’s life is one of the main reasons that Harry doesn’t consider the possibility that Jeff could be his soulmate.

Anyway, so Harry tags along with Jeff when Jeff goes home to change before the party, and at Jeff’s house he sees some kind of casual, comfortable domestic exchange between Jeff and Glenne, and he reacts Very Badly without understanding why. So he’s a little out of sorts when he arrives at the party (with them, instead of with his usual escort from the label), and he’s got to put more effort than usual into being utterly charming, and all of a sudden he’s just so, so tired.

He hasn’t fallen asleep in weeks, he realizes. He’s slept, or at least he’s woken up refreshed, but he hasn’t actually lay down in bed and fallen asleep. He’s just reset at midnight, and woken up to start the same day all over again. Suddenly going to sleep sounds like the best thing, the greatest idea.

And Jeff notices. He asks if Harry’s okay, and Harry says he’s just tired, and make some excuse about jet lag, and Jeff says that Harry can use his old bedroom, if he wants to nap it out. He tries to tell Harry where it is, and Harry blinks slowly and looks puzzled, so Jeff says he’ll take him up there.

The noise of the party fades away behind them as Jeff walks him up the back stairway. Jeff moved out of his parent’s house years ago, but they’ve got plenty of space, so there’s been no hurry to repurpose his bedroom into a home gym or a guest room or whatever. It’s just slowly evolving from Jeff’s space into an impersonal space, and Harry hones right in on the few personal details that are left. A soccer trophy? High school yearbooks on the bookshelf? A flyer from one of Jeff’s best prom afterparties? Jeff is endearingly embarrassed, and Harry gives him a break and collapses on the bed and burrows under the duvet.

He catches Jeff by the wrist as he’s about to leave, and tugs him down onto the bed with him. Stay for a bit, Harry says, and Jeff is already committed to doing anything Harry wants for the rest of eternity, so he awkwardly settles in on top of the duvet and lets Harry snuggle up next to him. Harry’s not exactly touch-starved (having had plenty of sex during this Loop), but he is definitely feeling the absence of meaningful touch, what with all of his closest confidantes inaccessible in London and everyone in LA resetting every morning so they’ve got no idea what Harry’s going through. And it’s so nice to be curled up with his head on Jeff’s shoulder, and even though he’s been starting fresh with Jeff every day, Jeff seems to understand him. He’s not Harry’s soulmate, but he’s Harry’s people, at least. With a faint sleepy lisp, Harry tells Jeff’s shoulder, “I’ll find you. When all this is over.”

Jeff goes absolutely still. “You mean that?” he asks into the dark.

“Yeah,” Harry murmurs. “Of course I do.”

Jeff’s hand is gentle on the side of Harry’s face as he tips his chin up into a quiet kiss. This is exactly the kind of little intimacy that Harry’s been missing, and it’s no big deal because Jeff’s not his soulmate, right? In a different world this could affect the working relationship they’ll have someday, but tomorrow’s going to be another Loop and Jeff will never remember this happened. So Harry gratefully lets himself be kissed to sleep, and drifts off happy in Jeff’s old bed.

EXCEPT next morning they wake up right there and all hell breaks loose. Harry’s horrified that Jeff didn’t tell him, and he’s mad that Jeff didn’t give him any say in ending the Loop, and furthermore he even ended it on a night that wasn’t Harry’s best showing at the party (even though Jeff tells him that doesn’t matter, none of it’s going to interfere with their plans, right?), and he storms out of the house and back to London and throws himself into the WWA tour because fuck Jeffrey Azoff.

But he can’t just go back! Because now he’s started to think concretely about life after 1D, and he can’t just go back to living in the moment and thinking that the ride is going to last forever. Now it’s obvious to him that it can’t, and now that he’s got some idea of what happens next, it’s hard to give up that vision, even if that vision is inextricably intertwined with Jeff. (you know where this is going, right? this means i finally get to write the hiatus meeting scene i’ve been dying to write ever since louis started spilling the tea two and a half years ago!!!)

So Harry’s got a whole long tour to sulk and suffer (in between being adored by entire stadiums.) Jeff maybe tries to reach out early on and Harry rebuffs him, maybe even does it in a very impersonal and insulting way, like having someone from Modest tell Jeff to back off, Harry’s not interested in working with him.

Is there some narry angst here, perhaps? Is niall well aware that harry met up with the azoffs in LA and feeling some suspicion and resentment around that? ANYWAY, Harry also has a whole tour to hook up with anyone and everyone (niall?) and through that process start to work through the idea of Jeff as his soulmate. Not that it matters, Harry tells himself, because Jeff obviously doesn’t have romantic kind of soulmate feelings about him, but if he did, maybe Harry could see himself getting there too?

After a good six months of suffering, the tour eventually reaches the Rose Bowl. Jeffrey Azoff can sure as shit get himself backstage at the Rose Bowl, and he has a Plan for what happens next. But he stumbles through his carefully considered apology/sales pitch, because Harry’s impassive and it only seems to be making things worse, until he completely by accident says something painfully earnest about his Feelings (this bit is all jes, please thank her) and Harry fucking melts. That’s it, that’s the fic!

[cybled-a]

@paracausaly  /  𝙸 𝙰𝙻𝙼𝙾𝚂𝚃 𝙰𝙳𝙼𝙸𝚁𝙴 𝚈𝙾𝚄.

you really love biting off more than you can chew, don’t you? gol thinks quietly to himself as he hovers above his lightbearer, little cogs spinning with impatience. the light in her eyes still hasn’t gone out, even though her body is a broken mess. violet blood leaks from the corners of her mouth, still split in a wide smile. her sharp teeth gleam in the high noon sun refracted through the wet mists that billow and cloud the air. and still her chest rises and falls and rises again. he considers briefly killing her himself. he’s never had to do that before though… his shell spins a little faster as he looks around for eli. 

they’d been scouting half a day ahead of the rest of the guard, choosing the paths with least conflict, laying signals for the small column to follow. this is fallen territory, contested between a pair of ravenous houses. this meant slow moving and stealth. something orin can see eli is very good at. 

how come we never see his ghost? it makes me not want to trust him.   gol whispers ( unnecessarily ) through their link. orin glances to her left through the trees where the other titan walks, scout rifle in hand, fifty feet away from her.   how did you even know he was a lightbearer?

she shrugs, smiling.   “ it was a good guess, gol. wasn’t entirely sure until i danced with him and i— ”   brows furrow, empty grip flexing.   “ i just felt it. his light i mean. ”

they carry on in silence a little longer, boots crunching over the pine needle strewn ground. the whole forest is a tinder box, waiting for the next lightning storm to set it all ablaze. she glances at him again before focusing her gaze ahead.  it’s only been a couple of weeks since she had convinced him to join the pilgrim guard, and orin had learned very little about him since then. and yet, she has a good feeling. and she always trusts her gut. 

“ we never see his ghost because he’s careful not to expose it unnecessarily, ”   she adds. and then, teasingly:   “ maybe you should come out a little less. ”

hey, i only come out when i know it’s safe. you’re the one always flinging yourself headfirst into trouble! 

orin lets slip a bark of laughter before biting her lip. no enemies in sight, but you can never be too safe. he’s looking at her when she glances over again, though from this distance, even with her sharp predator eyes, she can’t make out his expression. she signals with arms and hands ahead of them towards the sound of rushing water. rest? he nods, and they angle towards each other and walk on together in companionable silence. 

they both stop at the same moment, their arms swinging up to hit each other in the chest. it would be comical if orin’s senses weren’t ringing with danger, pointed ears flicking in search of the source, pupils blown wide. beside her eli is much the same.

wordlessly, as if they’d been doing this for years and not a handful of days, they split up, crouch walking through the trees and underbrush in a shallow arc towards the growing sounds of a waterfall. 

the source of most of the noise is the river they’d forded early that morning, glacier water tumbling over a sheer cliff face a hundred meters tall. the trees around the edges had been cleared, and a steel dock built along the edge, jutting out over the empty space. a ketch dock, gol notes. but no ketch in sight. 

there is, however, a spider tank in the middle of repairs sitting on the dock. a dozen dregs. a half dozen vandals, a captain. and a baroness, squatting beside a servitor, a trio of shanks buzzing above her head. most importantly, there are crates of supplies. weapons and armor, sorely needed. and glimmer. programmable matter.

she can’t see exactly where eli’s gone, but before she can turn to move back, faint movement catches in the corner of her eye. orin stills completely, pupils narrowing at the strange refraction until a vandal in glassy stealth, its armor bending light around itself, leaps towards her with a loud snarl. the whole area erupts into chaos. 

in a single fluid motion she pulls her war hammer from her back and swings it around one handed, sending the vandal’s body crashing against the solid body of the closest tree. the entire trunk shudders violently, pine needles raining down a moment later. she brings the hammer head down on the vandal’s neck for good measure before sprinting towards the camp now buzzing with activity. 

two of the shanks explode. a half dozen quick sharp shots follow and she watches the faces of three dregs and a vandal implode in a gout of ether.   “ christ eli, leave some for me, ”   she complains over the comms, sprinting faster.

“ oh you’lll have plenty, ”   he answers, and she can hear that half smile of his in his voice even as he jogs his way closer. his figure cuts a dark shape in her peripheral vision. bright shock energy flashes in the air, and her focus snaps back to their prey. 

there is plenty left by the time she closes the distance. flames lick up the haft of her hammer and her eyes fill with golden wrath as they lock onto the baroness still a dozen yards away. nearly every dreg that darts out from behind cover to stab through her shields is shot down before she can so much as lift a fist in response, every other vandal she faces crumples before she can lay a hand on it. orin feels elation race through her at the thought of someone having her back so readily in a fight. of having someone at her side that shoots so well he clears half her path for her. they leave a small wake of death behind them as they move forward. 

the servitor rises before her with a guttural analog noise, its plates flexing as it sends blasts of void energy at her. she runs through the hits, hissing at the shock of pain as her shields are depleted, and barrels her flaming shoulder straight into its eye. it falls apart in smoldering pieces as she tumbles through, sliding to a stop on padded knees, chest heaving with exertion. ahead of her the baroness screams her fury. the sound sends a chill down her spine. 

“ she’s gonna get the tank, ”   eli says conversationally in her ear, even as he tangles with the captain. orin pauses for a split second to watch ; good with a blade as he is with a gun. as casually as if they were having a noon picnic orin responds: 

“ not if i get to it first. ”

it’s a close thing. and in the end, she sees only one way as the fallen leader scrambles over a tank leg towards the opening...

“ orin! ”    

but she’s already over the edge of the dock, falling through open air, body snared with the large eliksni. the baroness howls with rage in a tongue orin does not understand yet, clawing at her back. orin laughs, the thrill of the drop exhilarating, the pain of those digging claws fueling her adrenaline. she only just manages to get the baroness beneath her before they hit the rocky beach of the waterfall at the bottom. 

it takes gol fifteen minutes to make it down to her, eli only a handful of minutes behind him. she’d just barely managed to roll over onto her back, watching with hazy eyes as gol mutters about a hard reset being easier, and wouldn’t she please just give up and die already? the sound of boots crunching on wet pebbles pulls her blue eyes to him. the shock is beginning to set in ; she can feel her heart racing a rabbit rhythm in her chest. somehow the sight of him is reassuring. 

“ i almost admire you, ”   eli says, standing over her where she lays in a pool of ether and blood. orin only grins, all sharp teeth. 

“ shut up and—shoot me alrea— ”

the shot rings out before she can finish the sentence, life leaving her in one last gasp. 

when she comes to in a blaze of light he’s still standing there, watching her. holds his hand out for her to grasp, pulls her to her feet. his mouth set in that lopsided grin like she’s the craziest person he’s ever met. 

“ what? never been cliff diving eli? you should try it sometime. ”   

he only laughs in response. the sound of it leaves her smiling to herself every so often the whole climb up. they spend less than an hour stamping out the smoldering fires sparked by gunfire and light and picking over the supplies, stopping every handful of minutes to stare into the blue dome of the sky for any signs of a ketch approaching. they strap as much as they can carry to each other before deciding to heave the rest over the cliff face. eli strips the spider tank of parts he wants, the pair of them destroying it and the dock it stands on with solar light after. the smoke is a beacon anyone or anything could see for miles around ; they set their boots in the direction of the guard and walk on together.

okay. he’s good in a firefight. but i still don’t trust him,   gol mutters to orin. she laughs again, quick and quiet. this time she’s close enough to eli to make out the expression on his face ; it looks a little like wonder.

[starkercrossedlovers]

Road trip to Paradise

—————————

In a world where Peter is Spider-Man but isn’t part of the Avengers and Tony is still Iron Man, they have a fateful encounter on the side of the road as Tony leaves everything behind for a much needed road trip to clear his head. Peter is looking to escape too, and though he knows better, takes the ride Tony is offering.

——————————

Tony tosses another bag into the trunk of his car, ignoring the protests Pepper is still trying to make. He’d told her a week ago that he was going away, for how long he didn’t know, until he was ready to come back probably, but she hadn’t taken him seriously until he had handed off team leadership of the Avengers to Steve and told the SI board not to contact him unless the company was in imminent danger of collapse or hostile takeover.

Given that neither of those things are likely, he’s looking forward to a couple of weeks of silent bliss.

“I just, Tony, what if something happens?”

Tony shoots her a wry look, “Like the end of the world? Pep, we already did that. Got the shirt and everything,” he drawls before slamming the trunk closed. When he looks at her more closely he sighs, seeing the fear in her eyes always makes him hurt. She’s never quite forgiven him for going to space and almost dying, and it’s him leaving now that hammers the final nail in the coffin for their relationship.

He loves her, always has and always will, but she can’t accept him for who he is, and he’s not sure there’s anyone who ever could. Steve couldn’t, and it had very nearly destroyed them both.

So he was leaving. Taking some time to heal, leave the weight of Avengers and Iron Man behind and find out who he was without all the trappings of that life surrounding him.

He takes one of Pepper’s hands in his and squeezes, smiling gently at her. “I have to go Pep. After Thanos and the end of the world and almost dying, I need space. I’m sorry I’ve hurt you, believe me that’s not what I wanted, but I can’t stay. I’ll be back, and if you need me, you can call me.”

He squeezes her hand again when she sniffles, eyes lined with red as she nods and leans in to kiss his cheek softly. Her forehead presses into his temple and they stand together for a long time, quiet and steady and he almost asks her to come with him, almost thinks they can fix this thing, but he knows deep down, it won’t be fixed this time.

Gently, he turns his chin and kissed her, soft and fleeting and nudges her nose with his. “I love you. Always will.”

She makes a soft wounded noise and nods, pulling back so he can see the tears gleaming in her eyes, the grief in her face like a punch to the gut. She cups his cheek and sighs, nods, and lets it trail away.

“Call me every few days?” she asks, voice hoarse and low.

“Of course,” he agrees—it’s easy enough and he knows eventually he’ll miss her and want to hear her voice, so it’s a smart agreement for them both. He swings the car door open and gives her one last smile, “See you when I see you,” he murmurs before sliding in and closing the door.

She watches him as he pulls away, her figure impossibly small in the rear view mirror before he looks away, turns his gaze forward, to what lies ahead.

———————

Peter hauls the backpack onto his shoulder and stuffs the last of his belongings into a duffel bag, glancing around the empty apartment with a heavy heart. When the world had unexpectedly ended, May had turned to ash right in front of his eyes, and when everyone else had come back, she hadn’t.

He’d gone through most of the savings May had left behind trying to pay bills and stay ahead of rent, but with school and patrolling, he didn’t have time for more shifts with Mr. Delmar, and eventually he’d fallen so far behind he’d received an eviction notice.

He’s got nowhere to go and no one to help him, so he’s sold everything of value in the apartment, stowed the cash in various pockets and bags, and with nothing more than one look back, leaves his whole world behind.

He walks, for hours and hours, with no real destination in mind, only the idea that he has to find somewhere new to start over. The city holds too many ghosts—MJ and her family are gone, moved to Connecticut, and Ned is just gone, ashes in the wind.

He heads west, hitching rides with families and walking when he can’t find anyone who doesn’t look serial killer-y. He wonders if he can walk the whole way to the other coast, hands in his pockets as the sky darkens overhead and thunder rumbles. He imagines reaching the shore and kicking off his sneakers, toes in the sand as the water washes over him.

He’s somewhere outside Indianapolis and his sneakers are starting to wear thin, his socks squishing grossly as he tries to avoid the largest puddles along the road. He hasn’t seen a car in hours and he’s shivering, soaked to the bone despite his jacket, hungry and exhausted, when in the distance he hears a car approaching.

He glances back and sighs, it’s an expensive looking Audi which means the owner definitely won’t stop for someone as bedraggled looking as Peter. He hunkers down, waiting for the rush of wind and spray of water as it goes flying past, but instead he hears it slow and then in the periphery of his vision sees the the sleek silver vehicle following him slowly.

A window rolls down and a deep voice calls out. “Hey kid, you need a ride?”

He hesitates and then turns, bends to peer into the car, heart lurching at the familiar face peering at him.

Tony Stark

His crush and idol and what the hell is he doing out here in the middle of nowhere?!

He realizes he’s standing there with his mouth hanging half open when Tony raises a brow and smirks, “Well? You gettin in?” he asks, “Last call.”

Peter glances back at the empty road and the lonely one ahead and then back to where Tony’s dark eyes are watching him. Nodding slowly, he opens the door and slings his backpack into his lap, wincing as his wet clothes squeak against the leather.

“Sorry, I’m going to ruin your seats,” he murmurs, hunching to try and make himself as small as possible. Tony scoffs and reaches back, digs for a moment and then passes him a warm flannel blanket.

“Bundle up kid, you look frozen.”

Peter takes the blanket and wraps it around himself, glancing up in surprise a few moments later when the seat under him grows warm. Tony shoots him a grin and then refocuses on the road ahead, hands draped casually over the wheel.

“Where you going?” he asks, glancing over at Peter quickly.

“I don’t know. Thought I’d try and make it to the west coast,” Peter admits. “Maybe go and see the Grand Canyon, some national parks.” He shrugs, “I don’t really have a plan.”

Tony nods and taps his fingers on the wheel, “Running to or away from something?” he asks, far too insightfully for Peter’s comfort.

He turns away and peers out the window, breath fogging the glass slowly.

“I don’t have anything left to run from or to. It’s just me.”

With that, silence falls, deafeningly loud in the small confines of the car as the wipers slap against the windshield, steady and monotonous. The rain patters against the glass and Peter’s eyes flutter as he warms and falls asleep slowly.

————————

The kid is a mystery, Tony decides. Unwilling to talk about his life before the moment he picked him up on the side of the road, he knows little more than his name and age—Peter Parker, 18.

He resets his GPS for the Grand Canyon and points the car northwest, avoiding well used roads in favor of side routes and scenic winding highways. The landscape changes slowly in places and abruptly in others.

When he’s too tired to drive he pulls to the side of the road and nudges the kid and rouses him from his sleep, biting back a grin when he looks up with sleepy eyes and mussed hair, cheeks pink and lips parted around a yawn.

“You have a license?” he asks, humming appreciatively when the kid nods. “Good your turn,” he mutters before getting out and stretching, groaning as his vertebrae pop and strain. He leans against the car as Peter stumbles out, blinking and glancing around curiously.

The air is wet and warm, and in the distance he sees mountains on the horizon. They’ve still got a few days till they’re at Yellowstone, but he finds himself enjoying the way the kid looks around in curiosity, a small smile curling up his lips.

Peter glances over the hood of the car at him and blinks; “Where are we?”

“Good question. Somewhere in Illinois. Got another day or so till we’re at Yellowstone.”

The kid blinks in surprise and then frowns, “You don’t have to take me to Yellowstone, I’m sure you have other places you want to go.”

Tony just shrugs because he really doesn’t. That’s the whole point of this trip—no end goal, just wandering and letting himself relax for the first time in a decade. God, has it really been that long? Has he really not been able to breathe for so many years?

Something in his chest loosens at the thought that he doesn’t ever have to go back if he doesn’t want to, that he can just keep driving, leave all of it in the past.

“I, uh, I don’t have a plan kid, don’t have anywhere I need to be, and frankly, I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon either. So if it’s ok with you, I’d like to go.”

They stare at each other for a long moment before Peter nods uncertainly and crosses around the vehicle to stand by him, peering up at him for a moment before grinning and holding out his hand for the keys.

“I can’t believe you’re letting me drive a car this nice,” he jokes as Tony drops them into his palm.

He rolls his eyes and saunters away, feeling the kid’s gaze still on him and then shoots him a grin, “It’s equipped with an AI and a baby monitor protocol for anyone other than me driving. It has a steel reinforced body and protocols that make it nearly impossible to crash. FRIDAY literally won’t let you crash or go over 80 miles per hour.” He laughs at the disgruntled look on Peter’s face and slides into the seat, still warm from his body and pulls his seatbelt on while the kid does the same.

He fiddles with the seat for a minute and then glances at Tony before checking his mirrors and pulling back onto the road, blinkers going despite the empty highway around them. Tony smirks at his obvious adherence to the rules and files it away as another piece of the mystery that is Peter Parker.

So far he knows the following:

Peter snores when he sleeps

He likes pop music over classic rock

Won’t ask for, but will accept rides from near strangers—Tony’s not sure this counts since he’s literally one of the most famous men in the world, but still, the kid doesn’t actually know him

Hasn’t seen the Grand Canyon

Is from Queens

Likes Starbucks and matcha tea

Follows the rules

He watches the scenery pass by as the kid drives, some pop xm radio station playing in the background while fields of wheat and herds of cattle flash past. When he wakes up it’s dark out, well past midnight and the kid looks as exhausted as he still feels.

After a quick search by FRIDAY he finds a bed and breakfast in twenty miles and has the gps reset. It’s late when they pull in but to his surprise there’s still someone at the desk—a grey haired woman who smiles pleasantly at them and offers them the last room she has—“You and your son will have to share I’m afraid,” she tells them, rambling right over their protestations as she points out the amenities along the way.

When the door shuts behind them the silence is nearly overwhelming before Tony glances around and spots that there’s just one bed and a couch, which the kid is already heading towards with slumped shoulders and a weary air.

“We can share,” he offers, before he really has a chance to think about it. Peter stills and turns to stare at him, wide eyed and scared looking and shit, yea, that sounded like the opening line to a bad porno, so he tries again. “We’re both exhausted and need to sleep in a real bed. I’m not trying to seduce you, I promise.”

Peter stares at him for minute before laughing shyly and ducking his head with a nod, “Yea, okay. Mind if I shower first?” he asks softly, waiting for Tony’s nod before he heads into the bathroom and the door shuts with a soft click behind him.

Tony kicks off his sneakers and flops onto the bed, groaning at the firm support on his tired spine. Maybe he and the kid can take a day tomorrow...today...whatever...and just walk around, see what this little town holds in store for them. He has FRIDAY run a search to see what’s interesting in town and is surprised to find three places to eat with four stars and a local museum on aeronautics and engineering that looks mildly interesting.

Tossing his phone aside, he curls on his side and closes his eyes—just till the kid is done in the shower he promises himself—and for the first time in days, relaxes to the sound of another person in his space. He can hear the rush of the shower and what sounds like Peter singing to himself, and the wind outside rustles the branches and he’s asleep before he has a chance to realize it’s happening.

——————

When Peter steps out of the bathroom he stills, staring at Tony where he’s fallen asleep on top of the covers fully dressed. The older man’s face is softer in sleep, unlined and open—so different than the public face he’s worn in the news clips he’s watched over and over again.

Dressing quickly in an oversized sweater and briefs, he shoves his dirty clothes into a bag and grabs his phone and charger. He turns off the lights and uses his enhanced senses to make his way to the bed, biting back a groan of delight at how good the bed feels to his weary body.

“Kid?”

Peter startles for a moment and then nods, “Yea?”

“You okay?”

He frowns, “I’m fine, why?”

He senses Tony’s shrug as the older man sighs, “Jus checkin’...get some sleep,” he urges before rolling off the bed. Peter can see in the faint gloom his outline as he strips off his clothes till he’s down to his briefs too, the par moonlight falling across his shoulders and hip in a sharp slash, revealing the numerous scars he’s earned over the years as Iron Man.

When he turns and Peter sees the arc reactor containing the bleeding edge armor he’s famous for, his heart skips a beat. There’s more scars here too, painful ones, and he remembers seeing the video of his captivity in Afghanistan a few years after it happened.

Tony’s gaze meets his in the dark and there’s a long moment where neither say anything and then Tony grins grimly, spreads his arms and gestures at himself, “Take it all in, the glory of being Iron Man,” he says bitterly, “is it what you thought?” he asks, “Do you wanna touch them too?”

Peter sits up and leans forward, frowning deeper, “I’m sorry,” he murmurs—

“What? Why?”

“Because, people have made you feel like you’re only valuable because you’re Iron Man. You bleed too—nearly died to save the universe, and they treat your scars like some fetish to be petted and drooled over. They’re your pain and you deserve to keep them private, to deal with them how you want. So I’m sorry.”

Tony stares at him, hands falling to his sides as his gaze darkens, then turns away.

“Most people don’t see it that way.”

“Most people can go suck a dick.”

Tony looks up at him sharply and then bursts out laughing, the weary, lonely look washing away in a tide of relief and amusement. “Kid, I couldn’t say it better.”

Peter grins, happier now that he’s made Tony smile and laugh. “Well, I’m happy to tell you that as often as you need,” he offers, leaning back against the pillow as Tony slides back into bed beside him.

“You’d tell me to go suck a dick?” Tony teases, eyes crinkling around the edges as he grins at Peter. The bright look in his eyes, playful and warm, has Peter blushing and avoiding his gaze.

“N-no! I mean, I’d tell you that other people should...god, sorry, let’s go to sleep,” he mutters, hoping Tony can’t see his embarrassment in the dark. To his unending gratitude, Tony hums in agreement and they shuffle around for a few minutes before settling.

It’s oddly intimate, even though there’s a good foot of space between them. He can feel Tony’s warmth behind him, sense his shoulders rising and falling with each breath, smell the warm scent of his skin...

When he shifts and realizes he’s hard he flushes harder and buries his face in the pillow. Ignore it and it’ll go away he reasons, counting slowly backwards from three thousand.

By the time he’s at fifteen hundred he’s too tired to pay attention to his dick and by the time he hits a thousand he’s falling asleep.

——————

Warm. Blissfully, deliciously warm.

That’s the first thing he notices as he wakes. The second and third are his dick(hard) and Peter(in his arms).

Fuck

Rolling away carefully, he dislodges himself and heads to the shower, letting the water pour over his head as he tries to ignore his body’s reaction. It’s not Peter, he tells himself, it’s just because it’s morning....but a small part of his brain helpfully supplies the fact that it’s been months—almost a year actually—since he’s woken up hard.

He’s clean and there’s no excuse not to get out except he’s still hard. Gritting his teeth and bracing a hand against the wall, he wraps a hand around his cock and strokes, slow and firm like he likes. His thumb scrapes along the edge of his head, foreskin pulled back so a wave of heat rushes up his spine at the touch.

Unbidden, images of Peter blushing in the dark, gazing at him intently flash behind his closed eyes. He recalls the sound of his laughter and the way his eyes sparkle when he gazed up at him, longing and sweet sorrow shining in their depths.

He strokes faster and twists his wrist at the top, groaning as he pulls harder, recalling the weight of Peter in his arms, the scent of his hair and skin, the hot brand of his stomach beneath his palm where he had shoved a hand beneath that bulky sweater in the night and then he’s spilling against the tile, panting and shuddering, and oh god, he’s fucked.

——————

They head out for breakfast, a small diner that smells like bacon but has vegan options, so he orders both and calls it balance. He watches the kid debate before trying to order and nudges his ankle with his foot, drawing those wide eyes up to meet his.

“Get what you want kid, I’m paying.”

Peter tries to protest and he smirks, shakes his head, “You drive and I’ll pay, cool?” he offers, grinning when the kid mutters no, but lets the topic lie.

To his surprise Peter orders pancakes, a green smoothie, sausage and eggs, and black coffee. What’s even more impressive is the fact that he manages to eat it all.

They do end up going to the museum, and he’s a little blown away by how intelligent Peter is—he hauls Tony around the museum, babbling excitedly about the inventions and the inventors and what the modern day applications have yielded...

And it’s the nicest day Tony’s had in a long time. Peter is sweet and eager and so goddamn smart that he’s half tempted to hire him on the spot and send him back to Pepper so he can change the face of the world with that brilliant beautiful mind of his—but he sees the grief in the kids eyes as he stumbles over names(MJ and Ned) and clams up when he tried to get more details—so he knows that like him, the kid has scars, he just isn’t ready for them to be bared to the world.

——————

They stay another night and then get up early, Peter behind the wheel again as they get closer and closer to Yellowstone.

“Favorite food” Peter prompts him, taking the easy route in this game of 20 questions they’ve been playing for fifteen minutes.

“Shawarma.”

“I heard the Avengers had shawarma after the battle of New York, is that true?” Peter asks eagerly, glancing over at him with a grin.

His hands tighten on his knees as he recalls the aftermath of that day—panic attacks, extremis, Thanos—and shudders.

“Yea, we did,” he answers as evenly as he can. “Why’d you leave Queens?” he asks quickly, turning the tables with a question he knows the kid doesn’t want to answer.

Peter stares out the window at the road ahead, face stoic and blank, silence settling uneasily between them. Tony sighs and turns to look out the window, wondering if he’ll ever be able to ask the right questions and stop hurting people.

———————

Tony pays the entrance fee to Yellowstone and they drive in campsites and trees and mountains rolling past. It’ll take five hours to get to the south rim of the Canyon so they decide to get a camper for the night and go out hiking—the Audi horribly conspicuous next to trucks and suvs splattered in mud and dust.

A few people notice him but don’t take photos, and when they head out for a hike, he’s got a ball cap and sunglasses on against the glare of the setting sun. Peter is still quiet—after their game of 20 questions ended abruptly, he’d kept quiet through the drive.

He’s a little out of breath when they reach the Lake Butte Overlook, and then he’s breathless for another reason entirely. He’s seen a lot of amazing things in his life, but this, this is astounding.

They stand together, watching the sun slip over the horizon so the clouds turn a bruised blue in some places and a burnt pink in others.

“My aunt died.”

It’s abrupt, and when he glances over, Peter is staring out at the lake intently. He nods and turns his gaze away, waiting to see if he’ll say more.

“When everything ended? When Thanos murdered half the universe? He took my aunt.”

He hears Peter’s breath hitch before he continues and fights the urge to reach out in comfort, hands clenching by his sides.

“My parents died when I was a kid so my aunt and uncle raised me till he was killed by muggers, and then it was just me and her.”

There’s a long moment of silence and then—“Then it was just me.”

His eyes fall shut as grief swells within him and it tastes like copper and gags him, he swallows hard to try and push it back, deep uneven breaths until he can open his eyes and calmly speak.

“I’m sorry. It took too long to get everyone back, some people just didn’t come back, I’m sorry kid.”

Peter looks over at him finally, brow furrowed, “I don’t blame you Mr. Stark, you did everything you could. I just wish things were different,” he says with a sad little smile and Tony’s heart breaks.

“Me too kid, me too,” he murmurs, smiling just as sadly back at him.

God, how he’s wished things were different.

———————

The camper is quiet that night, the small space leaving them bumping into each other and apologizing, the awkward air growing with each minute. Eventually Tony heads outside, builds a fire and stares up at the stars overhead. Peter lingers inside for a few minutes before joining him, wrapped in a blanket and shivering, but smiling softly.

It’s so dark here they can see the Milky Way overhead, and the sight of the stars sends a shudder over his skin—it’s too easy to recall how they look up close, how cold space is, silent and empty and lonely when you’re dying.

He tears his gaze away and breaths slowly, trying to calm himself. When he looks up again Peter is watching him with a curious, knowing gaze.

“I almost starved to death in space, actually, oxygen deprivation would have gotten me first, but yea, can’t look at the stars without feeling it again.”

Peter just nods and pokes the fire with a stick, silent for the moment.

“I left Queens because I was evicted and I knew I couldn’t survive there. There’s nothing left for me there anyway,” he mutters, shadows darkening his face.

Tony bites back the urge to offer to pay for an apartment, knowing that throwing money at the kid won’t actually solve the problem—money can’t bring back the dead—and that’s what the kid needs more than money, is family.

They sit in silence until the fire burns down and he throws water on it and rakes it for a few minutes to make sure the embers die before he follows the kid into the camper. He shivers once the heat of the fire bleeds out of his skin and glances over to where Peter is curled in a ball in the sleeping bag on the opposite side of the camper.

He strips his jeans and replaces them with a soft pair of cotton pants before he crawls into his own sleeping bag, shivering as he shuts off the lantern. The fabric of the sleeping bag whispers as Peter rolls over and he can see the pale skin of his face in the gloom, staring over at him.

“Do you...”

He trails off and Tony hums, “Do I?”

“Believe in god?”

That’s a surprise—but then, given what they’ve been talking about, it isn’t.

“I dunno kid. People say Thor is a god, but he’s not, he’s just an alien with fancy technology and science we don’t understand. If there is a god, I’d sure as fuck like to know where he gets off letting Thanos destroy the universe he created.”

His voice is bitter and Peter nods, face softening with something that looks like relief. He sees the shudder that runs over the kid and counts to ten as he weighs the cost/benefit ratio of inviting the kid to come slee next to him and share body heat.

Fuck it, he decides—“C’mere kid, we’re both freezing and we don’t have to be,” he murmurs, sitting up so he can unzip his sleeping bag and wave Peter over. There’s half a moment of hesitation from the boy before he’s hurrying over with his pillow and sleeping bag, murmuring a quiet thank you.

They curl close under the warmth of the flannel lining of the sleeping bag and after a few moments Peter’s icy feet press against his shins, eliciting a sharp curse and a breathless laugh from both of them. When Peter edges away with an apology his arm shoots out to grab his hip, pulling him closer without thought.

“It’s fine kid, c’mon,” he whispers, chest tight as he tries to stay calm. Peter nods and edges back, the curve of his back pressing into Tony’s chest slowly. They both still, stiff and wary, and then Tony’s hand at his hip slides around his waist to band him against his body, every inch of them pressed together searingly hot.

“This okay?” he asks hoarsely, breath whispering out against Peter’s neck. He doesn’t miss it when the kid shivers and his stomach tightens beneath Tony’s palm—he’s unconsciously slid it beneath the sweater the kid is wearing, so it’s skin to skin and he can feel how taut his body is.

“Y-yea, s’fine,” Peter murmurs breathily, curls shifting as he adjusts his head on the pillows, a waft of his scent filling Tony’s nose. He bites back a groan and wills his cock to behave, thankful he hasn’t gotten hard—yet.

They’re both stiff and uneasy until Tony starts to fall asleep and then Peter rolls over and nuzzles into him and his hand curls in his hair, pulling him closer as he falls asleep.

——————

Peter wakes early the next morning, warm and snuggled into Tony. His thigh is hitched around Tony’s hips, and to his horror, he’s hard. Tucking his head under Tony’s chin, he takes slow, steady breaths and tries to will it away, praying Tony stays asleep so he can deal with this.

He isn’t so lucky though, because just a few minutes later Tony is waking with low, sleepy noises that only serve to make him harder. It’s not fair really; anyone would be aroused if they were in his position, pressed against Tony Stark, the object of his affection since he was seven and arguably one of the most attractive men in the world.

He’s petrified still, breathing as slow and steady as he can to fool Tony into thinking he’s still asleep. The hand at the base of his spine slides up and he loses control, shudders and whines brokenly, trying to keep it in, and failing. He can feel it when Tony stills, hand pressed to the knobs of his spine, heart beating rapidly beneath his cheek.

He wonders if Tony will say something, try and play it off, or maybe, he’ll touch him again. He wants it, badly, and then it seems like Tony’s heard his though because his hand slides down to the small of his back and then back up, but this time his nails drag over Peter’s skin and he can’t help the broken gasp that shudders out of him, nor the instinctual stutter of his hips.

Burying his face in Tony’s neck, he burns with shame and arousal until the hand at his back slides down to his hip and tightens. “‘S it feel good sweetheart?” Tony asks, voice low and hoarse and another shudder runs over him.

Nodding, he gasps against his neck wetly, “‘M sorry, it’s wrong, I didn’t mean to,” he pleas, hoping Tony won’t hate him for rutting against him like an animal in heat.

Tony hushes him softly, free hand reaching down to wrap around his thigh, the strength in his grip and the callouses on his fingers making him tremble, imagining the way they’d feel on the rest of his skin.

“Shh sweetheart, it’s okay,” Tony murmurs, his voice low and rough in Peter’s ear. “You want me to keep touching you?” he offers, and yea, Peter wants that, but he’s scared, so scared that Tony’s going to think he’s just some kid, that he’ll tire of him and leave him behind when he gets bored of him or finds someone better.

He doesn’t know what to say and now he’s frustrated and aroused and he shakes his head and presses it into Tony’s throat, breathless. “I don’t, I don’t know,” he pants, “I don’t...want you to, to see me as some kid. I don’t want you to go,” he whimpers pathetically, tears burning in his eyes.

“Hey, woah, why would I go?” Tony asks, shifting so he can stare down at Peter in confusion and concern. He lifts his hand from Peter’s thigh to cup his chin and tilt it so their gazes meet, “What’s wrong Pete?”

A tiny sob hiccups out of his chest and he clings to Tony, “Everyone goes! Everyone! I just found you—don’t go!” he begs, tears blinding him as they finally fall. Tony curses and rolls toward him, gathering him into his arms and hushing him gently.

“I’m not going anywhere kid, I promise. I’m staying with you.”

————————

They don’t talk about it.

They talk about everything else; engineering, biomechanics, the Avengers, his aunt May, which Godfather movie is the best (the second, obviously), where to get the best slice of pizza in manhattan, and on and on until they finally arrive at the south rim of the canyon, just as the sun is setting.

They climb up from the car to the overlook and watch it together, sitting in the red dust as the sky turns crimson, silently leaning into each other as Mother Nature puts on a fiery display. As the sun sets further Peter’s head falls onto Tony’s shoulder like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and maybe it is, because he enjoys the weight of it, soft scent of Peter’s hair in his nose, the way Peter sighs softly, like he’s finally happy and relaxed.

“Where do you wanna go next?” he asks softly, not wanting to break the tranquility of the moment. Peter sighs and shrugs a shoulder, breath warm on Tony’s neck.

“Wherever you’re going,” he finally answers, “I want to go with.”

Tony nods, sliding an arm around his shoulders to hold him closer, turning his chin so he can inhale the sweet scent of the boy next to him, comforting and familiar. Before he can question the action, he presses his lips to his temple and hums softly, happier than he’s been in a very long time.

———————

Weeks pass.

They spend a few days at Yellowstone, swing down and visit Yosemite, then back up to Portland, Seattle and keep going down through California wine country.

Tony pays for everything and Peter drives, and slowly, they come to know each other.

The list of things Tony knows about Peter grows and it gets easier to share his own life with the young man. He tells Peter about Howard—the abuse, the emotional manipulation and neglect, and in turn Peter tells him about watching his Uncle Ben die right in front of him.

They’ve stopped in Monterey, renting out a house that overlooks the ocean, taking a break from living on the road, sleeping in hotels and eating shitty diner food at 3am. It’s a nice break, and both men are grateful for it.

Peter stares out the wide bay windows to where Tony is on the phone with Pepper—his one time assistant and fiancé, now his....well, Peter isn’t sure exactly. Tony’s said she’s his best friend and someone he’ll always love—but where that leaves them, Peter isn’t sure.

Tony glances up and smiles at him, eyes crinkling around the edges, handsome face tanned from the sun, hair shot through with silver in places and Peter shivers, blushes, and ducks his chin.

There is this aspect to their friendship that hasn’t been addressed; how they sleep in the same bed despite it no longer being necessary. How Tony pets his hair when they’re sitting or laying together.

Most days one or both of them wakes up hard, and usually when it’s Peter, Tony holds him close and runs his hand over his back, murmuring soft sleepy words of assurance and affection till he’s coming in his boxers, untouched.

It should be weird, or awkward, but it’s not. If anything it’s comforting. He knows Tony will take care of him, and in return Peter gets to make sure Tony sleeps, eats full meals and joins him for runs and yoga. The stress lines around Tony’s mouth and eyes have disappeared in the last two weeks, and everyday he smiles more.

His hands move independently from his busy mind and when he hears the patio door open, he glances up to find Tony leaning on the bar across from him with an amused smirk on his face.

“You know you’re better with those knives than some chefs?”

Peter nods but doesn’t reply—he hasn’t told Tony yet about being Spider-Man and the advantages that come with it—namely, enhanced senses that allow him to handle weapons with ease.

“Looks good,” the older man muses and reaches out to steal a cherry tomato, a little dribble of juice turning his lips red. Peter stares at it for a moment, heat building in his stomach before he turns away and shoves the kebabs into the fridge, letting the cool air wash over him.

“How’s Pepper?” he asks, turning back around to hand Tony a sparkling water, mimicking his posture and leaning forward onto the granite of the island.

“Good, I think she’s surprised by how good she is when I’m not there to fuck everything up,” Tony says, smirking as he sips his water. Peter frowns reproachfully at him and shakes his head.

“You didn’t fuck everything up. You made mistakes, like every other human does. Even Captain America made mistakes, so don’t hold yourself to some ideal that no one can actually meet.”

Tony stares at him for a long moment and then exhales slowly, looking away as he nods. “I...thanks kid. I guess I still need to hear that every once in awhile.” He looks up in surprise when Peter’s hand covers his where it’s resting on the counter, smiling softly in return at the warm affection in Peter’s gaze.

Peter’s stomach flutters and he nods nervously, peeling his hand away from Tony’s with a sense of loss. “Are you uh hungry?” he asks, turning half toward the fridge, “Dinner is ready whenever we want.”

Tony stares at him a second and then nods, straightening with a carefully neutral smile, “Yea sure kid, let’s eat.”

—————

They eat on their little strip of beach, skewers charred from the open flames of the fire. The waves crash further down the beach and Peter sips from a glass of sparkling water, seated beside Tony in deck chairs, watching the sunset.

It’s a comfortable silence stretched between them and as the sun slips lower, Peter finds his gaze on Tony more and more. For his part, the older man doesn’t seem to mind, meeting Peter’s gaze with a warm smile and soft eyes that make his stomach flip.

He’d be lying—has tried to lie—if he said he doesn’t want Tony, but he’s not sure what Tony wants from him. He picked him up on the side of the road and taken him on an extended road trip, bought him new clothes and shoes and paid for everything he’s needed, and hasn’t once asked for anything in return except for friendship and company.

So maybe, maybe this is something he’s allowed to ask for.

Tony stands and smiles down at him, “Think I’ll head to bed, you enjoy the fire a bit, hmm?” he murmurs, and before Peter can do more than gape at him stupidly, he’s walking into the house without a glance back.

—————

Tony scrubs a hand over his face as he leans against the shower wall, picturing the look on Peter’s face when he had left him, sitting by the fire, alone.

Hurt didn’t even begin to describe it.

It killed him to do it, but he’s started to wonder if the kid even has any interest in him, because despite their continued closeness and the odd morning hard on pressed against his hip, the kid hasn’t tried anything.

Shutting off the water, he towels at his head as he walks back into the bedroom, pausing, wide eyed when he finds Peter sitting on the bed, gaze fixed on his naked body before he looks up and blushes spectacularly.

“I uh, I want you,” Peter mumbles, blushing harder as he runs a hand over his arm nervously, “Um, I don’t, do you?”

Tony stares at him dumbfounded because, yea, this is apparently happening right now, and it’s not a dream, the kid is actually looking at him with wide hopefuls eyes and a nervous smile.

He takes too long to respond because Peter shoots to his feet, head bobbing anxiously, “Right, no, of course not. I’ll uh, ok, I’ll be down the hall,” he babbles, making for the door.

Tony’s brain finally catches up and the towel slips from his fingers as he strides across the room and grabs Peter, yanking him back around and into his chest with a soft huff. He kisses him, graceless and hungry, desperate to prove how much he wants him. When he pulls back, Peter’s got a dazed expression on his face and he smiles softly, thumb caressing his jaw.

“Stay, Peter, please.”

Peter nods slowly and gazes up at him through his lashes, “Are you sure? You don’t have to do this just because I want to,” he assures Tony and it hits him then, that Peter doesn’t realize how much he likes him. So he kisses him again, deeper this time, fingers tangling in his hair as he tilts Peter’s chin so he can devour him.

“I’m sure baby, you’re all I want,” he whispers against his lips. “That good with you?”

Peter makes a strained high pitched noise and nods, “Y-yea, very good,” he agrees before surging up to kiss Tony.

They fumble back towards the bed, stripping off Peter’s clothing till they’re skin to skin and trading hot, hungry kisses. The kid moans as he bites and kisses his throat, beard leaving a burning sensation as he goes and before he gets a hand on his cock, the kid struggles away and blurts—

“I’m Spider-Man.”

————

Part two coming soon!!

@sluttystarker @starkerchemistryy @pantastic-peach @thebadthingshappen @ciel-mio @hpspazz @starker-4ever @w1nters-stark @foof-a-loof @confused-trash-kitten @panicdotexe @stqrker @honey-honey-darling @mariketa12 @itsmeryshipper @dramione90 @starker-flame @pretzelpoetry @seriouslystarker @starkerthanreality @ikneelbeforemygod @professional-fangirl75 @virgilismypoorshadowling @godlovesstarker @sapphicfreak @veronicashipsit @the-dark-obsidian-princess @ikneelbeforemygod @laughing-oreo @sensei-sans-sugoi @ruelukas22 @tom-starker @yourlittlemelody @sbiderslut @legless-fish-on-rollerskates @sw111452 @yaoi-secret-s @tomanyfandomss101 @delicateavenuenacho @the-mad-starker @sbiderslut @dreamingstoriesinoursleep @severelybitchychild @is-it-avideo @heyheyheymymemeydudes @depressedbitch5 @gypsy-witch-fangirl

[cupidmarwani-archive]

Reborn

It’s been a long day, a long month, a long year. The humans, they see him, but at the same time, they don’t. They look through him. Everyone looks through him. Crockett’s been trying to lose himself in human pleasures, drinks and sex and anything he can get his hands on, but he can’t move past this emptiness, this lack of soul despite it being his entire purpose in existence. Ethan created him to be the soul of humanity. He’s failed that. Is actively failing it, actually, as he watches every human around him move twice as lively and thrice as happily as he does. There had been times he was able to be free, like them, but not anymore.

He mindlessly stirs the water in Sarah’s fountain, watching it all swirl around his fingers and cling to his skin with the promise of life. This water can make anything grow, but there’s nothing on him to be brought back to life. Magic as it is, it can’t heal something inside of him that’s been breaking for a long time, and has finally fallen apart.

On Earth, the humans are living. Happy things, content, living in bliss without a care for him or the other Gods. No one cares for them anymore, let alone the God of Soul who watches from afar with pain. 

“You’re moping again,” April says, nudging him with the toe of her boot. Leather. One of the ones imported from Italy, he thinks, specially made just for her at Sarah’s request. Sarah likes to give gifts, a woman of plenty. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He doesn’t bother to answer her. He doesn’t have the energy to talk, especially not to her, because she has this way of whittling out his true feelings and leaving him empty and overwhelmed when they’re finished. He wishes he could just mope in peace.

“I want to talk about it as much as Sarah wants to sleep with me.”

“Sarah likes women. And Ava and I.”

“I’m aware.”

He wants to dunk his whole head in the fountain and never resurface. April wouldn’t let him, though, and in fact grabs his wrist and pulls him away from it all. Rude. Maybe he should ask Ethan to remake him into an entity that can get drunk. It would be nice to waste away in it like the humans often do. Heroin gives him a few minutes of drifting, but it’s never enough. It’s not strong enough to break through to him.

The humans second guess him at every turn, even after everything he’s done to prove himself. April, too, always acting like he’s stupid because he’s young, because he’s passionate, because he’s himself. He was right about the human with the chronic pain even though Ethan didn’t think so. He was right about Noah even though the human doctor didn’t believe him. He was right about the human from the car accident even though Noah and April didn’t believe him. There’s no point. He’s a useless surgeon and a useless God. 

“Seriously, you can’t just lay here.”

“Try and stop me.”

All of April’s arms come under him, lift him up and carry him away even as he tries to squirm away. He doesn’t want to return to his true form. He hates it. “You better be taking me to Ethan,” he says, resting his head against her shoulder since he’s being carried anyways. “I want him to smite me.”

She doesn’t answer him, and he finds himself in her realms. Pillowy soft floors of clouds, happy souls meandering in the distance, a gentle breeze around him when she sets him up near what used to be Noah’s cradle, before he was returned to the humans. It still has a little baby blanket in it, even after all these years. He remembers when there was a baby here, one that was happy and clingy and often in April’s arms. That had been a simpler time. They were all so much happier.

He sighs as dramatically as he can manage and manifests an image of one of the human doctors. Connor Rhodes. He’s a little shit, and he’s always doing things not quite right, but everyone still loves and supports him. The humans, the other Gods. Ethan’s sleeping with him.

“Hey,” says Not-Connor. He’s just a soul, no body, no memory. A wisp, like a dream, but just solid enough that Crockett could touch him if he wanted to. He hasn’t decided yet if he will. “It’s you.”

“Get rid of it,” April says over her shoulder, pouring out some drink that Ava probably made. It’ll fix him, in terms of the Gods. Reset him, make him back to “normal” and complacent with the way they treat him. He should know. They’ve reset him like this before. It was in what the humans called the renaissance, when he lost himself in the beauty and peace of creation as opposed to work. He wasn’t himself until they found their way past the second world war, and he drifted back into the reality of who he is. Still unable to get drunk or high, but better, he supposes. He had figured out the whole “sex with humans” thing by then. “Orexis. Get rid of it.”

“No.” He reaches out and Not-Connor takes a seat behind him, cups his face and runs a thumb over his bottom lip. “I like him, he’s sweet.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m not drinking that.”

April kneels in front of him with the drink, shifting and swirling and smoking and he remembers too vividly how foul it tasted as it slithered down his throat and left him retching in an Italian street. He doesn’t want to go through that again. He won’t do it. April grabs his face just a little too firmly, trying to force his mouth open, and he sinks out of his human guise, Not-Connor vanishing with him, and gets back down to Earth as quickly as he can. He can’t let them reset him again. Even as the sky suddenly fills with clouds and rains, the grass in sidewalk cracks grow, a piece of roadkill twitches, water in the gutters rises to flood the streets, and the day stutters like a glitchy movie. They’re all angry, and they’re all looking for him, and he doesn’t know exactly where he can go to get away from them. There has to be something. The hospital is the first place they’ll look, so he can’t go there. Connor will be within Ethan’s reach, and any woman at Med will be well within the touch of any of the Goddesses. He has one option. He has Will Halstead, and he hopes that they won’t look for him there.

[firesoulstuff]

Frozen in Time

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21972862

Sara can’t take much more of this.

Some paragons they are. How are they supposed to save the multiverse when there isn’t even one universe left to save?

They’ve been here at The Vanishing Point for a few days now, sort of, without the passage of time it’s really hard to tell, even more so than on The Waverider. So far they haven’t done much more than fight with each other – namely Lex - and sulk. It started off quick enough, with Kate punching him across the face. Barry and Kara managed to hold her back initially after that, but at some point Lex shot his mouth off in the wrong place at the wrong time and Kate straight up pushed him off the ledge of the base. Sara is telling herself Kate had seen the rather large piece of wreckage suspended right underneath and realized Lex wouldn’t have fallen more than a few feet. However he didn’t fall, because time doesn’t move here, so he became suspended in the atmosphere like every other piece of crap floating around. He got back eventually, but now that they know pushing him like that won’t hurt him he has become a bit of an emotional punching bag, especially for Kara.

That’s what Sara is walking away from right now, actually. For as smart as Lex supposedly is he still can’t seem to figure out when to stop talking, and Kara has just flung him out into orbit for a second time today.

If yesterday ever ended, that is, which technically it didn’t. Technically, here, no day ever ended.

Not even the worst one.

She has done everything in her power over past… almost four years, damn. It really has been awhile.

Anyway, she’s done whatever she can to keep herself from thinking about that day. Time had helped, but now there is no time. This moment is frozen, and aftermath of everything which happened within it has remained as fresh and constant, the way it will until somebody changes it.

It seems as though The Legion of Doom did a little sweeping and some other light housekeeping in the areas they were using. Thoughtful.

The deeper parts of The Vanishing Point, however, are still suspended in distress.

She can tell she’s getting closer to the heart of maze of rooms by the amount of damage still living. Lights are still flickering, practically begging to be either put out or changed. Sparks are still exploding from semi-live wires. Water is even still dripping from pipes.

She wonders how things like those never run out, even trapped eternally in the same moment. Maybe they reset, the same drop of water plopping against the ground over and over again.

By now she’s come to what is by far her least favorite area in the entire base: The Oculus Wellspring.

The last time she was here she tried to come in and pay respects… but she couldn’t. She wasn’t strong enough. The cold feel of this room, the sight of all the rubble scattered about everywhere; it had made her want to collapse into a fit of tears.

Mick… He had been strong enough. He had walked right up the remainder of the ramp to what had once housed The Oculus and he stood before the biggest pile of crushed rubble and paid respects.

“Get him out of here!” Leonard’s words had rung in her head. Savage wasn’t coming for them any more, and there were no Time Master, but there was The Legion. So she’d pulled him away.

She told him it was what Snart would’ve wanted, and true he had ordered her that, but still… it had been more for her own benefit.

She still wants to collapse into a fit of tears, maybe more this time than last, but she owes it to him, she owes it to Mick, to pay some respects.

The Wellspring Chamber is in the worst shape of the entire Vanishing Point. Huge piles of rock and dust lay everywhere, none of it really quite settled, and all over the room carries a chill of death.

Walking into the chamber her white boots pick up black dust, and instantly she knows its ash. The nothingness remains of the Time Masters who had fought to their bitter end. The Time Masters and…

She exhales slowly.

She makes her way up the ramp, which is in surprisingly good shape with all things considered, and squats down just in front of the enormous pile of rock and molten metal at it’s platform.

“Hey Crook.” She says softly, her voice already thick and on the verge of cracking. “So um… I just wanted to let you know… We uh… We lost the world.”

She pauses to wipe a tear off her cheek, and then presses on.

“It wasn’t the mission against Savage. We won that, thanks to you. You know, I think you did so, so much more for history than every other Legend put together. The things we’ve seen happen…. None of it would’ve been possible with Oculus in play.”

She shutters and presses a hand to her mouth, sniffling as her voice finally gives in to the tears and their moisture fills her words.

“You saved everyone. And me… I lost them, Snart. I lost them. We all did. We couldn’t do it without you.”

And that, she realizes bitterly, is probably very true. Snart would’ve been suspicious of Lyla from the moment she went missing, if not from the moment she showed up in the first place. He would’ve handled Lex straight away, kept a close eye on him and stolen that damned book before he even laid his eyes on it; never mind his hands. He would’ve had a plan, or at the very least he would’ve been able to come up with a plan now.

With every thought, every “would have” that passes through her head she loses more and more control over her tears. She sobs violently and it’s only a matter of time before her balance falters and she shoots out a hand to catch herself on the pile of rubble. What she grasps is a loose rock, and it gives way under her sudden pressure so she grips further down the pile. Still sobbing she wipes at her eyes and blinks them open, and when she does her vision fixes on something in the rubble.

She can’t tell what it is at first. All her mind will process is a red blob. But she looks closer, forces her mind to see the object clearly, and when she realizes what it is she nearly chokes on her own tears.

A blood streaked hand.

A body; Leonard’s body.

That’s what she knows, logically, it is. Even if the assassin part of her brain is telling her blood shouldn’t even still be visible after nearly four years, never mind red, and the time traveling Captain part of her brain is saying time doesn’t move here, she won’t listen to those parts. After everything, after all she’s lost, she won’t hope for the impossible.

What she will do is get to her feet and dig away at the rubble. She uses the sudden rush of irrational, hopeful, adrenalin to aid her in toppling the biggest rock over the edge of the platform. She digs away at the rest, pushing and shoving bits of rock and seething through her teeth when she touches the metal bits and they are still white hot, but she shoves them away anyway. She is aware that as she goes she is exposing bits and pieces of torn cloth and cut up limbs, but it is only after she removes one final chunk of large stone that she gasps at the sight before her.

Leonard.

Battered, broken, bloody, Leonard.

She has to know. She thinks she does, as he has to be dead, even if his blood is still glistening bright. She reaches for his neck, her breath held tight in her chest, preparing to be met with nothing.

Thump, thump.

A pulse.

He’s alive.

It feels like all of the oxygen leaves her body in one punch, and until it returns all she can do is stare at Leonard.

Leonard. Alive. Under so much rubble that she hasn’t been able to move yet.

By now logic and strategy are starting to work their way back into her thought process. Even if she can remove all of the remaining rubble from him, moving the bigger pieces on her own will likely cause more harm than good. Then, even if it doesn’t do more harm, how much good will it really do? He won’t heal on his own, and she can’t do the impossible.

Fortunately, there is someone still alive who can.

“BARRY!”

She sprints down the halls of the base, shouting the name over and over again as she does. She runs all the way back to what used to be a garden, to where she last left most of the group arguing over the ethical vs. tactical advantages and disadvantages to killing Lex.

“BARRY!”

She catches sight of Barry, and everyone else for that matter, turning to look at her as she comes tearing down the path. She skids to a stop right in front of Barry; heaving her breath in and out all while trying to find the words to tell him that Leonard is alive.

“Sara?” He asks, hovering close to her.

“The Oculus chamber.” She pants. “Leonard. He’s alive.”

She sees Barry’s eyes turn wide, and the next thing she knows she feels his arms wrapped around her and wind racing through her hair. It’s only a fraction of a second later that they’re back in The Oculus chamber, Barry standing next to her and gaping dumbly at Leonard lying in a pulverized heap of rock and metal.

There’s another gust of wind and the others all appear, minus Lex of course. Barry turns to the group, and Sara notes that his face is serious and grave… but there is a touch of hope.

“Help us get him out of there.”

They manage, albeit, not easily. Kate handles the piping hot metal; turns out her gloves are prepared for events like that. Sara’s own hands are stilling glowing red with burns and so she allows Kara to cool them down whilst J’onn works on the heavier pieces of rubble. It’s really only one overly large piece left – right across Leonard’s chest - and soon as it’s removed they can actually hear Leonard exhale in relief. He doesn’t wake up, but still, it’s more confirmation that he’s alive.

Barry and J’onn drag him down the ramp, and following an instinct Sara gets to her knees and ushers for them to prop him against her.

“Ok,” Kate says, “I don’t know who this guy is, but he isn’t going to last much longer with these injuries.”

“He will here.” Barry says, “Time not moving is what’s kept him alive. It’s like he’s in a stasis, like all the lights and the water. He doesn’t get better, but he doesn’t get worse.”

“Ok.” Kara says, her hands settling onto her hips as she starts to think. “So when we defeat the Anti-Monitor-”

“If.” Kate chimes in.

“When.” Kara stresses, glaring. “When we defeat the Anti-Monitor and bring everybody back, we can bring The Waverider here and put him in the med-bay. In the meantime he’ll be fine, right?”

Sara hates to think what she is, she really does, but Leonard is here with his head in her lap and literally hanging on to his last breath. She won’t risk losing him again.

“We don’t know if that will be possible.” She says, giving voice to her terrible thoughts. “Even if we do defeat The Anti-Monitor, we can’t be sure it’ll bring back anything that we’ve lost.”

“Sara-”

“And even if it does.” She presses on, ignoring Kara and that pleading look in her eyes. “We can’t be sure it’ll be everything. We might only get back some of it, and even if we can get it all back I’m not sure even The Waverider could fix this.”

That’s a hard one to admit, but it’s true. As miraculous as The Waverider’s med bay can be, there are some things beyond even its capabilities. Ultimately she would’ve died from that bullet from trader Rip without Stein; in fact she did for a few minutes. Kendra would have died from that dagger shard had it not been for Ray, the med-bay had only allowed them to find it. And Carter… Stein… There had been no saving them.

She looks down at Leonard and how beat up he is. He’s bleeding from virtually everywhere, his left hand practically shredded down to the bone; and those bones are broken and visible. His clothes are torn and the skin beneath the holes is nothing but peeling blisters. His pulse – which Sara is keeping two fingers pressed to – is weak. Present, but weak. He’ll die the second he leaves The Vanishing Point, med-bay or no.

“Maybe I can.” Barry says, stepping forward.

Sara looks up at him with a thousand questions and protests in her mind, most of them likely written on her face as well. Barry, in turn, doesn’t look half as confident as he sounds but he squats next to her anyways, his eyes roaming every inch of Leonard’s body before they finally meet hers.

“When The Flash from Earth-90 gave himself to save us, he temporarily stole my speed so I wouldn’t be able to follow him.”

He takes a moment, looking to Leonard and then back at her, desperate.

“You know how this place works. What if I could give Snart some of my speed? My speed healing would kick in, right?”

She tries her best to think through the logistics of that, and her heart actually swells as she realizes she knows the answer.

Yes.

It’s an outside force. Like changing a light bulb, or Kara cooling down her hands.

She nods quickly, “Yes.”

With a relieved smile Barry places his hand on Leonard’s chest and so Sara braces her own hands against his shoulders. Barry starts vibrating his arm and within seconds Leonard is convulsing under her grip. First it’s small, but then bigger, and she would be worried except his blisters are fading to a normal pale color and sticky blood is flowing slower. Eventually Barry staggers back, almost landing on his ass were it not for Kara catching him under his arms. Leonard continues to seize minutely against her, and when that stops she moves her fingers to check is pulse again and receives a tiny shock for her efforts.

“It’ll take time.” Barry says as Kara helps him stand up. “Even with speed healing, I was in a coma for months after getting struck by lightning.”

It’s Kate who folds her arms, unconvinced. “I thought time didn’t move here?”

Sara wants to answer, to explain, but surprisingly, it’s Ryan who beats her to it.

“Yet, we’re still counting days.”

*

*

*

“There are no strings on me.”

He barely has time to finish the sentence before his hand is engulfed with a searing white pain. Every instinct he has in his body is screaming for him to get away but he can’t. Literally, he can’t. On reflex he tries to uncurl his fingers but they won’t go… and then there’s nothing.

For a while he feels for only a handful of seconds at a time, few and far between, each time like he is starting to wake from a very deep sleep that he quickly succumbs back to. Finally, however, it starts to feel different. Like dawn is coming and he still isn’t ready to wake up. So he goes back into the darkness, the faint calls of something somewhere nearby hitting his ears. When he wakes up again it’s soon, almost as if he hasn’t fallen back asleep for more than a minute, and suddenly it feels like a weight has been lifted off his chest. Wow, he hadn’t realized how hard it had been to breathe. He can’t quite seem to wake himself up yet but he’s content with that. For the first time everything feels semi-comfortable. He can breathe and there is something warm underneath his head. He wants to open his eyes and see what it is but he can’t. He hears the faint sound of voices around him, some almost sound familiar, and The Oculus starts to come back to him. The pain, the darkness, and now what? Is this death? Are these his final moments of broken lucidity? His mind bestowing him with imaginary feelings of air half in his likely collapsed lungs and delusional voices at the edges of his ears?

There is a rush of a shock through his system. It feels like he’s being electrocuted, and suddenly he can’t feel or hear anything other than it, and when it’s over the darkness closes back around him.

Yeah, he thinks before he succumbs to it, this is death.

Yet, some long time later, the darkness lifts again.

This time, he is very aware of the pain. There’s a lot of it, and it’s everywhere, but as he grunt and grimaces against it he comes to a crucial realization.

He can move.

He opens his eyes first, and finds that he is looking at nothing other than the featureless blob of grey that is the ceiling of chambers in The Vanishing Point.

Peachy.

He tries to sit up and a shot of fiery pain through his side sends him right back down. Nope, not doing that.

Ok, so he can’t sit, and after that he isn’t sure he wants to try rolling over.

He can at least pick up his head and, with some bearable pain, prop himself up on his elbows to look around.

The first thing he notices is his elbows dip a bit into the firm material of a half-decent mattress. So he’s on a bed, meaning someone moved him from The Oculus chamber.

The walls around him are all stone and grey, and not to mention mostly in tact. There’s a light attached to the ceiling and covered by a lampshade, and a bookshelf up against the wall right next to a chrome door, but otherwise the room is bare.

That’s when the door slides open.

It’s Sara who steps into the doorway, though not all the way through it. She freezes the moment she sees him staring at her, and he can’t say he doesn’t do the same.

She looks different.

She’s wearing… He’ll say a version of her White Canary suite. One that’s cleaner and sleeker, and not to mention includes a much more gratuitous neckline. Her hair is different too. A little shorter and not quite as wavy as he remembers.

“You’re awake.” She finally stutters.

“It appears I am.” He says with a slow nod, “How long have I been out?”

Panic flashes through her eyes as she hurries in and sits on the very edge of the mattress, her eyes avoiding his when she does.

“Um… It’s a little complicated. It’s been close to a week since we found you. But uh, it’s been four years since The Oculus.”

He’s sure the surprise must be on his face.

Four years.

He’d assumed it’d been a long time; it feels like it. Before she walked in he might have guessed weeks, maybe a couple months. After she arrived he would’ve bet a year or two.

Four years.

“Ok… So where are we now?”

It’s the most practical question he can think of, and he isn’t sure if he can handle hearing even one thing that’s changed in all this time right now.

“At The Vanishing Point.” She answers, “Blowing up The Oculus worked, right now we’re just squatting in the Time Master’s old barracks, until we can come up with a plan.”

He should ask what kind of plan, or against who, or what, but instead…

“Why here?”

She sighs, her eyes closed in a way that forewarns pain coming when she opens them.

“Because here is the only place that’s left.”

She catches him up on everything, then. First on The Crisis, and on how literally every single being to ever exist in any universe is now gone except for seven supposed “paragons” and him, and then on anything else she feels he should know.

She tells him about Savage, about Stein, about Rip, about Jax and a wife and daughter he has in the future whom she couldn’t wait to meet before all this. She tells him about the new Legends, about how well Mick had been doing before he got tidal waved out of existence with the rest of the multi-verse, and then finally, she tells him about Ava.

“We’re hoping we can bring everyone back.” She says, and there is a touch of guilt to her words.

“Good.” He nods, hoping he doesn’t sound nearly as disappointed as he feels. “Sounds like you’ve got a lot worth fighting for.”

The smile she gives him is grateful, and he tries to return it. It does hurt to hear she’s moved on from him, almost as much as the physical pain that he’s in, but even so he is glad she was able to find happiness in his absence.

“We all do.” She says, “And, if you’re up for it, we could use your help.”

He nods.

“You might have to find some crutches lying around this place, but I will gladly take down another immortal bastard.”

He punctuates his words with a smirk, one that she returns.

“It’s late right now.” She tells him, and he obeys her before she even says it and eases himself back down. “Get some rest.”

He nods, though truthfully he doubts he’ll be resting much any time soon.

She probably knows that, but she smiles at him all the same and bends over to plant a soft kiss to his forehead.

“Good to have you back Len.”

[soundofseventeen]

The Little Mermaid (Lee Seokmin)

Hello!! Onto my main boy!! Enjoy! Bye! 

Master List

*Fairy Tale*

“Your Highness!” Minghao ran towards the beach, followed by 2 guards. Seokmin coughed on the beach, completely soaked with water. “Are you alright? What happened?” Minghao asked, wrapping a coat around the prince.

“A storm…” Seokmin breathed, finally able to catch his breath. “Lightning hit the ship, it caught fire…”

“We need to get you back up to the castle.” Minghao said, attempting to help Seokmin stand up.

“Wait!” Seokmin said, looking out into the ocean.

“What?” Minghao followed his gaze, just seeing waves crash against each other.

“Someone saved me.” He said, scanning the ocean as far as he could.

“What… How?”

“I don’t know… I just… This voice… I can remember the voice…” Seokmin said. They had to be out there. He then turned to scan the beach. “They were just here…”

“Seok…” Minghao lowered his voice, addressing his prince improperly. “We’re the only ones here, we should get back up to the castle and get you cleaned up. It looks like another storm is coming.” Seokmin looked a little bit longer, eventually sighing, slowly nodding his head.

“Okay… Okay, yeah. We should go…” He said, still scanning the beach. How did they get away so fast?

“Come on.” Minghao said, lightly nudging his friend. “We’ll get you up the castle and take care of you… Your parents were very worried when the crew came back without you…” Seokmin nodded his head, following Minghao back up to the castle.

As they walked away, you picked your head up above the stone you were hiding behind. Why you were hiding, you weren’t totally sure. Wait, yes you were. You knew the prince would probably panic to discover he was saved by a mermaid.

“Y/N, your father has been looking for you!” You heard, quickly turning around to see one of the guards swimming up behind you.

“Just one more minute…” You said, looking back to the beach. You sighed as your prince was already gone, sinking back into the water.

“You were trying to find humans again, weren’t you?” He said, leading you back to the underwater castle.

“No…”

“Princess, you know they’re dangerous. Why do you keep trying to get to them?”

“They’re not that dangerous.” The guard suddenly stopped, looking at you.

“Did you… Did you meet one?”

“No.” You lied. “No, I did not.”

*Today*

Seokmin yawned as he walked to the docks. This is was his least favorite part of his job, waking up extremely early in the morning. He stretched his arms over his head, shaking out his head as if that could wake him up more. He unlocked the baitshop, making his way inside to drop off his bag.

He then began his usual routine. He had to check all the nets for fish, separate them into their perspective drop off locations, then get the nets ready for the next day, then make his way to the customers who buy fish, then get the shop open for the day.

Pretty much the normal day to day.

He pulled the fish out of the first net, not too much but a solid catch for the day. Surely enough for his first couple sets of deliveries. The second net was the same, a decent amount but he could have hoped for more. As he walked to the third net, he swore he heard barking. He looked around, not seeing anything unusual. He listened for a bit, not hearing anything again. Seokmin shrugged, turning back to the nets, jumping at the spotted dog sitting next to him.

“Oh hello.” He laughed, reaching down to pet the dog. “Where did you come from?” He crouched down to get a closer look at the dog’s collar. “Now who do you belong-” He was interrupted by another dog jumping on his back, followed by several others, completely knocking him to the ground.

“Woah, woah, okay! Okay, everyone calm down!” Seokmin couldn’t help but laugh, struggling to get up from underneath all the dogs. The dogs took turns barking at him, each attempting to knock him back to their level. It took longer than he wanted to admit, but eventually he got all of the dogs to sit.

“Okay, what the hell? Where did you come from?” He thought aloud, looking at the row of dogs. 6 dogs sat in front of him. He scratched his head, eyes widened at the now empty net on the dock. “Oh no…” He walked over to it, sighing. The fish must have fallen back in the water during the chaos. Now he was going to be short for the day.

“Well, now look what you guys did.” He sighed, the dogs for some reason all sitting patiently waiting for him. He looked at them for a second, starting to reset the net. Maybe he could catch a couple more before he had to run his errands. As he picked up the net, he groaned, seeing a giant tear in the net. “Great. That seems about right.” He muttered, balling up the net to bring inside.

He started to walk towards the shop, slowly stopping and turning around. All 6 dogs had started to follow him. He took another couple steps, the dogs doing the same. Letting out a huff, he just makes his way into the shop, his new friends following. He quickly got the fish into coolers, then sat down and starting to search on his phone.

“Ah here we go…” He said, looking over at the dogs, again sitting peacefully. “There’s a pet clinic that will take in lost dogs. They should be able to get you guys home.” He smiled, looking at the dalmatian confused. The dog appeared to be pawing at one of the doors on the side.

“What are you doing buddy? Nothing’s in there.” He laughed, starting to herd the dogs into his truck.

*Fairy Tale*

“So… She can’t speak? At all?” Minghao asked, looking at Seokmin in confusion.

“If she can, she has yet to show it.” He said, fixing his own collar.

“What about sign language? If she can’t talk maybe she can sign?”

“That was my thought too, but I’m starting to think not. She just points at things and nods so far.” Seokmin sighed. When he found you on the beach, he swore you were the person who had saved him that day. He would have bet the entire kingdom on it. The only problem was that you couldn’t talk, and the person who saved him had the most beautiful voice he had ever heard.

“Do we even know if she speaks our language? That could be why she hasn’t spoken, she doesn’t know what’s happening.” Minghao offered, Seokmin shaking his head.

“She seems to understand what I’m saying. At least she’s reacting and kind of responding to the things I have said.”

“Well there has to be some way to communicate with her.” Minghao sighed, looking out the window at the sea. “Maybe writing?”

“We’d have to carry around paper and ink everywhere then.” Seokmin joked, Minghao shrugging.

“It would be better than the silence and pointing.”

“I guess it would.” He sighed, still wondering about the person who saved him that day.

“Come on sir, your silent lost princess is waiting for you.” Seokmin nodded, lightly shaking his hair before following Minghao out of the room.

You sat in a big comfy chair, a new dress, dry hair, staring at your legs. You had legs! Whole human legs! Complete with feet and toes and everything! All because you made that deal with the sea witch! Sure, you only had 3 days to get this prince to love you, but how hard could that be? If you succeeded, you would get your voice back and would get to stay human! If not…

Well, you just wouldn’t think about that.

Your head turned as you heard voices coming towards the room.

“Good morning.” Seokmin smiled, followed by Minghao. You waved a hand, shining a smile. “Did you sleep well?” You nodded your head.

“Can you write, miss?” Minghao asked, you looking at him for a second before nodding. “Here, this might help you communicate a little better.” He smiled, placing the paper and pen in front of you. You stared at it. It was much drier than what you were used to writing on. You slowly reached for them.

“So, what’s your name?” Seokmin asked, taking a sip of coffee. “You know, so I know what to call you besides... Miss...” You nodded, quickly attempting to write your name on the paper. It wasn’t as neat since the paper was rougher than what you’re used to, but it was legible.

“Y/N…” Seokmin said, nodding his head. He opened his mouth to say ask you another question, but then a dog quickly ran into the room, coming straight to you. You let out a silent yelp, pulling your legs onto the chair and staring at the animal in fear. Both Seokmin and Minghao looked at you in confusion.

“Pongo, here.” Minghao said, the dog quickly going to sit by his owner. “Sorry about that, he gets excited about new people.” Minghao said, quickly leading the dog out of the room.

“Are you afraid of dogs?” Seokmin asked, you trying to process how to answer. You weren’t entirely sure what a dog was, but you assumed it had something to do with the animal that just came through here, so you slowly nodded your head. “I would not go to the stables then. We have about 100 puppies hiding in there.” Your eyes widened. What was a puppy? Was it bigger and scarier than a dog?

Seokmin turned to look out the window.

“How about this. It’s a nice day, why don’t I show you the town? See the sights?” He offered, you looking over at him. You quickly nodded your head again, standing up to follow him.

*Today*

“Would you look at this stuff? Isn’t it neat?” You grinned, digging through the box that had just arrived. It was mostly old knick-knacks, probably from the house of some older woman who was moving to a retirement home. Honestly, it was probably mostly junk. But not to you, to you it was fascinating. Chan just shook his head at you, trying to suppress a smile while reading a book.

“Whatever you say Y/N.” He said, leaning on the counter. 

“What are you reading?” 

“Some journal I found...” He muttered, closing the book and looking at you. “Anything actually worth anything in there?”

“Everything is worth something.” You said, pulling out some decorative salt and pepper shakers. You internally died over them, they had to be 30 years old at least! You turned around to show them to Chan, who just sighed, rolling his eyes.

“Okay, well if you find something in there worth monetary value, let me know.” He grinned as you put the shakers down, continuing to dig through the box. Chan sighed to himself, peeking over at you. How you got so excited over this stuff, he could never figure out. He did have to admit your pure joy over simple things was nice though. It never took much to get a smile on your face, and if there was a smile on your face, chances are everyone around you had a smile on their face.

That’s why he was able to work with you so long. Because while he never understood you that well, you were just a nice person to be around.

“Stop judging me and go help that customer.” You said, sticking your tongue out at Chan. You knew his teasing was never more than that, but you still got sensitive about people talking about your hobbies.

“Yes mam.” He said, pushing himself off the counter and approaching the couple, who were looking at a bookshelf. You kept digging through the box, smiling as you pulled out items. Your heart swelled when you found a locket, old pictures on the inside. You wondered what happened to the pair in the locket, wishing you had a way to find out. But, like most items in this shop, you would never seen the original owners again.

The front door dinged again, causing you to look up. A man had entered, looking around the shop with wide eyes. You looked over at Chan, who was still busy with the couple, and then greeted the man.

“Hello!” You called out, waving a hand. His eyes fell on you, and he gave a small wave. “Welcome! What weird thing are you looking for today?” You asked, grinning at him. He continued to look around the shop as he approached your counter, you leaning on the box.

“Uhm, this may be an odd question…” He said, and you nodded your head, waiting patiently. “Do you… Do you have any… netting?”

“Netting?” You pondered, raising an eyebrow. “What kind of netting?”

“Fishing netting. Long story short, my nets got torn by some dogs this morning and I need to get some new ones. I’ve looked around, and it’s all out of my price range, so someone suggested I come here.” You thought about it for a second, looking to the side of the store.

“Follow me.” You smiled, waving a hand.

*Fairy Tale*

“So, where are you from then?” Seokmin asked, leading you around the village. You thought about how to answer that. You couldn’t quite tell him exactly where you were from, but you could be close? You scribbled on the paper and showed him, eyes quickly reading.

“Across the sea…” Seokmin muttered, looking out to the sea. “Oh wow, there’s not a kingdom across the sea forever.” He said, you starting to panic. Maybe that was the wrong answer… “You must have traveled really far.” You grinned, nodding your head.

“Hey, Seokmin!” You both turned your heads, spotting a man walking towards you, hand in hand with a woman.

“Joshua! What brings you here?” Seokmin smiled, hugging the man, who you assumed was called Joshua.

“We’re wedding planning, and for some reason all the flowers in your kingdom are much nicer than anywhere else. I imagine it’s the sea water?” Joshua smiled, lighting nudging the girl next to him. Her eyes landed on you, a soft smile on her face.

“Who’s this?” She asked, looking back to Seokmin, the slightest of eyebrows raised.

“This is Y/N. She was shipwrecked on our beach the other day.” Seokmin explained. “This is a prince from a neighboring kingdom, and his fiance.” You nodded, waving at the couple.

“Well it’s nice to meet you.” Joshua said, smiling at you. “You couldn’t be in better hands.”

“Hey! I have an idea!” His fiance said, all three of you looking at her. “Why don’t we get lunch? Everyone’s so busy lately! It would be lovely to just sit and chat for a while.”

“If Seokmin’s up for it, I’m up for it!” Joshua smiled, looking at Seokmin.

“I mean, if Y/N would like to?” Seokmin looked to you. You just simply nodded your head, slightly hungry anyway. “Excellent.” He smiled, you grinning back. “There’s a really great place just near here. They have the best seafood.”

Your eyes immediately widened. Seafood? Like… Fish?

“Oh… Do you not like seafood?” Seokmin asked, catching the panicked look on your face. You quickly shook your head. You couldn’t even begin to imagine just seeing a fish cooked to be eaten, let alone eating one yourself. “Oh, well that’s fine. They have other options as well.”

You were a little hesitant, but slowly nodded your head. You could get through one lunch. You just wouldn’t look at their plates.

*Today*

You huffed as you carried the nets towards the bait shop. You didn’t realize how heavy these would end up being as you walked from your car. You figured it was three nets, how bad could it get? They weren’t that heavy when you got them into your car?

You struggled to get them into the building, Seokmin picking his head up at the sound.

“Woah, what are you doing?” He said, quickly coming to take two of the nets from you.

“Trying to bring your net options here?” You breathed, arms sore from the nets.

“You could have brought them one at a time.” He laughed, setting them on the counter. He then took the last net from your hands, finally being able to let your arms drop.

“I thought it would be easier to make one trip.” You said, shaking your arms out.

“Clearly.” He said, but he still grinned at you all the same. “Thank you so much for bringing them.”

“It’s not a problem. Hopefully one of them will work for you.” You smiled, looking around the shop.

“I’m just going to go test them with my hooks. You can stay here if you want?” You nodded your head, leaning on the counter. He smiled before heading back outside, leaving you in silence. Well, almost silence.

You swore you heard faint barking coming from somewhere? You looked around the shop, not seeing any dogs. But there was definitely barking? It almost sounded like…

“I found one that should work!” Seokmin smiled, coming back into the shop.

“Oh perfect!” You smiled, pushing yourself away from the counter.

“I hope you don’t mind, I already put the other two back in your car. It was unlocked, so I just put them in the back seat?”

“Oh, thank you.” You smiled, turning as you heard that barking again.

“So how much do I-”

“Do you have a dog, by any chance?” You turned back to him, Seokmin raising an eyebrow.

“Uhm… No?” He said, confused by your sudden question.

“I’m sorry I just… I’ve been hearing barking.” You said, Seokmin tilting his head.

“I don’t know where that would…” He started, stopping. There was barking. “What the hell?” He said, looking at the back of the shop. He started to walk back there, you following. As you went in back, you didn’t see a dog.

“Where is that coming from?” You asked, stopping as you walked past a door. “It’s… It’s coming from this door?” You said, Seokmin raising an eyebrow.

“That’s not possible. There’s just old equipment in there, I don’t remember the last time I even opened it.”

“But the barking’s definitely coming from in there?” You said, looking at the door. Seokmin opened a drawer, digging in it for a minute. He eventually pulled out some keys, walking to the door.

“See, there’s nothing in here-” He said, opening the door, stopping as a small dalmatian puppy ran out. You both stared at the dog wide eyed, not noticing the second one emerging.

“How… What… When… Wh… What?” Seokmin said, staring at the dogs, beyond confused. “How did you two even get in there?” He asked, bending down to get at a closer level with the dogs.

*Fairy Tale*

“Are… Are you alright?” Seokmin asked, speaking for the first time in several minutes.

The sea witch had betrayed you. She used your voice and turned herself into a human to prevent you from what you had to do. With the help of Minghao, you managed to convince the prince that she was lying, but that only led to chaos and a large battle. It was... terrifying to say the least. But in the end, the sea witch was defeated.

Now you both sat along the shore, trying to process what had just happened. Minghao had gone back up to the castle to give you two some peace.

“I think so.” You said, still mildly shocked that a voice had come out of you. Seokmin still wasn’t used to it either.

“So… You’re… You’re kind of a… You’re…”

“A mermaid?” You offered, Seokmin nodding. “Yeah, kind of.”

“Uh… How?” He asked, clearly confused.

“I… Met you one day. After a shipwreck. Normally we aren’t supposed to interfere with human situations, but for some reason I couldn’t let you drown like that…”

“So that was you.” He said, and you looked over at him. “You were the one that saved me that day.” You nodded your head again.

“I got in… Very big trouble. Merpeople are… forbidden from interacting with humans. At least, in my kingdom we are. My mother was killed by a human, and since then we’ve been warned about how dangerous humans are.” You sighed, looking back out to the water. “I don’t know, something told me to stop you from drowning.”

“Thank you.” Seokmin looked at you, sincerity in his eyes. “So, if you’re a mermaid, how do you have legs?”

“I made a deal with the sea witch. I shouldn’t have, but I just… Wanted to see what this world was like. She… Well, she traded my voice for a pair of legs so I could walk up here, and she… she told me that I had 3 days to make you fall in love with me or else I would become another part of her collection of trinkets.” You admitted, suddenly realizing how crazy that probably sounded.

“It sounds like she set you up for failure.” He said, you sighing. “Not in like a… I just mean… Well, no one can fall in love with someone in 3 days. Even my friends who had quick introductions to their loves had to take a while before they were 100% certain.”

“I think you’re right.” You muttered, digging your feet into the sand. You knew your father was humoring you by letting you keep the legs a little longer, probably so you could say goodbye. He was bound to turn up at any point to bring you back into the sea. “I probably looked so stupid…”

“I’d say hopeful.” He said, picking up a seashell. He dusted some sand off of it, looking closer at it. “Huh, someone scratched something into this shell?” Your head perked up.

“What?” You took the shell as he handed it to you, looking closer at it.

‘Is this really what you want?’

You looked out to the sea, nodding your head. Another wave came in, just touching your feet. As it receded, a large shell sat just in front of your feet. You reached forward and picked it up, quickly reading it.

‘Very well. As long as you are happy, I will be happy. Just promise to come and visit sometimes, you will always be welcome back home.’

You looked up at the sea, smiling and mouthing thank you.

“So what did it say?” Seokmin asked, bringing your attention back.

“Just that… My father’s letting me make my own choices.” You sighed, holding the shell close to your heart.

“Oh really?” He said, waving a bit to the sea. “Hi there! I’ll make sure she doesn’t get into too much trouble!” He called out, you shaking your head. As quickly as you could blink, another wave came up, completely soaking Seokmin.

“I think he likes you.” You laughed, Seokmin letting out a laugh too.

*Today*

“Wait, these really aren’t your dogs?” You asked, bending down to scratch one of the dogs ears.

“I’ve never seen them before. I just… How did they get in there? I’m the only one here and I seriously haven’t opened that door in… I don’t even know how long.” He walked into the room, looking around. Nothing was broken and there were no windows were open, but he did feel a warm breeze blow through. He scratched his head, confused.

You sat and pet the puppies, cooing to them. You felt a warm breeze blow past you, looking back into the shop. Someone must have come in and let the wind in.

“Hey Seokmin, I think you have a cus…” You managed to get out, before collapsing onto the ground.

You were lightly being shaken awake, senses slowly coming back to you.

“Y/N?” You heard, starting to open your eyes. “Y/N, wake up!” Your eyes officially opened, seeing Seokmin looking down at you, a puppy sitting on your chest.

“Seokmin… What… What happened?” You said, starting to sit up, getting a hold on the puppy. “Is this one of Minghao’s?”

“I think so?” He looked around the shop, trying to put the pieces together.

“What are you doing here, little guy?” You asked, hugging the puppy as the other one crawled onto your legs.

“Hello?” You both heard, turning to the door.

“We’re back here!” Seokmin called, you looking up at him.

“What if it’s someone dangerous?” You asked, and he seemed to have that same thought as you said it. You jumped as a larger dog came running back, immediately sniffing the puppies.

“Perdita!” You smiled, petting the dog. “Wait… Does that mean…?” As if on cue, Minghao and his wife walked into the room, another dog following them.

“You guys are here too?” Minghao asked, looking between you and Seokmin.

“I guess so. Where is here?” Seokmin asked, officially helping you up.

“We don’t know. It’s a strange land… Definitely not back home.” His wife said, coming forward to hug you. She was one of your first friends after officially leaving the sea, so it comforted you to have her here.

“If we’re all here, does that mean other people are here too?” Seokmin asked, looking back to Minghao.

“I think so. I have this vague memory of seeing Prince Joshua but I don’t know where or how…” Minghao said, Seokmin nodding.

“Might as well try and find out.” He said, nodding towards the door.

“I agree. Let’s go.” You said, walking out of the room arm in arm with Minghao’s wife.

“Those two are always going to take charge, huh?” Minghao said, smiling after the two of you, followed by the dogs.

“Only when it comes to us, I guess.” Seokmin laughed, shaking his head. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

[a-town-called-hometown]

"I didn't think," you say softly. Your voice rasps, disused, against your throat and tongue, and you swallow to clear the rough edges away. "I didn't think my birth parents wanted me."

Asriel turns to look at you. His hands are still full of wildflowers, the braided crown half-done. Your statement had disrupted the stillness. The two of you had been sitting at the lake's edge, turning flowers into crowns, peaceful with your own thoughts. You've had a lot of companionable silences together this spring. It's rare that you have the will to speak these days.

"I--" You swallow. You don't quite know where this train of thought is coming from, nor where it leads. It just seems important for you to say. "I thought for a long time they, you know. The reason they abandoned me was because I was-- defective. And they didn't want me."

"When did you start thinking this?" His face is concerned. You're starting to see that anxiety that lurks under all his masks. It makes you sad that you didn't realize it before this year. He's crushing the flowers in his grip without even realizing it.

"The second time I was possessed. When I was ten." Your words are slow. Coming back hasn't been easy. You're cold all the time, even though you're wearing two sweaters right now, and sometimes that cold makes you ache so much you can't even move. You rarely speak to anyone other than your brother. You often stumble over small obstacles. Many days, your limbs feel too heavy to bear. Even braiding these flower crowns feels impossibly difficult to your clumsy hands.

Mom hasn't noticed the changes. She hasn't asked about the wagon either. You think the soul inside still emits some kind of distraction field, but you aren't sure. She certainly isn't the kind but strict mother you grew up with, anymore. The thought is painful.

"I remember."

"I thought, they'd seen what I was. How-- weird I am. That they left me cause I was dumb."

"That isn't true. You're not weird."

"I'm myself," you say, and you relish it. "But myself isn't a person people like. A weird person. Maybe not wrong. But strange."

"Maybe," he says. He's unwilling to concede entirely. "But I've never seen you that way."

"I know. That's not the point." 

You don't say he's the only one who never has. You especially don't point out that his self-image isn't great either. That's the move the Player would make, and you aren't the Player. Asriel's happier when his self-hate is kept in the dark, where even he can ignore it. You simply hope time will heal over his wounds.

"The point is," you say. "I thought it was my fault. I don't think that's true anymore."

He motions for you to go on. The flowers have fallen from his hands. A few stems tumble from his lap into the lake. The water folds around them.

"The Player made me tear Mom and Dad apart. Bully you. Do awful things." Saying that makes the pain in your chest worse. You tug down the sleeves of your outer sweater. "I don't think it would be unlikely for my birth parents to abandon me if their Players made them do it."

"You think they had Players?"

"Yeah. I don't know how many humans have them. Maybe all. Maybe just a few. But more than just me. I'm certain of it."

"You're certain."

You think of the few humans you've seen in your life and nod. "It's more of a gut feeling. But I don't doubt it. I trust all of my guts, except the one gut part I yeeted into the cage."

He cracks a smile. "I don't think the soul counts as a gut part."

"You didn't feel all the writhing, squirmy, wormy bits I plunged my hands past to get to it. It hurt enough to count."

"You have wormy bits in your body? I'm pretty sure that isn't normal."

"It's none of your business what is or isn't normal about my body. I might just eat worms in my spare time, and that's why my guts are so weird. Worm diet."

He pokes your side. You squirm. "Ah, yes. I can see you're metamorphosing into a worm now."

"You are what you eat," you smile.

"Exactly. And you, sib, are turning into a worm. It's horrible. We need to get you off the worm diet before you start burrowing underground. I can't stand the unpopularity a worm sibling would bring me."

You giggle. It's a rusty sound. "Hey. If I'm part worm--"

"I think you're at least three-quarters worm."

"Fine. If I'm three-quarters worm now, because I ate so many worms, would that make me a three-quarters cannibal, if I keep eating worms?"

He laughs. "Dunno. Three-quarters cannibal sounds like a band title, though."

"Like the ones you listened to in your emo days?"

"God, don't remind me."

You smile. You lean against his side. He's warm. The sound of his heartbeat is a little faster than yours. He's always run a little faster than you.

You watch the water. Your fingers begin slowly wrapping flowers together again. The silence is a blanket wrapping around you. You're safe.

"So," Asriel finally says. "You think they left you because they were made to do it."

"I don't know. But I don't blame myself. And I don't blame them. It's just a thing that happened. There's no point in me really thinking about it anymore. I can't reset it."

"I'm glad it happened. I'm glad I got to have you for a sibling."

"Even though Mom and Dad…?"

"Even though they divorced, yeah. I don't blame you for it. I'm just happy you're with me."

You have many things to say about the situation, most of them things he wouldn't want to hear. You let the silence wrap around you again. 

Finally, you reach up and set the completed daisy crown on his head. "There."

"Do I look pretty?"

"You look like a goat boy in a flower crown. I don't know whether or not that's what pretty is."

He smiles at you. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. We should go home soon. I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry."

"I'm always hungry," you agree. You get up and wrap your fingers around the handle of your wagon. The birdcage inside makes no motion this time. "Hungry for worms."

He laughs at you. "Fine, worm. Let's make you some spaghetti worms."

You make a slurping noise. "Delicious."

He laughs, knocking your shoulder as he rises. His hand envelops your free hand. You hold on. Neither of you say more on the familiar road home.

You're a little warmer. Not by much, not enough to be very significant. Your layers of sweaters still feel necessary. But under the clothing, under the fabric, under the skin and sinew and bone that make your body what it is, your heart is beating more certainly. You aren't quite so cold anymore. It's nice, nice enough that you close your eyes to take it in. Nothing feels more real than your brother's hand guiding you home.

You'd like to stay like this, just a little longer.

[jonsameta]

Hi, me again!

jesuiscommejesuis: Haha, I’m on that GoT grind and probably won’t stop until the premiere 😂. I trust your opinion so unfortunately you have to endure another ask from me. Anyway…I think that most of us have considered the possibility of Jonsa not being canon. (RIP me if that happens). But my question isn’t about whether Jonsa will be or won’t be (I’ve come to terms with the fact that GoT will end how GRRM always intended it to end) it’s about what that possibility means for all of the evidence, clues, foreshadowing, etc that we’ve gathered. In your opinion will Jonsa not happening render those clues and meta meaningless and we were all crazy after all? Or do they take on a new meaning and point us in a new direction? Idk if that even makes sense. Maybe I’m just afraid that Jonsa wont happen and I’m afraid for no other reason other than that I will have looked and sounded insane to all of my GoT friends and had nothing to show for it. Also do you know of any interviews or blog posts from GRRM possibly supporting Jonsa? Same for D&D? Or any other people on or working with the show? Thank you so much!! 💙

—-

Hi there, 

The thing about theories is they’re like Shrodinger’s cat. If you try to be objective, you have to entertain the possibility that it won’t happen, but it can’t completely be false until proven otherwise. That said, some theories are more probable than others because there’s material within the text that thematically undoes something. This is because a story’s themes (which differs depending on the adaptation but it can’t be completely divorced from the original source either) define its boundaries because they essentially make up “the heart of the story”, not the plot. They give the main characters a moral dilemma that drives their journeys. Considering the themes of the story - both bookwise and showwise - Jonsa is very probable because it answers a lot of long standing character arcs that go beyond these characters and provides a bookend that Jon/Dany cannot considering R+L=J. 

I think anything in this story has to be considered according to the politics - even the fantasy part because the personal is political. With such a spread out story only the themes and the morality dilemmas of politics that the smallest moment can have is what holds it all together. And I think the strongest argument for the probability of Jonsa comes from a structural level of gauging the politics. 

Jon’s parentage is a political game changer and the way it’s been built up it cannot just be for personal angst - especially when the element of his parentage revealing him to have a higher claim than Dany is brought up. It doesn’t just affect him or his relationship with Dany. It affects Westeros and Dany’s own longstanding goal.

Jon may not want to be king, but Dany is walking in as a very unpopular figure into the North and the way she has gone about her campaign hasn’t improved her reputation and only worsened it. And Jon himself will lose popularity after having 1) bent the knee to a Targaryen, 2) consorting with a Targaryen and 3) being a secret Targaryen. 

Dany doesn’t realise that although Jon claims to have pledged his allegiance to her, it doesn’t mean the North has fallen into her hands. He’s only lost their faith from this move so no Targaryen by themselves could claim the North. Not to mention the Vale and Riverlands are more allied to Sansa than they are to Jon. To regain faith, he’d have to separate himself from Dany and the Targaryen identity a bit and yet he would need a political statement that only a marriage alliance to Stark could give if he were to remain in power. There’s also the pesky issue of how unknowingly Sansa and the Starks have more allies than Dany (or Jon without the Starks) does as everyone comes into Winterfell. So Sansa’s constant label as “key to the North” and the importance of marriage alliances becomes very important here. He can’t become king or even gain the faith of the people (back) without Sansa. So in that case, the whole notion of the Pact of Ice and Fire being fulfilled through Dany and Jon falls apart because Jon will be seen as an outsider. @thelawyerthatwaspromised has even written a post with infographics to make it easier to understand. It’s like R+L=J resets the chessboard. Ironically, what the audience thought Jon/Dany’s union would do politically is far more possible through Jon/Sansa. 

As it makes sense as a political match, the possibility of it happening and impacting the narrative increases a lot more. The original outline also matters here because clearly the pseudo-incest tag didn’t stop the author. However, as the characters haven’t interacted in real time in the books and aren’t close, there’s not much people have asked him about it nor has GRRM has said about it unless you count his vague reply once (”I won’t say more than I’ve already said in the books”). I’d say there’s more to be gauged from what he has to say about other ships that fandom roots for, that isn’t as positive as they make it out to be - whether Jon/rya, San/San, San/rion or Jon/Dany. It’s not obvious because he hardly shuts down possibilities but there’s reading between the lines. It becomes more obvious through a process of elimination. It’s also because Jon/Sansa as a ship tramples over so many ships that fandoms have banked on that people are inclined to dismiss it rather than re-evaluate the pre-existing ships. 

On the show, people have been coy too but there’s more content to gauge as the characters have already reunited and their dynamic has become pretty pivotal to the story. Where D&D shut down Dany and Yara ever happening, in the same panel they evaded a question about Jon and Sansa being developed as a romantic relationship. Aiden Gil/lian commented on how Jon’s parentage opens up possibilities for Jon and Sansa’s relationship romantically at the end of season 6. Sophie was asked about it post season 6 and she said it was possible because it’s GOT and they’re cousins. Also, there’s Liam Cunnin/gham who once liked a Jonsa fanvideo lol and he barely has any likes. Sophie has said it’s possible, even as she joked about how it would be embarrassing to film an intimate scene. Kit has somehow avoided all questioning, but he has some pretty interesting reactions regarding Jon and Sansa’s relationship - either in the words he chooses (”She twists him like no one else”) or how over the top his reaction to Sansa is when he talks about how annoying she is to the point where he’s flushed and red and laughing while saying “I’ve gotten really animated now that Sansa has come into the story”. Bryan Cogman has a lot to say regarding this dynamic too, that he even wrote Jon leaving Ghost behind to watch over Sansa when he left for Dragonstone. 

What helps regarding the show is that it’s not just the actors or the political sense, but the camerawork and visual framing that makes their scenes very confusing because they’re shot as a romantic couple about to happen, as @trinuviel has explored in her series “All is Subtext”.  This notion that it was “framed” or “shot” that way was echoed by multiple reviewers and podcasts through season 6 and even into the beginning of season 7. 

A huge part of this was because it very subtly visually paralleled more positive romantic ships on the show like Ned/Cat, Jaime/Brienne, Robb/Talisa, Sam/Gilly, Missandei/Greyworm and even Jon/Ygritte to some extent. This is over a course of 7 episodes under 5 different directors. One of the most telling scenes for me was when they did two back to back parallels to Ned/Cat and Jaime/Brienne after Jon chokeholds Littlefinger over Sansa and they go on to give a Jaime/Brienne-esque goodbye. The same director Mark Mylod directed both the season 6 Jaime/Brienne and season 7 Jon/Sansa goodbye. Bryan Cogman even confirmed that the Littlefinger chokehold was meant to parallel Ned doing the same over Cat. 

But in my opinion, what weirdly cemented it was how Jon/Dany contrasted Jon/Sansa’s dynamic and framing. There were a lot of structural decisions made that undercut the Jon/Dany “romance” and made Jon/Sansa look more compatible and romantic, which is something I explored in my “Undoing Romance” series. Again, this is looking beyond the actors. The biggest tell for me was that they never got a first kiss so romantic tension was never released but just dissipated over plot exposition. Moreover, how is it that Jon and Sansa have more parallels with romantic ships than Jon/Dany do? Why do Jon/Sansa have more Robb/Talisa framing through season 6 than Jon/Dany through season 7 if that’s what’s happening? Why was there no passionate first kiss like theirs? We just skipped to the sex in between a montage that told us how related they are. 

Why didn’t Jon look back at Dany when Jorah did, while he looked back at Sansa? Why does Jon react more violently to Sansa’s suitors than to Jorah? Why are these characters caught in triangle with interlopers, who pose a political threat but are also interested in one romantically? Why is this dynamic given so much importance where there’s tension but also there’s emotional vulnerability that pours out contrasting Jon/Sansa’s and Sansa and Arya’s season 6 and season 7 battlements scenes respectively. Why did they reveal R+L=J at the end of season 6 - the season in which people questioned what the hell was happening in the Jon/Sansa dynamic and a whole season before Jon met Dany. Both season finales also teased conflict because of political claims that change because of R+L=J. Where his parentage reveal, relieves Jon/Sansa of the direct incest factor because it biologically distances them, it makes Jon and Dany biologically more related - especially because she’s heavily inbred herself. 

So it is a situation of “will they/won’t they?” but even more subtly because the cast and crew always skips past discussing it and with Jon/Dany happening people take it as accidental chemistry. There’s no heavy dismissal from the TPTB though when there could’ve been or laughing at it like Tormund and Brienne, which is totally for laughs and a show ship. What they do keep saying is that this relationship is key to watch and you have to wonder: why is it so important? To me it’s not about the actors chemistry or singular scenes. It’s about the story’s intrinsic narrative structure and the camera framing that makes the visual subtext convey more than the text does. 

The show frames Jon and Sansa’s relationship is odd because we know they weren’t close and Arya was his favorite and yet they take up quite an important part in each other’s arc at this point, where they both want to trust each other completely but don’t and yet their vulnerability comes out most around each other in these last two seasons. They’re being built up more slowly than Jon/Dany and more subtly so while people expect a full blown romance, I expect something more subtle, more quiet and thus emotionally rewarding for these characters individual and collective arcs. If it happens, D&D are building it up as a plot twist/game changer because it’s related to politics. But it’s not to say there can’t be emotional catharsis too because these characters have a lot of issues that they answer pretty well. 

Hope that answers your questions. 

- lostlittlesatellites