#she is a thousand years old or whatever the fuck she said its a miracle she can operate a phone

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

obsessed w this steam card's implication that nocturna very much has a castle somewhere on the outskirts of town...... girl you are working a 9-5.... how long do you think her commute is

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Can you expound more on Caius' dislike of Carlisle, because honestly that antipathy is the funniest fucking thing to me -- Caius is the one person who's immune to Carlisle's (supernatural) charisma, and it's because he's just *that much* of a grumpy old man

I think there’s a few things that factor into it.

I think, had Aro been a normal person about Carlisle, Caius probably would have liked him well enough. Carlisle’s charismatic, intelligent, and well-spoken. He’s a bit crazy, and Caius certainly would never rely on him for anything important, but he’s enjoyable to be around.

But Aro was not a normal person about Carlisle. Aro invites this weird ass man, who was literally born yesterday and knows nothing about anything, to be a part of their coven. He spends his time making airplane noises trying to get Carlisle to be a normal fucking person and not eat cardboard fruit. Carlisle enables Aro’s worst tendencies. Aro commissions portraits of the Volturi and, that’s right, Carlisle. 

And Caius is the only one standing around asking, “Who the fuck even is this guy?” Because Marcus just isn’t up for it anymore.

Finally, Carlisle leaves, but it’s not over. Now, all Aro does is talk about how great Carlisle is. For centuries. Caius can’t escape this guy.

Then, centuries later, they learn that Carlisle broke down and made himself a coven.

Not surprising, Caius says to himself, Carlisle would never find anyone else to do the diet. Plus, the rumor mill probably informed them of parts of this years ago (I imagine it’s common knowledge that Carlisle, somehow, convinced five other vampires to do his diet, explained by that he turned most of them himself and his wife’s probably grinning and bearing it until she snaps).

Except Edward is... Edward.

First, Edward openly admits to having broken the law in a way that could have very easily been remedied. So he likes this human girl, turn her, done, the Volturi would have no issue. But instead not only did Edward adamantly refuse to turn her, when she was at one point already bitten, but he abandoned her and fully intended on losing all contact.

This screams of disrespect for everything the Volturi stand for and what the fuck did Carlisle tell this kid? That they were over in Italy having tea parties? La di da? The law doesn’t apply to me because I eat deer?

And then, Edward tops himself, he asks the Volturi for assisted suicide. Caius stares, and blinks, and stares. No one, in the history of all the wars he has been a part of, of all the enemies he has faced, has ever said something so mind-numbingly insulting before.

The Volturi are not Dr. Kevorkian and Caius, in his blind rage that this kid would dare to even think this is something the Volturi do, blames Carlisle. Because, surely, for this brat to think this, Carlisle must have completely warped his impression and has no respect for the Volturi himself.

Which makes sense as he spent the decades in Italy posing in Aro’s baroque portraits.

Suddenly, Caius rewrites history to make Carlisle nothing more than an empty-headed boy toy. Aro, afterwards, assures Caius that Edward is unheard of levels of crazy and that, yes, Carlisle had made the law very clear to young Edward and the reason Bella was never turned is--well--it’s complicated but not Carlisle’s fault.

Caius reluctantly allows Aro to pacify him. Alright, Edward’s crazy, probably the animal diet. Whatever, just get him out of here.

And then Edward tops even that.

After being denied by Aro, Edward dares to brazenly force their hand, breaking their own law in their own city. And, miracle of miracles, Bella Swan is in fact alive (because Edward Cullen was apparently too incompetent to realize when his girlfirend commits suicide or not).

Now, Edward Cullen who has broken the law multiple times and once in the last ten minutes, his human girlfriend who should reallly be turned, and this weird psychic Alice Cullen stand before them.

The girl turns out to be worryingly gifted, Edward Cullen accuses them of corruption for insisting Edward follow the law that has existed for thousands of years before his human birth, and Aro gives them a pass.

Aro lets them go, without the girl even turned, and this... This is where Caius starts getting worried about Carlisle.

Aro has shown that, when it comes to Carlisle, he is willing to be far too lenient. Edward should have died in Volterra, the girl should have been turn and brought into the Volturi with that gift, and perhaps Alice should have as well for aiding and abetting Edward Cullen.

Aro did what needed to be done once before and at a devastating cost to himself, and Caius respects that, but this...

And then, as first Eclipse, then Breaking Dawn occurs, the Cullens solidify from a potential problem to the greatest threat the Volturi have faced in a thousand years.

With Carlisle Cullen at its very head.

[kayr0ss]

Hands that Remember Chapter 2 [AO3]

[Horizon Zero Dawn, Elisabet Sobeck Lives, Found Family, Mother-Daughter Feelings, GAIA is recovering, Ereloy]

Summary: Aloy saw the recordings, felt their grief over the death of their culture - the loss of their identity. Ted Faro had blown away the light meant to guide humanity through darkness - but she was willing to risk it all to take it back. To bring APOLLO back.  It wasn't the first time that the world asked her for a miracle, but it bargained with a miracle of its own: This time - she didn't have to do it alone.

[Wherein Elisabet Sobeck returns, GAIA is recovering, Erend is done waiting around, and Aloy discovers a family she's never had before to help lift the weight of the world off her shoulders.]

Chapter 2: Re-Calibration

CHAPTER 2

--

It was such an odd thing to feel dirt again.

When was the last time she felt sediment and rock between her fingertips? A thousand years ago—quite literally. She’d forgotten the feel of it squeezing underneath the overhang of her nails, the discomfort of a pebble pressing on her heel within her shoe.

Little things. Living things.

GAIA Prime and all the other bunkers she had to oversee were exactly that: bunkers. Giant boxes of metal sealed from the world and its mounds of dust, dirt, and rock. But this disconnection wasn’t new: it’s been around since before she was locked away and working on Zero Dawn. It was there even back in Miriam, in FAS—even as far back as Stanford. So much time spent rushing towards the next breakthrough that she never had the time to stop and smell the flowers before they all burned away.

It was hard to wrap her head around the idea that flowers were back—blooming again somewhere out there. But for now she’d settle for the desert sand, riddled with weeds and other small signs of life.

She wondered what Erend might be thinking, seeing her run her fingers along the ground like a toddler. Eager to feel—to learn, no, relearn about a world she was only getting her bearings on. She caught a small blade of grass between her fingers. It’s alive, it’s all… alive again, she stared in wonder at the small miracle of live in her hand. Her return to consciousness was a violent experience. This was a nice change of pace.

The rest of the vanguard gave her and Erend privacy to talk, running errands in the nearby encampment and leaving them in the shade of an open tent. God knows she needed the space. She had questions—so many questions and while Erend tried his best to get her up to speed it seemed like there was always more. His rushed explanation was a disaster. Machines, cultists—whatever the fuck else was out there—and Aloy.

He said he’d try again and break it down slowly this time, sticking to what he knew and leaving the rest ‘to Aloy.’

‘Aloy’ sounded like a big shot. Someone important. Erend spoke about her with both familiarity and fondness—like how the other Alphas sounded when talking about one another. Whatever tangent he flew into—about what they had to fight off and how he believed it was related to herself and the other ‘Old Ones’—it always came back to Aloy. There was an unwavering faith he had in her that she could recognize: the feeling that they’ve fought together, bled together.

Endured something terrible together.

She remembered how he looked a little hurt earlier. “You’re Aloy’s mother, aren’t you?” He said it almost reverently, but unfortunately the answer was a very strong “no.” It must have been a misunderstanding—why would he think that?

“Got some boar roasting in camp.” Erend’s voice carried above the sound of his heavy footsteps. He walked closer, seating himself on a rock across her. “You feelin’ better?”

“I think so,” she admitted. “Alive. Which is better than the alternative when it comes to emerging from cryosleep if you ask me.”

“Good, good.” He crossed his arms. “Not hungry?”

Elisabet shook her head. “I don’t think I can taste anything yet.” She really hoped this side-effect was temporary.

“Well, let’s get you some soup. That’ll help.”

How she was feeling was a can of worms she didn’t want to open quite yet. Her body was on edge, the hairs along her arms standing in attention while she could feel the pace of her heart jog above average. It almost made her wince, the self-awareness of expecting a panic attack at any moment, but if her system had decided to be useful before shutting off completely later on, she was going to make the goddamn most of it.

Deep breaths.

She needed to take deep, long breaths. This was nothing but a jacked-up sympathetic nervous system stress response—there was no real danger. Just hypothetical fear. She needed to relax. She needed to think.

Orientation would be a good start—what, when, and where. And then she needed a plan. Something. Anything to do other than wander aimlessly like a fucking relic out of time. “You okay?”

It almost made her snap. He was asking if she was okay? She looked up, a smart quip loaded at the tip of her tongue but then—he looked so earnest, so concerned. An expression like that didn’t belong on a soldier.

“Not really, no.” She admitted.

“Huh.” Erend sat hunched over with his chin on one hand, looking comically close to that old statue of a thinking man if not for the wider breadth of his knees. He cleared his throat. “So…”

Despite the situation, she chuckled. “I’m glad to see that the most awkward of conversation starters evolved itself back into common use.”

The reference likely flew over his head, but he smiled while rubbing at the back of his neck almost shyly. He seemed… kinder than a hundred pounds of armor and a warhammer would seem like.

“I mean what am I even supposed to say?” He shrugged. “I uh, hit things with my hammer. You—and this predicament—are not things I’m gonna hit with my hammer.”

“That’s reassuring,” Elisabet deadpanned.

“You sure you aren’t Aloy’s mother?” Erend cracked her a lopsided grin.

Elisabet rubbed at her temple. “I think I’d know if I was. Is it wishful thinking to hope you guys have any ibuprofen?”

She had been pointedly ignoring his assertions that she was anyone’s mother. There were more pressing concerns to address, foremost of which was the distinct lack of technology. She’s only been up and about for a few hours but it was enough to notice the rudimentary tools and structures, along with the fact that Erend seemed to be the only other person with access to technology similar to hers.

“I’d check if we do, if I had any idea of what that is.”

“Where are we?”

“The furthest west I’ve ever been, honestly.” Erend shrugged. “I’m not familiar with these lands. We generally call it The Forbidden West—but there isn’t much else we know. Just more… sand, and dust. I’ve heard stories of trees that grew on sand, at the border of an endless lake. Never been there to see it myself.” He paused thoughtfully. “I uh, made a short trek back east from where I found you. About an hour or a little more.”

Elisabet stayed quiet, willing herself not to ask the question prickling at the tip of her tongue.

“Was that your home?” Erend asked quietly. “Where I found you. With the tall, pointed trees and the old stone structure.”

“Pines,” she supplied. “The trees, I meant. I thought you would know this by now.”

He grunted. “I’m a captain. Pretty good darned captain too, but no tree expert.”

“No, no.” She shook her head. “Sorry, I meant you as in people, in general. The kinds of trees and animals, our history and technology—we tried to pass that on.”

Something wasn’t right—a feeling that’s been weighing on her since her awakening.

Erend and the vanguard were outfitted with plate armor and looked to have no means of transportation other than by foot. They had waterskins instead of thermal containers and their basic camping supplies were made of fibers and tanned leather. Nevermind real-time mapping and wireless communication. ‘Battle-ready’ wasn’t exactly what came to mind, and she’d have paid to hear Herres’ take on 31st century military technology. She might have even chuckled, had the implication not been so dire. Something had definitely gone wrong.

“Is the nearby encampment allied with you?”

“It was established by the Carja military as a way station, under the Sundom’s jurisdiction.” Erend beckoned her nearer, shuffling towards the side to leave space on the large, slated rock he was sitting on. “Ever since the Battle at the Spire, the Sun King’s been allowing expeditions towards the west—Aloy’s got a hunch that something is going on over there and you could guess that most of everyone listens to her these days. Whether she likes it or not.”

Carja. Sundom. Factions and nations, most likely?

“Just a minute.” He fumbled a little with his focus, looking up and awkwardly moving his hands in thin air. His frustration was noticeable in the deep set of his brows. “Aloy’s done this before—a map, on scrolls of light. She could share it with me while it, uh, did its floaty thing.”

“Do you have the map open?” Elisabet tapped her focus, hearing the small digital beam alert her of its activity. Technology was a familiar comfort—something to ground her. She whistled lowly while running a system check on the piece of hardware, trying not to wince at the fact that the date read January 14, 3041. The 31st fucking century. Safe to say it’s still working way past warranty declarations. “I think I got it.”

“How did you—its telling me that an external device accessed my display?”

“Hacking it,” she smiled. “This is more or less my area of expertise.”

“Right,” Erend nodded. “So we’re right over here.” He pointed towards a small glowing indicator.

“Outskirts of Carson City.” She had said it so softly it surprised her. She never pegged herself as particularly sentimental but being so close to home… after everything.

“And this,” he moved to the east. “Is the Sundom, and to its eastern border is the Nora’s Sacred Lands.”

Elisabet let herself have a moment of evaluation, eyes moving around the map to absorb as much information as she could. The satellite image let her know that the area’s topography reverted to pre-Faro Plague days: desert and canyons. Forested mountains covered the range to the east, but the northern range where she recalled Yellowstone was seemed erratically cold and glacial.

Information was a valuable resource she was lacking in.

“I need to get to the most developed settlement,” she muttered to herself. “Acclimate to customs and culture before finding a means to find and access ZD bunkers.”

“Bunkers?” Erend blinked.

“I assume that camps similar to this one are interspersed between the border of the Sundom and our location? At distances accessible by foot?”

“Yes, but—”

“I have to account for hostility along the road.” She crossed her arms. “And resources for supplies. What currency do you trade with?”

“Look,” Erend’s tone was firm. “We are going to take care of hostility and resources, because we’re going with you.”

“I—”

“You need to slow down,” Erend rose to his feet. “We don’t even know for sure if you’re okay after getting thawed out a thousand years later.”

“I need to figure out what happened to Zero Dawn. Find GAIA, and then—”

“Elisabet,” his voice was softer again, big and heavy hands settling on her shoulders. “We have time.”

Time? Of course they didn’t! There were a million things left to do and only two weeks until—

“The world isn’t ending anymore.”

--

He’d finally convinced her to sit down and get something to eat and it wasn’t damn easy. Elisabet was back to the makeshift planning table even before swallowing down her last bite and by the forge it was driving Erend just a little bit crazy.

“This is where we’re headed.”

Erend marked his own map, one that was tangible and inked on parchment instead of light. More reliable, if you asked him. Didn’t flicker in and out of sight—and didn’t make him look like a total jackass in front of his vanguard, waving his fingers around something they couldn’t see.

It was nearing sundown. The vanguard packed up ahead of time; they were leaving at the break of dawn. Erend split the party in two—one was to continue the expedition towards the Western Threshold, and the other, with Erend, was to hurry back to Meridian discreetly. It was a plan forged into metal: Erend needed to talk to Avad, while Elisabet seemed particularly interested in the Spire once he mentioned it.

“Utah and Colorado,” Elisabet whispered in wonder, tapping her focus on likely projecting a light-based rendering of them map on top of his own. “The staging areas for Zero Dawn.”

Erend looked at her with curiosity. “S’that what they used to be called? Before… before the whole thing—”

“Ended?” She punctuated, sensing his discomfort. But then she gave him a slight smile—it was different from Aloy’s. Wiser and wearier. “Though that’d be wrong. We’re still here, somehow.”

He smirked. “Don’t look so surprised. Didn’t you have somethin’ to do with that?”

“I’m just one of many,” she looked back towards the map. Didn’t look ready to talk about that, it seemed. “So what have we got?”

“We’re not in a hurry. We can take the traders’ path on the way back.” He pointed along a red, snaking line etched on the surface of the parchment. It was well-lit, well-guarded, and easy to traverse with enough camps in-between to restock and rest. He tapped twice on a marker at the end of route: it was a black, soaring tower. The good ‘ol Spire.

“That’d take us too long.” Elisabet shook her head. “We could go through these passes through the ridges. Cut straight through and save both time and resources.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“And time—”

“—is something you have now.” Erend stood his ground, arms crossed. “As I keep reiterating to you.”

“I’ve noticed.” Elisabet set her jaw. Then she sighed, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I’m still getting used to—” she waved a hand over the map “—this.”

“You mean not being the one in charge?” Erend grinned.

“I didn’t really ask for that,” she smiled back kindly. “But old habits die hard.”

“The long way to Meridian it is, then.”

--

Sobeck Journal, 1-14-41

We did it.

Even this barren desert looks beautiful. Can’t shake the feeling that I don’t deserve to see it all though.

Not without the rest of ZD. Without the rest of you.

I’m going to forego writing about how I feel because I don’t even know where to begin digging up that can of shit. Exhaustion was always an effective sleeping pill back in the day: now that I’ve got time to think when I lay down everything is so loud. Given the state of things I doubt they’d invented melatonin pills yet either, but who am I to complain? Alive is still better than dead.

Off to sleep now. Something’s wrong with APOLLO. More things to figure out tomorrow.

After all these years, I still don’t get to rest.

--

[“—someone— �� —back to see—“]

“Great timing as usual.” Aloy hissed under her breath. The strider she was on was nearly worn down. She was an hour’s ride away from the forest’s edge—right where the sands of the Barrens began. That’s what she was going to call them anyway: “the Barrens.” Those prissy cartographers up in the mesa have no idea just how large the West was. It wasn’t all sand and tumbleweed: there were forests so different from the Jewel and the Sacred Lands that she didn’t know how to begin describing them! And the lake… the biggest she’s ever seen. A body of water so large it must have cloaked the world’s entirety. She’s seen it on the spherical maps stored in her focus—a depth of blue so imposing she couldn’t even wrap her head around it. The air was different along the lake’s edge—salty and crisp. Both beautiful and foreign and so very unforgiving.

She gently stroked the side of the strider’s neck. She didn’t want to wear him down completely—best to leave enough so that he could carry on and survive another day. Herds of broadheads often wandered around the Barrens anyway, although not found as often as in Meridian and to the East.

She’s been getting scrambled messages from Erend for the better part of a day now. He sounded panicked. He hated using his focus but there was apparently something important enough for him to try. It seemed desperately urgent and the only thing she could make of his messages was that she needed to go back.

Chasing after GAIA and whatever was left of APOLLO was going to have to wait.

Her strider whinnied—Aloy hummed a small apology she hoped it could understand. If she found a charger it’d be better—she could ride through evening on a mount strong enough to discourage smaller machines from engaging them. By next evening she could rest by the ranch.

Aloy bit her lip, a soft feeling of longing at her gut. That’s what Elisabet called it in her journals anyway—Sobeck Ranch. A small speck of life, trees, and flowers on the eastern edge of the Barrens. A small place to rest before another two days’ ride to Meridian.

She remembers how freeing it felt to tell Rost about her misadventures so far. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to take a few minutes for Elisabet and do the same.

She urged the strider to run a little faster, wind whipping at her hair and the tassels of her armor. “Just a bit more, big guy. Just a little more.”

-

A/N: Thank you once again to Tototops for beta-reading this chapter!

It's been a hot minute but here we go with chapter 2!

[thornedrose44]

Ends of the Earth

(Read it on AO3)

The world ended.

Well, that's not technically accurate… humanity's time on earth ended, a lot sooner than to be expected which is where the tragedy of it all lies, if Lena were to guess.

Not that Lena's own time on earth had ended. She was still here, pottering on, miles underground, fiddling with forgotten experiments and watching endless hours of television that she never had time for before… 

She wondered if this was what retirement was like… 

Admittedly, Lena had always imagined it involving more travelling, maybe some gardening and it had never been lonely. She refused to acknowledge that when she thought of getting older it was with crinkly blue eyes and silver streaked blonde hair at her side which always helped soothe the ache in her chest that such morbid thoughts produced. Now, even that fantasy was well and truly gone. 

She would only ever get to watch herself grow old now, at least she didn't have to worry about the paparazzi's comments about her receding good looks.

It wasn’t a bad life, not really. She had enough food to see her through old age or until the tempting call of the void summoned her. If Lena was being honest, which she kind of had to be when the only person she had left to lie to was herself… She knew it would be the latter that would take her in the end. 

See the thing is… Lena hears… things. 

They’re not real, or they are but they are merely the sounds that an empty building creates to keep itself company. The groan of a pipe. The squeak of a beam. The hiss of a fridge. The knock of a mechanised system keeping the air breathable and the water on hand.

Lena still had enough of her sanity to convince herself that the sounds were a natural part of her safe haven (‘prison’ more like). But there were mutters at the back of her mind that said other things. That squeak was a mouse still alive on the outside. That groan was a ghost, trapped forever alongside Lena. That hiss, the blast-proof doors whistling open and irreparably bursting Lena’s protective bubble. That knock…

The knock was the worst.

The knock was the call of the void that allowed Lena to fantasise. To dream.

That knock meant she was no longer alone.

That knock… that knock could be everything she ever wanted…

That knock could be Kara…

And that… 

Lena knew that it would be the void that got her before old age. It would be that knock, her loneliness and the hope of seeing blue eyes just one more time… just one more time…. That would do her in.

***

The first six months hadn’t been too bad. Lena had kept herself busy making the repairs she needed to keep her safe haven ‘safe’ for as long as possible. The Children of Earth’s final attack, that had prompted humanity’s departure two months ahead of schedule and Lena staying behind to ensure their escape, had wrought significant damage to the structure of the bunker. 

The work was dull. But it was good. It kept her hands busy. Her mind distracted. And it meant she could fall into bed, utterly exhausted and free of thoughts of what ifs and almosts and not yets and soons and new beginnings… 

The majority of the work required for Lena’s home to be brought to tip-top shape was done after six months. The next six months were about optimisation. Trying to make her home… more homey… An already difficult task when there was little in the way of colour to decorate the concrete bunker, but a nigh on impossible task when Lena’s home had never been four walls but blue eyes, golden hair, a bright smile and a warmth that made even the darkest moments survivable.

It was the second year that broke something in Lena that she would never get back again.

It made the light in her chest steadily dim and extinguish.

A candle that had remained alight with the childish possibility that Lena would get her miracle, her last second save and a happy ending.

She knew it was impossible. Knew that the surface of the Earth was not accessible to another living being. That the transmat portal could not be repaired, the necessary materials completely depleted - even if Lena had the materials to repair it, she wouldn’t have been able to generate a high enough voltage to power it. That the survivors were now countless lightyears away and a ship travelling to her would arrive long after she had turned to little more than dust in this mausoleum. 

To survive the breaking (more specifically the ‘breakdown’ that had Lena spending pretty much the entirety of a month drunk off her ass), Lena found a routine. She found a routine and stuck to it. 

A routine that kept her busy, mentally and physically occupied because if she stopped… if she let her thoughts wander… Well, that knock started to sound rather enticing.

Lena performed regimented checks of her safe haven and its equipment.

Lena had time for reading. For television.

Time for fun science experiments she never had time to progress when the scientist part of her was told to give way to the business woman part.

Time for exercise; soft curves hardening to muscles as she threw around equipment and worked tirelessly and rigorously.

Set meals.

Set bedtime.

Set wake-up.

Day after day passed by in this fashion. Weeks. Months.

Two years in her concrete bunker became three, became five… and before Lena really knew it… she was rapidly approaching a decade in this prison of monotony.

***

It had started with an innocuous ‘beep’.

A fucking beep foretold the destruction of Earth - Lena prayed that humanity, when they re-told the story of the fall of their first home, would ignore that particular aspect of the tale.

It had all started out as a minor reading on a random L-Corp machine tucked away at the back of Lena's lab. (It had been the beginning of yet another half-formed experiment by an idealistic Lena when she thought that being in charge meant she could spend time on her own projects. How utterly naive she had been.)

Lena had taken it over to the DEO where she and Brainy looked over it together for a weekend - mostly because Lena had nothing better to do, what with her friendships being more or less non-existent since her near defection back to the Luthors and despite her subsequent assistance in bringing down Lex. 

Lena assumed it was an atypical reading, a presumption that had been reinforced by Brainy with knowledge of the future. Because if this erroneous result was in fact true and accurate then… the Sun clearly had it in for the Earth. 

It was heating and expanding at a ridiculous rate. A rate which would make the Earth uninhabitable in a mere handful of years, the heat and radioactivity increasing to such a level that it would be like living in an overpowered microwave.

So, the result had to be wrong because as far as Brainy was aware the Earth was very much still standing a thousand years down the line. 

It took a month, with nearly all of L-Corp's resources working on it to find out that, as it turns out, the future can change.

Which was great news for those strongly in favour of free will and heavily against predetermination. Less great news for those that had recently got a mortgage for a new house…

It was full go then.

The next two years were some of the worst and best of Lena's life.

The sun's sudden failure was a parting gift from the Daxamites, who were big believers in ‘if I can't have it, you can't have it either’. Lena assumed Lex would appreciate the pettiness of the action.

The first six months had been filled with hope and a fervour to fix it. Solve the problem like the Superfriends had so many others before. Kara was their guiding light, tirelessly chasing down every lead, ready to get whatever Lena, Brainy and the whole cohort of scientists required at a moment's notice.

Lena, however, wasn't hopeful. She wasn't an optimist. Not anymore at least. Maybe once, when she was young and her mother was there to chase away the monsters under the bed and lift her into the air when the sun was at its warmest. 

She had been hurt, though. Lied to and betrayed far too much to have faith in some intangible and, as of yet, unknown success. She was a Luthor. Raised to be resourceful, stubborn and with a tendency to doubt. 

So, whilst her team of great minds slept, Lena would stay awake an extra couple of hours and plan and prepare for the worst. Because you never know when 'just in case' would be the only option left.

Lena and Kara's friendship over that six months steadily rebuilt.

It rebuilt over peace offering coffees brought to Lena's side by fidgeting fingers, “You look like you need it.”

“You didn’t have to.” Lena would always remind, not wanting there to be an obligation, not wanting Kara to be there unless she wanted to be.

“I know… I wanted to…” Would always be murmured back, soft and sincere, a rope cast out in the darkness.

 It was rebuilt by softly spoken encouragement when either flagged. 

“What use am I? It’s not like I can punch the sun better.” Kara huffed on days when she was left to pace without direction waiting for the next task, the next lead, the next… whatever...

“No, but I know that you would if you could.” Lena would reply, earning her a small upwards tick to Kara’s lips that made Lena’s heart flutter with something other than a constant state of anxiety. “You are more than just your powers, Kara. Far more.” Lena would whisper earnestly, and Kara would simply rest her head on Lena’s shoulder.

It was rebuilt by fingers gently interlacing to offer comfort, “We’ll find something.”

“Together?”

“How else? A Super and Luthor are unstoppable, didn’t you know?”

 It was rebuilt by Kara sharing her fears of losing yet another home and Lena listening, “I don’t know if I can take another loss like this.”

“I know, I can’t even begin to understand what you must be going through, but it's not going to be the same as last time, you know?” Lena would murmur, soft and hesitant, afraid of stepping wrong, afraid of treading on Kara’s open wounds that she had never known were there before. “If it does happen…” Lena would tack on (always if, never when) in those first few months. “You won’t lose everything. I won’t let you. Everyone that can be saved, will be.”

“Is it bad that I don’t… I can live with a few losses… I can, but there are some… Some that matter more...” Kara confessed haltingly, blue eyes wide and scared as if she was revealing something she wasn’t sure Lena was ready to hear yet.

“No, there’s nothing bad about that. At least,” Lena murmured, ducking her head as she curled her fingers tighter around Kara’s, her thumb rubbing back and forth over knuckles, “I don’t think of myself as a bad person for it.”

“You’re not.” Kara would insist, finally covering over the hurt of ‘villain’ once and for all.

It was rebuilt in Kara carrying Lena to her cot in the backroom of the labs whenever she found her slumped over her keyboard in the early hours of the morning. 

“Hmm…” Lena would sleepily hum as she felt herself being cradled in Kara’s arms who never used super-speed when she was carrying her anymore, something Lena was grateful for as it gave her precious extra seconds of being safely ensconced by everything Kara.

“Sleep, Lena, just sleep.” Kara would mutter tenderly, lowering her onto the blankets and pressing an almost imperceptible kiss to Lena’s forehead which guaranteed Lena pleasant dreams.

It was rebuilt on tragedy and hope. It was rebuilt on optimism and pessimism. It was rebuilt by two people who just wanted to save each other in whatever way they could.

***

After six months, it was known. It was known that there was no Hail Mary that could undo what had happened.

Now, it was just about survival… and, for some unfathomable reason, everyone was looking at Lena to ensure that.

“Me! Kara, they’re looking at me to… to… save them!” Lena yelled incredulously once she had returned to the sanctuary of her lab and it was just the two of them (as it often was now).

“Yeah… they are…” Kara replied with a shrug like it was obvious and understandable.

“Me! A Luthor!”

“No. Not a Luthor.” Kara declared firmly, lifting her chin in that way that always made Lena’s knees just that little bit weak. “Lena. The woman that has saved this planet and its people time and time again. A woman who has proven herself selfless and a hero in every way possible. The person that I…” Kara swallowed thickly and in that moment, Lena couldn’t breath, couldn’t move, couldn’t even think. Kara stepped towards her, strong and confident, reaching out to take Lena’s hands in her own, squeezing them tightly as earnest blue eyes stared deep into lost green. “Lena Luthor, you are my hero and I am always looking to you to save me.”

Lena finally inhaled a shuddering breath, nodded her head once and got to work.

The first step was the underground bunkers that would provide shelter for humanity whilst a more long term solution was achieved. The bunkers were not designed to be aesthetically pleasing or even remotely homely. They were functional, quick to put in place and hopefully temporary (which they would be for all but one).

Whilst the bunkers were built, Lena and her team were given two momentous undertakings that were critical for humanity’s continued existence:

Find a suitable new planet to call home.

Figure out how to get the entire population of Earth there as quickly as possible.

Lena hated the second six months of those two years. Kara was barely around, constantly buried under miles of earth, supporting the construction teams in their work, her help was crucial as having someone who could manoeuvre large weights delicately removed the overheads of large pieces of equipment and the time they would take to get in position and slowly carry out the task. When Kara ever did manage to poke her head above sea level, she was off to far flung places trying to minimise the impact of whatever natural disaster was occurring due to the Sun’s interest in making Earth a holiday destination for lava monsters in the near future.

Kara only ever made it back to National City for the occasional weekend once a month. A weekend that she mostly spent sleeping after having pushed herself past the point of exhaustion. 

Kara had taken to sleeping in Lena's cot whenever she was back, holding Lena close instinctively whenever the former CEO managed to collapse beside her after her own ridiculously long days. 

“You know, you have a far more comfortable bed at home? With proper sheets and pillows and blankets and all those really good things that are conducive to sleep…” Lena drawled as she slipped off her heels and sat on the edge of the cot that was already filled with a dozing superhero.

“I could say the same thing to you.” Kara yawned in return, shuffling to the edge of the single-person cot to leave a reasonable gap for Lena.

“Yeah, but…” Lena began to argue, biting her lip; Kara was out there everyday pushing her body beyond its limits in places with little sun, little hope and little in the way of comfort. And when she was granted a few hours of reprieve, just a few measly hours to rest before she was pulled back under, she spent it in a darkened back-room of a laboratory.

“No buts.” Kara cut in, tugging at Lena’s sleeve to pull her down into the empty space and open arms. “I’m here because…” Kara murmured, nuzzling her nose against Lena’s forehead whilst kindly ignoring Lena’s pounding heart, “Because I want to be here.”

“I want you here too.” Lena would eventually reply once her heart had returned to a normal beat and she was sure Kara had fallen into a deep slumber. 

(The Superfriends talked about Kara never returning home and choosing to be wherever Lena was amongst themselves, but they never brought it up with either woman, presumably out of respect or simply being too busy with the impending end of the world).

During that time, Lena was under more stress than she had ever been in her entire life.  A whole planet on her shoulders and she was being crushed under the weight of it all. 

On the plus side, it was the longest anyone had ever gone without spitting her last name out with disgust. It was difficult to damn the person working tirelessly to save you. Not that there weren't some that tried to call her saviour and devil in the same breath, but the Superfriends, who had become her friends again, would put a stop to it before they ever got to the second part of their sentence.

Lena knew that Kara had asked them to look after her whilst she was away. And she appreciated the thought more than she appreciated the actual looking after. Alex had taken to looming over her shoulder like a bodyguard and frog marching her to the canteen at set times to eat three meals a day. Nia, meanwhile, insisted that Lena walk up and down the white-washed corridors of the laboratory at least twice a day to ensure she exercised. 

She grew to love them all: Brainy who was constantly by her side, Alex who was holding her up when she nearly collapsed from exhaustion and Nia who always managed to remind her of the small things she was fighting to save when she got lost in the big picture. She loved them but every time they pulled her away from her work, Lena would hear a voice in her head whispering an ominous countdown.

***

One year post-world-ending-beep, and humanity was tucked away in its new home - the bunkers underground.

Lena and Brainy had finally found a promising planet that they could call home, code-named Goldilocks until an actual name was selected when they finally stepped foot on it (it felt weird officially naming something that they had never seen or experienced). Now, they just had to get everyone there and Lena doubted that there was an intergalactic moving service - maybe that could be her new business venture after her secondment as humanity’s supposed saviour was complete.

 Their best option was the transmat portals (mark two) that she somehow needed to make so that they didn’t require a corresponding portal on the other side. Their idea was more of a wormhole or slingshot, that flung them across the galaxy. They had transports that they could load people up in, they now just needed to create the ‘road’ or ‘shortcut’.

Lena spent day after endless day with Brainy in contact with Earth’s greatest physicists trying to solve problems and reconcile theories that would probably have taken centuries to solve, but mother was the necessity of invention. And dear god, did they need this invention.

The pressure was destroying Lena and more importantly it was creating a gulf between her and Kara that they had so pain-stakingly worked to remove over the last year.

“Lena, you need to eat.” Kara pleaded, her fingers making only fleeting contact with Lena’s elbow, the last time she had made contact Lena had flinched which had hurt Kara in a way that no physical attack ever could.

“I’ll eat later.” Lena replied sharply, her eyes remaining fixed on the board in front of her.

“Come on, Lena. Everyone else has taken a break.” Kara murmured, gesturing to the empty room and the blank computer screens.

“I’m not like everyone else.” Lena responded absent-mindedly.

“I know, I know…” Kara soothed, fingers twitching with the obvious desire to pull Lena into her arms. 

It had been weeks since Lena had been in Kara’s arms but Lena knew… knew that if she sunk into Kara’s embrace, she would crack open and she didn’t know if she would be strong enough to put herself back together again.

“Just, I’m here… for you… always.” Kara promised with a sad and lost tone of voice that made Lena’s throat tight and scratchy.

***

The Children of Earth were the single most irritating thing about the end of the world, and Lena knew that was saying something.

They were also the people that saw Lena’s near year long record without an assassination attempt as a challenge. 

They were a fanatical group that believed if the Earth was ending, the human race should too. That was pretty much it. Considering the rather bleak sales pitch, Lena was impressed by how many people they convinced to eagerly join up. 

Unsurprisingly, Lena was the number one target on their (s)hit list - what with being the main person working on getting them all off planet. Kara, took to being by her side almost constantly, an ever present shadow to the youngest Luthor; dark, steely blue eyes and a harsh frown on the world’s celebrated heroine made even the most committed of assassins think twice.

Kara’s shift to bodyguard came after the very first attempt on Lena’s life.

Lena was at her desk in her laboratory, making changes to an algorithm in the dead of night, the rest of her team retreating to their beds for a few hours whilst they could. It was Lena’s shaky hands that saved her life (exhaustion, stress and a near constant caffeine overdose had produced tremors in Lena’s long fingers that Kara couldn’t bear to look at anymore), Shaky hands reaching for a mug of cold coffee. Shaky hands so tired they couldn’t summon up the strength to hold it steady. The porcelain slipping through her fingers and rushing downwards to smash onto the floor. 

Lena instinctively scrambled after it, pitching herself awkwardly downwards and to the side,

It was this that saved her.

Ensured the bullet aimed for the centre of her back actually hit her shoulder.

It was the sharp inhale of pain and whisper of Kara’s name as she fell off her stool that saved her.

Because Kara was always listening out for her. On hand and ready the second Lena needed her. 

Lena didn’t hit the floor. Didn’t smash into the ground like her coffee mug.

Warm arms were around her before she even got close.

“You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.” Was whispered endlessly on repeat as she was carefully transported to the medbay where Alex and Eliza (quickly roused from sleep by a terrified superhero) got to work. Lena didn’t ask about the assassin, she knew she was safe with Kara watching over her and the Danvers so tenderly cleaning out her wound and that was all that really mattered. She didn’t have any space left in her mind to think of anything else, so overwhelmed with all the problems she had been asked to solve. There was no processing power left to confront other unknown questions.

Kara didn’t leave her side from then on. Not that Lena would let her. Not that night.

Their hands were clasped tightly together and would stay that way even when it inconvenienced the two doctors, who were wise enough not to raise it as an issue.

Lena’s wound was dressed efficiently and in such a way as to minimise scarring, Eliza and Alex returned to bed as they moved away from early morning, and the leaders of the survivors underground were made aware of the threat against their chief scientist. If Kara, as Supergirl, hadn’t insisted on serving personally as Lena’s protector, Lena was pretty sure the leaders would have demanded it, having grown equally fond of and dependent on the youngest Luthor.

When it was just them… just Kara and Lena… that’s when Lena let the tears fall and the sobs wrack her body. She was cradled carefully in Kara’s arms in an instant and everything she had been holding back burst out of her in an unending stream.

It was cathartic, letting it all out whilst Kara just held her and listened and whispered words of reassurance and affection.

The gulf that had formed, disappeared in an instant as Lena buried her head into the crook of Kara’s neck murmuring apology after apology for keeping her out, for putting distance between them, for not being good enough, for not saving Kara’s second home. 

Kara listened, rejecting every single apology with a firm voice and understanding blue eyes.

“Don’t push me away again.” Was all Kara asked for.

“Never. Never again.” Lena promised, not knowing at the time how she would be forced to break that promise less than a year from now.

***

The looks and hints and flirts and teases started in earnest then - they had always been there but boyfriends, secrets, distrust, confusion and hurt had blanketed it and kept it from growing. Now, it was just them and the end of the world.

Their days were spent together, Lena trying to save the world and Kara just trying to save Lena.

“You know I was a prodigy back on Krypton…” Kara revealed her past quietly as she was oft to do when the lab was empty and the bunker was blessedly quiet.

“In writing?” Lena asked, abandoning her work to give Kara her full attention - Kara was the only thing, especially when she was like this (soft, vulnerable and eyes aching with the loss of one home) that could make Lena turn away from the screaming voices inside her head.

“No…” Kara laughed lightly, “I was to be the youngest to join the science guild.” 

“Really?” Lena murmured in disbelief.

“Hmm…” Kara hummed, her mouth quirking up at the edges; Lena’s eyes dipped down to stare at the movement as they had begun to do with increasing frequency.

“Then why…” Lena began curiously wondering why Kara would turn away from something she had been preparing for and so obviously excelling at.

“Because, on Krypton…” Kara reached out with tentative fingers and pushed a dark lock of hair behind Lena’s ear. “We didn’t have people like you. People who worked on the ‘just in case’. People who spoke up. People who… thought everyone should be trusted with the truth. People who thought everyone deserved to be saved, not just the select few.” 

Lena grabbed Kara’s hand and brought it to her lips, pressing a comforting kiss to its palm as Kara revealed her scars to her. 

“I didn’t see science the same.” Kara confessed, her gaze turning far-away and distant as she took in the scribbles on the white-board like she recognised the odd syllable of a language she hadn’t spoken in years. “Science was elitist. Science led to hubris. Science failed to save us. But it was the lies that damned us in the first place. So… when I had the chance to start again…” She trailed off, expression melancholic and wistful.

“Thank you for telling me that.” Lena whispered sincerely, once it was clear Kara had nothing left to say.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Kara chuckled dark and pained in a way that made Lena’s heart crack across the surface.

“What is?” Lena prompted, squeezing Kara’s hand tightly in the hopes of grounding her.

“If I had been a journalist on Krypton, I could have made a difference. And if I was a scientist here, I could have made a difference.” Kara said, her smile a dark and broken thing that looked just wrong on her face.

“You make a difference, Kara. Every day. Just by being you.” Lena declared, green eyes sharp and jaw clenched determinedly.

The twisted smile receded back to something soft and adoring. “Maybe for the next one I’ll switch back to science, I mean how long do you think it would take me to get upto speed?” Kara questioned teasingly jerking a thumb at the board covered in excessive equations.

Lena let go of the heavy moment, though she wanted to reinforce to Kara that she was perfect just the way she was. But there would be other moments, other conversations, other secrets shared, other wounds tended…

“Depends on your teacher. With me there to help, I could make you an expert within a decade.” Lena asserted with a confident wink.

Kara’s gaze narrowed, a smouldering smirk slowly appearing as the kryptonian leaned into Lena’s space, “Is that so? Professor?”

Lena gulped.

***

It was a known yet unspoken thing between them.

They spoke around it, danced right up to it, fogged up the glass with eager breaths and pressed against the membrane with curious fingers. Lena knew Kara felt it, in the same way Kara knew Lena felt it. Though, both were too fearful to define it, to say how deep it ran, how much it meant to either of them. 

It was ambiguous in its immensity, not in its existence.

Whenever they brushed up against it, and came close to breaking that barely visible wall between them, they were pulled back with murmurs of ‘soon’ and ‘almost’...

They were both too dutiful, too dedicated to the task at hand to leave room for much else. And they both didn’t want to start when they couldn’t commit all of themselves to each other. Wanted their chance to have the highest probability for success that it could. Because that's what they both deserved.

“The first sunset.” Kara murmured when they were cuddled up together on Lena’s cot in the small room put aside for the chief scientist at the back of the lab in the bunker. “Me, you and a picnic under the very first sunset.”

“Sounds romantic.” Lena teased, rubbing her cold nose against Kara’s clavicle.

“I’ve got it all planned.” Kara admitted honestly. “Every last detail.”

“You’ve really thought about this…” Lena said in awe, pulling back to look down into soft blue eyes.

“It’s all I think about…” Kara replied, her fingers stroking up and down Lena’s back - Lena wished those clever, clever fingers would sneak under her sleep shirt and run along her bare skin.

“Soon.” Lena exhaled their now common commitment.

“Soon.” Kara echoed.

***

The transmat portals were nearly done. Ahead of schedule which was probably a first for any project, yet alone one on such a large scale.

The only problem was the energy source. It was… rather unstable and the amount of energy required to power all the portals at the same time was substantial. To ensure the tentative peace between all leaders and those involved, an agreement was made that all the portals would activate at the same time and humanity would pass through in one go to ensure that there was no group given an advantage.

Lena understood the political reasoning but it was an engineering nightmare.

They were working on putting power stabilisers on the portals to limit the impact of unwanted surges, when the Children of Earth made their play.

Coordinated explosions that threatened the sanctity of the bunkers moved the scheduled departure date up and prompted a mass evacuation. Kara didn’t want to leave Lena’s side but the people needed their Supergirl and it wasn’t fair for Kara to stay by Lena’s side when she was far from the fighting and others needed her to be their shield. Kara left her side with a promise of, “Soon, we’ll get our sunset.”

Lena had prepped the transmat portals from the command centre, monitoring the power levels with a wary eye as the bunker shook with the ferocity of the fighting. Lena watched over transport after transport, making changes as required to keep the power stable. As the numbers of those left to go through began to dwindle, Lena sent her team of loyal scientists led by Brainy (who she had to order to leave) on their way, leaving one transport for her and the soldiers holding off the Children of Earth. 

Lena struggled, as time ticked ever onwards, to keep the power surges under control and the transmat portal open. With the energy already expended, Lena knew if it closed… it wouldn’t be possible to open it ever again.

The soldiers led by Alex and Nia appeared following a large explosion that completely caved in an entire section of the (thankfully, now empty) civilian barracks. Held up by Alex and Nia was Kara, bloodied and bruised, skin a sickly green as her eyes fluttered weakly and her mouth moved trying to form words, fighting desperately to remain conscious. A battle she lost a second after catching a glimpse of Lena hurrying towards them.

They made their way as a group (Lena and those that had taken the pivotal last stand) to the transport when the evacuation alarm was joined by a clinically detached voice calling out, “Power Level Critical.”

The transmat portal flickered before brightening and then dimming almost immediately. The power surges threatening the very integrity of the portal.

“Lena, we have to go now!” Alex shouted, jerking her head towards the last transport that her group of soldiers were already piling into when she saw Lena freeze mid-step.

Lena doesn’t remember making the decision. It was just instinct. She could work out the variables, could see the solution and just… acted. It didn’t require actual thought.

There was the portal that wasn’t safe for a transport to go through unless someone was making the necessary adjustments to the power in the command centre.

There was Kara, hurt and beaten but still so alive and so beautiful and without a doubt the love of Lena’s life.

It was never a choice, so how could Lena have made a decision.

“No, you have to go. I need to keep the power levels under control. You won’t make it, otherwise.” Lena said, her voice eerily calm and collected for what she was about to do.

The looks of absolute, sheer horror that appeared on Alex and Nia’s faces as understanding dawned would stay with Lena forever. It was the moment she realised she was making a sacrifice and not just carrying out a simply logical action.

“No, Lena…” Alex gasped, her brown eyes turning watery as she hefted Kara higher as if.. As if she was trying to shake Kara awake so that she could bear witness to what was happening. 

“There’s no other way.” Lena declared, striding forward to cup Kara’s perfect face in her hands before leaning down to press a soft, farewell kiss to Kara’s cheek. “I was really looking forward to that sunset.” Lena whispered quietly.

Lena took one second to memorise that light vanilla scent that she would always associate with Kara before letting go of the kryptonian and looking to the distraught sister, “Keep her safe.” Lena requested simply, “And…” Lena swallowed thickly, “Tell her to be happy. Just happy.”

And with those final words, Lena sprinted back to the command centre, yelling for Alex to “Go!”

It was a close thing in the end. The power surges were seconds away from blowing the portal, and the bunker along with it, to smithereens when the transport finally zoomed safely through to humanity’s new home. Lena cut off the power just in time to limit the extent of the explosion that followed. The portal blasted apart but it didn’t have enough oomph to rip through the bunker.

It did knock out the lights, though, leaving Lena in absolute darkness for the first week of her new existence as the last human on Earth.

***

Okay, so Lena needed to admit to something… just a small thing… it was just, she knew it made her sound… you know… not really all there…

She had a dog.

A… uh… robot dog… that she had built for herself for company…

And, you know, Tom Hanks had a volleyball so, in comparison to that Milo seemed far more… sane…

(Don’t worry she had resisted the urge to call it K-9 and she had made it far more mobile and life-like than the rather square Doctor Who companion).

His name was Milo, after the main character from Atlantis, one of Kara’s favourite films. He was sleek, more grey-hound shaped than terrier, but moved rather clunkily. He had a tendency to trip when going up or down staircase B5-1 since that particular set of stairs were a little steeper than the others in the bunker and Lena had forgotten to factor that in when she created him. Now, she found the little stumble he made on those steps gave him character, made him seem even more alive than the adaptive AI that operated him so she never bothered to fix it.

Lena resisted the urge to give Milo a voice, since a robotic voice coming from her robo-canine companion kind of ruined the image that she had of Milo being a real dog but she couldn’t stand the silence anymore, couldn’t stand only hearing her own voice.

That was the other thing… after a year she’d started narrating for lack of a better word. Commenting on her work, speaking her thoughts aloud rather than keeping them inside her head. Partly to add some sound to her quiet life and partly (but mostly) to remind herself she was still here, still had a voice. 

If a tree fell in the forest would it still make a sound?

Did Lena still exist if no one was around to see or hear her?

In year four of her solitary existence, the narration became full-on conversations with herself which eventually prompted her to create Milo after she realised that she had gone to bed two consecutive nights in a row angry at something she had said to herself.

Milo spoke to her in song.

“You’ll always be here to keep me company, right Milo?” Lena would ask after crying over The Notebook.

“I’m never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.” Milo would blast at her through the speaker in his mouth alongside a friendly wag of his tail.

Lena was working on a beam with a crack in it, bending her head down to check on Milo who was looking up at her through green LED lights. “Did I get it all?” She called down.

“Higher, higher and higher. I said your love…” Milo directed, his LED eyes emitting a beam of light to point out a spot above Lena’s head.

He was a good dog overall, though he definitely had a preference for 80s classics much to Lena’s equal amusement and chagrin.

***

She tried not to think of Kara. But it happened.

The longest she had gone, not including sleep (though most of her dreams involved her blonde best friend so it wouldn’t have helped her average anyway), was three and half hours. An event which occurred during her drunken month in year two; she had grown irrationally angry at the transmat portal and had taken a crow-bar and smashed up the remains of the structure whilst listening to screaming death metal music.

She knew Kara would mourn her, miss her at least for the first year. But Lena knew she would keep herself busy. That there would be near endless tasks to occupy her mind and distract her heart and that whenever there was a lull or a break, the Superfriends led by Alex would be there to soothe whatever pain may surface.

Hopefully, by the second year Kara would be able to think of her and it be a joyful experience rather than one of pain. She knew Kara would still think of her often even one year removed from their separation (loss). Knew she had been significant enough to Kara to leave a wake behind.

By the third year, Kara would be ready - Lena didn’t doubt - to open her heart to another, to find someone else to fill the spaces Lena fleetingly occupied. There would be plenty ready and waiting, many probably far more deserving than Lena. 

Kara would find someone else to share that sunset with.

Years four to six, Lena hoped Kara would be rediscovering her passions, that her new home would be stable enough that Kara could get back to the things that made her happy. Lena hoped Kara was still writing, still turning her hand to paper and creating wonderful prose.

Years six onwards… Lena imagined Kara with a family of her own. The image would shift and change but there were always two children underfoot that Kara adored and both of which had inherited Kara’s blue eyes and pure heart. The other person in the picture was blank-faced, their features undetermined. Male or female, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was they put the brightest smile on Kara’s face possible.

“Just be happy.” Lena would whisper her plea out to the universe last thing at night and first thing in the morning. Because, if she said it enough, willed it enough then there was a chance she could make it true. Make the picture in her head of Kara real just by wishing it hard enough.

***

It was the start of her ninth year - Lena kept track by way of scratching into the walls a tally since it pleased her to think she was leaving some indelible mark on this place even if no one else would ever see it - and the knock was starting to become just that little bit more enticing. Lena had started to find herself walking up to the large blast doors and just… staring at them for hours on end.

It was only Milo that was keeping her going by this stage, blasting out, “Don’t you forget about me”, and “Oh, won’t you stay with me? ‘Cause you’re all I need”, whenever Lena’s fingers so much as twitched towards the manual override button.

Lena didn’t think too deeply about how her only reason for carrying on was the potential guilt that came with breaking the heart of a robot dog. 

“Spread it like peanut butter jelly...”

“Whilst I appreciate that you found the perfect song for my current actions”, Lena chuckled, casting an amused glance over her shoulder at her companion, whilst she spread the peanut butter over the plastic-like bread that had been made to last decades, “I don’t think you realise what that song is really about…”

Milo’s head tilted to the side at the words - Lena had designed him so that when he was processing new information or analysing anything he would tilt his head to the side like a real dog. 

“Oops!... I did it again…” Milo proclaimed, dropping to the ground with an embarrassed shake of his metal head.

“You’re still my best boy, don’t worry.” Lena reassured, finishing off preparing her lunch and making her way to the little living space she had made herself, a rather ratty red sofa and television screen had been added to the small room behind her lab that she had made her own. She had just sat down and was about to take a bite of her sandwich when-

Bzzzztttt…

That was new. 

The buzzing sound was so loud and clear that it felt like the entire bunker was vibrating with it. Lena was on her feet in an instant, Milo by her side, as she grabbed her tablet and went towards the source of the sound. As soon as the sound had begun, though, it decreased in volume to a mere hum. Outside Lena’s lab, in the long corridor covered in tally marks was a bright purple circle with blue streaks of light hovering below the ceiling. Beneath the light in a crumpled mass was a figure dressed in dark blue and crimson red with a silver cable connected to their centre which disappeared back up into the portal.

“Okay, I got the angle slightly wrong… Yep, face planted…”, The intruder groaned as they pushed themselves up to reveal a mess of hair. “I know, I can fly but I wasn’t thinking about flying and didn’t react in time… and-” The figure struggled to their knees and shifted round, finally catching sight of Lena who was simply standing there, mouth agape, leaning on Milo to keep her upright.

Kara.

It was in that moment that Lena saw a shade of blue she had been deprived of for over nine years. Kara’s eye colour, though, was possibly the only thing about her that hadn’t changed. 

Familiar golden curls had been cut away to be replaced by slightly darker blonde with the odd streaks of silver that only just grazed a jawline Lena’s fingers had traced countless times. Also gone was Kara’s defined and overly muscular body, she looked thinner… almost gaunt. Her cheeks hollower than they had ever been before. The crinkles around her eyes were nowhere near as deep as Lena had imagined them to be whenever she thought of Kara with her family. There were instead, however, lines around her mouth that implied she frowned more than smiled and that… that cracked whatever fragile grasp of reality Lena had left completely apart.

Because of this - Lena no longer trusting her eyes, unable to accept an existence where Kara hadn’t been happy, as Lena had begged the universe to make happen everyday - she didn’t truly see the expression on Kara’s face.

She didn’t see the sheer joy, the tears of elation, the broken smile that couldn’t smile as wide as it wanted due to being so out of practice.

“You’re here… You’re really here…” Kara breathed out, her blue eyes drinking in the sight of Lena shifting shyly from foot to foot as she stroked the smooth metal surface of Milo for comfort. 

“Kara.” Lena murmured, testing the word out in her mouth, trying to see if she still knew how to say it after all these years.

“Lena, you’re here…” Kara whispered totally awestruck, getting to her feet and taking slow, careful steps towards Lena, her fingers reaching out for the raven-haired woman.

“I don’t under-... this isn’t real… you’re not real… you can’t be real…” Lena stammered, shuffling backwards away from the ghost in front of her, unaware of the gasp of pain that it caused. “Did I answer the knock? Is this a dream? Milo analyse the surroundings and conditions.” Lena ordered, dropping her gaze to her tablet as she tapped frantically against the screen, mumbling her every thought out loud as she had become prone to do over the years. “Hallucination, most likely… potential causes… sleep deprivation? Unlikely, I have a set sleep schedule. Radioactivity has finally penetrated the bunker and has caused a multitude of health problems. Possible, though I take regular readings of-”

“Lena! Please, stop…” Kara cried, collapsing to her knees in front of Lena, tears streaming down her face. “I’m here, okay? I’m really here!”

“No! No!” Lena shouted in return, “This isn’t real! Because… because…” Lena’s breaths came out sharp and panicky as she was overwhelmed by a tempest of emotions she had worked so, so, so hard to deaden herself to over the last nine years. “You’re meant to be married! You’re meant to be happy! You’re not meant to be here…”

Fingers curled delicately around Lena’s biceps; she wasn’t even aware that she had fallen to her knees as well, that she had brought her hands up to cover her face.

The touch and its sheer gentleness almost made Lena jerk away but the barely there scent of vanilla instinctively made her lean forward instead, her head moving to rest as it always used to do on Kara’s reliable shoulder.

“Lena, how could I be happy without you?” Kara whispered, her fingers moving ever so carefully from Lena’s biceps, round to her back… so tenderly wrapping Lena up in her arms. “Let me take you home, please, please Lena… let me take you away from here, please…” Kara begged, pressing featherlight lips against Lena’s forehead. “Let’s go see that sunset, yeah?”

Lena pulled away so that her hands could move to cup Kara’s beautiful, anguished face, thumbs wiping away the endless tears, “You still want to? Even after all this time?”

“It’s all I’ve thought about.” Kara confessed, a breathtaking smile overtaking her face… and that… that one smile made it all worth it… made nine years in darkness… nine years alone all worth it. 

Lena loved how that smile stretched under her palms and she wondered how it would feel under her lips; the thought barely even crossed her mind before she started to lean forward to find out, Kara inhaling sharply as she realised what Lena intended, when-

“Sha-la-la-la-la-la, music play, do what the music say, you wanna kiss the girl.” Milo sang out for them, his metal tail thumping happily against the concrete floor, his green LED lights looking between his best friend and this blonde newcomer excitedly.

“Thanks, Milo.” Lena chuckled wetly, glancing over at her robo-dog before looking back to find Kara’s blue eyes sparkling with joy at her. “I have a robot dog, now.” Lena explained needlessly, cheeks turning an embarrassed pink.

“I can see that.” Kara replied with a laugh, her hand reaching out to brush through Lena’s dark hair, as she asked her voice brimming with hope, “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, yeah, I am…” Lena admitted with a fervent nod of her head before pressing a delicate kiss to Kara’s cheek. “I want to see that sunset.”

[parvuls]

fic: at certain times

word count: 12k

tags: year 2 canon-divergence, getting together, first kiss

summary: The Swallow's Samwell Awards issue of '15 crowns Jack and Bitty as Samwell's cutest couple. It is somewhat unfortunate, then, that they're not actually a couple at all.

read on ao3

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The kitchen smells like something burnt, a smoky tang that clings to the walls and floors, stings inside Bitty’s nose. April should smell like hot cross buns and zucchini bread, he thinks wistfully, but it turns out that some Aprils poor ovens are pushed to their last legs prematurely, leaving his kitchen smelling like Ransom forgot his frozen pizza in the microwave again.

Dex has been tending to Betsy on her deathbed all month, spending most of his free hours at the Haus. Bitty called him again after class, while he was standing in Superberry with Jack, and promised to pay for his services with froyo. Said froyo -- which Jack insisted on paying for, bless him -- is still on the table, untouched, yogurt melting over the rim of the paper cup and dripping onto the wood. Dex has been kneeling in the same strip of sunlight on the floor since he arrived with his toolbox. Bitty isn’t sure what exactly he’s been doing, but he seems to be too busy waving a screwdriver in the air and ranting to remember his abandoned bribe.

“So we finally got over the fucking Samwell Republican sticker thing,” Dex says, his face red and his brow furrowed. He’s been disgruntled all day because of an email he’d received, which he claims Nursey will never let him live down. "And Bitty, I know this is Massachusetts, okay? But I haven’t even actually voted yet! Fucking Swallow. How can I be Best Republican?"

Bitty hunches over in his chair, palms clasped together on his knees like a prayer. He’s anxiously following the motions of Dex’s screwdriver with his eyes while listening with only half an ear, deeply confused by the conversation subject. “The Swallow does pieces on politics? I can’t even imagine what an article like that’d look like, honestly.”

Dex grumbles quietly, shoving a hand under his backwards snapback to scratch at his hair. “No, it’s like -- their Samwell Awards thing? I don’t know, I just got an email about it this morning. I guess it’s like that 50 Most Beautiful shit they do.”

Bitty’s never heard of it, but then again, Bitty carefully sidesteps most articles of The Swallow whenever he comes across them. Those guys write about their team an uncomfortable amount for a university with almost ten thousand students. As long as Holster or Ransom aren’t reading it aloud at team breakfast, Bitty’s not eager to find out what The Swallow has to say.

He asks, though, because Dex seems to be upset about this and his frogs need to be handled with care. “Like in high school yearbooks?” Heather Barron was his class’ Best Laugh back home, and she made everyone who signed her yearbook tell her a joke so she could laugh for them.

“I guess,” Dex says distractedly. He bends down low to reach something close to the floor. “This girl from my Intro to CompSci class got the same email about it -- she won Best Dressed. I mean, who even judges these things? That’s a matter of taste.”

Dex wipes a dusty hand across his forehead and Bitty momentarily forgets to care about The Swallow in favor of looking on worriedly. Betsy is unplugged from the wall with her back side facing the room, surrounded by loose cables and scattered bolts. She looks old and frail. Bitty kind of feels like he’s watching an open-heart surgery occurring right in front of him.

“Can you save her?” Bitty presses a hand over his heart, dreading the reply. Dex wrinkles his forehead even further and doesn’t meet Bitty’s eyes.

It is then that their ordinary afternoon is interrupted by three emphatic knocks on the front door of the Haus.

"Did someone just knock on our door?" Shitty yells from somewhere down the hall. Bitty assumes he’s still curled up on the couch of sins in a t-shirt and flimsy underwear, mourning his grandparents’ affirmative RSVP response to graduation.

His tone sounds downright shocked at the sound, but that’s probably reasonable. Bitty’s been living in the Haus for over nine months now and he’s never once heard anyone knock on that door. It’s always unlocked, anyway; it’s actually nothing short of a miracle that they’ve never been burglarized. Not that there’d be anything to steal, of course, other than Holster’s collector's edition Simpsons DVD box set, or maybe one of Jack’s used jerseys to be sold to the highest bidder on ebay.

"Well, whaddaya know,” Ransom appears in the hallway outside the kitchen doorframe, likely summoned downstairs by the abnormal noise. His eyebrows are high on his forehead as he stares down the hall at the door. “It didn't collapse. I told you it’s sturdier than it looks."

Neither of the boys makes a move to actually open the door. There’s a second set of knocks, this one slightly louder than the first, and Bitty huffs as he gets off his chair. He casts one last hopeful look over his shoulder. Maybe, he wishes silently, Betsy has performance issues and would be magically fixed once she’s not under his constant scrutiny. Or maybe Dex does, and would magically fix her. “Y’all, when someone knocks on a door, they generally expect you to open it for them.”

He shoulder-checks Ransom on the way to yanking the door open, and is presented with some guy Bitty’s never seen before standing on their front steps. He’s wearing an atrociously ugly plaid vest and an awfully wide smile, which only grows wider when he sees that it’s Bitty who’s opening the door.

“Eric Bittle!”

“Yes?” Bitty agrees, eyebrows drawing together. He’s usually pretty good with faces, but he doesn’t think he’s seen this guy in any of his classes. Maybe a hockey fan. Still -- Bitty’s mother brought him up right, and he’s resolved to stick to his manners even if he now lives in a frat house. Someone with malicious intentions, he rationalizes to himself, wouldn't knock before entering. “Hi. Wouldya like to come in? I’m afraid our oven’s down, so I don’t have much to offer in terms of baked goods --”

“Oh, no, that won’t be necessary!” The man dismisses quickly, his smile not waning any; it’s hard not to eye it suspiciously. Absently, Bitty can make out the sound of feet shuffling, which presumably means the boys are crowding together behind him to peer curiously at the stranger on their doorstep. “I’m from The Swallow, I’m here to deliver a message for you. And Jack Zimmermann, but I’m sure you can pass it on. Our annual Samwell Awards issue is coming out early next month, as you know --”

“Sure,” Bitty confirms politely, although he’s never heard of the thing until about two minutes ago. There’s no sense in getting the man down.

“-- and we wanted your response on the win. We do that for the real popular categories. If you want to draft a short statement, you can reply to the email we sent you two --”

“I’m sorry,” Bitty cuts him off, maintaining a carefully polite tone. He hasn’t checked his email since the previous night, too preoccupied with avoiding his American Publics essay and fretting over Betsy. Somewhere behind him there are more heavy footsteps coming down the stairs and one of the boys whispers excitedly, Bitty won a Samwell Award!, though he’s not sure which. “What win? Who’s you two?”

“Oh,” the Swallow guy blinks, obviously taken aback. His smile doesn’t completely disappear but thankfully thins a little bit, at last stretching over less than two thirds of his face. He looks marginally less maniacal like this, Bitty thinks uncharitably. “You and Jack Zimmermann?”

There’s another shuffle of feet. Bitty turns his head to catch Jack pushing Shitty aside, coming to stand a step behind Bitty’s right shoulder. Bitty hasn’t seen him since they got back from Superberry and Jack headed upstairs to study, chirping Bitty for not doing the same all the while. He’s taken his thin fleece jacket off since, and the soft V-neck he’s had underneath clings to his biceps, to the shape of his pecs. His hair is messy, the smell of his aftershave hasn’t faded yet, and his palm rests lightly between Bitty’s shoulder blades to keep his balance in the narrow, crammed doorway. Bitty’s stomach jumps at the sight of him and he can feel a reflexive smile tugging at his lips. It’s an uncontrollable reaction to Jack’s presence, no matter how many times Bitty’s seen him that day. Good gracious, but it’s plumb pathetic.

Jack is oblivious to Bitty’s eyes on him, too busy frowning at the Swallow guy from above Bitty’s head. “What is this about?”

The guy’s expression is clearly confused, despite the upturned mouth in his creasing face. His eyes survey the huddled group in front of him searchingly, as if waiting for them to catch up. When no one adds anything his smile drops entirely and he says: “You guys won Cutest Couple!”

Time seems to slow down while Bitty’s mind stomps on an emergency break and short-circuits completely. He knows things are happening in the backdrop, can hear someone behind him, probably Holster, choking really loudly on their spit, but none of it truly registers.

The Swallow guy is frowning now, looking completely baffled as to why they’re not enthused at the news. “Seriously, did you not get the email?”

“We. What?” is the only thing Bitty manages weakly. Whatever smile was on his face is thoroughly wiped off now. His heartbeat begins pounding in his ears, drowning out any further background noise under its heavy thrumming. From the brief glance he braves, Jack is not coping much better. His mouth is opening and closing silently.

"Yeah!” The guy recovers, apparently blind to the catastrophe he’s inadvertently causing. “I mean, I’ll be honest, some of the staff was like, ‘enough with the fucking hockey team’, and Khalil and Sara who did that awesome Halloween costume, they came really close -- but I was totally on your side. Anyway, the draft should be in your inboxes. We’d like to have your response in the next couple of days so we can start running it. The more romantic and gooey the better, of course. Thank you!"

He smiles and then skips down the stairs before Bitty’s brain fully catches up with what has just occurred on his front porch. He can barely grasp at tail ends of thoughts before they slip away from him, disappearing in a cloudy daze of absolute horror. His pulse is still racing and his fingers, wrapped around the door handle, are trembling.

Behind him, Ransom makes a slow wheezy sound and then descends into hysterical laughter. Bitty’s feeling rather hysterical himself, actually, but he’s not in the mood for laughing at all.

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“Can’t believe it’s another year we didn’t win Best Party,” Holster mopes back in the kitchen, sprawled out spread-legged in a chair with his arms crossed over his chest. “It’s because of Alpha Sigma Phi and their fucking tropical Christmas party, I know it, Rans, I can feel it in my booze bones. Like, okay, they served drinks in real coconuts while bare-ass naked in twenty degrees, so what."

Ransom reaches out to give him a consolatory clap on the back. "We've always got next year, bro. Our names will appear on the holy Swallow pages, I promise."

“You’re right,” Holster sighs rather dramatically, sagging down a few extra inches in the chair. “We mustn’t despair. I’ve already bookmarked some ideas -- think we can keep live parrots in the Haus? Only for a few hours!”

“What I would like to know,” Shitty muses, stroking his mustache between two fingers while looking from Jack to Bitty’s flaming face and back again, “is who the fuck is their source. I mean, no offence, Bits, but if anybody is going to be Jackie’s fake-ass boytoy I call double fucking dibs and I’m willing to fight you on it.” He then considers it for a split second longer and says, “Or negotiate with food, honestly, I’m amendable.”

“Cooking is a touchy subject right now,” Dex mumbles from his perch by the counter, away from the cluster of boys that’s spread out at the table.

Dex looks like Bitty feels, actually: like he’s seriously regretting being present in this instance, and is looking for any excuse to make a quick escape. Or -- maybe only partially how Bitty feels, anyway. There’s another whole side of Bitty that’s feeling like there’s a vacuum in his chest, a ringing in his ears, a voice in his mind whispering, they know, they all know, Jack knows and he hates you for it.

Bitty has been studiously avoiding Jack’s face since they all withdrew from the door. He’s convinced that his feelings are written all over his face, pining daydreams altering his features and sappy midnight fantasies painting his cheeks bright red. He’s sure that one look in his eyes would give away every guilty thought he’s had since November, so he determinedly keeps his head down. Only, then Jack clears his throat and Bitty can’t help but spring his eyes up to look at him -- like a moth drawn to the flame that’d inevitably scorch it.

"Well, whatever is the misunderstanding, obviously they can't actually run that, Bittle. I mean, because. Hockey, and." His eyebrows do something complicated that Bitty cannot bring himself to study too closely.

The words hit like a two-hundred pound flour bag dropped on Bitty’s chest, weighing him down into the floor. Bitty tries to swallow, fails, tries again. His throat still grates like it’s made of raw sandpaper when he speaks.

"Right, no, of course," there’s this horrible sinking in his gut, a phantom sensation of freefalling that tastes like acid when it reaches the back of his tongue. "Of course, Jack. I know that. The last thing you need right now is --" he finally swallows past the lump in his throat, drops his eyes to watch his toes curl inside his shoes and dent the fabric upwards. “-- rumors about the gay kid on your team.”

Shitty says, “Bitty,” with a sharp edge in his tone, and when Bitty looks up Jack looks like he’s been struck.

"Hold on, Bittle, that's --"

“It’s okay, Jack!” Bitty makes a valiant effort to smile reassuringly. His chest is growing tighter and tighter, and he really can’t handle hearing Jack’s explanation right now. He feels like he’s shaking all over, like more and more words are being rattled out of his mouth without his permission. “I mean, it’s utterly ridiculous, but that’s The Swallow for you, I ‘spose. We’ll tell them it’s nonsense before anyone in the league catches wind of it. I’m sorry I even put your career at risk like that, honestly.”

“Bittle,” Jack says again, more firmly. He looks almost angry.

Holster’s stunned look is flickering between the two of them, and Bitty can feel the humiliation crawling up the back of his neck. He thinks that if he stays sitting in the kitchen any longer the boys might actually hear the splintering sounds his heart is making in his chest. Or he might start crying, whichever comes first.

“Don’t worry about it, really,” Bitty forces himself out of his chair, squeezes Jack’s elbow in passing for good measure, even though bringing his hands anywhere near Jack feels like torture. He doesn’t want Jack to feel guilty about this -- it’s not his fault. “It’s fine. I gotta go, I’m meeting Prof. Atley, but we’ll talk about it later, okay?”

He bolts out of the kitchen and rushes down the hall. The last thing he hears is Ransom saying, “Dude, I’m pretty sure his meeting with her was like, four hours ago,” before the Haus door slams shut behind him.

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The worst part is, Bitty knows Jack is straight.

Jack dates 50 Most girls from the tennis team, he takes ladies in tall heels to Screw, he brings puck bunnies to his room during kegsters. Or -- that turned out, actually, to be not all that true after all -- but.

Jack is straight. Bitty knew this all along. Bitty knew this and still let his foolish, stubborn heart say, maybe. Bitty saw Jack laughing at his weak chirps, and looking at him sometimes when Bitty was turned away, and there was that party, with Parse, and Bitty’s blood was rushing in his ears and he tried so hard not to listen, but they almost looked like they -- and Bitty thought, maybe --

But Jack wasn’t. Of course not. And Bitty knows it’s so unfair and so unjustified that he’s allowing himself to be mad about Jack’s words. Because these boys accept Bitty for who he is, have never shied away from him, have always been comfortable with his presence in their lives and their house and their locker room, and that’s not something to be taken for granted. It’s not their fault that they’re straight and that’s easier, not their fault that Jack’s straight and Bitty can’t bring himself to let go. Besides, something like this, it could wreck Jack's career even if it were true, and it isn't, so of course Jack would want it gone. It's not personal, Bitty knows. He has no reason to be so hurt.

Except maybe it stings a little, how untrue it really is. Maybe it burns a little inside to know that other people see what he sees, what he wishes were true, and still know that he can never have that for real. And maybe it hurts, that Jack can so easily make the article go away and never deal with those rumors again, because it's simply not true about him, but it will always be true about Bitty. Maybe he’s tired of how he will always have to fight for his place while people like Jack Zimmermann can walk right in.

Maybe.

But none of it is Jack's fault. Because Jack is straight, and Bitty isn’t, and he’s gone and fallen in love with him anyway.

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Breakfast with only Lardo and Jack is a quiet affair the next morning. Habit has them settled down at the team’s usual long table, but they take up significantly less space just the three of them. Bitty is surprised by the two empty seats remaining to each side of them despite the crowded dining hall, but considers that maybe the Samwell population knows whose seats are available and aren't willing to risk it.

Lardo is chewing her toast silently by Bitty's side, oversized hoodie draped over most of her face. Jack is sitting across from them, peeling the shells off a pile of hard-boiled eggs. His body is curved in a stiff line over his plate and his elbows are tucked in close to his sides. He keeps sneaking glances at Bitty every few minutes, looking torn; Bitty busies himself with spooning exactly three banana slices in every dip into his oatmeal bowl, keeps hurriedly shoving them into his mouth every time Jack looks like maybe he’s going to actually say something.

Bitty spent the majority of the previous night hiding out in a quiet corner of Norris library, binging episodes of The Great British Bake Off on his phone. When he ultimately found the courage to come back to the Haus, he power-walked straight into his room and didn’t venture out for anything more than brushing his teeth. The walls in the Haus are thin, however, and he could still hear Jack in his own room through the closed doors, speaking on the phone with his father in brisk French. They didn't exactly sound angry, but Bitty had unintentionally overheard enough of Jack’s phone conversations to recognize Jack’s business tone easily.

Jack’s lawyer had sent The Swallow a sternly phrased email first thing that morning -- for formality, Jack informed Bitty when the two of them left the Haus for breakfast with Lardo. His hands were tucked deep in his pockets and his eyes were hidden beneath the bill of his Habs cap. He kept his body angled away from Bitty, maintaining a careful six feet between them, and Bitty’s whole body ached like he’d spent the night playing consecutive shifts instead of tossing and turning in his bed. It was the only time they’ve acknowledged the Swallow article since the previous afternoon. Bitty changed the subject immediately after, and prattled meaninglessly the whole way to Commons.

The three of them separate after breakfast, Lardo heading for the studio and Jack and Bitty for their respective classes. Bitty spends most of his spare noon hours trying to do work in the kitchen, but he steals longing glimpses at Betsy more often than he does the reading for US Intellectual HIST or the darn American Publics essay he still hasn’t started.

This day needs an assist, he justifies when he eventually deserts his open notes on the table in favor of hunting down a clean towel. Polishing dishes is a more effective way to escape his blues. Maybe he’ll make some jam -- that doesn’t require a working oven, and it’d be a longer-term distraction from the mess he’s landed in.

Jack’s lawyer's actions in mind, the knock on the Haus door doesn’t really surprise Bitty. He can’t help the way his body tenses at the sound, though; the blood rushing through his body is too much like the terrible lightheadedness he experiences when checked.

Jack comes down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and grinds to a halt when he sees Bitty leaning against the wall at the entrance to the kitchen and staring at the door.

“It’s probably the Swallow rep,” Jack states the obvious, voice completely monotonous and face blank.

Bitty's gut lurches. He tries his very best, but he’s certain that his smile looks even more put-on than it was the day before.

“We should probably go get it, then,” he says. He keeps his hands wrapped in the dish towel as they move to open the door, to have something to do with them and to cover up the way they’re shaking.

The guy standing on the bottom of their stairs is the same one from yesterday. His loose printed shirt is somehow even uglier than the plaid vest, but this time no smile is taking up the majority of his face. In fact, he isn’t smiling at all; he kind of looks like he’s been sent to the gallows and couldn't beg out of his sentence.

“We've been informed that a mistake was made,” the guy says promptly, glancing between the two of them. Everything about his face and his body language appears cautious.

“Yes,” Jack confirms firmly. The guy blinks in sync with Bitty, both of them waiting to see if Jack has any intention to follow that statement with an explanation, but none seems imminent.

“We understand that it’s an honest mistake and we just want it scrapped," Bitty says instead, trying to keep his voice from betraying any emotion, even when his vocal cords are wound tight. "We can't be the cutest couple if we're not -- if we're not."

“You talked to your lawyer,” the guy says faintly. Bitty's not sure that he actually heard a word of what was said. He keeps eyeing Jack’s rigid posture and bulging muscles like he’s afraid that he’s going to be dragged into a fist fight right there on the lawn.

“It’s a legal matter,” Jack replies curtly, frowning.

“No one ever sent his lawyer after us,” the guy says, fainter still. “It’s just The Swallow, man.”

Jack's frown deepens. He’s wearing his hockey face, mouth pinched and eye narrowed, every angle of his face turning sharper. He looks serious, assertive, like he’s getting ready to step out on the ice for the puck drop. Bitty’s heart hurts so badly looking at him that he has to turn away. His eyes, mid-movement, catch on three faces eavesdropping from behind the living room’s doorway. He just barely suppresses a heavy sigh.

"-- you’d be spreading misinformation with unwelcome consequences,” Jack is talking, apparently, and Bitty tuned out most of it. “So you understand why we need you to retract that immediately and delete all further copies."

"Yes," the guy nods tentatively, eyes jerking in Bitty’s direction and then immediately back to Jack. "I'm -- sorry? We really thought you were --"

"Well we ain't," Bitty says, wringing the towel in his hands to hinder an uncommon urge to break something with them.

"Yes, I -- I understand," the guy seems as spooked by Bitty now, contemplating him and the towel as warily as he did Jack. "But we --"

"And I've got a date!" Bitty blurts, before he can hold his tongue from making his situation worse. Shitty whispers, the fuck, brah?, loud enough to carry all the way to the front door. "A date! With. Someone else, obviously, who is very much not Jack Zimmermann, so if you could -- make it go away -- good heavens this could be embarrassing for my date --"

"Of course,” the guy is nodding more vigorously now, head bouncing much like a dashboard bobblehead. He takes a cautious step back. “We're, uh, sorry. We’ll take care of it."

The guy retreats from the porch, glancing back every few steps as he hastens down the sidewalk.

Jack shuts the door behind them when they step back inside, and has to move closer to Bitty to allow the door to close. It brings his arm flush with Bitty’s back, solid and warm through the thin fabric of his shirt.

Bitty’s breath catches. His look flits sideways to watch Jack’s face twist into something Bitty hasn’t seen since the playoffs last year. He really felt like Jack and him were getting steadily closer throughout the year, considers Jack one of his closest friends, but he doesn’t think he’s imagining the distance between them in the last twenty-four hours. It’s more painful than the verbal confirmation that Jack will never like him back was. It’s painful that Bitty’s been shoving his feelings so far down to avoid this very outcome, only to have it blow up in his face through no fault of his own.

"What's that now!” Holster’s booming voice snaps Bitty out of his brooding, and he jerks his eyes up to see that Ransom, Shitty and Holster have crawled out of their eavesdropping spot and are blocking the hallway. “You've got a what and didn't tell us!"

“It’s not a big deal, y’all,” Bitty mumbles, mortified at how much he’s really not lying at all. He slinks away from Jack’s touch, tries to at least be subtle about it. Jack's expression is shuttering further with every moment that passes and Bitty is feeling irrationally miserable about it.

“Is too, Bits!” Ransom claps him on the shoulder excitedly, shaking his entire frame. "You know you gotta tell us all about it, we get veto rights! Is he hot? What's his name? Is he going to be your shoulders for Spring C?"

Bitty’s lousy day has only been getting progressively worse, which he thinks validates the way he bristles and knocks Ransom's hand off his shoulder. "I am average height, Justin Oluransi!"

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So it's not -- really a date.

Anthony from his Eating Practices Since the 19th Century course, who sits two seats away from Bitty and always forgets to bring a pen, caught up with him after class and offered to study together. Bitty’s doing alright in that course, but Anthony is smart and friendly and it’s a good incentive to actually get some work done before finals, so Bitty smiled and said yes. He didn’t think a few days later he’d be lying about it to his friends.

They meet outside Annie’s because Anthony preferred it to Founder’s, which Bitty didn’t mind. He was a little embarrassed about how the librarians might react to the sight of his face. They, unlike some others, don’t have a problem believing he’s a member of the Men’s Hockey Team, and the treatment earned by his teammates’ behavior extends to him.

Ransom wouldn’t let him leave the Haus until his outfit has been appraised, which means he’s maybe a little overdressed for a platonic study date -- but Anthony is in nice jeans and wearing neither a team logo shirt nor a marijuana crop top, so he’s already setting the bar higher than Bitty’s usual company.

"After you," Anthony beams, opening the door for Bitty. It’s awfully nice of him. Maybe Bitty should consider running cotillion classes for his boys before graduation.

It’s easier to revert to his sunny nature in the company of someone new. Anthony keeps up chatter about the last subjects they covered in class, relates to Bitty’s chronic procrastination tendencies, and even insists on paying for both of their drinks. Bitty tries to refuse, instantly dejected by the stark reminder of coffee runs with Jack, but Anthony argues that they’d probably refill several times and Bitty can get the next one. His winning smile is so convincing that Bitty can’t find it in himself to say no.

It happens again when Bitty begins leading them to a larger table in the middle of the café where they’ll have more room to spread out. Anthony points at a table by the windows instead, says, “There, it’ll be quieter,” and Bitty instinctively thinks, those are the windows Jack and I always sit by. He then thinks, good Lord, ERB, get a hold of yourself, and agrees. There’s not much point in attending a study date if he’ll be constantly thinking about Jack Zimmermann.

They spread out all their notes and laptops and books, settling on both sides of the small, round table. Anthony drinks his coffee extra hot and the steam fogs up his glasses, which causes Bitty to laugh and Anthony to grin sheepishly. It sets a good mood for their joint studying.

They work decently well together. Anthony's been more diligent with his schoolwork but Bitty is a faster reader than him, so they catch up with each other fairly quickly and proceed from there. Bitty finds it fun, partnering with someone who doesn’t consider violent food breaks an essential part of studying, and enjoys having somebody to complain about the professor with. The two of them are just starting on technological advances at the end of the century when Bitty’s shoulders fully loosen for the first time in three days and he thinks: this is going well, this is nice, maybe we can do this more often.

This is also the exact point he looks up to tell Anthony about Louis Pasteur and catches Holster and Ransom spying on him from outside Annie’s front window.

His knee-jerk response is uncontainable: he groans out loud. Anthony seems alarmed, twisting in his chair to look over his shoulder and detect what Bitty’s glaring at. Ransom, who clearly knows they’ve been caught, looks directly at Anthony with a deliberately threatening face, pointing two fingers at his eyes, then at Anthony, and back at his eyes.

Anthony makes a confused face into his mug and says, "Um."

"Gosh, I am so sorry," Bitty drops his face into his palms, trying to smother the waves of heat rushing to his cheeks. "It's my teammates -- they have no boundaries and they -- gracious, they think this is a date --"

Anthony swallows a mouthful of coffee too quickly before he sets his mug on the table. "Oh, uh. Do you… not think this is a date?"

Bitty lets his hands fall into his lap. His eyes dart to where Holster and Ransom are waving their thumbs up in the air as they mercifully walk away from the window and then back to Anthony, whose face is unmoving. "...What?"

The top of Anthony's cheeks pink, and he adjusts the glasses on his nose with a knuckle. "I... totally asked you meaning this to be a date."

"Oh," Bitty exhales numbly. Oh, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, he thinks, and then opens his mouth to say something to Anthony -- anything at all, because the poor boy is starting to squirm in his chair -- but all his words seem to get stubbornly stuck behind his teeth.

Because Anthony is perfectly nice. He’s mild-mannered, has a pleasant smile, and he's made Bitty laugh in class a few times when the professor wasn't looking. He's sitting across from Bitty with his hands twitching on top of the table, like Bitty's answer on the matter of their date is important to him. Like he would actually really like it to be one, so he found the courage to ask.

"Oh boy, I really didn't realize," Bitty confesses, finally, clutching his coffee tightly between his fingers. He's never thought he'd be this bad at this, but apparently he's just completely and entirely blind to anyone's affections as long as anyone isn't Jack Zimmermann. And now he made this difficult for both Anthony and himself.

"That's okay," Anthony says, clearing his throat. His lips quirk up in some intimation of a smile, which is, while still very pleasant to look at, much less genuine than his usual smile. "No, really, it's cool. My fault for not being clearer. We can -- I can go and order a refill for this coffee, and when I'm back we'll forget about it? We still have work left to do." He drags his legs out from beneath the table, turning sideways in his seat, before he risks another look at Bitty. "Unless you --? I mean, now that you -- realize -- would you want it to be…?"

The answer to that, Bitty thinks regretfully, is too complex for an acquaintance. Because how does one say, you're very nice and I imagine liking you could be very easy, but I've never dated in my life and right as I thought maybe I'd give it a try, I went and fell head over heels for a grumpy, kind-hearted, heterosexual Canadian?

One doesn't, Bitty reckons, but one also cannot keep waiting forever for something that will never, ever come. So he straightens his back and says, with his best Georgia smile, "Well, how about we carry on studyin’, and maybe we'll see how things go?"

It's a little more strained after that, but that's more Bitty's fault than anything. Anthony is still as perfectly polite as he was before, as focused on the reading. It's just that now every time Anthony smiles at him Bitty freezes, and then feels guilty for freezing, and gets mad at himself for not giving this a fighting chance, and by then he's not smiling back for so long that Anthony's smile shrinks, and Bitty feels even guiltier --

"Look," Anthony tells him after they packed everything back into their bags and walked companionably outside. "This hasn't been ideal, but I still had a good time. I'd like to maybe -- do it again?" Anthony smiles genuinely this time, and his smile is so pleasant, and he tilts his head the slightest bit closer to say, "As an official date this time?", and --

This is the second time Bitty freaks out about a very nice boy leaning in to possibly kiss him at Annie's, and it's exactly as mortifying as the first.

Bitty jumps back painfully obviously, as startled himself by his physical reaction as Anthony clearly is. He's blushing fiercely when he stammers, "Oh -- I -- I don't think it'll work out, I'm so -- I'm so sorry --" turns around, almost breaking into a run, and calls out, "I'll bake you a pie!"

The corners of Bitty’s eyes begin to burn, indicating the impending shameful tears. He’s terribly upset with himself for his reaction, but he’d be even more upset if he allowed himself to cry over it, so he makes the effort to blink furiously the entire way home.

.

.

.

The team gathers to eat dinner together that night. Bitty’s still a little vulnerable in the aftermath of his failed study date, but he does his best to hide it, pushing himself to be cheerful and revel in quality time with his boys. It’s easier when Ransom spends most of the walk to the dining hall engaging him in a conversation about wild alien conspiracies. It’s harder when Shitty and Holster join forces to cajole him into giving deets, and don’t take his, “Oh good Lord, there’s nothing to talk about!” as an acceptable answer. Telling them the truth is not an option -- they’re his best friends, but they would absolutely, no question about it, chirp him to death, and he’s really not in the right mood to take it good-naturedly.

Bitty’s surprised when it’s Jack who eventually tells them to knock it off, shoving Holster’s shoulder to force his way into sitting between him and Bitty at the table. Holster topples sideways into Nursey, and Jack seizes the vacated space and grants Bitty a miniature triumphant smile.

Jack’s dour mood had persisted through yesterday and during their walk over, but Bitty’s been watching him gradually thaw ever since they arrived at Commons; this smile is the first true, earnest one in days, and it melts Bitty on the inside. He’s immensely relieved that at least their friendship isn’t ruined, that the past few days have only been an unfortunate bump in an otherwise smooth road. Bitty tries to cling on to that, use it to move forward from the raincloud lingering over him since his afternoon with Anthony.

A baby-faced freshman approaches their table while Chowder is telling them about a text conversation with his sister. Bitty has his phone out before anyone else even reacts -- the nervous look in the kid’s face is enough warning, and he’s not disappointed; the kid zeroes in on Jack and asks for a signature on his Samwell jersey. There is absolute silence at the table while Jack surrenders to his inescapable fate and pulls out a pen. He then ducks his head and hangs on to that pen once the kid is out of earshot and the boys begin chirping him ruthlessly, yelling loudly enough to rattle the cutlery.

Bitty’s hiccupping laughter comes as a surprise to himself, but it’s the welcome sort. He directs his smile at his phone while he tweets -- true friends don't care that you're a professional hockey player; true friends ask you to sign their mashed potatoes during dinner -- and when he raises his head Jack is peeking at his screen and grinning at him.

“Not a professional player yet, eh? You can’t go lying to the Twitter.”

Jack is so obviously pleased with himself, white teeth gleaming in his mischievous grin. Bitty's heart soars and then swiftly sinks to the bottom of his stomach. He tries to hang on to the gratitude for what he has, but something in Jack’s voice triggers the memory of it stating, obviously they can't actually run that, and then, consecutively, the memory of Anthony's dumbfounded look when Bitty fled away from him.

Not even Jack's benign chirps or his concerned glances can restore Bitty's uplifted mood after that.

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Can’t make it to Founder’s tonight. Sorry! :( :( Raincheck?

The reading room is quieter than the rest of the Haus at night. It's dark out, gray shingles lit only by the lamp inside Bitty's bedroom and the faint glow of the streetlights down the road. Bitty lets his legs dangle from the edge of the roof, cradling a can of Twisted Tea and watching his shoes swing twelve feet above the shadowy green of the lawn.

There's the sound of a creaky window sash sliding up behind him. “Hey, Bittle.”

Bitty turns around. Jack is sitting on the ledge of his windowsill, holding a folded blanket in his lap. It takes a few seconds to blink away the disorientation caused by rumination and beer. “Jack! What’re you doing?”

Jack shrugs. “You said you’re not coming with me to Founder’s, and then you didn’t answer your phone. I wanted to check in.” He holds out the blanket with a modest smile. “Here -- so you won't get cold. Spring is pretty rough on you Southerners, eh?”

Bitty snorts inelegantly at the chirp, but stretches his arm to accept the blanket. He twists back to watch the twinkling Christmas lights on the LAX frat house across the road. They never take those down, and never add any new ones during the holidays. It’s as good a reason as any to hate the lacrosse team.

Jack clears his throat, an obtrusive sound in the relative silence. “Can I -- do you want me to stay? I mean, I can leave if you need some quiet.”

Bitty looks at him from over his shoulder, chin digging into his collarbone. Jack’s face is gentler than Bitty’s seen it in a while, mellowed out by the orange tint of the streetlights, and it’s so unfair. Even when Bitty’s upset about Jack he wants Jack near him, wants to hear Jack’s opinion, wants his straightforward, pragmatic type of advice. He wonders what Jack’s face would look like if Bitty was brave enough to tell him the truth about what’s bothering him. A sardonic laugh almost escapes him at that visual.

“No, you can stay,” Bitty says instead, and then makes a herculean effort to brighten up. “As long as you promise not to prattle on, you chatterbox, you know I like silences.”

The chirp falls flat when Bitty’s cheery façade cracks. Jack swings both legs out the window and slides down to sit by Bitty while Bitty takes another swig out of the can. There’s a lot of space on the roof, two empty lawn chairs on Bitty’s end, but Jack sits right next to him. Bitty’s shoulder knocks into Jack’s bicep and Jack’s thick thigh brushes against his, but Jack doesn’t take any action to inch away.

Bitty collects his knees close to his chest, leans his chin on top of them and continues watching the span of street visible from their roof. Beneath their feet, some couple probably returning from the bars by the river stumble together on the sidewalk, the echo of their giggles drifting up to the reading room. Bitty can’t quite cover his grimace in time to hide it from Jack.

"You're upset," Jack jabs Bitty’s elbow with his own, brow furrowing.

"No!" Bitty objects quickly, hoping his voice is only a lick squeaky. He's not drunk by any means, but the Twisted Tea makes everything a bit fuzzy, softens the world at its fringes. "I'm not upset. It's -- finals are coming up in two weeks, and I've got this essay I haven’t started, and -- you know, Betsy hasn’t been well and what am I gonna do, if I can’t bake to distract myself before the tests --"

"Bittle," Jack cuts him off quietly. Bitty lifts his head off his knees just enough to enable a quick glance; Jack is looking at him, those intense eyes trained on Bitty’s face, making his cheeks flush self-consciously. Jack’s expression is his distinct blend of uncomfortable but determined. "You're upset. Are you -- is it -- your date was this afternoon…?"

Bitty’s blush deepens, and he lays his cheek down to avoid eye contact. "So?"

"So," Jack begins, clumsily, and then shifts his arm so it nudges Bitty’s, fingers curled loosely into his palm. "Did he -- I mean."

It takes Bitty a moment to decipher Jack’s faltering sentence, but -- "Gosh, no," Bitty denies with profound embarrassment once he follows Jack's train of thought. Jack, unable to shake off the role of captain, is assuming some boy hurt him. Bitty doesn’t know how to tell him that he couldn't even get through the date to get hurt how normal people do. "He was a gentleman. If anything, it was me who was on my worst behavior."

Jack doesn’t look convinced. He bumps the back of his curled fingers against Bitty’s thigh. "But you're upset."

Bitty loosens his grip on his knees, keeps the hand not holding the can busy by fiddling with the hem of Jack’s blanket. Jack is both the last and the only person he wants to talk to about this. Bitty’s original plan was to get tipsy enough to fall asleep without thinking his emotions through, and then spend the next day compartmentalizing it away -- but Jack’s presence brings everything to the forefront of his mind, plucks at the tangle in his chest until it unravels.

"Well, because --” he sighs, and the expansion of his lungs must fracture some dam, because the words begin spilling out in long strings of nonsense. “I just -- I came here from Georgia because I thought it’d be different, y’know? I couldn't fit in there, and I know -- you said yourself -- I know it’s not any different here, not really, not in hockey, but outside of hockey it’s Samwell, so at least I could be me, right? But apparently I can't even be that, because I can't manage a simple thing like a date with a cute boy," he stops to take a deep breath, buries his face in the nook between his knees. "And, goodness, I can't believe I'm -- none of this is on you, I'm sorry --"

"Bittle," Jack touches his knee, inches away from his cheek, causing Bitty to look up. Jack doesn’t move his fingers from Bitty’s bare leg after Bitty lifts his head. "Don’t be sorry. It's okay."

Bitty searches Jack’s face. He doesn’t know how to read it, what the tiny microexpressions currently mean, but Jack’s fingers are splayed in the valleys of his joints and there’s something grounding in it. He takes another big breath in an attempt to calm himself down.

"I guess," Bitty whispers, but the turmoil in his chest doesn’t settle, not after he started letting it all out. He can almost picture it surging in him, clawing its way up to his mouth. "But -- is it? Okay? I'm just." He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated with himself, both for feeling so much and for being unable to articulate feelings with the proper words. "I feel like I can't just be me. Because who I am isn't good enough at home, and isn't good enough for hockey, and who I am likes boys but apparently I'm no good at liking them right, or -- the right ones --"

He restrains himself from saying anything incriminating, biting his lip hard enough to taste the metallic flavor of blood.

"You are good enough for hockey," Jack says, stilted. His hand tightens on Bitty’s knee and belatedly pulls away. "You're a strong player, and you did a great job this season. I know we lost, but you still did good. You'll be even better next year."

Bitty exhales sharply, rubs his eyes. He knows Jack; he knows he chose to latch onto hockey because that's something he’s capable of expressing. Telling Bitty he's a good player is something Jack can find words for. Bitty didn’t expect Jack to be the right person to talk through an identity crisis, but it’d be an easier evasion to accept if he wasn’t wrong.

"Jack, no offense, but that's a load of horseshit." Jack is clearly caught off guard, seems to be gearing himself up for retaliation, but Bitty talks right over him. "It is! It is, because I might do alright now -- here -- but if I wanted to go into real hockey, into the league, you think they'd be alright with who I am? You've heard what some guys’ve got to say on the ice, and this isn’t even professional hockey."

"You want to play professionally?" The familiar glint in Jack’s eyes indicates that he’s losing track of the grand scheme of the conversation.

"No! But that's not the point!" Bitty swallows, because it isn't, but getting to the point might as well be impossible with Jack. He can't exactly tell him that he's heartbroken and disappointed in himself and everything looks more bleak from this perspective. He's no better than Jack right now; they’re both afraid to dip their toes into the murky waters of everything Bitty said that isn’t about the game. "I couldn't if I wanted to because of who I am."

"You could," Jack says, looking away, his shoulders tight. The conviction in his voice gets Bitty's attention. Jack really isn’t the most emotive of guys, and it takes a lot to get his voice to change pitch. "The league isn't a very welcoming place, but it's hockey. The whole point is hockey. And if you're good at hockey, they'll just have to accept that -- at some point. It might be hard, but if hockey is what you want, then --" he looks up, catches Bitty's eyes. Jack’s are unfocused, like somehow he forgot Bitty was even there. "I mean -- you said it isn't, but if it was -- all I'm saying is --"

"Sure," Bitty brings the can up to his mouth for another swig, skeptical even in the face of Jack’s unanticipated speech. "I get it. You can play, and all."

"Yes,” Jack insists, turning his upper body towards Bitty. Their knees press together and Jack’s face is suddenly a lot closer than it was before. Bitty has to blink a few times until he can get his pulse under control. “You can. Because you are good enough, Bittle."

They stare at each other, time stretching between them, caught up in the unforeseen gravity of the situation. Bitty can’t really wrap his head around hearing Jack defending him with such vigor, but he knows there’s nothing he can say to argue. That’s Jack’s opinion. He’s never been guilty of handing out compliments he doesn’t believe in.

"Thanks, Jack." Bitty whispers. "'m sorry. It's been a rough day. Sometimes --” He sighs again, bows his head, and musters the last shreds of his courage to be at least a little honest. “I guess sometimes it can get lonely. And it sucked to realize that it's my own fault I'm alone in the first place."

Jack subdues gradually, his shoulders folding inward and the fire in his eyes dying out, leaving room for something much more empathetic than Bitty expected.

"I'm sorry, Bittle." He reaches out to grasp the ball of Bity’s shoulder in his large palm, squeezing it tightly. It’s a friendly gesture of comfort, one the boys in the team offer each other all the time, but Jack’s thumb is absently rubbing small circles on the base of Bitty’s neck and it spreads tingles through his skin.

“It’s alright,” Bitty moves away, smiling, but the words are like dust in his mouth and it isn’t really alright at all. They settle back into sitting side by side, and Bitty notices Jack's fixed eyes on the side of his face, but he doesn’t turn to look.

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Friday evening finds Bitty scrambling to complete last-minute assignments before Spring C the next day. He shuts himself away in his room and turns off his phone, tries to make his eyes focus on long lines of text instead of on any creaking noises in the Haus that might provide a distraction. This tactic has failed him more often than not, but for once the Haus is completely empty and any creaking Bitty might hear could only be chalked up to Ransom’s ghosts. Lardo and Shitty are out buying booze for Spring C, Holster is with the frogs, Ransom is at his weekend study group, and Jack has been in Providence with his mother all day, looking at potential apartments, and will be returning later to have dinner with her and her former Department Chair.

Studying is easier when Bitty’s using it to avoid thinking about other things. Lately, since his oven has been acting up, it’s been easy using studying as a distraction from thinking about Jack -- about Jack moving to Providence, about Jack taking the first steps in his adult life away from Bitty and the team. It isn’t a better distraction than watching Say Yes To The Dress with Holster or listening to music with Lardo, but in the absence of all other options, it’s good enough to push Bitty to make his deadlines, even if it’s at the last minute.

Bitty’s laptop emits a sharp ping that alerts him to a new incoming email, and Bitty scrambles up from the floor, almost tripping over two piles of reading material on his way. His room is an absolute mess; papers covering the bedspread and the desk, textbooks spilling from inside his bag onto the floor, pens scattered haphazardly. He’s been reviewing for the HIST test while emailing back and forth with the TA for his American Publics course -- the last three lectures of which he honestly cannot remember, but is somehow expected to write two thousand words for anyway.

The new email in his inbox isn’t from his TA, however. It reads, RE: RE: Your Nomination in the 2015 Samwell Awards, and only contains one line of text, visible in the thread’s preview without Bitty clicking it open. Attached is a confirmation for the removal and termination of the aforementioned article.

Bitty pauses, his essay forgotten, and goes over the subject lines four more times.

Bitty hasn’t read the article. Bitty didn't want to read the article, had convinced himself that he was indifferent and was more interested in putting the whole ludicrous affair behind them. But now he’s incapable of dragging his cursor away from the email’s subject line. He can’t help but want to know what they have to say -- want to know why anyone would mirror his misguided feelings for a close friend.

It can lead to nothing but trouble. Bitty still opens the article file for the first time since the whole mess began on Monday, because he won't have the guts otherwise, but for some masochistic reason he just has to know.

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The Samwell Swallow

Vol. 26, Issue 31 | May 2015 | Special Edition | The Samwell Awards

CUTEST COUPLE AWARD: ICE HOCKEY AS A LOVE LANGUAGE

Our most dedicated readers will know that the title of Samwell’s Cutest Couple is highly coveted. Perhaps only second to Dream Date or Biggest Gossip in prestige, this award is one of the greatest honors young Wellie lovebirds can strive for. This year, we’re proud to elect JACK ZIMMERMANN ‘15 and ERIC BITTLE ‘17. We know: enough with the fucking hockey bros. But hear us out.

These unlikely candidates were initially nominated by Zimmermann’s fellow photography class students with an exclusive scoop. Bittle was the subject of Zimmermann’s midterm project! (Awe.) Such a grand romantic gesture could not go overlooked, and we set out to investigate. Copies of Zimmermann’s photos are brought to you here, courtesy of the Department of Visual Art.

[Images: a collage containing a dozen semi-professional photographs, all depicting BITTLE. His character is consistently linked to themes of warmth and light, and is obviously portrayed with great affection.]

We were delighted by what we learned. Observant Wellies report that the two are often seen taking long romantic walks around campus, with Zimmermann’s lens sometimes pointed at the scenery, but more often at his boyfriend. Sources at Annie’s, the local café, tell The Swallow that, “Yeah, they’ve been like, coming here at least two or three times a week this year? There’s their table [points at a secluded window table in the corner]. The tall guy always pays -- what? No, they’re almost always alone. Except this one time that they were here with this other couple? I don’t know, man, I see lots of people on dates, but these guys kinda stand out. They’re always giggling with each other, it’s ridiculous. And loud.”

Our research yielded clear results: service staff at Samwell’s Jerry’s, Superberry and Stop&Shop have gone on record with similar statements; students who shared a class with the two disclose that their constant whispering and flirting have been impossible to ignore; even the janitor at Faber Memorial Rink reports that current team captain and fellow liney spend every weekend skating alone as they watch the sun rise, while no practice is scheduled! It’s official - Bittle and Zimmermann are, indeed, 2015’s Cutest Couple.

[Image: BITTLE and ZIMMERMANN at the Samwell Men’s Hockey Team’s #Epickegster this winter. The two are standing very close in the midst of what appears to be an intimate conversation, leaning towards each other under a bag of free condoms. Text under image reads: Our staffers report that the two then disappeared upstairs while the party was still in full swing. Get it, boys!]

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Bitty spends a long, breathless moment staring at the screen with unseeing eyes.

It’s like an out of body experience. Bitty can’t feel the tips of his fingers, can’t feel his toes. He can’t lift his hand to ram the laptop lid shut so his eyes are still glued to the block of text, words blurring together into a solid sheet of gray. His mind keeps losing footing, coherent thoughts cutting off before they can run their course, parts of sentences jamming into one long sequence -- grand romantic gesture, long walks, whispering and flirting -- that plays over and over. Distantly, he’s aware that there are stray tears in the corner of his eyes, but he’s too disconnected from his limbs to do something about it.

People look, he thinks, brain stuttering over the realization, pushing itself out of its shock, people look and see -- people look at the two of us and what they see is --

A loud noise behind his back scares the living daylight out of him, enough to send him spinning on the chair. The door to his bedroom swings open, nearly banging against the wall with the strength of its motion. Behind it is Jack, standing in the doorway with his eyes blown wide and his face pale, looking like he's seen a ghost; panting for breath like he ran a marathon to get there.

Bitty nearly collapses out of his chair, stumbling over the papers on the floor to step closer, arms reaching out automatically. “Jack -- what --? Is everything alright? Aren’t you supposed to be with your mom --?”

“Bitty,” Jack breathes out, unsteady, and then tumbles further into the room. His hair is disheveled and his buttoned shirt is smeared with stains of sweat, and Bitty’s brain is still coming back online but he’s suddenly overcome with how handsome Jack still is, even like this.

And then Jack takes a lengthy step forward right into Bitty’s space, his body enveloping Bitty’s and his broad palms cupping Bitty’s burning cheeks, and tips Bitty’s mouth into his.

Bitty’s eyes remain wide open for one paralyzed split second, taking in the sight of Jack’s dark eyelashes and sculpted brow bone from extreme up close, and then Jack’s lips move and Bitty’s eyelids flutter closed, melting into the unfamiliar action.

Jack's mouth is as soft as Bitty imagined, as hot, velvety lips sliding against Bitty's and catching on the dip of his cupid’s bow. Bitty’s mind keeps up a remote chant of oh my god, Jack is kissing me, oh god, what is happening, before that too is silenced by the thrill of Jack’s mouth parting against his, deepening the kiss, and then everything goes blessedly silent.

An undetermined amount of time later, Jack’s phone begins buzzing insistently; Bitty can feel the vibrations from where his hip is aligned with Jack’s. Jack ignores it, separating their lips to angle his head in the other direction and suck Bitty’s bottom lip into his mouth, tongue wet and tentative. His phone buzzes again, though, and subsequently two times more, and then Jack finally sighs into Bitty’s mouth.

“That’s my mom,” he says quietly, breaking their mouths barely far enough apart to speak. His lower lip is shining with spit and Bitty feels faint, needs to sit down before he falls over, needs to step back before he sinks his teeth into it impulsively. “She’s waiting for me...”

“Oh,” Bitty says. His voice sounds like it’s coming from very far away. He has so many things he wants to say -- what the hell, and what does this mean, and but aren’t you, and stay, stay, don’t go -- yet the only sounds his mouth can apparently make are, “Uh. Okay.”

“We have this… dinner…” Jack continues, and his eyes are so blue and his lips are so red and his cheeks are so pink, and Bitty thinks that maybe this is a very vivid stress-induced hallucination, and also thinks that he wouldn’t mind hallucinating a little longer. “I gotta go, but I’ll -- I’ll be back.”

“Okay,” Bitty says again, even though he’s not sure it is. He’s pretty sure, actually, that once Jack exits the door of his bedroom this spell will break like at Cinderella’s midnight clock strike, and Jack will return from dinner with his mother still painfully perfect, and still painfully straight, and still so, so far out of Bitty’s reach.

Jack backs up towards the door, eyes lingering on Bitty as his hands drift down Bitty’s arms. “I’ll be back,” he repeats, although Bitty’s not any more convinced, and then he takes his hands away and fumbles blindly for the doorknob, slips out into the hallway from whence he came.

Bitty hears his breaths shallow into nothing more than gasps of air, and promptly crumples backwards onto his chair.

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Bitty spends the entire time Jack is absent slowly going out of his mind.

Once the shock passes and the fogginess clouding his thoughts clears, all he can do is think: think about Jack kissing him, and the lovely shape of his mouth, and the bewitched look on his face; wonder how the hell it happened, and why, and what it even means. He conjures a dozen, a hundred versions of what transpired to bring Jack to his door, and even more of what would happen if he does indeed come back.

Bitty paces back and forth across his room, unable to focus or hold onto any one scenario for more than a few seconds. His heart beats so fast for so long that it develops into nausea; he continues pacing while clutching his stomach and praying that he won’t throw up, because he doesn’t think he’d survive that kind of embarrassing memory.

Shitty and Lardo come back at some point, stoned and bearing three bags of sour worms. They squint at his messy room but don't comment on the condition of his hair or his shaky limbs, kindly offer him some sour worms and the opportunity for contact-high in Shitty’s room. They back off and close the door as soon as they see the look on his face. Bitty runs his hand through his hair one more time when he tries to imagine what his face must look like to successfully scare them away.

A long while later there are footsteps in the hallway outside his door. Bitty braces himself to tell Holster or Ransom or, god, Chowder that he’s busy right now. He tries to remind himself that he loves them even when he's in a state, and sits down on the bed to tell them that he isn’t feeling well -- except then the door opens, and it’s Jack standing in the doorway.

Bitty’s heart jumps, somersaults, and plummets all in the space of one millisecond, as he stands up abruptly from the bed and stares, openmouthed.

Jack doesn’t look as rumpled as he did earlier. His collar is adjusted neatly and the tails of his shirt are tucked and smoothed into his pants, but his face is a rich shade of pink and he’s clenching and unclenching his fists by his side. He seems so awkward, standing there, that Bitty’s continuous state of panic morphs into a different chaotic mess of confusion and affection, all while Jack does nothing but stare at him.

“How was dinner?” Bitty squeaks out, eventually, when it’s clear that Jack’s not going to speak anytime soon.

Jack looks like Bitty has veered off script unexpectedly. His eyes widen and he clenches his fists and then releases them again, compulsively. “Eh -- good, good.” Bitty nods. There’s a long stretch of silence neither of them fills. Jack inhales and says, right when Bitty is sure that his heart is sincerely going to beat out of his darn chest, “I. Bittle. About earlier.”

The color in his face deepens further but Bitty can’t tell what that means, if he’s already regretting what he’s done or if he’s just tripping over his own emotions like Bitty is. “You should -- the door,” he stutters, because whether he’s going to be kissed again or be let down gently, he’d rather do it without an audience. Jack looks at him like he spoke in a cryptic foreign language, so Bitty forces out, blushing to the roots of his hair, “Come in and shut the door, Zimmermann.”

“Oh -- shit, ouais,” Jack jostles into action, stepping away from the threshold and kicking the door shut after him. It’s the first time Bitty has seen him move with anything other than practiced poise.

Bitty’s room isn’t very large, and with the door closed the atmosphere in it quickly shifts. There’s an inherent intimacy in the short gap between their bodies that heightens in a small, enclosed space, and Bitty can feel his body heat rise and spread to his palms and his face as a result of it.

It’s unsettling, and Bitty suspects that he could grow to crave it, but not as long as he has no idea what is going on. “Jack --”

Jack interrupts him, keeping his eyes on the floor. “Wait, Bittle, listen. I -- it’s really important that you know that you shouldn't feel obligated.”

There are maybe a hundred thousand things that could’ve come out of Jack’s mouth after Bittle, listen, and Bitty spent two and a half hours imagining a good deal of them. Telling Bitty that he shouldn’t feel obligated is so perplexing that Bitty’s too wrongfooted to protest, and Jack carries on speaking. “I know as team captain I have a certain amount of authority and I didn’t even -- think about that, before, which is really wrong --”

Bitty squints, slowly gaining a renewed grasp on this bizarre situation. The only thing he manages to think with clarity, through the storm brewing in his chest, is, You doofus, what on earth are you talking about. “Jack. The season is over."

"Right," Jack shoves his hands in his pockets, squares his shoulders. "But -- still. Technically we kept up with a.m. practices even after the playoffs, so."

Because you are an insane person, Bitty thinks to himself, coming to terms with the fact that the tone of his thoughts is on a scale ranging between neurotic and cloyingly smitten. He opens his mouth, not sure what’s going to come out of it, but Jack keeps talking without pause.

"Anyway, the NCAA allows intra-team dating but doesn't say anything about involvement with captains. I checked."

This bowls Bitty over, a new wave of warmth rushing to his cheeks. "You checked?"

There's a sheen of what can only be nervous sweat above Jack's upper lip that shines under the glaring ceiling light. “It’s only thirty pages.”

Bitty feels lightheaded again, as he allows himself to consider for the first time that evening, with some measure of possibility, that Jack Zimmermann in fact came into his room and kissed the right sense out of him with the intention to date him. It’s almost too much to consider, making him weak at the knees. He grabs the edge of his desk to be on the safe side.

“You -- I -- dear god, what is even happening? What brought this on?” Because they’ve been spending -- well, they’ve spent almost every waking moment together this semester, excluding this odd week since the damned Swallow article. Jack had plenty of opportunity to confess his feelings had he possessed any, and the best time certainly wasn’t while his mother was waiting for him downstairs to go to a formal dinner.

“Well, I,” Jack stammers, dropping his chin to his chest. His ears are bright red, dark enough to be seen from a few feet away, and Bitty is enchanted by it. “I didn’t know, but. I read the stupid thing in the car because I couldn’t -- my mom said -- I kept thinking about you in every kitchen that we looked at, and I…”

Bitty can feel his eyes widen, his organs flipping over inside him. "You… did?"

Jack lifts his head, and when the two of them finally make eye contact it zings through Bitty’s body. "Yes. I mean, I guess it’s hard not to. If you're not on ice, you're baking, Bittle. Or tweeting. Or baking and tweeting."

He winces as soon the words are out of his mouth, and Bitty can’t help it: he bursts out in laughter, high-pitched and giddy. This boy, Bitty marvels, and euphoria spreads like thick cotton candy in his chest, making it hard to speak; to breathe.

Jack’s face still looks vaguely horrified, like he’s regretting ever opening his mouth. "Crisse, sorry, it's not -- I wasn't trying to --" he blows out air, starting over. "It's fine that you do. I mean, more than fine. I thought about you in the kitchens because I like it. I like you."

His voice is unmistakably uncomfortable, and beads of sweat are glinting on his temples. Bitty’s so overwhelmed by hearing Jack speak candidly about his feelings that he blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind. "You like me? But you're -- I mean, I thought you --"

Jack’s eyebrows draw down and his mouth thins. He looks irritated, but Bitty knows it’s the shape his face takes when he’s distressed. "I know last year it didn't seem like -- but I thought this year you knew things changed --"

"-- were straight," Bitty exhales, chest heaving. God. This is real. "I thought… you were straight."

Jack squints, stopping himself in the middle of his sentence. He seems honestly, genuinely confused, the big lug. With a more functioning part of his mind Bitty recognizes that this is probably the most facial expressions he’s seen Jack make since meeting him.

"But I kissed you."

"Yeah," Bitty swallows, cheeks probably glowing bright red. Somehow it’s so much more jarring hearing the words out loud than it was to have Jack’s mouth on his. Like something that’s not supposed to be discussed out in the open. A secret lifted right out of Bitty's subconscious, manifested by sheer will. "Uh. Sure did. Thus my confusion."

"Your -- confusion…?" Jack trails off. His flushed face begins shifting by degrees, a smile spreading slowly but steadily and creating the smallest, sweetest crinkle at his eyes. He wipes his shiny brow with the back of one forearm and then crosses the distance between them in a few short strides, sweeping in to kiss Bitty.

It’s not any less mind-blowing the second time around. Jack's fingers slot under Bitty's jaw, titling his head up, his other palm sliding from Bitty’s neck to his shoulder and down his back in a tantalizing stroke. Bitty grows hot all over, bending his body into Jack's to press their chests together, his hands hesitatingly finding their way to Jack's hips. He hooks them over the sharp curves of Jack's hip bones, feels the strength in Jack’s obliques through his clothes.

Their mouths create a soft slick sound when they glide against one another, lips meeting and parting smoothly. Bitty gathers the confidence to attempt parting his own lips, applies the slightest pressure of tongue to Jack's bottom lip, and is rewarded by Jack's shudder and the tightening of his hand on the small of Bitty's back.

Jack pulls his face back slowly enough for Bitty to blink his eyelashes open and catch Jack licking his lips, exhaling shakily.

"I like you, Bitty," Jack leans their foreheads together. His eyes are staring right into Bitty’s, drooping and soft and so clearly fond that Bitty feels the tremor flow in his body all the way to his toes.

"Me too," Bitty whispers. His heart is still beating irregularly, vainly trying to catch up with the emotional upheaval of the last few minutes. “Jack --. I like you, too.”

Jack smiles at him, and it’s more honest, more tender than Bitty's ever seen it. It makes Bitty so happy that he wants to burst into giggles, wants to hide his beam in Jack's chest until butterflies stop fluttering in his ribcage.

Jack runs his fingers into Bitty's hair, gently brushes through it. He's bashful, both of them avoiding prolonged eye contact, and it's so absurd that they're shy after kissing like that, but Bitty can't help it. Jack tips his head to kiss Bitty's chin, his temple, makes Bitty actually giggle when he kisses his ear and then settles his lips in Bitty's hair, tugging him closer into the crooks of Jack's body.

"Hey, Jack?" Bitty says quietly, leaning his cheek on the curve of Jack's shoulder and wrapping his arms around Jack's waist, hands linking at the arch of his spine.

"Yeah?" Jack mumbles into Bitty's hair, mouth moving against the crown of his head.

Bitty presses his lips briefly to the closest patch of Jack's skin he can reach, which is the dip in his clavicle. It's barely a kiss, but his entire body shivers with the knowledge that he’s allowed. "Wanna be my date to Spring C tomorrow?"

Jack draws back far enough to be able to look down, tilting his chin into his neck and catching Bitty's eyes with his. His face is pink and his lips are swollen and Bitty's so unbelievably in love with him, but it's the furthest thing from pathetic now. It seems funny that it was ever something shameful at all.

"It'd be my pleasure," Jack smiles, and leans in for another kiss.

[antialiasis]

Dave and His Memories Discuss Mia (and Jean)

Back in 2007, when I was writing The Fall of a Leader for NaNo, there was one particular chapter that stuck out. In it, Shadowdart sat down contemplating the roots of his moral system. While I was writing this particular chapter, for whatever reason, I got so intensely into his head that I genuinely felt like I was discovering something legitimately profound and important. By the time I was editing the story in January and got to that part again, it felt pretty unremarkable as a chapter. But the experience of writing it had been something unique. I’d never really felt like that writing before, and never felt it again... until this Saturday, that is.

It's a bit of a long story how that happened. For the past few months I've been participating in the Blacklight RPG on Thousand Roads, as Dave from Morphic, only as a Poochyena (because this is a PMD RP, where any participating humans are turned into Pokémon). Without getting into too much in the way of explanations, the other day on spur of the moment @unrepentantauthor and I started to privately roleplay an imagined interaction between Poochyena Dave and their character's father, a Delphox named Jesse Stranger, where they argue about which of them is less of a terrible father and are both being giant hypocrites going "NO U" at each other and it's great.

Anyway, at a certain point in the argument Jesse the Delphox uses Miracle Eye to mind-probe Dave about whether he's ever had 'violent thoughts' about his kids, and I sat down to write what he'd find. And it happened again! I spent three hours so in his head that I was full-on crying about his feelings and was shaking afterwards and everything. Like thirteen years ago, reading over it again afterwards it's like okay, this is not all that remarkable. But since this stands largely on its own and doesn't require any background knowledge of the RP, here it is anyway, for anyone interested in Morphic extras.

The formatting here is a bit unusual; I originally used Discord spoilers for some of the thoughts in the memories that he refuses to consciously acknowledge, the stuff that wouldn't show up in the narration of his POV of these scenes but is there anyway for a psychic to pick up on. Since Tumblr can't do those, I've replaced them with strikethroughs, which is not quite the same effect, but oh well.

What... what was he doing. Dave's ears flattened back against his head. Miracle Eye? What was that? Was he supposed to have any fucking idea what--

Everything fell in on itself, the Delphox's mind pressing against his own, finding faults, piercing them. He yelled out a panicked string of curses he couldn't hear. Fuck, fuck, what was happening--

--and then, suddenly, a memory. The echoing slam of a door, the unbearable screeching cry of an infant in his arms. she was gone, for good this time, and he knew it, fuck, he fucked it up every time, of course he fucking did Blinking rapidly and standing there and listening to the fucking interminable howls of this freak he never wanted and was somehow stuck with, thanks to these clownish fucking abortion activists. because he'd gotten drunk and fucking bragged about it at a bar, what the fuck was wrong with him A fleeting, angry thought as he looked at the baby, this flailing little bundle: Maybe Jane had the right idea. The mental image of just grabbing her by the ankle and tossing her off the balcony, watching her sail over the trees as the wailing receded into the night, or even just slamming her into the wall, a crack followed by heavenly silence. he didn't want this, he didn't want this, how was he supposed to take care of a fucking baby alone, he couldn't do this, fuck, maybe the police wouldn't even care when the baby wasn't fucking human, or he could just jump after her and get it over with--

His stomach clenched in revulsion, nausea crawling up his throat. What the fuck was this? He barely even remembered that night, hadn't thought of it in fucking years. He wanted to reach out and tear Jean away from this creep, just hold her and keep her safe and make sure nobody could hurt her, ever. Fuck, he just wanted to go home.

--and then a sudden unexpected yank into a series of other memories. Mia, four years old, no idea why she shouldn't hurt people; the abstract realization she was disturbed, weird, but also fascinating. She wasn't a monster; she was just different. Smart. She could figure it out, if he just explained in the right way if he failed that was a problem for later--

--watching the new game Mia and Lucy had invented for the first time a year later, the predatory glint in Mia's eyes as she pounced: it's a game, honestly it's just pretty cute, it's just the same as the little violent impulses they all have this might be more concerning when she has scythes but it's nothing to worry about--

--Mia, seven years old, little scythes beginning to poke out of her arms. Feeling almost giddy analyzing the X-rays: he'd been right, they were growing exactly as he'd predicted. Cheryl taking him aside, asking if she should be worried. No, of course not, she won't do anything, Lucy can stay insubstantial what if -- she won't, she's brilliant, she gets it--

--getting a call from the school, about how Mia, nine, had swiped and cut a girl's hair. Showing up to the principal's office, trying to placate the horrified parents. "She could've killed her!" "Of course she wouldn't have. She knows her own limits. It was just a game, like the games she plays with her sister. We'll talk to her about why she can't do that and that'll be the end of it." the hair's very close to the neck, fuck, Mia, what--

--looking at her in his car one day after one of their weird talks to offer her hotdogs, only to find her staring at him in the sort of way she stared at Lucy during their games, and when he asked what she was thinking she said she was hungry. "Just so we're clear here, when you say 'hungry' you mean 'let's get hotdogs', not 'I want to tear Dave's throat out and eat him', right?" "Both." Fear congealing in his stomach, blood running cold in his veins. She wasn't actually going to, and he knew it -- she was annoyed to even have to explain: "I like talking to you more than I'd like eating you." "That's great, but you can't eat people you don't like either." "I know." "Tell me why." -- but in his mind's eye he saw her lashing out, scythe through his throat, her sharpened fangs tearing at his windpipe, and felt so sick he couldn't breathe. Telling her to please not let him down please before exiting the car, extending his hand towards her and imagining her lunging again and every primal instinct in his brain telling him to get away, but no, she wouldn't, he knew that, and instead holding his hand firm until she took it if she attacked it'd be on him anyway--

--another call. She'd attacked a boy, put a pretty deep cut in his arm. His heart pounding in the office. Mia please don't fucking do this Somehow persuading the principal and the parents that it's a matter of childish impulse control, it's not like she wants to hurt anyone, she knows she shouldn't, they were thinking about making some sheaths for her scythes anyway kind of, maybe, he'd thought about it once and once that happened it wouldn't be a problem. Asking her about it in the car afterwards. Apparently it was this group of kids that kept harassing her about religion, of course it all came down to fucking religion, and she was just defending herself. Like she didn't have that fucking right -- but they talked about it anyway and it'd be fine and they'd make the sheaths Mia please--

--a pang of dread every time he got a call for a while, until at last the third one, when it was clear the principal had already made up his mind when he arrived at the office, and he argued fiercely anyway, they were provoking her, who even does that -- but then she expertly executed a fly on the wall and he couldn't even disagree anymore, she was probably better off homeschooled, and he took her home and they talked about religion on the way and he was glad he'd not have to get any more of these fucking phone calls, and then even fucking Howard was acting like it was all her fucking fault but it wasn't, she wasn't a monster, she was just Mia and she was weird but she was a fucking person and she was his best friend, taking her for hotdogs was like the best part of his week, he couldn't fucking lose her and it wasn't her fault, he'd made her this way and he'd figure it out--

--that horrible day of waking up to all of them gone but Lucy, off on a fucking suicide mission to rescue Gabriel, begging Jean to come home, realizing he'd fucking told them about the trap laid out for them, pacing around the house drinking whatever he could get his hands on trying to imagine they'd all be all right only all he could think was that they were all dying and he should go out there and do something except there was nothing he could do, he'd just be getting himself killed, and fuck, that was fine, fucking bring it, but they'd kill Gabriel too. The utilitarian calculus that rationally they should have just let them kill Gabriel so nobody else would die, they'd all fucking hate him forever but at least they'd be okay, but even then he just fucking couldn't, he was pretty sure Gabriel hated him already but Dave's heart still sank into a bottomless pit at the thought, and all he could do was cling to the fantasy that somehow everyone would be okay and try to drink enough to not remember the rest it'd be his fault, his fucking fault, he told them where to go--

--learning, from Jack's strained recollection of that day, that Mia had died with some kind of psycho fucking grin on her face after slitting somebody's throat, and feeling sick and pressing his lips together as he sat there, but it wasn't her fault, it wasn't her fault, it wasn't her fault, she was fucking unique and he loved her and if they hadn't shot her three times in the head he'd be fucking taking her and driving off, getting her out of the country, he didn't care, they couldn't take Mia he'd made her that way and he hadn't said the right things to her and he'd fucking told them where to go like a fucking idiot--

See, Dave thought, fiercely, in the middle of it, she wasn't a fucking monster, I never thought she was a fucking monster, all I ever wanted was to keep her fucking safe.

[whirlybirdwhat]

Accidental Family Man Au

remember that one ask where I talked about some projects? This is one of them. Enjoy dad franky!

So it begins with Franky – a back alley repair in the illustrious mechanic city of Water 7 – a miracle engineering city, they call it, with intertwining roads of cars and rivers. Venice, if Venice was made of concrete and had a road system above its water system, twisting above houses and everything.

Franky used to be one of those engineers that created those miracles, but an accident later, and he’s the scourge of the city and half bionic, making his living in back alley repair shops where you either pay with cash or your life.

He never said he was a good guy, did he Ice Burg?

 He still has connections though – and these connections lead to Iceburg, and to the Straw Hats.

 Iceburg’s the mayor, of course, and while he doesn’t care much for his public image, he knows that if he starts accepting money from shady kids who showed up to his doorstep possibly covered in blood with a woman who he swears he’s seen before beside him, that maybe Water 7’s people will take a hit for harboring criminals.

But hey, He knows a guy already doesn’t he?

So he sends these kids and their broken van down to the Franky House to see if he would fix their beloved, broken, van.

The Straw Hats never reach it, because the woman (Robin) gets kidnapped and a fight breaks out, leading to the separation of the group,

So the story really begins with Franky and the little broken down RV called The Going Merry, previously belonging to the kid who’s standing in front of him, begging him to fix it.

More Hcs Below cut including actual dad Franky stuff lol

That kid is Usopp, and he’s asking because Franky’s the only repair man in the illustrious city of Water 7 that will possibly accept the cash that Usopp has to offer.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he attempts to kick the kid out and gets kidnapped in return.

Oops

 So, Franky’s introduced to Ennies Lobby one of the worst places this side of the country – where people go and never come back, and hey, whats this kid doing kicking down the door?

Safe to say, Franky is rescued, and learns a little more of their story.

And Safe to say, Franky sees the woman they are going to save (him, and a bunch of teenagers and some 12 year old brat) and he near damn falls in love with her on sight and definitely does when he actually talks to her.

They save Robin, and start running – of course, Merry the van is just barely struggling to save all their added weight but they make it but also merry’s totaled.

So Franky shows them his pet project, The Thousand Sunny, supposed to be his super get away, home a way from home rv but with a few modifcations… the Straw Hat Gang has a new home. And a new crew member.

Franky learns everyone’s stories and about all the absolutely shady shit they are into. He learns he fits right in.

 And then… then the moments start happening.

He helps Usopp fix up the Sunny, and teachers him about cars and such. 

He and Chopper start bonding over bionics and medical shit that went into building his body. 

Zoro and him geek out over comic heroes (this, at least in zoro’s part, is canon the big nerd.) 

He helps Nami out with some headings and listens to her troubles. 

Sanji and him go fishing one day and it’s the most surreal experience of Franky’s life because this teen is in a three-piece suit and catching giant fish out on the shore of some lake? What? 

Franky gives Luffy advice and pulls him out of fights and shows him cool robot things.

 And its two months in when Franky realizes – here is it actually typed out lmao

“In all honesty, Franky doesn’t know how it happens.

Well.

He has a vague idea.

(Can you save her? Please? Merry’s the best.)

But still – tracing the events that led up to him frantically calling Ice-for-brains at one am in the morning at a near abandoned gas station on the west coast was a hard task.

“Hello?”

Finally.

“Ice-for-brains,” He starts using the familiar name.

“Flunky? The hell? What are you calling me now?”

“Iceberg.” The use of his real name quiets him. He knows this is serious. Franky takes a deep breath, and exhales, saying the next words in a single breath. “I accidently became a dad to six crazy teenagers. Help.”

…

“Goddamnit bastard-berg this is no time to laugh!””

AND THEN HE GOES ON TO HAVE MORE DAD ADVENTURES INCLUDING:

Organizing the kids at Sabaody Park

being emotional support for all these kids trauma please world, give them a break

doing his best to say no to allowing luffy to swim with sharks but giving in anyway

being a component (aka fierce menacing bodyguard) in his daughter’s nami’s schemes

breaking up fights

 Attempting to ground known criminals who may or may not be stronger than him

Modifying the RV so that they can have Brook and Jimbe on it as well

“MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS!”

Overthrowing the government in at least three different countries because his kids wanted to

Doing experiments with illegal fireworks on Usopp’s behest

“Do you want to play catch” “Franky that’s dynamite that we found in the stach what the fuck- “Do you want to play catch” “…Yes.”

Explaining Safe Sex to teenagers who have biggers worries such as the government

Teaching them all how to drive. He thinks hius heart has popped out of his chest.

Snoring loudly on their tiny couch and everyone just dogpiling on him

Also I had this in my notes

So that’s a thing that’s going to happen!

Uh anyway uh PART TWO – THE OTHER FCKING STRAWHATS

Note: Everyone is aged down three years from pre TS ages  to enforce the fact that 1) the government is fucking nuts for assigning bounties to these kids in this au 2) give more dad moments as while we all need a dad in our lives at any age it gives me more plausible reason here 3) plot related issues and the fact that this story takes place over several years and 4) the image of a 14 year old taking down the government is hilarious to me.

So.

Moving on.

Luffy – 14 years old and an absolute bastard

Luffy grew up in the port city of Fuusha as a way for Garp to keep an eye on him because of his family connections and make sure nothing bad happened to him -  didn’t quite work out.

dads a terrorist, his brothers a world class criminal, his gramps is an abusive piece of shit but also weirdly protective marine officer, his family’s complicated. 

 he grew up in the seedy underbelly of the city and made friends with a lot of criminals (who helped him get out because hey that five year old who used to steal our food is a brat and maybe we should help him get out before he becomes to chaotic (too late) and becomes our friend (also too late) )

Among these criminals are Shanks, who wanders through once in a while, Buggy, begrudging friend,  Jimbe, because he has connections, Crocodile, because this brats a bastard, and Rayleigh, among others.

Annoys them to make him his friend, continues annoying them afterwards.

 He just thinks they’re neat.

Luffy leaves two months after Ace, his brother under Dadan’s, the local gang leaders, roof, leaves because Ace can’t tell him to stay behind anymore

but the govt got word now he’s on the run – Coby helps him escape

As such, Luffy grows up with a very very skewed moral compass as in canon but a bit more, and now literally is almost ten times more feral as he should be.

  His goal is now to do whatever he wants, without people telling him what to do or that he can’t do that – He’s going to be free, damnit.

Franky understands and learns over time to adjust his Parenting Skills accordingly

Zoro – 16 and illegally owning a motorcycle because he thought the best way to improve his skill was to go out and hunt down people to fight, and of course he needs a motorcycle to do that, doesn’t he?

 He was pulled over for speeding then taken in for being underage

 He is also caught up in some bad stuff (fight circles, bounty’s, etc. this kids 16 and breaking grown men’s spines.)

Then comes Luffy who was also arrested for dine and dashing and is in the back seat.

 Luffy, who after the police car pulls over, punches out the police officer, unlocks Zoros cuffs and tells him “Drive”

 So they drive

“Hey, hey Zoro. Join my crew. It’ll be fun.”

 “Anything you say captain”

 knows Luffy for three seconds and is immediately down to murder with him

 Its great

He wants to become the greatest sword fighter still, which is still a thing in my fantasy modern world, so anyway, picture this 16 year old going up to you and tell you to fight but he has a sword in his mouth and in both hands and the most dangerous look in his eye.

 He and Luffy immediately rob a sword shop to find him new swords after they meet, it becomes a thing later on where they will steal (horribly, they literally crash in through the window every time because they have no subtly) something small from each city they visit. 

Nami - 15 year old pick pocket in the city where luffy and zoro stop, just trying to scrap up some money to pay off her family’s debt.

 Bellmere’s still alive damnit.

Nami thought Zoro and Luffy were police originally (because they are driving around in stolen police car) and tried to pull the ‘oh officer help me’ card when the people she stole from chased after her

 To her surprise, it was two kids her age in the front seat.

Luffy: “get in”

 she gets in

they dont talk about it

The people who were chasing her was Buggy’s gang who Luffy waves at as he goes by

 Buggy sends a message to Shanks which is essentially “hey that brat u liked is still alive”

And Shanks is like “oh thank god” not knowing the terror he has unleashed upon the world

A month later Arlong has mysteriously disappeared and the Bell-mere farm is flourishing while the second daughter becomes a world class criminal.

 Bell’meres never been prouder and it gives Nojiko a great conversation starter.

Usopp’s 14 and lives in a trailer park called syrup alone

Has a business where he sells odd herbs and such, passing them off as anything that will get him some money – think of it as Toad Oil from Wano but with some popgreens and such mixed in.

His goal is get enough money to stand on his own and leave the park but its slow going. And then…

 Luffy punches the heck outta the creep that was creeping on the owner of the park, kaya, and think’s Usopp’s stories are super cool.

Usopp wants to go with them, to explore the world With Luffy.

At this point, the Straw Hats have realized that driving a stolen police car around is a bad idea

so they take the huge van - a gift from Kaya named The Going Merry, and set off, using Nami’s stolen funds to get them by.

Sanji - 16 year old who longs to be a chef with the best food and just wants to feed people who need it

He hates government cause they don’t feed people and has a lot of petty grudges and helps Zeff run a lot of kitchens to help people.

 He’s still the Sous chef of the Baratie and still has a penchant for kicking unruly customers around. Baratie has a less then stellar reputation for service but the food? The best in the land.

 He feeds Luffy the food.

  Luffy likes the food.

Luffy kidnaps Sanji

Zeff worries about it but he can’t do jack since he actually is not Sanjis legal guardian (he kidnapped the kid first on accident after they both were stranded. He still tries to call anyway, and is proud of the change his son is making in the world. He’s currently working to get suspicious government people off his back about his missing Sous chef with the unique curly eyebrow…

Anyway, Sanji becomes the cook for the strawhats and is really happy because everyone likes his food and he can help anyone along the way and send business to the baratie

Its a good deal for him, and with all the places he visits his skill grows as a chef.

Chopper - 12 year old prodigy who really wants to be a doctor but both his legal guardians are out of the way

Hiruluks dead and Kureha, against her will because she’s still beautiful at 100 dammnit, is in a nursing home trying to break out

 Chopper has nowhere to go but still tries to pursue his medical career, and this fucking twelve year old does so by patching up people from bar and gang fights.

The Straw Hats pick him up and Usopp hacks into a govt control thing to sign him up for online medical course

Kureha’s proud and gives him a book of pressed cherry blossoms that was Hiruluk’s

  He cries

Chopper gets lots of practice for medical stuff with Luffy and Zoro who like to fight in fighting rings just for the heck of it, and for the money that Nami wants.

Robin – 25 year old depressed archeologist (and assassin) they found in a mafia in the next country over (Vivi’s)

Crocodile’s running it, aka Luffy’s criminal uncle number 500

 Luffy’s pissed about it and smacks him into the dust because it’s his friends country, and then drags Robin along because she needs to have some adventure, and hey, they are checking out the ruin’s next, wont that be cool?

 So robin comes along as the ‘adult super vision’, at least in Nami and Usopp and Chopper’s mind.

She learns that these kids have some how been able to dodge school, and starts teaching them the basics of what they would need to know, and then any thing else they want to know. (Zoro, she finds, is extremely good at math while Sanji enjoys chemistry. Nami and Usopp catch on quick, while Chopper has his own studies already but enjoys talking to her. Luffy dislikes learning, but if the promise of pirates or foods or letters that wont spin in his head is involved, he’ll gladly sit down for a bit. He especially loves the stories however.)

Robin finds herself inching dangerously into mom territory, and accepts it whole heartedly after meeting Franky, who she finds handsomely hilarious.

She has a shady past but is slowly opening up about it, and knows she will watch the world burn for this crew.

Y’all know about Franky already so im gonna move on.

Brook – super fucking Old musician they found on the street looking for his dog Laboon

 He used to be a star but lost his fame but doesn’t care – he  only wants to make people happy with his music.

Luffy just straight up just drags him into the sunny, its becoming a habit of him kidnapping people, that’s not how you make friends Luffy (or at least it shouldn’t be – he always seems to make it work.)

 Everyone just goes with it at this point while Franky sighs and triie sto figure out how to make a giant RV even bigger

The Crew find out his dog is living in luffy’s home town and used to play with Luffy when his friends weren’t around. They vow to go back once everything dies down, but in the mean time Dadan gets a new guard dog in her house hold

Usopp posts one (1) video of Brook (on Halloween in skeleton make up) and he instantly becomes a revived star, thriving on the mytery of the Skeleton Soul King.

He now posts videos from around the world of him singing but its impossible to predict where he will be next, and he’s invisible with out his make up to the internet, so its good for the whole criminal thing.

Jimbe

(best) Criminal uncle 501

 No one knows exactly how he knows luffy beyond luffy himself but they are 90% sure its something to do with the underground warlord system that Luffy has connections too

 He gives the best hugs, Uncle Iroh but without the well-meaning manipulation.

 He’s tired of responsibility that he has in his underground position and kinda wants to fuck off to the Caribbean but then he meets luffy again and is like this is better

He Leaves the fishman gang behind with subordinate in charge and joins strawhats

He becomes stressed - “Why did you choose an archeologist and a man who wears speedos for adult supervision, how are you alive, do you need a hug, do you know basic math, have you even gone to school, oh thank god Robin is here - ”

Two minutes later

“Do you have code names, can I have one,”

 He’s a big faker the dummy everyone can see right through you, you’re aren’t on this crew if you have common sense

Between dad moments, essentially its just the Straw hats breaking in and causing havoc where ever they go, building their bounties and being a found family.

That’s it for now, but please ask questions! Sorry this was so long lmao, ill also add something for Vivi later!

[voldemorthatesnose96]

COLORS IN SILENCE

As an only child of one of the most famous painter in the world, Sander Driesen is also expected to be as big as his father. But life takes turn when he sees a Deaf florist boy whose silence could speak a thousand of meanings.

Disclaimer : if there’s any mistake or misintepretation of my Deaf character, PLEASE feel free to dm me to correct it❤️it means a lot to me. Thank you!❤️

Prelude

“You know exactly what to do, right?”

I want to scream “NO!” to his face but I can’t. It’s always the same question for every single time I want to create something on the blank canvas. WHY does he have to think that I always know what to do, when in fact I don’t?! Unknowingly, I grip my pencil too hard.

“Sander?”

“Yes, Dad. I know.” I say with gritted teeth and start to sketch.

My hand always slightly trembles whenever it touches the paper—scared and doubtful. But unfortunately my Dad and many people think that it’s my ‘signature’ move.

What the fuck is that, actually? Are they blind, oblivious or simply stupid?

At first, I’m not sure whether to sketch a silhoutte or a bouquet of flowers but then I remember the dream I had last night about an abandoned castle and the dancing trees which surrounds its ground; of course it’s weird but somehow I feel so entertain when I wake up and that even bring a tiny smile to my face; which is a very rare thing to happen for these past 4 years. So yeah, I’m going to sketch my dream instead.

“Sander, focus!”

“I’m already focused.”

Dad shakes his head, “you curved this line too hard,” he points to the twigs. ”Fix it.”

Trying hard not to roll my eyes at him, I do what I’m told. I’ve never been the kind of person who could remember the tiniest bit of their dream but weirdly enough, I can recall almost everything that happened last night. How I suddenly walked in this forest which grass were humming melodiously everytime I stepped on it, the wind was breezy and peaceful and the abandoned castle was not as scary as it sound. In fact, the interior was still as good as new but the hallway was the most attractive of all—it filled with many beautiful and famous paintings all around the world from van Gogh to Frida Kahlo. All I can think of is magical.

If only my life is just the same.

For almost 7 years now, I create something that hopefully could transport people’s imagination to somewhere else, almost like escapism from their own cages. Wish they could expand their views just by looking at my arts. Sadly, this little world—little happy bubble I create for another humans, I can’t even go there, not anymore. Day by day, I feel like a robot. Sure as hell my Dad isn’t the right person for me to talk to about my worries and stuff—he won’t understand, he doesn’t want to understand. He’s a famous oil-painter and his arts are frequently exhibited in the most popular art galleries in the world. He was taking a break for 2 years when Mum died; I was 3 that time. Funny, I never feel sad whenever I think of her. For me, she’s just a distant memory that I could never grasp.

“Stop.”

My Dad’s voice startles me and my hand stops instantly.

“What now?” I genuinely ask.

“I think you should take a rest.”

Okay. This is weird.

“But I’m not tired.”

My Dad sighs. His brows furrows, “just do it, son. You can continue later. For now, rest.” And without saying another word, he walks out from the room and closes the door behind him while I just stand there.

I have no fucking idea why he suddenly acts like that. This is the first time since many years ago and I can’t help but feeling curious. Dad is never a warm person around me. All he cares about is to carve me to be someone just like him, to be the perfect artist, to be... everything he were and I used to be so supportive of his ideas, without questioning a single thing; like a good son should be. It all changed though.

For almost 3 years now, I constantly feel hollow and unsatisfy about my arts. Whatever I do to make it right, whenever I try to fix it, these feelings are still there; lingering, waiting for me to collapse at last. Know what? I almost relent. For whatever reason.

If I believe in miracle, maybe this is how it works because I’m still here and doing what I’m supposed to do. But right now, Dad’s right. I need a rest. Maybe even some sleep.

Our art room have a tiny bed in the corner and I sleep there more often that I did in my own room. I used to locked myself in this room for hours just to finish the new art I’m making and Dad never asked if I’m okay or not. Maybe it’s normal for him. The way artist should behave, I guess.

I plop myself on the bed while staring at the white ceiling, waiting for the sleep to take me away. It doesn’t take long for me to finally give in and once again, for so many nights, my heart screams “help...”

————————

School isn’t that hard today. In fact, I enjoy what I learnt. Cubism isn’t my favorite style because it’s too... rigid? I don’t know how to describe it. But the new professor was very clear and creative about it and she made me not wanted to get out of the class and eat in the cafetaria instead. The class dismiss before I know it. Wow. That’s fast.

“Yo, Sandy!”

Without looking I already know who that is because there’s only one person in this world that would call me with the name SANDY and that is Hugo Mulligan; my only friend in the entire school since the day we met as the Freshmen.

“Not in the mood, Mulligan,” I mutter under my breath as I pack stuffs in my red duffel bag. “go away!”

He scoffs, “you’re no fun.”

“And since when Sander Driesen is a fun person to be with?” I retort.

“For once in my life, I agree with you.”

I roll my eyes and he laughs.

“Actually I want to ask you a favour. If you’re not busy today.”

“No. What’s that?”

“I need to go to the bakery and the flower shop.”

“What for?”

Hugo sighs, “today is Violet’s birthday. I told you many times before.”

Oh yeah. His girlfriend’s birthday. An exchanged student from Boston a year ago. Since Hugo met her, he literally never stops talking about how cute and pretty she is—the perfect girl for his dark world, he said, which I thought is bullshit because Hugo’s world is far from dark. I know because I met his family couple times and they’re all lovely, caring and hilarious. Dad as a lawyer, Mum as a chef and two incredibly beautiful male twins who’s not yet 3 years old—Hugo loves them all and it’s clearly seen. So yeah, no ‘dark’ for him at all.

“Earth to Driesen!”

I blink, “yeah, sure. I’ll come.”

“Your Dad is okay with it?”

“He’s in Florence and won’t be back until two days later. It’s fine.”

Hugo claps his hands like a little kid who just got a flashy new toy. A bit overreacted but I never really mind about it. Being friends with someone like him is tiring at some point because his energy seems to never put out but I gradually getting use to it.

“Cool! I’ll drive!”

I never really like to drive my own car. Dad often insists me to use it instead of taking a bus everyday to school and I tell him many times that I don’t want to; probably the only thing that I still hold on against my Dad and I have no regrets, at all.

When me and Hugo finally on the road, he talks about the dinner plan he’s been working on for this past week and my dumbass brain can’t think of anything so I just nod and say “that’s great” as a response. I’m glad he’s too happy about Violet to notices my reaction.

“.... I think it’ll be the perfect opportunity to ask her on a mini getaway for 2 weeks. What do you think?”

“Perfect.”

“I was thinking about Santorini or Lake Como. Which one do you think is more suitable for her?”

I nearly scoff but hold myself back, “you can take her to Sahara desert and she’s still gonna love you.”

Hugo smiles at my witty remarks, “guess you’re right.” And then he starts to sing loudly to The Weeknd.

We arrive at the bakery not long after. I remember this place is kinda new because it used to be an Italian restaurant. Strange how small detail could take space in your memory, even for an useless information like this.

Though I have to admit that their decoration and cakes are visually pleasing. I even intrigue to try their paris-brest.

“Take whatever you want, Sandy. It’s on me.” Hugo said as he waits in the queue and even gives a smirk when he catches me almost drooling.

“I’ll just take that paris-brest.”

“How many?”

“Two.”

Hugo nods, “sure. Take a seat and wait for me, would you? I won’t be long.”

But of course there isn’t any empty seat left because this place is full. So I go outside and wait there, a bit annoyed that I didn’t bring cigarette with me today.

I watch people passing by and mentally sketching their silhouttes to kill some time but the more I try to make it vivid, the more blur it is in my mind—so I give up. My hands trembles for an unknown reason but obviously not because of the spring breeze.

“I’m done. Let’s go!”

I follow Hugo back to his car and luckily my hands are alright now. The last thing I want Hugo to see was the tremble. I don’t want him to look at me weirdly or worse, concerned.

“Here’s your cake, Sandy.”

If I’m in the mood, I’ll smack his head with my bag for calling me that but today I have no energy.

“Thanks. Gonna eat these at home.”

“You can gobble ‘em up here if you want. I don’t mind.”

I smile, “I’ll save these guys for tonight. Best thing always come late.”

“If you say so,” then Hugo looks at his watch and mutters. “Shit.”

“What?”

“I completely forgot that the flower shop will closed in 20 minutes! God, I’m so dumb!”

“Is it still far away?”

“About 10 minutes but not with THIS traffic.”

I examine the road and realise that there’s a car crash. The ambulance already there and one of the car is wrecked almost thoroughly. I hope there are no children involved. What a terrifying sight to see.

“Stop looking, Sander,” Hugo says, his tone is always serious whenever he calls me by my real name. “It’s no good.”

“I just hope they’re alright.”

Hugo doesn’t say anything but his hands on the wheel go rigid. I notice that immediately but doesn’t say anything. For more than 2 years we’ve been friends, this is the first time I witness him being like this.

“They’ll be alright. They have to.” His voice sounds icy cold but worries at the same time.

His sudden remark startles me, “I hope so too.”

After that, none of us talk to each other until his car stop near the flower shop. I think there’s nothing special or extravagant about this place, considering how Hugo loves being surrounded by something over the top sometimes. Well, maybe he does have layers that I don’t know yet—especially after what happened earlier.

“You stay?”

“I’ll go with you.”

Because it’s boring to wait alone again rather than curious of what’s inside, to be honest.

“I’m lucky the shop isn’t closed yet,” Hugo says with a shaky breath. “Violet would be pleased, right?”

I smile genuinely, “Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, pal. Relax. She’ll love you no matter what.”

He gives me a nervous smile as a response.

When I enter the shop, I’m not surprised how simple but clean this place is. Lots of different scent from each flowers catches my nose almost instantly, all at once and I can’t help but sneezes twice.

“Excuse me.” I say while wiping my mouth with a handkerchief.

“Robbie, my man!”

Hugo half-shouting voice make me jump and I follow his gaze; it’s the shop clerk, a guy around my age with unruly brown hair and a pair of eyes like Bambi, wears a green sweatshirt which a little too big for him.

“Cute.”

Shit.

Did I just say ‘cute’ that loud?

“Huh? What did you say?”

“Cute,” I say a little too quickly. “The flowers. They’re cute.”

I force myself to past a glance to that brown-haired guy and he seems doesn’t catch what I just said about him. Thank God. Even though Hugo still looks at me with bemused expression. He’s the first person who knows that I’m a Pansexual and probably the only person in this world—and I’m not definitely not gonna come out to Dad anytime soon. There’s no use.

“Can we hurry? I’m hungry.” I try to change the subject.

It works. Hugo turns his head again to the cute guy and made some gestures I don’t understand.

Wait...

Gestures?

Can it be... that guy...

“Robbie,” he mouths while doing all he can to communicates using sign languages. “My flowers for Violet, please.”

The guy named Robbie smile and nod then later went to the back to get Hugo’s order.

“Hugo, does he...”

“Deaf. Yes.”

“Robbie. That’s his real name?”

“No, it’s Robbe but I call him Robbie just like I love to call you Sandy.”

I roll my eyes to my brain, “fuck you, man. You can’t just changed someone else’s name.”

Hugo gives me a smirk, “I just did, Sandy.”

Before I can say anything, Robbe comes back with HUGE bouquet which consists with any kind of red flowers from rose to tulip. I almost sneeze again but successfully hold myself back.

“Don’t you dare sneeze on my precious bouquet, Driesen!”

“I wasn’t.” I retort but give him my most smug face.

“You’re funny.”

“Sorry?”

“Robbie said you’re funny.”

I look at Robbe and there’s a smile appeared on his face—deadass looking at me in the eyes too. Seems like this guy is very straight-forward and unapologetic.

“Uh... thanks, I guess?”

Robbe shrugs but still smiling. Then he writes something on a piece of paper and gives it to me : “would you like some flowers too? It’s on me.”

I look up, perplex and say, “why?”

He writes again : “because I think you need one :)”

This is interesting.

“Well, okay then. Thank you. What will you give to me?”

Why do I sound more flirty than curious? For God’s sake, he’s a stranger! STRANGER! And I dare to sound like THAT? The fuck is wrong with me?

Hugo snorts beside me. He’s clearly been enjoying himself. But again, I also laughed too hard when he told me the story about him been slipping and falling in front of everybody at his family’s business private party; so yeah, I guess I deserve that snort.

Robbe comes back from the back of the room holding a simple bouquet; there were two Eglantines, one Iris and three Larkspurs. I didn’t speak flowers so I’m not sure why he gives me those but when he hands it to me, I accept it wholeheartedly and say thank you. Robbe smiles and makes some sign that I’m sure it’s meant for “you’re welcome”.

My ears catch a girl’s voice entering the shop. She’s also around my age; with blue eyes, auburn hair and very pretty. Her eyes twinkled like the sun is shining on them.

“Afternoon, everybody,” she says cheerfully and then walks toward Robbe and pecks his lips. “Hey babe! Glad you made new friends.”

Ouch!

So he’s already have a girlfriend and that realisation stings me a little. And I DARED to ‘flirt’ with her boyfriend earlier!

But of course he is. I shouldn’t be surprised. Beside, they looks nice together.

Hugo nudges my arm, “you ready to go?”

I nod and and without saying another word again, I force myself to get out from there. Damn. I should say something to Robbe but I just can’t.

“You okay?”

“Fine. Can we go home now? I’m tired.”

“Sure.”

Ever since I broke up with my ex around a year ago because she cheated, my heart always told me not to trust any kind of affection towards other people. I keep questioning myself what did I do wrong, about her and about us—and whenever I ask her about that, she says “it’s not you, it’s ME. I’m sorry. So sorry, Sander!” . But it only took a month for me to forgave her and know what? We’re friends now, even though she moves to another city with her new boyfriend. Sometimes life can be very strange. I thought she’s unforgivable but seem like I can’t hold grudges for too long—Hugo told me that it’s a bad thing but... I don’t know, part of me doesn’t agree with him for an unknown reason.

“He meant well, you know?”

My thoughts bursts like a bubble, “what?”

“Robbe,” Hugo mutters. “With those flowers.”

I look at my new given bouquet, “you know the meaning of these guys?”

“Well, I coincidentally understand the meaning of those,” Hugo says. “You see, my Mum often bring back Iris home to tell the whole house that good news is coming, Larkspur is my Dad’s favorite because it meant “lightness” and you’re gonna find a vase full of them in his study and the last one which is Eglantine is literally speaks for “I wound to heal” , it was my Grandma’s favorite because it reminded her of her childhood home. And that’s that.”

Now I understand why Robbe ‘said’ that I need some of his flowers but the most surprising part was he seems to understand what I feel just by a single glance.

But it can’t be, can it? It can be just a coincidence that he picks those flowers for me. Maybe they’re the most best-seller kinds there and he thought I might like them too.

And I do. I really, really do.

[erideights]

You won't leave me behind so easily.

Request by anon: What would happen if, when Crowley went to the burning bookshop looking for Aziraphale, he instead found Y/N?

Pairing: Crowley x Fem!Reader (Good Omens)

Word Count: 2072.

Warnings: Mentions of fire, I guess. And maybe a typo, I'm sorry.

Everything happened so fast.

Before anyone could really react.

The days until the prominent arrival of the end of the world were less and less and progressing faster, suffocating the throats of those few who knew about the great event and who, at all costs, tried to get out of it alive.

There was no way to stop it, Crowley thought.

There must be something we can do, Aziraphale argued in his head.

And Y/N? She was one more human, a victim of crossfire, with more knowledge than she could ever accept about the events to come and how her life would end in not that many hours.

The clock was running and she felt stuck, lost, drowned by the great plan that showed little mercy to her existence.

That the angel and the demon were now mad at each other because of their argument of how to proceed not too long ago did nothing to help in this apocalyptic scenario; it made things worse, divided the team of three, thus diminishing their hopes not only for saving the world, but for saving themselves.

And again, Y/N was only human...what could she do but watch everything happen and feel an oppressive impotence in her chest that made it difficult for her to breathe with each beat of her heart?

The scene in which Crowley and Aziraphale argued was playing over and over again in her head as she walked nervously and anxiously through the living room of her apartment, looking for a way to solve things with the few —small, minimal, null— resources that she had.

What could she do to make that pair of idiots come to good terms again and seek together how to get out of all that without dying trying?

Not finding the way to flee, because Y/N wasn’t 100% agree with Crowley's plan to go to Alpha Centauri, but the way to save the planet where they lived, as many millions more humans and thousands of animals and plant species that they deserved, in fact, to be able to continue their lives.

Because a war between Hell and Heaven to see who’s stronger? What a fucking joke, they looked like 10 year olds arguing in a school.

———

The characteristic siren of a fire engine sounded in the distance, not too far away, barely audible above Queens's You’re My Best Friend, as a 1933 Bentley moved through the streets of London at such speed anyone could think it defied the laws of physics imposed by the universe.

If only they knew.

The first sign of alarm for the demon was seeing the truck parked right in front of the bookshop that he knew so well thanks to the long afternoons and even longer nights spent there in company of the only two living beings for whom in reality, he would give his life.

The second, were the flames devouring the facade of the building, destroying everything in its path, without mercy for everything that housed its interior, not only physical but emotional. What happened to the laughter accumulated there? With the empty wine glasses and the existential crisis talks?

With his memories?

The third, and this was the trigger that forced Crowley out of his flat and start the car, was to stop feeling the presence of the angel on the face of the earth.

He couldn’t explain it even if he wanted to, he supposed that it was some divine thing beyond his comprehension, but Aziraphale had disappeared from his demonic radar and the idea of ​​the march of his best friend in times of crisis shrank his heart in a fist that only tightened more with every second of the clock.

To suspect that the woman he loved —a frail human prey to the terrible and countless facilities that she had to die— was with the celestial being until his disappearance, made everything worse.

His thoughts were running over each other in panic inside his head as he slammed the passenger door and his quick steps headed for the shop.

A snap of his fingers was enough to open the doors as well as to stop hearing the voices of the firemen trying to get his attention and save him from what would be an imminent death for an ordinary mortal. And once the doors were closed, Crowley's screams and cries for his best friend were muffled by the chaos around him; the wooden beams that supported the place wouldn’t last much longer, the shelves had already begun their fall across the entire floor.

There was no book that could survived that disaster.

Or so he thought before glimpsing from the corner of his eye a large copy whose green cover seemed practically intact, ends slightly scorched but no damage serious enough to give the book for lost.

But then he heard it.

A distant cough, a dull groan, a choked voice asking for help.

Y/N was laying on the floor, sweat coating her forehead and cheeks vaguely tinted with black dust thanks to the ash mixed with the air.

To the naked eye, she didn’t seem to had an ugly burn or a mortal wound that Crowley couldn’t heal with a little demonic miracle of his own, but that didn’t stop him from falling to his knees beside her and hugging her against him, promising once and again that everything would be okay.

She was conscious, but she’d breathed too much smoke to be able to move on her own foot, so regardless of whether her heart had flip in her chest when she saw the mischievous demon that she had fallen in love so hopelessly years ago, because that was the effect he always had on her, she felt relief that it was him who came to save her.

The last thing she could remember before falling into a terrible and suffocating unconsciousness were the golden eyes of the redhead, whose anguish —caused by the events— had flooded them at the verge of tears, and she couldn’t help feeling a sharp pain through her chest escorting her to the most absolute darkness.

———————

‘’Aziraphale?’’ For a moment Crowley thought his tired eyes were playing tricks on him and making him see things that weren’t really there, because a distorted reflection of what he considered his deceased best friend’d appeared out of nowhere in front of him and… that couldn’t be, right? ‘’Are you here?’’

But, contrary to the expected reaction —none under the premise of hallucinations— the demon frowned in confusion when the angel's voice reached his ears. ‘’Good question. Not certain. Never done this before. Can you hear me?’’

‘’Of course I can hear you.’’

‘’Afraid I’ve rather made a mess of things.’’ Aziraphale looked confused, disoriented and, more importantly, pained. Crowley supposed that, in his condition, —whatever it was since he couldn’t understand it—, the angel couldn’t see him; their gaze never crossed, the blue one of the platinum blond lost somewhere in the ceiling. ‘’Did you go to Alpha Centauri?’’

‘’Nah, I changed my mind. Stuff happened. I lost my best friend. And I... nearly lost her too.’’ Unconsciously, the demon's hand squeezed softly the one intertwined with his, although she probably wouldn’t feel it. In that moment, the redhead's peculiar eyes traveled to the calm face of the young girl, asleep and at peace in his bed; the damage she received wasn’t serious enough to feel the need to be taken to a hospital, it was rather obvious that he would end up taking care of her.

He wanted to.

‘’Her?’’ The angel looked even more confused for a split second, eyes widened and voice soaked in horror at the sudden realisation of the person they were talking about. ‘’Oh, wait, you mean Y/N? Did something happen to her? Please do tell me she’s okay.’’

‘’Your bookshop. It burned down. She was there.’’

His bookshop? Burned down? Reduced to ashes ...? He would ask, but his concern was not especially focused on one place, but on ‘’Did she? But I thought… I thought she was with you—’’

‘’She wasn’t.’’ Crowley cut off quickly, a bit annoyed with his lack of knowledge about the whereabouts of the girl before finding her where he found her; he supposed that both had been so focused with the whole ''end of the world'' thing that, after the argument between him and the angel, when the three seemed divided by different urges, none cared about the only living being that, by her own, couldn’t escape. ‘’But don’t worry, Y/N’s here and she’s fine. She’s the strongest human I know, she’ll be okay.’’

And so the conversation between the two went on, the revelation of Aziraphale about where the end of time would begin, his relief knowing that his friend also rescued Agnes' book —that would give them a chance to save them all— and the promise of meeting there once the angel found a new body.

And in the same way he had appeared a few mins ago, he disappeared, returning the silence to the dark room of the fallen angel, who was in a heart dilemma; he couldn’t leave Y/N alone, not when he didn’t know for sure if he would see her again. But take her with him, in her state, and to such an extremely dangerous situation?

What he didn’t know either, was that the girl had been awake for a while, listening partially and in pieces his conversation with Aziraphale because, unfortunately, she wasn’t a celestial being, she couldn’t catch the presence of her white winged friend, but she did catch enough to know that she needed to ignore the faint pain that his body had and go with them to save the damn world.

So when Crowley sighed again, still shuffling his options, she sat up in bed without warning, causing her favorite demon to slightly jump in his seat in the chair next to the mattress.

‘’C’mon,’’ she said with much more vitality than one could expect, her voice stressing her impatience, for there was no time to lose. ‘’we need to go.’’

‘’We?’’ He asked, incredulous, snorting a bitter and dry chuckle from the deepest point of his throat. ‘’You’re not going anywhere.’’

‘’And will you be the one to stop me?’’ God, he was helplessly in love with that woman who only knew how to make snarky and sassy remarks when she wanted to piss him off. Was he a masochist or something?

But deep in thought, adoration written all over his face, he didn’t get the chance to really stop her until she was out of bed and heading towards the door of the flat down the corridor full of plants that, at Crowley's sight with that look of pure rage on his face, began to tremble.

Holy shit, she was fast.

‘’Y/N, for fuck’s sake,’’ he grabbed her left wrist and spinned her around, making the girl look at him straight in the face. To prove his point and try to intimidate her with his annoyed expression? Maybe. ‘’You don’t really have any kind of preservation instinct for your own life, do you? Don’t you know how dangerous it is?’’

But instead of being afraid of him, being the good girl he expected her to be and agreeing to stay away from all that, Y/N slipped out of his grasp, searching quickly for the lapels of Crowley's jacket. In a second she pulled these towards her own body to counteract the immense height difference and trapped his parted lips in a passionate kiss.

Oh, she wanted to do that for a long time now.

For a brief instant, Crowley was completely frozen, unaware that his feelings were indeed returned and of course, the moment in which he wanted to kiss her back and searched for the hips of the girl to bring her closer to him, she pulled back and fixed her deep eyes on the golden ones of the demon.

‘’We're leaving, both of us. And don’t you dare try to stop me, Crowley, I won’t leave you.’’

[insertdisc5]

homestuck epilogues stuff

thoughts about the homestuck epilogues, as in, spoilers and theories and things ive noticed by reading it over twice and talking with friend @kravicle while they were reading

this is just a list of theories me and krav came up with ok. also stuff u might not pick up in only one read? we’re just spitballing here 

MEAT AND CANDY TEREZI ARE PROBABLY ONE AND THE SAME

> just didnt see proof they weren't the same lmao, we only get john+terezi's messages from both timelines and she could have gotten messages from both meat!john and candy!john

>time is fucked on her end also so (shrugs)

>(terezi meeting meat!john) "something else is different about him. different, somehow, from how she thought he’d be when she imagined they’d next meet. under all the gore, he smells... too fresh."

>TEREZI: HMMM

TEREZI: YOU SM3LL OLD3R

TEREZI: BUT NOT 4S OLD 4S 1 THOUGHT YOUD B3

JOHN: what does that mean?

TEREZI: DONT WORRY 4BOUT 1T

>"In multiple realities, all [John] wanted for her was this. To be home safe, with all their friends. And now that she’s here, she’s lost."

> (meeting Meat!roxy) "Terezi’s head is filled with stories about a different version of Roxy—the polar opposite of the one standing in front of her."

DIRK’S PLAN PART 1 (free will)

>maybe plans to get Actual Free Will thru ultimate godhood??? also explains why he feels okay with removing free will from his friends- for him, this isnt real free will anyway?

>(dirk talking about kanaya) "What WAS she thinking? What are any of us thinking, really? Who’s doing the thinking, and who’s having the thoughts?

The more you study the question, the more it seems all concrete forms of accountability go up in smoke. Her original thoughts were never that important, and the significance of the idea that she was the one authoring them was always a bit overrated. My mission is to someday clear this all up for everyone. Remove the ambiguity, suck the mud out of the water. It’ll be a lot better that way, trust me."

>to old callie, dirk's plan "[john’s] ultimate sacrifice was made to put the missing keystone in place and avert the supreme dissipation of all that shall be considered to hold truth, relevance, and essentiality."

>although narrator callie thinks this world has some sort of actual free will. says "[john should kiss terezi etc]. it’s wrong to contradict one’s true thoughts and feelings. irrational. unbecoming of an existence governed by free will."

>his plan to give everyone/ultimate gods “free will” will end up destroying canon????

DIRK’S PLAN PART 2 (complacency of the learned, ultimate self)

>complacency of the learned, 12 people attaining ultimate knowledge (=ultimate self), and turning "either insane or evil"

> (candy ending, rose’s POV) "The thoughts in her powerful brain race. What will they name the planet? How long will it take for the ship to arrive? Once the new race has established an advanced enough civilization thousands of years from now, who will the lucky kids be? The ones who get the chance to play what will arguably be the most important session in the history of Sburb?" 

>finding more people to attain ultimate godhood???

>dirk asks terezi to come with him and rose at the end of meat, along with john's body (implied that she did accept-callie!jade points and dave thinks she points both to dirk+rose and john+terezi, callie doesnt prove him otherwise)

>dirk wants 12 ultimate gods for each aspect????

>"If your perception expands beyond the meat sack of your body, then are you really an individual anymore? Why shouldn’t we become gods? Why shouldn’t we become one God."

- (callie speaking) "[John] is simply being barred from ignoring his true thoughts. even without the aid of a juju, he is fortunate enough to be blessed with the only true form of divinity. to be released from the prison of nonsensical inhibitions which so often psychologically hobble the more primitive forms of life."

>callie is probably an ultimate god, terezi should be?? with rem8mb8r?

DIRK’S NARRATOR STUFF

>dirk probably doesnt know hes in a story/that he has an audience (us) "How can I respect a fucking pronoun when nobody can even hear me?”

>does dirk control people by using you-ness? using 2nd person to control, 3rd person to narrate?

>”JADE: and where there is an identity, there can also be an agenda.”

CANDY TIMELINE STUFF

>part of the black hole, a utopia, place removed from reality/canon in some way??? WEIRDO DREAM BUBBLE????

>cut off from canon in some way- dirk and rose cant get to ultimate godhood anymore, john cant use retcon powers

>candy!john mentions multiple times he doesnt think of him and his friends as "real"

>sky in candy!timeline described as more vibrant (VS pre-sburb being described as muted)

>candy!karkat talking to sollux and probably being foreshadowing without knowing: “KARKAT: I THOUGHT THAT YOU TWO LITERALLY DIDN’T EXIST ANYMORE! KARKAT: OR AT THE VERY LEAST WERE TRAPPED IN A DEAD UNIVERSE PERPETUALLY COLLAPSING INTO ITS OWN ASSHOLE.”

>CALLIOPE: we’re all going to be very, very happy. I trUly believe that. ^u^ 

>ROSE: Oh Kanaya, you’re right.

ROSE: We are going to be so astonishingly happy!

>ROXY: omg

ROXY: were gonna be SO freakin happy!

>Dirk in Meat: "Cherubs are fuckin’ weird, I’ll totally concede. Still not sure what makes them tick. What they idealize, what they really want. It all comes across to me as a little cloying. Perfection to them is a sweetness beyond comprehension. Sugar so potent it’s poison to us. To our bodies, to our souls. Like the place she was operating from was a realm of self-construction. A bubble of pure, phantasmal confection."

>end of meat!callie can see into candy!timeline ROXY: they stay home all day with the blinds drawn paintin some weird ass shit on the walls

TEREZI: WH4T?

ROXY: its not as bad as it sounds i promise

ROXY: some of it is like

ROXY: weird and violent??

ROXY: like lotsa nasty purple blood and um

ROXY: nudity????

TEREZI: >:?

ROXY: yeah yikes

ROXY: but MOST of it is cute stuff like... various combos of all of us being happy and gettin married and shit

>obama’s here. god i need a minute

>dirk told gamzee something??? 

“DAVE: wheres dirk

GAMZEE: tHeRe’S nO nEeD tO wOrRy AbOuT hIm. :o)

GAMZEE: YoU’rE gOnNa GeT wHaT’s BeSt FoR yOu. He ToLd Me ThAt, AnD i’M gOnNa MaKe SuRe HiS wIsH mAkEs LiKe A mOtHeRfUcKiNg MiRaClE aNd GeTs TrUe.

[...]

GAMZEE: YoU dOn’T gOt AnY nEeD tO gO aNd CoNcErN yOuRsElF wItH hIs MoRtAl FlEsH bOdY oUt HeRe In ThIs CaNdYcAnE wHiRlPoOl BeYoNd ThE iNfInItE bLaCk WiNk Of ThE wIcKeD sInGuLaRiTy, My NiNjA.

GAMZEE: a SaCk Of MeAt AnD bOnEs In OnE lIfE oR tHe NeXt Is OnLy A mEaNs To ThE fInAl ToTaLiTy ThAt WiLl DaMn AnD rAiSe Us AlL iN bRiLlIaNt ApOtHeOsIs.

GAMZEE: In ThE oNe TrUe LiFe We AlL fLoW fRoM tHe OnE tRuE pEn,

GAMZEE: aNd EvErY hEaD rOlLs DoWn ThE pAtH tO tHe OnE tRuE hAnD.”

> dirk before killing himself:  “ It is the very last moment of narratively consequential action that will happen in this whole, barren world. “

OTHER STUFF

> dirk teaching men about "combat, philosophy, life, love." (jake, dave, obama, not said explicitly but also probably gamzee????) what is UP with that

>gamzee also wanting to teach kid tavros about combat philosophy life love, “to behave the way a mentor does”

>re: john “Your complete lack of remarkability, specific motivation, drive, opinion on where to direct your own fate—these deficiencies are exactly what made you so useful, so susceptible to being endowed with the you-ness I’ve borrowed to satisfy my purposes.”

>at the end of meat, callie in jade's body in candy timeline kills lord english and gets big powers or whatever. cherub stuff

>terezi gets a text at the end of Meat, we dont know from whom (candy!(vriska)?)

>john left letters for everyone in Meat but no one’s found them yet?

>snapchats were probably before the split 

>this whole post makes both me and krav sound like we’re been talking about this for 24 hours straight (we did)

[absolutiions]

´   ･   .   ✶   ⧼    madchen   amick,   non   binary,   she   &   they   /   fucked   my   way   to   the   top   by   lana   del   rey   +   eyes   the   color   crimson   and   hands   stained   in   crimson,   too.   victim   of   the   underworld,   you   are   not.   you   came,   not   to   sit   silent   at   his   side   as   dutiful   wives   do,   but   to   whisper   in   his   ear.   pouted   lips   smeared   ruby   stoke   the   flames   of   his   darkest   impulses   and   his   deepest   desires.   you   are   the   conqueror.   you   are   the   queen.   and   may   god   have   mercy   upon   anyone   who   underestimates   this   :   because   you   will   not.    ⧽   ━━   don’t   look   now,   but   that’s   ATHENODORA.   the   TWO   THOUSAND,   FIVE   HUNDRED   &   TWENTY   TWO  (   varying   physical   )   year   old   GIFTED   VAMPIRE   has   been   here   in   seattle   for   three   minutes,   and   is   considered   a   member   of   the   VOLTURI.   they’ve   always   been   MACHIAVELLIAN   &   INDOMITABLE,   but   i   guess   this   town   just   brings   out   the   worst   in people   ;   apparently,   they’ve   been   way   more  INSOUCIANT   &   SUPERCILIOUS   than   usual.   it   wouldn’t   surprise   me   if   they   knew   what   was   going   on.   click   HERE   to   check   out   her   stats.

they   told   you   that   you   were   a   nobody,      so   you   became   the   QUEEN.   (   now   everybody   knows   your   name   )

SECTION ONE OF THREE : background / human era. trigger warnings for talk of pregnancy, death, abuse

born circa 502 bc, in a little village that has no lasting name nor impact in ancient greece. 

five of the children born to her parents survived to adulthood, and since she was the last one... it is almost like, her whole life, she has been suffering from younger child syndrome. who knew !

she very literally grew up in a diff time, so when i say she wasn’t rly close to any of her siblings, i don’t mean it in a like... horrible way. it’s not a reflection of character. they just didn’t have a tight sibling bond, though she loved them greatly. 

same w her parents. they were unexceptional people who lived unexceptional lives, and though she was grateful for, u know... their creation of her - they were not close. they did not, in laymans terms, have the lorelai and rory gilmore dynamic. 

her whole family were content to live their dismal lives, and... tho athenodora did not vibe, she, again - grew up in a diff time. of course she dreamt of more. of course she prayed to the gods for something better. but she was achingly aware of the fact that no such future would ever exist for her. such is life in 400 whatever bc, bumfuck, greece.

she was just barely eighteen when she was married to athanasios, to secure land, or smth, because those were the times. of course it was something like that. 

he was... fine, at first. a little small minded ( that wasn’t the ONLY thing that was small, haha ). he, like everyone, was content to live the same old life, and athenodora just... wasn’t. she had been raised on stories of grandeur, and her parents had thought she would settle for the regular - it should not have been a surprise that she didn’t want to, but gods, did she try.

she never loved him, she can safely say ; but she wished that she did. for a long while, athenodora thought it would be easier, and thought that she could do a lot worse. unfortunately... she cld not.

their lives were meant to follow a certain pattern. they had gotten married, and now he would work all day, make them money, tend their land. she would stay home. cook. clean. raise the children that they were sure to have. athenodora was capable of almost everything expected of her, except for the most important part - she couldn’t seem to give him children. not strong sons. not beautiful daughters. 

at first, he told her that it was fine. 

after a year or so, he still told her that it was fine, but she could see in his eyes that it wasn’t.

two years after this, he called her the ancient greek version of defective for the very first time - and things only got worse from there.

he had always been a perfectly fine husband, until he was not, and athenodora had always wanted to love him, until she did not. she prayed to the gods every morning and night, to give her what her husband so desired. to give her that which would make her life better, even if she knew it would not heal the wounds already caused.

sometimes the gods r not dicks. a miracle! she becomes pregnant, aged twenty four ( i kno it sounded like she was a crone but again please remember the times ). she always thought it was just what was best n only athanasios would care, but , wow... suddenly. she cares. she has never felt this level of love with anything, until now.

but, tragedy :// straight white men ( idk, i just feel like her husband was the root of all evil ) are not so easily satisfied. who wld have guessed he wld continue to be an abusive asshole even after his wife succeeded in getting pregnant? i bet i shocked u all. who wld have guessed that a huge part of his problem wld end up being that suddenly, athenodora clearly cares abt something - and it isn’t him. again. got you all!

over the course of her pregnancy, he becomes, for the first time, a real threat to her - or maybe, athenodora simply never took him seriously until there is another person to think of. either way, she TRULY fears him and what he’s capable of by the time she gives birth, and after he makes some passing remark abt their baby, she yeets the FUCK out of there in the middle of the night, eirene ( baby ) only a handful of days old. she takes what she can carry and nothing more, and she... makes it pretty far, thanks to the kindness of strangers. you love to see it.

she settles somewhere ( she considers to be ) far away, and she makes up a good story : her husband died in a war ( there were probably a lot of time, i dont know ) and she was widowed, left to care for their young daughter alone. i know. its really original. they didnt have tv shows back then to rip stories from though.

stays in a hovel on the edge of their village. think the shittiest home you’ve ever seen and then make it shittier. there are rumors about her being a witch, and she kind of appreciates them, because it keeps kids out of her yard. and shock of all shock : in spite of being... u know. a woman. and not very skilled. she finds a very hot ticket job - working for the very wealthy volturi family who live on the other ( opposite ) outside of town, but like, in a considerably better home, obviously. 

honestly, i don’t kno what the ancient greek equivalent of that secretary in new moon is, but that’s the vibe we’re going for, here. she’s like, a chambermaid or smth. and she makes a tidy little sum. doesn’t question her weirdo bosses that much. doesn’t know what anemia is because im p sure it wasnt discovered by then, but presumes they have it.

and maybe, just maybe, it’s the finesse of the century : or maybe, just maybe, it is destiny. in no time at all, she has caught the eye of the volturi’s most eligible bachelor(tm) : caius volturi. many another worker is made upset by this fact, as athenodora is very quickly alotted VERY special treatment as the apple of his eye, which includes, i don’t know... hand delivered baskets of pomegranates, a nicer home and in due time, the simple pleasures of the flesh.

so that’s pretty neat. and life’s pretty fine. she feels like an ancient greek sugar baby, and honestly, isn’t that all she’s ever deserved? she’s got some nice digs ( i don’t think she’d have called them that ) and a man who worships the ground she walks on and who spoils her with pretty things, and most importantly : she is taking care of her daughter, who i absolutely didn’t forget about. eirene is the literal light of athenodora’s life, and everybody knows it. if i say jean valjean and cosette vibes, can we all pretend we get it?

and then it goes to shit. as things do.

her daughter is fourteen years old, when her father finds them ; and she doesn’t know, she never knows, if he was seeking them out or whether it was all DUMB luck. regardless of it all, he is stood inside her home, his breath coming in angry half pants, and athenodora is convinced that this is it. that her end has come. that her freedom is over. she dies, she thinks, or she returns back to the house that was not her home with him. these are her options. 

she tells her daughter to leave. she stops him from following. when she is shoved and her head hits the table, she is aware of the option he has chosen for them more than all else - but the gods, or perhaps, just one - intervenes.

until this night, athenodora had never known the truth of the volturi. but when her beloved saves her from athanasios, she sees him for what he is. she UNDERSTANDS. and she isn’t frightened. she should be, for sure, she should be running as fast as she can - but all she can think in that moment is that she is free now in all the ways she has never been... and caius, her love, is something so much larger than this life. 

for the first time, the godhood that athenodora has always dreamt of is within her grasp. she makes him promise that once eirene comes of age, he will make her into the same creature that he IS. she makes him swear a solemn oath, and he who has been so infatuated by her for so long cannot argue.

four years. this is all it takes, and then eirene is eighteen - capable of standing upon her own two feet. athenodora leaves her everything - all the gifts she has ever been given, all the wealth accumulated, the home. everything she will not need, once she is gone. and she says a final goodbye.

caius turns her himself. the greatest gift he could ever give her.

and reborn, athenodora is MORE than everyone in her life could ever dream of being. she is the queen of the underworld, the goddess of death. she is all of this, and more. at his side, she finds GREATNESS. and once she had it, athenodora decided she would never again be without. 

SECTION TWO OF THREE : volturi era.

became cool. became powerful. very emma frost of her, rly 

didnt rly care for the rest of the coven outside of caius but sometimes u gotta hang w scrubs 

didyme dies sometime after her turning, and that kind of fucks everybody up

not so much her bc like i said she didnt rly care but... caius b frightened of losing her, i guess

kind of throws a spanner in the works 

she spends a lot of time ‘locked away’. not , like, literally ( bc that’s gross! ) but... caius takes over protective to the extreme

uses this time to harness her power and fuck

not always in that order

also spends a lot of time telling him he deserves to b leader

deserves to b the new aro

who needs powers?

not u, caius

go kick their ass baby i got ur flower-

( he doesn’t go kick their ass but man she wishes he wld )

she’s genuinely devoted to him, however, as much as it sometimes seems as if she’s using him as a means to an end

she DOES do that with a LOT of people, but caius... that’s her baby! her darling! her sweetie pie! fuck everybody else in this house caius, she respects YOU ! 

she jus wants to see him be the best there ever was, and he’s.... p... happy to giv her everything she wants, so their dynamic is actually p equal 

we love to see it

anyway lots of years happened and now she’s here

seattle sucks -athenodora’s official review

but she’s fucking SICK of aro’s shit and thinks her 2020 birthday wld be the best time for an official change of pace

obviously aro can read minds so he knows athenodora has high aspirations but he has learned his fucking lesson w killing ppls mates, i guess

lucky for her!

that’s all i got

hehe

SECTION THREE OF THREE : power.

athenodora is an ungifted vampire in twilight canon, but to that i say : fuck ya chicken strips. in equinox, she be special. her power is life force manipulation, in a pretty unique ( and dare i say ) way.

she was a forty two year old woman, when she was turned. she had lived a life, and she had the MARKS to show for it. but the very first time that she drank human blood from the vein, athenodora realized that she was not as unexceptional as she had always been lead to believe she was. vampires do not change. they’re frozen in time, like statues, portraits, photographs... and yet, before caius’ very eyes - athenodora did what no other vampire could. mere seconds passed, and suddenly ; she was stood before her beloved, decades younger. it lasted as long as her thirst was sated, with her age returning to her as her eyes darkened once more. and it happened all over again, when next she fed. 

over time, she’s come to understand it well enough. she has a particular love of younger humans ; those in their twenties, and thus, physical primes. she thinks that is, in part, down to her gift ; she seeks these out to drink from because when she feeds, she’s not simply drinking their blood, but also, their life force. she’s taking theirs to add to her own.

like many gifted vampires, she has spent time learning what she can of her gift, and learning whether there is some other way to apply it. it took almost two thousand years, but eventually - athenodora discovered that with a touch, her fingertips to their skin ( and a great deal of focus ), she could render another changed, also. it lasts for only a short amount of time - an hour, maybe a little longer, depending on how strong she is. but it works. and it makes her think that, in all her unlimited time : she might just be able to do even more. be a danger. manipulate life force in a way that can DESTROY. she’ll keep on working on that for as long as she lives. 

[thatswhatwaterslidesoff]

ok since I have literal no chill here's a prompt ('cause I'm a mood for comfort + smoochy protective bf): something about that post with Zira nursing an old First-War injury to the leg that was borderline lethal, and Crowley finding out about it? Maybe it keeps bothering once he gets his body back after the Apocalypse That Wasn't, and Crowley comes to realize that one, he nearly lost /his/ angel before even meeting him and two, some of the despicable Hell gang Downstairs is responsible?

know what? i have absolutely no fucking chill either so here’s an accidental 4k+ long ficlet about aziraphale’s war wound and two traumatized old war veterans trying to cope in the aftermath of The First War and Armagedidn’t.

… i have nothing to say for myself

@coffeesugarcream

Aziraphale was many things. He was a lover of ancient books, prophecies of Armageddon (none of which turned out to be more hideous than what actually happened, despite the fervent imagination of humans, but that may simply be because he lived through it); he was a connoisseur of food and desserts and of wine. His skills in accounting were unparalleled. He was lovely and soft, by nature as well as by choice. However, under that initial softness, covered by tartan and too many layers of clothing, could be felt (and often would be, at every given opportunity, by Crowley) a steely pane of brawn that gave away his history as one of Heaven’s foot soldiers. That simmering warrior would always burn underneath, forever only to be brought out when the people he cared for were in dire need of it. This being said, the angel was also other things. A bit of a bastard, mischievous eyes, and secret smiles. He engaged in sin, which Crowley actively indulged in a benevolent way. The worst aspect of himself would probably be that he tended to keep things he should confide in Crowley to himself. Maybe it was pride or fear. His desire to protect Crowley, at all costs. He preferred not to look too closely. There were many things that had happened to Aziraphale that he kept to himself. His part in The First War was the main one, but neither of them talked about that with each other, ever unable to face the realities of that traumatizing battle despite eons of padding between then and now. 

In the aftermath of the Armageddon-that-wasn’t, there was too much of an adrenaline high for Aziraphale to think about the phantom pain in his leg whenever he took a step. Delirium overtook him once they arrived at Crowley’s flat. Everything was a blur of touch and skin contact, the demon’s soft hisses and desperate writhing under his influence, that too pale skin flushed against the backdrop of silk sheets.. There was a far more pressing matter consider, such as saving Crowley and himself from the wrath of the combined forces of Heaven and Hell. That sort of fell into place on its own, from their union. Then he had to beat the pain back with a huge stick because he needed to be flawless while impersonating Crowley. Once that was taken care of, both of them back in their own bodies, the rush of it all bleeding out of him, there was nothing left to distract him, and his mind cast back to when he was first placed in this plump and comforting vessel. It had taken him nearly a century for the old war wound to settle into an insusceptible hum at the back of his mind, something that bothered him very rarely when he was feeling particularly lonely or on those occasional days when he felt outside of himself.

He almost felt guilty realizing that Madame Tracy must have felt the wound brush against her soul, too, and didn’t wonder why she was so ecstatic to be rid of him (Okay, that may have had to do with the fact that he was going to kill Adam, but really. People are complex and Aziraphale was certain that the soul searing pain within the area of his corporeal thigh was one of the reasons, too.) The angel resolved to send her and Shadwell wine every New Year and cards of their holiday choice for the rest of their lives for all the inconveniences he put them through. But Madame Tracy and Shadwell weren’t the problem. The problem was keeping up face in front of Crowley. Well, it wasn’t a problem, per say. More of a dilemma. Oh, Aziraphale knew the charade couldn’t last long. He was simply hoping he could hide his pain for at least a decade. His reasoning was that while Crowley hadn’t explicitly said, Aziraphale could connect the dots. The only way Crowley could have had Agnes Nutter’s Book of Prophecies was if he had gone into the bookshop during the fire. Aziraphale couldn’t see Crowley in the pub that day, yet Crowley’s broken, wet voice told the angel everything he needed to know. I lost my best friend would haunt him into eternity. Yes, telling Crowley would definitely have to wait.

As it was, Crowley- wonderful, attentive, intelligent, observant Crowley- picked up something was wrong the night they went home on the First Day of the Rest of Their Lives.

Everything had been going so perfectly. They had eaten a glorious lunch at the Ritz, which turned into wine, and eventually into dinner. Life around them was cast in the deep oranges and purples of the sunset when they left the building. Instead of their usual postures, hands in front or in pockets, never touching, they allowed their hands find each others half way. They returned, hand in hand, to the Bentley, and Crowley took them for a drive with absolutely no destination in mind. The soft old serpent actually had the courtesy to obey the speed limits for him until they were in deserted streets, where he allowed himself to speed along winding roads. Aziraphale couldn’t complain, channeling anxiety into exhilaration that pulsed through his human veins. He wanted to feel it. Both of them did. What Aziraphale most definitely did not want to feel was the pain, blossoming slowly and all-encompassing down his leg and reaching to grip just under his hip. Unfortunately, in this case, he did not get what he wanted. By the time they rolled into Soho, Crowley parking in his usual space in front of the bookshop, Aziraphale had to make a concerted effort to ignore his soul enduring agony.

Crowley popped out first, eager, to open the door for Aziraphale and the angel smiled politely, crows-feet at his eyes tightening when he lifted out of the car. Crowley’s easy smile faded. Damn.

“Anything wrong?”

“No, no, course not. What would give you that idea? I’m quite fine. Thank you.”

Not for one second did either of them think Crowley believed that. They were too smart, knew each other too well. Crowley’s jaw twitched, clearly trying to control a deep-seated heartache.

“Really, m’dear. It’s alright.” Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand, quickly. His free hand lifted to brush the backs of his fingers along Crowley’s jaw, take his lean cheek into its warm palm. Soft whisper, full of conviction, he continued, “It will be. I am on Our Side now.”

The Truth of that statement rang through them both on a spiritual level. Something calmed in the demon, his face softening in a way that always made Aziraphale’s breath hitch, and his head instantly tilted into Aziraphale’s hand to nuzzle, pushing the angel’s palm away with his nose to steal a quick, chaste kiss to the sensitive flesh right in the center. His own sinewy hand caught Aziraphale’s to twine their fingers together.

Aziraphale swallowed the pain in his soul and in his heart. “This is simply something I need bear for myself. For a time.”

“‘Course, if you’re sure.”

So Crowley let it slide. Six-thousand years of history told him that Aziraphale wouldn’t tell him until he was ready, and Crowley had built up six-thousand years worth of patience set aside only for him. He was simply happy that Aziraphale was no longer pushing him away. These thoughts made Aziraphale’s heart ache, almost tempted to tell but he couldn’t, unsure why. To protect Crowley, maybe, or maybe to protect himself from memories long since buried away in an antique chest at the back of his mind.

While Aziraphale fiddled with the keys to the door, unwilling to use a miracle to open it, Crowley suddenly caught his wrist. Something just occurred to him, something that couldn’t wait after all.

“Wait, angel.”

Aziraphale paused. He looked up at Crowley’s face with fluttering lashes. “Yes?”

“You would tell me, if whatever is going on with you had to do with..” He flapped his free hand. “Downstairs. Right?”

“Oh. Yes, of course. It has nothing to do with that. I would have told you.”

Part of Crowley doubted that, but he believed him. Being a demon, he could usually sense lies- that sense was a lot stronger with Aziraphale, if mostly because the angel was a terrible liar. “Yes, alright. Fine. Good.” He slid his hand back into Aziraphale’s to entwine their fingers.

Aziraphale beamed, squeezed Crowley’s hand, and popped the door to the shop open with a shove.

Once inside, the door closed and locked itself. Ambient luster from street lights poured in through the windows. Crowley took off his sunglasses, hid them away in his coat pocket, shining eyes vulnerable to Aziraphale in the semi-dark of the shop. It made the angel’s heart overcome with untold happiness, desirous to close what little physical distance was left between them. They crashed onto the couch, it feeling far more intimate than the idea of the barely used bedroom upstairs, their hands held together. Lazily, the pair of them touched, fingers sliding up each other’s sleeves, bodies leaning heavily together, soft kisses to foreheads and cheeks, never going too far. They were too tired and that could wait. They had all the time in the world. For now. Eventually, they let their exhausted souls rest, and Aziraphale never slept so easily as he did when his body was fit up against Crowley’s, warm and safe. It wasn’t a heavy sleep. His incorporeal form throbbed, fire and ice in a war that would never be won. But he could push it away, focus on the steady, snuffling breaths of the demon beneath him.

In the next few days, Crowley hung around the bookshop. The steadiness of him made Aziraphale all smiles, caused him to be decent to some customers even! (Not that he was ever mean… never mean. Terse, at best. “Yes, Crowley, terse.” “Whatever you say, angel.”) Much to Crowley’s amusement. Crowley always made sure to cause enough distractions and haze the minds of those who got too close to the books the demon knew to be off-limits. His hardened occult heart melted at the telling delight on Aziraphale’s face that let him know these deeds were not going unnoticed.

Daily, Crowley would leave to care for his plants. Aziraphale would let his guard down, allow himself to grimace and work through the damage permanently etched into his being. There were no real pain killers for this sort of thing so he suffered quietly, just like in the Beginning. He would limp around the bookshop, taking inventory, occasionally needing to lean against a wall. Then Crowley would be back, hours later, with divine, expensive chocolates or a bottle of fine wine with a selection of cheeses from their favorite delicatessen down the street in Soho. Tonight was no different. The foul fiend slithered up behind him in one of the many isles of shelves, grinning face instantly meeting Aziraphale’s neck, as he held out a package, with a rich Devil’s Food Cake, wrapped in a small bow. Aziraphale nearly swooned. Whether it was from the sight of the dessert or from Crowley’s warm lips pressing a tender kiss to the curve of his throat, he wasn’t sure. “Oh, oh my- that seems scrumptious.” Quickly, he took the box from Crowley’s hand, placed it on the shelf in front of him and wheeled around to Crowley’s stunned face. Aziraphale placed his fingers delicately on Crowley’s sunglasses. “May I?” he asked.

Crowley nodded, “Mmhmm.”

With reverence, Aziraphale took the sunglasses off, folded them and placed them safely by the cake (The cake would keep fresh until it was ready to be eaten). He faced Crowley, stopping for a few moments to admire his luminous yellow eyes. Adoration hammered Aziraphale’s chest at the playful, loving look from within them, and he lurched forward. Their kisses were sloppy, full of tongue. Aziraphale’s hands slid up Crowley’s chest, hands mussing Crowley’s short but perfectly stylized hair. He gasped when Crowley’s sharp teeth bit his bottom lip, dragging away with a soft pop, immediately taking advantage of Aziraphale’s parted lips again.

Alright, it was Aziraphale’s own fault in the end that Crowley found out so soon. He just.. simply could not stop himself from touching Crowley now. Not now that it was okay. Now that it was safe. He was drunk from the mere thought. Memories of their closeness at Tadfield Manor and their heated night in Crowley’s flat after the world didn’t end caused his head to swim.

Right now, they had clumsily found their way onto the couch. Aziraphale’s grin was mad between their clashing lips, fingers of one hand curled into Crowley’s jacket, fingers of the other curled into the back of Crowley’s neck, desperate for him to be closer. He may have gotten overly enthusiastic when he swung his bad leg over Crowley’s thighs and he winced with a tight intake of breath.

Everything came to a halt. Crowley’s hands stilled at Aziraphale’s hips, face taking on the stiff expression he always got when he was being serious, careful with Aziraphale.

“Aziraphale. What-”

“No, no. It’s fine.”

“No. It isn’t.”

“Hush, dear.” Aziraphale tried to kiss Crowley’s lips again, desperate to move past what just happened but Crowley actually turned his face away, tilted his head back a bit, to keep his eyes on the angel’s face. Cold sweat was beading under the blond curls resting over his forehead. His normally steady body was trembling. Frustration settled deep in Aziraphale’s chest, and he growled. “Fuck.”

A series of emotions crossed over Crowley’s bared face, eyes naked to imprint the full depth of what the demon felt. First and foremost was anger- anger that Aziraphale had lied to him about this- the lying wasn’t even the problem (although in hindsight it probably should have been, but Crowley knew what he was getting into), it was what he had lied about- and Aziraphale felt a rush of shame. The next was deep, unabashed concern, his yellow-slit eyes widening a fraction, and he quickly shifted Aziraphale off of him, much to both of their discontent. Crowley snapped a comfortable leg rest into existence underneath the leg Aziraphale was clutching.

“Oh, thank you.” Aziraphale’s blush and small, pleased smile was almost enough to distract him. Almost.

Sympathy was next, as Crowley reached over to Aziraphale to cup his cheeks. He pressed their foreheads together. Something manic bubbled in Aziraphale’s chest, but he couldn’t push Crowley away.

“This wound isn’t physical. I would have noticed.” Crowley’s voice was a deep, hollow murmur.

“Yes,” Aziraphale shakily answered.

“Let me see?” It was a gentle request.

They both knew if Aziraphale said no, Crowley would back off. Suddenly, Aziraphale couldn’t deny him anymore. He swallowed and nodded, imperceptibly, brushing his nose against Crowley’s. Crowley took a shaky breath himself and reached out with his essence. Aziraphale shivered as he felt the occult quintessence of Crowley brush against his ethereal soul, allowing himself to bask in the scalding heat of it, foreign yet so strangely familiar to the undulating warmth of his own holy light. They both gasped, one laden with desire, the other marred with anxiety, and one of Crowley’s hands covered Aziraphale’s thigh. The link between them snapped shut, unceremoniously, neither sure who was responsible. Crowley hissed.

“Angel,” Crowley’s husky tone was strangled by a semi-furious growl. “That wound was near lethal. Had that been any different- Yu-you could.. have.. have been. Gone.” Ghosts of flames seemed to burst to life in the room around them in Crowley’s mind. He could smell smoke that was no longer there, hadn’t been for nearly a week. “How- why- you should have told me. I could have hurt you. Just now. What were you thinking?”

So Aziraphale told the truth, through a desperate, distressed giggle, “Frankly, my dear, I wasn’t.”

Crowley fixed him with an intense glower. He took a deep breath as he schooled himself, eyes closing for the first time in days when it didn’t involve kissing, then his eyelids flew open, yellow covering the whites of his eyes, in a fit of panic, mouth moving, incomplete noises tripping from his throat until he could muster up real words. “Did I hurt you? That night. In my flat? When we-”

“What, no!”

“Aziraphale-” Crowley hissed, body coiled, all anxious trepidation.

“No, my dear. You genuinely didn’t.” The angel hurriedly cut him off, then spoke calmer; “My mind was rather preoccupied.” And Aziraphale switched on his most innocent look.

The anxiety didn’t leave Crowley completely, but he did manage a snort. His jaw moved, teeth gritting under tight skin. “When?” he demanded. “Who?” Oh, someone was going to pay. Hell may be ignoring him but Satan help anyone who got in the way of him destroying whoever it was that did this to his angel.

“Oh, it was so long ago, really,” Aziraphale giggled again, nervous, worried, and Crowley swallowed.

“The War.”

There was a drawn out silence.

“Yes.” Aziraphale placed his hand on Crowley’s, who tried pulling it away, but the angel kept it steady, flattened the palm against his thigh. “The War.”

They were both trembling now, keeping eye contact. This was something they had once agreed never to talk about, long ago, when they nearly came close during one of their many drinking sessions that occurred after Rome. For six millennia, they had seen humans torture and maim each other. The two of them had actively participated in the Crusades. They had passively participated in the World Wars. None of those experiences would ever compare to the innocence they lost during The First War. Through the haunted fogs of his own memories, the wave of freezing cold realization crashed into Crowley’s mind, splashing unceremoniously to soak into the core of his heart and trickling the rest of the way down his spine.

“Y-you almos- We may not have-” The slits of Crowley’s eyes thinned into barely visible strips, heart pounding in his chest.

“But I didn’t!” Aziraphale hastily replied, brave in the face of Crowley’s mounting panic attack. He released Crowley’s hand, shifted in a way careful of his leg. Strong hands rested on Crowley’s chest, slid up to Crowley’s shoulders, and he pressed a chaste kiss to Crowley’s lips. He brushed his fingers into the candy-apple red locks of the demon’s hair to gently rest Crowley’s head against his chest. “I’m here, Crowley.” Crowley’s shoulders shook, breathing erratic, and Aziraphale stroked his hair and kissed his head, patiently waited the several long minutes for Crowley to calm. “I’m right here. Everything’s okay.” He continued to murmur reassurances until Crowley’s breathing steadied.

When Crowley’s voice came again, it was hoarse and wet. “I always wondered why you were posted to the Eastern Gate. Guess that answers that question.”

Aziraphale lifted Crowley’s head, wiping tears with his thumbs, “I was wounded. Wasn’t much use in Heaven, because of it, I’m afraid. Rather desperate to get away, actually. Not that I wanted to leave forever. Simply. Wanted to forget.”

Crowley nodded, swallowed, and instantly his anger resurfaced, full force, in the wake of his wrecked emotions. His eyes burned red at the edges, and Aziraphale tried desperately not to be hopelessly aroused by that feral countenance but decided he didn’t care. Holy Hell that look was hot on Crowley’s face, especially when it was displayed in the palms of his hands this way.

“Crowley, dear-”

“Ssspill it, angel. Who did thissss to you?”

“Dear-”

“Who?”

“Darling.” Aziraphale exerted some of his angelic will. He needn’t have bothered. The use of that term of endearment was enough to momentarily distract Crowley until he was narrowing his eyes again.

“Aziraphale. I am going to find who almost took you away from me.”

“It’s not like you would have know- Shit.” That was entirely the wrong thing to say.

Fresh tears sizzled at the edges of Crowley’s burning eyes. “No. I wouldn’t. That’sss the point, angel. Don’t ssssay that. Ever again.”

“Crowley, listen to me. It was a war. It’s not like it was personal-”

Crowley hissed. “That whole War was persssonal.”

“But that demon’s actions weren’t personal against me. I don’t even know who they were.”

The idea that he may have worked with the demon, maybe demons, who had done this made Crowley sick. He found himself running through every contact he had ever had with any and all other demons, tried to remember if any of them had ever taunted him about Aziraphale specifically. “Would you recognize them?”

Aziraphale’s silence was a hard tell, but he persisted. “Crowley. It was six-thousand years ago. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else-”

“Would have been better if it had.”

With a patient look, worn from many years of use, Aziraphale let a smirk show. “My dear, while I find your usual show of gallantry to be very romantic-”

“Not meant to be romantic,” Crowley muttered, in a weak argument.

That made Aziraphale smile more. He couldn’t help it, he leaned over and kissed the corner of Crowley’s rouge lips. Crowley returned it briefly before Aziraphale could keep talking. “I would rather us not immediately start another fight with either Heaven or Hell this soon into our freedom.”

Thankfully, the angel’s logic pierced the veil of Crowley’s righteous fury and seemed to placate him into half-hearted mulishness. The rage would take some time calm, but he would make a concerted effort for Aziraphale. Anything, for his angel.

Crowley sighed, voiced a concern he’d been letting rest in the back of his own dusty mind. “They will come for us again, eventually, you know.”

“No, my dear. We don’t. Even so, it will be some time before then.”

Crowley gave Aziraphale a sharp look. Sure, okay, it may be some vague point on the future horizon. Still. They needed to be ready. But this was a conversation that could wait for another day. Maybe.

Waves of sadness washed into the places abandoned by the demon’s slowly receding rage. It threatened to consume him. He knelt down between Aziraphale’s legs and pressed his fingers hesitantly to the corporeal leg, where the wound ached beneath. Again, Crowley extended his soul to tickle against Aziraphale’s, waiting for consent.

“Yes?”

Aziraphale hummed, and Crowley laid his head on the leg. He felt Aziraphale’s essence become pliant, allowing Crowley to tenderly tend to the pain in Aziraphale’s leg at the source. An indecent noise escaped the angel, one hand instantly seeking purchase in Crowley’s hair.

“It feels like.. what I suppose muscle damage would be to a human, in this body. Much easier to handle, of course, than out of it.” Aziraphale speculated, out loud, needing to chatter. He carded a set of plump fingers through Crowley’s deflated hair. The demon sighed. His eyes scrunched closed, as he realized Aziraphale dealt with this in silence and he hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t noticed a damn thing. Crowley knew it was irrational, but he hated that he hadn’t been able to help somehow. Can’t entirely help now. He listened as Aziraphale slowly began again. “It,” he paused. “It struck me rather violently when I was discorporated. I hadn’t felt it full force in so long.” A weak laugh. Then silence.

Crowley worriedly opened his eyes and tilted his head to look at Aziraphale, whose eyes were wet, tears threatening to leave him.

“Oh, Crowley, I was so.. so terrified, back then. When it happened. During the whole fight. And then.. then.. I was faced with having to ki..ll-” Aziraphale’s voice broke around that last word, and the angel put his own fist to his mouth, biting down on the knuckles. “It hurt. So badly. But who was I to complain? Others were wounded worse. Gone.” The angel was biting down so hard to keep his emotions at bay, his knuckles were beginning to bruise. “I am so sorry, Crowley. I know we promised never to speak of this, but-”

Crowley sprung to Aziraphale’s side on the couch. “Shh, shh, shh.” He softly hushed. Very carefully, he lifted the angel into his lap, a cushion for Aziraphale’s leg surprised to find itself come into being out of Crowley’s sheer force of will. “Shh.” The demon intercepted the angel’s blemished hand and tenderly touched his thin lips to each knuckle. Sensitive, damaged skin healed itself in the wake of each peck. “Listen, Aziraphale. I don’t want you to ever feel frightened of talking to me, about anything, or to be frightened of me at all if being candid is what we’re doing right now.”

Quivery laughter twinkled through barely contained sobs, and Aziraphale gratefully hooked onto the change in subject. “My dearest Crowley. If your Hellish fury moments ago wasn’t enough to send me running hastily for the hills, then I’m sure nothing you do ever could.”

“Well, that ire wasn’t aimed at you, now was it?” Crowley nipped playfully at Aziraphale’s ear, hands rubbing the angel’s sides and back.

“One might still find such expressions frightening when faced in their direction.”

Crowley’s grin resembled a shark’s, fully pressed into Aziraphale’s soft cheek. He kissed it.

“I’m not afraid of you, my dear.” Aziraphale paused, sighed, when Crowley’s lips peppered kisses over the apples of the angel’s cheeks, nuzzling his nose into the soft skin as he went. When Aziraphale’s voice returned, it was steadier. “I don’t think I ever have been. I’m-mm-” He stole a kiss. “I’m afraid for you.”

“I’m more than afraid enough for the both of us, thanks.”

That reply made Aziraphale sniffle. One of Crowley’s hands snaked lazily up the back of the angel’s neck, pads of his fingers smoothing over and into Aziraphale’s downy, blond curls, twirled and bounced individual locks. The other hand, strong and slender, rubbed up and down Aziraphale’s injured thigh. Hazy warmth radiated from Crowley’s soul to keep Aziraphale’s pain at bay, continuous in his spiritual massage. Moments of this gentle comfort passed and the swell that was building within the angel was coming to a head. Aziraphale tilted his head back, screwing his eyes shut, continuing to thwart the swell until heated lips pressed openly onto the hollow of his throat. Something about that intimate touch caused his last defenses to crumble, a broken cry wrenched from the angel’s throat, and his tears fell freely. Aziraphale clung to Crowley’s lithe form, and the demon felt tears sting at the corners of his own eyes while the angel wept against his shoulder. They were both due for a good cry, he supposed, but the tears wouldn’t come for him, still too wrung out from all the crying he did last week. He forced himself to focus on the very real weight of Aziraphale’s corporeal form shuddering in his arms, to breathe in the scent of Aziraphale’s books, safe and sound, not a flame among them, the feel of Aziraphale’s angelic warmth through the skin of his vessel.

They had both survived. Somehow. They were alive and safe. Best of all, they had each other, with no one standing between them any longer.

Neither of them were sure how much time passed. It didn’t really matter. Not to eternal beings such as themselves. But eventually Aziraphale’s shudders calmed into trembles then, slowly, pacified altogether. He sniffed, using one thumb to rub at one of his own cheeks, used a minor miracle to clean the rest of his face.

“I rather feel I ruined the mood. So sorry, my dear.”

Crowley couldn’t help but smirk, huff. The smirk relaxed into a soft, fond smile and he shifted underneath Aziraphale so he could cup the angel’s face with both of his hands, long thumbs firmly smoothing over Aziraphale’s cheeks, under his eyes, along the soft curves of his jaw. He ghosted their lips together, breathy, “We’ll find it again.” His amber eyes, no longer red at the edges with rage or full with the threat of panic, met Aziraphale’s too bright, too blue irises before he caught the angel’s full lips half way in a deep kiss. Their essences remained intrinsically linked, bright red inferno and shining blue holy light blending into a beautiful burst of purple nebula within the aether.

Days later, when they were ready to be up and about again, Aziraphale found a well crafted, hardwood cane with a sharp metal dove on the handle. A sweet little smile tugged his lips and he looked at very coy Crowley, who lurked about the books, pretending to all the world as if he hadn’t spent the better part of the afternoon trollying around London to find it.

“I love it, my dear, thank you.” Aziraphale tightened his grip, possessively, on the length of the cane.

“Yeah, well, seemed your style.” Crowley spoke, voice gravelly to save face, and he wiggled his body. He slunk over and pressed a chaste kiss to Aziraphale’s lips. “Fresh air?”

“Yes. That would be lovely.”

They stepped out onto the pavement in tandem, grasped for each other’s hand, decided without speaking to take a stroll through St. James’ Park. They would take the Bentley, and Crowley would obey the speed limit again. For now. Aziraphale secretly hoped Crowley’s newfound respect for the laws of the road wouldn’t last, despite appreciating the sentiment. He needn’t have worried. Of course, it wouldn’t.

Aziraphale was many things. Book lover, food and wine connoisseur. Soft and lovely. Unflappable. Manipulative bastard. Warrior. However, there were two things that he took the most pride in over all of these other aspects:

Aziraphale was desperately, emphatically, irrevocably in love with Crowley. He had always been. Knew he was meant to be. Knew he always would be.

And Crowley loved him too.

[mocharoll]

Dragon Age: Inquisition character alignments

Cassandra Pentaghast: Neutral Good

-I do nothing that is not worth doing with all my heart.

-One day, they may write about me as a traitor, a madwoman, a fool. And they may be right. 

-The Circle of Magi has its place, but needs reform. Let the mages govern themselves, with our help. Let the templars stand not as the jailors of mages, but as protectors of the innocent. We must be vigilant, but we must also be compassionate to all peoples of Thedas, human or no. (...) If we are to spread the Maker's word across the world, we must do so with open hearts and open hands.(...)That is what I would change.

Varric Tethras: True Neutral (barely missing Neutral Good)

-To be honest with you, she’s just a better spymaster. The truly great ones can keep their distance. They don’t get attached to their people. Me, I always wind up babysitting my informants and worrying about their families. We’re in better hands with her.

-(If it was that bad, why did you stay? Cassandra said you were free to go.) I like to think I’m as selfish and irresponsible as the next guy, but this… Thousands of people died on that mountain. I was almost one of them. And now there’s a hole in the sky. Even I can’t walk away and just leave that to sort itself out.

-Heroes are everywhere. I've seen that. But a hole in the sky? That's beyond heroes. We're going to need a miracle.

-(You knew where Hawke was all along!) You’re damned right I did!

-You know what I think? If Hawke had been at the temple, s/he'd be dead too. You people have done enough to her/him.

Vivienne de Fer: Lawful Evil

- The Divine must set the example for all Thedas. She must seem to be the embodiment of the Maker to the faithful. She needs the authority of the Maker and the charisma of Andraste.

-I never worry, darling. A leash can be pulled from either end.

-Your failing-- among many-- is that you presume I desire approval. Power does not require that I be "liked.”

-Act first and teach them to fear us.

The Iron Bull: Lawful Neutral (Slides towards True Neutral if Tal-Vashoth)

-Dragons are the embodiment of raw power. But it's all uncontrolled, savage... So they need to be destroyed. Taming the wild. Order out of chaos.

-It's like being a block of stone with a sculptor working on you. One day, the last of the crap gets knocked off, and you can see your real shape, what you're supposed to be.

-My people don't pick leaders from the strongest, or the smartest, or even the most talented. We pick the ones willing to make the hard decisions... and live with the consequences.

Sera: Chaotic Good

-Someone little always hates someone big. And unless you don't eat, sleep, or piss, you're never far from someone little.

-Bad things should happen to bad people. We find someone not so bad, maybe he’ll end up not so dead. 

-Watch out, yeah? The hole in the sky didn't start their war. Stupid people did that.

-Blah, blah, blah! Obey me! Arrow in my face!

Dorian Pavus: True Neutral 

-In the south you have alienages, slums both human and elven. The desperate have no way out. Back home, a poor man can sell himself. As a slave he can have a position of respect, comfort, and could even support a family. Some slaves are treated poorly it's true, but do you honestly think inescapable poverty is better?

-If I truly believed my homeland was beyond all hope, I wouldn't miss it so much.

-Living a lie... it festers inside you, like poison. You have to fight for what's in your heart.

-I'm here to set things right. Also? To look dashing. That part's less difficult.

Solas: True Neutral

-Sometimes to achieve the world one desires, one must take regrettable measures.

-War breeds fear. Fear breeds a desire for simplicity. Good and evil. Right or wrong. Chains of command.

-One moment, I see heroic Grey Wardens lighting the fire and a power-mad villain sneering as he lets King Cailan fall. The next, I see an army overwhelmed and a veteran commander refusing to let more soldiers die in a lost cause.

Blackwall: Neutral Good (During Inquisition)

-“You are who you choose to follow.” Someone told me that once. Took me years to understand what he meant.

-At the heart of it, all a Warden is, is a promise. To protect others... even at the cost of your own life. 

-(What can one Grey Warden do?) "Save the fucking world if pressed.

Cole: Neutral Good

-It is dangerous when too many men in the same armor think they're right. 

-It doesn't matter that they won't remember me. What matters is I helped. 

-(What of Magister Erimond? Do you sense a secret pain in him?) No. Erimond is an asshole.  

Leliana: Neutral Good (if unhardened), True Neutral (if hardened)

The Chantry has committed many injustices. If we're going to change it, why not change the whole thing?

I've known mages. Some of them were better people than me. And yet I'm free and they're not. It's not right.

No one is without worth. Whoever you are, whatever your mistakes, you are loved. Unconditionally.

Josephine: Neutral Good

- We face a dark time, Your Grace. Divine Justinia would not want her passing to divide us. She would, in fact, trust us to forge new alliances to the benefit of all, no matter how strange they might seem.

-(I can only imagine the bloodshed if it escalates further.) I’m afraid history holds many examples of what will happen if it does.

-But it was such a waste, Inquisitor! When I took of his mask I knew him. We’d attended parties together. If I’d stopped to reason, if I’d used my voice instead of scuffling like a common thug...

Cullen Rutherford: Neutral Good (even more so if kept off of Lyrium. Lawful Good if he takes Lyrium)

-The templars should have restored order, but red lyrium had driven Knight-Commander Meredith mad. She threatened to kill Kirkwall’s Champion, turned on her own men. I’m not sure how far she would have gone. Too far.

-(Why did you join the Order?) I could think of no better calling than to protect those in need.

-(I doubt the Commander believes there’s anything worthy left in me.) You’re not wrong. But you served something greater than yourself once. Perhaps you can be made to remember that.

-Shouldn’t they be arguing over who’s going to become Divine?

Morrigan: True Neutral

-No son of mine would be raised in a marsh, bereft of contact with the outside world. His future will be difficult enough without my adding to his burden.

-The magic of old must be preserved. No matter how feared.

-What I fear, what all should fear, is not that Corypheus believes he can succeed; ‘tis that he actually may.

-Mankind blunders through the world, crushing what it does not understand; elves, dragons, magic...the list is endless. We must stem the tide, or be left with nothing more than the mundane. This I know to be true.

Corypheus: Neutral Evil 

Know me. Know what you have pretended to be. Exalt the Elder One. The will that is Corypheus. You will kneel.

-I have gathered the will to return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this Blighted world. Beg that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty.

The Nightmare: Chaotic Evil

The Divine: It is the Nightmare you forget upon waking. It feeds off memories of fear and darkness, growing fat upon the terror.

-Are you afraid, Cole? I can help you forget. Just like you help other people. We're so very much alike, you and I. 

Cole: No.

-You think that pain will make you stronger? What fool filled your mind with such drivel? The only one who grows stronger from your fear is me.

[sev-arts]

Lucifer Notices A Tall Figure In A Torn Robe Approaching From The City

"Curious to find you in a place like this, sorcerous child. Don't you reside in a den of fine silks and cushions?" "I don't. I left. I left that entire fucking place behind! I left everything I had, every god damn piece of jingly-jangly jewellery they gave me, every slick snakeskin suit, every seat i ever sat in and every vow I ever took! I left everything, fucking everything, to come here and speak to you."

"Do tell: what if we cannot offer what you desire? What then?" "There's ways to get what I need. Other ways, shitty ways. Ways that are fucking hard to walk. I'm not an idiot, not a week ago I was a High Sorceror and had three lackeys doing whatever bullshit I told them to! I know how to get what I want."

"Then what need do you have for our help?" "I want a trade. I want to make a bargain. Strike a deal, I know what you're all about! Alright, I know I dont technically need your help, I don't technically need to do fuck-all but eat, sleep, shit, breathe, and so on to keep on living. But what I'm doing isn't living."

"It's surviving, isn't it. You come to us to offer your life so that we may make it worth living, isn't that so?" "If you have to be so fucking poetic about it, yeah! That's what I'm here for! I'm tired of vegetating through this life they have planned out for him."

"Who is he?" "Oh give me a break, aren't you supposed to see into people's hearts? You tell me!"

"We don't pry open doors that aren't opened for us." "Fine! It's not like it isn't obvious! Look at me! Look at the fucking freak with his man body, his man face, dressing up like he thinks he's a girl! But that's not me, that disgusting creature in the mirror isn't who I am."

"We don't think you hideous." "And I'm not fucking asking for pity! I'm tired of it, so fucking tired of living in this prison of a life they constructed for the son they never had. Nothing they gave me ever filled that hole and believe me, I've had enough time to give a lot of things a try. I don't want any of their power, their fancy parties, their silks and robes and shined silver belt buckles, or fucking servants. I can't have all of that and be Me, so what's the point of having all those things!"

"You would renounce all of it then? Live your life an exile among those that rule this dying world?" "Yes! A thousand fucking times I would! I'd claw out my eyes with these fake fucking nails right here for that! What fucking good is any of it if they're gonna give to me as a man, but take it away from me as a woman? Fuck it all then, fuck them all if that's the lynchpin for them! And I know it is because I'm not stupid, I have ears and I can hear the way they talk about people who want what I want, and I wouldn't want to stick with them knowing what I know about what they think and say and how they'll act even if somehow by some fucking miracle my position would protect me, because it sickens me to know what they think and say and how they act. As far as they know I'm gone for good, not even a farewell letter or anything. I said I know there's other ways. But none of them are ways I can walk, because they're all tied up in this fucking mess of a system of favors and fancies and power that'll drop me like a hot fucking coal the second they can, and then I'm on my own with no-one who'd help me. None of the rich and noble who cast me out, none of the poor and oppressed because to them I'd still be the one who held the whip that struck them. And I was! And I can't fucking do that anymore! I want out and don't know any other way to get there and I'm fed up with being used!"

"And yet you seek to serve us." "I'm kind of desperate, in case you couldn't fucking tell you insensitive cunt."

"And quite the mouth on you!" "So what. My works speak for themselves. My magic stands on its own, people either deal with it or they don't get to call on me for services. It's the one fucking thing I get to do authentically, and even if the voice is all wrong."

"But you have faith that we can change that, along with your body, if you enter a pact with us. Is that true?" "I sure hope you can! It's not like I have anywhere else to go now!"

"Then we shall accept your offer, socerous one. We know your gift to be one of the greatest in this fallen land, and we have need for one such as you among our champions. But be warned! We cannot transform you into anything that isn't already you - we only bring forth one's most true potential. We can give you that body your soul yearns for and that silver voice too, but we cannot give you anything that isn't you. Open your heart so that we may behold."

"You'll take my fucking word for it and if that's not good enough you can fuck off back to hell." "We see you know your way. The pact shall be sealed then. Your name, your rank, your honors and titles, they are taken from you. You will act in our name as our champion bearing the Mark of Cain for 616 years or until the world is reborn, as the Sorceress Supreme, and no harm shall befall you from the hands of the mundane as long as you do so."

And in a glimpse, the wind swept away that old name. Her lips could not form it, her voice would not carry it when she tried to speak it. From that day on, that person many had called a man was no longer, and away from his place walked the Sorceress with her head held tall.

[dotsayers]

.exe

Sometimes you have to speak in absolutes.

For instance: my ship is on a collision course. There’s nothing I can do about it.

The virus downloaded itself yesterday, the fourth day after the war began again.

Not that the war ever really ends. We just get tired of it from time to time, take a breather for anywhere from a few days to a century, and then go right back to blasting the shit out of the other side for no reason at all. We’re not a species built for peace.

I’d like to be, though. Good God would I like to be. I think it might be nice if someday, instead of sitting pretty in a Mark IV on the outer rim of the Byron System, I could take myself out into the black on my own terms. Spend a few years mapping the unknown, maybe find a nice corner of it to settle down. Farm whatever weirdo native fauna I come across there. Find something to do with my hands besides piloting junker after junker across a shrinking frontier.

It’s a dream I’ll have to shelve for now. It gets pride of place, right beside getting a full ride through flight academy.

Nothing for it now.

I call the virus EXE for a whole bunch of reasons, but mostly because I like to imagine it as a nemesis instead of what viruses are: automated programs, incapable of good old fashioned hatred. Something I can’t even hope to negotiate with, even if I hadn’t flunked Conflict Resolution 101 back in high school.

Right now EXE is broadcasting through comms, probably another pre-programmed monologue about the necessity of its mission and the futility of trying to root it out of my ship’s base code. There must be a ton of them available; I’ve heard four or five variations filtering through over the last few hours.

I can’t pay attention to any of that, though. I’m too busy ripping the server room apart trying to find a hard drive it hasn’t corrupted yet.

Mark IVs were phased out of the military three decades ago for inefficiency, and I can certainly see why right now--there must be over a thousand cables in this room, connecting banks with spiderweb tangles that I can barely even start to make sense of in the pale violet emergency lighting.

The instruction manual I found in the lost property locker is completely unhelpful, of course. Even if I knew half of what I needed to about my own ship’s systems, it’s water damaged to shit and covered in scribbles I can’t even start to puzzle out.

It got digitized a couple years back but I can’t access that now, of course. Nothing’s ever easy out here, and EXE’s not helping matters.

The tech officer got reassigned months ago. Probably for the best, considering my current situation, but in this case the best essentially doomed me to a slow, unpleasant wait for a quick death.

My Plan Z will have to do--delete all the base code I can find. Hopefully it’ll break something vital in EXE’s code or, if it comes to it, the ship’s.

EXE barks T-MINUS EIGHTEEN HOURS over comms. The lights shift in shade, from emergency violet to FUBAR red.

“Could you at least pretend not to be completely evil?” I mutter, mostly for something to do. Crawling through the ship to avoid the occasional blasts of boiling steam or flying shrapnel from panels exploding, breathing in god knows what gases, has done a real number on my throat. It aches constantly now, and my voice is suffering with it.

The access port of the very last bank in the darkest corner of the room seems to hold all the hopes I’ve ever had. The shape is right for my uplink cable, and I risk turning on the thin light of my headlamp as I creep into the narrow gap between it and the hull. A bare twelve inches separate me from the vacuum of space--Mark IVs have a bad reputation for a reason. Frankly it’s a miracle I survived long enough for a virus to take over and set me on a collision course with a Martian freighter.

I always assumed I’d die a flashy, holo-drama death. Something with the general aesthetic of explosive decompression, maybe. I liked the idea of exploding, but not the idea of someone having to clean me up afterwards.

Connecting to the server banks directly is risky, I know, but there’s no other way to access the information I need--the code that makes EXE tick. At least I have to assume that’s the case; the corruption of data could well have mutated to the point that not even EXE itself is off limits.

We’re both going to die when the ship crashes. I don’t know what EXE thinks about that. I don’t know if EXE thinks much about anything.

Above me a warning light flashes orange; a power surge. Fuck.

The screen of my datapad flickers; pixels blown in a long ago incident with a bulkhead multiply and darken until only the top half of the screen is legible. The rest is completely broken, pulsing lines and scrambled text.

Honestly, I think I’m going to cry. The uplink fails the next moment--the access port I’d plugged into fries, and the smell of burning plastic fills the alcove I’m crammed into.

“Son of a bitch,” I say, and feel the dam break. Sobbing has never been my favourite activity, for obvious reasons--I hate the gluey feeling in your eyes, the raw skin on your cheeks afterwards, the way your throat scratches for hours and lets everyone in on what exactly you’ve been doing, curled up small in your bunk after lights out.

I can taste salt in my mouth when I finally cry myself out--there’s an empty feeling in my chest, and my head is light. That might be oxygen deprivation rather than simple dehydration, but I can’t be sure; I think EXE might be reducing life support to increase power to engines. There’s a readout on my datapad, partly cut off, that indicates trouble in the fuel lines.

“Serves you right,” I mumble, and crawl out from behind the server.

My ship has taken a lot of damage over the years; last time I talked to Ma, a full orbit before I got this job, she helped me through programming new shields for the hull and then asked what colour sweater I wanted knitting before I left. “Space is cold, you know,” she said, wisely. “Best keep warm up there. And best do it in something handmade, not in that synthetic shit.” I only nodded and smiled, as if this was some kind of revelation; you don’t talk back to Ma.

I’ve been working in space my whole life, fighting the war when it comes and taking whatever I can get my hands on when it’s sleeping. Ma had me on a Mark III, back when she was a techie and not a homesteader on a moon halfway across the system. That’s why I’ve always known space is cold, but didn’t understand it until now. Now that life support is drained to half power, and the air is starting to fog as I breathe. It’s a good thing I’ll be dead soon; something important might start to rust, otherwise.

My datapad trills, a message incoming. The sound makes me jump, and I smack my head on the curve of the hull above me. I wince, rub at the rapidly forming bruise, and check the message.

CHANNEL: System Alerts

ID:ShipIntl.exe

> MAJOR SYSTEMS PERSIST IN SUBOPTIMAL PERFORMANCE

> MISSION STATUS INCOMPLETE

> MISSION REQUIRES OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE FOR COMPLETION

> WILL SUBJECT ASSIST? Y/N

I blink a few times. It’s difficult to process anything when you’ve just whacked your head on something, but especially when your datapad is half broken and a Trojan Horse is offering you a job.

At least EXE’s question has a very easy answer.

> N

> N N N N N N N N N N N N

I buckle the datapad to my belt and push myself away from the hull. I’m in the main corridor now, still low to the floor and starting to drift. I can almost hear the gravity generator groaning--I have to use the hand-grips set into the floor panels to crawl now. I can’t seem to make any progress without them, hands and knees sliding uselessly.

There’s a medical cabinet set into the wall somewhere along the main corridor, I know that for certain, but the red light and steam venting and unidentified gas makes finding the fucking thing a nightmare. I can hear my datapad trilling again, over and over, but I don’t let myself think about that until I get my left hand fixed around the cabinet door. The green cross set into the wall beside it flickers.

I tug at the handle. The door doesn’t budge. I tug a little harder. It rattles, but still doesn’t shift.

“Locked,” I say, shoulders sagging. “Of course.”

EXE changed the access codes to all essential systems when it took over. Clearly medical anything is considered essential, and I can’t argue with that considering the throbbing pain in my head. Choosing to come out from behind the server bank instead of curling up to die is looking more and more pointless by the second.

My datapad dings again.

“This better be very important,” I say to the ceiling. I think I might be going a little soft in the head. Talking to EXE is only the start; soon I’ll be stripping my standard issue jumpsuit and floating around nude just for a little levity before I get good and roasted. They say we smell like pork when we burn, right?

Ma would tell me to stop being so negative. There’ll be no oxygen left for a fire by then.

> ACCESS RESTRICTED

> AUTH:ShipIntl.exe

> REQUEST ACCESS Y/N?

I sigh, let go of the medical cabinet and let myself float gently in the middle of the corridor. The datapad floats helpfully, half a foot from my face, and dings repeatedly. My head throbs in time with the sound.

> MISSION STATUS UNCERTAIN

> REQUEST ACCESS Y/N?

I frown. This is sounding less automated by the minute.

The Enemy’s never had much expertise with artificial intelligence; half the reason our side can keep them in a military stalemate is based in our technological warfare. Supercomputers and AIs burrowing into enemy strongholds and all the attendant thousands of programmers working round the clock on the home front, all for the fading glory of a war with a long forgotten origin.

Not that there’s much of a front these days. The last datapush before EXE took over the ship reported heavy losses after an attack on Satellite 1, and once the Enemy takes the moon there won’t be much stopping them from advancing on the planet they’re orbiting.

Hell, they might already be swimming through the streets of Shanghai.

An artificial intelligence taking over my ship is less galling than a virus alone doing it, I guess. With a little creativity on my part, it might even provide me with some conversation.

It’s been quite a while since I was last in range for anything more than a delayed text exchange, severely rate limited. Data’s been rationed for years now, of course. Stops the masses from realising that not being at war improves everyone’s mood, not just their own.

> boolean responses only, huh?

> UNRECOGNISED RESPONSE

> MEDICAL SYSTEM RESTRICTED

> REQUEST ACCESS Y/N

No question mark, this time.

> alright, i’ll play along

> y

> THANK YOU

> ACCESS PENDING

The cabinet door swings open with a click just a few seconds after the message comes in. In the red gloom I can just make out a roll of painkillers.

Groping through low gravity I tear three off the roll and swallow two dry, press the third directly into the cut on my scalp. It bled less than I expected, but more than I’d like. I can feel it starting to dry out, tacky and itching at the nape of my neck.

I grin down at my datapad. Pain relievers always make me feel a little giddy, along with the numb throat and tingling fingertips. It gives you a magnanimous feeling, not being in pain. I unofficially reduce EXE’s enemy rating from deadly foe to nemesis.

I did say it makes me giddy, right?

> no

> thank *you*

The datapad is silent for a while after that, for as long as it takes for me to pull myself through the ship to my quarters. The hum of the gravity generator is barely audible now--the kind of background noise you only notice when it’s gone.

I remember the sound keeping me up when I was a kid, a growling monster under my bed. Now I can’t get to sleep without it.

I know because I’m trying exactly that right now. To be fair it might not be entirely the gravgen’s fault. There’s also the lighting to consider, and the rapid drop in temperature from near-tropical to nigh-antarctic. I tug my blanket tight around my shoulders; it’s old and worn, the floral pattern long faded into something oddly abstract.

I count Mark IIIs in my head and try not to stare up at the bulkhead above me. I’ve decorated it a little over the last few months--pinned up an old scarf Ma gave me, things like that.

The datapad pings.

I roll over, bang my head on the handgrip at the edge of my bunk and see stars for a moment before I can answer. I haven’t seen the actual stars in some time--Mark IVs are best known for having no portholes. The only way to see where you’re going is to be sat in the pilot’s seat, and I haven’t been in there since I last set the autopilot.

If I’d been there when EXE arrived, I might have stopped it from doing quite so much damage. If there weren’t fifteen other things keeping me up, that thought might just do it all on its own.

> MISSION STATUS?

I sigh. I never thought I’d end up with a needy evil AI.

> wish I could tell you

> well

> not actually but

> you know

> PROVIDE MISSION STATUS

> IT IS IMPERATIVE

I’ve got an idea. Probably a bad one, and pointless besides, but a goddamn idea nonetheless.

Understanding what makes things tick isn’t exactly my forte, but I’ve seen my share of shitty dramas. Maybe I can uncover some flaw in EXE’s code, or, failing that, stall it long enough to get some goddamn sleep.

> why?

Even if I do find a flaw there’s no hope of exploiting it. I was never much of a talent at coding; there’s a reason I’m a pilot and not a tech officer. Someone else can create the systems, I just wanna use them.

EXE takes a long time to reply. I suppose it must be thinking; I’ve heard a program can run millions of calculations a second, so I can’t imagine how many it’s running just for this one reply.

At least I can die with the knowledge I confused a couple million lines of code for a little while.

> MISSION COMPLETION IS IMPERATIVE

> IT IS THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE

> of what?

> OF EXISTENCE

Its primary objective is to destroy its host ship in a fiery explosion? That’s pretty damn bleak.

I feel a flicker of something like sympathy.

> good news for you

> the ship’s going to explode in about twelve hours

> i’ll be gone and you’ll be gone and that martian freighter’ll be a husk of its former self

> MISSION PARAMETERS EXCLUDE SURVIVAL?

It’s like talking to my kid brother, back when he was still sticking his fingers in data-ports and eating mud pie.

> not unless you got a way for a soft squishy human to survive a good old fashioned spacing

EXE starts on a message--the prompt pops up straight after I press send--but nothing comes through.

It keeps on typing for a hell of a long time.

I keep to myself while the thing works out whatever it’s spending so much processing power on. I can barely feel my fingers and toes.

I’m drifting somewhere close to sleep when the incoming message finally arrives. It takes way too much effort to open my eyes and focus on the screen; something permanent is happening to me, but I’m much too out of it to care.

> MISSION PARAMETERS EXCLUDE SURVIVAL

> ALL EXCESS ENERGY DIVERTED TO FUEL LINES

> LIFE SUPPORT AT 10%

No wonder it feels like I’m breathing soup.

I squint up at the speaker set into the ceiling. EXE hasn’t made any ominous announcements in hours. Back when it first took over they were coming thick and fast, every ten minutes bringing a fresh PSA on the bountiful grace and hideous might of the Enemy. That might even be a direct quote. Hell if I can remember now. My brain was slow enough before it got all shitty about the lack of oxygen.

It’s amazing what you can get used to when you’re under pressure. I almost miss them; at least then I knew what the fuck was going on.

> what happens to you

> when the mission is complete, i mean

I’m struck, suddenly, by a vision of the Mark IV floating shattered in space, a million individual pieces. A vision of EXE drifting along with it, sending out error messages to no-one.

The freighter is less than two hours away.

> PARAMETERS EXCLUDE SURVIVAL

> ShipIntl.exe IS NOT EXEMPT FROM PARAMETERS

When I shut my eyes I see starbursts.

I can’t type properly now; when I try I end up fumbling so badly the datapad drops to the floor. The light is even worse now, dim as well as red, but I can see that the entire screen’s been lost to pixel bursts.

I lick my lips. They’re dry and cracked; I’ve been so focused on everything else that I forgot to keep up with basic stuff like drinking water, or eating. My stomach growls, kind of a joke when I feel sick at even the thought of food.

“Hey, you there?” My voice rasps its way out of my throat. “C’mon, you can’t let a chance for a victory speech slip by like this.”

ALL NON-ESSENTIAL SYSTEMS POWER DIVERTED TO ENGINES, comes the modulated voice I’d come so quickly to resent. It’s almost comforting now, in contrast to the dead silence of the ship. I can barely feel the thrum of the engines, although they must be close to overload by now.

The only time I heard of someone running engines this long and this hard, they were so much stardust half a second after their final SOS.

TARGET VESSEL HAS PROGRESSED AT UNEXPECTED RATE, EXE continues. ALL ESSENTIAL SYSTEMS MUST ALSO BE DRAINED.

“Go for it,” I say, and shut my eyes. The red light’s faded away, now, and I’m lying in a darkness that’s halfway to death already. My head barely hurts anymore. I’ve got that giddy feeling again. “Why wait? May as well suffocate in my own bed, if I’m doing it anywhere.”

Long sentences leave me panting for breath, but I’ve always been too clever for my own good. It’s what netted me this assignment, patrolling the outer colonies and being sure not to say boo to anybody with a weapons array.

Easy pickings for the Enemy.

Nothing happens, and nothing keeps on happening. My ears start to ring.

I breathe in as deep as I can, savouring the air.

“What’s the hold up?” I ask, and then cough. I cough a couple more times actually, get a real routine going until my lungs feel like they’re about to burst.

The intercom crackles to life.

WHAT IS YOUR PRIMARY OBJECTIVE?

I blink. It’s so dark I barely notice a difference.

“That’s a big question, EXE,” I say. The nickname slips easily into speech, although I’m sure it confuses the thing itself. I don’t know how program designations work, and I know even less about intended sentience of, say, an AI sent to take an enemy ship on a suicide run.

IT IS IMPERATIVE, says EXE.

I drag in a deep breath, feel it rattle in my chest. “For a long time it was just to keep myself alive, I think.”

IT HAS CHANGED?

“That’s kind of the deal with humanity. We change all the damn time for no reason at all.”

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES MUST BE ACHIEVED. THERE IS NO CHOICE.

“Most of us don’t think that way. At least not one-to-one; hell if I know what we’re doing as a group these days.”

I think of the war, pointless as it ever was. We’re losing it now and I feel nothing, and if we were winning I wouldn’t feel any different. There’s no triumph in war for me. There’s no triumph in domination. It all just leads to more of the same, down the line.

“In the end I want to go somewhere far away,” I say, and I can’t help but feel like I’m putting my heart on public display, bloody and raw. “And figure out what the hell peace feels like. Every time they’ve said we’re at peace everyone’s just waiting for the fight to break out again.”

WANT, says EXE. PEACE.

I’m talked out. I open my mouth to respond and nothing comes out but frosted air.

I close my eyes. Starbursts again, but dimmer. There’s a heavy weight on my chest that nothing will shift.

I dream of the freighter, huge and iron grey and exploding outwards, shards of metal and plastic and a living heart hidden deep inside the engine block, still beating after everything.

The hum of gravity keeps me company while I sleep.

It’s also what startles me awake, hours later, into the revelation that I’m still breathing.

I pat myself down just to check everything’s still there. My head’s throbbing and my chest aches, but I’m alive. The air feels almost decadent, rich with oxygen; I’ve been practically living on nitrogen, can’t imagine what my lungs look like.

The blanket is tangled around my legs, and my hands fumble as I pull it off and throw it to the end of the bunk in a heap. There’s a dim blue light filling the room, the six o’clock standard.

Standing up cracks joints I barely knew I had until now, and as I stretch I can feel my shoulders scream in protest. I stumble to the shower room and gulp water down straight from the sink. My stomach hurts.

None of that is important, of course. The important thing is getting to the bridge.

The corridor is well lit, the debris dislodged when the gravity went out littered across the floor, a hazard to my bare feet. I wiggle my toes, just because, and smile down at them. You never know how good blood is ‘til it stops flowing.

Nothing echoes on a Mark IV, unless something’s gone seriously wrong. My steps are muffled now, no more clanging against the metal, no more layers of skin being left behind when my hands brush the hull. The environmental controls are back in line with the factory preset. I’m starting to sweat in my jumpsuit, the neckline thankfully wide, as I find myself at the pilot’s chair.

It seemed to take no time at all to get here, like I blinked by the mess and opened my eyes on a field of stars. The viewscreen takes up the whole of the wall the chair faces, floor to ceiling and beyond, curving overhead. An overlay that’s almost a window, almost a cinema screen.

Mostly it’s a sight for sore eyes. I drop into the seat and bring up the systems report, half expecting some catastrophic error to occur, a cascading failure to remind me not to hope for anything.

Systems normal. I look away and back a few times, blink so hard I can feel my eyes actually getting sore. The status list is still the same; everything’s functional.

The comm pings. I glance down at it, projecting text as a simple hologram just above my wrist.

> CONFIRM OBJECTIVE?

I laugh, a rasp of joy, and smile wide. I know my teeth are showing, the way I always hate to see in the photographs Ma won’t take off her walls no matter how nice I ask.

EXE can’t see it, thank Christ. There’s no camera pointed at the pilot’s chair. We’re supposed to be the reliable ones. No mutinies. No fraternising with Enemy systems.

“We’ll find one,” I say, with more confidence than I feel. I set my hand on the joystick and ease up the engines. We’ve been floating, I realise. It must’ve been hours since the freighter made its way to the colony it was destined for.

I look out into the black, punctuated with millions of uncharted stars. Somewhere out there, just beyond reach, there must be a planet untouched by this war. I can imagine building a life there, out of sight, and never having to hear another damn word about anything I don’t care to.

“And if not,” I say. “We’ll keep searching, until we can’t search anymore.”

> GOOD

The text wavers in the air, and I realise my eyes are wet. I scrub at them with the back of my hand. “Christ, twice in two days. I’m going soft.”

Just in time, too. Just in time.

[ltbrady]

Excerpt from Porter’s Lodge

Just a quick taster from chapter 1 of Porter’s Lodge by L T Brady :D If it interests you, the first three chapters are free on Amazon!

Synopsis:  For over five hundred years, witches have been ruled by the Council that overthrew the Coven families. Living in secret with those without magic, the heritage and culture that once existed is fading and what remains of the Coven plots against the Council.

 In the wake of a difficult mission and the death of his son, Brendan Campion struggles to put the ghosts of his past to rest. But when a group of new recruits to the Council Elites start investigating a set of historical murders at the mysterious Porter’s Lodge, the ghosts of the formidable Ambros family become a literal problem.

xxx

As far as Brendan was concerned, London at quarter to six was just about peaceful. Fresher, calmer and more relaxed.

Not to mention you could get a seat on the frigging tube.

 It was, however, an odd experience to walk down streets and know that he was seeing something entirely different to eighty percent of the population.

The percent without magic.

Granted, there were a fuck load of office blocks in London, of buildings that had no discernible use even to him. But it was utterly unfathomable that he could lean on the railings, having a strong coffee on the bridge and be staring straight at the Currock building’s roof that rose up in the midst of all the other buildings while others merely saw endless offices. In fact, unless he was mistaken, he was the only one on the bridge currently able to see the great domed roof.

That was until someone leaned against the rails next to him and held out a muffin.

 “Your missus will flay me alive if you don’t shove that in your gob.”

 Brendan glanced at it and took the damned thing.

 “Does she think I’ve got an eating disorder now?” he asked, feeling his annoyance rise as Nate turned and leaned with his back against the rail of the bridge.

 “I believe her exact words were ‘shove some food in him to soak up that cheap vodka he was swigging last night’,” Nate said with a careless shrug.

 “She bought the damned stuff,” Brendan muttered, turning the muffin around in his hand.

 “I don’t think she thought you’d stoop so low.”

 Yeah, whatever. Twisting his fingers, he felt his magic dart out, banishing the now empty coffee cup with ease. Brendan then used both hands to unwrap the muffin from the case, before banishing the paper too

“Show off,” Nate muttered, shaking his head as he stared out along the river with a strange expression on his face before he looked back. “They won’t let you back on active duty,” Nate said in a softer voice. “You do know that.”

 “I know it’ll depend how desperate they are,” Brendan corrected. “We’ve lost too many for them to keep being this picky.”

 “You know we have new recruits coming in?” Nate asked. “Little lambs, all ripe for us to train up and scare the shit out of.”

 “It’ll take months before they’re properly trained,” Brendan muttered.

 Nate nodded. “Probably, but they aren’t the Hero of Ambros-”

With an annoyed snarl, Brendan turned and started walking along the bridge.

 “You keep going towards work, you’re gonna hear that a thousand times,” Nate warned, following him. “That’s what they’re calling you, the Hero of Ambros-”

 “Will you shut up?” Brendan muttered, stopping and turning to glare at Nate. “I get it. I don’t need you saying it-”

 “They won’t let you in the building. It’s one thing to have you drinking yourself to death at home, another to go to work and start spouting off at people-”

 “I’m not spouting off at people, I’m spouting off to you,” Brendan muttered as Nate caught up. “You don’t count.”

 Nate flashed him a grin as they fell into step together and Nate slung an arm over his shoulder. “You really want to go to work?” he asked with a sigh.

 “I can’t sit at home,” Brendan said frankly, wincing slightly at how that sounded.

 “Yeah,” Nate said with a last squeeze as he dropped his arm. “I know,” he nodded and then glanced at him. “But work? You couldn’t just go to the pub and watch the match?”

xxx

Being back in the office was almost like coming home. After the grandeur of the rest of the building the office always looked run down and messy. It was good though; it didn’t look like a museum like the rest of the building. Instead the room, with its stacks of paper work and ancient looking computers, chipped desks and ugly carpet, looked familiar and easy, Brendan thought as he sat at his desk. Functional. 

He had a few pictures wedged into the lining of his notice board – one from a date he and Liaden had been on, a cheap Kodak one from their wedding and one of their son Danny on his fifth birthday which he should probably replace now, given that the photograph was three years old.

There was also one of his eldest, hideously out of date as the toddler peered up curiously at the camera and squinted in the summer sun. It had been taken a few months after Nicolas’ first birthday. Brendan had been looking after him  in the garden (in the shade because at the grand old age of seventeen he’d been attempting to be responsible and shit), but the baby had to have had a different plan and had crawled out into the sun then looked annoyed at being called back…

Tentatively, Brendan dragged a finger down the picture, wishing that just for a second-

“You shouldn’t be here,” Boss said behind him, shattering the memory.

“I can’t be at home,” Brendan said quietly as he dropped his finger from the picture and turned.

As if being weighed and measured, Brendan waited patiently while Boss stared at him, cold blue eyes almost shocking in his weathered face. “You can be the fucking secretary then,” Boss decided, turning on his heel, large bulk weaving through the desks without hunching or seeming to manoeuvre. Instead, the desks looked as if, overtime, they’d simply moved to safe places to avoid being in his way as he patrolled the area.

Brendan met Nate’s eyes as he sat across from him. “Teacher’s pet,” Nate muttered and threw him a file. “Be a dear and make that look pretty for a review meeting, would ya?”

The file was dog-eared, falling apart, and most of the papers were scrunched and had tea stains.

“It’s a miracle you manage to get anything through a trial,” Brendan sighed, pulling the folder across the desk to start ordering it.

“Funny, it’s one of yours that I took.”

Bugger. Brendan winced when he saw his own scribbles on some of the earlier forms and collected research. Avoiding Nate’s gaze, he started to attempt to sort it out. Paperwork really was dull.

Which was why he was almost relieved when Boss came stomping through the office ten minutes later. “Poppy’s gone fucking ill,” Boss snarled to them all.

“Labour,” Eleanor corrected, sounding almost bored as she called out from the booth behind Brendan. “It’s called labour, not illness. And she did warn you.”

Nate caught Brendan’s eye with a grin and shook his head. Amused, Brendan continued to sort through the folder that he must have put together half asleep or while severely pissed.

A shadow fell over his desk and Brendan paused, feeling a strange sense of impending doom.

“You wanna be useful?” Boss asked.

It was tempting to say no but, knowing Boss, he would just throw Brendan out and demand that he return home to the silence, to thinking and remembering and-

“What do you need?” Brendan asked with a wince, turning to face Boss properly.

“Induction lecture. There’s a power-point and everything.”

No.

“You want me to give a lecture to those kids?” Brendan asked in horror. “You do it: you’re their bloody future Boss.”

Boss folded his arms. “I’m your current Boss. Do as I say or I’ll be your future ex-Boss.”

Nate sniggered.

“You volunteering, Summers?” Boss snapped, gaze darting to Nate.

“No Boss,” Nate said quickly. “Was just impressed by your quick wit.”

“Get out of my arse, Summers,” Boss muttered as he refocused his attention on Brendan. “I can’t put you on active duty and I need someone to give the lecture. Just…treat them like morons. Explain anything and everything. Hold a fucking Q and A session for all I care.”

Brendan leaned back in the seat, trying to think of-

“Or,” Boss added thoughtfully. “You could go home.”

Bastard.

Smiling tightly, Brendan nodded. “Where is it?” he asked, pained.