#so she has. a pan. and salt shakers.

[nebulouswinds]

got a move date (forced by sister)! this weekend or next. which is. so incredibly quick comparatively. it sucks. just got used to the idea we'd be here a hot minute yet. gl to her when shes living in an empty house bc nothing here is hers bc she put no effort into building a home.

[salllzy]

Sal's snippets #13 part 1 (hidden in the shadows #5 part 1)

Black drool dripped on the floor as Alastor snarled at them, his giant teeth were on display as he kept his fawn close to him. His precious, sweet fawn. His fawn that they were trying to take away from him. "Dad." The soft sigh and gentle hands that cupped his face had the snarl dying as he turned his attention to her. "Martha and Margret will be back soon and I would like to continue cooking." A growl broke free as he listened to her words, before he could shadow them away to somewhere else, two sheep demonesses appeared. Each one of them holding a bag. "Excellent, can you put it down on the table?" Both of them nodded their heads and did as they were asked before they left the kitchen to return to their normal duties, they knew that they weren't going to be seeing their boss anytime soon. Sarah wiggled in her dad's grip, eventually, he got the message and placed her on the floor. His giant hulking form made sure that no one could see her, Sarah kept her attention on cooking and made sure that her dad could see her at all times. So she did what she always did when he got like this she talked while she cooked. "So I was thinking that I could make a venison roast to go with the sauce, didn't have enough time to go to the butchers so regular meat it is. Also that last batch of sinner meat tasted slightly off, although I don't eat it all the time so it could just be a case of me not being used to it. Can you pass me the salt?" There was a grumble as a giant hand passed the small salt shaker, she took the salt shaker from her dad. "Thank you. Where was I? Ah, yes, I have no idea who keeps the kitchen stocked but there was hardly anything in the cupboards, you'd think that having a royal or two living in it. They would have better food at least, no, all I found was salt, some out-of-date pepper and mouldy spices that I am not touching in this life or the next." She began to chop the vegetables as she moved the knife across the vegetables, she noticed that her dad was shrinking slightly. It wasn't a massive change and nor was it a noticeable one. But it was there. So she continued as she had been. "Anyway, you won't believe the information I have been getting lately. Although I would call it gossip more than anything else. I swear that the citizens of Hell need something better to do." She tossed the chopped vegetables into the pan and began to cook them. She added a knob of butter to the pan. "So Martha told me that Mister McColm, you know the bat demon that likes to peep on me when he thinks that no one is looking? Well, Marath told me that his wife found out and she castrated him at the kitchen table while the rest of the family watched. So I have decided to send the woman a gift basket, she deserves it." She took the pan off the heat and took the vegetables out of the pan and began to plate them. Alastor had begun to shrink to the point that it was noticeable, by now everyone had noticed that he was almost at his normal height and his eyes were slowly turning back to normal. "Work has been horrendous lately, I swear that most demons don't have a brain in their heads and instead use the one between their legs. She began to sear the venison in a hot pan, the meat hissed and began to brown as she seared it. Alastor still towered over his daughter, he took the pan from her hands and gestured for her to sit on a stool. She sighed and shook her head as she sat on the stool. "As much as I love my job, I will admit that there are times that I want to take an angelic bullet to the brain. I swear that what some call important information is just gossip and regurgitated bullshit that has no substance." Two glasses appeared in front of her, and a bottle of whiskey appeared next to them, she wasted no time in opening the bottle and pouring them both a few drams of whiskey.

[ladylynse]

Chapter 12 [FF | AO3] of Revision: Maddie can’t deny it any longer. If ectoplasm can become blood, there’s more to this story than she ever realized.

Beginning | Previous

-|-

The ghost dog stopped growling, but Maddie couldn’t exactly breathe a sigh of relief yet. It hadn’t taken anything from her, and she wasn’t sure if it would.

Her eyes caught on its collar. “What do you say, Cujo? Do you want a treat?” She waved the cookie for emphasis, but she’d seen its ears perk up at the name.

She’d never called it by its name before.

She hadn’t known its name before.

She’d never gotten close enough to it to notice its name before.

There would be a lot of firsts from here on out, assuming things went the way she hoped they would.

“Normally you couldn’t have this because it has chocolate chips in it,” she cooed, trying to convey with her tone what she couldn’t with words, “but you’re a ghost, yes, you are, which means that doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Not like a few chocolate chips would take out a dog that size anyway,” Alicia muttered, and Maddie had no compunctions about driving her elbow into her sister’s side.

Overriding Alicia’s yelp, Maddie said, “Here you go, Cujo! Here’s a treat for you.” She tossed the cookie, and the dog swallowed it whole.

And then it shrunk in size until it was the little pup it had been when it had first come through the ghost portal—which had already vanished at some point when she’d been distracted earlier, from the looks of it.

She hadn’t been sure that would work, but maybe it appreciated that she was trying, if it had enough concept of what she was doing to understand that.

Or maybe Danny had told it that threats were fine but maiming was off the table.

Either way, she wasn’t going to bet on its good mood lasting if it changed so easily.

“Are you looking for Danny, Cujo? Are you looking for Phantom?” She had no idea what name the ghost dog associated with Danny. She had no idea if the ghost dog understood what she was saying. Tone would only get her so far, but she had to try.

“Hey, little buddy,” Alicia said, getting down on one knee and holding out a hand. The ghost sniffed and then let her scratch it behind the ears. “We don’t know where Danny went, but it must be pretty important if you came to find him, eh? Is there something we can do to help?”

Personally, Maddie thought Alicia was banking on the ghost dog understanding a good deal more than she was.

Cujo whined.

“Yeah, you’re a good boy who just wants to help,” Alicia said as she continued to pet the ghost as if it were a real dog, “so how about we help you, yeah? Which of the kids needs our help?”

“It’s not going to be able to answer you,” Maddie murmured, and Alicia shot her a skeptical look.

“Have a bit of faith, won’t you? Once he knows we ain’t gonna do more harm than good, he might take us where we need to be.”

Well, the ghost dog hadn’t tried to bite Alicia’s hand off, so Maddie supposed there might be some truth in that after all.

Although—

Wait.

“You said you didn’t know where Danny was going, but you do. He’s going to talk to Danielle, and you know where she is.”

Alicia huffed. “He never said he was going straight there, and I doubt he will if he’s worried about being followed.” She turned her attention back to Cujo. “You just missed him, boy, but I’m sure you can sniff out where he’s been and find him back there again.”

She was still being very careful not to mention their location in Maddie’s hearing.

Not knowing what else to do, Maddie gave Cujo another cookie, hoping her son would show up in the meantime.

He didn’t.

Cujo didn’t leave them, either.

Maddie wasn’t wearing her HAZMAT suit. She was still in borrowed clothes. She had no containment devices in her pockets, no weapons up her sleeves, nothing within arm’s reach that would help her fight a ghost unless she wanted to take it on with Alicia’s cast iron frying pan and a salt shaker—neither of which worked well (or sometimes at all) on the ghosts they’d encountered in Amity Park, judging by the preliminary tests she and Jack had conducted. Any ghost that was more than a fleeting memory of who they’d been when they were alive was too strong to be contained by those methods, and those that appeared to have formed naturally from semi-sentient ectoplasm weren’t affected at all. There were herbs—

No. No, just because the ghost dog had come here, it didn’t mean the trouble on the other end was a ghost.

It might be something—someone—she could defeat without any of that.

Even unarmed, she could hold her own against humans.

So could Alicia.

That was one thing they still had in common.

All right, then. Maybe this was another thing Alicia was right about. Cujo must be looking for Danny—this encounter would hardly have gone half as well if the ghost had been after her—and if it (he) had enough sentience to do that, she should stop selling it (him) short.

Maddie dropped to a crouch beside Alicia and held out her own hand towards the ghost dog. “Will you take us to where we can help?”

Cujo sniffed at her hand and licked it clean of crumbs before sniffing around and scratching at the floor by their feet, which Maddie supposed counted as progress but didn’t really help in the grand scheme of things.

Then again, she hadn’t really expected this ghost to suddenly start talking—or understanding, for that matter.

Maddie glanced at her sister and asked in a low voice, “Do you really think there’s trouble? Cujo’s shown up back in Amity Park to play with Phantom more than once.” Three days ago, she’d have said to terrorize various neighbourhoods, but her perspective had shifted a bit since then. It had shifted in the last three minutes, really, never mind three days. She wondered if it would ever stop, but stopping wasn’t necessarily a good thing. She wouldn’t turn up her nose at a plateau, though. “If he tracked Danny here….”

Alicia pursed her lips. “I’m still worried about the kids.” To Cujo, she said, “Hey, buddy, do you think you could dig us a tunnel to wherever you need us to be? Do you think you could do that? For Danny?” Her hand was empty, but she drew it back as if to throw something and sent in an arc towards the floor. “C’mon, Cujo, let’s go!”

Cujo yipped.

Even as Maddie watched in astonished disbelief, he started to paw more vigorously at the kitchen floor. Instead of leaving scratches in the wood, though, she started to see the lurid green she associated with ectoplasm shining through.

The patch grew, and she feared Cujo might disappear into it entirely, but even once the would-be portal was large enough to fit him, he stayed. And dug, as much as he could dig without harming anything in the physical realm. It looked like some special movie effect. He stood over what seemed to be a glowing green puddle, scratching at the edges until it was large enough for a human to tumble through, and then—

Then, something about the puddle—the portal—changed.

The green flared brighter and then took on the appearance of a sun-stained pop bottle. It seemed…thin. Flimsy. Brittle.

And not entirely green, as she got a glimpse at the thinner parts.

Beside her, Alicia had gone quiet, but the sound of her sharp intake of breath told Maddie she’d recognized something in the warped almost-image Maddie herself hadn’t.

“What? What is it?”

“Danielle’s in trouble,” she said, reaching forward to grab Cujo’s collar with one hand and Maddie’s arm with the other just as Cujo broke through.

-|-

An ear-piercing trilling sounded through the air, and Jazz jumped and spilled half the contents of her coffee mug.

Mostly on the floor as opposed to herself, fortunately.

She abandoned her mug on the counter and grabbed a tea towel to blot at her clothes, thankful now that it was closer to lukewarm than scalding.

“Ah, you’ll have to excuse me,” Vlad said as he got smoothly to his feet. “That means it’s time to feed my cat.”

Normally, Jazz wouldn’t buy an excuse as weak as that, even though she knew cats typically either disappeared the moment company showed up or were immediately demanding attention, but Danny had mentioned something about Vlad and a cat, hadn’t he?

Still.

She couldn’t just trust him.

“You have a cat?” Jazz echoed as Vlad opened a hidden panel in the wall by the light switch and silenced the constant ringing. “Did you lock it in a room or something?”

“She’s upstairs.”

“And you need an alarm to remind you when to feed her? Shouldn’t she be coming to you demanding to be fed? Especially if this is the time you usually feed her?”

“She’s upstairs,” Vlad repeated as if that explained everything. Maybe he’d locked her in a room—or series of rooms—if she hadn’t shown up yet. Maybe Jazz could call animal welfare on him? That might depend on how healthy the cat looked….

“I’ll come with you,” Jazz said even as Vlad shook his head and told her there was no need.

Tough.

She was going with him anyway.

Vlad must have resigned himself to this fact because the most he did was ask her to move aside so he could get into a cupboard that held what looked like crystal saucers. She’d think the extravagance was purely for show, except it was Vlad, and there were good odds that he truly didn’t want to use anything less.

A can of wet cat food was still a can of set cat food as far as Jazz was concerned, though. It was no doubt the best money could buy, at least if Vlad was putting his money where his mouth was, but Jazz took some comfort in the fact that the entire routine meant Vlad hadn’t been pulling her leg about the cat.

She trailed after him as he headed upstairs.

The cat, it turned out, had been locked into a series of rooms, but to Vlad’s credit—if Jazz were being generous enough to give him any credit—it included a screened off outdoor play area at the back of the house that seemed to span the width of at least two rooms.

She couldn’t remember it being there the last time she’d been in his backyard, but she hardly made a habit of being in Vlad’s backyard.

Jazz joined Vlad on the deck and leaned against one of the cat trees, watching him as he put down the full saucer, picked up the empty one, and traded the old water bowl for a fresh one. “Where’s your cat?”

Before he could answer, Jazz heard a hiss from somewhere above her.

She looked, but she still couldn’t see the cat.

“Did you get a ghost cat?”

“I assure you, Maddie is perfectly alive. She is simply discerning about those she allows to touch her.”

And see her, apparently.

Jazz made a face. “You named her Maddie?”

“If you could see her, I’m sure you’d agree she looks like a Maddie.”

Jazz was sure she wouldn’t agree, but whatever. Better Vlad have a cat than keep up the creepy pining after her happily married mother. This was improvement. Not a lot of improvement, but still improvement. “Okay. Great. You fed your cat who hates anyone who isn’t you. Now will you finally be honest with me? About this whole situation with Danny and Danielle and whatever garbage you’ve been feeding Mom?”

She wasn’t expecting him to agree.

She wasn’t expecting him to disappear, either.

Crud.

Jazz lunged forward to grab at where Vlad had been, but her hands closed on nothing but air. Either he’d turned intangible at the same time or he’d already moved. She spun and raced for the door instead. It was still closed, but with Vlad’s ghost powers, that wouldn’t matter. She’d have to take the time to open it; he wouldn’t.

Jazz grabbed at the door handle, but it wouldn’t turn. “Vlad?” She pounded on the door with the heel of her hand. “This isn’t funny! Let me out!”

No answer.

Crud, crud, crud.

“This is false imprisonment, you know!”

Nothing.

When she got out of here, she was going to kill him.

Jazz glanced behind her, but Vlad’s cat hadn’t emerged from her hiding spot. Jazz scowled. Feeding time, her foot. Whatever that alarm had been for, it hadn’t been the cat.

She pounded on the door a few more times for good measure, screaming the obscenities she hadn’t voiced earlier, and then shook out her stinging hand. She could get out of this. She just needed to figure out how.

It wasn’t likely that Vlad had spared any expense building the cat structure, but Jazz wouldn’t let the disembodied hissing deter her from looking for weak spots she could exploit. Or makeshift tools, come to that. She’d hardly had a chance to explore these rooms. There had to be something.

Maybe, if she could find herself something nice and solid, she could just try to punch a hole straight through the wall. It would serve Vlad right for trapping her in here. She’d need to avoid the support beams, which would likely require a more reliable method than knocking on the wall, but if she got desperate enough, she’d take her chances.

Jazz glanced at the door again.

The lock was on the other side.

The hinges were not.

If she could find something to help her get the hinges out, could she open the door from the other side? Even if it was locked? Could she open it enough to create a weak spot where she could kick her way to freedom without worrying about breaking something on a bad swing? It was wood, not metal. Kicking a hole it in should be possible. Maybe not if the door was solid wood—something she’d happily check with any convenient inanimate object she could pry loose—but then again, that might just make it more difficult. Not impossible.

Jazz touched the Fenton Phone on her ear to switch her mic back on. “Sam, Tucker, I hit a little snag, but I’m going to recover and get back on Vlad as soon as I can. Any updates on Dad?”

“No,” was Tucker’s reply.

“Define ‘a little snag’,” was Sam’s.

“Some alarm went off and Vlad locked me upstairs with his cat.”

“I’m sensing a story there,” Tucker said, “but that’ll have to be for later. I thought you disabled his alarms.”

“So did I. Maybe I did it wrong. Or maybe he re-enabled it with a clone or something once we were back in the kitchen. I can only stop what I can see.”

“And now you can’t see anything. Because he locked you in with Maddie the cat.”

Leave it to Tucker to point out the obvious. “I’m working on it. This is a setback, not a victory for him.” She bit her lip. “You’ve really got nothing on Dad? Still?”

“Sorry.” Sam’s voice sounded apologetic. “Maybe try his cell phone in case he came back through a natural portal? He could’ve hit one early on, and that would explain why no one has seen him.”

Yes, it would.

It wouldn’t explain why Jack hadn’t called them, though.

Even if he’d arrived in a dead zone, he was using the Spectre Speeder. That thing had been designed to keep up with ghosts. He could have been spat out into the middle of the open ocean and still made landfall by now, right? It had been hours since anyone had started to look for him and longer still since he’d left for the Ghost Zone. Besides, the Spectre Speeder had a GPS system. He wouldn’t be lost.

Failing that, Jazz was fairly sure they’d installed a satellite phone as part of the Spectre Speeder itself. It went hand in hand with the navigational system. Not every system would fail. That would be enough. Something would be enough.

Wouldn’t it?

Danny had told her time travel was possible. Once. In an offhanded comment he had refused to elaborate upon.

The iron vice in Jazz’s chest that she was refusing to acknowledge tightened around her lungs.

They’d find Jack.

They had to.

He couldn’t go missing now that they’d finally found Danny—or, at least, now that Danny had let himself be found.

“If you try phoning and don’t get an answer,” added Tucker, “try not to think the worst. It might not be the worst. It might just be a dead zone. Which is painful, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not the worst.”

Jazz couldn’t fault Tucker for not remembering the finer details of the Spectre Speeder. Why would he bother learning about the satellite phone when all of them carried extra Fenton Phones, just in case?

“Yeah,” she said instead. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”

She sighed and slumped against the door, forehead first, and closed her eyes. She should be scavenging for supplies. She should be venturing into the demon cat’s territory in search of something useful. She should be doing something, figuring out some way out of this, figuring out how to fix everything—

She was just so tired.

“This is all Vlad’s fault,” she said aloud, but the words came out all wrong. It sounded like she was trying—poorly—to convince herself of them. “He saw an opportunity with Dad and took it. He wants the leverage.”

There.

That was a little more convincing.

Jack wasn’t leverage if he couldn’t be returned hale and whole and alive, right?

Jazz sucked in a breath, held it, and then let it out in a rush.

She would figure this out. She would fix this. Danny was safe. Danielle would be okay. They would find Jack. She might be able to smack that smug smile off Vlad’s lying face.

…She’d leave the punching to Danny this time. He’d need a fitting target. He might not have confirmed what she suspected about Danielle, but the lack of details with the little she did know painted a pretty good picture. It might not be completely accurate, but it would be accurate enough.

She’d figure out the right words to say to get through to their parents. She would. Or she’d catch Vlad in a lie. Or maybe, at the end of all of this, they’d see it for themselves, and she wouldn’t have to say anything.

That would be nice.

“Okay,” Jazz muttered. “First things first: get out of here before Vlad does something to somehow make this situation even worse.” Then she could figure out what to say to fix things.

Second things second, after all.

-|-

Maddie had still had the sensation of falling, even though her head told her she hadn’t always been falling down.

She’d rolled forward and down—and through, somehow—and now she was on her back. She’d fallen, but she’d also—come up? Unintentionally somersaulted but hadn’t gotten all the way back to her feet because she hadn’t expected her downward to suddenly become her upward?

However it had happened, she now lay on a bed of fescue, squinting up into the sunlight. “How—?”

“I don’t think we have time for questions,” Alicia said, looming into Maddie’s view and offering her a hand.

Maddie took it, letting Alicia pull her to her feet, and then she blinked as she recognized her surroundings. “Is this the old Jones place?” The farmyard up the road hadn’t had occupants on the home quarter since before Maddie had been born, but everyone in the community still used it as a landmark.

“Dottie wasn’t the only one I asked for a favour,” Alicia said. She hadn’t bothered to brush off the grass from the landing after their tumble through the portal, and more than a few broken strands had caught in her hair. Maddie figured she mustn’t look any better and started to brush herself off, but Alicia clicked her tongue. “Come on. Cujo might’ve come to fetch Danny, but if he did, he must’ve just missed Danny’s arrival, because I’m pretty sure your boy’s already here. He’ll know help’s on the way, too. Cujo already went inside.”

Now that Maddie was looking for it, she could see a steady green glow filtering through the windows on the second floor. The house had never been boarded up—she and Alicia had biked over here to explore as children on more than one occasion—and was mostly intact despite its lack of upkeep, but Maddie hadn’t ever— “Who even owns this place now?”

Alicia frowned at her before turning away and starting towards the house, though she did call over her shoulder, “If you have to ask questions, can you at least try to keep them relevant?”

Maddie caught up to her in a few quick strides and grabbed her arm. Alicia stopped, maybe because she was being nice and maybe because she didn’t want to be on the receiving end of the martial arts skills she knew Maddie regularly honed. “We should be smart about this if Danny’s fighting off a ghost. I don’t have any weapons on me.” Maddie’s world might have been turned on its head recently, practically everything she knew about ghosts very much included, but if Danny was fighting a hostile ghost, giving that ghost two targets to overshadow that Danny would hesitate to hurt wouldn’t help matters.

“Would you feel better if we grabbed a big stick or some rocks first?” Alicia shook free of Maddie’s grip and pointed down the overgrown lane. “Road’s over there if you want gravel.”

“I know where the road is,” Maddie said, not bothering to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “That’s not the point. Those won’t do anything against a ghost.”

“So we don’t fight it. We distract it and let Danny handle the fighting. From what I gather, he’s good at that. Too used to it not to be.”

Maddie sucked in a breath but didn’t want to let Alicia know how much that had stung. “We could be making matters worse.”

“Not doing anything might make matters worse, too. You wanna chance that after Cujo brought us here? I don’t think he’d’ve done that if he didn’t think we could help.”

Maddie bit her lip, watching as pink flashed against green.

Walking into the middle of a ghost fight unarmed was the worst thing she could think of doing, but her instincts hadn’t been doing her any favours lately.

“Okay,” she whispered, “but we stay low and try to keep out of sight until we see an opening to actually do some good and help.”

“You do that,” Alicia said. “I don’t do the hiding thing. I just go in there and do the doing thing.”

“But we don’t even know who’s inside!”

“And we won’t know if we don’t go in there. Not like you can sneak a peek through a window.”

“But—”

“How will knowing who it is help you anyway?” Alicia huffed. “You know what? You’re right. It is better if you stay out here. We don’t have Danielle’s answer yet. So I’ll go up and help, and you stay out here and shout if you see the wrong kind of backup coming.”

Maddie frowned. “You know perfectly well ghosts can make themselves invisible. If more come, I doubt they’d let me see them.”

“Yeah, see, that? That’s why you’re actually right this time. Because your first instinct was to correct me about ghosts instead of being concerned about the fact that Danielle is up there in the middle of a ghost fight she’s not equipped to handle—”

“I’ve seen Phantom fight. I know how good Danny is.”

“But we’re still both hoping that he’s up there instead of finding out for sure because we’re standing around yakking like we’ve got the time to waste when in reality Danielle could be trying to defend herself against whoever or whatever is up there with her!”

“What do you want me to say?” Maddie snapped, her temper getting the better of her. “What do you want me to do? Like you’ve told me, I can’t just fix this, and every move I make has the potential to make it worse! So what’s the right play here if you’re so wise? Do I go in there and try to help or stay out here because going in there might make everything ten times worse than it already is?”

“What do you think?”

“If I knew what to think, I wouldn’t be asking you!”

“You damn well know what I think by now,” Alicia shot back. “Sometimes there aren’t any right answers. Sometimes you make the wrong decision. But you need to accept that you made the wrong decision and set about making things right instead of dithering over the thing like feeling bad about it will make the entire mess go away. And if this is a thing that can’t be fixed? Then you fix the things that can be fixed and stop poking the bear.”

“You—” Maddie swallowed. “You really think this can’t be fixed?”

Alicia’s mouth twisted. “I think saying it can be fixed like it’s as simple as slapping a band-aid on a kid’s scrape is underestimating the complexity of the situation.”

That wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no, either.

“I’m going up. You decide if you want to follow or if you’re good out here.”

Maddie’s stomach twisted itself into new and interesting knots as she watched Alicia slip inside.

Without weapons, they couldn’t help. They’d be liabilities. They’d make the situation worse.

But Alicia had already gone inside, armed with nothing more than grit and determination, and Maddie….

Danielle was here, and maybe going in would make things worse. Maddie wasn’t dressed like she was in the lab, but she couldn’t change her face. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she kept her distance? Made it clear she wasn’t coming back to finish what she’d started?

Jazz would know, but Jazz wasn’t here to give Maddie the advice-laden lecture she sorely needed.

The kids might need help, though.

They might need her help.

Fighting a ghost was perhaps not the best way to try to show Danielle that she was trying to change, but trying to help might be a start.

Maddie took a deep breath and then closed the distance to the front door, wincing as the wood of the porch groaned beneath her weight. Inside was little better—the wood might be less weathered, but everything was coated in more than a fine layer of dust—but it never had been great, and if the stairs had taken Alicia’s weight, they’d take Maddie’s.

She couldn’t hear shouting from upstairs, though. That was unusual for a ghost fight, especially one that Phantom—Danny—was in. Banter was part and parcel of his game.

Maddie climbed the stairs, following Alicia’s tracks and skirting a broken cobweb that had tangled with the railing.

Every room upstairs was empty.

Well.

Every room was empty of people, anyway—Alicia included.

If they hadn’t argued outside, if she hadn’t hesitated—

It was too late for that.

She’d have to piece this together on her own.

One bedroom contained a mattress that clearly hadn’t been there long enough to become a home to mice or any other critters. A rumpled pillow sat on top of it, but the blanket was pulled half off the bed and stretched across the floor. The room was free of dust but not of scorched wallpaper, and even through her dust-clogged nose, she thought she could detect the sharp, ozone-like smell that spoke of the aftermath of a ghost fight.

Half-hoping for an entertaining light show or a setup had been wishful thinking, though.

Even if nothing else had given it away, the stains of blood and ectoplasm on the mattress and the wood around it were hard to miss, and some of them were bright enough to be fresh.

Not to mention the bugs. Not real ones; these were too large for that, at least for this area. These particular bugs were—or at least had been—electronic.

Maddie toed a blackened beetle that was a good six inches long, nudging it over to get a proper look at it and promptly wishing she hadn’t.

It looked entirely too much like the invention she’d been working on with Vlad to be anything but his work.

These weren’t electronic; they ran on ectoplasm, just like all her inventions with Jack, and the ectoplasm they used as a power source—

Pink against green.

Different sources of ectoplasm.

Vlad wouldn’t have any reason not to use his own when it was his most readily available supply and he was in no danger of destabilizing his ghost half.

She wasn’t smelling the aftermath of a ghost fight; she was smelling the aftermath of an attack by these—these robotic beetles, the same ones that were supposed to have the destroy part of the proposed search and destroy function disabled to expand their range. (Not that Maddie had gotten the impression that Vlad had implemented that idea in the first place, despite it being in his plans, but clearly a lot of her impressions had been wrong lately.)

There should only be one beetle. Vlad had said it was a prototype, and he hadn’t shown her earlier prototypes in their quest to see what might be most easily adapted to their purpose. At the time, she’d assumed it was because he hadn’t had any more, but between the tracker she’d found earlier and…and all of these…. She could see enough pieces (smashed or frozen or simply blasted to bits) between the very scorched, very intact robots that she knew the beetle she’d worked on either hadn’t been a prototype at all or it had been the prototype meant to improve upon whatever these were.

Meaning Vlad had lied to her.

Why was that so surprising when she knew what he could be like? When Jazz and Danny had both warned her what he could be like?

Why had she been so naïve as to think he wouldn’t lie to her when she was in a desperate situation?

Why did it hurt so much to realize he had?

Maddie didn’t have gloves, but she picked up the robot at her feet and examined it anyway. It was warm to the touch but not uncomfortably so. That was definitely a blaster coming out of its mouth, with the firing mechanism making up most of its head; its power source was embedded in the abdomen, and there was something in the thorax, something that was clearly meant to do something or it wouldn’t be there, but the firing proboscis told its own story.

So did the scorch marks on the walls, come to think of it.

The green glow had been steady. A shield, then, rather than repeated ectoblasts? If the ricochet—

Maddie stopped and shook her head. She didn’t have time to be analysing the aftermath of a ghost fight. She didn’t need to. She knew what had happened. Danielle had been here. Danny had been here. Alicia might have been here long enough to be responsible for the smashed remains of the last few beetles before they’d all disappeared, and Maddie wouldn’t be surprised to learn Cujo was responsible for their escape.

But the beetles.

Vlad’s inventions.

Not only were they much further along than anything he’d shown her, but they’d also explicitly arrived and attacked.

This wasn’t defense.

She’d seen enough fights to have an idea of what that looked like.

Something this small, already capable of flight and scuttling into nooks and crannies to hide, didn’t need to devote a lot of resources to defense. The blaster had been designed for offense. It could tilt to adjust the angle, but she couldn’t see a means for it to shape the ectoblast—the ectoplasm—around itself as a shield. That was hardly the most common ghost defense, anyway. It was much easier for a ghost to simply go intangible or invisible—

Wait.

Maddie looked at the thorax again, and then she looked around for another robot that hadn’t been reduced to scrap metal as a comparison.

Could that have been designed to output a pulse that would disrupt the light waves from—?

No.

No, she was getting sidetracked again.

That wasn’t the point.

The point was that these machines were inventions of Vlad’s, they’d found Danny and Danielle, and they’d attacked, despite Vlad’s insistence that he wanted to find the kids as much as she did.

He had never specifically said why he’d wanted to find them, so of course she’d assumed his reasons aligned with hers, but now—

Maddie might—might—have believed that one beetle attacking had been a mistake. A glitch. An error in programming. Vlad was careful, but mistakes were made, especially in a rush.

She wouldn’t believe the same mistake was responsible for the actions of the ten or fifteen robots that looked to be scattered in this room in various states of destruction. Something like that would’ve turned up in earlier testing, and these weren’t prototypes. They couldn’t be. They were too consistent. Vlad had never been one to make multiples of the same thing without testing it out first; he’d always complained that Jack was wasting resources whenever Jack had done that in his excitement. Maybe something had changed in the last twenty years, but—

Danny was right.

Alicia was right.

She hadn’t been listening.

Not to the right people, at any rate.

She’d been too worried about making the same mistake all over again that she’d been ignoring the evidence right in front of her, reasoning away the concerns of the people whose opinion should have mattered most—

Not anymore.

Maybe this wasn’t a situation that she could fix, but she had to try, and she had to start somewhere. Since she hadn’t really started before, despite her intentions, then she was going to start right now.

Or, rather, she was going to start once she found them again.

At least she knew the way back to Alicia’s from here.

-|-

Next

[deramin2]

Yay Betty the 1954 Stove had been fixed!

Part of the problem is that the oven temperature gages you can buy for home use are apparently garbage and mine was off by 30 degrees. So the actual oven thermometer was only off by 20 degrees.

Ol' Darryll has been in the business just long enough to know that back in the day there used to be adjusters for the thermostats so you could retune them as they aged instead of just replacing them.

Here's mine under the oven knob.

ID: A white porcelain stove edge with a chrome circular dial holder. In the center are three small flathead screws the center one has a thin metal triangular hand pointed up. End ID.

So what you do is loosen the two outer screws (do not remove) and that lets you adjust the center one colder or hotter.

Now this era of mechanical temperature sensors have an accuracy range of about 10 degrees up or down and are really sensitive. So he got it about 12 degrees under the dial temp and said if he adjusted it more it would probably end up too hot. So just nudge the dial a little over the line and it'll be fine. She'll never be as accurate as a modern digital thermometer but I'm also not a baker so it's fine for me. Mostly she's on tater tot duty.

This is such good news because a new temperature sensor is likely to be a hard to find antique part and this stove is before his time so he's not super familiar. Also the model and serial number have worn off for an extra part identifying challenge. (The temperature gauge itself might have a model number on it.)

Anyway, she's back plodding away after 69 years of continuous use. Not gonna get that kind of longevity out of a modern stove. (Just keep three carbon monoxide sensor in operation close by in case something goes wrong so she doesn't kill us all. She's also not as efficient as a modern stove (pilot lights and the oven takes a while to heat up). But she represents where we were as a society before corporate capitalism's enshitification of everything took hold. There's no reason we can't build appliances today that last at least 30 years, let alone 70.

I love her.

ID: Betty, a white and chrome 1952-1954 O'Keefe and Merritt range with 4 burners, a griddle, three crumb catcher trays, a regular oven with a window, a broiler oven with a solid door, a pan drawer, and a service door. She has a tall back with a cover that can be folded up like a half shelf or folded out to cover the burners. The top has a (broken) timer, a baking temperature guide, salt and pepper shakers, a long narrow light, an electrical plug and a sculptural top design. On top of it is a pie bird, a fancy salt shaker, and an herb jar. Over it is a huge white and chrome hood that has a red mechanical timer and magnetic red spice jars stuck to it. There are white subway tiles behind it. With a black accent line. The surrounding cabinets are mint green with butcher block tops. A microwave, antique toaster, copper kettle, cooking utensils jar, and various other useful things are in the counter or in shelves. End ID.

[whattywhatwhat]

This is very accurate. I have has this thing for almost 30 years. It cost me the best (although poorly paid) job I have ever had. You know, the one you'd do even if they didn't pay you.

Making simple food is one thing that people don't get. I want to make scrambled eggs with cheese. Easy peasy. Except I am in pain and every movement I make causes more pain. I am also exhausted before I begin. Now, I have to open the frig, remove the eggs, remove the cheese. Close the frig. Open the cupboard, remove the pan. Oh, forgot the butter. Open the frig, remove butter, close frig,close cupboard. Turn on the stove. Get the knife, open the butter, cut some butter to add to the pan. Put the knife in the sink. Open the egg carton, remove an egg, crack the egg into the pan, throw away the shell. repeat with more eggs. Get the spatula. Stir the eggs (I don't beat them first, too much extra effort). Oh, open the cheese, remove slices, tear into pieces and add to the eggs. Stir a bit til cheese melts and eggs are done. Forgot the plate. Duh. Open cupboard, reach up, remove plate, close cupboard so don't brain myself. Scoop eggs onto plate. Reach for salt, shake some on, return salt shaker. Reach for pepper, grind some, return grinder. Oops, forgot to turn off the burner, so do that. Move pan off that burner to cool. Open drawer, remove fork, close drawer, carry plate to table, sit, eat. Lie down on couch as I am now too exhausted to take the plate back to the kitchen. Also, I forgot to return the eggs butter, and cheese to the frig.

I did a course once where we had to list for an alien or whatever exactly how to make a peanut butter sandwich. How many of us forget to open the bread package, or unscrew the lid of the peanut butter jar, or one the many, many other minor steps that you don't even have to think about when you are healthy. Remember, each movement, hand picking up the fork, etc., causes pain and adds to the exhaustion your muscles feel constantly. Simple food is when someone brings you the already cooked food on a plate with silverware and then takes it all away when you are done. I live alone, and the cat does not have opposable thumbs, and wouldn't do any of that even is she did. Every bit of it is down to me. Think about it.

chronic fatigue weaves its way into everything. people love to tell disabled people they'd love to rest as much as we do, but they fail to understand how tired we are while we rest. we are not relaxed, we are generally pretty miserable, either from pain, irritability, or fatigue- which bleeds into every aspect of your life. being too fatigued to get up off of the couch means that you're too fatigued to get to the cupboard to pull out pans to attempt to start cooking.

the steps hidden within steps that are required to do a lot of tasks related to being a "functioning adult" are daunting, there are often way too many steps necessary to make "Simple" foods or do "simple" chores for disabled people to accomplish these tasks. chronic fatigue often means that even waking up from a nap or night's rest requires time to adjust to and power through

waking up is a process for me. im often no more alert and awake hours after i've woken than I am right after doing so. caffeine does not help fatigue- at least not at safe doses, for me, anyways. many days the act of moving from my bedroom to my living room is too much. taking dishes to the sink can be too exhausting. i have began falling asleep in front of the kitchen counter while standing because i realize the amount of steps required to clean the counters, or do the dishes, or prepare a meal that all of my energy instantly bleeds away

it's okay if you feel this way too. i have been dealing with chronic fatigue my entire life and it cost me my best paying job. i lost my ability to work because of it. it's not just you being "sleepy", you are genuinely too exhausted to function. you do NOT have the energy levels other people do, and that's okay. it's okay to let yourself be tired sometimes and address that instead of trying to pretend you're not tired.

i wish you good luck. you are loved

[ase-trollplays]

Thiomi's strife deck ImprovKind is actually kinda funny to think about in a fight

You sneak up on her from behind and she equips a can of air freshener and sprays it right in your face to blind you so she can run. She also has salt and pepper shakers sans caps so she can throw it in someone's eyes like pocket sand

She keeps metal and plastic forks for stabbing, the plastic forks especially bc she'll break off the prongs in wherever she manages to stab

She also has a cast iron pan, a piece of pipe, and a broken chair leg for melee weapons. There's a metal trash can lid for a makeshift shield, too.

She's a pain to fight bc her strife deck is totally unpredictable, and she's good at thinking on the fly. She doesn't want to kill, though; just distract or incapacitate so she can flee to safety.

[terezis]

this is unrelated to today’s episode of imbalance i just thought it’d be funny

Lup comes home to the mouth-watering smell of garlic sautéing on the stove. It's fucking delightful. She loves having a body again. Not enough people appreciate having a working nose; for a long moment, it's all she can do to stand in the hallway and inhale. Mmm. Fuck yeah, that's the good stuff. 

Then she kicks off her shoes and heads on into the kitchen, because after twelve years trapped inside an umbrella and several months as a lich, Lup also greatly enjoys having legs. It's the little things, you know? Taako's standing by stove, and when she enters, he glances back and waves her over to the counter.

"Oh, good, you're just in time," he says. "Come grate this parm. Where’s Barold?"

Lup rolls her eyes, but pads over and pulls a box grater out of the drawer. "What, no hello? Barry’s still filling out paperwork, he told me to go on ahead. What's cookin’?"

Taako sticks his tongue out and reaches past her for a bowl of diced tomatoes. "Pasta puttanesca," he says. The tomatoes sizzle finely as they're added to the pan. Lup watches as he stirs, then lowers the heat to let them simmer. "How was day one of Reaper school? You gank some ghouls yet? Slurp up any souls?"

"Nah, no soul slurping," Lup says. "That's day two." She eyes the skillet, then his mise en place. "You never add enough red pepper." She reaches for the little bowl.

Taako slaps at her hand. "Don't you fuckin' dare,” he says. “If you add it now it'll burn."

"Um, excuse you, it'll be nicely toasted." Lup elbows him back, then picks up the block of cheese and resolves to try again when he's not looking. "Orientation was good, though," she says. "Pretty standard onboarding. It reminded me of the IPRE a little, actually. Krav made us do icebreakers."

"What, like two truths and a lie?” Taako snorts and reaches for the salt. “’Course he did."

"I like him, though. He's a good egg."

"Who, Kravitz?"

"Yeah, he's a huge dork," she says, nibbling on a bit of cheese. "Like I almost feel bad about trying to kill him that one time. Did you know he collects board games?"

Taako thinks he's slick, but Lup catches the little smile on his face as he goes to taste the sauce. "Ch'yeah, I went over to his place after our third date, but instead of getting nasty—”

"Taako, gross!"

"—instead of getting nasty, we sat on the floor and played Fantasy Pokémon cards for three hours."

That startles a laugh out of her. "What?"

Taako shrugs. "Well, he kept demanding rematches. Took ‘im a while to realize I was transmuting the cards into fruit leather and eating them when he wasn't looking." He passes her the spoon. "Try this. More salt?"

"Too much salt. Also, oh my gods."

Taako purses his lips but thankfully puts down the salt shaker. "You shoulda seen the look on his face,” he says. “Fucking priceless. Ch’boy spent fuckin’ hours afterwards looking for a replacement deck, but like, totally worth it.”

Lup looks over at him, brows raised. Taako's still watching the sauce, but when he feels her eyes on him he glances up at her, frowning suspiciously. “What?”

“No, just—you did all that? Like you didn't blackmail Angus into scoping out the hobby shops for you? You went yourself?”

That gets him. Taako stiffens and he turns away again. “So what if I did?”

Lup whistles. "Damn, son. you got it bad, huh?"

Taako’s face reddens, and not from the heat of the stovetop. "I—no. Shut up!"

"Aw, I think it's sweet! Reminds me of me an' Bear."

Oh, he's definitely blushing. This is great. He tries to cover for it by stirring the olives and capers into the skillet, but jokes on him; Lup has eyes, and she can see the way his ears twitch. Taako says, "That's worse. You see how that's worse for me, your brother, right?"

Lup laughs. "I mean it! I'm glad. Today I watched your boy hold a conversation with a raven for thirty minutes. It wasn't even like, a familiar. It was just a regular bird."

"Yeah, he does that."

Lup nods decisively. "He's a keeper. You gotta be nice to him, you hear? Or I'll fill your socks with fruit punch. I will burn holes in all your favorite hats if you ever break this boy's heart. Lup's on Team Kravitz now. I’m gonna make t-shirts."

"Jokes on you, goofus, there are already holes in my hats. It's a fashion statement," Taako says. There's a pause, then he looks up, frowning. "Wait. Is this a shovel talk? You’re not—are you giving me a shovel talk right now?"

Lup grins.

"I’m your brother! Shouldn't you be giving Kravitz a shovel talk?" 

"Nah, everybody knows Krav's a sweetheart," Lup says. She hip checks him out of the way and sprinkles a little pepper into the sauce, while he’s distracted; some oregano, too, while she’s at it. "You, on the other hand..."

Taako brandishes his spoon at her, probably for emphasis. "I am your heart!" Mostly he’s emphasizing the way he just flicked sauce all over the wall.

"Give me that! I’m kidding. Mostly."

"Mostly," Taako scoffs.

Lup snatches the spoon away from him. "I'm just saying, he's sensitive! The other day Magnus jumped out at him from behind the couch and it scared him so bad he was all bones and no boy for like twenty minutes. You gotta be nice."

"I’m very nice!"

Lup raises a brow.

"I’m nice to Kravitz," Taako says, after a beat.

"Good!" Lup covers the skillet and leaves it to thicken. "Kravitz deserves a nice boy. Not a boy who eats his toys when he's not looking."

"I didn't eat the rare ones," Taako grumbles.

Lup laughs. "Is he coming over for dinner? He didn't say."

Taako dares a glance at her, eyes narrowed in suspicion like this is a trick. "Yeah. I've got a tart chilling in the ice box. He goes nutso for that shit, you’d think he’d never had a dessert before.”

Lup feels a little bad, because she was trying to offer him an olive branch, but Taako just makes it too easy for her. "Oh, you made his favorite, huh?"

Taako summons a Mage Hand to push her bodily out the door. “And we’re done! Out! Get out of my kitchen. You’re dead to me, goodbye!"

“Aw, since when is being dead a problem for you? Kravitz will be so sad!”

Taako’s outrage is music to her ears.

[caws5749]

mmm how about reader cooking dinner for lena so when lena gets home after a long day at l-corp she's greeted by the smell of home cooked food 🥺🥺 -kk :))

A/N: kk, you are ALWAYS speaking my language and this request is perfect

"Just a pinch of salt," you muttered, searching through the cabinets for the salt shaker. Lena's apartment kitchen cabinets were full, somehow, and you couldn't seem to find the one last ingredient. Sighing, you moved back to the stove, hoping the salt wasn't that important.

As you stirred the food around the frying pan, you heard the lock click, signifying your girlfriend returning home. She'd had a long day, evident by her sparse replies and denial to have lunch.

"Y/N?"

"In here," you answered, happy that the food was nearly ready.

"What is all this?" Lena asked, entering the kitchen. Her coat was still on, as were her heels.

"Dinner, for the beautiful woman who hasn't eaten all day, and who has had a very long day."

The relaxed smile that fell to her lips was enough to keep you happy for a lifetime, but you still wanted more for her. Turning off the stove, you moved towards her. She was expecting a hug and a kiss, but you reached for her belt and coat buttons, before taking her raincoat off and hanging it on the hook near the door.

"Heels," you murmured, holding her hand for balance as she took them off. From the audible sigh she let out after her bare feet touched the ground, you couldn't imagine how must pain she must have felt all day.

"That food smells amazing," Lena murmured, before finally pressing a gentle kiss to your lips.

"And it's going to get cold if we don't eat it." You moved away, but her hand on your arm stopped you.

"Thank you. This was so sweet, and I don't deserve you."

"On the contrary," you argued. "You deserve the entire world. All I've done is dinner, for my girlfriend who works far too hard."

[a-simple-imagine]

An Afterthought pt.2

Synopsis: Maeve shows up on your doorstep one night all sad and what not then leaves. Now it’s your turn to try and make amends. 

Pairing: Queen Maeve x fem!reader

Words: 4.1+

A/N - Did someone call for an angsty part 2 to a story i put out almost a year ago?? I got a fair few requests for this so here it is. I hope you enjoy it sorry if you don’t. request are open btw.

Warning - Swearing, violence and a very brief mention of zombies. 

Part 1 

Thoughts about Maeve are more frequent as of late. What was once just a passing thought as you spotted her face on magazine covers or painted on walls now became bothersome. What exactly had brought her to your doorstep that night? It had just been so unexpected. It left you so painfully curious for answers. There had to be more to the story. Not to mention, you also found yourself missing here once again: more so than before. A deep ache that came from an old forgotten wound that had begun to heal through time. A week had passed before you decided to do something stupid. It's amazing what you can find out online these days.

A bright sun sat high in the sky which left the air dry and you feeling warm. The hustle and bustle of city life was always your least favourite thing about living here and it was even worse today. Crowds of people stand behind a barrier that was maned by a few security guards. Did these people not having anything better to do than gawk at supes all day? You had basically scrubbed the internet to find out where she would be today which lead to a Twitter thread between someone called @MAEVESWIFE and @maelander who were talking about a vought commercial being shot outside the tower today. Queen Maeve and Homelander would both be there. But at least you personally knew here unlike these guys. It was kind of cool how many people idolised them. Working your way through the crowd, you earned some very dirty looks for trying to get to the front. Homelander and Maeve were in fact stood before a crew of people and a few cameras, smiling brightly and saying something you couldn't quite hear. Maeve seemingly spots you among the crowd so you wave a little. It was hard to figure out if she was happy or furious but she signals for a break and charged towards you. The crowd erupts with excitement as the Queen herself graces them with her presence and Homelander trails behind her. The woman offers nothing but polite smiles to the adoring fans as she takes your hand leading you along the length of the barrier and over to the threshold. It was safe to say that just about everyone who was still standing behind the security guards was very pissed off that you were getting special treatment.

"What are you doing here?" She growls through gritted teeth and a plastered on smile that disappears once you're out of view from prying eyes.

"I wanted to see you after-"

"Who's this?" You both turn to him and then back to each other.

"Oh my god, it's Homelander," You express, plastering on your brightest smile. Tall, Muscular with an award-winning smile. Bright blue eyes and silky blonde hair. The one and only Homelander walks up beside the two of you. It was almost humbling to be standing before the leader of the seven. He was so powerful- they both were and you were nothing short of ordinary.

"This is a closed set,"

Maeve didn't seem to know what to say exactly so you take it upon yourself to introduce yourself to him as her friend. Although you weren't even sure you could call yourself that at this point. It was a complicated relationship and considering you had broken up, it was the most appropriate label.

"Oh, She has never mentioned you,"

You're about to answer when Maeve takes your arm abruptly and pulls you away from the man. "Will you give us a second,"

A little confused, you give him a little wave goodbye paired with an awkward little smile. His eyes seem to trail after you but you think nothing of it.

"He's taller than expected," You muse aloud as attention falls back to your ex-girlfriend. Arms crossed over her chest and with a less than favourable expression on her face, it's pretty clear she isn't happy. Now she knows what it's like to have an ex show up unannounced.

"What do you want?" Maeve whisper yells at you. "I'm a little busy."

"I know just..." A quick glance to Homelander who had returned to his adoring fans. He had superhearing so you were pretty sure he could still hear you anyway. "after the other night I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I'm fine."

"If everything was fine you wouldn't show up on my doorstep." A casual shrug of your shoulders. Maeve may be able to fake a smile for the cameras but it was always pretty obvious to you when she was lying to you.

"I said I'm fine. You need to leave."

"Maeve," A soft sigh leaves your lips and you take her hand in yours; brushing your thumb over the back of her hand. "You can talk to me."

"Leave," She growls, pulling her hand away. "Please."

"We need to talk about the other night- you at least owe me that."

With a deep breath, Maeve turns on her heel and begins to walk away. "I'm busy,"

For a moment you just watched her walk away then jogged after her. "Then we can talk later- you could come by tonight? I'll even make dinner."

"Fine. Now leave."

This time you let her walk away and continue making her little advertisement. You wouldn't admit to her that you stuck around a little longer. Even got a chance to talk to Homelander a little before heading home. Chill dude, if not a little intimidating. Maybe it had been a stupid idea to invite your ex-girlfriend over for dinner but you wanted to get to the bottom of all this. You were actually a little nervous for her to arrive. Cooking had never been your specialty but you wanted everything to be perfect. A quick stop on the way home to buy groceries, you worked on dinner since getting home. pacing around as you waited for her to arrive. And waited. And waited. and waited. Lucky for the uneasy feeling that had settled in your stomach, Maeve didn't show up. It probably should have been expected. She had never been the most reliable person unless she was saving the world apparently.

A loud bang has you stirring awake before the sun. It was probably just the neighbours; a loud groan as you bury your face into the covers to go back to sleep. But the banging doesn't stop and you soon realise it's your door. Rolling over, you check your phone to see it's four in the morning. What could anyone want at this time in the morning? Dragging yourself from under the protection of the duvet, you cautiously head to the door. Peaking through the peephole to see... Queen Maeve. "Just give me a chance."

A chance? You weren't sure she deserved any more of those but you still unlock the door and pull it open. Glancing over her as she offers up a smile. Does she ever wear anything other than her armour? "Chances comes after nine am." You protest putting what little strength you had into trying to close the door. It was effortless on her end to keep it open.

"You invited me over, remember?"

"I invited you over for dinner, Maeve. No sane person has dinner at four in the morning."

"I forgot I had a team-up with Black Noir- Just let me in."

With a defeated sigh, you step aside and retire to the couch. Slumped down against the cushions, your head falls back as your eyes flutter closed. The click of your door infers she follows you inside.

"Tired?"

"Mhmm." You hum, nodding nonchalantly.

"Do you want me to make you some coffee?" Maeve suggests and again, you nod. She was familiar with the apartment so she knew where everything was but it still felt a little odd to have her wandering around with such familiarity. Who just shows up this early for a serious talk? A silence comes between the two of you. She may have attempted to keep the conversation going in between asking if you wanted coffee and delivering it to you but you didn't notice. Sitting up as a hand is gently placed against your shoulder, she hands over a large mug.

Blowing gently over the top before you take a tentative sip; warmth radiated from the liquid as it slips down your throat. Maeve joins you, perching on the edge of the couch as if she was ready to leave again. Maybe she was now regretting her decision to visit. You were kind of regretting opening the door instead of just going back to sleep instead. Since you were up anyway, might as well make the most of it.

"I can- I can make you breakfast or something if you want? Since you... missed dinner."

"Oh great, yeah," Maeve responds.

"What would you like? Cereal, toast, pancakes maybe?"

"Pancakes would be great." Of course, they would. She had to pick the option that required the most effort. You didn't mind making her something as much as you just didn't want to get up.

"Alright just... give me a moment to wake up."

"You won't wake up if you keep trying to go back to sleep," A snarky remark that earned her a small smile, your middle finger shoots up in response. The two of you just sit in silence together and every few seconds or so you'd take a sip of the coffee she made. It was all feeling a little awkward. Placing the mug down on the coffee table, you rise and get started on making breakfast. Maeve moves from the couch to the kitchen table, fiddling with the little salt and pepper shakers that always resided there. You don't know what to say and clearly, neither does she.

"So... how are things?" You question as you whisk the mixture together.

"I'm fine, I guess" She shrugs a little. You can't help but sigh a little. "What?"

"Nothing," you insist, grabbing the frying pan and place it over a medium heat; Adding a blob of butter and some oil. "If you don't want to talk Maeve then why did you bother to come over?"

Placing down the salt and pepper shaker with a clink, her attention falls to you. "because you asked."

"Yeah, I asked to talk about the other night. You were clearly messed up."

"Why is it so hard to believe I was just looking to fuck?"  It was really hard to believe but rather that you just knew it wasn't true. You were pretty sure Maeve had her choice of partners should she require one. So why come to your door?

"Because I'm not stupid" You pour the mixture into the pan with a satisfying sizzle. "I know you well enough to know that's bull."

"Maybe you don't know me as well as you thought."

Flipping the pancake over, you're taken back by her comment. Did you know Maeve as well as you thought? You had never expected her to just up and leave you one day and she did? She lived an entire superhero life that you knew nothing about. Maeve had always been pretty private when it came to that side of herself. You make another couple of pancakes before serving her up a plate.

"You aren't eating?"

"Too early," you return, taking up the seat opposite her. You watch as her fork pierce the surface of the pancake, cutting off a small piece and pop it into her mouth.

"Taste okay?"

"They're good," Mouth hidden behind the palm of her hand as she mumbled through her food. It lowered a moment later.  "I came over because my job is hard. I was the in the area, I was having a tough day."

"A tough day?" Getting any sort of details out of her was like pulling teeth. Why was she so reluctant to speak to you? If she didn't want to have this conversation she should have just no turned up like she hadn't for dinner. Would have saved the effort and you could be sleeping right now.

"Yeah,"

"That's that then." Hands slap against the table as you rise from the seat. No point in sticking around if this wasn't going anywhere.  "Case closed. When you're finished just leave the plate in the sink, I'm going back to bed."

"Seriously?"

"You woke me up at four am just to tell me you had a bad day. Shit, I have plenty of bad days, I don't show up at Vought tower." You start walking back towards your bedroom although your slow, hesitant even like you were just waiting for an excuse to turn back.

"I really was having a bad day," she repeats. "Really bad. And all I could think about was seeing you." And getting drunk, guess she just conveniently forgot about that part. There were many moments although brief where you were having a hard time and you thought about going to see Maeve. She used to be such a big part of your life it was almost an instinct to return to her for comfort. You never actually did obviously. As pathetic as her explanation was, it brought you back to the dining table. "Can I ask you something?"

"Depends."

"What's the worst thing you could ever imagine?"

"Huh?" What kind of question was that?

"Just answer it,"

Your mouth opens but no answer comes to mind at all. You were more curious about the reason behind it. It's too early for philosophical debates and it had nothing to do with anything you had been talking about. "uh, I don't know... post-apocalyptic zombie invasion, maybe?"

"Can you take this seriously?"

"I am," you huff. It was a stupid question anyway. "Zombies-"

"really freak you out, I remember." Strange thing to remember. It couldn't have come up in conversation often. It was a little funny the small things people remembered about each other. "I meant something that could actually happen though. I've seen some pretty fucked up shit."

"Like what?" She turns to you like she's about to say something but quickly stops herself. Continuing the eat the breakfast you so lovingly prepared. With the way she had been playing with her food, you suspected she no longer wanted it despite having hardly eaten any.

"Being a hero isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sometimes I wish I could just live a normal life or whatever"

"Nothing glamorous about a normal life," You stifle a yawn. "I think I'd rather be adored by millions and save the day but we aren't all lucky enough to have powers."

"Lucky," A bitter laugh. "I wouldn't call myself lucky."

"You're being so weird." You comment, a quirked brow.

"I would rather be adored by one person who truly means it."

"Guess that's all anyone wants. Supe or not."

Her eyes meet yours for a few seconds before dropping. Did she mean you? There was no doubt you had feelings for the woman and very much still did. But you can't imagine it's anything compared to the weirdos who worship the ground she walks on. They obviously didn't really know her and vice versa but still. There was an element of pureness that came with being so dedicated to someone. "You never answered my question."

"I don't know Maeve it's too early..." You grumble. "Do you want me to say something like war or famine or something?"

"Not unless it's the truth."

Everyone wished for world peace. Everyone wanted to feed the hungry. House the homeless. Basic answers that any decent person would come up with. It lacked originality. It lacked feeling. Everyone would probably have a more personal reason."What's yours?"

"Something happening to you... because of me."

"Really? That's the worst thing you can think of?" Didn't she just say she had seen a lot of messed up stuff and yet her concern resided with you? What did she think would happen? And didn't a broken heart technically count as something happening because of her? Shifting in your seat, you lean down onto the table before you. Thinking of your own answer. The worst thing you could imagine?

"I answered," she shrugs but doesn't elaborate. "Now you go."

"I guess... finding out you died," Should you admit something like that? "You're the strongest person I know. I still... care for you. I'm not sure I would handle it well- Is that a better answer?"

"It's sufficient."

"Sufficient? I really don't know what you want from me Maeve? I don't know what the worst thing is, okay? I'm too tired for this shit."

She places her cutlery carefully on the plate, pushing out her seat. "I should go."

"Maeve?"

"I'll go, you can go back to bed. I don't even know why I came here."

"No. Stay. I wanna talk."

" Let's just forget this ever happened." Brushing herself off, Maeve heads back towards the door. This whole back and forth was growing awfully tiresome. Every time you thought you scratched the surface of her mask, there was a new layer underneath more impenetrable than the last. Maybe you should just let her go? It'd be easier. It was probably for the best too but when she had shown up at your door the other night, you realised just how much you still wanted this. Still wanted her. She may have left you one day without any explanation but seeing her for the first time in a long time had brushed all rational thought aside. You were in love with her even now. Tears brimmed your eyes whether it was due to tiredness or a flush of emotions, it was unclear.

"If you walk out that door I'm done," You declare as confidently as you can. Hoping your sadness was hidden amongst the dim light that filled the entire room. "Don't bother showing up on my doorstep when you have a shitty day." Maeve pauses with her hand on the doorknob but only for a second before twisting the handle and pulling open the door. "Maeve...  just tell me what's going on with you, please."

"Everything I have done to you was to protect you." Final words as she leaves. The door clicking behind her. To protect you? From what? What was she even talking about anymore. Anger bubbles deep inside you and you find yourself charging after her. Bursting out into the chilly hallway, you catch her in the corner of your eye. She was leaning against the wall just outside your apartment basking in the flicker of the corridor light.

"Protect me from what?" You wonder quietly, taking a wary step closer. "I don't understand."

"...Homelander." Voice but a whisper mumbled into the darkness. Homelander? The Homelander? Why would you need protection from him, you didn't even know him? Plus he was like a beloved superhero and the last time you checked, superheroes were the good guys.

"You're scared of... the world's greatest superhero?"

"Never meet your heroes."

"Aren't you two like friends? You even dated him. Why are you scared of him?" Another step closer, you lay your hand tenderly on her shoulder. An attempt to support her even if you didn't understand the situation. "He didn't seem so bad when I met him yesterday. I actually spoke with him after."

"You spoke after? Why?" Maeve snarled swiftly making you back away a little only for her hand to snap around your wrist. Cold fingertips apply a deep pressure to your skin as if it's taking everything in her not to press harder. You swallow hard, confused by her anger. "I told you to leave"

"It- it's not a big deal. He just wanted to know more about us," Even you can hear the panic in your voice as you struggle to get the words out. It was a little embarrassing, to say the least, but you'd never really experienced this side of Maeve before. Her anger had never really been directed towards you.

"And you told him?"

"Yeah. He took it pretty well actually, I was surprised. "

"How can you be so fucking stupid?" Her grasp begins to stiffen around your wrist. Maeve was strong, inhumanly so. If she wanted to she could break every one of your bones like it was nothing. That never used to bother you so much but in this instance, your own weakness had never been more apparent.

"Maeve," You struggle against her grip, a pleading look as you meet the brown of her eyes. "...You're scaring me,"

Those magic words seemed to break the spell that had come over her and Maeve released you in an instant. Regret washing off her face in record time. "I'm sorry, okay- I'm sorry," You take a step back; the other hand rubbing at the wrist she just let go off. "I didn't mean to- I wouldn't hurt you."

"I... let's just go back inside." It's hard to pretend that didn't just happen. That Maeve didn't almost crush your wrist for doing the wrong thing. But it wasn't her fault, right? She just isn't herself at the moment. Her emotions got the best of her when she found out you told Homelander about your relationship. Warily, you hold out your hand in offering. It's a little shakey but you just hope she doesn't notice as she takes your hand and you lead the way back into your apartment. Shutting the door behind the two of you, you return to the couch. Sat on either ends so you're as far away as possible without being on the floor, things are feeling a little awkward now. You can't help but focus on your wrist, the feeling of her hand still lingers in a ghostly embrace. "I'm sorry I told Homelander about us."

"You didn't know..."Maeve lets out a heavy sigh as she turns to face you. "Homelander is a monster. He's hurt people just for looking at me funny- "

"Oh." A little surprising to hear. You had always kind of suspected Homelander was a bit of an arsehole but not that he was inherently a bad person. He saves people after all. You've seen him save people. He was basically on the news every other day or in the newspaper or trending on Twitter. There was no evidence to supporting Maeve's theory but you also had no reason not to trust her. She had no reason to lie to you.

"He's done atrocious things. He's made me do atrocious things. I was trying to protect you from him- and from myself,"

"...Why are you telling me this now?" Couldn't she have just told you all this from the beginning? It still didn't explain why she had just shown up the other day either? Clearly, something had happened between her and Homelander at least that's what you gathered from the context.

"To keep you safe," Maeve returns. "So you'll stop hating me."

"I could never hate you," An offer of a faint smile that may or may not betray you. When she had first left you, you were so filled with hatred but it was so hard to stay angry at her. You didn't hate her anymore but you couldn't say you were simply over it now. "It's not your fault."

"It is though- I put you in this situation. I let those people die,"

"What are you talking about? What people?" Every time Maeve opened her mouth you grew slightly more confused and you didn't know how to help. Watching her with an inquisitive eye, you notice as a tear or two begins to glide down her rose-tinted cheeks. It was enough to bring your walls crashing down. Whatever she was talking about must be really affecting her for her to start crying. A hand reaches out only to pull back as you remember what happened last time. You take a deep breath, sitting up a little straighter.

"I should have stood up to him but I was scared."

"Scared of Homelander," You repeat. Still trying to process the information.

"I don't want to be a monster like him." Against your better judgement, this time you shuffle closer and entice her into a soothing hug. Holding onto her tightly like you never wanted to let go because frankly, you didn't. Maeve was warm, she was safe. You wanted to offer her that same sense of comfort even if it was impossible. You wanted to drown in her affection.

"You're not a monster, Maeve" The other woman melts into your caring touch, burying her face in the crook of your neck. You were so used to confident, super-strong Maeve that it was a little weird to have her be so vulnerable. Especially sober. But even your words weren't enough to trick your brain into quelling that twinge of fear that now resides in you. "Whatever's going on, I'm gonna help you get through it. I promise."

[tomtenadia]

Till food do us part - Rowaelin one shot

Good evening everyone.

I am back with a quick Rowaelin oneshot. This short fic came to me last week while I was in my hotel in Inveress getting ready to check out. Once on the train back to Aberdeen I had two hours and a half and I wrote this.

It’s a simple story and  just pure undiluted Rowaelin domestic fluff. I think I had to compensate for the angst in ALB. There’s no angst, just our two lovebirds being their adorable selves. 

The title is ridiculous. It took me more time to choose it than to write the whole fic. And it’s still bad. Sorry, I hate choosing titles.

Ach well, I’ll leave you to it. Enjoy.

Word count: 2.5k 

Aelin was in the kitchen all alone, in front of her on the counter she had all the pots and pans she would require to prepare her meal. At one side she had her cooking book and on the opposite side she had lined up all the ingredients needed. 

That was meant to be a special night and she wanted everything to be perfect. And because of that she had been nervous. She was not good at cooking like her boyfriend so for her to prepare a full meal from scratch was a monumental task. She just hoped not to burn down the house. He had been teaching her slowly, starting with very simple things but that evening, no matter what she was going to cook for him.

The plan was to prepare everything a part from the dessert which she had bought from the local bakery. Although her boyfriend was not a fan of sugary stuff, the night called for dessert. 

She and Rowan had been together for five years. They worked for the same company but on different floors and departments. She was in marketing, Rowan was part of the legal team and was one of the company’s lawyers.

They had a bit of a turbulent start. They met in the cafeteria and Rowan had the bad habit of being always a bit of ahead of her in the queue and always take the last portion of the food she wanted. Far too many times she had ended up eating food she did not want because of him. She had even tried to go to lunch at a different times but the man was always there. Her own personal hell. So after a whole month of that she had decided to take matter in her own hands and slowly plan her revenge. Rowan was a creature of habit, so she spent a few weeks studying him and his routine. Aelin had learned he loved to eat alone. He had friends but the lunch hour was his time to wind down and he did not want any drama or any shop talk. That would make her plan much easier. Eventually she hatched her plan. She started swapping the content of the salt and pepper shakers or even replacing them with other stuff. Aelin had also started making his table sticky or cluttering with empty trays. He still had no idea it was her but she enjoyed watching him muttering and probably cursing whoever did that to him. She had quickly learned that the man was hard to tick off completely. She would notice some small signs of irritation but that’s all the reaction she got, so she decided it was time to go big. 

And her final plan came into existence the day the cafeteria served mac and cheese and he took the last portion from her. She was fuming. If she could not have mac and cheese so wouldn’t he. 

She waited for him to make his way back to his table and then she walked straight into him. Their trays smashing against each others and the food landing on his shirt. She had muttered a weak sorry and had fled with a grin on her face.

She had later found out that she had made him late for an important meeting and caught hell from his boss Lorcan.

Until one day he started to retaliate. Apparently, she had found out, he knew all long it was her messing with his meals.

And so a long series of pranks had begun between them, most of them taking place in the cafeteria since that was the place they used to share the most.

However, sometimes along the way, Aelin realised pranking him was not fun anymore and that pesky feelings had started to take root in her.

Until one day he showed up in her office with two portions of mac and cheese from Emrys and a peace offering. They had the lunch in the privacy of her office, they talked and she realised very quickly that he was quite a fascinating man. Also, she would have lied to herself if she had ignored the fact that the man was hotness incarnated. He was tall and had a healthy muscular build. He would always wear impeccable tailored suits which made his backside very prominent and more than once her eyes had wandered. He had the most beautiful pine green eyes and she adored his silver hair.

Soon she had to admit that she had a crush on him. And then some.

And when Rowan finally asked her out she could not believe her ears. The sexiest man in the company wanted to go out with her. So she said yes.

Fast forward five years and Aelin was now cooking for their fifth anniversary and as a joke she had put mac and cheese on the menu. It was their dish and their own joke as well.

Aelin had a look at the clock and realised she had half an hour tops before he came back home.

While preparing mac and cheese she took a sip from the glass of wine at her side. She had bought two bottles of Rowan’s favourite wine and she had started the celebrations a bit earlier.

In the oven in the meantime, the pork roast and the potatoes were cooking and she was busy checking the food that she almost missed the sound of the front door opening and closing.

“I am home,” shouted a happy voice.

“Kitchen.” She shouted back.

When she stood she saw him in leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen, his arms at his chest and a strange grin on his face “you are cooking?” He asked surprised, raising an eye brow in a question.

Aelin grabbed a glass of wine, took a step closer to him and gave it to him “Happy anniversary, buzzard.” And she went to him for a kiss he did not deny it to her.

“Oh, so you waited five years for your final revenge and win with food poisoning.” Still leaning against the doorframe he took a sip of wine and looked at her with a smirk.

Aelin just glared at him “I can cook.”

“Aelin, I love you, but cooking is definitely not your strongest asset.”

She waved her wooden spoon in his face “I’ll show you.”

Rowan chuckled happily and stooped for a kiss “happy anniversary, menace.”

Aelin moved another step in his direction “now go,” and she patted his chest “get changed and let me finish.”

Half an hour later the dining table was all set, with some candles on to set the romantic mood and a new bottle of win in the middle. Everything looked perfect and she was chuffed.

“This looks lovely,” his voice reached her as he re entered the room and his arms wound around her waist.

“I hope it’s good as well.” She said while pulling back from the embrace and pushing him to his seat. 

“Let me help,” he offered but Aelin pushed him again.

“No, just sit down.”

Quickly she went to get the appetisers: she had prepared raw smoked salmon on oatcakes with cream cheese and chives. They had that at a party and they loved it and realised it was something easy to make and almost impossible for her to mess it up. The only thing she had to do was to assemble the ingredients in a nice display.

Rowan in the meantime poured some wine for both and made happy noises at the wine.

“Fancy,” he added, commenting on the appetiser.

“Easy mostly. I took inspiration from the last party we went to.”

Rowan took one of the oatcakes and she relaxed when she saw him smile. Oh well, at least if the rest of the meal was a disaster they could eat oatcakes and salmon.

“Did you have a good day at work?” She asked, she had a day off and she hadn’t seen him since the morning when he left for work.

“It’s the end of the month and as you can imagine Lorcan has been his unpleasant self.”

“I need these reports on the desk by the end of yesterday?” She said, imitating the man’s voice.

Rowan chuckled and took another oatcake “that’s the gist.”

Once the appetisers were over, Aelin stood and went to get the next course. That was the surprise and the dish that meant the most.

She brought the oven dish to the dining table.

“You made mac and cheese.” Rowan’s tone was full of love.

“I did.” She took his plate and was ready to serve him his portion. It looked great and for a moment she had hoped. The recipe was for the baked version and the crust at the top looked golden and crunchy. Then she dipped the spatula to cut it and terror took her. It was runny. 

“No, no, no, no, no…” she panicked.

“What happened?” Rowan stood and moved at her side.

“It happened that I should not be allowed to cook.” She sat on the chair and sniffled.

“I am sure it’s not that bad…”

“Ro,” Aelin almost shouted in frustration at his tone “you can drink it with a straw, mac and cheese is supposed to be creamy.”

He looked over “I think you put too much milk,” and with his hand he brushed her lower back in support.

Aelin started sobbing “I messed up the main dish. It was meant to be like the one we shared in my office.”

Rowan was about to reply when he smelled smoke “is something burning?”

“Holy fuck,” Aelin stood abruptly and ran to the kitchen and when she opened the oven a cloud of smoke engulfed her. The roast and the potatoes where charcoal. She sat dejected in front of the oven  and Rowan joined and sat at her side “you have the most useless girlfriend ever.”  

He brushed her hair off her face “ I do not.” A gentle kiss on her lips “my girl is brilliant, fearless, intelligent and very, very hot.” She gave him a wet chuckle. Gods, she loved him.

“I ruined our anniversary.”

Rowan stood and offered her his hand “you did not.” She took it and stood in front of him.

“We are going to Emrys, he does some amazing mac and cheese.”

“Fine,” she conceded.

Rowan cupped her face, refusing to let her be sad. He knew Aelin was not good at cooking and he had tried to teach her but once on her own she seemed to struggle. 

But as the boyfriend madly in love with her he was more than happy to cook for both, everyday, forever.

Aelin did not seem convinced and still pouted at her mess. Rowan noticed that and cupped her face in his hand and kissed het tenderly “Hey, it was a lovely gesture and I am proud of you.” He took her hand in his, “now let’s go.”

They got changed and not long after they were walking to Emrys. Rowan’s arm on around her shoulder.

Aelin looked up at him and noticed a strange light in his eyes and a small grin. Whatever it was, he did not seem bothered by her fiasco.

Once they reached Emrys froze and cursed the evening that was turning into pure hell “it’s Monday, they are close. We are two idiots.” But all Rowan did was to push her toward the front door.

“Ro, they are closed.”

“Shush,” he said gently placing his hand on her lower back.

A moment later Emrys’ smiling face appeared on the door “hello Rowan, come in, it’s all ready.” Said the man stepping aside to let them in.

Aelin was stunned. speechless. He had an evening planned.

She turned to him “did you know I was going to mess up so you had a plan b?” Her tone full with irritation at his lack of trust in her.

Rowan looked at her, his eyes dancing with mirth “I didn’t even know you were going to cook. I booked all of this over a week ago.” He told her “I knew our anniversary would fall on a Monday, so I asked Emrys and Malakai if it was okay to use the place for our dinner.”

She stood on her tiptoes “I love you.” And kissed him. Rowan took her hand and walked inside the main room of the restaurant and Aelin again was stunned. The whole room had been decorated with white fairy lights, the table had candles and there were kingsflames in a vase as well.

“Happy anniversary, Fireheart.” And pulled her to his chest “I hope you’ll love this.”

“It’s perfect,” she said to him, feeling teary.

They sat down and Malakai brought wine “Emrys is just finishing up the last few things, it should not be too long.” Explained the man while pouring the wine.

He came back a moment later and brought back freshly baked pitta bread and hummus “just as a starter.”

Aelin attacked the appetisers, realising she was starving.

Once the appetiser was out of the way Rowan took her hand.

“I am glad I burned dinner, this is so much better.”

They had gone to Emrys for their first date which turned out to be their favourite restaurant and slowly their weekly dinner treat. It had become their place pretty quickly.

She was talking to Rowan when she noticed Emrys walking to them with a large oven dish and when Aelin looked, she saw mac and cheese. And it looked incredible.

“Of course,” said Rowan at her expression and poured more wine. It was a good thing they walked. Emrys plated their dinner and then walked away with a Cheshire cat grin.

“Go on, tuck in,” Rowan said to her once he noticed her eager expression.

Aelin did so and almost moaned savagely. It was divine.

After a few bites Rowan put the fork down and took her hand again, brushing his thumb on the top of it “thank you for walking into me that day in the cafeteria.” He told her, his green eyes on her “I know we had our ups and downs but these five years with you have been incredible.” He stood and took her hand inviting her to follow him. She stood with him and Rowan pulled Aelin to his chest. She wanted to complain she was eating, but whatever he was doing it seemed important.

Violin music spread in the room and Aelin recognised one of her favourite pieces of classical music. He swayed gently as if to dance, placed her hand on his shoulder and held her, his hand on her lower back.

“And I hope we’ll have many more together.” Aelin looked up at him and nodded, emotions threatening to overwhelm her. He kissed her with passion and then he pulled back a little “Aelin, my fireheart, will you do me the honour of joining me in the next adventure of our life and become my wife?”

Aelin sobbed loudly “only if you promise to keep cooking for me.”

Rowan laughed “Always.”

She threw her arms around his neck “yes, yes I will marry you.”

Rowan placed the ring on her finger then lifted her in his arms and kissed her. 

He would cook for her, make her happy until his last day.

To whatever end.

[aceofspadegrass]

Cake! Heaven! Now!

Characters: Kuina Hikari, Ann Rizuna, Tatta Koudai

Genre: Fluff. It's Kuina and Ann baking a cake. Oh, and Tatta's there too. He's vibing. :D

1.5k words

Nobody really thought that much about food at the Beach.The kitchen was always well stocked, and people always offered to cook food for the many people that resided there, and by grand chances there were always a few cooks here or there. There was little guarantee that all the cooks would be the same by the end of the day, thanks to the threat of death looming over everyone within the Borderlands, but there wasn’t a shortage of good food.

Between the meal times, the kitchen was usually always empty, save for the occasional person who would sneak in for a snack or people coming in to restock the pantries and fridges. The doors were always open, and nobody really thought about using it for anything bad, since there was so much more things they could be focusing their time on. Like being drunk. Or singing All Star in the bathroom.

But that’s not what Kuina was here for, going through the pantries and looking for the items she needed. She had woken up that morning which a slight craving for cake, and after briefly hanging out with Chishiya and watching him turn a Rubik’s Cube into a salt shaker, she ended up in the kitchen.

Kuina was so deep in attempting to find the flour she didn’t notice someone walk into the kitchen and watch her until she found the flour and turn around, Kuina humming in mild surprise when she spotted Ann standing there and looking at all of the stuff she had set out.

“ What’s the occasion?” “ Hm?” Ann gestures to the baking supplies. “ You’re making a cake? For what occasion?" Kuina looks at the flour in her hand, then back up at Ann with a smile. “ Wanna make a cake with me, Ann?” Ann stands there silently, staring back. Kuina doesn’t falter, and she comes over and sets down the flour and goes to wash her hands. Ann ends up following her to the sink and washes her hands as well, Kuina flashing her another smile. “ Aww, you do!” “ I have nothing else to do, and I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.” Kuina chuckles, and she goes back to the little baking station she set up, opening up the bag of flour and grabbing a measuring cup. “ Yeah! Hey, maybe you can start with all the wet ingredients!” Ann nods, but she makes a detour to the oven first, preheating it. “ You almost forgot to preheat the oven, Kuina. We would’ve had to wait longer.” Kuina looks back, then giggles. “ Oh, whoops. Thanks Ann!” Ann merely nods, and she comes back, grabbing the other bowl and starting to add in the wet ingredients. She idly picks up the bag of cocoa powder, raising a curious eyebrow. “ A chocolate cake?”

“ Mmhmm. Thought I might as well have some pizzaz. Do you like chocolate cakes, Ann?” “ I prefer vanilla, actually, but chocolate isn’t that bad.” Ann stirs the mixture, glancing at the piece of paper that had the recipe on it so she didn’t use the wrong proportions. Kuina pours the cocoa powder into boiling water and stirs so it would become smooth, already finished with mixing up the dry ingredients. “ Vanilla’s a good flavour too. I think Chishiya would like vanilla, he seems like he wouldn’t want anything too exciting." “ I could see that.” Ann finishes mixing, and she adds it to the dry mixture slowly as Kuina starts mixing it together. The hot cocoa mixture went in last, Kuina making sure everything was properly incorporated, and soon they had a bowl full of chocolate cake mix.

She smiles, and she pokes a finger against the spatula and licks it off. “ Mmmm, cake mix~” “ That’s raw batter, you do realize that, right?” “ Yeah? So?” Kuina looks to Ann with a smile. “ Cake batter is good as hell! Here, try some!” She holds the chocolate batter covered spatula towards Ann, who just stares at it, then back up at Kuina. Kuina just kindly smiles at her, and Ann sighs, slowly pushing her hand away. “ I’m going to decline for now. I’m sure it’ll be just as good when it’s baked in the oven.” Ann says, and Kuina pouts a little playfully, her stick leaning against her lip and nearly threatening to fall off. It stays on, and Kuina picks up the bowl and goes over to the pans, which weren’t even lined. Kuina laughs a little, still holding the bowl as she looks over at Ann. “ Um…. Ann? A little help?” “ Did you forget to prep the pans as well?” Ann comes over, grabbing the cooking spray. Kuina just quietly laughs. “ The call of the cakes were pulling me in, you can’t blame me. I promise I’m not this forgetful, I just was excited to make some cake!” Ann sprays the pans down, then lines them with parchment paper. “ So it would seem. I believe you are quite capable of remembering, otherwise you would have never made it this far within this world. I can’t blame you, when something catch your attention, it’s hard to not focus on it.” Kuina nods excitedly. “ See? The call of the cake!” She starts pouring the batter into the pan, which was large enough to take all of the batter prepared comfortably, Kuina making sure to scrape the bowl for maximum chocolatey goodness. She sets the bowl down and takes the pan, going over to the oven and carefully sliding it in and closing the oven. There was a little egg timer nearby, Kuina picking it up and turning it to the 35 minute mark. She sets the egg down on the benchtop and nods in approval, staring at the oven. “ Mission success, one cake now baking!” Ann just offers a small amount of applause, Kuina beaming to herself. She turns around and holds her hand out for a high five, Ann raising an eyebrow again. “ Oh?” “ High five, Ann! We did it!” Kuina chirps, and she continues to hold her hand out. Ann looks at Kuina, then huffs with an amused smile, and meets her hand with her own, Kuina grinning even wider.

“ We did it.” Ann looks at the oven. “ I suppose you’re not going to be leaving the kitchen, are you." “ I mean, someone has to make sure the cake doesn’t burn the Beach down! Wouldn’t that be a terrifying sight to see.” Ann nods. “ That would certainly be quite unsettling to see. Hopefully it doesn’t happen any time soon.” “ Yeah, it’s pretty nice here.” Kuina smiles, knowing full well that there was a chance she may need to somehow escape unscathed if the event came.

“ So, while we wait then, what do you want to talk about?” Ann asks, and Kuina looks at her, eyes widening a little in surprise.

“ ‘We’? You’re staying with me?” Ann shrugs, crossing her arms over her chest. “ I see no reason why not. It would be pretty lonely staying here by yourself, and I would rather like to see the product of the cake we both had a hand in making.” Kuina smiles, and she ends up launching herself into a conversation about the different games the both of them had gone through. Neither mentioned any of the deaths that may have occurred, more focused on how the games worked and how they managed to get through.

The minutes ticked by quickly, and the egg timer rings, Kuina visibly brightening up and going to the oven immediately, making sure to grab the oven mitts on the way. Ann watches in amusement as she pulls out the hot pan out from the oven, the cake sitting prettily in the center. Ann pulls a toothpick out from a little container nearby and pokes the cake, pulling it out cleanly. “ It’s perfect! Yes-“ Kuina cheers to herself, and she grabs the edges of the parchment sticking out, and with a count to three, she quickly pulls out the chocolate cake and sets it on a plate she had set out. She smiles at it like a proud cake mother, and she grabs a knife and carefully cuts the little dome off, which she just kind of sets aside. “ Okay, now I just have to chill it for a bit, then we can frost it!” Kuina picks up the plate and walks to the fridge. There was already someone there, casually drinking milk straight out of a carton. “ Hi Tatta.” Kuina greets. Tatta waves quietly, stepping aside as Kuina opens the fridge and puts the cake inside and leaves Tatta to his own devices. Ann was cleaning the used equipment now, humming to herself. “ Need some help?” Kuina offers, and Ann merely steps aside to let Kuina squeeze in and help wash everything up.

By the time they finished, the cake was chilled enough that Kuina could take it back out. The frosting was already premade, apparently leftover from some other dessert. Thankfully, it wasn’t some crazy flavour that clashed with the chocolate, and soon they had a fully frosted chocolate cake. Kuina was grinning happily. “ Alright! We did it Ann!” Kuina cheers once more, and Ann nods to the fact.

“ We did it.” Ann answers back, and suddenly Kuina has a cake knife, brandishing it like a proud cake mom as Ann politely steps away to not get accidentally hit by it. “ Well, time to eat our beautiful creation! I’ll bring some to Chishiya later, if he wants some. Tatta, come over here, you get cake too-“ “ Oh, yay!”

[that-vigilante-piedpiper]

Deku Tinker bell fairy quirk au. U know how everywhere tinker bell flys she leaves a trail of fairy dust? Well in Peter Pan it makes people float but for deku the fairy dust is literally just straight drugs lol. So villains capture him and put him a tiny bird cage and take him out and just shake him like a salt shaker to get the drug fairy dust. And sell it. Idk I’m not a writer but this has been living in my mind rent free🧚

[IM LITERALLY LOSING MY MIND OVER THIS LAUGJING AT THE FACT THAT HES GOT DRUGGED FAIRY DUST I— HDNDHDJSHSMDBMDHDMDBD]

[hippievomitinhaler]

Farmhouse

The farmhouse is a vestigial limb that we can’t force ourselves to chop off. The dead pastures hold barren black dirt and mites instead of cows, and the untended lavender garden on the front yard has been overtaken with weeds. Planks of wood are discarded against the empty barn and all of the metal outside has rusted. The overgrown lemongrass scratches at my bare shins as I make my way to the eroding concrete steps.

The door feels fragile, the white paint on the plywood beginning to weather and crack. The house still smells like mothballs and old fabric. Everything is untouched from before my great grandmother went to the nursing home. The pots and pans are still in the kitchen, including the one that she used to make homemade custard in. Twin rooster salt shakers disrupt the thin layer of dust on the oak shelves,

I hear my grandmother fretting in the living room, “I’d rather keep all of this in the family,” she’s saying, “if we give it to a thrift store they might just throw it away, and who knows where it’ll end up.” I follow her voice, legs numb as I walk through the arched doorway to see her next to a TV that hasn’t worked for the last ten years. She trails behind my parents and older sister telling us to take home as much as we can. Dark circles swell underneath her delicate brown eyes.

I loved this room when I was a little girl. My favorite part was the orphanage of dolls in the display case. I loved their soft curls and petticoats, their glass eyes and rose painted lips. They’re grungy now, accumulating freckles of black mold over their fragile marzipan skin. The ones that can’t fit behind glass have grown dirty in forgotten bins containing old army patches stripped from my great grandfather’s jacket, work shirts from the local brewery, and swaths of fabric so old they melt apart like tender meat when you touch them. Two half-melted oil candles are mounted with steel and glass onto the wall on either side of the door leading to the hallway.

Cheap mock-Victorian portraits from the flea market line the hallway alongside grandiose gold mirrors. I drift through the floorplan down to the basement, where pickled green beans have been preserved in vinegar for the last thirty years. My grandmother points out the small red wheelbarrow she used to tote her younger brother around in.

The years are loaded into damp cardboard boxes from the basement. Mothbitten clothing, expired scented lotion, broken strings of pearls from her jewelry case. My combat boots rub blisters on my feet as I carry her belongings up the unfinished staircase.

It’s a weird feeling, being somewhere for the last time. We would never again eat custard from my great grandmother’s burnt-bottom pan, or listen to green beans sizzling in pig grease from the yellow suede couch. Selling the farm feels like we’re burying my great grandmother before she’s dead. I think about all of her prized possessions in a landfill, where everything she worked so hard will return to dirt.

While my parents say goodbye to my grandmother in the kitchen, I gingerly pull one of the dolls from the glass case in the living room, using spit and the pad of my thumb to scrub the speckled dirt off her cheeks. I cradle her in my arms down the concrete steps, sliding into the backseat of our worn family car. Gravel crunches underneath the tires, pale shards embedding deep into the dark rubber as we lurch down the driveway. I pinch her curled polymer hand between my thumb and forefinger as I watch the farmhouse shrink to a speck of dust behind us, hidden behind by the congelation of thick-branched yellow poplar trees.

[banashee]

Part 2/2 of Tony setting the kitchen on fire for @hopelessly-me :D ♥

Enjoy ♥

...Honey, it’s still fucking frozen.

 One day, Clint finally caves.

 “Tony. You know I love you, but       please     - let me show you how to cook. I can’t take it anymore.” he tells him over ice cold dinner. The archer pokes a piece of meat with his fork to prove his point.

 Tony nods slowly, but he also says,

 “Last time it was burned. So now I cooked it for less time.”

 Clint blinks at him, knocking on his plate with the meat, which results in a solid noise.

 “...Honey, it’s still fucking frozen.”

 “...Okay, yeah.” Tony sighs, shoving the plate away from himself.

 “Sorry, I know the last few months of my cooking haven’t been pleasant. At least I didn’t burn the house down yet.” he adds, with a small smile to lighten the mood, but it is clear he is not happy with his results.

 “The alarm didn’t go off in a while, that’s progress, right?” Clint shoots back a lopsided smile, before he continues,

 “Honestly though, I don’t mean to be condescending because that’s probably how I sound, and I’m really sorry for that, but… I know you’re trying, and I know you don’t like help with things… In general, and I get that. But don’t you think that it would be better in the long run?”

 Their hands meet over the table, warm and solid as they squeeze and hold on, thumbs caressing each other. Clint and Tony have been home to one another for a long time now, and they know with a bone deep certainty that they can talk about things without making a personal vendetta of it, no matter how small or big the issue is. It’s just not how they work - what they have is easy going and it always has been.

 A casual friendship with benefits quickly turned into more, and after months of pining and awkwardness, they finally got a move on and figured out their feelings for each other. That talk had been halting and even more awkward than the weeks before, but it led to mutual three-word-sentences and a future full of happiness.

 Tony smiles, squeezing the other man’s hand as he asks,

 “So, you don’t mind having to show me basic shit like cooking eggs without burning them to a crisp?”

 “No, of course not. I love you and I love cooking - there really is no downside here if you ask me.”

 “Alright, then. Thanks, Babe.” Tony leans forward for a kiss, which Clint is all too happy to give him. The cold dinner on the table is almost forgotten in the next few minutes, but as it turns out, it is the perfect opportunity to start.

 “Okay, so, let’s put this back into the pan and crank the heat up. You want this to be warm and cooked through entirely. Then you - Tony… Please put down the salt shaker.”

 “I have salt and I am not afraid to use it!”

 “Yes I know, and that’s a problem! No, go away with that!” Laughing, the two of them tackle each other through the kitchen, until they end up pushed against the counter, foreheads touching and giggling like lovesick teenagers.

 “Will you give up on any harsh decisions regarding the salt?” Clint asks, in a mock-serious tone that is actually a pretty good impression of what Phil Coulson sounds like, and Tony grins at him, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief.

 “I      am     small and salty. Never.” he tries to snatch back the salt shaker, attempting to distract Clint with more makeout opportunities. He leans in, pulling Tony close with one arm and holding the salt shaker up over his head with the other - it’s a dick move, but it works. His boyfriends sputtering at the offensive act only makes Clint  laugh more, but they need to flip the meat in the pan before their dinner burns once again, so their bickering is interrupted.

 A little while later, their dinner is actually warm and not only edible, but really, really good at that. Tony is still surprised that they managed to save it, especially since there have been instances where this would have been simply impossible. But then again, he is lucky enough to have a partner who knows how to save messed up food, given there is a way left to salvage it in the first place.

 “What’s the worst that ever happened to you while cooking?” Tony casually asks another night, while he is chopping vegetables into accurate cubes - they’re making stir fry, and the task at hand is easy and repetitive enough to chat away. Besides, he is used to handiwork, so this is totally doable.

 Clint shoots him a knowing, amused look.

 “...I almost set my kitchen in the SHIELD bunk on fire. It was like three in the morning and I couldn’t sleep, so I wanted to make a dessert with flambé bananas. Well, let’s just say it didn’t go as planned and my neighbours fucking hated my guts for setting off the fire alarm in the middle of the night… That was about 15 years ago, and goddammit, some people      still    bring it up.”

 Tony laughs, loudly.

 “Well, thank fuck you know what you’re doing now - imagine the two of us being Fire Hazards together, the tower would have burned to the ground ages ago. Imagine SHIELD on our asses for it. Or worse, Cap.”

 Slowly, he shakes his head. No one wants to see Steve’s “I am very disappointed in you”-face if they can help it. To be fair, when it doesn’t come to cooking, and more like, battles or developing weapons, the two of them combined are still a fire hazard. But that’s different, really.

 Clint, however, stops chopping with his knife mid air, head crooked to the side as he gently lowers it onto the cutting board. Then, he asks, completely straight faced,

 “...Did I ever tell you that Fury has backup-plans, just in case the two of us should be going rogue?”

 Putting down his knife as well, Tony fixes his partner in a suspicious stare. Despite everything, this is news to him, and he is about 90% sure that at least on this occasion, Clint isn’t fucking with him. Also, this is totally something he’d expect Fury to do. The man is paranoid, and Tony definitely wouldn’t put such a thing past him.

 “Wait what? No, you didn’t. Spill.”

 With a laugh, Clint tells him,

 “Ever since Nat went undercover as your PA and it was clear that both of us would be part of the Avengers, Fury put protocols in place - covered a lot of hypothetical situations, actually, it was quite funny to read. I think the short version is he knows both of us and our, dare I say, slightly chaotic tendencies…”

 With a snort of laughter, Tony collapses against the counter. This is putting it lightly and they both know it, but he enjoys hearing the story.

 Clint continues,

 “Technically I’m not supposed to know that, but Tasha told me about it. She laughed for like, 10 minutes straight. Me, too, by the way.”

 “I bet - heh, sorry i can’t” it takes a bit for Tony to calm down enough to say,

 “I bet he put a lot more protocols in place ever since he got wind of us being an item. Honestly I’d love to see that list.”

 The corners of his mouth are still twitching, and he wipes amused tears out of his eyes as he keeps cackling away.

 “Oh hey, we should do a dramatic reading of that form!” he says then, and Clint is laughing too hard to answer, but he nods, vegetables forgotten on the counter for several minutes.

 He only barely manages to stop Lucky from stealing the chicken right off of the counter, which only makes him laugh harder as he tries to hold his dog back by the collar. Once again, Lucky looks like he is judging his humans - even his one remaining eye is pretty expressive.  

 Once they have calmed down a bit, they continue. Tony is about to put the vegetables into the frying pan, but Clint stops him.

 “Wait. Put in the onions and garlic first, let them get glassy and then add the rest of it in. One after the other. Hardest stuff first, softest last. That way you have everything cooked through without having some parts mushy in the end.” he explains, which is met with a surprised noise from his boyfriend.

 “Huh, that makes sense. Cooking       is     logical, after all.” Tony says, as if that’s news to him - truth be told, it probably is.

 “Of course it’s logical. What did you think?” Clint asks, even though he already knows the answer.

 “Magic? I don’t fucking know” Tony shrugs, but he looks very much satisfied. Even more so once everything is done. The stir fry turned out perfect, and the pasta only boiled over once - the kitchen is a mess, but the food is amazing, so it comes to no surprise that one after one, the other Avengers show up in the kitchen like a bunch of hungry sharks. Food always brings them together, especially if the delicious smells are wafting through the tower.

 Apart from the obvious - having to eat, having to help out and later on, hating the SHIELD cafeteria with a burning passion - this is why Clint learned how to cook in the first place. Food brings people together, brings in company.

 As someone who spent most of his life either lonely or socially awkward or both, Clint learned early on that if he feeds people, they will stick around - at least for a bit.  It is a long standing habit, and although he genuinely loves cooking and baking, because it’s fun and relaxing, the people aspect is a big motivation as well.

 Feeding people keeps them around and Clint recognizes that this might be a little sad. But he can’t deny that he likes doing it, one of the reasons being that, making food for someone shows that you care. As much as his social skills suck sometimes, Clint likes to take care of the people around him, especially loved ones.

 Lucky for him, there is almost always someone around, here in the tower, to enjoy whatever he spent the day cooking or baking. Especially if either Steve or Thor are home, he knows nothing will stay untouched for long. While those two will eat anything and everything that isn’t nailed down, Clint knows that Tony is usually a bit of a picky eater, but he will try everything Clint makes, because he knows from experience that it’s always good. He does have a bit of a sweet tooth though. Bruce on the other hand prefers savory things, which is why he himself is cooking a lot of spicy, indian food, but he will also happily go to town on a loaf of bread fresh out of the oven.

 Natasha, much like Phil and Pepper whenever they’re around, has a huge sweet tooth - whenever there are cookies or cake or anything else, she is the first to creep into the kitchen. Oftentimes, she steals balls of cookie dough and bowls with batter remaining in them. It gets even worse when Phil is around, because the two of them will team up to get all the sweet things - It’s highly classified, but you can totally buy Agent Coulson with sweet things.

 Clint knows all of this, especially since he’s known Phil and Nat for many many years. Therefore, he counts in whatever they are likely going to steal whenever he is baking - he’s known their systematic approach for ages now, but he doesn’t mind it. Not at all.

 Later that same night, Clint is sprawled out in bed, legs tangled with Tony’s and one arm wrapped around him. His head is pillowed on the other man's shoulder, face pressed into his favourite spot - the crook of Tony’s neck.  Restless fingers are lightly scratching his scalp, and the even breathing of his dog by their feet are almost lulling him to sleep. His other hand is lazily tracing invisible patterns on Tony’s back, fingers creeping under his shirt and against warm, smooth skin. The happy hum he gets in response causes small vibrations to travel through his entire body, even when he can’t hear it.

 They drift off to sleep like this, and when they are in the kitchen the next morning, Clint asks, as Tony keeps an suspicious eye on the scrambled eggs,

 “Do you want to bake bread with me later? We can use it tomorrow for french toast.”

 “...I’ll have to touch wet dough, do I?”

 “...Ideally, yes. But it’s fun, I promise. Careful, your eggs.” he adds, and Tony jumps to flip them - just in time - no harm done. He lets out a sigh of relief.  As it turns out, having someone close to help him get a hang of this really helps. Besides, Clint is a good teacher, and the whole love thing helps a lot. Just spending time together, really - and the compliments from their other teammates for last night’s dinner for example. All of it makes him want to keep going.

 “Okay, let’s do it” Tony says, and the happy smile on his boyfriend's face is more than enough motivation to say “yes” again the next time he asks if he wants to bake.

 As it turns out, baking is a whole different thing than cooking, which takes him by surprise. Especially since he needs to be a lot more accurate for this, while with cooking, there is at least a little bit of freestyling allowed. With baking? Not so much.

 “It’s sticky. Ew. Babe, why? Why did you do this to me?” Tony complains, making a face as he holds up his hands that are covered in admittedly clingy bread dough - he’s not quite sure he actually likes doing this.

 “It needs more flour - hold on.” Clint scrapes off as much dough from his hands as he can, carefully grabs the paper bag with two fingers and sprinkles a little bit more flour in both mixing bowls.

 “Try again, it should work itself out. If it cleans out the bowl we’re good.”

 “You said this was fun… Oh hey, that’s actually better now!” Tony exclaims in surprise, relieved that his bread dough isn’t nearly as sticky anymore - now, he can knead it with his hands without thinking of hacking them off right after. Truth be told, he is starting to see the fun part of this whole thing now.

 “See? You’re doing great by the way.” Clint tells him, a warm and happy feeling spreading out in his chest. He is incredibly happy to be able to have this - to have Tony by his side in the first place. Words can’t express how much he loves this man, and he hopes that Tony knows nonetheless.

 “I’ve got a pretty good teacher - you should meet him some time. He’s got amazing arms and an even better ass.” Tony is grinning over at Clint, absolutely not checking out those very much appreciated body parts while he does so. They have been together for quite some time, but the attraction to one another has not died down - not at all.

 “Oh, does he now?”

 “Very much so.”

 Cheesy flirting and easy banter is what they do best, and by the time their dough is covered and resting, Clint and Tony disappear upstairs and into the bedroom. They lose their clothes on the way, leaving a trail through the entire apartment until they fall into bed, wrapped tightly around one another and laughing in between kisses and wandering hands.

 There is plenty of time to pass until the bread is ready to be baked, after all.

*+~

Prompt 10: Teaching

[rachelkaser]

Stay Golden Sunday: Blind Ambitions

Rose’s blind sister Lily visits and might need more help than she’s willing to admit. The Girls have a garage sale.

Picture It...

The Girls are having a barbecue on the lanai with their guest, Rose’s sister Lily. Lily lost her sight six months ago, and is still adjusting while Rose tries not to be a mother hen. Blanche reminisces about Southern barbecues and Lily tells a story about their St. Olafian camping trips. The Girls discuss Lily’s adjustment -- she claims she can cope with most things now, and she even still watches television. When Sophia grouses about their TV being broken, Lily gives them the idea of having a garage sale to get money for a new one.

DOROTHY: Listen, mom, we cannot afford a new TV. We’re using the household money to repair the roof and repave the driveway. SOPHIA: Great, and what am I supposed to do while every other old lady on the block is watching Cosby? DOROTHY: Well, you can sit in the new driveway and hope that an amusing Black family drops by.

Later, the Girls are gathering together the things they could sell at a garage sale. Dorothy pulls out an old doll, Blanche has a hippy outfit she wore to Woodstock (the movie), and Rose finds a pair of candlesticks she decides to keep. Lily offers to put them in the alcove, and tells Rose not to be so protective. Rose apologizes -- while discreetly moving aside a lamp Lily was about to walk into. Lily then announces she’s going to her room and Dorothy and Blanche scramble to move a half-dozen boxes out of her way without her noticing, and she triumphantly declares, when she makes it to the hallway, that she doesn’t need anyone’s help.

The next day, Lily is cooking bacon on the stove, and when she turns away for a moment, the pan catches fire. She cries out for help, and Rose and Blanche come rushing in, with Rose putting out the fire with an extinguisher. Dorothy runs in as Blanche tells Lily she shouldn’t have been cooking on the stove. Lily apologizes but says it was just an accident as she sulks out. Blanche and Dorothy confront Rose, saying Lily isn’t as independent as she’s saying she is, and she might need to go back to the school for the blind, despite dropping out due to alleged boredom. Rose agrees to talk to her.

LILY: I remember when you were six years old and dad got you that puppy for your birthday. You worried because you thought her paws were too big and that the other dogs would laugh at her. ROSE: Well they did! They used to bark and point at her! LILY: Everybody pointed at her. You made her wear a bonnet and matching booties.

Rose goes to her room, where Lily is staying, and Lily reassures Rose that she’s fine. She says Rose is a worrier by nature, and Rose says not to change the subject. She tells Lily that she’s trying to do much by herself, and the independence of which she’s so proud isn’t serving her now. Lily finally breaks and tells Rose she just wants things to go back to the way they were, but they’re not going to. Rose tells her she needs help, and Lily begs Rose to come back home and live with her before bursting into tears.

Later, Rose tells the Girls that she’s seriously thinking about moving with Lily to Chicago, but both Blanche and Rose are skeptical that it’ll actually help Lily. Dorothy accuses her of doing it out of guilt, and Blanche relates a story of how she lost a male friend because her husband made her feel guilty about it. Sophia has a slightly more relevant story about how she struggled to get back on her feet after her stroke. It took Dorothy pushing her to be independent for her to actually make the effort, and Sophia tells Rose she needs to help her sister “to help herself.” Rose goes off to think some more.

DOROTHY: *after Blanche rebuffs a customer’s offer of $1.25 for her Elvis shakers* Blanche, I can’t believe that you did that! I mean, they’re just a silly salt and pepper shaker. BLANCHE: The King is gone, Dorothy. But we must cherish the things he left behind. His movies, his songs... DOROTHY: And his seasonings.

At the garage sale, every time someone shows an interest in one of the Girls’ things, they react badly. Rose isn’t willing to give up her teddy, Mr. Longfellow; Blanche believes her Elvis salt and pepper shakers must be cherished; and Dorothy squabbles with a teenager over a hockey stick used by Bobby Hull. They come to the conclusion that they’re not willing to part with any of their things, and decide to just pay for a new TV in installments. Blanche and Dorothy go to shoo out their customers.

Lily enters and tells Rose how much she appreciates Rose being willing to help her. She asks Rose to get her a glass of water, and Rose freezes before reminding Lily that she’s capable of getting a glass of water — and if she isn’t, she needs professional help that Rose can’t give. She’s made up her mind: She’s not going to Chicago. Lily gets angry and accuses Rose of turning her back on her, storming out.

DOROTHY: *after the third time Rose leaves the house and returns* Come on now. Come on now, get out of here. You’ve come back more times than Shirley MacLaine.

Two months later, Rose is on her way to visit Lily. She’s sure that Lily is going to pressure her into living with her again and is nervous because it was hard enough to refuse the first time. The Girls encourage her to stick to her guns. She leaves, but not without kissing her friends goodbye. When Rose arrives at the airport later, she thanks the flight attendant for all the extras they provided her (including pillows, Dramamine, and 10 packs of smokehouse almonds).

Rose is surprised to see Lily at the airport, waiting for her. Lily introduces her seeing-eye dog, Becky, who Rose of course melts over (side note: I don’t think you’re supposed to pet service dogs the way Rose does here, but considering the dog is likely not an actual service dog, I’ll excuse it). Lily apologizes to Rose, saying Rose did the right thing by pushing her. She went back to the school for the blind, and is finally in a place where she can take care of herself -- with Becky’s help, of course. She and Becky take the lead to the baggage claim, with Lily tossing off a one-liner that has Rose a bit concerned:

ROSE: I’m so proud of you. LILY: Oh this is nothing! What till you see me drive home!

“If it’s a choice between the two of them, let the blind one make change.”

After Blanche and Dorothy had their turns with sisterly conflict episodes, it’s now Rose’s turn. This time it’s not long-standing animosity or bubbling resentment that sets the two against each other, but a new life change that prompts an adaptation in the relationship. As depressing as it may be, I think Lily and Rose might be the healthiest sister relationship in the show’s history, not that that’s saying much. Lily is one of the more memorable guest characters on the show, mostly because she’s given room to have complex emotions.

In the episode, Lily is played by Polly Holiday, whose main claim to fame is playing Flo “Kiss My Grits” Castleberry on the sitcom Alice -- a catchphrase I’ve always found a little baffling, but at least it’s memorable. If you’d asked me based on what little I’d seen of Alice if she’d be capable of giving one of the most memorable guest performances on Golden Girls ever, I admit I’d have been a little skeptical -- and I’d be wrong, because she really brings it. It’s not often an actor can be in a scene with Betty White and completely command all the attention (and probably some of the credit goes to White for being a great scene partner).

SOPHIA: Why are we cooking outdoors? DOROTHY: Ma, we’re having a barbecue. SOPHIA: You know what they call cooking meat over an open fire in Sicily? DOROTHY: No, what? SOPHIA: Poverty.

I appreciate what the episode does, making Lily an . . . well, I don’t want to say antagonist, but definitely the person who’s causing the conflict. She’s not actually dealing with her problems, but she wants to look like she is because she’s too proud to ask for help -- and when she finally does, it’s from a person who’s not qualified to help her. The first time I watched this episode, I was a naïve youngster who didn’t understand why Rose didn’t go help Lily -- I felt that I would, under the circumstances. Now that I’m an adult, I understand better why that situation is untenable, because Rose would have to quit her job and, given that she can’t really teach Lily to be independent, would never be able to have her own life because Lily would be dependent on her.

The show is also not shy about showing how Lily’s lack of control over her situation is making her lash out, and that this isn’t excusable: During the pivotal scenes between Rose and Lily, Lily does everything she can to deflect taking responsibility for herself. She tells Rose, “You’d be worried if you couldn’t find anything to worry about” when Rose comes to check on her (keep in mind, she’d been screaming for help mere minutes earlier), begs Rose to fix the problem for her, and finally escalates to accusing Rose of abandoning her when Rose tries to get her to take care of herself.

DOROTHY: Will you look at this? I got this doll on my 10th birthday. I can’t believe I’ve kept her all these years. *Sophia enters behind her* Her hair’s falling out, her clothes are all worn, she smells of mothballs... SOPHIA: Hey, I may not be Ann-Margret, but I’m still your mother!

There is a difference between toughing something out and truly coping with it, and I think anyone who’s gone through a major life change would agree. The difference lies in confronting the reality of the situation. For most of the episode, Lily adamantly refuses to do that, and Rose enables her -- the other Girls recognize that and try to help Rose see it. For me, the best (and hardest) part of the episode to watch is that little moment in the kitchen when Rose says Lily is very independent, and Dorothy firmly says, “No she’s not, Rose.”

I’m not disabled myself, so I looked up details on common reactions to late-onset disabilities. We never know how Lily became blind -- if it was something that had been coming on for a while or if it was the result of some kind of trauma -- but I found an article on the Royal National Institute for Blind People’s website that clarified what Lily is going through: Grief. If you watch closely, you can see Lily’s going through a few different stages of grief -- denial, anger, and fear. While her situation is resolved mostly off-camera, it’s nice to see that she’s allowed to have those emotions.

ROSE: *about Lily* She served three terms on the city council, and she was the first woman in St. Olaf’s to ever have a pilot’s license. BLANCHE: Oh really? Well we have something in common, Lily. I was the first woman in my hometown ever to have a pilot! DOROTHY: Blanche’s bed is next to the X-15 at the Space and Aviation Museum.

Still, as much as I like the episode, I do think there are a few parts where the writing isn’t as strong as it could be. Most of the episode is tipped on the serious side rather than the comedic side. The garage sale scene is really funny, but doesn’t make sense. Presumably the Girls went through all their stuff before putting it out on the lanai, to confirm they wanted to sell it and to price it. Why is it that only on the day of the sale do they decide they want to keep all their bric-a-brac? Also, I’m not exactly sure how they plan to get a new TV with a $60 down payment and paying “the rest of it” off on time. Side note: The scene of them frantically clearing Lily’s path of boxes is funny, but it’s really their fault for leaving boxes of stuff lying around while a blind guest is trying to navigate their house.

While the episode is balanced really well between the four Girls, I think Blanche’s major part of the episode -- her extended story about her male friend Andrew (an excellent lover . . . no, riveter) -- doesn’t really serve either the episode or the scene it’s in, which is a recurring problem with first-season episodes. Her anecdotes from the opening scene about barbecues with the Darcy triplets (Hank, Beau, and . . . Dove?) are much funnier and feel more appropriate to the scene.

BLANCHE: *about Sophia’s stroke* But you got better. SOPHIA: Yeah, because [Dorothy] stopped coddling me. She screamed, she hollered, day and night. She made me do my therapy. She forced me to rebuild my life because she knew I could. And for that I’ll always be grateful. DOROTHY: Aw, thanks, Ma. SOPHIA: I only have one question: Now that I’m better, why do you still scream and holler at me?

Also, bit of dubious-but-fun trivia for you: I already said that Holliday is great as Lily. That said, she allegedly wasn’t the first choice for the role. If the information in Golden Girls Forever is correct, the person who the producers originally wanted to play Lily, the actress whose name was thrown around early in the process . . . was Lucille Ball. Yes, that Lucille Ball.

Keep in mind I couldn’t find a secondary source for this information. Contrary to the impression I probably give, I don’t take Golden Girls Forever as gospel and I generally do try to confirm what’s written via some other source. If I can’t, I don’t want to present it to you as fact. So allegedly the reason Ball declined the role was that she didn’t want to do too many serious roles, and I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad Polly Holliday got the role instead of Lucille Ball. If she had, I think the whole episode, including the dramatic scenes, would have been less about the characters and performances, and more about “OMG, that’s Lucy!”

Episode rating: 🍰🍰🍰 (three cheesecake slices out of five)

Favorite part of the episode:

Sophia shows how much patience she has for haggling:

CUSTOMER: How much? SOPHIA: Two bucks. Get wild. Treat yourself. CUSTOMER: Nah, I’ll give you a dollar-fifty. SOPHIA: What does this look like, Baghdad? *pulls vase out of her hands* Get the hell out of here! DOROTHY: Ma, that’s no way to sell things! SOPHIA: Hey, go to Neiman Marcus sometime, see if they treat you any better.

[keeperofhounds]

Lost & Found (Chapter Four)

Special thanks to my beta reader @rachelbethhines and special thanks to Varian 66 on Discord for their part in developing this story.

We all know how the original story started. We all know how it ended too. Let’s see an alternate take if Eugene were to have been adopted rather than being alone for most of his life.

Rapunzel could honestly say that she was feeling nervous. Who wouldn’t be? She had never even heard of a wizard up until that point. All this time she thought that she was the only one in the entire world who could do something special but it turns out that there were people just like her. Mother had never told her about this in fact the revelation that a person who could do magic was living in a village surrounded by people and lived so close to the Tower was mind-boggling. 

Now they were walking along a worn dirt road in silence. Pascal was perched on her shoulder and Flynn was leading the way. It left her with a lot of time to think.

“Hey, so what is this wizard like?” Rapunzel asked, she hoped he was nice and maybe could help her with her hair. It’s not that she didn’t want to go back to the Tower but with what she's seen so far her world looked so small in comparison.

“Well Blondie Varian has a talent in solving problems.” Flynn replied, keeping his eyes ahead, “Although rumor has it that he’s very dangerous.”

Rapunzel stopped, “Dangerous?”

“Yeah, he’s blown up the village countless times, made metal monsters which can follow his commands, and create potions with unimaginable effects.”

Pascal squeaked and narrowed his eyes at the mans words. 

She had heard enough maybe she can figure out something else about her hair. Maybe find someone else. Rapunzel could just imagine it a large stranger with a menacing voice, pointy teeth. Rapunzel shook her head, she had to be rational about this. Even if Flynn was a little mean at times with all his attempts to get back into the Tower, he was really nice. Mother would be furious if she ever tried doing what she did to Flynn to get what she wanted and he hadn’t tried to hurt her.

There was no doubt that Flynn knew the truth about her hair and throughout this time had not once tried to touch it. If she was so bold to think Mother was wrong about a few things already. 

Rapunzel laughed nervously, swinging her frying pan side by side, “Yeah, good try Flynn but you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

He turned to look at her and shrugged his shoulders, “Well I tried to warn you. It’s your funeral blondie. Aha! There it is!”

Up ahead was a stone structure not unlike her tower only it wasn’t so thin. It had a side tower and looked bigger than her tower ever would. There clearly was damaged but it was livable if this was where the wizard was staying. 

Flynn threw up his hands, “Haha, look at this sweet place it’s been a while since I’ve been here hasn’t changed a bit.” Placing his hands over Rapunzel's shoulders he started pushing her toward the entrance, “Now come on Blondie before anyone sees us.”

Inside was dark and deserted but Flynn didn’t stop at the room behind the door. No, he went deeper into the castle until he stopped them by and ominous looking light coming from the crack of the door. The colors of blue, pink, green, purple, and magenta were all flashing beyond that door.

Placing his hands over the door knob Flynn turned to Rapunzel giving her a warning, “Sure you don’t wanna go back out now Blondie it looks likes things could get hair in there.”

Rapunzel looked at the lights. She had never seen those colors as lights it really was looking that some kind of magic was happening beyond that door. Turning to look at Pascal he squealed and shoved his hands in a go along motion. Rapunzel took a deep breath, she's made it this far she couldn’t lose her nerve now.

Tightening her hands around the frying pan should anything go wrong Rapunzel gave Flynn a hard look, “Let's do this.”

Flynn gave her a wide-eyed look normally when he did this sort of thing the people he was with got scared before they even met Varian. Other times even if they made it past the door they still ran off scared after experiencing Varian. In all honestly it was perfect when Flynn wanted to break up with someone. Scare them off and they’ll never bother him again. If they stuck around they were usually pretty great people.

Being sure to heighten the suspense before things inevitably went chaotic Flynn slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open. Gently grabbing Rapunzel's hand he led her to one place that he would normally avoid. When his leg tripped over the wire that's when all hell broke loose.

Rapunzel screamed when she felt something touch her feet, she tried moving but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t move. She wildly swung with her frying pan trying to get their attacker. Why did she do this? It couldn’t have been worth it!

“Hello?” an unfamiliar voice said, “Who are you!”

By that point everything went black for Rapunzel.

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“Oh, my goodness she’s dead Eugene. She’s dead and it’s all my fault! What are we goin’ to do!?” Varian cried, grasping his head with his hands. 

Flynn calmly grabbed the salt shaker and sprinkled Varian’s anti-goo solution onto his trapped feet. He felt terrible at how this all played out and the accusing stare that the frog was giving him was not helping the current situation. Varian was freaking out not that Flynn blamed him who could when there was an unconscious stranger in his lab.

“Calm down kid, she just passed out.” Eugene said, gently lifting the girl from the floor. Varian had used his solution on her feet in an attempt to help but he wasn’t strong enough to carry her anywhere.

Pascal growled in his little reptile was and tried to hit Flynn with his tongue.

“Would… you… stop…. That.” Flynn said, swatting at the frog. “She’s fine frog long-hair here just had a fright.”

He looked around the room and spotted the familiar table that was kept in the lab. Luckily it was clean and not full of normally dangerous chemicals or sharp objects. Flynn walked over to the wooden table and gently placed Rapunzel onto the table. He took a seat on the near-by stool and threw his hands onto his face in exasperation. 

How could things go so wrong? He hadn’t meant for things to go so far. Now the crazy girl that he met in the woods was unconscious in a strangers (to her) lab. If that wasn’t bad enough he had freaked out the kid who worked in that same room. Sometimes he was just the worst.

“So, Eugene is she your girlfriend or something?” Varian shyly asked, his curiosity had winning over.

“Or something.” Flynn said, thinking about how panicked Rapunzel looked, everyone else who he had done this to didn’t have such desperate reactions. “She’s just a girl I met and am showing her around. She wanted to see the lantern festival.”

Varian hummed, “So, is she foreign I mean with all that hair, and that’s a lot of hair.”

“Yeah, you can say that.” How else can he say that. That this girl had apparently never been out of her tower and this was the first time that she was in another persons house. There is also the fact that Flynn was trying to use him to make go running back to that tower.

“Well in any case,” Varian threw his hands around Flynn and gave him the tightest hug that a boy his age could manage, “it’s great to see you again, I was wondering when you’d come back.”

The excitement was clear in his voice and the smile on his face leave it to Varian to try to make light of a situation. Flynn returned the hug, “I missed you too kid.”

Flynn just wanted to continue with this moment and just forget the entire day. Forget that he stole a missing persons crown. Forget that the girl on the table was unconscious. He just wanted all his problems to wash away, but of course Varian took notice of the little pest on the side.

“No, way it’s a chameleon, fascinating.” Varian said, breaking away from the hug and racing towards the clearly nervous frog. “Did you know that chameleons have skin crystals in their skin which enable them to change color at will?”

Watching Varian try to coax the animal with fruit Flynn laughed, “No, no, I did not know that, but good to know.”

Pascal shot his tongue at a grape which Varian was holding out before turning the same shade as the grape. Flynn really needed to make this right to the girl on the table and he could only think of one thing that might just do it.

“Hey, Varian do you got anything for hair?”

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Rapunzel groaned as she came too, she had hit her head on the stone floor, but the rush of memories of the last thing she experienced made her quickly forget her pain. Rushing up from the table she frantically turned her head, she felt something nudge her hand and looked down. It was her frying pan!

Quickly grabbing it with two hands she pointed the frying pan, “Pascal?!” She cried out, she hoped that nothing happened to her only friend.

That’s when she heard the sound of words farther from the room tip toeing from the table she snuck into the next room keeping her weapon at the ready. Pushing her back against the wall she slowly tilted her head to see from the hall. If Pascal was in trouble then she would do everything in her power to get him back. She didn’t care if some big, scary wizard was around to stop her.

What she saw though made her lower her weapon and silence any doubts. Flynn the man who basically tricked her into coming into this strange place was playing with a kid. The kid looked only a few years younger than her but he was waving a strange object with glowing parts like a sword and saying words from memory. Pascal was on his shoulder looking no worse for wear. In fact he seemed to be enjoying what was happening.

Flynn, on the other hand, was making dramatic movements and slashing strokes towards the kid, but his “weapon” was a wooden sword which was clearly too small for him. He read passages off a book responding to the kids words. In fact Flynn looked like he was clearly having a good time.

Rapunzel couldn’t connect it, she had never played with a person who would talk back before. Pascal was great don’t get her wrong, but they couldn’t do anything like that in the tower. Not to mention there were only three books in that tower. Every attempt she made to play with Mother had failed and she learned to just play by herself. Pascal was a great playmate though, but she can only imagine having other people around to have fun with.

It seemed that she had been staring for too long because Flynn caught her looking. He froze and stared. Rapunzel stared back. Flynn eyed the wooden sword and threw it to the side, “Hey, Blondie you’re awake, so glad you can join us.” He turned to the kid he had been playing with, “I was just negotiating, yeah that’s it negotiating a deal with the person who lives here.”

Rapunzel didn’t believe him, but he was clearly embarrassed so she dropped the subject. Pascal leapt off the kids shoulder and hugged her face glad to see that she was okay. Although this was clearly a nice moment there was still that wizard they had to think about. 

The long haired girl raised her frying pan, “Flynn, where’s the wizard who trapped us in that goo?”

“Flynn?” the kid asked, confused the thief must have not told him his name.

Flynn grasped his hands, “Yeah, about that… you see the wizard.” 

The boy interrupted him, “Wizard? Hey, I’m not a wizard, the stuff I make is strictly science not magic.”

Rapunzel gave him a look putting the pieces together, “Wait so you’re…?”

“That’s right I am Varian!” Varian exclaimed, placing his hand over his chest proudly, “And it is very nice to meet you.”