#sqc fic

[flufwolf16875]

harry Potter fic outline that's been in my drafts for a year.

Origins and Formation

When: Fifth Year (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) Why:

The oppressive regime of Dolores Umbridge forced Harry, Hermione, and Ron to teach practical Defense Against the Dark Arts after the subject became purely theoretical.

The DA began as a secret group focused on practical defense, growing in size as more students recognized the need for self-protection.

Key Event:

After Umbridge discovered the DA’s original meeting place and punished its members, Harry decided to relocate and reorganize to avoid further interference. Hermione suggested using the Chamber of Secrets, given its inaccessibility to others and its symbolic connection to Voldemort.

The Chamber of Secrets Becomes the Base

When: Winter of Fifth Year Why:

Harry realized that the Chamber of Secrets could be a perfect location: hidden, protected, and symbolically tied to their resistance against Voldemort.

Teaching Parseltongue allowed members to access the Chamber, creating a unique bond among the group and a secure way to communicate.

Key Event:

Harry began teaching Parseltongue to trusted DA members, making it both a skill for entry and a secretive way to communicate. Over time, this became a hallmark of the SQC, with members using it casually even outside meetings.

Evolution into Serpentes qui Custodiant

When: Late Fifth Year Why:

As the group grew and adopted new practices (e.g., animagus transformations, darker spells, a structured hierarchy), the name “Dumbledore’s Army” no longer fit their identity.

The name Serpentes qui Custodiant (Serpents Who Guard) reflected their focus on protection, their use of Parseltongue, and their adoption of the basilisk skeleton as a symbol.

Key Event:

During a meeting, the group collectively voted to adopt the new name, marking their shift from a simple resistance group to an organized, loyal brotherhood.

The Basilisk Skeleton as a Symbol

When: Spring of Fifth Year Why:

The basilisk skeleton in the Chamber of Secrets became a powerful symbol of defiance, survival, and their connection to the Chamber’s history.

Members saw it as a reminder of Harry’s victory over the basilisk and his role as their leader.

Key Event:

Members began carving the basilisk skeleton into jewelry, weapons, and even tattoos, wearing the image with pride to signify their loyalty.

Teaching Darker Spells

When: Early Sixth Year Why:

As Voldemort’s return became undeniable and Death Eater attacks increased, Harry realized that traditional defensive spells were not enough.

The SQC began learning spells considered darker but highly effective for survival, such as silent hexes, blood magic, and counter-curses.

Key Event:

The decision to teach darker spells was controversial within the group but ultimately accepted as a necessity. Harry emphasized their use only in life-threatening situations, but some members began experimenting further.

Animagus Transformations as a Rite of Passage

When: Sixth Year Why:

Inspired by the Marauders’ legacy, Harry introduced animagus transformations as a challenge and rite of passage for senior SQC members.

Animagi in the group served as scouts, spies, and protectors, with their animal forms symbolizing their personal commitment.

Key Event:

Harry, Hermione, Ron, and the Weasley twins were among the first to succeed. Their transformations inspired others to attempt the process, leading to an increasing number of animagi in the SQC’s upper ranks.

The Honor Code

When: Mid-Sixth Year Why:

As the group grew and faced internal challenges (such as a member betraying them to Umbridge), Harry implemented a strict honor code to maintain trust and unity.

The Code:

Keep your promises; words may bend, but promises must be kept.

Protect the children; those who harm children will face death.

Kill rapists; there is no tolerance for such acts.

Traitors will be branded and hunted until death

Key Event:

The first traitor was captured, branded with a magical mark, and exiled. This event solidified the group’s code and marked a turning point in their collective identity.

Expanding Beyond Hogwarts

When: Seventh Year Why:

Recognizing the need for broader alliances, SQC began recruiting family members, friends, and students from other schools.

Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum helped establish branches in Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, creating an international network of allies.

Key Event:

Transfer students from Hogwarts brought SQC traditions to their new schools, spreading its influence.

SQC’s Relationship with the Order of the Phoenix

When: Ongoing, Beginning in Sixth Year Why:

While the Order valued the SQC’s strength, there was tension due to their darker methods and absolute loyalty to Harry rather than Dumbledore.

Sirius and Lupin supported Harry and the SQC, advocating for their autonomy.

Key Event:

Sirius and Lupin proved their loyalty to Harry by helping protect the SQC during a critical battle, cementing their place as trusted allies.

The SQC as a Family

When: Throughout Sixth and Seventh Years Why:

Members viewed each other as siblings, with Harry as their “older brother.” This dynamic created an unshakable bond, disturbing outsiders who saw it as cult-like.

Titles like “older brother/sister” and “little brother/sister” reinforced their loyalty and hierarchy.

Key Event:

The family dynamic became most evident during battles, where members prioritized protecting one another at all costs.

Finale

Why:

The SQC’s structure, loyalty, and unique traditions made it a formidable force against Voldemort.

After the war, its legacy lived on in its members, who continued to uphold its values and honor Harry as their leader.

old members continue to train new members so their legacy at Hogwarts survives

Key Event:

The basilisk skeleton and tattoos became enduring symbols, with future generations of Hogwarts students hearing whispered stories of the Serpentes qui Custodiant.

[imsfire2]

SQC fic

Chapter 7 of ���Out of darkness” is up on AO3.

Gabriel and Aurora have a picnic lunch, and talk, and try to work out how to get to know one another better...

[sleepykalena]

WIP Sentences (Rebelcaptain Smut Weekend Edition)

APPARENTLY MY SMUT WEEKEND WIP PROGRESS POST WASN’T ACCEPTABLE for @thestarbirdfromtheashes so here, have some WIP sentences:

He spotted her standing and leaning against a pole inside the hovertram, her frame so familiar despite the short time they’ve been in each other’s circles. Pushing his way through the crowd, he went up to her and slowly placed a hand on her shoulder.

She stiffened.

He pressed his cheek against her head, mumbling quietly, “It’s me.”

Her shoulders relaxed a little, but a hint of formality remained. It wasn’t a surprise- Ilex finally figured out what they were planning and demanded she give up the evidence she had against him or she and the rest of Vivian’s close friends would be killed. Bi’el knew that it meant orphaning the son of one of Vivian’s friends (a sweet lad, really), and Liana relented, not wanting to tear apart another family.

For all of Ilex’s liberal use of the word “whore” in all its vitriol, Liana was proving to be much kinder than he initially thought, evidenced by her willingness to submit to Ilex’s demands. Her glare wasn’t cold and full of hate, only simply jaded. Though, being jaded implied damage. Sometimes that’s harder to fix than hate alone. It was a different kind of hate, one that he was familiar with.

It had been so long since someone touched him the way she did last night, but as he took in her daytime aura, it dawned on him that it, too, had been so long since he found someone that he could relate to. If only she knew he was above this, above the dirty dealings of a corrupt Imperial officer, that he wasn’t Bi’el, but Cassian, that they could fight together instead of each other…

“You got the credit chips?” Liana asked, her hand snaking behind her to tap his stomach with Vivian’s diary, the proof that would crush Ilex and screw over his underground operations.

Bi’el nodded. He had to argue on their behalf to give them some type of compensation aside from just “their lives”. Fishing the credit chips out of his pocket, he pressed them against the small of her back, proof that he had them in hand. In one swift move, she let go of the diary and Bi’el let it drop into his hand as Liana clutched the credit chips. As they both pocketed their acquisitions, the hovertram doors slid shut with a hiss, and the two were trapped, surrounded by the crowd of riders who were unaware of the tension between them. Two enemies, pressed together as though they were anything but as they waited for the next stop.

Cassian wished they could be anything but.

Liana loosened her grip on the pole and attempted to walk away, but Cassian squeezed her arm gently.

“I won’t hurt you,” he assured her, his voice soft and genuine. “Please, don’t leave.”

Liana paused, clearly debating if she should even listen to him.

But then she leaned back slightly and pressed her back against his chest, relaxing even further. Cassian reached up and grabbed on to the pole as well, causing his arm to wrap slightly around her- a subtle embrace.

His other hand let go of her arm and slowly snaked lower to the back of her hand. His fingers spread out slightly, a request to lace her fingers with his.

In response, Liana took in a deep breath and pushed her hand against his, fingers likewise spreading, finding their way between his own fingers, like trying to read between the lines of his identity and the way he treated her last night. She squeezed her hand gently, Cassian’s fingers pressing into her palm, and Cassian started to feel his composure slipping. He breathed in deeply, craning his head slightly to press his nose against the side of her head to take in the scent of her hair, and it brought him back to that night, when their true interactions with each other began. He had flashbacks of the night her flesh rubbed against his, the feel of it so sweet, the warmth enveloping him in a way he had nearly forgotten.

He didn’t want the hovertram to arrive at its next stop.

[riderunlove]

Hi dear! 2, 21 and 37 for the fic writers meme, please? ♥

Okay… since you asked so nicely!!

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

I have yet to try the rebelcaptain fandom favorite trope of bedsharing and I would kind of like to… 

21. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

Umm.. I kind of hate reading my own writing so I tend to edit a little as I read through to figure out where I’m going next. Sometimes I give it a read through when I’m finished and generally I try to find someone else to beta it and then read through it while I address their comments/suggestions. 

37. Talk about your current wips

I have a few. The one I’m most invested in right now is a Burn Notice fusion AU set in the Star Wars universe. I think it is going to wind up being pretty long. I have some ideas for a urban fantasy AU. I might write a follow up to the SQC fusion I did… I have something I wrote 5k on and then quit so I might finish that. I’m toying with doing The Night Manager but may cover some of those tropes in Burn Notice so we will see. 

[thestarbirdfromtheashes]

Guess I'm off Tumblr now for the time being. Piece of cr-app.

I tried 3 or 4 times to reblog and signal boost @imsfire2's post about how she's writing a "Solo Quiero Caminar" fix-it fic, but this piece of cr-app kept crashing. (I gave Tumblr a piece of mind, and it was the same thing I always say.). Anyway, @imsfire2 is writing a SQC fic, and I hope she'll link to it here since I couldn't reblog it.

P.S. Someone should do an "Y Tu Mama Tambien" fix-it, too. Just sayin.

[yavemiel]

Do This: List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or as little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they’re working on: writing, art, gifsets, whatever.

Tagged by @rapidashpatronus​, thank you lovely!

What I’m working on right now: well, aside from trying to (slowly, so slowly) work my way through all my tag memes, I am also desperately trying to finish up my PhD and maintain a somewhat normal sleep schedule (HA).

In terms of projects though, hooo boy: I have A List. 🙈 (which I have put under the cut because it has become ridiculously long!). Tagging @ibohe​ and @justkeeponthegrass​ who I think are pretty much the only people I haven’t seen tagged so far, but if I’ve forgotten anyone and you’d like to do it, consider this your tag! :) 

What I’m actually working on right now:

A follow up to Nature and Nurture (my first ever Rebelcaptain fic) which gives them a slightly happier ending than they had a beginning (because that one is an ANGST fest), of which I have about 700 words written, which is less than a quarter I’d guess. A snippet: “Their first kiss is a pathetic little thing really. They’re on the ship away from Scariff (and if that isn’t a miracle, Jyn doesn’t know what is) with Cassian sprawled on the floor of the cargo hold, the severity of his injuries becoming more apparent now that their deaths are less imminent. His skin has a grey tinge that Jyn associates with too much blood loss, and his lids flutter over dazed eyes, pupils large and uneven. Chirrut’s chant seems to fade in the background as she grasps Cassian’s hand and grits out threats and pleas through clenched teeth. He’s fading fast though, and she slams her fist into the floor next to his body in rage and terror, screaming “Damn it,” and then softer “Damn you, you can’t leave me now, not after all this.” She isn’t sure where the impulse comes from, but under the circumstances she’s not inclined to ignore it, and she shifts forward clumsily and presses her lips to his, barely a kiss, more an expression of frustration and fear, but when she pulls back he’s looking at her, eyes actually focused, and gives her a faint smile, allowing her to see the blood coating his teeth. Then he passes out and she loses her mind.”

A standalone fic about Jyn looking after Cassian in ways that he doesn’t expect, tentatively titled ‘Footsteps in the Sand’, of which I have written about 2700 words, again, probably about a quarter I reckon, and something I really must come back to. Another little snippet: “He doesn’t notice her slipping into the room, but he definitely notices when his datapad vanishes from under his fingers. It’s a measure of how tired he is that he doesn’t even make a move to get it back, just lets out a long sigh and presses his fingers into his throbbing temples.”

An AU where Cassian and Jyn meet as children when Jyn is with the partisans, of which the working title is ‘Road Not Taken’, and of which I have written literally the first hundred words, which are: “If the girl across the courtyard doesn’t stop twirling that vibroblade absentmindedly, she’s going to cut off one of her fingers, and Cassian doesn’t care. What he cares about is the fact that Draven promised him he could be involved in negotiations this time, and yet he’s still sitting out here in the courtyard, staring at the door to Gererra’s inner sanctum like his focus might magically make it transparent so that he can see what’s going on inside. This is their fourth visit to Taris in as many months, desperately trying to salvage the relationship between the Alliance proper and Gerrera’s band of misfits.”

An AU in which Cassian gets amnesia after an incident on a mission post-Scarif and has to figure out his relationship with Jyn (and the rest of R1) as well as his place in the Rebellion in the aftermath, which is what I’m currently working on the most and which will probably end up being a multi-chapter effort because I’m about 6000 words in and I’d say less than a quarter of the way done. It was supposed to be a short one-shot! A final snippet as here ends the list of WIPs that I actually have stuff written for:  “"Kay, was there a woman here before?" "There should not have been, as this section is restricted to medical personnel only," Kay says, ignoring his own distinct lack of medical capability. Cassian slumps. Definitely a hallucination then.   "However," Kay continues, "As Jyn Erso has never let that stop her before, I think it is statistically safe to assume that she was indeed by your bedside earlier." Cassian stares at him, bewildered. "Who the fark is Jyn Erso?"“

Coming Up: here follows a (shorter you’ll be glad to hear) list of things which I want to write but haven’t got round to starting yet!

A follow up to Sfumato in which Jyn stumbles across Cassian’s sketchbook.

An AU where they live after Scariff but Jyn leaves the Rebellion because of PTSD and sets up a home for herself somewhere secluded to try and recover.

An SQC fix-it, the same one @rapidashpatronus​ mentioned in her list!

A Harry Potter universe fic about the Ravenclaw common room guardian looking after her flock.

A Rebelcaptain proposal at Han/Leia’s wedding

Things I’ve started and will probably never finish: nothing that I can think of?

And there we have it! I hope to get round to all of these eventually, but I think the Amnesia Cassian fic is my immediate priority: we’ll see where the muse takes me after that! 😅

[wyrd-syster]

Your tags on ibohe's gifset that I requested of Gabriel being a hopelessly lovesick puppy have given me such joy! There is a severe lack of SQC fic so I am working on it I AM WORKING ON A FIX IT MY FRIEND

Oh man I can’t wait to read it!

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

Finally bringing you part three

Part Three of Til Then

Guess who just FINALLY got to rewatch Solo Quiero Caminar.

She goes during daytime, but that doesn’t really quiet the memories. The absence of a blood stain on the chair is just as jarring as brown smears on the white plastic would have been and she fights the urge to walk right back out. This is stupid. This is dangerous. She’s looking for the second-in-command for a dead drug lord, which doesn’t really sound like a good place to stand, ever, and especially not in a strange country.

The man behind the counter is polishing glasses with religious fervour, and doesn’t look up as she enters.

“Coffee?” he asks, and immediately the bile rises in her throat. She doesn’t think she could take any kind of food right now, or ever. Not in here.

“No. I just – someone died here. Not long ago. Three months.”

His brows knit, just a tiny bit. He probably thinks she doesn’t see. He hold the glass in his hand up to the light, then takes the next one.

“What do you want?”

“I want to know where he’s buried.”

A cynical smile tugs at the man’s lips as he rubs at a stain on the wine glass. “And graffity the headstone?”

“No.”

The smile remains, looking increasingly bitter. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Might be I’d help.” He sighs and takes up the next glass. “Anyway, nobody died here.”

Her jaw clenches. “You just said –“

“I know what I said. He didn’t die. Someone called him an ambulance. Elsewise, I probably would have.”

“You would’ve called an ambulance?” she repeats, frowning.

“Yes. I saw the blood when he came in.”

“You knew who that was and you would’ve called him an ambulance?” she repeats, sceptically. “Why would you bother?”

For the first time, the man looks up from the glass in his hands to give her a very frosty look out of bright sharp eyes. “Maybe we’re not all bastards in this city, senorita. Just a thought.”

She returns his look and he adds, in the same dry tone: “If it makes you feel better, I did consider, you know, going out for a walk for an hour or two. But the thing is... people just don’t eat where other people have died, and I like making a living.”

He frowns a little, then suddenly he sighs. “I remember you now. You were here that night.”

“I was.”

She is losing patience with this guy, fast. “Can you just answer my question? Do I need to pay you so you’ll tell me what happened?”

He raises a brow. “Just because I’m Mexican doesn’t mean you have to bribe me.”

He catches her unmoved glare, sighs and puts the glass down. “I know he was alive when they took him to hospital.”

She can feel something creeping up on her at those words, but she swallows it down. Not now. Not now.

“There was nothing in the paper the next couple of days. They would write about that.” He frowns at her again, then turns around to put away his glasses. “You sure you don’t want a drink? You look like you need one.”

She feels increasingly dazed, but something about his tone makes her smile. “I’ll have to pay for it, of course.”

“Welcome to capitalism.”

“I think you are a bit of a bastard, you know,” she replies and he shrugs.

“I try. How do you think I survived here for so long?” He places the glasses on the shelf with great care. “How are you going to find him?”

There’s just graves, Aurora, Paloma said.

Aurora smiles faintly. “I think I have an idea.”

-

There is a bouquet of fresh flowers on the grave of Félix and Ana Chavez, quickly withering in the scorching Mexican sun.

Aurora kneels down to brush away the dried petals and smiles.

Remember me.

Maybe – just maybe – she won’t have to.

[imsfire2]

I just invented a really nice lunch. 

I reheated the last leftovers of my vegetarian chili and scrambled three eggs into the mixture, and toppd it off with some grated cheese and sliced fresh tomatoes.  It was delicious!  I love finding new ways with leftovers.

Then came back from lunch to find someone has read and kudos’d about 12 of my fics in one go - squeee!

All this plus having posted another chapter of “Out of darkness” and being well on the way with the next.  I’m good.

[imsfire2]

Out of darkness

So, he watches her.

The street is dark, and she is walking into the dark; he isn’t quite sure where the borders of the darkness lie, in the pools of streetlight or in himself.  His eyes aren’t working quite right anymore, and he clings on to the last sweet thing he will see, clings to the sight of her walking, as his brain clings to the last sweet thing it will know, the memory (remember me remember me) the memory of her body her lips the sadness in her eyes…

The blood running down his hip and pooling in the plastic seat is sickly, stickily hot and he is beginning to feel numb inside, the pain putting itself at a distance from him.

The street is dark, and Aurora walks into the dark, and he goes into the dark watching her.

**

Dark indeed, long dark, long like a bad childhood, like a fever, like fear...

He can feel something in the darkness.  A surface under his fingertips.  He touches it.  Firm. Not hard but firm.  Neither warm nor cold.  Motionless; not something alive.  When he moves his hand, curls his fingers, his nails find a faint texture beneath them.  Roughness, very delicate, structured, something interwoven, woven.  Fabric.

He can’t open his eyes, because dead men do not see.  Then he does; and sees nothing.  Lies in the dark, remembering with a brilliant vividness the young woman walking away from him, her straight back, swinging hips, sweet beauty going into the dark.  He’s there now in the depths of darkness and it still isn’t over.  He wonders how long it truly takes to die.

His breathing seems to be quite steady, and the pain has vanished.  So there’s that at least.  Interesting to know.  Dying, in these final stages; not painful.

He wonders if all the men he’s killed had a split second of this stillness in them, this quiet, troubled peace, before their shot hearts stopped.

On his left there’s something that isn’t darkness.  It looks, weirdly, like the outline of a door, with a light behind it.

Gabriel would laugh if he had the strength or the breath left for it.  The door to heaven, right there, shut in his face.  Fair enough.  It’s hardly a surprise to learn he didn’t do enough to merit redemption. Even now, even from here on the wrong side, the light beyond the door is strangely beautiful.  Thin lines like the angels’ lances, violent unearthly light of paradise, cutting through the endless night.  Even if he didn’t make it, then, heaven does exist.

Curious how comforting that is.  It’s not for him, but it is there, for others.  Blessed Mother of God and the words float up into his mind and he can’t remember the next line but even the start of the prayer sounds sweet Blessed Mother of God

Blessed Mother of God

Is this my consolation?

If this is all, I am content

Darkness

**

The next time he wakes, he sees a regular door, and daylight; and he’s in a small grey room, in a bed, with a pillow beneath his head.  Things bleep.

His left side and his hand both hurt.  He has no idea why his hand hurts.

It isn’t until a nurse comes in, and he tries to say “What happened?” and cannot speak that he realises he’s been intubated.  One of the beeping machines is helping him to keep breathing.

It’s really true, then. He’s alive.

“Ah, good morning,” says the nurse when his desperate eyes meet hers.  “Good, good.”  He blinks at her.  She nods her head though she cannot possibly know what he’s trying to say; checks the machinery, leaves him alone again.  He lies looking up, staring at the reality of not being dead.

Later, for the rest of the day, doctors and other nurses come and go, and in between their visits he stares up and sees the plaster panels overhead, the support struts, the light fitting with the plain fabric shade. In his hearing all they will say is courteous, neutral, encouraging things, like relax, you need to rest and it was touch and go for a while there but you’ll pull through and excellent, normal blood pressure.

Someone must have called an ambulance.  The man behind the counter, perhaps.  How wonderful after all his dark deeds to owe his life to some ordinary act of compassion, a little man at a diner counter making a telephone call.

And someone must be footing the cost of all this.  Félix, presumably, the sonofabitch would do a thing like that, after all.  No doubt he’ll refuse ever to speak to Gabriel again, but he’ll still pay his hospital bill; out of some sick sense of honour, or to prove his ownership, one last time.

On the second day he has a visitor.  Not Félix, not any of the crew, but Doña Cecilia.  He can see the shadows of her guards outside, one on either side of the door, but she comes in alone and stands looking down at him.   Gives him a faint smile from on high, like the royalty she is.

“So, young Archangel, you’re still with us, then.  You have a little breathing space.  Time to think things through, eh? - make that decision we talked about.”

She doesn’t stay long, and doesn’t tell him anything about the rest of them.  That’s bad, he thinks, with a coldness settling in his chest alongside the pain that seems to live there now.  It could mean many things, and none of them are good.

They take the breathing tube out two days later.  He wonders what to ask, now that he’ll be able to speak again.  Outside this little grey room, he has no idea of the shape of the world anymore.  No idea even of who is living and who is dead.  All he knows is that he should have been among the latter, and somehow he is not.

The doctor supervising the extubation asks him a couple of pointless questions, inspects his stitches, listens to his chest and abdomen, congratulates him on being alive; leaves.  The nurses renew the dressing on his wound, check his catheter  and the drip in his arm, give him sips of water from a cup like a baby’s beaker and promise him a first taste of solid food that evening.  Soup, they say, as though it were manna.  It sounds like manna.  Chicken soup with vegetables.

It’s then that he decides to ask one question; the only one he has some hope will be safe.  His voice sounds like sawdust.  “Please, who called the ambulance?”  

“Señor?”

“How did I get here? – the guy in the diner, did he call an ambulance, was it him?  I’d like to thank him, when I get out.”  

Saying that much has made everything hurt, and the nearer of the two nurses touches his hand gently.  “I don’t know, Señor, but I can find out for you. Would you like that?  Now you need to rest, you’ve had a tiring day.”

Strange to be petted, so, and spoken to like that; as though he’s a sick five-year-old, not a grown man and a murderer.  

He nods, whispers a thank you, accepting her authority and her kindness.  Stares up at the ceiling when the two of them leave, and is asleep within minutes.

**

“I found out the answer, Señor.  To your question.  I checked the records and apparently it was an anonymous caller.   A young woman, calling from a cell-phone.”

Blessed Mother of God, is this my consolation?  If this is to be all, I am content.  I remembered her, and she did not forget me.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, thank you, thank you…

“It’s nice to see a patient smile like that,” one nurse is saying to the other as they leave the room. “He looks happy to be alive for the first time.”

**

Doña Cecelia comes again the next day, and the rest of his questions are answered; and after that conversation, he lies shaking and unable to sleep, long into the night, in the darkness.

**

By the time Gabriel stands in front of a mirror for the first time and looks at himself with his bandages and dressings off, Félix and the boys, and the Señora, are all long buried, and he knows that there has been a guard on the door of his room the entire time, not just when Doña Cecelia visits.  The same guard who is now outside the hospital bathroom where he’s being prepared for his shower.  He’s too weak to do the job for himself safely (and though his spirit bridles at hearing that, he has to admit the doctor is right; he can barely stand unaided after these weeks bedbound and inert).  He must bear being manhandled and washed by a stranger; like a small boy, like an orphan.  It’s a peculiarly precise embarrassment.

He hangs on to the handles in the tiled wall with shaking arms, looks straight ahead, refuses to acknowledge the humiliation.   Thanks the nurse afterwards.

The mirror had steamed up within moments.  He’d had enough of the view anyway.  Always lean, he’s now painfully thin; cheekbones jutting, muscles wasted and slack.  Yet his beard has grown well.  He looks like a revolutionary out of a kids’ history book; gaunt and angry, savage-eyed, and superbly moustachioed.

The scar on his abdomen is huge; easily four times the length he’d anticipated when he first felt the wound.  Where the knife went in there’s a ragged three centimetre slash but that’s just the start; it extends above and off to the side now, neat surgical incisions.  Its whole length sutured up with stitches black as boars’ bristles, delicate as lace.  

It itches and aches, and it feels as though every organ inside hurts too, despite the analgesia.  

The cannula in his hand itches too, and the skin under the tape holding it down is inflamed.  It won’t be taken out for another three to four days.  They’re still pumping antibiotics into him through it.  The consultant tells him smoothly that he should focus on making a good recovery instead of grumbling about a few square centimetres of rash. Partial splenectomy, traumatic injury to the large and small intestines and the left lobe of the liver, a punctured lung, and massive blood loss; plus a chip out of the anterior end of one rib. He had to ask for explanations of some of the medical terms, but now he knows, he’ll remember.

“You nearly died,” Doña Cecelia tells him firmly.  “Next time don’t be so slow.  I shouldn’t have to keep telling you these things.  It’s time to get out of this life, Gabriel.”  She stands over him, looking down her regal nose; although her voice is kind she’s never lowered herself to the level of giving him so much as a pat on the hand.  “I’ll pay to keep you alive,” she tells him now “because you were always a good boy to me and I don’t like the idea of your handsome face wasting into dust just yet. But I won’t give you a job, after. You need to understand that.  You were Félix’s man and I don’t want that association.”  

“Of course, Doña Cecelia. And thank you.  I am forever in your debt, beyond anything I can ever hope to repay.”

“Really?  Well, since you put it so nicely, you young gallant. So - don’t be an idiot, then.  Live, and make a new start.  Since that idiot Félix made you his residuary heir and his poor whore of a wife predeceased him, you aren’t without resources.”

“I don’t want to carry on that business.”

“I should hope not! That isn’t what I’m paying good money for.  You’d be back in this place, in the morgue, within a week, the way things are at present. Why do you think I have a man stationed outside here right now, eh?  The business has as good as collapsed anyway.  But the properties he owned, those still have solid value.  Think about it; make up your mind what to do, and then do it.  Action has a magic of its own.  Didn’t some poet say that?  So act.”

“I will, Doña Cecelia. I know what I’m going to do.”

She smiles at that.  “Tell a lady your plans?  I’d like to think of you going out from here soon and finding yourself a life that won’t kill you.  What are you off to do, then?”

Gabriel smiles, slowly, letting himself hope for the first time he can remember.  “I’m going to Spain.”

[imsfire2]

Out of darkness: chapter two

(Author’s note: So I started a fix-it fic for “Solo quiero caminar”; it was going to be a one-shot but I couldn’t resist taking the story a bit further.  Not sure now how long this one will end up being, though I hope not quite on the scale of “In a dark time...”  Anyway, you can read chapter one on AO3 now, and here’s chapter two).

He starts in the only place he can.  Algeciras. The sea is fiery blue in the spring light, the town comfortably dirty and alive.  Kids drinking cola on the sea front; a market, a shopping mall, a few tourists; ferries putting in and heading out, and the perpetual smell of fish and dust in the air.  The big British rock at the end of the bay, a bulk like an elephant turd, streaked with chalk-white.

A simple place to stay the night, right on the waterfront, Hotel El Bahía; unpretentious, nondescript, the room is small but the bed is good, and he pays extra for a window looking onto the sea.  The sea, not the ocean; not the waters he dimly remembers from some long-ago trip, the memory of warm Pacific waves and sand, all tangled with a child’s fears and hopes and desperations; this is the Sea, the Mediterranean, the hot enclosed sea of legends and histories and myths that are not his own.  Aurora’s sea.

Did she ever pass this hotel, look at this self-same view?  He drinks his coffee in the ground floor bar, looking out at the azure water, the dusty sun umbrellas.  Gulls drift by in the distance, white as torn paper between blue and blue.  

There’s a public library, and a librarian who smiles, and remarks on his accent; asks “Are you trying to trace family here?”

“An old friend.” Gabriel smiles back.  It’s strange how the untruth doesn’t feel like lying. Did he even exchange a hundred words with Aurora?  Yet the memory of her feels as real as any in his life; she’s everything vivid and concrete, her complete certainty of self, calm and brave with him, her face bending unhesitatingly into the kiss and then not looking back.  He smiles at the kindly woman looking up at him from the desk, and accepts the help she offers without looking for motives.

It still feels strange to do this, living without calculation, finding and understanding his own emotions, smiling just for himself.  He’s barely known what it is to feel at all, the last few years.  He must remember to be calm with himself, not to panic and shut his mind to this strangeness.  

His heart is on fire as he reads the local telephone directory.  The air-conditioned reading room is cool and quiet, and the cool and quiet do nothing but inflame him further.

There are dozens of Rodriguez’s but no Aurora.  The cold place under his rib opens up again, it aches with the certainty of coming failure. He’ll never find her – he’ll find her and she’ll be gone – he’ll find her dead - or find her married after all, he’ll find she was a woman who would lie to console a dying man and that mere small kindness will kill him now – and he tells himself Shut up, shut up, cabrón, shut up you idiot and closes the pages, flips to the publication date at the front.  The directory was issued last month.  Just to be certain, he takes it back to the desk and asks for last year’s.

Waiting for it to be fetched his hands are shaking and again the inner voice starts up with its chatter. He never had an inner voice before. He’ll find her gone, he’ll find her and she won’t remember him, or she’ll look at him with ice in her eyes and he will go back to Mexico to find out what it is to grow old and be this much alone…

He turns whole slabs of pages thumping together, D to M to R, and individual sheets crumple as he leafs through them.  His thin fingers slip on the coloured paper: Radigüer, Rafael, Reyes, Rocio, Rodrigues, Rodriguez – and – Abraham Alvise Amaral Antonia Antonio – a stack of Antonio’s –

Aurora.

He’d breathing deep and fast, his nostrils flaring; he has to blink back moisture in his eyes and for a moment his mouth works with shock, before he permits himself to go into the place of emotion again.  To feel this shock, this hope, so intense, almost painful.  To smile this hard.  He’s found her name, and the street she lived on, a year ago.

He thinks of paying bribes or offering threats, of what once would have been his only move now, and his smile shifts sideways and grows even more incredulous as he realises he will not do any of that.  It’s an idiot grin, but he’s an idiot with happiness.  He never really had any hope of it before, he thinks, this thing called happiness; all the hope was just threads, like hairs tickling his skin.  

Dark hairs, long dark hair, he remembers the silken feel of that hair gathered in his hands, heavy, unbound.  If he’s to merit this, he must be whole in his commitment.  No more of Félix’s methods.

He’s not there yet, but it’s a start, and he’ll follow as far as he can, walking down this road.

It takes a few days, a few times standing in front of a stranger and asking plainly for help; but by mid-week he knows where she moved to.  In the course of those questions and requests he hears the word “stalking” used and feels that inward fear again, though the speaker says it only in passing.

Am I a stalker?  Will she see it that way?  

Should I go home now and put this insane idea out of my mind?

And then he is standing in the hallway of an apartment building, outside the door of flat 1A-left, as the naïvely chatty occupant tells him that 1A-right has gone away on holiday and won’t be back till Saturday.  He asks “Where did she go?” and is told

“Mexico.  Mexico City.  She was pretty excited about it.”

He’s shaking.  For a moment it’s hard not to sink down on the tiled floor.  All the excitement and anxiety of the last few days is suddenly a focussed point like a laser, and it strikes him in the side, there where each muscle lines up along the memory of that killing blow and that pain.

“Oh no.  No, no, no. I’ve just come from there.”

“I thought you had that accent,” says the neighbour.  He leans on the door jamb, amiable and very young, and stoned, his frayed yellow jersey hanging around him, too long at the hips and in the arms, a roll-up in his grinning lips.

Gabriel would like to tell him he needs to be more careful.  If he were a stalker he’s just been told far more than he has a right to know.  

But he isn’t, and he won’t come back to the apartment until she invites him.  He’ll watch from outside.  It’s still stalking, it’s disconcertingly close to the way he staked her out, before; but what else can he do?  He came here to find her.  

“Here” is Granada; she moved inland, into the mountains, into the city.  He has a hire car now, and a room in another hotel, a high-ceilinged room overlooking the Plaza Bib-Rambla with its fountain and its café tables.  A bronze Neptune above the fountain exhorts passers-by to raise their eyes to heaven. Beneath the god’s feet is a row of stone lions’ heads with green moss dripping in their eyes; pigeons bathe in the lower basin and tourists sit on the edge as the afternoon sun beats down on them.  Gabriel sits on his balcony and pictures Aurora below, stopping, looking up at him. She must have passed those weeping lions so many times.  

Locals sit under the arcades in the shade, and above the square the squat bell tower of the Cathedral rises in the heat.  Over the rooftops he can see the Torre de la Vela and the walls of the Alhambra, pale and rose-gold on their hillside.

He could be perfectly happy too, he thinks, living here between Neptune and Christ, looking up to the hills.

He can’t rest.  The remainder of that day and all of the next he quarters the streets, looking, seeing, touching.  It’s a consolation to his eyes in her absence.  Her roads, her cafés and stores and market stalls, all the places where she lives now, the pavements where she walks.   He is in her world, while she is in his.  He imagines her visiting her sister’s grave, carrying an armful of flowers, granting herself the blessing of farewell.  Until she returns, he can watch over her streets and know that if he leaves now he’ll cause her no grief, no thought at all.  Until she comes.  

There are long shadows and the Calle Marqués de Gerona is cool in the shade and busy with the beginning of evening.  In the Bar La Riffeña the TV is showing the UEFA cup, and when he orders a drink it comes with a dish of olives and cubes of cheese, and a small slice of bread.   Gabriel takes a seat on the terrace, where he can enjoy the evening air and watch both the street and the screen.  The second rum, half an hour later, brings a spoonful of scrambled egg with asparagus, and more bread.  By now he’s enjoying the match even though neither of the teams is his.  Sevilla have just equalised, to the delight of the regulars at the zinc.  

The third drink gains him a tiny dish of Russian salad, tangy with gherkins.  At this rate he’ll have an entire meal gratis if he orders enough drinks.  ¡Viva Andalucía!

At the next table two exhausted Italians are poring over a spread map and downing large beers. There’s a goldfinch in a cage hung over the terrace; it hops about, singing over the buzz of talk and street noise, the rapid glee of the sports commentary.  At first he doesn’t hear the sound of suitcase wheels, and then thinks nothing of it when he does, such an ordinary noise, rattling and meaningless. Then he sees her.

Aurora Rodriguez, in her scarlet jacket, wheeling a bulky grey case towards him.  His eyes go to her as to a fire in the street.

He’d forgotten, he thinks, though he’d thought he remembered every nuance; her lips, her hair, her way of walking as though the guilty world were laying its heart beneath her shoes.

There’s no chance to think through what he will say, or to hide himself.  She’s forty metres away, thirty, twenty, and still walking.  She’s looking straight past him; her eyes are tired and both glad and sad, so that he wonders what she’s seen in Mexico City; does she know something now, for sorrow or for peace, that she did not know before? He’s looking at her approach as if she’s just marched down from paradise with her case in tow, and as she comes nearer he turns his head involuntarily to keep her in his sight.  A slow movement, focussed upon her, like a fixed star. She sees it and it draws her eye, her glance catches onto his, a hand catching on a rough edge of silk.  She takes two more steps and comes to a halt, ten metres away, with her lips parting.  Impassive, watching; then very slowly, slow as heaven, smiling.

The last time he saw her, her lip had still been split, her face bruised, from Félix’s fists.  She’d looked at him with defensive eyes.  He’d known he would have died for her, to atone for what had been done to her and her family, if he had not already been dying.

He stands, to meet her on his feet.

He’s never been a man given to fear; he barely recognises it, it’s so unfamiliar, this thundering of his heart against his sore, scarred ribs.  She is smiling at him and he is afraid.

He’d wanted to smile at her. In all his dreams of this moment he has been smiling.  But his lips will not move, except, for a second, to open, breathless, silent.  He exhales.  His throat tightens on a thousand unsaid things.

Aurora takes the next step, and the next, careful, deliberate.  The suitcase bumps heavily on the cobbles behind her each time.  

“Gabriel?”  So guarded; she was always ice, she was a loaded gun, an averted head, a figure walking away…  Her smile wavers and grows cautious, readying herself to strike or to turn away, and his heart tears apart.  He forces himself into a smile as frail as breathing.

“It’s you.”  

Which of them was it who spoke?  There’s so much tension in his ribs, his spine, he’s a steel guitar string, taut and tightening, coming into tune at last.

“Aurora.”

One more step forward, one more crunch of the suitcase wheels; and Gabriel inhales and flexes his hands, and takes a step also.  Suddenly he’s almost panting for air; but light seems to flood into him as his smile anchors itself in her.  “Aurora. Aurora…”

“Be careful,” she says. “You’ll hyperventilate.”  Her smile grows again.  It gives him life.  All the muscles in his face seem to be twisting, a stupid grin coming and going, helplessly shy.

His hands are shaking, that brief mortal fear still racing in his veins.  He reaches for her and she for him, their fingertips touch suddenly and she presses her lips together and then beams, quivering with mirth that is half shock.  “I’m glad to see you.”

“Would you like a drink?—“

The electrifying touch on his fingers, the dark eyes on his; humour, astonishment, joy.  Their hands slide into one another and clasp.  He’s not sure whether it’s her that is trembling, or him.  Where the boundary is.  She’s barely fifty centimetres away and he can feel the warmth of her body and smell a clean herbal scent coming off her, not perfume but some pleasant everyday thing like shampoo.  Her skin is unblemished, a slight blush of suntan on her brow, her nose, her cheekbones.

“To drink?—“

“Something to drink?—“

They’re speaking over and through one another, still holding hands.  He begins consciously to try and slow his breathing.  “A drink, yes.”

“Perhaps a – a beer…”

“Of course.”

Somehow, he’s holding a chair for her; somehow he’s managed to let go her hand for a few moments. She sits, looking up at him as he tucks her seat in; and as he takes his own again their hands find one another and grab, and hold on.

He eyes her lips her touch…

He’d like to bring her hand to his forehead in fealty; to his lips, in worship.  She’s here, she’s beside him, he found her.

[imsfire2]

SQC fic update

Chapter three of “Out of darkness” is now up on AO3. 

Gabriel and Aurora have a drink together.

[imsfire2]

SQC Fic update

Chapter 6 of “Out of darkness” is now up on AO3.

Gabriel and Aurora and a postcoital moment...

[imsfire2]

SQC fic typo

That moment when you’re trying to write some very hot & heavy smut but you mis-type “she’s coaxing him inside her” as “she’s coxing him” and promptly have a mental picture of your heroine sitting in the bow of your hero’s rowing boat shouting “aand stroke!”

and you collapse sniggering like a nasty bratty kid.

I need to eat.  Back to the smut after supper, methinks.

[imsfire2]

Out of Darkness

Chapter four of my fix-it for Gabriel and Aurora is now up on AO3...

[imsfire2]

SQC fic update

The next chapter of “Out of darkness” is now up on AO3. 

A small gift from the market leads to more...