#still annoyed by that post claiming long au fics are a recent thing????

[romanticizingmurder]

I really don't understand why people act like they're being forced to participate in fandom? I see so many bitter posts on here about hating xyz part of fandom and it's like....okay? So filter it out. So block the tag. So just don't participate. Not everything is for you, thats fine. Why act like it existing at all, or it being popular, is some affront?

[sxcret-garden]

2nd Desire ღ Tie Me Down [M]

ღ Aspects of Desire series ღ Ateez Jongho x fem!reader ღ feat.: Yeosang ღ words: ~5.1k ღ genre: established relationship, college AU, fluff, some humor, slice of life, smut (dom!Jongho, sub!reader, reader masturbating and asking to be punished for it, reader’s hands tied together, he’s a bit mean but goes soft dom when reader shows signs of discomfort, strength kink, fingering, some body worship, teasing, begging, unprotected sex) ღ warnings: (him running his hand through reader’s hair)

Desc.: Lost in your excitement over the recent development in your relationship with your boyfriend Jongho, you try to tickle more of his dominant side out of him. When he shuts down that attempt with only the best of intentions, he makes sure you won’t stay flustered by your miscalculation for long.

Author's note: chapter 2 and I'm STILL nervous about posting kasjdfölksa I hope you guys enjoy though~ alsoalso I decided to do a taglist for this fic, so if you want to be added, just drop me an ask about it <3

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You drop your bag beside the entrance as you walk into Jongho’s apartment, the little melody resounding when the door falls into its lock that’s usually just another background noise to you manages to annoy you on this day. It’s only half past 4, yet you feel like you’ve been awake for more than 20 hours. 

You slip out of your shoes and step inside, the sofa in the living room being your destination. With a groan you let your body flop down onto it, the cushioned surface softening the impact. You’ve been at university since morning, your first class of the day being quite an interesting one and almost making you forget about the dreadful events that would follow suit. For lunch you met up with other students from your major to work on your group project, and these people really remind you time and time again why you absolutely hate group projects. You’re a group of seven, yet somehow the only ones taking the whole thing seriously are you and Yeosang, a guy you’ve done a course with before and who you luckily ended up being in the same group with. You know from back then that he does his work diligently enough - what you didn’t know was how badly the other five would do. One of them ran late, claiming he was convinced the meeting would start at 2 and not at half past 1, one of them didn’t show up at all, the others half-assed their parts and one girl only did half of what she was supposed to do. It’s a mess, and it’s stressing you out, because you’re getting a shared group grade for the paper. If you were being graded individually, you would’ve already decided to just do well on your own part, and make sure to precisely document who worked how much, but since you can’t exactly do that here it eventually came to the point where you decided it would be better if you took over the lead. As the person who has assigned herself the role of scolding the others into doing their work properly, you didn’t exactly gain their sympathy, but thankfully Yeosang was right there to have your back. Sharing their disdain was still better than having to shoulder it all alone, so you made a mental note to thank him with a cup of coffee or a meal later on.

But for now you want nothing more than to get this stupid project out of your mind, and lying motionlessly on the sofa and staring at a wall without any kind of distraction from your angry thoughts running wild isn’t exactly the best way to go about that. So you get up with a heavy sigh, peeking into your boyfriend’s room through the gap in the door standing ajar, before walking inside. He isn’t home yet - you assume he must be on his way, because his last class of the day should’ve ended about 10 minutes ago. Walking over to his closet, you open the side where he made space for some of your clothes, and you grab some comfortable pants and a t-shirt you haven’t worn in a while. There’s the logo of a game printed at the front - coincidentally a game you both used to play when you were still in school, and one of the topics you bonded over as you were slowly becoming closer.

You trod over to the bathroom, figuring you should take a shower in an attempt to clear your mind first of all - maybe you could magically find a way to wash off all the frustration the day has drenched you in. Either way, at least the warm water raining down on your skin has a calming effect on you, and so for a few minutes you merely stand there, doing nothing. You reach for the soap eventually, and as you’re cleaning yourself your thoughts slowly drift elsewhere.

Until you remember the conversation you had with Jongho about establishing a different kind of dynamic between you two. Your fingers dance up your body to your throat, and padding them onto your pulse reminds you of what it felt like to have his hand in this position instead. The thoughts of the project are quickly forgotten, yet your cells have not quite let go of the frustration yet - but that’s nothing a quick orgasm couldn’t take care of, right?

So you let your hands wander, allowing them to map out your own body wherever instinct leads them, and as your fingers find your core, you let out a long sigh. This feels like just what you need right now, so you don’t hold back, beginning to draw circles onto your sensitive bud. Feeling your limbs relax from the sensation, you lean your back against the wall, and eventually you reach out for the shower head, changing the setting to the highest pressure and letting it do the work for you.

You don’t think of much at all, simply enjoying the pleasure coursing through your body, until you can sense yourself coming closer to the edge, and you buck your hips up against the water jet.

“Fuck…” you whimper, as a scenario crosses your mind. “What if he finds out…” You gulp at the thought of Jongho figuring out you got off without him, in his apartment, and your mind begins to wander as you fantasize about all the ways in which he might punish you for it. Another curse escapes you through gritted teeth, and soon you feel your high crashing down on you, walls clenching around nothing as his name falls from your lips.

You step out of the shower feeling refreshed, purposely not changing back the setting of the shower head. You want him to catch you, want to know about all the things he would do to you that you haven’t seen him do before. Slipping into fresh clothes and wrapping a towel around your head to let your hair dry a bit before finishing the process with a blow dryer, you grin to yourself and you walk out into the living room. 

Your boyfriend comes home about half an hour later, just as you’re putting the blow dryer back to its original place in one of the cabinets in his bathroom. You suppress the excited grin that just won’t leave your lips, and instead greet him as per usual.

“You’re late,” you remark as you catch sight of the time displayed on your phone screen.

“Yeah, the subway was crowded. Should’ve taken the bus,” he mutters as he walks up to you, his hand patting your head in a gesture that’s supposed to say “I’m home.”

“Right, it’s starting to get bad at this time,” you continue your small talk.

“How did your meet-up go?”

“Don’t ask…” you brush it off quickly, hoping to ward off the stress creeping up to you again upon him mentioning it.

“That bad?” Jongho asks as he lets out a short laugh while he furrows his eyebrows, telling you he feels at least a little sorry for you.

“Yeah.” You roll your eyes. “And you? How was your day?”

“Don’t ask,” he answers, and now you’re the one chuckling. “I’ll go wash up real quick, and I think I’ll need some time to decompress afterwards.”

“Sure,” you mutter, before reaching up from where you’ve made yourself comfortable on the edge of the sofa, hand snaking behind his neck so you could pull him in for a quick peck on the lips. 

And so he disappears in the bathroom, you hear him turning on the water and you hear him turning it off again after a while, and with every passing second, the excitement for what’s to come is only growing. Except when he’s done, he simply informs you he’s going to game for a bit, and then he walks into his room. You’re confused to say the least, and a bit disappointed as well. This is not going according to the plan you had in mind, and you wonder if it’s just because he’s had a bad day or if maybe he just isn’t in the mood today. Trying to brush it off, you grab a book you started a while ago, staying out in the living room as you attempt to read a chapter or two, but somehow your mind just won’t let you focus on the story unfolding on the pages in front of you. So eventually you get up, deciding to sneakily follow him instead - you’re not sure why you’re being so secretive all of a sudden.

Your boyfriend is certainly good at reading the room, and it’s helped you leave behind your own awkwardness more than once. So today as well you decide to simply sit at the edge of his bed and watch him play his game, hoping for him to notice something’s off as you’re trying to find the right words to say. And without doubt, he doesn’t disappoint.

“What’s with you?” he asks in between rounds, his voice soft in contrast to the serious stance he tends to take on while playing his games. 

“Just…” you’re not sure how to start, how much to hint at what you want - you sure as hell aren’t thinking of just saying it straightforwardly, now that you’re beginning to feel a bit embarrassed about it.

“Hmm?” He drags out the sound a bit, then the image on his screen changes, and he adds, “Let me finish this and then we can talk?”

“Alright.” You’re suddenly more anxious than you would’ve expected yourself to be as you watch, fidgeting with the hem of your shirt the entire time. The time spent waiting for him to turn his attention to you feels like half an eternity, even though once he’s done you’re sure it can’t have been more than five minutes. He exits the game to the main menu, and as he takes off his headset, he turns to you in his chair.

“What is it?” You see worry on his face, and you immediately feel the need to let him know it’s nothing serious, really.

“Nothing bad!” you say. 

“That’s good,” Jongho answers, relief behind his words.

“Just… didn’t you… notice anything?” You rub your legs together as you avert your gaze from him, but even in the corner of your eye you can tell he’s thinking hard about your question now.

“Notice anything?” he repeats, and then suddenly his eyes narrow, and there’s an amused smile about to creep onto his lips. “Like what?” At this point you’d have sworn you could see the exact moment the dots connected in his head, so his question throws you off a little.

“Like… uhm… I showered earlier.”

“Good,” he chuckles, and you press yourself on to continue.

“And uh…. maybe got off…”

“Oh. That’s nice,” he replies, and once again you’re thrown off, this time by the way the tension in the room drops right away, and he’s now showing you a genuine smile. “Why are you telling me about that though? Want me to come watch next time?” He tries to throw in a joke, but the confusion radiating off you makes him think again, and well, now you’re sure he understands what you’re trying to get at, because he raises up his chin just a little, giving you that look that’s supposed to say “I found you out.”

“Were you maybe thinking I would punish you for that?” he assumes correctly, and you nod, heat rushing to your face now. 

“Yes…” Jongho laughs. It’s more of a giggle, actually, and the amusement in his expression only adds to your confusion. And then he becomes serious, though his features keep their softness.

“Look… I’m sorry to disappoint you but… I’m not going to do anything we haven’t discussed beforehand,” he explains, making sure to be clear about his thoughts. “My first impulse isn’t to punish you for masturbating. But if you want me to, we can talk about it.”

“O-okay,” you stammer, and once again there’s this endearing smile on his face, spreading from ear to ear. You know it’s meant to reassure you, but right now all you can focus on is the embarrassment burning in your chest from making such a severe miscalculation. This isn’t how things go in real life, of course it isn’t. You should know that, and yet-

“Hey,” he calls out to you, hand reaching for yours, giving you a squeeze to tear you out of your thoughts. “Let’s talk about it.” 

He’s also good at that - saying the right thing at the right moment. Or at least he tends to say the things you need to hear in moments like this, and once again you feel unmistakably that you’re safe with him, and that you’re in this together.

“Okay.”

“So…” letting go of your hand, he leans back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, and you feel the dynamic shift ever so slightly as he won’t divert his eyes from you. “What kind of punishment were you thinking of?” You raise your eyebrows, and you begin to ponder on his question, but somehow your head is suddenly empty.

“I… don’t know…” you admit, and he grins at your words again.

“You didn’t think about what you want me to do to you now?”

“I mean… I did… but more… in a general sense,” you stammer.

“Like what?”

“Like… you fucking me…” And there it is again, that laugh that’s really more of a giggle than an actual laugh.

“You didn’t think about what comes before that?”

“Not… really?” you admit, and he clears his throat.

“Then how about I tell you what came to mind for me, and you tell me if that sounds okay to you?” You nod okay, and he continues, “So what I was thinking is that I could restrict you in some way… putting you in handcuffs maybe, or blindfolding you.”

“I don’t think I’m okay with the blindfolding,” you respond. “Handcuffs sounds… nice though.” 

“See? This is just why I didn’t want us to rush into this,” your partner says. “Because if we move too fast, misconceptions about what the other wants, or just about how this whole thing works are bound to go unnoticed.”

“You’re right,” you agree, being able to see where you went wrong with your assumptions clear as day now. “Then… let’s take it slow. Talk before we do stuff.” An awkward laugh escapes you as you’re speaking those words, because after all you were the one trying to rush into this, and now you can’t help but feel thankful that he stopped you just in time.

“So…” Jongho gets up from his chair, walking over to his closet and rummaging through one of the shelves, pulling out a dark red tie. “I think this is gonna look pretty on you. That okay?” You nod, merely watching as he walks over to you, and when he tells you to take off your clothes first of all, you don’t hesitate. Placing yourself on top of the bed, kneeling in the middle of it, he sits in front of you, and you hold out your hands for him to tie them together. “Not too tight?”

“No, it’s fine,” you answer, the soft texture of the fabric feeling quite good around your wrists, actually.

“I don’t have actual handcuffs, unfortunately…” he explains as he checks the knot one more time, and then he lifts one of his hands to run his fingers through your hair, eyeing you thoroughly. There’s a serious expression on his face now, he’s concentrated as he lets his fingertips brush against the side of your throat, but the way he allows for a smirk to creep onto his lips when you instinctively lean your head back to give him access tells you he’s very much having fun with this.

“You really like that, huh?” he mutters, wrapping his hand loosely around your throat, the warmth of his touch alone causing your heart to beat faster.

“Yeah…” you mouth, and to your disdain he moves on. His fingers draw imaginary trails down your body, moving slowly and deliberately, and his eyes follow their every move.

“So beautiful… too bad I’m gonna have to wreck you.” He speaks silently, and whether it’s because of the tone in his voice or his words you don’t know, but it’s giving you shivers all over and you gulp. His hand eventually finds its way to your side, snuggly fitting into the space between your waist and your arm, and he leans in to brush his lips against yours. It’s a short kiss, yet he lingers there for a few seconds before pulling back merely a few inches - the kind of kiss that’s meant to make you want more. “Want me to punish you, hm? Then, what if I push you a bit? Be a little less nice than usual and not give you everything you want right away.” You suck in a sharp breath at his words. “You’d like that?”

“Y-yeah,” you say, tension building up. You’re not sure what exactly he has planned, but you know he wouldn’t push you too far… right? He wraps the fingers of his free hand around your wrists, and as he brings them up above your head he pushes you back into the mattress, carefully, gently. And yet you don’t miss the dangerous glint in his eyes as he’s now gazing down on you, hovering above you as he pins you against the bed. Lowering his head, he makes you mewl as he buries his face in the crook of your neck, teeth grazing your skin as he scatters a few nips here and there.

“What’s your color, dear?”

“Green… very green,” you sigh, feeling his weight on top of your chest. 

“That’s good,” he speaks quietly as he comes back up, his face now being right in front of you and the tips of your noses touching for one short moment. You think he’s going to kiss you, but then he sits up instead, letting go of you to rid himself of his shirt. With every movement of his you can see the outlines of his muscles working underneath the skin, and the urge to touch him, to run your nails down his chest and his stomach, makes you bring your hands up. For a moment you forget that they’re tied together, and you frown at the restraint, and before you can do anything more, your boyfriend is quick to click his tongue at you as he reaches for your hands and pins them back down above your head.

“Wanna touch me so bad, hm?” he assumes correctly, and then he adds, moving closer to your ear, whispering sharply, “No touching unless I allow it.”

“O-okay,” you mutter. You can unmistakably feel the power he has over you now, both in the way you don’t have the strength to free yourself from his physical restraint, and in the way you feel yourself immediately submitting to his verbal restraint. 

“Stay like this,” he then says and you nod as he sits back up. This time he lets his palms run down your upper body once as he kneels on top of you, going over to dragging his nails down your skin once he reaches your hips and doing the exact thing you would’ve craved to do to him. But you obey, waiting patiently for his next move. “So pretty…” he mutters, his intense gaze burning on your skin, and after having his hands wandering all the way back up, he leans in to leave a trail of kisses down the valley of your breasts. And again there’s this urge to move your hands, to throw your arms around his shoulders as his lips are mapping out your features, but you can’t. You shouldn’t, and so you resist.

He kisses his way down your stomach, biting your flesh here and there without applying too much pressure, and the way he’s taking his time with it doesn’t help your case as you’re having an internal battle against your own impatience. Rubbing your thighs together as he’s hovering just above your core and he’s touching you everywhere but where you need him the most, you reach your breaking point.

“Jongho…” you call out his name. “Please.” He merely chuckles at your plea, not even looking up at you now.

“What?” His voice is low, quiet. Calmness radiates off of him, like he knows that he has all the time in the world for this.

“T-touch me please…” you mewl.

“Hmm,” he makes a noise as he appears to be thinking about your request. “But do you deserve that?” You let out a whine at his question, and you frown when he crawls all the way back up, only to press a teasing kiss to your lips. “Do you deserve my touch when clearly you decided that you can also just do the job yourself?” He moves up further, his lips brushing against your wrists just below where he tied them together, and then against the knuckles on your fingers. “Can’t get yourself off now, can you?” He places his hand over yours, pushing your wrists into the fluffy blanket as if to put an emphasis on his words. 

“Please…” you start another attempt at getting him to do what you want, but he merely sends you a smirk. 

“You’re choosing the shower head over me and now you think I’ll give you what you want so easily? That’s naive.” You frown, and you pout up at him, and for a second his features soften, before he moves his hand from your wrists to your chin, tilting it up slightly. Then he places a kiss onto your jaw, and he asks, “Color?”

“Green…” You idiot - you add in your mind, and when he comes back up to get a good look at your face, you can undeniably see the amusement on his face.

“Didn’t think you’d like being treated like this so much,” Jongho comments, and then he lets his hand wander from your chin down to your lower stomach. “Really makes me want to do this all day.” Fuck. You gulp at his words, thighs pressing together just as he slips a finger in between, dragging it up your folds once, and you don’t expect a singular touch to affect you this much, but you find yourself arching your back as you moan in response anyway.

“Relax,” he says, tapping your thigh once, and you do, spreading your legs apart just a little to give him better access. He doesn’t hesitate to make use of that, watching for even the tiniest of reactions as he gathers your juices on his fingertip, moving it back up and making you whimper as he begins drawing circles onto your clit. You buck your hips into his hand once, causing him to sit up so he could use his other hand to press them back down, immobilizing you. “So needy…” he breathes as he continues on, watching you, and granting you a few teasing touches to your wet pussy. He slips a finger inside, drawing another moan from your lips, and when he adds a second one, pumping them in and out of you at an unhurried pace, you think you could cum on the spot. And he notices the way he’s affecting you, because now he asks you with a cocky smirk on his face that bodes no good whatsoever,

“You like that?” You nod, whimpering, and when he pulls out, the feeling of deprivation that overcomes you makes you whine with anger - though you don’t sound nearly as angry as you would’ve liked. “Too bad.”

“Keep going, please…!” you try to beg, and it seems to strike something deep within him, because now he raises his eyebrows at you, listening intently.

“What was that?”

“K-keep going… please… please…” you add, the desperation in your voice being obvious. “Don’t stop now… w-wanna cum on your fingers…”

“I’m sure you do, dear,” he whispers, leaning in to place a soothing kiss onto your tummy, but it just makes you more furious.

“Please!” you cry out, balancing on the edge between pleasure and frustration, and you know that you wouldn’t want him to push you any further. For a second you wonder whether you should tell him, ask him to go easier on you even though you were the one who wanted him to punish you so badly. But he seems to notice your inner conflict, and his smirk softens into a benevolent smile as he brushes his lips against the inside of your thigh now.

“Is that where the line is?” he asks, and you hesitantly nod. He comes up to comb his fingers through your hair, brushing away a strand that’s sticking to your forehead. “Then let’s not take it any further than this, okay?”

“Yeah.” He cups your face with his hand, thumb brushing against your lips, and he questions,

“What do you want me to do, love?”

“Fuck me… please…” you say with furrowed brows, and he chuckles at the sight in front of him. Caressing your cheek as he slowly takes his hand away in order to rid himself of the remainder of his clothes, he retorts,

“I can’t believe someone could say something so dirty with such an innocent expression on their face.” And now that you’re becoming aware of what you must look like right now, you find it funny too, and you let out a short laugh.

Your boyfriend places himself on top of you, one hand wrapping around his length in order to give himself a few strokes until he’s fully hard, while he has the other placed next to your head to support his weight on top of it. “Wanna hold onto me? Or…” You shake your head. “Want me to pin you down?” Adrenaline rushes through your veins, making you tingle all over from the thought of it, and you nod. Again, he seems amused by your reaction. “After all that you still want me to manhandle you, huh?” Him saying it out loud fills you with bashfulness all of a sudden, and still you feel the need to confirm that he’s right.

“Yes… please,” you mutter. He positions himself in between your legs, aligning himself with your core.

“You good?” he asks, and when you give him the okay he pushes into you. 

“Fuck…” The feeling of having him finally filling you up makes you hiss a curse as you’re throwing your head back from the overwhelming satisfaction. Jongho reaches for your wrists, pinning you down just like you had asked, and he leans in, his nose brushing against the skin right in front of your ear.

“Can you do me a favour, then?”

“Wh-what?” you stutter, impatience building up inside you again.

“I want to hear you beg for me again… can you do that?” You whine as he rolls his hips into yours once, and without hesitation you grant his wish.

“Please… please fuck me…”

“Mhm… that’s right…” he mutters, and from the way his voice changes as he begins slowly thrusting into you, you can tell he too has been exerting himself holding back from touching you properly more than you thought. 

“Please… feels so good… b-baby please…” you keep going, your moans turning into mere whimpers when he reaches down between your bodies in order to tend to your clit. “F-fuck… w-wanna cum on your cock… wanna cum so bad…!” you whine, racing towards your high at lightning speed. 

“Shit, you’re perfect,” he utters, his hips beginning to stutter, and the groans falling from his lips becoming more frequent. “So fucking perfect.”

You cry out when your high comes crashing down on you, hands formed into fists and your nails digging into your palms. Once again you try to instinctively throw your arms around your boyfriend’s shoulders, and when you meet resistance as he’s still pinning you against the bed, your mind is flooded with that much more pleasure. He cums with a broken moan as you’re beginning to come down from your high, whining from the overstimulation as you let him thrust into you a few more times, and then he collapses on top of you.

Both panting, he lets go of your wrists and you immediately bring your arms up to put them around his frame, and this time he lets you. Eventually, after catching his breath, he rolls over onto his back, sitting up and undoing your restraints.

“You feeling okay?” You nod at his question, your eyelids too heavy to open, but you smile at him.

“More than,” you mutter, and when he lies back down beside you, you snuggle up close to him. Reaching for your hands, he holds onto one of them, thumb rubbing circles against your wrist, and when you look up you find worry in his eyes. “I really am okay, baby,” you whisper one more time, and he instinctively brings your hand that he’s holding onto in closer to his chest.

“Okay…” he just says, trusting your words, and you send him a sweet smile. Freeing your hand from his grasp, you bring it up to his head, fingers combing through his hair.

“Thank you…” you say, slurring your words a bit as the blissful afterglow of your high lingers in your mind. Your boyfriend lets out a sigh, eyelids fluttering shut at the sensation of you massaging his scalp. “For being careful. And for taking care of me so well.” And now there’s this smile creeping onto his lips. It’s barely noticeable, and yet you can tell how your words are affecting him. And in the next second he throws his arm around you, catching you by surprise as he pulls you on top of himself and engulfs you in a tight hug. He says nothing, you know that sometimes it’s hard for him to speak his mind in moments like these, but by now you know him well enough to know what he’s trying to convey with his actions. You giggle at the way he presses a kiss to the side of your face before having you rest your head atop his chest, loosening his embrace a bit to allow you to lie down comfortably. You too snake one arm around his waist, and with your heart swelling with your love for him that seems to know no end, you bury your smile in the crook of his neck.

[fnafawoundleftbleedingau]

FNaF: Through The Static AU: Fic Sneak Peek part 2

Continuing on from post 1 (Here)

“Aye, not it!” Foxy called, Bonnie answered with an annoyed grumble, a comment about not enjoying the kitchen since he got told not to get himself “free samples” constantly anymore as he climbed down off the stage. “You can finish handling the old band yourself then!” Bonnie firmly replied, following after Chica as Foxy set upon trying to find a way to fully deactivate the last animatronic. Weary of jamming his metallic prosthetic hand against any sparking wires. Freddy stepped a bit closer to the stage. “Do you want to trade?” He questioned. “You can finish bussing the tables and I’ll handle the animatronics.” He offered. Foxy leaned away as more sparks briefly shot out from the opening on the back of the faulty machine, the brightness of it taking him off guard, as he momentarily blinked his one functioning eye back into focus and looked over at Freddy. “That. may be for the best. Before I go losing my other hand and eye.” He laughed. “I just hope he wasn’t serious about repairing these things this time.” Freddy held out a hand, and helped Foxy down off the stage before climbing up himself afterwards. “I don’t think anyone could fix these things at this point, they’d have to be entirely rebuilt.” “It’s been time for a change and an upgrade for ages!” Foxy replied. “He’s kept these same damned machines up from when we were kids.” “They seemed a lot more lively back then.” Freddy commented, setting the head of the first animatronic down near where it’d previously stood on the stage. Foxy nodded, already stepping away to take care of the tables again. “They probably were, at the very least they weren’t quite as ancient then!” Freddy too, turned back to the task at hand, the broken animatronics needed to be fully shut down and moved out of sight before they could cause any more upset, yet even in their current state, horrible as they looked, and, on occasion, moved, he still couldn’t help but smile at them; how many hours had he and his friends wasted in this place as children? Eagerly awaiting the animatronic show. Every hour, on the hour! That’s when they’d open the curtains on the stage, and the mechanical band would spring to life, dancing about with their instruments in jerky, stiff movements, their mouths moving in tandem with the soundtrack, though the movements of their maws wasn’t quite able to match the lyrics, it was still easy for childish minds to imagine they played the music themselves, and did so perfectly. Though they now lay in pieces, they’d once held a resemblance to a bear, a rabbit, and a chicken, he could remember times Chica, Bonnie and himself would tease each other in claiming the animatronics looked like one another, especially when they’d catch one malfunctioning, and moving more improperly than usual. Peering into the opening along the animatronics back, it didn’t take him too long to find a few switches to fully deactivate the twitching rabbit, the last of the low hum of its systems fading into silence soon after. With power no longer being supplied to them, and the risk of them sparking up and catching something on fire behind them, Freddy stepped back, taking one more look at them with a small, nostalgic smile on his features. Something told him this was the last time he’d get a proper look at them, the restaurant's owner had made a few, off handed comments recently about replacements, if he was even somewhat serious, it felt like now was the time to implement them. Gazing down at the severed head of the bear, he sighed. They likely should have been replaced ages ago. -CONTINUES ON NEXT POST- PREVIOUS NEXT

[benoitblanc]

for the sleepover, tell me what you're writing about and your favorite line so far if you have one! ✨

okay this kind of has three answers so i'll answer all of them! i always love talking about my writing projects (derogatory and affectionate) :)

original project: i am still dragging my feet with my crime show, which i have made little to no progress on in the past like two years, rip. you might have seen me talking about it before but tldr the very basic premise is that it's about a group of petty grifters who accidentally pull a con on the mob and get roped into this massive imbroglio of crime lords and long-seated feuds in the parisian criminal underworld. i unfortunately am STILL outlining, and the two scenes i do have written are in script format anyway, so i'm not going to post a favorite line

x-files university au: this has sort of replaced my peggysous time loop fic as my big fic project right now, which is really a shame because i am literally a loop and a half away from being done with the time loop fic so i should really get back to it so i can PUBLISH THE GODDAMN THING. sigh. i hate plot bunnies. this one is especially annoying because it's pretty much a rehashing of the mytharc episodes from season 1 (with a little futzing around with the timeline + m&s are uni students + doggett and reyes are also there), which means i kind of need to rewatch them... but i am only 2.5 seasons into watching this show for the first time. (sort of. as you'll see with the next project i've sort of been skipping around a little. don't worry about it.) however, i am kind of obsessed with my weird little college agents and their weird little project for investigative journalism 401, so we keep chugging away at it. i'm putting my favorite scene from it thus far under the cut below, plus a bonus line specifically for you :)

x-files uhhhhhhhh: i literally do not know what to say about this one without giving things away, but i will try: it's a season 5 au that deals with grief, devotion, and codependency with a hint of psychological thriller mixed in just for shits and giggles. i also read the recipe wrong and added a full cup of angst instead of a teaspoon, whoops. i know this means nothing to you because you don't even watch this show but for those of my followers who do i don't even think i can say what characters are in this without spoiling things. as such i am not going to post a line from this one either

sleepover asks!!!

(and read on for some snippets from my txf wip!)

my favorite section from the txf university fic (bonus points if you catch the non-txf reference):

“Or how ’bout this: happy family of seven moves into this huge big house in Massachusetts last year hoping to flip and resell it, and within a month, there’s a kid dead of cyanide poisoning and the mom took a one-way trip off the top of the staircase.”

“That’s a horrible tragedy,” Scully starts, “but-”

He slaps the newspaper on the table. (“Do you just carry that around?” John asks.) “The dad went to every publication that would listen claiming the house was haunted.”

John is rubbing his temples, and Scully mutters something that sounds suspiciously like ay yi yi. Monica, however, is nodding thoughtfully along. Mulder might kiss her, if a. he weren’t dead certain she’s a lesbian and b. he hadn’t recently come to the realization, completely unprompted by any real-life events, that he’s more partial to redheads.

and a bonus completely out of context line for mitali!

“Because Han Solo is a slut, that’s why. Open the button.”

[lovee-infected]

For the anon talking about how they hate how over exaggerated a character is. I am not trying to start hate or anything, but if you don't like the way how someone portrays the character, just stop reading it. Some people don't delve deep, they just want to write fanfics for fun they're not going to make sure it's 100% the characters VERY complex personalities. Or the way how they view a character is different from their beliefs. I've gotten this message before and I am TIRED of it

I think it's a good time to talk about this because I've been thinking about bringing the topic up for a while. To begin with, let's clear something between the two anons because I think it's a misunderstanding:

Note: Please read this, this is important.

Anon A is saying that they're sometimes bothered by how some fanfics and Aus have a different way of picturing character X, in other words, they don't really enjoy it when a character is bring mischaracterized

Anon B (this anon) is saying that if you're bothered by a fic because you don't like how they're characterizing an specific character, then you don't have to read it.

Let me say that both of these anons are right, yet to think that their ideas are the opposites of each other, is totally wrong. In other words they both have a point, but I guess their points needs a stronger a better way of being explained in order to avoid any further dramas and misunderstandings.

Why am I doing this? Because I've seen -enough- of it. After the twst character analyses, aruges toward the mischaracterizations in this fandom became a thing, it's been causing some issues and arguments between the fans and it's mainly because of how sides fails to explain their points clearly.

Though I didn't really receive any rude asks/comments regarding myself the matter I can still how some fans feel attacked, offended or called out by character analysis posts or have the NERVE to attack or offend others with their own perspective on characters and try to force others into accepting them.

Enough with drama, I'm sick of it. I'm going to explain this as clearly as I can, hopeful that this would at least lessen the chance of having to go through another drama regarding the mischaracterization issue.

1) The concept of FANfiction

First off, the fanfiction itself; what is a fanfiction? What type of writing is considered to be a fanfic? What is it even used for? These are the questions we all need to answer before getting to know the world of fanfic.

Just as its name explains, it's fan + fiction. It's the result of the fan's creativity and imagination taking place in a fictional plot, something that hasn't happened with the original characters and he original story. The fans' imagination is often far beyond the plot which the original story/series/book offers, yet this isn't going to hold fans back from imagining it. Fanfiction is the way of giving yourself (or others) the specific and plot with the original and canon version isn't going to give you, in other words it's a way of getting what you wish to see through a story but this time, it's you who'd decide what will happen.

You are the one who decides how characters will be, you are the one who decides how and where this story happens and you are the one to choose how this story must come to an end. It's all about your own imagination and creativity, which enables you to have power over everything about your own story and fanfiction, everything (In expection gor than legal issues including claiming the original character as yours). You have the power, and you choose how it should be.

2) Fanfiction and mischaracterization

This was mainly the most brought up issue in the recent Twst drama, mischaracterization through writings. Many were saying how they find this annoying and nerve-wrecking, but no one really talked about how mischaracterization comes to life.

Let me tell you, as long your writing is a fanfic, there is a 70% chance of mischaracterizing the plot or the characters and there's nothing wrong with it, that's just how fanfiction works! It isn't supposed to be canon, it is fanon and only fanon. Everything that happens is fictional and fanon based, in other words, it's the fan who decides what should happen in a fanfiction and how it's supposed to be!

One of the Fanfiction's best purposes is giving the fandom a chance to mischaracterize! To write the characters the way they wish them to be and not necessarily the way they truly are. Fanfiction allows us to imagine and create something that isn't true, so let me clear my point here: It's totally okay to change the characters' personalities in your fanfics! As the writer, you have the right to do so, and since writing a fanfic must be for your own pleasure in the first place, no one can stop you from imagining whatever you want! No one can jump out and say stuff like "YOU CAN'T MISCHARACERTIZE A CHARACTER IN A FANFICTION" because that'd be super lame. It's your own fanfiction, your story, your creation and you're free to mischaracterize if that's how you like it to be! And if anyone doesn't like that, remember that they don't have to read that.

3)What is the problem?

Look, we've been going through some drama because of the recent character analyses of twst fandom, and I'd like to explain why. First off, note that I think both sides of the argument have been wrong and I'm going to talk about both of them.

Let me begin with a small example: It's been argued that based to what we've seen from Leona's personality so far, he doesn't seem to be the type to love healthily or even easily fall for anyone. Some of the fans seemed to be offended by the statement and said that "They still want their Leona fluff no matter what everyone else says" okay okay, this is the problem I was talking about: Saying that canon Leona doesn't seem to be much of a fluffy lion or a sweet lover isn't equal to forbidding the fans from writing fluffs for him or picturing him as a adorable and gentle lover! No one has the right to hold fans back from appreciating and enjoying what they like! But it's important to know what exactly is happening.

I'll talk about some crucial points you need to know about character analyses and how it's different from a fanfic in part (4), but before that, let me continue to give some examples of the recent argues and how each of the sides were wrong.

A) You enjoy reading fluffy Malleus content but character analyses have been saying that he isn't as soft and cute as you'd expected him to be. Does this mean that you can no longer ask for wholesome Malleus content or enjoy reading them? -> Of course not! You're still free to read/imagine/write whatever you like with Malleus! No one has the right to tell you what to do, and character analyses aren't meant to be a way to hold you back from enjoying what you like! If you're enjoying something, go for it! In this fanon world no one can accuse you for not following the canon interpretations!

B) You've spent a rather long time getting to know Ace and his canon personality, and you really like the way he is! But by reading fanfics/ fandom's interpretations on him you can't help but to feel like they aren't giving his personality the justice he deserves, and aren't seeing the great and amazing character he truly is. Is it okay to feel upset about this? -> Just as I said, it's totally fine to have your personal interpretations of a character no matter how different the rest of the interpretations are! But the real question is: what should you do when you think fandom isn't doing a character justice? This would be answered in part D!

C) You are enjoying your personal ideas and headcanons with Idia and many are saying that your way of picturing him is so adorable! Does this necessarily mean that the canon Idia as well is like you describe him? -> Absolutely not! No matter how adorable an Au/headcanon is, everyone's free to enjoy it but you should remember that canon ≠ fanon. You are totally free to imagine whatever you'd like! But keep this in mind that you shouldn't insist on your ideas being necessarily canon!

D) You feel like many are mischaracterizing your favorite character and you don't like it, what should you do? -> Well to begin with, remember that other fans have the right to characterize a character just as much as you do! You can't stop them from doing what they like or expect them to change the way they are because of how different the canon interpretation of a character might be. But you as well have a great chance to inspire the fandom by your own ideas! You can try to discuss how different the canon personality of your favorite character is and even try to turn that into a character analysis! This way you'd not only avoid causing any drama because of disagreeing with someone's way of picturing your favorite character, but you will also have a chance to present your personal ideas and characterizations to the fandom in a friendly and polite way!

E) You don't like how an author is characterizing some of the boys, what should you do? -> Easy solution, don't read it. Let me tell you, I have gone through this a lot and do you know what I do whenever I read/see something that doesn't match my tastes and expectations? I keep scrolling! That's all, I don't have to like it, but I don't have to read it either! 😀

F) You're an author and a writing request is asking you to write for a character in a way you just can't or don't want to write because that goes totally against your idealistics and ideas on a character, for example: You just can't write something really wholesome and fluffy for Leona because you can't imagine him being like that, what should you do? -> It's obvious, then don't write it! You have the right to choose what you'd like to write and how you like to picture a character no matter what others think. If you want to picture Leona as an emotional and soft boy, it's totally okay! If you want to picture him as a cold-hearted and mean prince, again it's totally alright! Remember, just like fans you have the right to picture and characterize the characters the way you want to, and no one can tell you otherwise!

G) You've read a character analysis and you realize that you've been mischaracterizing Floyd for a while, should you feel bad or sorry about it? -> Of course not!! Even if you were mischaracterizing him, keep this mind that there's nothing wrong with picturing Floyd as the way you want him to be! As long as you don't claim your headcanons to be canon and share stuff like "Canon from is definitely like this" or "Floyd would do that, canon! ^-^" it's totally alright to imagine him the way you like!

H) You saw someone saying something about Malleus that didn't match the canon interpretations of him. You quickly replied to then and corrected them about their wrong point of view and tell them how the real Malleus is, which kinda led to and argument between you and the person, did you do the right thing? -> Absolutely not! Attacking others out of nowhere and without any context isn't the right way of introducing the canon characterizations to the fandom! Even if you were right, keep this in mind that the other person has the right to picture Malleus or any other character the way they want them to be so if you want to correct them or try to get to know the canon character interpretations, you should do that from the logical and polite way.

I) Someone wrote a character analysis for Idia and said how they find it so annoying when people who refer to Idia as "Baby" and "uwu beanie". You often refer to Idia as baby or cutie yourself and the context of that analysis/general post some how got to you. You feel lowkey attacked and offended, did the original poster say the right thing? -> No, matter what the context is or how accurate and well-written that analysis was, directly calling people who have a certain way of picturing a character "Annoying" is rude no matter how you think of it. Even if the original poster were right about Idia not being UWU, their way of wording their sentence wasn't really pleasant; keep this, in mind that everyone in the fandom is free to picture Idia as they like and it doesn't even matter if you don't like it or not! If you're going to write an analysis/essay regarding a character's personality, remember that you should prove your point and disagree with opposite opinions through logical reasoning and explaining your point, NOT by offending and attacking other ideas by savage contexts like "You have to stop saying that Idia is like this", "I hate it when people say Idia is like this", " It's so annoying to see people saying Idia is like this... "

4) What's with the character analyses then?

There's a difference from the canon and fanon interpretations of a character, this is a truth which cannot be denied. But it's important to remember that just because a canon interpretation of a character exists, you can no longer enjoy the fanon interpretations!

Even I, for example, enjoy picturing someone like Malleus as an purely evil being like Maleficent herself because I enjoy seeing him as a perfect figure for "Mister of all Evil", but in my Malleus analysis post I explained how we should NOT think that Malleus is nothing but pure evil or a heartless monster! See, this is the difference I've been talking about. I'm pretty well-familiar with the canon Malleus, but I'm also enjoying the my own fanon Malleus and I know that the Evil Malleus I admire is a fanon one, not the canon one!

The thing is, character analyses aren't meant to be a way to hold anyone back from enjoying their fanon interpretations or imagining what they like, they aren't call out posts either. They are simply a way of getting to know the characters as if you're getting to know one of your irl friends. You come to think of them, see how deep their personalities are and get to learn more about them!

It's true that reading a character analysis might make you realize that you've been somehow mischaracterizing a character but this, isn't anything to be sorry or frustrated about! Character analyses are written to learn us more about our favorite characters, or as I like to name it, they want to show us that they're a lot more that we may imagine them to be!

Now, you may wonder how can we write a good character analysis without getting out of the line, offending anyone or giving out any cheap information?

I, personally, am pretty strict when asked to do a character analysis. Doesn't matter if I like the character or not, I'd try to judge them nonetheless. You HAVE to talk about both good features and bad features, and you must strictly avoid your analysis from getting personal; you have to make sure that your personal thoughts, feelings and emotions regarding a character aren't effecting your analysis. You shouldn't be writing it in a way to show off with your analytical ideas either.

Some people think coming off as rude would make them sound valid and acceptable, or they might just be used to being a little offensive in general, but as I explained in part 3-I, I won't recommend using any harsh or mean languages at all. Let me note that your way of wording your ideas is crazily important and if you're not careful enough with what you say and how you describe your ideas, your post would be not only be not much helpful as an analysis but also a cause of more drama and arguments. Also, keep this in mind that even the best of character analyses can't totally catch the characters' personalities correctly because we do not own them! Twisted wonderland's characters are a property of aniplex and neither me not anyone else in this fandom has the right to claim what a character is 100% like unless Disney officially releases those details!

Writing character analyses can be hard, from finding enough of hints to defend your point to choosing the right Grammer and way of speaking to avoid any further misunderstandings. But remember, those who write character analyses have no right to attack anyone because of them (They can oppose to different opinions of course, opposing ≠ attacking ), but keep this in mind that readers have no right to attack then because of their analysis either! See, that's a two-sided relationship. Both of the, sides have to learn to respect, both of the sides should, know, their boundaries and both of the sides have to be respectful!

Warning: When I say you're free to do or imagine whatever you wish to do, know that posting and sharing writings too has its own rules. Make sure to put the proper warnings, and avoid using any taboo or clearly impolite and sometimes, illegal concepts such as incest, pedophilia, etc.

I actually had a lot more I wanted to say regarding the matter but I'm keeping it short, because I know that writing too much would make this boring and pretty hard to read. Hope that it's clear enough and avoid the possible future misunderstandings and arguments regarding the matter. Please, this isn't even about twst, it's about learning to respect each other it's about real life. Having people read THIS is a lot more important than having them read my character analyses or writings.

[winryofresembool]

Caleo fic: It’s all about the name

Chapter 5

Summary: Calypso is a barista at a coffee shop and one day she gets a customer who refuses to give her his real name. At first he seems really annoying but eventually Calypso finds out not all is what it looks like on the surface. (Coffee shop AU!)

a/n: OK, I lied about this being the final chapter (no one is surprised). I decided it'd be better to split the final part into two because it was getting pretty long and I didn't want to rush it, so here we go. At least we'll get some answers in this chapter :'D The 'epilogue' will be posted soon, hopefully tomorrow already or on Tuesday the latest so stay tuned for that!

Hope you guys enjoy, and please let me know what you think!!

Words: 2,7k+

Genre: fluff, humor

Warnings: none

previous chapters / AO3

...

For a couple of months the Bad Boy Supreme showed up at the coffee shop pretty much every day. Sometimes he stayed a bit longer - those days weren’t that busy at the garage so Jo was fine with him staying – and sometimes he just dropped by to say a quick hi to Calypso, but he still always came. That’s why, when he suddenly didn’t appear anymore, Calypso got really worried. Had something happened to him? Had she done something wrong? Those questions and more went through her head.

On the first day that he was away, Calypso kept glancing at the clock every couple of minutes, and back to the door, but she didn’t see the familiar curly hair anywhere. When a full hour had gone since the guy’s regular break time, Calypso was visibly restless and pacing back and forth behind the counter. It got to a point where Reyna had to pull her to the backroom to talk to her.

“Are you really that wound up over that guy? Wow, Calypso, I knew you liked him but… this is getting kind of out of hands. I’m sure there’s some perfectly understandable reason why he isn’t coming today; he is probably just too busy or has caught a cold or something else completely normal.”

“But… what if it’s something I did?” Calypso asked with frustration, pulling the end of her braid.

“You haven’t done anything wrong; I saw him smile as wide as you can possibly imagine when he left yesterday. So, please calm down,” Reyna tried to reassure her.

Calypso moped at her. “Easier said than done. But about that earlier: who has said anything about me liking him? I’m just worrying about him… like you’d worry about a friend?”

“Goodness, Cal, you should see your face every time he appears. I can see you trying to keep a poker face but your eyes say ‘bésame ahora’,” Reyna teased.

Calypso did have a pretty good idea of what that sentence meant even though she didn’t know a lot of Spanish (although she was more motivated to learn now that she knew the Bad Boy Supreme was a Spanish speaker as well). She felt her face heat at Reyna’s implications but still wasn’t ready to admit that her coworker may have been right.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying now,” she claimed but Reyna didn’t buy it.

“You definitely do,” she stated. “You’re not that amazing an actress, you know. Your voice got squeaky and I could compare the color of your face to tomatoes.”

“Whatever.” Calypso rolled her eyes. “Can we please go back to work now? I don’t want to keep the people waiting.”

“You know just as well as me that it’s quiet at this time of the day,” Reyna reminded her. “But sure, we can go back as long as you’ll stop pacing around like crazy.”

“I will,” Calypso promised. “I don’t owe anything to that guy anymore and he doesn’t owe anything to me either so he doesn’t have to come here if he doesn’t want to.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than Reyna.

“He still hasn’t told you his name?” Reyna asked with surprise, having noticed Calypso calling him ‘that guy’. “That’s so weird. I thought he’s just into you as you’re into him.”

“Well, we’re just playing this game…” Calypso started hesitantly. “Ugh, forget about it. I could easily ask his coworkers or something but I don’t want to pry. He’ll slip it eventually.”

“Okay, I’ll just call him Bad Boy Supreme then,” Reyna shrugged before going back to her work.

…

Days passed. The first few days Calypso tried to calm herself down by telling herself that her mystery guy really was just busy and he’d surely come back soon enough. But once a couple of weeks had gone since his last appearance, she became restless again. This time Reyna and the others decided that it was better to just let her be that way until it passed because there really wasn’t much they could say to comfort her. As a result, Calypso seemed more effective in her work but mistakes also happened more often and she had to apologize to her customers at least twice as often as she had previously. The manager luckily brushed it off as a ‘learning process’.

Eventually that phase ended, though. After a few months had gone by, Calypso started to get convinced that the Bad Boy Supreme was not coming back. She was now calm again but at the break time she still kept glancing at the door sadly, hoping to see the familiar figure. She hadn’t realized how much she really had been looking forward to his visits until they abruptly ended and she wished she had gotten a chance to tell him that before he disappeared. But maybe it was better this way; maybe she had been the more interested one, just like in all of her previous relationships.

On one busy afternoon, Calypso wasn’t thinking about the mystery guy a lot anymore. Sure, she had briefly noted that it was the usual break time again, but she was no longer expecting to see him and was focused on serving the customers that were currently present. That’s why, when the bells above the door rang again and in came a new customer, she didn’t pay a lot of attention to him at first. She just nodded and said a quick hi before finally raising her gaze from her work to see who had arrived. Her mouth involuntarily opened into the shape of ‘O’ when she finally registered who it was. There was no mistaking that curly hair and the mischievous, yet warm, almost chocolate colored eyes.

“Oh my gods, it’s you!” She finally managed to squeak after gulping a couple of times so she could get some voice out of her mouth. Her face melted into the widest smile she was capable of and she had to contain herself so she wouldn’t jump over the desk to hug him. “I didn’t… I wasn’t expecting…” She cleared her throat and said with a lower, fake angry voice: “I mean, you’re really late, mister.”

He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, but still seemingly happy to see her. “Sorry ‘bout that, Sunshine, a lot of weird things happened recently and I just couldn’t come here even though I wanted to.”

“Well, you’re going to have to explain to me what exactly happened,” Calypso demanded. She couldn’t keep her face angry for long, though. “But before that, what do you want to drink? A double espresso?”

“You know well it was a one time occasion and I didn’t even get that drink!” The guy reminded her. “I’d like your freshly made orange soda today, though. It reminds me of Sunshine.”

“Okay, coming up,” Calypso nodded, wondering if the air conditioning didn’t work that day because she was suddenly feeling rather warm.

“Not gonna ask my name today, are you?” the guy asked with amusement while watching her do her work.

“No. I don’t need to,” Calypso said mysteriously without raising her eyes from the cup.

“Oh?” he asked curiously but she didn’t elaborate so he moved to the other counter to wait.

Calypso took her time with the soda and the guy seemed to wonder if she did that on purpose, until finally she stepped forward and gave him the plastic cup with his ‘name’ on it.

“Alright, Bad Boy Supreme, here you go!”

The guy’s thoughtful frown melted into a huge smile immediately. “Did… I just hear right??” he asked and checked the cup. “Did you just say the magic word?”

“I did, but don’t you dare to make a big number out of it!” she warned, but the twinkle in her eye was enough to tell that she wasn’t being serious.

“No worries, no worries, I won’t,” the Bad Boy Supreme reassured her, raising his free hand up. “But what made you change your mind? I thought you refused to say it?”

“I don’t want to tell,” Calypso said reluctantly.

“C’mon, just do it.”

Calypso didn’t answer for a while, pretending to be more interested in swiping the table. When the guy didn’t show any signs of giving up, though, she finally spoke. “The truth is that I promised to myself that if you’d show up again, I would finally give in. Well, I did it. You won. Go ahead and laugh.”

“No, I won’t. That’s kinda sweet of you.” There was a short pause. “Well, I promised to tell you my real name, so here it comes: I’m Leo. Leo Valdez,” the Bad Boy Supreme said sheepishly and looked a bit embarrassed for some reason.

“Leo,” Calypso tasted the name on her tongue. “I think I like it. It does suit you better than Bad Boy Supreme.”

Leo took a swig from his cup to get something to do with his hands. “Eh heh. Listen. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you earlier. It was pretty stupid of me… I didn’t intend to keep that game going that long because I actually wanted you to learn to know me better. And I wanted to learn to know you better.”

Surprising even herself, Calypso said: “Don’t worry about it. If I really would have tried, I’m sure I would have found out somehow, for example going to your boss and asking her. I… had kind of fun trying to guess it. I wasn’t too far off with that Leon, right?”

“That’s true,” Leo grinned. “I was kind of trying to bluff when I started talking about Ed instead so you wouldn’t notice my reaction to that name.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember that!” Calypso exclaimed. “I should have gotten the hint.”

“Well, you know now and that’s what matters, right?” Leo asked.

“Yeah. Um, and about that thing you said earlier…” Calypso blamed the air conditioner for feeling even warmer than a moment before. “I’d like to learn to know you better as well. Although thinking about it, you’ve probably told me more than you even realize already. About Emmie, Jo, Georgina, your friends, family, Festus… But hey, you promised to tell me why you were gone so long, so come on, let’s go sit there so you can fill me in.”

Calypso’s workmates knew better than to say no to her when she suggested having a break so she could talk with Leo, and they went to sit at an empty table opposite to each other.

“So, what happened?” Calypso asked once they were seated.

“Well… remember how we one time talked about our future dreams?” Leo asked, to which Calypso nodded. “After that talk I started doing some maths in my head - yeah, laugh ahead, but I can actually count surprisingly well - and discussed the topic also with Jo and Emmie and they said they’d be more than happy to help me give me a chance to continue studying. Practically, it means they’re willing to give me more flexible work hours and they promised that I can continue staying at their house until I want to or have enough money to move to a place of my own. We have some mechanics come and go and many of them stay there for long periods of time so it’s no problem for them. Anyway, after that I learned that the next entrance exam for the mechanical engineering program would be held in about a month so I needed to start studying right away. That’s a big reason why I didn’t have time to come here, but it was worth it, because guess what…” He pulled a big envelope from his bag. “I just got this today. And it says…” he did some drum rolls on the table with his fingers. “I got in!”

“That’s amazing!” Calypso exclaimed and couldn’t hold herself still anymore, instead getting up from her chair to hug him. “I’m very happy for you!”

“Of course it means I’ll have less time to come here in the future but we’ll make it work, right?” Leo said a bit uncertainly once they separated, blushing hard.

“What do you mean with ‘we’?” Calypso asked, not wanting to give herself false hope.

Leo rubbed the back of his neck. “Um… I… that… of course I still wanna keep seeing you! Why do you think I came to this coffee shop every day for several months even though I don’t even drink coffee?” “You… came because of me? I mean, I thought…”

“For such a smart seeming girl you really are dense,” Leo noted. “Of course I came because I liked you. You made quite the first impression already on the day we met.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything, then?” Calypso wanted to know.

“Because at first I thought you were way out of my league and probably hated me and then you told me you had recently broken up with someone and… yeah. Multiple reasons. And then the college thing happened and my friend Jason got into an accident and… Sorry, I guess I didn’t mention that yet,” Leo finished when he noticed Calypso’s expression.

“Wait, what? Your friend got into an accident? Is he OK?” Calypso asked with concern.

“Yeah, he’s gonna be OK. He had luck on his side because that car accident could have ended a whole lot differently but he’s now recovering in the hospital. The doctors expect him to make a full recovery. But we were definitely quite worried about him for a while.”

“I’m sorry… But I’m happy he’s getting better.” Calypso said, resting her hand on Leo’s for a moment as a gesture of comfort.

“Yeah… It’s a relief…” Leo nodded absentmindedly.

“You sounded like you wanted to tell something else as well.” Calypso remarked after a while.

Leo seemed to snap out of his thoughts. “Well, you’re not wrong… Did I ever tell you that I’ve never met my real dad? Well, I have now. Turns out he’s working at the same college I applied for, I saw him on the day of my entrance exam. A huge technology nerd, it seems. No, I’m not planning to stay in touch with him in my free time – the dude abandoned me and my mother before even legally admitting he’s my father – but… I dunno. It is still kind of interesting to see what kind of person he is.”

“Wow, sounds like you’ve really had a lot going since we last met. But it is good to hear things are starting to work out… and who knows, maybe your father turns out to be a decent guy. Wouldn’t that be great?” Calypso asked.

“I guess…” he shrugged. “But right now I’m more interested in other things.”

“Such as…?” Calypso inquired.

“You really missed me that much that you were even ready to call me Bad Boy Supreme if I showed up again?” Leo teased.

“Oh gods, I was wondering when the jerk would appear again…” Calypso said with partially faked annoyance.

“You still like me, though,” Leo stated.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

A moment of silence.

“Leo Valdez, will you go out with me?” Calypso blurted before she could regret it.

“Yes… I mean… YES?!” He stared at her with wide eyes and she couldn’t help but giggle at his expression.

“Alright, glad to know where we stand.”

Leo was quiet for a while. “Holy shit, I can’t believe you just asked me out…” he looked at the distance with a dreamy expression on his face. “I was hoping but…”

“Well, you don’t have to hope anymore, silly. I really did it.” Calypso smiled at him encouragingly.

“I… I…” Leo was still too flustered to say much else.

“I guess that means ‘I’m looking forward to it’?” Calypso interpreted before glancing at the queue of customers by the counter. “Looks like I should go back to work but I can text you afterwards.”

“Alright…”

The couple exchanged their phone numbers, but before Calypso handed Leo’s phone back, she surprised him once more by giving him a kiss on the cheek. Once she was already long gone, Leo still remained on his seat, his fingers touching the spot where her lips had been.

[virtuangel]

bye bye 2020, hello 2021 !!

happy new year everyone!! there’s a lot of people i want to thank for making last year so much more bearable so i tried writing some messages for some of my dearest mutuals this year as well!! (keyword tried because i absolutely cannot put my feelings and thoughts into words. i love you all though and thank you so so so much!!!)

@angelhyunjin : angi!! i know you’re not on here anymore (actually i just found out . i ran to twt to find u as quick as i could!!) but it felt weird not?? putting you on here because you WERE a big part of my year!! i was always excited to chat with you and i rlly rlly loved (still do) seeing your art and your dance covers i can’t believe how talented at both you are!! you are really really lovely and even if it’s been a while i hope you know i still think of you and hope you’re doing well!! this year might have been hard but i hope 2021 will be much nicer to you because you definitely deserve it!! i love you!! 

@cinanamon : stephie!! i think we haven’t talked in a while until we started suddenly bonding over minho but all is well that ends well because now we are the founders of a minho cult and that’s all i could hope for in life i think! we don’t talk that much but seeing your tags in all the minho posts is always a TIME i absolutely love reading them! thank you for being there to lose it over minho, always, but also for being there in general! you are really sweet and i do love to talk to u!! i also know you are a really good writer so i hope 2021 brings you lots of inspiration to write more!! (and i’ll finally catch up on your fics too! hehe) happy new year!! 

@cocogoat : puppy !! i think we haven’t been friends for long actually and that sounds fake because that would mean there was a time i didn’t instinctively check your blog when i woke up in the morning (or the evening let’s be real)?? you are so! adorable and for what!!!!!! i really do love seeing you pop up in my phone notifs and reading your posts even if i dont have any idea what they’re saying half of the time unless it’s dgrp (i cannot believe i have a dgrp friend now. amazing i think i won) u are so funny and so cute and i’m really glad i got to know you because!! you’re such a nice friend that i! love! times can be hard but i hope 2021 is gentle with you because that is! what! you deserve! gentle pats and tight hugs! (maybe that’s why i associate ab6ix’s heaven with you it’s the gentle vibes) <3

@glossiers : miss bri i am in love w u that’s it. no i’m kidding that’s not it i have much more to say . i am in lov w u though #brillie2k21 i think. i think it’s been a surprisingly short time since we’ve actually started talking?? which is kinda crazy if u ask me because?? how the hell did i live my life without screaming BRIIIII whenever i see u on the dash like for real how . that sounds like a life so empty like. that would rlly be missing . something?? anyways u are a dear dear friend that i really really love and i’m sure you know that but i will keep saying it anyway! i’m sure i’m pretty annoying so thanks for putting up with me! and for talking to me! i feel like i’ve said it before but! you are a delight to see on the dash and i lovlovlov talking to u (and sending u pics of my cats, thank u for appreciating them). i still cannot believe u managed to convince yourself i was a hyeongjun stan though. hope i can be convincing enough to clear that up and leave no doubts in your brain this year. anyways i love you and i hope we can continue to be friends and talk even MORE this year!!!!!! happy new year ilu <3

@hwacinth : miss dia my sweet sweet floral nymph real life shirayuki and queen of urls! i am? so so so so so glad that we are friends you literally have my heart it is YOURS i can’t even try to claim it back!! you literally are shirayuki i don’t even know how to elaborate i think it’s just self-explanatory but you are just. such a sweet little sunshine!! it’s like you bring spring everywhere you go!! we could be in a middle of a metaphorical storm but when you appear the skies clear up and flowers bloom wherever you step and i cannot help but smile when i see you online!! thank you so so much for being my little ray of sunshine in these tough times! i hope to see even more of your posts this year!! don’t hesitate to live blog anything you watch in my dms if you feel like you’re posting too much (but i hope you never feel that way because you’re not . love seeing u live post it is absolutely amazing i won’t ever get tired of it)!! happy new year and i love you!! ps only 1 more hour until your birthday HAPPY BIRTHDAY DIA ILUUU <3 I HOPE YOU CAN HAVE A WONDERFUL ONE!! IM SENDING YOU CAKE TELEPATHICALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@hwisgf : sorinaaaa! happy new year!! we don’t talk that much but it is always nice seeing you around! you are vv sweet and i really appreciate that, thank you for taking the time to talk to me sometimes!! you are also probably my only fantasy mutual?? which is terrible on one side because i think everyone should stan sf9 but that’s besides the point . i really do love the fact that i at least have u to talk to abt sf9 if need and i LOVE seeing u in love with hwi it is absolutely amazing. i am forever grateful for all the free hwi pics days too!! <3 i hope 2021 can be a year full of happiness for you!! (also that is also besides the point but @ fnc i want an sf9 cb announcement) ILY!! (and so does hwi)

@inkigayeo : miss vivi galaxy brain happy new year!! we only started talking recently but u do have my heart already!! i hope this year treats you well and that we can get to know each other more and be friends hehe!!!! <3 (my other wish is for u to stop breaking my heart with those fake titles. please . why should san NOT come back explain yourself .)

@jeongcheols : mimi . mimi mimi mimi im literally typing this as u are listening to that ten n dj stage ok now it’s kai ok anyways . ANYWAYS i am loving your sm concert live commentary . criminal is sounding amazing taemin is insane indeed (yes i took a break before coming back to writing this) i truly don’t know what to say?? n i have to keep watching the time so that i can scream HAPPY NEW YEAR into the mic in 14 minutes. but like?? i love you?? like. like for real i don’t know what i would’ve done without you?? also it’s weird writing this for tumblr instead of just in your messages (also i can’t focus with idea playing. idea soty). and i mean. you technically know all of this but like?? i can’t believe we’ve known each other for so long but also such a short time at the same time like. what. thank you for being my bestestest friend and my soulmat i don’t think i would’ve been able to remain sane this year (and last year too honestly) if it wasn’t for you?? thank you for always listening to my incoherent rants and i’m always so sorry for spamming you while you’re asleep i know you must wake up to like 150+ messages with absolutely no connection between them and they’re all just so random i truly don’t know how you manage to not get annoyed and to just stay with me all this time i’m- getting emotional. you had a terrible year, i know it! i really do!! and while it might not be looking too bright right now, i hope the universe hears me and treats you much better in 2021 because!! you deserve so much more!! you deserve the world, really!!! i love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (i would write more really but like what is there to say literally i’m just (your emoji)) i love you for real;;

@nakyngs : ele <3 happy new year!!!!!! we haven’t talked much this year but i do think of u a lot daily i hope you know that!! and i love u a lot! even if i still need to catch up on all your aus </3 i hope 2021 can be a fun and stress-free year for you!! and we should catch up sometime too!! ps i hope your fish are ok

@ncityzen : dear spring fairy!! i already sent you a new year’s message earlier today like what. 6 hours ago but! once again!! i really do hope you can leave the hard times behind in 2020 and only get the best things possible this new year!! i’m always very happy to see you appear on my dash and curious to see your life updates and your random literature-related mini-rants in the tags they are always very interesting to see!! so! hoping to see even more of that this year <3 i hope you know that i love you and i really care about you!!

@woojjongs : MISS IRI! i am screaming this very loud so hopefully u can hear me all the way in canada! okay i had to leave this one for last because i?? don’t really know how to start i’m just a pink glittery puddle with lil hearts flowing in it that is how i feel towards u right now . how does one think and how does one write down their thoughts coherently give me a second. this is going to be a mess maybe u shouldn’t read it (‘accidentally’ forgets to tag u). just know that i decided to play txt’s wishlist to write this and u might be confused by that but all u need to know is that it means i love you very much. OKAY so miss iri you are . such a wonderful pal i truly don’t know what i would’ve done without you like . it would feel so weird not seeing you around tumblr would be so so so so empty i don’t even think you can begin to imagine how empty i’d feel without you around here ksdjbskbds i absolutely adore you but we already knew that. i’m always super excited to see your gifsets and your nonsense!! be it your love for woojong or u missing lim jimin (play m.. 🔪) or your snoo brainrot or hating literally anyone on smtm or whatever else it might be i love it all!! you are so cute and adorable and talented and sweet and funny i cannot believe you also happen to be the prettiest person on earth too. how does that feel! anyways i love you so so so so so much? i keep telling you to hold back from committing crimes but i absolutely WOULD commit a crime for u i really do adore you!! i mean . how many groups did u make me stan . (ok actually i don’t think there’s that many. but STILL) i know i can be super annoying but thank u for taking the time to chat with me nonetheless!! i’m all over the place but . there’s times i come online literally just to check your blog nothing else! i hope we can continue to be friends this year too n perhaps talk more (or the same amount idk please tell me off when i’m too annoying)!! happy new year, i hope it holds wonderful things in store for u!!!!!! and we really are starting off great since victon comeback is approaching <3 (this got way too long i’m so sorry i’ll cut it off now before i write 10 pages)

@xiaocity : miss siya hello hello hello first of all i’m just so very glad that you’re back i l o v e you!!! i love seeing you around be it your gifs or your text posts which yes. i cannot properly understand half of the time but google is my best friend after all! you’re such a wonderful person and i’m just?? really glad to have you around like?? you feel kind of like a cousin i don’t always get to see but am always excited to talk to when i can? this might not make sense but. you are vvv cool and talented and funny and feel very like. reliable? i feel like i am not making any sense so like ignore me. what i’m saying is i really really like you a whole lot and i really hope we can talk even more in 2021!! happy new year, i hope it’s a wonderful one for you!!

@yunwoo : miss anna we haven’t been moots for that long and we haven’t talked much but u are vvv cute and i hope we can become (better) pals this year!! i’m looking forward to seeing u on the dash more often, hopefully!! happy new year <3

[twixtandshout]

Tagged by @pidgeonpostal! And not tagging anyone else because I have SOILED the original template (soiled it!!) in deference to my [brushes off skirt] mostly clean public-facing appearance.

...I’ve been making a lot of Spongebob memes lately for someone who has not seen Spongebob.

How many works do you have on AO3?

71!

What’s your total AO3 wordcount?

...306,834. Jesus.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Uh. Many! I do a lot of one-offs (and/or start long things I never finish) in many different places. My top three fandoms by fics written are RWBY (29), Undertale (25), Gravity Falls/Transcendence AU (4).

Bet you can’t tell where my hyperfixations have fallen. 

I’ve also got some Pokémon and Sonic the Hedgehog fics back on my ff.net account, or I think I still do, anyway, but let’s never go back there pls

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. Sweeter Than Honey (Undertale): Taking a Completely unsurprising first place, with over 600 more kudos than the runner-up, the haphazard Underswap fic featuring a post-college self-insert I wrote just after high school! I shake my head some at how overblown and ridiculous the gap between this and all my other stuff is (c’mon, guys, I’ve written way better fics), but this is also the fic which prompted me (and at least one other person!) to start using they/them pronouns. I’ve gotten a lot of really sweet comments about how seen and appreciated it’s made people feel, so I can’t get down too far about it.

2. To Be A Hero (BNHA): I don’t count myself as part of the BNHA fandom, for a number of reasons, but for something that’s arguably the main motivation for the entire plot, Midoriya’s quirklessness is something I’ve never thought has been handled well. This fic marked the first time I (somewhat tentatively) claimed the disability label (thanks again to Sweeter Than for prompting that realization) to hold that lens over canon. It also really shot up my chart, dang! It’s the only thing here I’d consider “recent.”

3. Three-Sentence Shipping (Undertale): Self-explanatory.

4. Brothers Beyond Bonedaries (Undertale): Ah, the way-overcomplicated AU³ I got nowhere close to finishing. One of the things I really like about Undertale is the interface screw, how Toby Fox uses the medium of the video game to pull off crazy things and enhance his game, but most of the fic written for the fandom seems dedicated to explaining it away, grounding it, rather than taking it to the next step and messing with the medium of fanfiction when you keep the story going. I tried to do something cool like that here, playing with questions like narrator and authorship and breaking the fourth wall, even taking the “final boss” fight to a “totally separate” fic reached through the first by link – but, well, then I never finished it, which probably didn’t make anything less confusing for the poor folks who missed the intent.

5. Spirit and Such (Gravity Falls: Transcendence AU): A whole fic written to line out a particular image I had, which, naturally, never made it to the page. I consider it a bit of a cautionary tale for myself when it comes to writing (near-)original content; there’s a lot I look back on and cringe. I still love the characters, though – well, the important ones – and I think just stepping away from the tried-and-true Mizar formula nets it a star sticker here.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

>w>; I try, but a lot of the time I just don’t have anything to say? Like, oh, you liked it? Neat. There’s not much to respond to in comments like that, and then I’m weighing falling down on an ~obligation~ to respond to every message in my inbox vs annoying people with copy-paste fluff responses all down the page. Plus I know I make more of an effort to comment on things that didn’t get the attention I feel they deserve, so if I’m driving up my own comment count with nonsense, am I preventing myself from being in a position to receive more comments later? And then if I do comment, am I being too effusive or running people’s ears off explaining things they don’t actually need to know? Sometimes people just want to express interest or admiration and don’t necessarily want a whole peek and guided tour behind the curtain.

Can you tell I have anxiety? x3;

Anyway, I do respond when I can. And I keep most of the comments I’ve gotten to go back and reread. 

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Hm, hmm. Lots of stuff in the TQ Nonsense series would probably qualify! I’m thinking of Unfixable, Wolfsong, and Ethanol. And there’s Bursting Through A Blood-Red Sky (I Can Live, I Can Breathe), of course, but that was always intended to have a fix-it epilogue. It’s just that I wrote it in a couple of hours day-of, stared at it, and decided I didn’t wanna just then. But now that’s As Long As You’re Still Burning Bright (I’m Still Awake), and that’s probably the best romance I’ve written, so that one worked out.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

Now and then! When the urge strikes. Uhhh, I’ve got a series of Doctor Who x Undertale crossovers I actually made a whole dang verse for that never made it to print. Get a couple great comments on that every few months or so. I think the World Trigger x Undertale crossover is probably weirder, though, by virtue of WT being a very small fandom. My enthusiasm kinda sputtered out on that one.

Mostly I just daydream crossovers with whatever happens to catch my eye at any given moment. I have a lot!!!! Though odds are out on whether I manage to remember any of them once the initial thought’s passed, lol.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Gotten a couple eyebrow-raising comments, but I think mostly I’m just too small a writer to draw that kind of attention.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don’t? think so? Think my tastes are a little niche for most people to bother ^^;

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I had someone apologize once for any language mistakes in their comment cause they had to run it through a translator! That’s not what you asked (the answer is no), but it’s very flattering to think that someone liked my fic enough to read and comment despite the language barrier.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! :D @pidgeonpostal was gracious enough to agree to co-write Five Nights at Denny’s with me off an idea about shoes. This has fulfilled a long-held dream of mine (collabing with someone, not the shoes) and also introduced me to some lovely people.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Who has time for just one? ;3c Honestly, I care more about the characters and how the relationship – any relationship – between them changes them than I do about ~A Ship~ as a solid, bounded noun-object. I’ve got characters I like more and less and feelings about who does and doesn’t have chemistry in which directions with whom, but finding anything that agrees with those preferences is hard, harder when you take alloromanticism into account. I’ll play in any sandbox with cool toys, especially if other folks have already built sick sandcastles there.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

[kicks every single unfinished fic further under the bed] What nooo no WIPs here, everything on my account is either finished or does not exist

I’ve got a couple extra chapters of Sweeter Than floating around unposted, but 1. that fic’s a mess 2. high school Twixt and post-college Twixt are different people and trying to contort myself into three other me-shapes just cause people Like this fic is not something I’m super interested in 3. it’s headed for an emotional dip and I’d rather leave it where it is than post two chapters, stall out again, and leave folks with a bad end.

As for other fics... it’s looking more and more likely that v7 of my Yellow Brick Road AU will never actually make it out. >w>; I’ve got some really great ideas, but not enough to make me feel like I know what I’m doing, and that’s a big roadblock. Plus trying to engage with RT’s Atlas-Mantle worldbuilding in any serious capacity is... a headache. I can’t recommend the Happy Huntress Cinematic Universe enough, but it leaves some pretty big shoes to follow! And I’ve got small feet. <w<;

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue’s fun, probably as an extension of characterization. I love tearing into what makes people tick, especially against the backdrop of their environment, the story they’re in, and the people they’re up against. Voice is a double-edged sword; I’ve been told my writing is really recognizable and individual, but on the other hand, I’ve been growing frustrated with with the limits of my narrative ability. There’s a strong rhythm I keep when I write (you might notice it here, even) but that leaves me feeling predictable and stale. I’m not sure I’m great at setting as a matter of course, but I’m pretty good at describing setpieces where the need comes up; that comes from my background in poetry, as does the fun I have with sublimating and abstracting complex imagery. And I think I bring some needed nuance to the universal. For good or ill, I don’t do what “everyone else” is doing.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Well, writing, for one thing. If I don’t know how something’s going to go and don’t have the urge to write it, it isn’t getting done, which means there’s a billion things that will never see the page and a few hundred more that are never getting finished. I lose momentum easily and have a hard time getting started, and I put way too much standing on finding a foothold with other people; as critical as I am of my work, I have high expectations for the stuff that passes muster, and it never seems to measure up. I’m also really uncreative. Yeah, I can mix up elements and extrapolate events, but coming up with things wholesale is really hard, which is why I avoid it wherever possible and steal/reskin stuff from other places instead.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Something along the lines of “Hoo boy, I am Not qualified for this but hopefully it’s decent anyway.” Maria’s Spanish lines haven’t been a big deal – I’ve used it sparingly and, as a Latin language, it should be easy for English-speaking audiences to pick up on the gist – but I’ve had a harder time with Tai’s Chinese, both because I have Even Less background there and because it is, of course, an entirely different language system. If I write it out in English or Romanized italics, am I colonizing it or changing the meaning? If I write it out in the presumed-original characters (presumed because it’s Google Translate and who knows if I’m even barking in the right forest), am I confusing or alienating my presumed-majority-English-speaking audience? Where should I put the translations? Should I put the translations? And for Frisk’s sign language, thinking back, are the brackets I used instead of quotes alienating/infantilizing? I like that different characters give the text between a different feel, but I’m not an ASL speaker – and I’m pretty sure the word is “speaker,” which would only reinforce that that demographic would rather I didn’t do that. It’s important for all these characters, I think, that they use non-English language where it makes sense; it’s part of who they are. But as a white monolingual English-speaker, I don’t think I can really weigh in.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Thaaaat’d be Pokémon, followed closely with Sonic the Hedgehog. Whether those fics are still on my ff.net account or not (pretty sure I’ve purged them, but you never know) I’ve still got a couple saved to a folder on my current laptop, ostensibly so I can look back and see how far I’ve come and more practically to allow for the possibility of furthering group cohesion through public shaming.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I still like the idea behind The Man Who Is Atlas, and Burning Bright (Still Awake) gets props for being my current fic, though it’s currently in that spot where I’m excited to get new chapters posted but also quietly marking everything up in red pen. I think Harbinger gets the crown here, at least for now.

[baby-buu-buu]

1.My first fic was doa and I actually did a reimagining of it recently and it was cringy but it wasn’t difficult to read through.

2.My most recent fic was from kvw and not including the role play I co-wrote was a sexy fic. As far as nsfw goes I’d say I’m light years ahead of where I was.

3.oof. In my opinion my best fic is probably still gone so long. Or maybe melancholy kaleidoscope. Both of them are a piece of my soul.

4.I’m well aware my most popular fic is apocalypse please 😂

5.a lot of my fics make me happy to reread! I mostly write sappy happy cute fluff fics. Off the top of my head, letters and love notes, oh well oh well, cosmic love like Novocain (even though it’s more recent)

6. I would say not like super embarrassed, but I have considered taking down my first kiss stories. Some of them are a little much.

7.honestly the fic I most want to continue is my soau. I am getting so far. I’m hoping to finish it before the 2 year anniversary of when I posted the first chapter. We’ll see.

8.oop same answer to #7

9.No, I’m actually not sure how others do it 😂

10.the only other fandom I’ve ever even dabbled in was yugioh way back when

11.yeah! I wouldn’t claim to be that crazy amazing creative. It depends, fics that I’ve written in spite of turn out good, others wise maybe in the beginning they came out a little uninspired

12.I’ve written snippets, but never like a whole fic. I’m a firm believer of publishing everything I finish

13.I went through a loss last year and it changed me as a writer. If it isn’t something that I’m really passionate about, I won’t write it anymore. So the biggest difference is I don’t write anything uninspired anymore. And probably connected but I don’t experience the same anxiety from before.

14. I don’t like smut as much anymore 😂

15. No I don’t think about stuff like that 👀

16. No nothing like that. I wrote for funsies

17. My most overrated fic is probably apocalypse please. I’m super not proud of the 2nd chapter. If not that one then a different smut story I wrote before I was ready.

18. Most underrated fic is self destruct personality. Man I love that fic 😭 (I just checked and it is officially my least viewed fic)

19. Into the unknown. Weird random cute aus is my thing.

20. I did the reimagining fic and I’m hoping maybe in the future I’ll rewrite soau to improve the quality someday. No I wouldn’t take down the og

21. Oh no I’ve never done that! I should start

22. Yes 😂 herpb4uderp told me they read my stuff, not even if they liked it and I told them I was gonna die

23. Last year on my birthday I got a huge novel from an anon that made me cry. It was wonderful and I really appreciated it

24. I got anon hate on letters and love notes. It’s been two years and I still am super annoyed about it. They sad Goku wasn’t stupid enough 😡

25. I’m soft and any criticism is hard 🥺

[canadiankazz]

The Thirteenth Time - An L.A. By Night Fanfic

Annabelle's Beast frenzies during a feeding session. In the aftermath, she and Jasper seek help from a mortal friend.

This fic is part of an AU series where Jasper has been feeding from Annabelle and they now have a Blood Bond and a slow burn romantic relationship.

SPOILERS for the end of Campaign 1, the one-shots, and up to and including Episode 4 of Season 2. This was written before the author saw Episode 7 of Season 2. 

It’s obviously worth reading the rest of the "Feeds From" series before this part.

The Entire ‘Feeds From’ Master List Can be Found Here

Special thanks to @cravatfiend and @gokaiyellow for helping me with ideas, writing and editing. Enjoy the tasty, tasty angst.

As always, I lay no claim to owning any of the characters involved, and my eternal thanks to everyone who has read and enjoyed my fic.

Also posted to the author’s Ao3.

First posted March 16, 2019.

Author’s Note: In coming up with ideas for this fanfic series, the thought of what might happen if Annabelle frenzied while Jasper was feeding from her was something I always had on the back burner. I decided for part thirteen (because unlucky 13) this would be what I would write.

The Thirteenth Time Jasper Fed From Annabelle

Annabelle hummed to herself on her way to Jasper's haven, her bag slung over her shoulder. She was eager to get there. It had been a few nights since they were last together and she was anticipating a night of fun and sexy times ahead. Recently, Annabelle had managed to help Jasper learn Blush of Life. It had opened up a whole new range of possibilities for fun with him. It reminded Annabelle of her teenage dating days, both fending off and chasing horny young men and women. The final step in helping Jasper unlock a part of himself that he had thought long since dead had been achieved, and it had been like waking a sleeping dragon. Maybe it was the threat of danger looming over their heads from the Ivory Tower that made them pine for each other like long lost lovers. In any case, Annabelle cherished their times together and she knew he did as well.

For Jasper, it had indeed been an awakening, in more ways than one. Until now, he had always been more or less content to play into Nosferatu stereotypes. Well, he kind of had to. Most - not all but most - people still balked at his appearance. He was a walking, talking potential Masquerade violation. He also still delighted in being able to creep others out with his ability to Obfuscate, and yes, he did live underground and often travelled through the sewers.

But, as their friend X had described, Annabelle was a tomato. She defied many Brujah stereotypes like how a tomato defied the stereotypes of its fellow fruit, and if Annabelle could be a rebel to her clan, so too could Jasper. There were stranger things out there than a Nosferatu who could still get himself laid if he wanted to.

Annabelle held the privilege of being allowed to let herself into Jasper's sanctum. She pulled open his hatch and made sure it was firmly shut behind her again. She made some noise on her way down to his inner haven, as a courtesy to announce her presence. Jasper didn't exactly have a doorbell. It wasn't all that long ago when Annabelle was sure she would get lost down in these tunnels without a guide. While she still didn't feel a hundred percent sure about them, she knew she could at least get from Jasper's front door, down to his rooms, and back again without issue.

Jasper had been studying when she arrived. They greeted each other with a hug.

“How have you been?” she asked.

“I've been laying low, keeping an eye out for Camarilla, and rats. You? Have you been keeping out of trouble?”

“I've been hanging out with Kyoko,” Annabelle smiled.

Jasper looked worried. “Uh-oh.”

Annabelle giggled.

“She hasn't taught you how to throw fireballs yet, has she?” he joked.

Annabelle gasped. “No, but you think she could? Can you imagine?”

“Yes, I can, and no, I don't think it's a good idea,” Jasper cringed. He had been burned by Tremere fire before and had no desire to repeat the experience.

“Yeah... that might be fair. So... do you have any plans for tonight?” she smiled at him, flirting.

He smiled at her wide enough to show fangs. “I do indeed. Are you hungry?”

“Well...” Annabelle hesitated. Usually, she fed before seeing Jasper, but she had neglected that on this occasion. She hadn't fed the night prior either, but she felt mostly okay. “Yeah, because, you know... I do a little always, but I'm good.”

Jasper gave her a calculated look, but he trusted her. “Shall we, then?”

“Yes, let's shall.”

He gestured with a long arm towards the bedroom. “After you.”

Annabelle strolled in, perhaps adding a little extra roll to her hips as she did so to tease Jasper. She left her bag by the door and removed her jacket.

Annabelle felt rather than heard Jasper move behind her. He shut the door and embraced her from behind, already nuzzling at her neck and shoulder.

“Someone's missed me,” she giggled.

Jasper snarled happily in reply. “I have so few joys left in life.”

“Oh, don't be dramatic,” Annabelle scolded.

“It's true! There's you, annoying Victor and Nelli and solving the labyrinth. That's about it.”

Annabelle laughed. “In that order?”

She was letting Jasper steer them towards the bed. He chuckled, deliberately trying to bait her. “Well, maybe... labyrinth, then you, then being annoying.”

The bating worked. Annabelle pushed back against him, resisting suddenly. “Wrong answer!”

“Well, it's just an opinion...” he teased.

“Still wrong!”

“I've known the labyrinth longer than I've known you. Technically, it came first.”

She twisted playfully out of his grasp and turned around to face him. “Yes, but does the labyrinth do this for you?” She slowly and deliberately stroked the front of his pants. There was no Blush of Life active at the moment, so there was no physical movement down there, but Jasper snarled. “And please don't say 'yes,'” Annabelle said.

“No,” he growled softly, “It doesn't. That's just you.”

“Ah, so does that change your priorities?”

“It does,” he growled again. “Get on the bed and Blush for me.”

Annabelle's eyes lit up. She liked it when he got like this. She felt a very familiar coil of desire spring in her abdomen. She backed onto the bed and activated her Blush of Life. Her Beast growled in warning inside her, but she ignored it.

Jasper followed, moving like a hungry, inhuman creature. He had been looking forward to this for a while now. He didn't undress her, nor did he activate his own Blush. He wanted to taste her first. They had hours still yet to play, after all. He loomed over her, his body long and lean above her. Annabelle's skin got warm as she gazed up at him. He settled himself over her hips, one knee on either side of her ribs.

Annabelle placed her hands on his knees and trailed them up his legs as he leaned down over her. She smiled. “Did you use to fool around like this, back in the day?”

For once, bringing up his past didn't seem like a total mood killer. Jasper was entirely focused on her body and the unique and intoxicating taste of her warm Vitae he would soon have. “Yeah, I had my moments,” he said vaguely. He stroked a long, cold finger along the right side of her neck and shoulder. He liked to build up her anticipation. Annabelle shivered.

“I think I may have a serious kink for this kind of thing,” she said softly.

“It's apparently fairly common,” Jasper smirked. He studied her skin and licked his teeth. “Would you like to indulge?”

“Oh, yes, go for it, please...” Annabelle tensed slightly, waiting for the sharp pain of the bite.

Jasper growled in hunger and placed his mouth to her skin. She felt his fangs against her as he opened his jaw, and then he sunk his teeth into her.

Annabelle gasped and sighed, melting as the pain passed and the ecstasy began. Jasper drank greedily, his eyes closed. Her warm blood flowed into him and down his throat. His Beast urged him on, as always. It loved the taste of her, her strength and desire. The fact she kept coming back to him, time and again, that she wanted him to do this, was just the cherry on top.

Annabelle moaned gently, feeling her arousal rising. Her Beast clawed at her insides in alarm, but she fought to ignore it. Later, she told herself, later they would go out and she would feed. Later. She just had to wait a little bit. Right now, all she wanted was for Jasper to continue working his magic against her.

Everything was going so well.

And then Annabelle's Beast decided it had finally had enough.

It had given her plenty of warnings. She hadn’t listened.

Something inside Annabelle snapped.

Everything went red.

Jasper's only indications that something was wrong were a faint but angry hiss in his right ear, a sudden bitterness to her blood, and feeling all of Annabelle's muscles suddenly tense in rage instead of imminent orgasm. He wanted to move, but he was too slow. Annabelle's left fist came around and with a brief, raw moment of blinding speed and fiery anger, she punched him hard in the side of the head. Jasper sprawled next to her, his fangs ripped out of her skin. Vitae started to ooze everywhere. It quickly stopped bleeding on its own as Annabelle's body, again acting on pure instinct, halted the flow, but not before her shirt and bra were stained red.

Jasper was seeing stars. She had hit him right in the cheekbone with all the Brujah strength and anger her body could muster in the circumstance. He could feel himself bruise. He'd have a black eye for sure. He groaned and snarled, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. Then he saw the look in Annabelle's eyes and he knew that her Beast had taken over. He wasn't dealing with Annabelle right now. He was dealing with a monster, and that monster was irate at him and him alone.

Annabelle hissed like an angry cat, wounded and cornered. Her fangs were wide and threatening. Jasper could feel his own Beast wanting to rise to the challenge and stamped down hard on that instinct.

“Annabelle?”

Her eyes blazed with untamed fury. Her enemy, her attacker, was right there. The Beast wanted to rip him apart to get her Vitae back, and then some.

She lunged for him and he dodged, leaping back up off the bed. “Annabelle!”

She pounced again, but he was ready. Like a matador, he pivoted at the last second and grabbed Annabelle by the scruff of her neck and the waistband of her jeans. He pinned her face-first to the wall. She growled and thrashed and he had to use all his strength, vampiric and otherwise, to hold her. Jasper risked getting his face in close to lick her wound closed and managed to dodge another fierce blow, though she scraped his ear. He winced.

“Annabelle,” Jasper growled, hoping that perhaps showing her Beast that he was a superior opponent might help him get through, back to her humanity. “Calm. Down.”

Annabelle stilled, still growling softly. She blinked. Slowly, she came back to herself. He heard her whimper ever so quietly, “Jasper?”

Jasper relaxed his hold on her and let her turn around. He took a step back.

Annabelle couldn't clearly remember the last minute to so. All she recalled was a raw, primal anger, wanting to destroy something, and hunger. She could feel that hunger still. Her Beast wasn't just rattling the bars of its cage, it was making the whole jail quake. Her hands were shaking. She looked at Jasper's face. He had a massive red and black bruise on the side of his head, over his eye. He looked worried and in pain.

“Jasper what just happened?” she asked.

“I think you had a little Frenzy,” he said quietly.

Annabelle gasped and put her hands to her face.

Jasper was watching her closely, both for signs of further imminent attack, and also because he could feel Annabelle's instant regret and sadness over what she had done.

“Did I hit you?” she asked through her fingers over her mouth.

He nodded silently.

“Oh, my God! Oh, I'm so sorry!”

Her body quivered. Jasper was worried she might fall or collapse to the floor. Very gently, he reached to her and guided her back to the bed. They sat down and he put his arms around her.

“I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry,” Annabelle said over and over.

“Annabelle, it's not your fault. It's mine.”

“What?” she looked up at him, her eyes red with tears. “But-”

“I took too much,” Jasper said, hating himself for it. It was the one thing he had been so careful of every other time they had done this. “I triggered some kind of Frenzy in you, made your Beast freak out and it acted in self defence.” He pulled away from her and sighed. He ran a hand over his head and winced at the bruise. She had gotten him good. It hurt to move his face. She probably broke a few bones in his cheek or eye socket.

“But you're always so careful...”

“I know,” he snarled.

“No, Jasper... I don't think it's your fault.”

“How can it not be?”

“I shouldn't have...” Annabelle sniffled. Tears were on their way. She had lost control again, had hurt someone whom she cared deeply about and now he was wrongly blaming himself for it. “I was too hungry to start with. I said I was okay, but I probably... I shouldn’t have...”

Jasper looked at her as she wiped away a tear. It left a red stain on her cheek.

“I didn't feed at all before I came here,” Annabelle said. Her voice shook. “I thought it would be okay because nothing bad had happened before, but...”

But something bad did happen this time.

Jasper sighed. He put an arm around her again and Annabelle leaned into him, starting to weep. His mind raced. If Annabelle had been hungry enough to attack him like that, then they were in trouble. He could get emotional later, maybe. Right now, this was a problem that needed to be fixed, but as carefully as possible and without anyone else getting hurt, or finding out something they shouldn't.

“It's okay. I think... we both fucked up a little bit. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you're starving now,” he said softly.

Annabelle nodded, trying not to sob. Her Beast was roaring at her such like she had rarely heard it before. Her fangs itched. Her throat felt bone dry.

“Right. First things first, you need to feed. Now. If we wait, you might attack someone, and if you fall asleep like this... you might not wake up.”

Annabelle looked at him, afraid. “W-what do you mean?”

“That's another way a vampire can fall into torpor, through starvation.”

Annabelle whimpered.

“Don't worry. I'm going to help you,” Jasper assured. “You're going to be okay. We need to go somewhere you can feed though.” Jasper did his level best to keep his voice calm for her. He was treating this a little like a ticking time bomb. “Get your phone... see if you can make a last-minute date with someone.”

With shaking hands, Annabelle found her phone. She sniffled, trying to stop crying as she scrolled through her contacts. As she did so, Jasper noticed gouge marks in his wall where he had pinned her and she had clawed at it in her efforts to escape.

“Um... there's Lisa,” Annabelle said. “She'd be down for a last minute date.”

Jasper nodded. They had visited Lisa together a few times before. She ran a vampire themed bar and had a blood kink. She assumed that both Annabelle and himself were also into the same kink and they were just playing pretend vampires. It was a potential Masquerade risk, but it had worked out well so far. “Call her.”

Annabelle swallowed. “I can't...”

“Why not?”

“I don't want to kill her. Oh, God...” Annabelle had a mental image of herself over Lisa's dead body, her Beast quiet but her soul in pieces. She started to try again. “Please, Jasper, don't let me kill her!”

“You won't kill her,” he assured her. “I'll make sure you don't. I'll be right there with you.” He knew what fear Annabelle had. It would be so very easy for her to lose control. Hell, Nelli G, a Toreador normally so poised and composed, had recently lost control while feeding on one of Victor Temple's security guards. That had been a big mess for them to clean up.

Annabelle took a deep breath to try to calm down. She didn't have a lot of options available to her. They could ask for Victor's help, but that might mean explaining how and why she had lost control in the first place. No way she was going to put her partners at risk, and trying to grab anyone else at this time of night was going to be hard.

“Okay,” Annabelle sighed, reassured by Jasper. She pulled herself together and clicked on Lisa's contact number. She still felt wretched with guilt, but she could worry about that later. Her Beast was howling.

It didn't take Lisa long to answer her phone. Annabelle could hear the music of the goth bar in the background. “Hi! I knew you'd use this number eventually,” Lisa said.

“H-hi Lisa,” Annabelle said with a shake in her voice.

In the meantime, Jasper was trying to heal his face. He winced at the pain in his facial bones as they knitted themselves. He went until his Beast rumbled. He could tell it wasn't enough to heal it all. His flesh was still a little tender with a black eye.

Lisa had picked up on Annabelle's anxiety. “You okay, hun? Another bad night?”

In the background, Annabelle could hear Lisa's co-workers mocking her for using her phone while on shift at work, and Lisa's voice muffled telling them to shut up. It would have amused Annabelle in different circumstances. “Um, kind of? Are... are you busy?”

“Just closing,” Lisa said. “Should be free soon.”

Annabelle took a deep breath to try to steady herself. “I'd like to see you, if that's okay.”

“Sure! Where should I meet you?”

“Um...” Annabelle glanced briefly at Jasper. She felt another pang of guilt at the lingering bruise around his eye. “...Somewhere private?”

“My place?” Lisa offered.

Annabelle moved the phone away to speak to Jasper. “She's inviting us over to her place.”

“Good,” he said.

“Sure,” Annabelle told Lisa. “Can Jasper come too?”

“Of course!”

“Okay. It's going to take us a little while to get there, so we'll meet you there soon.”

“No problem, that gives me time to close. See you soon, hun.”

“Yeah, see you.” Annabelle hung up. She sighed, hugging her phone to her chest. She had let Blush of Life drop and she was cold again. “Lisa is expecting us at her place after she closes up the bar for the night.”

Jasper nodded. “Okay. We should get you cleaned up. You've got blood on you.”

Annabelle was well aware of that. She could smell and feel the stain. It made her uncomfortable with how tempting it was. “Good thing I brought a change of clothes,” she muttered. She got up and went to her bag to start to dig through it. Jasper found a clean cloth for Annabelle to wipe the blood tears off her face with. She changed her shirt and bra, and couldn’t help but sniff the soiled ones. Jasper gently took them away from her.

“I'll get these cleaned,” he said. He disappeared into another little room where he left them to soak in a container with laundry soap and water. When he came back, Annabelle had finished dressing and her jacket back on. She looked stressed, her eyes dark and hungry.

“Ready to go?” Jasper asked.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

He held out his hand to her and she took it. They headed up the tunnel to the streets above.

**

When they eventually reached Lisa's apartment door and knocked, Annabelle was in physical pain from the abuse her Beast was putting her though. They had passed a few sleeping homeless people on the way there and she made Jasper walk between her and them just to be safe. It was an awful feeling in every way. Jasper held her hand tightly the whole time. Lisa answered the door in a simple black tank top and jeans, looking very casual. She had known Annabelle’s call wasn't for a typical romantic date night.

“Hello, Lisa,” Jasper said.

Annabelle gave a tiny wave. “Hi.”

“Hey, come in, come in,” Lisa stood held the door open as they crossed the threshold. She noticed Annabelle's unhappy appearance and Jasper's black eye. It was obvious something bad had happened. “Sit down. You guys okay? You look a little freaked.”

Annabelle sat on the edge of the bed in Lisa's tiny two-room apartment. The bed was the largest piece of furniture in there, aside from bookshelves which were heavy with horror, fantasy and romantic literature. Jasper stood next to the bed, keeping close to Annabelle. He kept a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“Yeah, um...” Annabelle sighed, “just had a bad night and wanted to see you.”

“I'm glad to help,” Lisa said as she sat on the bed next to her and gave Annabelle a hug.

Annabelle hugged her back. Lisa felt so warm compared to her. It brought back painful memories of that first night fleeing that dark room Carver had put her in and coming home to Elleanore. She had thought about reactivating her Blush of Life before getting there, but she didn't have the Vitae to spare.

Annabelle’s Beast growled. It had tasted Lisa’s blood before. Annabelle thought she could hear Lisa’s pulse pumping in her neck. She pulled back sharply out of the hug.

“I'm really, really sorry,” Annabelle stammered. She didn't know how to bring up the real reason why there were there. “Um... but would it be okay if... I...?”

“You just want to do things and forget about it?” Lisa offered.

Annabelle's eyebrows rose in surprise at how close Lisa had come to the truth.

Lisa shook her head with a knowing little smile. “I've been there,” she shuffled back on the bed and gave them a sly, flirtatious look. “Come and get me.”

Without thinking, Annabelle leaned towards her. It was just pure, predatory instinct driven by her Beast's need to feed. She realised what she was doing and hesitated. Her Beast was hissing in her brain to bite, to drink, to drain every last drop, to slake her hunger. It terrified her. She looked back at Jasper with wide, pleading eyes, shaking her head a little. He felt her fear, and knew from their earlier conversation of what she was afraid of. If Lisa died tonight, Annabelle would never forgive herself.

Jasper kept his hand on her and sat down next to and slightly behind her on the bed. He was ready to grab Annabelle if he had to. “Go on,” he urged softly.

Annabelle looked back to Lisa, laying there passively, tantalising and vulnerable. “I don't want to hurt you,” she whispered.

“I trust you,” Lisa said.

Annabelle bit her lip. She looked at Lisa's neck, but didn't trust herself to go for it. It would be too easy to let the mortal bartender just bleed out. She took Lisa's hand instead, bringing her pale wrist up. Lisa's skin felt very warm. Annabelle held her gently, though Lisa flinched a little and frowned at the touch. Lisa glanced between Annabelle, with her icy hands, and Jasper, with his black eye. She didn't say anything, but Jasper could tell she was trying to guess what had happened to them that night.

“I'm sorry if this doesn't feel very good,” Annabelle muttered. She could feel Lisa's strong pulse. It was slightly elevated. Her Beast snarled and clawed painfully in her chest, begging, threatening, pleading with her to just get on with it, already. She tried to hide the desperation in her voice as she asked for permission. “Can I taste you? Please?”

Lisa nodded. “Yes, if you like.” She looked curious and a little excited, thinking they were about to try something new and a little risky.

Annabelle sniffled back one last tear from falling. Lisa was so experienced, but so naive at the same time. As gently as she could, with every muscle in her body under tension, Annabelle bit into Lisa's wrist. She was careful, but she knew it would still hurt. Fresh, warm blood filled Annabelle's mouth and she very quickly lost herself in the taste. She swallowed and licked and swallowed again. She was distantly aware of Jasper's presence, of his hand on her shoulder. Lisa sighed as the pleasure took over from the pain.

Jasper was watching them like a hawk. He saw the expressions of bliss on both of their faces. Annabelle's Beast was getting what it wanted. Her grip on Lisa's hand and arm tightened. Jasper was counting quietly to himself, second by second. He had a rough idea of how long it took a thirsty vampire to kill someone of the average age and size Lisa was.

...five-one-thousand, six-one-thousand, seven-one-thousand, eight-one-thousand...

Lisa's eyes fluttered closed. Her body started to go limp.

“Annabelle,” Jasper said in warning. He pulled back a little on her shoulder. It was time to stop.

Annabelle was not stopping.

Jasper growled in another, stronger warning. His grip on her tightened.

Annabelle had been lost in the bliss of the blood. Her Beast protested. She was nowhere near full! This was nowhere near done! NO! It was too soon!

With extreme reluctance, Annabelle pulled back. She gave Lisa's skin one last long lick and let her go. There was no visible blood or wound when Lisa pulled her hand back and looked at it. She stared in wonder at her wrist.

Annabelle sighed. She felt a little better. Her Beast was a little quieter, but nowhere near fully satisfied. It would do, for now. She found Jasper's hand and gave it a grateful little squeeze. Jasper's thumb found the home made bracelet he had given her not all that long ago. “Thank you,” Annabelle said softly, to the both of them.

“H-how are you feeling now?” Lisa asked. She sounded dizzy.

“I'm bett- um... I'm okay,” Annabelle answered hesitantly.

“Good. You guys really look like you've been put through the ringer tonight,” Lisa said slowly as she collected her thoughts through her blood-deprived brain. “I don't mean to pry, but... people don't usually come beating down my door to urgently engage in my fetishes in the middle of the night, at least not without some preamble.”

Annabelle gulped. Jasper stared at her. Both were worried about this line of questioning.

“I'm sorry,” Annabelle said softly.

“Is it... do you need a place to stay? Are you eating alright?” Lisa asked, worried. “I'm sorry. No judgement if that's what's going on. There's a lot of people sleeping rough near the bar and I know it can get dangerous.” She made eye contact with Jasper at this last statement.

Jasper went out on a mental limb and made an assumption about what Lisa thought had happened. She thought he and Annabelle were sleeping rough and had many gotten into a fight. Perhaps he had stepped in to protect her and gotten hit, or maybe, if Annabelle had told her about her partners, it had been one of them. Whatever it was Lisa thought, Jasper wasn't going to correct her on it, so long as she didn't guess they were real vampires. Then they would have to do something unpleasant.

“Oh, um... that, well... that's very kind of you, Lisa, but no, no that's not it,” Annabelle mumbled.

“Is it anything I can help you with?”

“You already have,” Annabelle assured her.

Lisa smiled. “That's good, but I'd really rather you two not end up in punch ups in the first place if you can help it.”

“Oh, that...” Annabelle gave an awkward chuckle and glanced at Jasper's face. “That was an accident.

Jasper nodded, agreeing with this story. “I'm alright,” he smirked. “I've had... far worse.”

“That sucks, but I'm glad you're relatively unscathed,” Lisa said with a small smile. “So...” she regarded Annabelle again. “What exactly was that you were doing there?” She motioned to the wrist Annabelle had been feeding from. “It hurt more than usual, but it looks fine!”

“Um...” Annabelle ran a nervous hand through her hair. “It's hard to explain...”

Jasper looked pensive. If Lisa asked the wrong questions, they were going to have to do something, and she was dangerously close. He licked his fangs.

“Was it like a skin pinch thing?” Lisa guessed. “I guess stuff really is sensitive there. Seriously, you have to teach me some techniques sometimes, girl, because you have skills.”

Annabelle shook her head, upset that she was going to have to lie more than she had already to maintain the Masquerade.

Jasper didn't want to give Lisa the chance to ask any more questions. “We should go,” he told Annabelle.

“Okay, fine, keep your secrets,” Lisa said, disapproving. She gave them a little smile, one Annabelle had seen on her face several times before. “Just come back and see me for a bit longer, sometime.”

Annabelle bit her lip, thinking of the escalating conflict between the Anarchs and Ivory Tower. Her voice shook, just a little. “Um, sure... hopefully.”

Jasper stood and pulled Annabelle gently to her feet.

“Please, Lisa,” Annabelle begged, “please don't tell anyone about this.”

“Of course,” Lisa assured. “I never do. What happens in here is private.”

“So you swear ?” Annabelle pressed.

“I swear. It's really important to you. I see that.”

Annabelle was relieved, but Jasper was not convinced. Annabelle pulled out her wallet to give Lisa some money. She felt guilty about inconveniencing her and taking her blood, even with permission. “I feel bad just... leaving like this,” Annabelle muttered. She dug through her wallet, looking for bills to give her.

“Don't. You don't pay here either, okay?” Lisa insisted.

Lisa then looked at Jasper with a glare that seemed almost maternal. She had seen the expression on his face. “Look, Jasper... I can tell you don't trust me, but I hope you can trust that I don't want to run afoul of whatever business it is leading you two to bruises and panic attacks. If that means not running my mouth, you can be sure that I won't.” Her glance moved to take in both of them. “Whatever it is, just be careful, okay? You two are too cute to get into trouble.”

Jasper chuckled dryly, trying not to snarl as he did so. “Trouble seems to find us no matter what we do, and I really hope that same trouble doesn't find you.” On top of not wanting an innocent person to die, Jasper knew that Annabelle would be very upset if anything happened to Lisa because of their involvement in their un-lives.

Annabelle put her wallet away and went back over to Lisa to hug her. “The streets aren't safe,” she said, her anxiety about the war with the Ivory Tower rising again. She dreaded what they would do to Lisa if they found her. “You don't think you might be able to leave town for a little while, could you?”

“You're serious?” Lisa asked. She studied both of their faces and saw no joking there. “I mean, I'm due for a holiday, but how long is a little while?”

Annabelle really wasn't sure. “A few weeks?”

Jasper was thinking about much much Lisa should know about the current situation. Of course, the answer was next to nothing. “The, uh, trouble that's after us might find out we know you, and you might become a target.”

Lisa saw how stern their expressions were and swallowed. “Okay. I'd been planning a trip soon, but I can move it up if I arrange things right. That puts me out of town for about a month.”

A degree of relief washed over Annabelle. “If you could arrange it, that would be good. We'd worry about you.”

“You're sweet,” Lisa touched Annabelle's cold cheek. “Annoyingly dangerous, but sweet.”

Annabelle tried to laugh, but it just sounded sad.

“I'm going to start getting organised as soon as you leave, don't worry,” Lisa assured her. “And... can you try to let me know when it's safe to come back?”

Jasper came back over to Annabelle and put his hand on her back again. He could feel her emotions welling up inside, and he was attempting to soothe her, but also encourage her to get up again so they could leave.

Annabelle nodded to Lisa. “I will. I promise.”

Lisa put her hands on either side of Annabelle's face and looked into her eyes. She gave her a reassuring smile. “Stay safe,” she told Annabelle. She looked at Jasper. “I trust you'll help with that.”

“I take protecting Annabelle very seriously,” Jasper said with sincere honesty.

“You stay safe too,” Annabelle told Lisa. She gave her a little kiss, then allowed Jasper to lead her out of the apartment. They shared one last goodbye wave with Lisa on the way out.

They didn't see anyone as they made it out onto the street and away from Lisa's building.

“What now?” Annabelle asked.

“Let's get home first, then we'll talk.”

“Are you mad?” Annabelle asked Jasper in a small voice.

“No, why would I be mad?”

Annabelle shrugged. “I hit you, and Lisa almost found out about us, and I can't read your mind so...”

“No, I'm not mad,” Jasper sighed. “But I don't want to talk about it out here. Let's get home.”

Annabelle nodded. Although she didn't say anything about it, she did notice that Jasper referred to his sanctum as 'home' and not 'my place' or anything singular like that. A home for the two of them, maybe.

**

It started to drizzle as they arrived back to the sanctum. It was cold underground. Annabelle suspected she'd be able to see her breath were she not dead. In the relative privacy of the tunnels, Jasper resumed their conversation.

“As I said earlier, so far as I'm concerned, Annabelle, you acted in self defence when you fought against me. Your Beast thought it was under attack, and, strictly speaking, it wasn't wrong. I know you're always hungry after our... dates.”

“Well... yeah,” she admitted. “I'm still sorry though.”

“And I forgive you.”

“I hope Lisa is going to be okay,” Annabelle sighed.

“I think she will be.”

Annabelle nodded. “Yeah, she's smart.”

Jasper grinned in sarcastic amusement. “Sure, I mean she only invites random vampiric strangers into her home to suck her blood. Nothing not smart about that.”

Annabelle glared at him, but didn't argue. “She saw how serious we were though.”

“She did,” Jasper relented. He could still feel Annabelle's anxiety. It was making him anxious too. He had to keep trying to reassure her, even if it ended up not being true. “She'll be okay.”

They arrived in Jasper's rooms and checked on her bloody clothes he had left to soak. Annabelle gave them some hand scrubbing to get the last of the stains out. After rinsing them and hanging them up, she changed into the black woolly labradoodle hoodie Jasper had given to her a long time ago. She loved this hoodie, and slept in it often when she stayed at his place. It seemed to bring her a lot of comfort. Jasper thought it suited her a lot better than it ever did him.

Annabelle put gentle acoustic music on and sat on the bed. She tried not to look at the marks she had left on the wall in her Frenzy, but her eye was still drawn to them.

“Tomorrow, I think it would be a good idea for you to feed again,” Jasper suggested. He sat down beside her.

She chuckled, her voice day with sarcasm. “Yeah, you think?”

“I'll take you to Victor's the back way,” Jasper laid a hand on her back, stroking her shoulder blades gently. “You can feed there and hang out with Kyoko for a little while.”

Annabelle leaned back into his touch. He increased the pressure a little and it became a light massage. “Can I come back here after?”

“Yes, you can. I want to put in a new rule though - only offer your blood to me if you are sure that it won't make you too hungry after.”

Annabelle nodded. That had been her fault. “I was just so eager to... you know.”

Jasper smirked, flattered. “Well... that doesn’t mean we can lapse on safety,” he said. He rubbed her back a little more, then relaxed back onto the mattress. “We can pick up tomorrow night where we left off though... if you want.”

She looked at him with a hopeful little smile. “Yeah?”

He smiled with fangs, knowing what it would make her feel. “Yeah.”

Annabelle curled up next to him.”I'd like that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jasper said. He put a long arm around her, snugly. “I had ideas I wanted to use.”

“Oh, yeah?” Annabelle was happy to be distracted by this kind of teasing talk. Jasper wasn't flirty very often, but it was effective when he was. “Such as...?”

“There are certain things I want to test,” he said, being deliberately coy.

She poked him, playing with a buckle on his hoodie. “Such as?” she repeated.

"Your endurance... my endurance...” he smiled a little. “I have a lot of cobwebs to still shake off, as it were.”

She smiled and stroked his chest. “We'll get there. I have every confidence in you.”

“Thanks.”

“I have some ideas myself.”

“Oh, yeah?” he said, deliberately echoing her.

“Yeah... You've explored my body plenty. I've only just gotten to see yours.”

Jasper gave a tiny shrug. “Yeah, well...”

“No, I get why, and I love that you trust me with, you know… seeing you naked.” The words 'I love you,' were there in Annabelle's throat, on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them down.

Through the Blood Bond, he still felt them.

“Well, maybe I trust you slightly less now,” he joked, touching his bruise.

Annabelle scrunched up her face in an annoyed frown. “I'm going to earn back your trust. I'm gonna do something real nice for you.”

“Like what?”

“You'll see.”

He smirked. “I guess I will.”

“How about… you meet me at my place and we’ll shower together,” Annabelle suggested.

Jasper remembered the last time he had tried to shower at Annabelle’s. It had not ended well for him. He started to say something but Annabelle stopped him.

“We will be home alone. Complete privacy. I promise,” she said with emphasis. She was worried that he wouldn't trust her on this, not after what had happened this night, even though he had forgiven her.

“Alright,” he said softly. Jasper stroked her back some more.

“It will be fun. I promise,” she assured again.

“Okay,” Jasper gave her a little smile. “I’m looking forward to it.”

By the time the acoustic music was finished, dawn had arrived and both Kindred were asleep. They lay still, dead and peaceful, safe in each other's arms.

[theartofbeinganerd]

You Fund-Raise Me Up

Aka my teachers AU, which was the winner of my ‘what multi-chapter fic should I post next’ contest. Here it is, as promised (with a pun for a title that makes me laugh - sorry)!

Just a note: Typically, I'm going to try and focus on both Fitzsimmons and Mackelena in each chapter, but I'll admit that it'll likely skew more towards FS more often than not, just something to keep in mind.

(Ao3)

-

“Hey, Fitz, can I – is that more chocolate?”

Guiltily, Fitz paused in his frenzied effort to hide a small pile of chocolate bars in the top desk of his drawer. “Oh, hey Simmons…um…something you needed?”

Heaving an exasperated sigh and shaking her head, Jemma crossed her arms over her chest and stepped further into the classroom. Once she was standing in front of Fitz’s desk, she peered disappointedly down at him, the same look that she used on her students when they tried to form some kind of excuse as to why they didn’t have their homework. “Oh Fitz. It’s not a fundraiser if you’re buying up all of the product.”

“I only have so much willpower!” Fitz cried defensively. “How am I supposed to say no to candy bars?”

Jemma pressed her lips together to hide her amused smile as she shook her head again. “Maybe we should have gone with Daisy’s calendar idea – at least that way you wouldn’t be in danger of solely funding us.”

Fitz pulled a horrified face, and it caused Jemma to finally break, laughter slipping past her lips and revealing her ruse. “Very funny, Simmons. But I’m not joking when I say that no one would buy a calendar of ‘sexy teachers’ if I was in there with my shirt off.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Jemma replied with a placating pat to his shoulder, though she figured that the laughter still lingering in her voice made the sentiment less believable, from the telling scowl that Fitz threw in her direction.

“Anyway,” he started pointedly, “what was it that you wanted before?”

For a moment, Jemma had forgotten that she’d had a purpose in dropping by Fitz’s classroom, but at his not-so-subtle reminder, she said, “Oh! Yes, I was wondering if I could borrow a couple of your microscopes. I’m starting the cell unit tomorrow and I don’t have enough for the class, even putting them in pairs.”

“Sure thing,” he replied easily, getting up from his desk and crossing the classroom to the back counter, where a small amount of microscopes were set up in a row. “How many do you need?” he called over his shoulder.

“Two should do it, thank you,” Jemma answered a bit distractedly, taking the chance to check his desk drawer. Once it had been pulled all the way out, her eyebrows rose high on her forehead as she caught sight of the chocolate bars practically lining it. “Ugh Fitz!”

“What?!” When she raised her head to glare at him, she noticed him balancing the two requested microscopes in his arms, struggling a bit under the weight of them, and his cheeks slowly growing redder and redder as he figured out what she’d seen. “Hey, I’ve never claimed to have an ounce of self-control when it comes to chocolate.” Clearly trying to save face, he added, “’Sides, it’s not exactly surprising. You know this happens every year.”

With a sigh, Jemma perched lightly on the edge of Fitz’s desk and reminded him sadly, “This isn’t every other year though, Fitz. We’re not raising money for field trips or extra lab equipment, not without that tax money.”

Fitz grimaced, partly at her words, but also partly, it appeared, due to his continued juggling of the microscopes. Rolling her eyes fondly, Jemma stood from his desk and (only after trying to take one of the microscopes from Fitz and receiving a childish shake of the head in response) wordlessly gestured for him to follow her on the short walk from his classroom in the seventh grade hallway to hers in the eighth. As he trailed behind her, he grumbled, “If it wasn’t for that bastard Governor Ward and his filthy, lying bastard face… I still have no bloody clue how he even got elected.”

“Some people don’t care to look past the clearly false promises,” Jemma sighed, pushing open the door to her classroom and stepping back to allow Fitz to enter. “You can put them over there,” she told him, pointing toward a relatively empty table. Watching absently as Fitz did as she asked, Jemma felt a rush of sadness at the thought that this time next year, she might not be in this classroom setting up slides of plant cells or discussing recent scientific discoveries over tea with Fitz in the afternoons as they put off grading just a little bit longer.

“Hey.” At Fitz’s soft voice beside her, Jemma glanced up in surprise, a small smile flitting involuntarily across her lips when he nudged her shoulder with his. “Ward’s not shutting us down. We’re gonna prove to him that we’re prepared to fight for our school.”

As her smile became more genuine, Jemma’s mind flashed back almost a decade, to when she and Fitz had just been fresh-faced almost-college-graduates, interning at the tiny Margaret Carter Middle School in some tiny little town, entirely unaware that it was where they’d meet the person that would become their best friend in the world. The school meant so much to both of them, and Jemma couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else or with anyone else.

Gently dropping her head to rest on Fitz’s shoulder, she murmured in agreement, “We’ll show him.”

--

“Where d’you want this one?” Daisy asked with a low grunt, hefting a cardboard box into her arms.

Jemma glanced up from her clipboard, frowning in disapproval. “Didn’t you check the label first? Daisy, Fitz and I spent every night for a week sorting the donations and labeling those boxes.”

With an overly dramatic sigh, Daisy craned her neck to check the side of the box, reading out loud, “‘House ware’.”

“Alright, good, the house ware section is over there.” Jemma pointed across the moderately-sized front lawn of the school to the proper table.

Barely a moment after Daisy had left to drop the box off, Mack stepped up to her, a pile of posters beneath his arm. “I’ve got that last batch of signs. Want me to go put ‘em up?”  

Jemma dropped her gaze to the posters tucked against his side, a little smile tugging at her lips as she saw the brightly painted letters spelling out ‘yard sale’ and the copious amount of glitter glue. “I’m sure art class was a blast this week.”

Mack chuckled in amusement as he nodded. “Oh yeah. The kids love when I tell them I’m only grading on creativity. May, however? Not so much. Do me a favor and keep it between us?”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Jemma assured him with a faux-serious nod and a salute. “Go ahead and hang them up, but try to be quick; it’ll be ten before we know it.”

“You got it, Simmons,” Mack replied with an understanding smile, then he headed off in the direction of the street.

In the short amount of time that it took him to staple the first sign onto a telephone pole, someone had come up beside him, and a little grin appeared on his face as he heard, “At this rate, you won’t be finished until sundown, Turtle Man.”

Chuckling to himself, Mack dropped his gaze from the poster to Elena, standing just to his right with her arms crossed over her chest and a smirk playing on her lips. “You always call me that, but you never give a straight answer on why.”

If possible, Elena’s smirk seemed to become even more mischievous as she playfully hummed and tipped her head back and forth in consideration. “Oh? Is it not obvious?”

“Not really,” Mack shot back, even though he was pretty sure where the teasing nickname had come from. Elena was known for being the fastest at just about anything she put her mind to – she was always the first to send in grades, the first at the coffee pot in the morning, and when she’d been challenged to a lighthearted battle of history trivia by Trip, she’d absolutely dominated her fellow social studies teacher by beating him to answering each and every question. To Elena, everyone was a turtle; he was just the unfortunate victim of the nickname, surely in retaliation for the one that he’d stuck her with some time ago. “Yo-Yo,” he tacked on, just to see her grimace.

Of course, he could tell that by now, her irritation with the name was all for show and if she was annoyed by anything, it was how much it had grown on her. “Well, there is always tomorrow,” Elena told him breezily, the glint in her eyes telling him that the day when she explained ‘Turtle Man’ was most likely never coming. She glanced over her shoulder, toward the front lawn of the school, where the others were still emptying the boxes that Jemma and Fitz had meticulously sorted. “Alright, give them to me,” she said suddenly, gesturing impatiently toward the posters held securely under his arm.

“What?” he asked, taken aback by the demand.

“It will go much faster if I do it,” she explained as though it was obvious, waving a spare stapler that he hadn’t noticed she’d been holding. Then, without waiting for a response, she swiped the posters from beneath his arm and wordlessly took off in the direction of the next telephone pole.

For a long moment, Mack was left staring after her in stunned disbelief. Then, he chuckled to himself, shaking his head, and headed back to help the others with the finishing touches on setting up.

He’d been carrying a particularly heavy box toward the ‘books’ table when he quite abruptly found himself stumbling, nearly losing his footing completely. “What the…”

“Oi! Watch where you’re going!”

Rolling his eyes heavenward, Mack prayed for patience before turning to face Hunter, sitting casually up against one of the tables, one hand buried in a bag of potato chips. “What are you doing, man?” he asked in exasperation.

“Hiding from Simmons, obviously,” Hunter replied, shaking his head as though Mack was the one not making sense. “If I get barked at for standing around one more time, I’m gonna snap that damn clipboard of hers in half. Who the hell put her in charge, anyway?”

“She volunteered,” Mack reminded him, “which both Coulson and May approved. I think if you should be hiding from anyone, it’s May, and believe me, she will find you.”

Hunter made a face at that, throwing a slightly worried glance around the edge of the table. “She’s not still pissed about my ‘how to spot a hell-beast’ lesson, is she? That was ages ago, and Coulson hired me on full-time anyway!”

Mack heaved a put-upon sigh, shifting to hold the box with one arm as he reached up with his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. It had only been the previous year that Coulson had finally offered the infamous substitute teacher Lance Hunter the position of full-time home ec-slash-health teacher when Lincoln had left. Personally, Mack sometimes wondered what their boss had been thinking, but rumor had it that he’d been impressed by the “perfect” mushroom soup that Hunter had taught Joey’s gym class to make once.

“Look,” he finally said, ignoring Hunter’s obvious worry about May, “if Bobbi finds out you skipped out on helping today, you won’t have to worry about Simmons or May.”

Hunter grimaced, but ultimately got to his feet. “Bloody hell-beast,” he grumbled under his breath as he headed toward where Jemma was directing the other teachers, “those kids are gonna thank me for that lesson someday, gonna save them a world of trouble, it is.”

Pointedly pretending that he hadn’t heard Hunter’s mutterings, Mack continued on toward the book table, surprised to find that Elena was perched on the edge of it. Though her attention was on a thick old tome with yellowing pages, there was a smirk playing on her lips. At his approach, she flipped the book shut and set it aside, leaning back on her hands as she directed her growing smirk up at him.

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Mack cut in before she could start, grinning as he set his box down, “You beat me here, I’m so slow; I know exactly what you’re thinking, you don’t need to say a word.”

“Perhaps not exactly,” Elena replied playfully. She didn’t elaborate any further, and instead set to helping him empty the box and organize the final batch of books.

They were just finishing up when people started to arrive, and time began to pass quickly from there.

By that evening, when the sky was just beginning to darken, Mack was quite unsurprised to hear a teasing call of, “Oh, Turtle Man?”

Turning from where he’d been folding up a now-empty table, Mack found Elena standing next to an older woman, a cardboard box on the table behind them. Chuckling under his breath, Mack slid his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans and ambled over, asking curiously, “What is it, Yo-Yo?” as if he had no idea, as if she hadn’t been doing this all day.

“Loretta here needs a hand getting this box to her car,” Elena explained, reaching back to tap a hand against the box.

“Sure thing,” Mack agreed easily, and both women stepped back as he hefted the relatively heavy box into his arms. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Elena making absolutely no effort to hide the way she watched his biceps flex, a pleased little ‘hmm’ coming from her.

Pressing his lips together to hide his amused grin, Mack allowed the woman, Loretta, to lead him to her car. She thanked him, and embarrassed the hell out of him when she told him to “tell his girlfriend” thank you as well, but he didn’t bother to correct her.

When he’d returned to the middle of the front lawn, where Jemma was directing the clean-up procedure, he commented to her, “Seems like things went well today.”

“As well as they could, yes,” Jemma replied with a tired sigh, the whole situation they’d found themselves in seeming to weigh heavily upon her – much like it did with them all.

“Thanks to you, ‘course,” Fitz put in as he walked up to them, smiling warmly as he gently elbowed her in the ribs until a tiny smile tugged at her lips. “We’ll get it all sorted, don’t you worry.”

When Jemma released another soft sigh as her only response, Mack couldn’t help but add, “Fitz is right. It’s all gonna work out in the end, Simmons. You’ll see.”

“Let’s hope so,” Jemma murmured.

[auroraphilealis]

Steal My Heart Chapter Twenty-One

Genre: Chaptered, fantasy AU, Prince!Phil, Thief!Dan, romance, enemies to lovers, angst and fluff, slow burn (like serious slow burn)

Warnings: some violence, mentions of death (no main characters), dark magic, descriptions of wounds/blood, some hints of sexual scenes (but no actual smut), murder, dangerous situations, stealing/thievery

Summary: Captain of the Royal Guard and Prince of Morellia, Philip Lester has never been given the chance to find love. Instead, he’s run from a system that works to end class differences and improve equality for its citizens. Happy as he is to make the world a better place, Phil can’t help feeling bitter towards his ancestors for making it impossible for him to find someone who will actually love him for more than just his title, and strives instead for a life of justice and doing good - only to meet his match in the King of Thieves, a man who will change everything he once thought he knew in life. Together, they must depart on a quest to save the kingdom, and, in the process, destroy their differences and find their own form of love.

Word count: 240,000+

Updates: Sunday

Thanks so much to @botanistlester for betaing this giant monster, as she’s been super helpful and encouraging with her little comments and endless excitement. We couldn’t have done it without you <3

I am so, so sorry if we have yet to reply to your comments/messages. You guys can't imagine how much they mean to us, and how much you guys make us smile. This fic is everything to us, and it makes us sad when we can't reply as much as we'd like to. Julia has a harder time with getting the energy to reply, so I usually take care of it, but I have been insanely busy lately and haven't been able to sit down and do much of anything recently, part of why this chapter is being posted early tonight! Thank you guys for being so understanding, and know that we appreciate every single comment we get!

Disclaimer: In no way do I claim that this is real or cast aspersions on Dan or Phil

For reference, @snowbunnylester is Phil, @ineverhadmyinternetphase is Dan

(AO3 link) (Masterlist)

Chapter 21

It wasn’t until they were able to see the third village appearing rather suddenly within their view that Dan used his hold on Phil’s hand to drag him rather suddenly behind a large boulder that had been hiding a large cave from view. For a moment, Phil didn’t even realize it was there, either, and he made a surprised squeaking noise at Dan’s sudden movement, but then his gaze caught on the hollow darkness, and he felt a grin begin to curl up the sides of his mouth.

“My thief?” Phil asked, a quiet question he already knew the answer too.

“Better safe than sorry,” Dan replied easily with a quick shrug and an easy smile. “Besides, now we have a hiding place for our gear, and a chance to change into those disguises we talked about -- hmm, how long ago now?” Dan teased, already dropping his bag to the cave floor and ushering Phil inside.

Following after him, Phil used the light from the still setting sun outside to help him find the outfits Dan had figured would do back at the beginning of their journey. He stripped out of his clothes as Dan did the same, and pulled on the slightly more baggy pair of trousers, but paused as he moved to tug on an old looking tunic. Perhaps… the blood soaked one would serve him better?

Phil considered it for a moment, and then, at the last minute, decided to change his outfit, tugging the blood stained item over his head, and then using the old tunic Dan had originally intended for him to use and taking his knife to it, carving out a kind of sweater that he then threw over his shoulders. With a grin, Phil tussled up his mussed and dusty hair, and turned to Dan, who was already standing beside him dressed in far neater clothes that made Dan look almost particularly muscular, and his hunter’s bow thrown over his back.

He had one brow lifted in question at Phil’s outfit, but didn’t say anything as Phil stared back at him.

“You look ridiculous,” Dan eventually settled on, making Phil laugh as he reached out and tussled up Dan’s hair as well.

“As do you, my Prince, but that’s the point. The villagers aren’t meant to take us seriously, remember? They’re meant to assume we’re going to willingly sacrifice ourselves to their idol.”

Sighing loudly, Dan could do nothing more than concede to Phil’s point with a heavy shrug.

“I suppose… that’s not far from the truth, in the end. Alright. Are you ready then, uncle?” Dan teased, nudging at Phil and watching as he laughed as well. The expression almost didn’t fit his outfit, covered in dried, old blood as he was, and yet, Dan could see vestiges of his love under all the dirt and sweat and tears on his cheeks.

"I'm ready," Phil agreed after a moment.

Dan emerged with Phil back into the daylight, then, blinking, and led the way over to the path leading into the village they’d been approaching only moments before. Shifting a bit in his unfamiliar clothes, and not much liking the way he felt so much younger in this outfit, Dan tried not to let his antsiness show.

He was definitely enjoying Phil's look, though, dressed up like a senile old fool as he was.

"Come along, then," Dan hummed. "You're going to be my mad Uncle Alfred, and I'll be your nephew called Jason. You were insisting on coming here for gold, and as the most fit of the family I got dragged along for the ride. That's our backstory, if you've got any suggestions let me know." Dan winked, smirking. "Personally, I don't think you'll have to work too hard to look senile, though."

Phil rolled his eyes, whacking Dan roughly and trying not to feel too annoyed when his thief avoided it.

Dan dodged Phil's whack with a snicker, reluctantly removing his hand from Phil's as they drew near to the village. Unfortunately, their story meant that he'd have to watch his touches around Phil, keeping things appropriate for an uncle and his nephew.

"Just… follow each other's lead. We don't want to get ourselves into more trouble than we already have if we screw each other up," Phil muttered in reply. He didn’t really have any other suggestions than that one, though. Dan’s cover story would work well enough, and it was just as well that Phil wouldn’t have to act too much older than a crazy uncle who’d probably had one too many knocks to the head.

All he really knew, however, was that the villagers were never going to let the Prince and his suitor through to the Dragon, no matter what pull Phil and his family supposedly had here. It might be strange dressing as anything other than a commoner, and playing pretend as someone entirely loony, but, well, if it meant saving his family, so be it. There was no way in hell Phil was letting anyone else hold the cure for his family over his head again.

The Duke had learned the hard way not to try and manipulate Phil.

The final village the two men entered did not begin with a greeting at the gates, though it was clear from the few people out and about that they’d seen the two coming from miles away. The village itself was pretty quiet, with most people out mining in the mountains, but there were still a few people left around to watch them with slightly suspicious gazes.

In reaction, Dan did his best to keep his act up, back straight and eyes bright with the eager interest of a young boy, possibly just shy of sixteen.

Phil, meanwhile, did his best to paste a stupid, eager grin across his face as he and Dan moved steadily through the mountain people’s home. He knew, any minute, an elder would appear to bar them entry any further, but a senile old uncle and his nephew surely wouldn’t know that, right? So Phil pretended as if he wasn’t suspicious in the least bit, choosing instead to swing his gaze from side to side like this was all entirely new to him.

As expected, a village elder stopped them just at the other end of the village, just as the village exit came into sight. He appeared as if he’d been there all along, seeming to arrive out of thin air and press a long, thin spear in front of him against the ground. His expression was dark and intimidating, much harsher than the elder at the first village, and his eyes were shrewd, like he was looking through both Dan and Phil.

Phil tried to hide his shudder, before realizing that perhaps he should not.

Moments later, two more guards appeared on either side of the elder, effectively blocking Dan and Phil off from the exit of the village.

"What is your business here?" the elder asked, voice gruff.

He had a long white beard that had been braided, and a green tunic on, arms crossed tight across his chest. The green tunic, however, was what caught and held Phil’s attention, as it had a tint to it, as if it had been touched by magic, and Phil flinched as he realized the dangers that might reside here.

The witch had been here, but would the villagers truly attack them? Phil had no way of knowing. How in the world were he and Dan going to escape from the villagers after they’d survived the dragon? Better not to think of that just then.

Dan tensed the instant the bearded man appeared seemingly out of nowhere, Dan’s eyes quickly flickering to take in the two spear-bearing, threatening-looking people behind him. Dan held back a small sigh. Some small, hopeful part of him had been thinking they might just make it through the village unnoticed, but he should have known better.

Time to start the act.

"Greetings, my good friend!" Dan greeted, deliberately lightening his voice, pitching it up a bit higher than he usually would. He made sure to look as eager as he could. "We're just passing through, meaning you no disrespect."

As the charade began, Phil did his best to make himself appear far more senile than he really was. He knew his hair appeared to be greying from all the ash and dust on the mountain, even after his recent bath with Dan, but he needed far more than to appear older to these people. He needed to act insane, and as Dan spoke to the elder, Phil merely grinned at the guards on either side of him and allowed one of his eyes to drift to the right a little before righting itself in a little trick Phil had learned to entertain the kids in the Castle.

"I see." The bearded man, the elder of the village, looked them over suspiciously. "And your business is?"

Dan sighed. "Nothing of import, save an old man's wishes." He tugged on Phil's arm at that point, dragging him forward. "This here is my uncle - once a great, proud man, turned a little strange in his old age. He has these funny turns, you see." Dan dropped his voice conspiratorially, keeping up the dialect of the mountain people that he'd picked up from Brandon over the years. "He's convinced he had a vision of some gold, wouldn't let it go until he came to see for himself."

When Dan dragged Phil closer still to show him off, Phil jostled forward as if he were about to attack, watching as the guards and the elder all flinched back before the two guards picked up their spears to point them threateningly at Phil. Raising his hands in the air as he righted himself, Phil merely grinned at the two men, and did a slow circle for them to show that he was no threat.

The village elder watched this all with narrowed eyes, looking absolutely taken aback by both men. "Gold hunters?" he asked, sounding suspicious, unbelieving almost.

"Unfortunately," Dan replied ruefully. "I'd much rather be laying home in bed, to tell the truth, good Sir. But my family commands, and my mother said she'd whack me something rotten if I didn't lend my uncle my assistance." Dan deliberately grimaced. "You know what women are like."

The village elder looked suitably entertained, looking Phil over with a sharp eye. "I'm sorry to hear that. I'm afraid you won't have much luck with gold in these parts - it's mostly a myth."

"Shh!" Dan quickly slapped his hands over Phil's ears, perhaps enjoying this a little too much. “You can’t tell him that, it’s his dream, he’s utterly convinced of its existence.”

Phil, for his part, jumped, and returned his wandering gaze back towards the elder, eyes narrowed suspiciously, though he allowed himself to get distracted again quite easily.

Dan was quick to continue on the conversation by mouthing to the elder, "I'll never hear the end of it if we don’t at least try. Truthfully, I just want to spend a month or so camped out in the mountains, and then he'll forget all about this weird dream and we can move on. Just, please, grant us safe passage so I can get this charade over with soon."

The elder studied them closely, and Dan widened his eyes, attempting to look as innocent as possible (and he was a good actor and he knew it).

Eventually, the elder stepped aside, waving off his spears. "Alright. On your way. I wish you safe travels, though my advice is you don’t stay too long. We're expecting snow in a few months."

"Many thanks, and a blessing on your house," Dan responded formally, giving a short bow before grasping Phil's sleeve and leading him on his way.

All the acting was well worth it, when, quite suddenly Dan released his hold over Phil’s ears and started praising the mountain elder, tugging on Phil’s hand and beginning to lead him past the man who’d parted to allow Dan and Phil through. For a moment, Phil couldn’t believe that things had been so easy, and then he remembered the way the village people had looked at them.

They hadn’t been in the least surprised when Dan and Phil had shown up. They’d known they were coming, must have seen them coming through the pass much further down the mountain. They had such a good vantage point up here, in the highest village on this peak.

They thought Dan and Phil were nothing more than sacrifices to the dragon, and if they somehow managed to survive… well, then, their elder held a gift from the witch that he wore at all times, and Phil had no idea what it could actually do.

When this was all over, Phil had to come back here. Something needed to be done about these people and their -- their… beliefs. Sacrificing innocent people who happened to wander up here… that just couldn’t be done. Perhaps the prince had very little sway, but he could strike fear in these men’s hearts, and he could lead an army against them, if only to save his people.

Once free of the village, Dan and Phil continued their trek through the mountain pass, and up towards where they both guessed the dragon’s lair to be. The sun was on its slow descent, and noon had long passed, but dusk had not quite yet fallen. If all went well, Dan and Phil would escape the clutches of the dragon by sunrise, but if all went to hell… they could very well be here for a few days, if not weeks, yet.

The dragon needed to be asleep, but there had been no indication from the village people whether or not it was. Neither man had anything to go off of just yet, but they had safe passage now. The could travel back and forth from the dragon all they wanted, and no one would stop them. Not if they wanted their dragon to have a sacrifice, at least.

“When we go back… if we go back, after we’ve had the scale, at least... “ Phil said to Dan in a rush, “We pretend nothing has happened. We pretend we are still on the search for gold, and surely, the villagers will let us through for the night. They don’t want to lose their sacrifices, after all. And then, we can make our getaway,” Phil explained.

Dan nodded in quick agreement as the two continued moving swiftly up the mountain pass, far faster now than they had before. Dan didn’t show it outwardly beyond the tense line of his shoulders, but he was growing worried. It was close to nightfall already, and those villagers had been far too happy to let them pass. He knew they would expect Dan and Phil to die out here, but Dan was absolutely not going to let that happen.

Still, it was growing dark, and the dragon would be fearsome at least and murderous at worst. Dan would be much happier if they could make camp before facing it, but they were too close now, too high up the mountain. If they camped, and the dragon was awake and hunting, then there was every chance it would find them and kill them before they ever had the chance to get a piece of its scale.

No, the only way to do this was to try and surprise the dragon, so Dan prayed with everything he had that they would find it sleeping.

Phil could feel the exhaustion left over from his panic attack fading away to background noise in the back of his mind as his body spiked with adrenaline.

Now was the fateful moment; was the dragon sleeping, or was it awake, and if the latter, how much longer before it went under?

It took more time than Phil had anticipated to find the entrance to the small cavern then knew existed up here from the ancient map Dan had stolen, but eventually, they found it, nestled behind a kind of rock slate that hadn’t quite looked like it belonged. It had carvings across it, and words in a language that Phil could not read, but he was willing to bet they were some kind of scripter. The village people here worshipped the dragon, after all.

Perhaps it was the Final Rights, a prayer for those sacrificed to the beast inside.

It was Dan who caught sight of it first, and Phil who followed after him as he squeezed past the stone to a large, open passageway that appeared to lead upwards into a cave that Phil could just see glimmering with --

“Gold,” Dan whispered. “The dragon must be here.”

Phil swallowed thickly, as it suddenly hit him that this was real. He’d never once taken this trip to be any less than it was, and yet it had never seemed quite so dangerous as it did right then, as both he and Dan stood on the cusp of entering the realest danger either man had ever faced.

Neither of them made the first move to walk inside, but instead, stood hovering just outside.

The passageway leading up to the cavern where the gold glinted was steep, littered with stones and bones and dust, and Dan did his best not to focus too greatly on exactly what lay in their way. All that mattered was how they got up there, even if Dan quailed at the very thought.

Going after a dragon was madness. Brandon had been right. What on earth was Dan doing here--

But then he glanced over to Phil, where Phil stood staring determinedly up the passage past the cave entrance they stood before, his face pale but expression set.

There. That was why Dan had to do this.

Taking a breath, Dan reached out and took Phil’s hand in his own.

Phil was biting his lip, his fingers curling at the large, curved knife at his waist, while Dan seemed itching to reach for his bow. He didn’t, choosing instead to stare blankly inside of the cave. Phil wondered if Dan was quite as terrified as Phil was in that moment.

They were about to face a dragon, head on.

“If it’s awake --” Phil whispered.

“We run like hell,” Dan finished for him with a firm nod, and then squeezed Phil’s hand, turning to face him. “Ready?” he asked, not looking the slightest bit ready himself.

Phil nodded, but swallowed thickly.

Dan nodded back, but fear was gripping deep in his heart. Fear, and dread, that this was the wrong thing to do. That this would go horribly wrong. That he and Phil would not come out of this in one piece.

He couldn’t face that thought, so he took a deep breath and gripped tighter to Phil’s hand. “Just promise me one thing?”

Phil glanced back at him, momentarily surprised. “What’s that?”

Dan took another breath, and for once, let his guard completely down. All his fear and worry showed through on his face as he stepped closer, releasing Phil’s hand to instead place both his palms against Phil’s shoulders. He levelled him with a look that was supposed to be stern, but ended up being… more desperate. “Don’t get yourself killed.”

There was something about the desperation of Dan’s words that cut deep inside of Phil, and, before he could over think it, Phil was reaching out and gripping tight to Dan’s tunic, only to drag him into a fierce kiss.

It felt like a promise, and a goodbye all rolled up in one. It felt like everything, as Phil pressed his tongue past Dan’s lips and licked into his mouth, tasting him for potentially the last time. His brow was furrowed in pain, and he could feel Dan’s in the way that he nipped at Phil’s tongue, chased it back to his mouth only to nip at Phil’s lips, and lick into his mouth in return, his fingers coming up to curl into Phil’s hair and yank, until their bodies collided and Phil could feel every inch of Dan’s heat pressed up alongside him.

It was everything, and as Phil kissed Dan, all he could think was that he would do everything in his power to save this man, to save them both, and his people too.

**

Dan stayed close to Phil's side as they ventured slowly inside the dragon’s lair. For the longest time, this had been the main goal of their journey, and yet they had prepared for it the least. How did you prepare for an encounter with a dragon when you didn’t even know what state in which you’d find it, let alone how you were meant to steal from one? Never in the history of their world had Dan heard of anyone stealing from a dragon, let alone its scale from directly off of its back, or tail, or wherever.

Dan had drawn his dagger to hand the moment Phil had let him go from that kiss, and his eyes were sharp now as he took in the rugged edges of the cave they were pushing inside of now. Whatever happened from here on out, Dan knew he wasn't going down without a fight, and he had absolutely no intention of letting Phil get hurt.

Brandon’s words from earlier were cutting him deep. That Phil was the only one Dan had ever let in this close, and he didn’t even know how important that was yet, because Dan had never told him. Suddenly, Dan regretted that.

He needed them both to survive this.

A few steps into the cave, the mouth of it began to lower above them. Dan crouched, tugging Phil down next to him so they got a better angle into the dragon's cave, and so that they would have less chance of being seen. The entrance was a little way above their heads, up a steep passageway littered with loose rocks and stones and bones and fuck-knew-what-else that would be a nightmare to traverse.

The heat was already immense, and as Dan wiped sweat from his brow, he caught sight once again of a glint of gold in the distance. A hoard. There was no remaining doubt that this was the dragon's lair.

Dan crawled his way through the last bit of the lowered rock before the passageway, Phil close behind him, thankfully not panicking too much from the enclosed space, too fearful of what they were about to encounter to panic. As the rocky ceiling opened out again above their heads, Dan stayed on his hands and knees, crawling to the edge of the steep passageway leading up to the dragon’s lair, and gestured for Phil to stay right by his side.

Then, taking a deep breath, Dan lifted himself into a crouch and peeked over the edge of the passageway.

What he saw had his breath slamming out of him and his heart pick up to a painful speed, hammering away in his chest.

The passageway continued up for several metres above them, leading to the mouth of a giant cavern that glinted with gold. The heat coming from the cavern was sweltering, the smell rotten and stifling, and there in the entranceway, filling the entire opening, lay a huge, red, scaly, moving flank.

The dragon.

Huge and red and scaly, it was currently sitting curled up with its wings folded and its long, spiked tail curved around its legs. It's back was to Dan, leaving him unable to see if it was awake or not. It's heavy flank was moving with its breaths, but beyond that, everything felt silent and calm.

Speechless, Dan dropped back down to his hands and knees beside Phil, his face paler than it had ever been before.

They held their breath, waiting for some kind of sign, some kind of movement that would alert them to the dragon being awake, but none came. Dan wasn’t sure how long they could waste just waiting, though. What if the dragon was asleep…

Turning to Phil, Dan beckoned his Prince to follow behind him, and rose swiftly to his feet, using every trick he knew to move silently. Phil followed in his movements, mimicking his stride, the way he stepped, nearly perfectly, and if this hadn’t been a life or death situation, Dan would have been quite proud of him. As it was, there was no room for pride when they very well could die any second now.

The passage, however, was horrendously steep, and exceedingly slippery, and more than once, Dan nearly slipped, just managing to avoid sending both himself and Phil from toppling to their deaths.

Dan tried not to think about it too much.

Should the dragon truly already be asleep, Dan knew that he and Phil would be beyond lucky. It would leave them open to pinch a bit of dragon scale right away, and be on their way, but if the dragon was awake… Dan wasn’t sure what they could do. There was no way they could kill the beast, and yet, they were inside of its lair. How easily it could murder them now…

Somehow, both Dan and Phil managed to scramble up the ridge with a steep drop on either side of it, and up onto the platform above without falling or damaging themselves. The dragon, for its part, had yet to move, and Dan almost wanted to stop, admire its hefty claws and brilliantly red skin that reflected the dying sunlight rather prettily. He had to stop and remind himself that this thing could literally kill them, and Dan knew he sure as hell didn’t want to be this close to it for any longer than he absolutely had to be.

They needed to get that dragon scale, and fast, no matter how tantalizing the rest of the cave glinting with its gold was.

He and Phil crept forward, quiet as ever, with Dan holding his dagger outstretched to pierce a bit of scale from the beast’s tail, when, quite suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, Phil stepped on a rock.

The noise it made was miniscule, barely even a tap as it crunched under Phil’s boot, but it was enough. The sound echoed hugely inside of the dragon’s lair, bouncing off the walls with seemingly unending sound, and Dan flinched. Then, just as suddenly, the dragon was climbing to its feet with a giant roar unlike anything Dan had ever heard before.

The ground shook beneath its giant, clawed feet, its tail whacking around the cave so fast that one of the spikes almost caught Dan across the face. He dived, throwing himself against the closest wall and all but cowering against it. It wasn’t often he felt fear anymore, but right then, Dan’s insides were wriggling and coiling tighter and tighter with terror.

Phil was somewhere. Dan had to keep track of him, but with the dragon roaring and continuously flicking its tail as it tried to turn around in the tight space, gold sliding under its claws, it was difficult to find him.

Nevertheless, Dan tried, crouched in his corner with his arms up over his head, peeking through them into the darkness inside the cavern.

There was a flash of movement from across the cave… there. Dan caught a glimpse of a white tunic, could just about make out Phil’s body crouched opposite from Dan, the other side of the dragon’s tail. His face was wane, a dagger faltering in his grip, but he was looking straight at Dan.

Their eyes locked, and Dan let out a breath of relief. Phil was there, still moving, unharmed.

The dragon roared, opening its giant maw and suddenly the air got hotter, much, much hotter, until the skin of Dan’s arm grew singed and red. The dragon roared and fire burst from its mouth, scorching the opposite wall as it turned its massive body around, red eyes flashing dak through the shadows. It spun, and Dan ducked, keeping as low as he could while also peering through the darkness to see Phil, to check he was safe from the beast that was slowly turning in the tight space.

The dragon belched out another round of flames, and Dan threw himself to the ground, gold scattering beneath him, making the ground slippy. The dragon’s back was to him now, its tail cutting through the air, and its head…

Its head was heading straight for Phil.

Dan watched in petrified horror as its dark red eyes alighted on Phil, who was still cowering in a corner, trapped, and with absolutely nowhere to go. It roared, and Phil ducked, but the dragon was lifting one giant front leg, claws extended, red scales shining and glimmering and exactly what they needed, but how on earth were they going to steal some of its scales when it was awake and angry and had them trapped in its hoard…

The dragon slashed its paw through the air, heading straight for Phil’s side, Dan’s Prince’s side, in an attack that would surely be deadly should it manage to land.

Dan didn’t even think. All he knew was he couldn't allow Phil to get hurt for him -- that Dan could never live with himself if that happened, not when Phil was the only thing he had left in his life. So he moved on instinct.

One second Dan was crouching there, staring in horror as the dragon swiped a huge clawed leg at Phil, and the next, he was diving forward with a screech, scrambling his way around the giant dragon and knocking Phil down to the ground, unheeding the knife Phil had raised towards the great beast.

His Prince landed in a heap underneath him, and Dan caught one glance of his terrified, wide-eyed expression before the dragon’s claw hit.

Instantly, searing pain ran through Dan's left side, and he had the vague thought that the dragon must have clawed him instead of Phil, before everything went blissfully black.

Everything happened too fast. Phil felt as though everything was moving in a different reality. One second, Dan was right beside him, and the next, he was gone. Phil didn’t even have a second to panic or wonder what had happened to him, however, as moments later, he was turning once more to face down a raging dragon whose strange eyes, red gilted but blackened, were suddenly turned towards him and --

Phil found himself staring down the terrifying sight of a sharp, blood red claw coming for his face, with no time left in him to so much as react. Dan -- Phil had just seen him, Dan was alive, but Phil -- Phil would not be for very much longer.

Holding up his dagger in a last ditch attempt to protect himself, to help his family, to maybe grab a claw, Phil waited for the impact, to be knocked to the ground -- only it didn’t come from the direction Phil had been expecting.

His knife went skittering across the dragon’s cavern floor, shooting out from beyond his hold, and his face struck the ground so hard that he actually groaned miserably, forgetting that now was not the time to make any more noise. He just couldn’t help it, and he had no idea what was happening. All he knew was that his ears were ringing now, and that his head hurt worse than it ever had before, and that the room was far too hot to be normal.

Something heavy was on top of him, something heavy that felt like the worst pressure Phil had ever experienced, and he pushed at it, desperate to get it off of him, desperate to survive.

The dragon roared again, then, reminding Phil of its presence, of the danger that he and Dan were currently in, and he rolled before he could think about it just as something hard and heavy hit the cavern floor. The loud rumble following the force told Phil it had been the dragon’s foot, right where Phil had been only moments before, and he shoved himself to his feet before he could think twice about it.

His head was spinning, and Phil couldn't see straight. His thoughts were scattered and confused from the blow to his head, but he knew that something was wrong. The blow he’d taken hadn’t been from a dragon’s claw, it had been from --

No, no, Phil thought as he scrambled into what he thought was a standing position, only for him to keel forward and land on his face once more. Phil groaned at the same time as the dragon roared once more, and for a second, Phil wished he was running right then, but moments after, the sound of something whisking over his head echoed throughout the cave, and Phil heard the impact as the dragon’s tail swung out and crashed into the walls around them, attacking anything and everything in its way.

Body filling with both adrenaline and terror, Phil tried to shove himself to his feet once more, and this time managed to succeed. His heart was hammering away in his chest, his mind was buzzing, and some horrified part of him just knew that what he was about to find would not be good.

Dan, Dan, where was Dan!?

Phil was beyond certain now that the blow he’d taken had come from the wrong direction. Dan had been safe, he’d been safe, what had he done!?

“Dan?” Phil cried, his voice a croak as the dragon roared once more, and the room seemed to heat up again. Phil could see the signs of a fire behind him, growing in intensity, and his eyes searched wildly for the dragon, desperate to find him, so he could find Dan, so he could save him. That’s when he caught sight of the dragon’s eyes again, the strange, gilted red he’d been staring into earlier, the strange blackness…

The dragon’s head swung around, searching, and that’s when Phil realized why he looked so wrong. He was blind. The dragon was blind, its eyes missing from its skull, nothing more than two dark holes and a scorched mark deep inside that Phil could only just make out.

Phil nearly fell forward in shocked relief, scrabbling for some kind of sense of balance. The dragon was blind. This could be both a blessing, and a curse, and he set out to find Dan once more. The heavy thing on his body earlier… that must have been Dan, who Phil had so carelessly pushed off of him.

What if the Dragon has stepped on him, earlier, when Phil had rolled out of the way just in time? What if Phil had put Dan in more danger, what if he was dead. Gulping back a horrified sob, Phil reached up with dirty fingers to swipe angrily at his eyes.

“Dan, Dan, please,” Phil whined, his voice a whisper as the dragon began to stampede around his cave, wandering further away from where Phil currently stood, desperate to find his Dan in the dark of the cavern, and -- there!

A lump on the ground, just visible as not belonging amongst the rest of the rocks and the treasure scattered about, but most importantly of all, not smashed, clearly saved from the damage of a large beast stepping on his bones.

Letting out a breath of relief, Phil rushed to Dan’s side on unsteady legs, praying that his idiot of a thief was still alive and hadn’t gotten himself killed trying to be a fucking hero. Phil was panting as he collapsed to his knees at Dan’s side, but he didn’t care. The dragon was making so much noise on its own at this point that Phil was terrified rock was about to start crumbling from ahead just from the force of it and knock him out, rendering him as good as dead.

“Dan… Dan, please. Hey, Dan, don’t -- you can’t go,” Phil begged as he grasped Dan’s shoulder and rolled the man towards him, praying he wasn’t dead. Surely, surely Dan wasn’t dead? He couldn’t be dead, not now, not when they were so close, when they’d found the Dragon, and they were getting his scale, and they could finally go home and just -- just -- be.

Phil choked on a sob as he shoved at Dan’s body, rocked him, shook him, did anything he could think of to get some kind of response, any response, from the body on the floor in front of him.

“Dan please,” Phil hissed, growing frantic as he realized that Dan wasn’t answering him, that he didn’t seem able to, in one way or another. Something was terribly, terribly wrong, and as Phil touched Dan’s stomach, only to feel something hot and sticky touch his hand, he began to truly panic.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, no - Dan, no you can't do this to me," Phil whispered, desperate as the dragon roared around them, shaking the very rock of the cave, and sending a shower of rocks down upon them. Phil keened, and threw himself over Dan’s body, desperate to protect him from any more damage, and holding his own hands over his head in the desperate hope that he could remain conscious enough to finish what he’d come here for.

The rocks struck Phil’s body all over, but miraculously, none struck his hands or his head, and for that, Phil was grateful as he shook on top of Dan’s unmoving form. He moaned against Dan’s body, praying for some kind of miracle, that Dan would just react in some way, but even as he thought the words, he knew that Dan would not.

As the rock fall stopped and the dragon once again blew fire at the wall of the cave furthest from where Dan and Phil currently lay, Phil drew back from Dan’s body, and sobbed as he gripped Dan’s face tight in his hands.

“You are not leaving me, Daniel Howell, do you understand that?” he demanded through his cries, stroking at Dan’s cheeks, hands moving down his neck, over his throat, and -- there! A pulse! Phil could have cried with relief if he wasn’t so desperate to get them both the fuck out of there, and suddenly, Phil was tearing the stupid jacket thing he’d cut for himself earlier off of his shoulders and shoving it under Dan’s body, wrapping it tight around the worst of the wounds on his stomach.

It was the best that Phil could do, especially with his knife gone, but it would have to do. All that mattered, as Phil continued to sob into the void of the cave, was that Dan was not dead, and that Phil would get him out of here alive, one way or another.

Unconscious, that was all. Dan was just unconscious. That, Phil could work with. Dan could survive this yet.

Doing his best to pull himself together when there was grief and adrenaline in equal measure coursing through Phil’s veins, he swiped a trembling hand across his face to wipe away both the tears and the snot, and then inhaled deeply.

He had to get himself together, right now, before it was too late.

The dragon roared, and another shower of rocks started. Phil thrust his body over Dan’s, protecting him, and tried not to cry any harder than he already was as he waited the shower out once again. He was lucky when nothing struck him this time, but Phil knew that soon, his luck would run out on him.

Biting his lip savagely hard, Phil began to look about himself in a wild frenzy, desperate to find some kind of exit that would get both him and Dan out of here safely. Surely, there had to be a way where the dragon wouldn’t see them, where they could be safe…

But no, no, They hadn’t managed to get a scale yet, and for as much as Phil wanted to say fuck it and just get the hell out of here before one of them died, he knew that the sacrifice would be worth nothing without what they’d come here for. Phil had to get the scale, or else Dan had taken a claw for him for no reason.

Gritting his teeth, Phil tried to force himself to focus, but it was hard, and he hated himself when another slew of tears attacked him. He needed to stop this, and now. He had a job to take care of. He couldn’t afford to cry anymore. Dan wasn’t dead, but he very well could be if Phil didn’t hurry the fuck up.

That’s when Phil saw it; glinting on the floor, just a few meters away from his foot was the knife he’d sent skittering across the floor when Dan had knocked him out of the way of the Dragon’s claw, and just beyond that glittered a bright red scale.

For a moment, Phil didn’t know what to think. Had they cut it free of the dragon? Or had it fallen off of him? Did it count for anything at all, or would it just be a waste of Phil’s energy to go and grab for it? He didn’t know, but he started to crawl across the cavern floor towards the knife and the scale, only for the cavern to shake once more as the Dragon’s tail collided with the walls. Another rain of rocks began, but Phil had no time left.

He had to get to that scale, and he couldn’t protect Dan. Not now.

All he could do was cry as he crawled across the floor with blood in his eyes from touching his face after bandaging Dan, and reach out with trembling fingers for the two items he needed now more than anything else.

A rock struck at Phil’s wrist just as he grabbed tight to the scale, and he had to bite down on his lip to prevent himself from screaming out in pain. He felt it stab into him, the pain radiating up his arm, but Phil had no time for the pain. His fingers reflexively let go of the scale, but seconds later, Phil was grasping tight to it once again, just managing to grab hold of his knife at the same time with the other hand.

The rockfall came to another abrupt end, even as the dragon roared once more, and Phil scrambled to his knees to skitter across the floor once more.

The minute he arrived at Dan’s side, he was dropping both the knife and scale from his hands, and checking Dan over for any injuries, sobbing with his mouth wide open to pant. He’d never forgive himself if Dan died for him but -- nothing. The King of Thieves remained unharmed by the falling rocks, and for that, Phil could nearly collapse in relief.

But he didn’t, because he had a scale to inspect, and how was he even meant to know if it was enough? His hands shook as he reached for the blade and the scale once more, squinting through the blood in his eye -- shit, his head must be bleeding, because it just kept dripping -- looking for any kind of sign that he’d taken off the scale with his two hands and a piece of metal.

Just when Phil was about lose all hope, he turned his blade only to be met with the sight of fresh blood, and was that -- yes, a broken bit of scale that had adhered itself to Phil’s blade thanks to the heat of the Dragon’s cave. Phil must have cut it free when he’d tried to defend himself against the dragon’s claw, just before Dan had struck Phil down. Nearly sobbing with relief, Phil shoved the severed dragon scale into his trousers pocket, and jammed the knife into his belt for good measure, in case the one bit of scale was not enough.

Then, he turned to Dan with a choked up laugh, and said, “Look, Dan… look… we’ve done it. We got the scale, please. Please wake up, please, I’m begging you,” Phil whined, and leaned in close to press the bravest kiss he could manage to Dan’s forehead.

“This is not goodbye,” he insisted, before drawing away once more.

Standing on shaking feet, never once leaving Dan’s side, Phil tried once again to find a way out. The dragon was beating its claws into the far wall, looking as if it were trying to destroy something hiding against it, and Phil shuddered at the image of that being him. He had to remind himself that it wasn’t, and that he needed to focus now. Exit. He needed an exit, a way to get both him and Dan out of here before anything worse happened to either of them.

That’s when Phil saw it; a light, to the far right, opposite to where Dan and Phil had first come in, and the dragon was staring right at it. Not an exit, then, but a distraction. A way for Phil to keep the dragon away long enough for him to drag Dan back out of the cave.

He only had one shot at this, and he bit his lip as he turned to stare back down at Dan one last time.

“Please,” he whispered. “Wake up.”

There was no response, but Phil hadn’t really been expecting one. He felt defeated, weary to the bone, and all he wanted was to escape.

All he wanted was his happily ever after.

Phil’s hand were shaking when he lowered himself back to Dan’s side again, taking the man into his arms and dragging his dead weight backwards across the ground, closer to the ridge Dan and Phil had originally come up from. He could just see its dip into the light from here, and that would have to be good enough, because the dragon was roaring all over again, whipping its tail against a wall and sending a shatter of rocks down all around them once more.

Phil just managed to cover Dan’s body before it was too late, but as the rocks collapsed against his body, Phil almost couldn’t feel them anymore. Instead, he waited for them to stop, and picked up the largest he could find, something he knew would make enough noise to get the dragon’s attention.

Gritting his teeth, Phil waited for the exact right moment, and then threw the rock as hard as he could towards the light from earlier, cringing away as it landed with a loud bang against the ground and then skittered across until it hit the far wall.

For a second, the cavern was completely quiet, aside from the sound of the dragon’s heavy breaths, and then -- a roar unlike the ones before, and the sound of the dragon’s claws as it scrambled towards the sound Phil had made.

Not wasting another moment, Phil hefted Dan into his arms, stood on shaky legs, and began to run. He only had one shot at this, but it no longer mattered to him. He was going to save Dan if it was the last thing he did, and he was going to escape this dragon if it killed him.

The ridge was close, Phil could see it as he ran, his legs nearly giving out on him on more than one occasion, but though he tripped, he refused to stop moving. He was carrying the dead weight of his one true love, and he wasn’t leaving him behind.

The dragon was also close. At the sound of Phil’s footsteps, it turned around from its dead run towards the rock Phil had thrown and began the chase on him. The sound of its claws on the cavern ground, its tail whacking the far wall yet again, its roar as it thundered through the cavern, terrified Phil like no other, but there was nothing he could do now.

He just had to keep running.

If he could make it to the ridge, surely --

The dragon roared, and heat soared up past Phil. For a moment, he thought he was on fire, but then his feet found the ridge he’d been running for, and despite the fact that he was going down now, it was just as slippery a slope as it had been the first time around. Phil couldn’t stop moving now, though, not when he was almost out, not when the dragon was breathing fire that was only missing him because of the low ceiling on the ridge.

He could see the light at the end of the tunnel, his feet skidding down the slippery slope, when, quite suddenly and out of nowhere, Phil’s foot hit a rock.

He went stumbling, and his arms gave out. Dan tumbled to the floor, rolling across the ridge the opposite direction to Phil, falling just short of careening just off the edge. His leg, though, his leg --

Phil cried out, screaming Dan’s name as he watched Dan sliding away from him.

Pain was the only thing in Dan's head. A hot, searing pain that started at his shoulder and spread right down to his hip, bursting and burning and tugging at him until he couldn't feel anything past it. His brain shut down until all he could see was black.

He could feel himself being moved, could sense a familiar presence nearby. An important presence. Dan wanted to open his eyes, to reach out and grope for the familiar thing moving around him, but he couldn't find his limbs through the searing, endless pain. Every time he tried to shift, another searing flare tore through him until he was left shaking and screaming silently.

There was a voice tugging at the edges of Dan’s consciousness -- a voice he knew, a voice he wanted to answer. Dan focused on it, trying to find his way back from the blackness, from the pain. It was calling his name. If only he could focus… if he could just make himself reply...

Then there was the sensation of falling, and pain tore through him again, wracking his body with trembling and shaking and all Dan wanted to do was cry. It hurt so much. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't move beyond the constant flaring burning that spread out from his side, making him want to curl up in a ball and give in, forget everything, and fall into the welcoming blackness.

The voice called his name again.

Dan frowned, focusing -- he knew that voice. Using every last bit of strength he had, Dan forced himself to listen, forced himself to think through the searing, unending pain.

Phil was starting to slip, mere moments after he’d landed hard on the ground, and he scrambled desperately for something to hold onto. As far as he could tell, there was nothing below this ridge except a death drop, and he couldn’t die, not now, not when he was so close.

Crying out harshly, Phil just managed to grab onto a rock that he prayed was stable on the ridge floor before the lower half of his body plummeted off the side of the ridge and nearly sent him plunging below.

Sweaty hands kept him anchored to the ridge, but that was not what Phil feared most. No, what he feared most was the fact that Dan was so far away from him, completely unconscious, with both legs hanging off the edge of the ridge, and the entire cavern rumbling from the dragon’s fit of rage. With every new surge of the cavern walls, Dan began to slip more and more, and all Phil could think was that he couldn’t save Dan now.

He wasn’t even sure he could save himself.

The sobs returned anew.

“Goddamnit Daniel Howell!” he screeched. “Goddamn you! We are not dying here, not before I get to tell you how I feel about you, you idiot. Not before I get to marry you! Wake up! Please, Dan, please, wake up for me! Please, I love you!”

Those words echoed around the ravine, cutting through the roaring of the dragon, the rumbles and clatters as the cavern moved, the precarious ridge they were clinging to wobbling more and more, but those words cut through it all, cut through Dan’s half-conscious, panicked, pained state, and made their way into his ears.

Someone loved him.

The world came crashing down around Dan's ears, the pain draining just a little as he clung to those words. Someone wanted him there. Someone needed him. Someone loved him. Dan wasn't giving up that easily.

With a gasp and a wrench of pain, Dan forced his eyes open.

Phil's hands were bloody with his attempts to drag himself up from where his legs were dangling over the edge of the ravine, the rock he'd caught himself on digging painfully into his palms, but that almost didn't matter to him when he was crying so hard and trying to get Dan to wake up, because Phil didn't know if he was going to make it to Dan’s side fast enough to prevent him from falling as well. Dan was dead weight, right now. Dan was dead weight, and the ravine was slippery and covered in rock, and if he didn't wake up, Phil might very well let himself fall too.

Family be damned.

Phil could see Dan's body pulling backwards, could see his hands were so close. The ravine was thin, and Dan had landed better than Phil had, his body so long that only part of his legs dangled off the opposite edge Phil's did, his hands close enough he could grab the other edge if only he were awake. If it weren't for Phil's own precarious situation, dangling halfway off his own ledge, he would grab for Dan's arms and drag him to safety, but he couldn't afford to let go without risking both their lives, and he couldn't save himself fast enough to save Dan.

Phil was crying so hard.

And then Dan's eyes opened, and he let out a loud gasp and whimper of pain. Phil would have collapsed in relief if it weren't for both his and Dan's precarious situations.

Dan took in the situation in one panicked glance -- somehow they were out of the dragon's cave, although he could hear roaring from somewhere above that said the dragon wasn't too happy about that fact. Dan was lying flat on the ground of the passageway they’d come up, littered with tiny rocks and stones that pierced his hands and feet. His side was burning, and Dan could smell the tangy stench of his own blood. He didn't dare to look, was already dizzy from the pain.

Instead, he looked forward, and saw Phil staring at him with wide, desperate eyes.

Of course. Phil.

"Dan, Dan, Dan," Phil chanted, desperate to get his attention. "Come on, Dan, you can do this. Grab hold of the edge so you don't fall. I know it hurts, baby, I know, but you have to do this for me. You have to pull yourself away from the edge, baby, please," he was begging, unsure if Dan could even hear him over the sounds of the dragon's roars and Phil's own sobs, Dan's whimpers of pain.

Dan gasped again when he realised he was sliding, slowly but surely, away from Phil. The ridge was steep and either side led to a drop down a huge ravine, and Dan was inching further towards it with every passing second. He couldn't fall, though. Not now. Phil had just said he loved him, and Dan was definitely going to have to reply to that as soon as they weren't so close to imminent death.

Unthinkingly, he reached out and grabbed hold of the ridge, fingers digging in. He cried out in pain when his side stretched, feeling it flaring through him, but he had a grip now and was kicking and scrambling, forcing himself to climb back onto the ridge, onto safety. His side pulled and ached and flared with pain every time he moved, and Dan could see black spots creeping at the edge of his vision again, so he focused on Phil and pulled himself up towards him.

Dan seemed to instinctively grab hold of the edge and begin to pull himself away from falling. Phil was far less secure in his own hold, but with the ridge so thin, and Dan hanging off far less than Phil, it should have been easy for Dan to pull himself to safety.

If it weren't for the long, gaping wound in his side.

Phil choked on another sob.

"Come on baby, come on, Dan. You can do this, please, you can do this. Please, for me, Dan, for me. I love you," he gasped again, and then Dan was pulling himself, pulling, pulling, pulling, until finally, he collapsed against the ridge, to safety.

Phil let out a breath, a choked sob, and nearly let himself go, if he hadn’t been so focused on keeping them both alive.

Dan made it, just barely, and he collapsed against the ridge with loud, panting breaths. He wanted to reach for Phil, to talk to him, to guide them both back down the ridge to safety, but pain was blackening his vision once again and it was all he could do to stay conscious. Gingerly, Dan glanced down at the wound and saw Phil's sweater pressed up against his side, already soaked in blood. He trembled, quickly looking away again and back to Phil, but the pain didn’t leave him. Everything was spinning, the entire world, and it was disorienting and terrifying and Dan couldn’t figure out which way was up, which way was down, where he was supposed to be going. All he knew was Phil’s eyes, and pain.

His side felt pierced, ripped in two, and he didn’t even want to contemplate what kind of damage might be done. All he knew was he could feel it like poison in his veins, slowing his every movement, making him lethargic and weak. He was just barely grabbing onto the edge of the ravine, his fingers slippery, his mind muddled and weak. And Phil, to his side, in no better shape.

How were they going to get out of this one?

Desperately, Dan tried to move again, tried to reach out for Phil, to take his hand or grab his arm and pull him back up to safety, but just one slight movement sent pain sharper than anything lancing through his side. Dan gasped, and rolled, curling into a ball as much as he could. Every movement of his breathing forced his side to move, the wound stretching, and it tore through him until there were tears streaming down his face.

Dan never, ever cried. He’d been stabbed before, his body littered with scars, but this -- he’d never felt anything like this before.

Dan had nothing left, just the trembling and the pain. He reached a hand out for Phil, weakly, and forced himself to say one word in a cracked, shaking voice. "Help."

Phil’s thief was collapsed breathlessly onto the middle of the ravine, body curled uncomfortably, eyes unfocused but looking at Phil.

The pleading little "help," broke Phil's heart, and with his own last remaining strength, he began once more to kick and yank and pull himself to safety. He gritted his teeth against the pain digging into his hands, the bit of his wrist where the rock had struck, and continued to pull, because if he had nothing else to live for, he had Dan, safe and sound, and fighting for his life.

Phil had to get to him, and fast.

With Dan watching on, so close to passing out once more, Phil strained as hard as he could, gasping and crying and shuddering with each aching pull of his muscle against the ridge.

Why did he have to be so fucking tall, so fucking clumsy? He shouldn't have fallen. The ridge was a straight shot down from here, Phil should have been able to make it.

They were so close to safety.

"I'm coming Dan," he grunted. "Hold on for me."

But Dan's eyes were closing now, and the only things keeping Phil going were the tiny panting breaths puffing from Dan's mouth, the fact that he was alive. Phil couldn’t give up now, not when Dan had woken up for him, not when Dan had survived.

Phil grunted as his fingers scrabbled against dense rock, fought to get a grip on something, anything, he legs weighing heavy on his body and dragging him down. His fingers were bloodied, his palms ruined, burning, arm muscles aching, but he couldn’t stop trying. He grabbed for every rock he could find, blinking blood from his eyes, and nearly screamed with rage when each new stone tumbled and almost sent him falling.

“Please,” Phil begged anyone, anything, gritting his teeth and shoving his body forward one last time. He was losing grip, losing strength. He didn’t know how much more he had in him, but there was one last stone, one last rock he could grasp onto, far enough Phil might just be able to pull himself up, might just be able too --

Crying out, Phil managed one last, final heave, grasping tight to his final hope, and tugged as hard as he could on the rock until his entire torso struggled up the side of the ravine and he managed to pull himself up and over the side of the gorge with the help of the one steady rock. Phil landed, then, in a crying heap next to Dan, his entire body shuddering with nothing less than adrenaline, pain, and fear.

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, thank fuck, oh god. I thought I’d lost us both, Dan, I am so… so, sorry,” Phil gasped, and collapsed, finally, against the ground for a moment of rest.

They were safe. They were safe for now, and that was all that mattered, and yet their wounds, Dan’s wounds, sat heavy on Phil’s mind, even as he fought to regain the energy to just… move.

He just needed a second… just a second more… Phil let his eyes close, and tried not to cry, desperate to get his breathing back under control.

[wacheypena]

Movies I often ColdFlash Take 2:

Decided to make a new post about it with updated ideas and such, the original list is here.

The Holiday - Still coldflash as the main couple, with Barry being single and he and Len totally hopping into the sack at some point if not as soon as they meet XD But the second pairing is now arrowwave cause I want it, and I can easily see Oliver breaking up with someone and leaving on impulse for a vacation elsewhere. Mick is still a single dad with two daughters, Len's a writer who was having an affair with Sam Scudder, who is now engaged and refuses to let it be known that he's gay if not bi. 

Oliver didn't take his previous relationships seriously, b/c most dated him for what he was, rather than who he is, and Mick could care less what he is aside from hot af and great in bed. He's also got two little girls to consider, which endears him to Oliver and makes him take this budding relationship a lot more seriously. Meanwhile, Len loves that Barry isn't afraid to share that they're dating and doesn't treat him like some dirty little secret. The main issue would be the distance when they inevitably return home. (Yeah I'm totally resolving that via some peeps move.) First post about this Second post about this

Stepford Wives - Same, after killing his dad, rather than go to Iron Heights, Lyla Diggle arranges for Len to work for Argus, b/c Barry knew he was under duress and deserved a chance to do good in the world, he just needed a chance. That and monetary motivation, but Len won't be paid until he's worked his prison time off. His first mission: investigate the town of Stepford as one of their latest married couples. He got to choose his spouse, and deciding on some revenge, he chooses Barry Allen. Fake dating trope to the max, cause I love this fucking trope XD

The Mummy - I feel this would be easier as a coldwave fic, cause Mick as the American who charms librarian Len sounds really hot XD And Barry as their adopted son would be so cute :3 I know this is a coldflash list, but seriously, it would be easier to have Len and Lisa as a pair of archaeologists/historians, and Mick is the ex-soldier who's been to the place they want to go. Otherwise, I have no idea who Lisa or the others would be if I coldflash-ed this.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - This would totally have to be an AU, and I'd make Len and Mick both thieves as well as entertainers. Oliver or Ray are the detective sent to follow the two on Barry's behalf, and thus shenanigans.

Coming to America - I know I said Barry was the prince in the last post, but now I have it in my head that Len is a fairy!Prince and he drags Mick with him to find a bride cause he believes his people have become too isolated and need new world views. He doesn't limit his search to women of course, and Barry is totally adorable. I'd let Barry have his powers and be the Flash in this case, so both of them have a secret to keep, though Len is better at figuring out Barry's XD

Labyrinth - Same as before, Barry is annoyed with Captain Cold constantly pulling heists to get his attention, and wishes he'd just go away for a while. Enter Mirror Master sending Cold into some random mirror dimension and Barry feeling guilty and going after him. They have to work together to get out of there, encountering all kinds of obstacles and discovering love in the process XD

(more under the cut, with a lot of details XD)

Teen Witch - I never explained what I had planned here: Barry lives with the Wests cause his mom was killed and his dad put in jail, etc, and he's best friends with Cisco and Caitlin at school. Iris is also a good friend but she's part of the popular crowd and dating Eddie, a football player who's friends with Ronnie. Other football players include Mick, Len and Tony, the last two often times bullying/teasing Barry.

On his sixteenth b-day, during a class field trip, Barry discovers a necklace w/a lightning bolt, his teacher Dr. Wells encouraging him to keep it. Hartley, a loner/outsider that people often called weird, approaches Barry and claims he's a witch like him and that they should rely on each other and learn to master their powers together. Barry immediately rejects the idea, cause witches aren't real, but then at a party Iris invited him too, he's cornered by Tony and manages to make him 'disappear' into thin air, which freaks him out. With Hartley's help, he brings Tony back with no memory of what happened at the party, and Tony transfers to another school not too long after.

Turns out, Barry is a witch from his mother's side, and the necklace is his talisman. Hartley having a similar necklace only with a flute at the end of it. Hart also has a ton of books on magic so Barry has a lot to read through.

Barry discovers a love potion and considers using it on Iris, but he knows it wouldn't be real and it would hurt Eddie, who he has gotten to know as a decent guy. Instead, he tells Iris about the witch stuff, and she happily agrees to help keep it hush hush from Joe who would probably send Barry to a mental institution.

Some conflict arises as Cisco and Caitlin want to know why Barry's not hanging out with them as much, and so he confesses to them too. They don't believe him at first, so he demonstrates his power by making Caitlin admit her feelings to her crush, Ronnie. Turns out that Ronnie had a crush on her too, but thought she'd rebuff him since she was so aloof. Of course, Cisco now wants to experiment and test out Barry's abilities, including the use of that love potion. (No worries, it doesn't get used.)

Meanwhile, though he wasn't nearly as cruel and as menacing as Tony had been, Len still teases Barry to some extent, but rather than use his powers to make him go away, cause Barry feels that makes him just as bad as a bully, he applies a truth spell on Len, and discovers Len has been in the closet due to an abusive dad and has a crush on Barry. (Even though Barry utters the spell, Len would be admitting these things in front of Mick and Eddie who are in the locker room with him after gym class, the spell breaking after Len takes a shower cause water did that in this movie's continuity.)

And that's as far as I got with this XD (I'm a dick.)

True Lies - Len is the super, sexy, spy and Barry is his adorable husband who works in a cubicle and doesn't realize he's married to a spy. (They also have an adopted son.) Barry's been neglected for some time though, and he starts to worry he's being cheated on. With this state of mind, it's fairly easy for some scumbag to try and seduce him into an affair. Though like in the movie, Len discovers this affair before anything too scandalous can occur, and in his jealous rage he gets Barry to perform his own little 'spy' mission. It backfires when the real terrorists come in and kidnap them both and the rest of the fic is like the movie. @mockingbird-22 and I angsted it up though in certain parts cause Barry inspired it XD

Romancing the Stone - Definitely an AU, though this story could be turned into a coldwave as well as a coldflash story. Len as a romantic novelist sounds lovely doesn't it? And he'd do anything to protect Lisa, including traveling to a foreign country and risk all types of danger. Barry I see as more of an action/adventure, sci-fi thriller type of writer. He'd still go and try to save Iris of course. And either Len or Mick would make a great con artist/love interest.

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead - So Len, Mick, Lisa, and maybe a few others are orphans and living together in one house. Len successfully got their care taker put in jail cause they were embezzling funds. Of course the state gives them someone new, but that person winds up dying of natural causes on the first night. Mick and Len get rid of the body, unintentionally destroying the money along with it. The only choice they have now is to either wait till the next monthly deposit, or one of them gets a job. Len winds up getting a job while Mick agrees to stay and watch the younger kids. (They're 17 and 16 respectively, Mick being oldest.) (Btw, Len drops out of high school but gets his GED, in case peeps wonder why he doesn’t attend school)

Len's first job sucks, though he meets Barry who's secretly a hero in training. Len winds up quitting cause the pay isn't enough to cover all the bills or worth the amount of stress it gives him. He recruits Hartley, a kid really good at hacking, into making him a new resume that would land him a better desk job somewhere. Only he made it too good, as Malcolm Merlyn decides to hire Len on the spot as an executive assistant to his 'secretly a bad guy company' rather than be a simple receptionist. (Yeah I went cartoony with this XD)

Len is surprisingly good at this job, as he's organized, logical, and a great strategist. His only obstacle being Sam Scudder who had been in line to take the position until he showed up. Also, his creepy g/f Rosa who keeps hitting on him. Eobard is another creep who apparently likes to brag about tormenting the Flash. Oh, and Len is dating Barry now, so keeping this whole thing a secret is hard, especially when he finds out Barry lives with a cop and intends to become a CSI when he's older. So much conflict and all Len wants to do is keep a roof over everyone's head.

The Mask of Zorro - Netflix recently added this, so now it got me thinking of Henry being the original Zorro/Flash, only for Eobard to kill his wife and frame him for it. Then whisk Barry away to raise him as his own while also disguised as Dr. Harrison Wells. Len, Lisa and Mick are sort of thieves/anti-heroes until Lisa and Mick are captured and in his attempt to break them out of prison, Len breaks Henry out on accident. His family was sent elsewhere, and Henry offers to help Len find them if he agrees to help him put a stop to all the evil that's corrupting their city. Len doesn't want to be a hero, but he understands their city is suffering and he needs help investigating his family's whereabouts. Turns out Dr. Wells has been capturing metas and trying to turn them into soldiers so he could take over the city. (Len, Mick and Lisa are metas in this.) Keep in mind, the time period would be the same as in the movie. Romance wise, Barry would totally be enamored with the mysterious hooded figure who wields ice in ways he didn't know were so beautiful. And who is this charming but infuriating man named Leonard Snart?

Look Who's Talking - @mockingbird-22 and I both have different takes on this. In my version, it's an a/b/o world, and Eowells(?) has made a bad habit of spreading his seed. Barry thought it was true love, but turns out he was being used like the other omegas in Eowells life. (Debating if I should name Hartley among them and bring him into this idea or not.) Barry does what he can to move on, though it is quite stressful, especially when one omega pursues a lawsuit against Eowells for sleeping around so much with no intention of helping out with the resulting offspring. Barry, along with a few others, are called to witness the trial and to provide proof that they were all impregnated by the same man. It's enough to stress Barry into labor as he exits the building and into Len's unsuspecting cab.

Len saw that Barry came out of the courthouse, but he doesn't know why he was there. He just drives him to the hospital as quick as he can. Barry gives birth to a healthy baby boy, and returns to his apartment with both his baby and a compensation check from the lawsuit. Len arrives not too long after cause Barry forgot his wallet inside the cab.

If you've seen the movie, the rest follows along the same lines with a few details changed such as Len using Barry's address so Lisa can attend a different school, and both Len and Lisa taking turns to babysit the baby. Also, Barry's relieved when Len forcibly removes Eowells from visiting the baby, as Barry wants nothing to do with him anymore. Though the explanation as to why the other man was trying to visit is awkward, Len takes it in stride.

I can see Barry giving in and wanting a relationship with Len easily, but then worrying that Len was too dubious in the eyes of the law to consider, especially if I make him a thief in this verse XD

And that’s all I got for now folks! Thanks for reading, and if you’d like to head canon some stuff with me on this, feel free to message me. If you want me to just write these fics already, let me know which and please wait :3