#survey time what's the most amount of times you visited one fic on ao3?

[find-the-path]

that feeling of accomplishment when you’ve visited one of your favorite fics more times than it has hits.

[foularcadebanana]

A Thousand Rules More

Day 29 Prompt for the Untamed Fall Fest is ‘Carving’. This idea came to me like a flash of lightning and I have been so, so excited to write this fic, so I hope you all enjoy it!

Summary: Everyone always wondered the true reason for the Gusu Lan sect rules to have increased from 2,000 to 3,000. They suspected almost everyone, but only Lan Qiren knew who the true culprits were. It was the pair of uncle and nephew that no one seemed to suspect. Jiang Wanyin and Jin Ling.

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Lan Qiren knew his disciples had theories, that they suspected the increment of the rules from 2,000 to 3,000 had been in part due to Wei Wuxian, and then Wangji. There were other theories too, mostly about him. That Lan Qiren was so strict, that he hated to see his disciples having fun to such a degree that every time he saw them following the rules and having fun, he just put up new rules. That Professor Qiren was actually a sadist, he loved dishing out punishments.

There were theories that in another few years, there would be 4,000 and then 5,000 rules. The disciples would be forbidden to even breathe without being punished. Fingers had been pointed at every single person who resided in the Cloud Recesses, had lived there in the past, or had even stepped foot there.

Everyone from Jin Guangyao to Nie Huaisang was a suspect. Even the deceased Jin Guangshan and Nie Mingjue. Although what they may have done remained unclear. And some of the theories, Lan Qiren would rather not listen to.

There were only two exceptions. Two people who the figurative finger had not been pointed at, and those just happened to be the two people most responsible for the addition of an extra thousand rules to the Gusu Lan sect. Sect Leader Jiang and his nephew.

Lan Qiren had known Jiang Wanyin since long before he had begun to attend lectures at the Cloud Recesses. He still remembered a tiny Jiang Cheng toddling towards his father during their meetings held in Lotus Pier. Jiang Cheng had been an adorable child, truly kind and well-mannered. This had been before Wei Wuxian had become a part of their family.

Lan Qiren had been to Lotus Pier only once after Wei Wuxian had begun to stay there. He remembered walking along the docks, hearing the laughs and shouts of threats of two voices in a distance, until one of them had knocked into him.

“Who are you?” the bushy haired kid had asked, with curiosity and a smile that could melt the coldest of hearts.

He had been nudged by his brother, elbowed in the stomach, and that was when Lan Qiren had laid his eyes on Jiang Cheng again. He had grown taller, not a tiny child anymore, but still a kid, and he’d had a hand placed on his mouth, to muffle his laughter and cover up any signs of a smile.

“That’s Sect Leader Lan,” Jiang Cheng had whispered, “You need to bow to him, and you can’t be so rude. You need to be more polite when you ask people that.”

With that explanation, Jiang Cheng had bowed dutifully in front of Lan Qiren, and bushy-haired kid had followed.

“And you might you be?” Lan Qiren had asked the bushy haired kid, although he’d had an inkling of who he might be.

“I am Wei Wuxian, Sect Leader Lan. The son of Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren.” The kid had bowed again respectfully, and Lan Qiren had immediately decided to forgive him for being rude earlier.

Lan Qiren had nodded his head and patted Wei Wuxian’s head. “I used to know your mother.”

Wei Wuxian had blinked, brightened up at that response. “You did?”

Lan Qiren had nodded, but before he’d had a chance to respond, Jiang Fengmian had called out to him. He had turned back to the boys only to notice that the boys had continued to run and chase after each other, their conversation with him already forgotten.

The next time Lan Qiren had met Jiang Cheng had been during the lectures held in the Cloud Recesses. He had been just as polite, kind-hearted, and obedient as he had been during his childhood. But even then, Lan Qiren had spotted the streak of independence in him that was needed to become Sect Leader, as well as an emotional sensitivity that Lan Qiren hadn’t expected to come from the boy.

Most people who had seen the two brothers roaming around had identified Wei Wuxian as the independent soul, as the more emotionally sensitive of the two, but they had been wrong. Lan Qiren had known better, having had to keep an observing eye on the two teens during their time at the Cloud Recesses because he had known that Wei Wuxian tended to get himself into trouble.

Lan Qiren had known even then that it had been Jiang Cheng who had been the more independent one of the two, who had carried the burden of being a future sect leader with ease, as though the title had belonged to him and he could be willing to put in the hard work required to deserve it. He had been the more emotionally sensitive of the two, always wanting and working to keep his family together and out of trouble, always getting into trouble because of it, but also staying happy because of them.

Lan Qiren had always admired the boy. He had achieved the impossible and become the kind of sect leader that Lan Qiren was sure his parents would have been proud of. So when it had finally been time for Sect Leader Jiang’s first visit to the Cloud Recesses after it had been newly built, after the unfortunate deaths of his sister, brother, and brother-in-law, Lan Qiren had only hoped for the same kind of behaviour to carry on then, but he could not have been more wrong.

All cups, and most of the rest of the utensils kept in the Cloud Recesses were glass, and hence, quite easily breakable. If Lan Qiren had been able to see the future, or atleast sense it, then he most certainly would have carved the rule out on stone a lot earlier.

After greeting all of the rest of the sect leaders who had arrived for the discussion conference in the Cloud Recesses, as well as Lan Qiren himself, and Xichen, Sect Leader Jiang, who would always be Jiang Cheng to Lan Qiren, sat down in his assigned seat for the conference. Lan Qiren shouldn’t blame himself, it wasn’t his fault, nobody could have foreseen it, and yet, Lan Qiren thought to himself that he really should have known better. He truly should have known better than to give Sect Leader Jiang the most delicate and pristine glass-made cutlery.

He had heard of Jiang Wanyin’s reputation as Sect Leader Jiang and the Sandu Shengshou. He was known to have a short temper and to use his whip on the daily. Lan Qiren had thought nothing of it, and he still thought nothing of it until 25 minutes into the conference. Sect Leader Jiang and his disciples sat next to Nie Huaisang, who had just newly been appointed as sect leader, with his disciples.

Sect Leader Jiang was holding a porcelain cup when it happened. Exactly 25 minutes into the discussion conference, Sect Leader Yao opened his mouth and spout out an incomprehensible amount of trash. Before anyone could even hope to react to Sect Leader Yao and his words, a clear ‘crack’ing sound was heard, and echoed throughout the silence of the discussion hall.

As the sound slowly tapered off, Lan Qiren registered that the crack had sounded suspiciously like the breaking of one of the cups from his favourite porcelain cups set. His eyes surveyed the hall and came to rest on the person responsible for the cracking noise. Sect Leader Jiang held the broken shard of the remain of the porcelain cup, glaring at Sect Leader Yao hard, with Zidian unfurling and flaring up at his side, a pure purple colour that matched his robes perfectly.

All eyes were on Sect Leader Jiang, as though expecting an outburst, but all Lan Qiren could think of was how his porcelain cup set would now be incomplete. Turning to one of his disciples, he ushered them in closer and told them to get Sect Leader Jiang another porcelain cup.

Sect Leader Nie blew his fan into his face as he looked at Sect Leader Jiang with amusement in his eyes. If they had still been teens, Lan Qiren would have taken that as a sure sign than Nie Huaisang was up to his usual mischief. A Lan disciple bowed down to Sect Leader Jiang and replaced his broken cup with a second one.

It was another hour into the conference, when Wangji, who had recently come out of seclusion, and been persuaded by his brother to attend the conference, spoke that it happened again. Another crack.

Wangji had spoken out against a point that Sect Leader Jiang had made, one that Lan Qiren had personally agreed with and hadn’t known any solid reason for Wangji to speak up against. Lan Qiren hoped he was hallucinating, seeing, and hearing things that were not really happening. He wished that the cup in Sect Leader Jiang’s hand, his second porcelain cup, was not really broken, into precious porcelain shards. Again.

“Bring him another one,” Lan Qiren demanded from another disciple. Break another one, Lan Qiren dared Jiang Wanyin internally. Break another one and I’ll make this into a rule and carve it into the stone with my own hands.

Everything had been going well. Lan Qiren had been happy that the conference was about to end. The conference was about to end, when Sect Leader Ouyang called out to Sect Leader Jiang and asked him about the marriage proposals. The marriage proposals Sect Leader Jiang stopped receiving because he had been blacklisted by all matchmakers. Everyone knew about this.

Lan Qiren’s heart stopped beating. Cold sweat broke out across his forehead. He was only seconds away from thrashing Sect Leader Ouyang with his flute. He was milliseconds away from qi-deviating on the spot. Jiang Wanyin was holding Lan Qiren’s third and last replaceable cup. His favourite, most precious—

The crack that resounded through the halls was one that Lan Qiren felt in his chest as his heart broke. Along with his last and only porcelain cup.

Lan Qiren clenched his fists around his flute before he roared. “That is it! All of you, out!”

Everyone’s attention shifted from Jiang Wanyin to Lan Qiren, startled by the fury and rage they saw on his face and the tenseness in his posture. Even Xichen and Wangji blinked.

“Jiang Wanyin,” Lan Qiren’s voice lowered and softened only slightly. “You stay.”

Jiang Wanyin looked like a deer in the headlights as he nodded and was forced to stay. Lan Qiren spotten Nie Huaisang mouthing a ‘good luck’ to Sect Leader Jiang, but when he realised that Lan Qiren had seen him say it, he sheepishly smiled at him, hiding his face behind his fan, and quickly walking away.

Lan Qiren gave him a two-hours lecture where he told Sect Leader Jiang exactly how he had come across the porcelain cups and how he had acquired them, how they had been so precious to Lan Qiren because they had been one of a kind, how Jiang Wanyin had broken three of the those cups in a span of just a few hours, and how now, Lan Qiren had three less porcelain cups than he'd had before their conference had started.

After his lecture ended, Jiang Wanyin profusely apologized for what he had done, and maybe Lan Qiren might have a bit of a soft spot for the boy because his heart immediately melted at the sincerity he saw in the Sect Leader’s features. Still, he wasn’t going to let it go so easily. He had made a promise to himself, and he intended to keep it.

Accepting Jiang Wanyin’s apology and resisting the urge to pat him lightly on the back as he had done often in the past, Lan Qiren let the Sect Leader go. He had no doubts that Sect Leader Nie would hear about all of this in great detail.

The next day, all of the disciples of the Cloud Recesses, and Lan Qiren’s own nephews, watched as Lan Qiren stood near the large block of stone where all of their rules were written, and began carving another one. It had been decades, hundreds of years since rules had been added to the stone, but there Lan Qiren was, carving out a new one.

‘No breaking of any cups or utensils shall take place in the Cloud Recesses, porcelain, glass or otherwise. It is forbidden!’

The next time Sect Leader Jiang visited the Cloud Recesses, he came with his nephew. Jin Ling was a little toddler, barely out of the crib, and he had clearly just learned how to walk. His tiny hand tightly clasped onto Jiang Wanyin’s fingers, walking unstably towards Lan Qiren, and Lan Qiren mused on how similar he looked to the tiny Jiang Cheng he had seen during his visits to Lotus Pier. He’d had that same expression of determination and a slight frown set into his features as Jin Ling did now, as if all of the kid’s concentration was going into putting one step in front of the other.

Jin Ling toddled around the room where the meeting was taking place, blubbering, and chattering nonsensical syllables with his mouth as he did so. Jiang Wanyin looked as though he wanted to pay attention to the meeting, and he was, but Lan Qiren found his eyes wandering over to his nephew every few minutes.

The meeting seemed to be commencing smoothly, there was not a single breakable cup or any other utensil in Lan Qiren’s sight, when suddenly there was a slight knocking sound. Lan Qiren didn’t pay any attention to it and neither did Jiang Wanyin, but his head whipped around sharply as Jin Ling’s cry cut through the air.

“Jiujiu!” The toddler cried. He was sitting on the floor, his hands holding a bleeding knee. Jiang Wanyin reached his nephew before Lan Qiren could even blink.

“What happened, A-Ling? Who did this to you?” Jiang Wanyin roughly pulled Jin Ling into a hug, glaring at everybody present in the room with them.

Jin Ling sniffled and pointed to somewhere in the room. Within  the span of another one of Lan Qiren’s blinks, Jiang Wanyin stood in front of the offending object with Zidian slowly unfurling from the ring on his finger. Lan Qiren stopped breathing for a moment. The object Jiang Wanyin stood in front of was an enormous flower vase that had been gifted to Lan Qiren by a close friend from another sect. A friend who was now dead, of course.

Lan Qiren knew what was about to happen, but he still thought not the vase, not that vase, please not the—

Jiang Wanyin whipped Zidian and the beautiful vase shattered into numerous pieces, almost unrecognizable now. Lan Qiren willed himself to take deep breaths. It was fine. Everything was—

“There you go, A-Ling,” Jiang Wanyin spoke. “Your jiujiu destroyed the vase, okay? Are you alright now?”

Jin Ling made grabby hands at his jiujiu and the Sect Leader walked over and scooped Jin Ling into his arms in one smooth motion.

“Don’t worry, A-Ling. Your jiujiu will always protect you and never let any harm come to you. He will whip anyone who tries to hurt you with Zidian,” Jiang Wanyin added, and let his threat hang and spread in the silence of the room.

Lan Qiren felt the start of a headache creep up on the edges of his consciousness.

Two more rules were carved in after that incident.

‘The use of Zidian or any similar weapons is prohibited in the Cloud Recesses.’

‘Breaking of any object or damages to any object is strictly prohibited and will lead to severe punishments and consequences.’

Nobody needed to know that Lan Qiren had let Jiang Wanyin get away with it, and the Sect Leader had visited Lan Qiren again the next day with an exact replica of the vase. The only difference was the words etched on the inside of the vase, at the top.

‘To Professor Qiren,

I’m sorry for breaking your vase. Thank you for making an exception and deciding not to punish me. You always were my favourite professor while we were studying at the Cloud Recesses. I promise to not cause you any more trouble.

From Jiang Wanyin.’

Lan Qiren still sometimes stopped to look at those words and smiled. After all, Jiang Wanyin had been Lan Qiren’s favourite student as well.

The third time Jiang Wanyin arrived was not for a meeting or any such formalities. He had been called for the anniversary of the fall of Cloud Reccesses. Again, his nephew had come with him. This event was a sobering one, so Lan Qiren knew that nothing would go wrong this time, and no more new rules would be carved out, right?

It happened after the ceremony had taken place. Sect Leader Jiang and his nephew had disappeared, and Lan Qiren found them an hour later, cuddling up against rabbits. Lan Qiren felt a soft smile growing on his face as he watched Jiang Wanyin gently caressing and holding a rabbit in his hands. He sat close to Jin Ling, whose brows were furrowed as he tried to copy his uncle’s movements.

“Jiujiu, they’re so cute and cuddly!” Jin Ling exclaimed, and Jiang Wanyin warmly pulled Jin Ling closer to him, gently keeping a rabbit on his lap. Jiang Wanyin had a few on his own lap. “Oh, it tickles, Jiujiu,” Jin Ling giggled and Lan Qiren found a familiar warmth spreading through his chest as he watched them.

He watched the young sect leader gently push the rabbits off of his own lap as he pulled Jin Ling onto it. “It tickles, does it, A-Ling?” Jiang Wanyin asked with a tone of mischief and mirth in his eyes.

“Yes, Jiujiu,” Jin Ling said, smooshing a rabbit’s face against his cheek.

“Does it tickle like this?” Jiang Wanyin asked, his fingers creeping around Jin Ling’s waist as they tickled him.

Jin Ling squealed, almost dropping the rabbit in his arms. “Aaah, Jiujiu. No, no! Stop, that tickles. Jiujiu!”

The Sect Leader laughed uninhibitedly. “What was that, A-Ling? I couldn’t hear you?”

“Jiujiu!” The child screamed with laughter, and although it was louder than was allowed in the Cloud Recesses, Lan Qiren found that he didn’t mind it, just this once. Jin Ling wiggled in Jiang Wanyin’s grasp and Jiang Wanyin finally stopped tickling his nephew.

Lan Qiren watched as Jin Ling slowly relaxed into his uncle, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he took quick breaths. Jiang Wanyin’s fingers brushed through his nephew’s messy hair as Jin Ling’s eyes drooped.

“Jiujiu?” Jin Ling called out.

“Hmmm?” Jiang Wanyin responded.

“Can we play catch with the rabbits?” Jin Ling asked. Lan Qiren’s eyes widened, but he forced himself to relax. Jiang Wanyin was an adult and a Sect leader now, he was a responsible, mature individual with common sense, surely he would not—

“Sure, A-Ling.” Jiang Wanyin said, and Lan Qiren looked on with his heart in his throat as Jiang Wanyin walked away to increase the distance between himself and his nephew. Jin Ling stood up.

Lan Qiren saw Jiang Wanyin gesturing to Jin Ling to throw the rabbit, and Jin Ling prepared himself for the throw, before he actually threw it. Lan Qiren was sure that the screech he had emitted could be heard throughout the Cloud Recesses.

‘Throwing of rabbits around the Cloud Recesses is forbidden. They are not objects or your personal playthings. They are animals. They are delicate. Treat them as such.’

The next time Sect Leader Jiang came to the Cloud Recesses, he had a more grown up child trailing behind him. A miniature version of himself. Lan Qiren had already picked the space where he would be writing the new rules, and he was ready when it happened.

‘Threatening to break a child’s legs or to feed anyone who hurts them to a dog or any kind of animal is forbidden.’

‘Screaming at a child or chasing them through the Cloud Recesses and disrupting the lessons is also forbidden.’

With each visit to the Cloud Recesses, the rules only grew, but Lan Qiren was the only person who knew why, and he refused to tell anyone else (gossip was forbidden in the Cloud Recesses, after all) or to punish the uncle or his nephew for their wrong doings. They had faced enough hardships in their young lives and been punished for faults that had not been theirs, perhaps they deserved for their mistakes to be overlooked once in a while.

[sfiddy]

So Bad

For @academialynx , who made a donation to her local food bank in return for a fic!  This is a college AU, moderately prof/student (though the theme is that they DON’T break the rules) boatloads of yearning, and janky building maintenance that leads to getting locked in a closet.  She asked me to consider the Brandon Colbein song So Bad.  Which I did.  :)

Thank you, Dear!  Here we go!

Rated T

On AO3

On FF

On Tumblr!  (keep reading!)

Another champagne cork popped and a delighted cheer spread through the room.  Glasses, plastic cups, and hastily drained coffee mugs were refreshed and the party carried on.  Theirs was not a large music department, so to have attracted a fresh, exciting, multi-talented composition and collaborative piano specialist with a few international awards, one ‘early career’ grant and another from the National Endowment for the Arts meant their modest program was about to gain a little fresh clout at interdepartmental tenured faculty meetings.

“Congratulations again, Erik!”  Dr. Nadir Khan hauled Erik into a vigorous handshake and pumped for a full three seconds.  

Erik winced.  He’d be hamfisting the keys tomorrow if they kept this up.  “Thank you, Dean Khan.  It’s an honor to join as a full professor.”

“I am Nadir to you, and don’t forget it.”  Nadir refilled Erik’s plastic cup and tapped his department coffee mug against it, sloshing their champagne into frothy heads.  “It’s hard to believe it’s been five years, Erik!  You cost me a bet, I’ll have you know.  I didn’t think you’d stay after you had to teach that semester of History of Rock and Roll for non-majors.”

The lantern-jawed oboe professor laughed.  “Or the infamous Intro to Music Theory.”

“No, no,” disagreed Umbaldo Piangi, the portly voice teacher.  “When I went on sabbatical to Teatro La Fenice and you gave him The Chamber Music Outreach Project and graduate tutoring.  No warning!”  Even the big man’s clucking tongue was musical.  “But, Piangi is back, no?  I will cut back my performance hours and take back all the lessons and weekends and let Dr. Erik Devereaux return to his writing!”

“Actually,” Erik said, and the room stilled.  “The only part I disliked was the public part.  I never minded the private instruction.  If you would like to split the load, I’m happy to keep the instructional portion while you handle the tours, performances, and...outreach?”  He suppressed the grimace well enough.

Piangi, Italian down to his fine shoes, let out a whoop and grabbed Erik in a hug so tight it pressed his ribcage and nearly dislodged his delicate porcelain mask from it’s fine wire and leather fittings.

“Ah, my partner now!  I will call donors and show off the little tweeting songbirds with my lovely Carlotta while you teach them not to call for worms!  A toast!”  Piangi held up his plastic cup once again.  

Erik accepted a toast that crackled the edge of his plastic cup and hoped for something new and shiny to distract them.  Or for the lights to suddenly flicker and fail as they were prone to do, along with randomly closing doors in the terribly laid out office and work spaces.  The college had access to talent pipelines that the underfunded and neglected department had not been able to tap.  Their aggressive recruitment of him was a last ditch effort for change before the tiny group was relegated to a four piece for the university reagent’s cocktail brunch and a marching band for the far-better funded football team.

“To Dr. Devereaux!”

With a conspiratorial grin, Erik drained his cup and winked at Piangi.  “To the songbirds.”

…

Tenure in hand, Erik started his campaign.  Once he ditched the worst teaching credits to lecturers and adjuncts, he could focus on recruiting.  Specifically, to score a few respected but not-yet-headliner talents.  Emerging performers without a good gig had few options and the status and modest stipend to be a ‘visiting artist’ might be more attractive than the floating gulag of a cruise ship.  

A few excellent but relatively unknown performers could teach and perform, receive some finishing, and get quickly farmed out into the world.  The reputation-building move would be pricey, but no one gets paid dividends before investing.

His development grant would cover three such artists.  He got more than fifty applications.  Erik rubbed his eyes under the mask.  It was a good thing he never had plans-- it would be a long weekend.

…

The old music labs building had settled over the years and gained what the senior faculty referred to as ‘personality’.   Erik took this to mean ‘genially hazardous’.  No amount of facility requests or complaints brought the doors and keys division to do maintenance.

He was a quick learner though, and only got locked in his workroom twice before catching the door with his foot became second nature.   He even set a flaking brick, plucked from a neglected flower bed outside, in the corner by the door and kicked it against the frame as a doorstop.  Every time he came to his workroom, a narrow converted closet with a work bench and packed with shelves of manuscripts, music, errant repair kits and recording equipment, he would hit the outside light switch, unlock the door, step in, catch the door, then kick the brick.  

Switch, step, catch, kick.  His shoes were gaining new wear marks.

After kicking the brick into place, Erik opened his laptop and went over the last files.  He’d asked the department admins to strip out the audio files to just the audition pieces and remove identifying details from the fifty applications.  If he was going to invite talent, their first hurdle would be their musicianship.  Once he’d culled the herd to ten, he’d submitted his picks to the dean to select the three finalists.  Now they needed invitations.  Two vocalists and a classical guitarist made the cut and he spent the next few hours getting more acquainted with their files and ignoring the pings of his filling inbox.

At least it was just his inbox.  No one came to the music labs and his closet if they could help it.

If he was honest, no one came to meet him in person if they could help it.

…

Most performers were beautiful.  Entire websites and product lines were devoted to skincare for singers, makeup tutorials, look books and wardrobe consulting.  Erik’s particular variety of deformity would stand out in any circumstances, but in an entire department stuffed with the striking, stunning, and unconventionally glorious, he bordered on eyesore.  Even Piangi could command a room with his generous, rosy smiles and booming laugh.  

The mask was the best combination of memorable and functional he could muster.  Yes, surgery was an option but who signed up for years of unnecessary pain and the risk of infection?  He had better things to do.  

Like meet with his new visiting artists.  

The classical guitarist had supple wrists and forearms like Popeye.  His rolled cuffs drew the eye to the action while his cleverly knotted scarf kept you looking at his face, framed by artfully mussed hair.  

“We’re looking forward to your first concerts and hope you’ll consider collaborations with local programs.”

The baritone had a one in a million voice.  How he hadn’t been snapped up for opera yet was a mystery but Erik supposed it was his poor presence.  When you had the goods, you still had to sell them, and the young man’s love of neon, bad hair, and questionable repertoire (pin the tail on a Hal Leonard page) needed polish.  His work was shockingly precise and sounded like he had a cathedral in his mouth.

“Our faculty and staff are a rich resource for young performers and are always eager to assist.  We often work in parallel with the communications department and local professionals to prepare our artists for the culture and community as well as the stage.”

The soprano was the risk.  The recording had been largely boilerplate and her prior experience thin.  The reason she got in was a one-point-two second pause in her audition tape.  It was the silence that told Erik she had chops.  

Imagine, a soprano unafraid of silence.  It had been late in the weekend when he selected her and had not yet been able to examine the head shot.

“I… um...”

“Yes, Dr. Devereaux?”

“Welcome, Miss Daaé.”

…

The visiting artists would survey classes, provide demonstrations and guest lectures, and appear at university events, auditions, and generally get the word out that the department was shifting to a growth phase.  That was the official description.  Unofficially, there would be a mountain of effort to make each emerging artist a shot on goal for the department.  Recording deals, major and paid appearances, and successful auditions all counted toward the tally.  

Guitar was not Erik’s forte, and as much as he could contribute to the baritone’s look and polish, Erik had cultivated a far more… refined profile than the young man aspired to.  Erik maintained collars sharp enough to cut bread and a spotless sheen on his porcelain mask.  Right now, Dean Khan aspired to cut the young man’s mullet tail off.  

“Excellent, Miss Daaé, right on time.”  Erik slid the fall board up and they prepared to work.  She understood how to modulate her tone, how to select the emotional pitch to match the song, to contrast with it for effect.  She explored her range and willingly failed to find her borders.  It all made for an excellent student.

It was the quiet that made her breathtaking.  The anticipation of her.  Tenths of seconds that tightened the chest and made a quiver run through the blood.  Not often, only when it mattered, and only when it would matter enough to do so.  

When he could stand it no more, he asked her about it.

“I’m sorry, I can try to stop.”

“I didn’t ask you to stop, I asked when you started doing it.”

She considered him, her ribbons of curling hair twisting as she shifted.  “When my father was sick.  I could feel the need for silences because he couldn’t talk anymore.  It just felt… right.”

Erik nodded.  “Again.”

…

She’d been a late bloomer.  A ghost on the scene and at least five years older than the rest of the sopranos at her stage.  It also meant she hadn’t spent her entire high school and college career belting Broadway in the recital rooms, building nodes on her vocal chords.  

They finished late one night and he walked her to her car.  “So what did you do for practice?”

She pinked under the parking lot lights.  “I, um… waited tables at an Italian restaurant.  You know, where your server might sing opera when they bring you breadsticks?”

Erik nodded.  “Parmesan and Puccini?”

Bless her, she giggled.  “Bellinis and Bellini.  A few really knew when they were hearing but most just wanted to hear Nessun Dorma because they heard it on Youtube.  I managed to get a few singing jobs out of it but I mostly just waited tables.”  They stopped at her car but she hadn’t reached for her keys yet.  “I was a bartender and the second understudy for a Gilbert and Sullivan society when I saw your announcement.”

“Their loss,” Erik said.  He left off the second half.

“Thanks.”  Christine hesitated.  “I didn’t expect to be accepted, so… thanks.”  

Something changed in the breeze.  Something cool and soft in the night air mixed with the gold light pouring down from the lights.  It highlighted the curls that spiralled out of control around her neck as she tilted her head just so.  

It was just a moment, a funny thump that ricocheted in his chest at her upturned face, her soft smile.  Maybe her eyes flicked down, maybe her sharp inhale had a little catch in it.  Maybe it was the way her lip twitched, but a red flag suddenly waved in Erik’s head and he stepped back carefully.  He had a powerful fear of heat and burns.

“Yes, of course.  The, uh, department was very happy to offer the opportunity.”

She blinked.  “Of course.  Well, thanks for the great session and walking me to my car.  Have a nice evening, Erik.”

Christine drove away and Erik stood in the parking lot for some minutes after her taillights had faded.  He imagined it.  Surely, he’d taken a friendly conversation the wrong way.  She wasn’t his student, strictly speaking, but he had influence over her career, which would be just as bad.  

Besides, he had completely misread the whole thing.  Surely.  Women didn’t look up at him like that-- like he would kiss them.  After a walk after dark, telling him about themselves, and looking at him like that.

No one looked at him like... that.

Oh no.

…

She wasn’t strictly his student.  He was her mentor.  Even a brief thought made it obvious and completely inappropriate.  Did she think it would improve her opportunities?

Erik swallowed.  No, if that was the game she wouldn’t have backed off.  Surely he’d misread the situation.

…

They brewed tea together.  She remembered his favorite oolong.

…

He saw a cascade of curling hair on his way to the post office and his heart leapt.

It wasn’t her.  The disappointment was too confusing to examine.

…

His mouth went dry when her sweater slipped from her shoulder.  Then he knocked the music from the stand.

She smiled and helped him pick up the sheets.  

There were freckles on her shoulder.

... 

Five months into the visiting artist tour and Piangi had the concert hall packed for their first performances.  Franco the guitarist, who preferred just the one name, would play a twenty minute set, followed by the baritone Burton Armstrong, as baritoney a name as Erik had ever heard, then Christine, and finally Franco would play again with accompaniment.  

Erik was content to stay in a tiny box seat far to the side as Piangi introduced each performer.  Franco had gained the stage he deserved, and Burton had been convinced to get a proper haircut and suit, and sang a particularly impressive Russian ballad set.  

Christine was introduced and settled onto the stage.  She was radiant in dark blue, and decorated her baroque set with agility.  From his perch, Erik could as easily imagine her distributing bellinis as gracing an opera stage.  It was not an insult.  After her short set, she nodded and was joined by Burton.  A duet?  

She looked up and found him, up in his perch.  She nodded, and the two launched into a series of excerpts from Semele, Handel’s somewhat neglected tale of a torrid affair between a mortal woman and the god, Jupiter.

Their gazes met as she sang.

O Jove! In pity teach me which to choose,

Incline me to comply, or help me to refuse!

The baritone thundered.

Too well I read her meaning,

But must not understand her.

If Erik’s ears heard the rest of the concert, he could not recall it later.

…

Dean Khan adjourned the faculty meeting.  “Oh Erik, if you have a moment?”

They waited until the room was cleared and Nadir closed the door, then casually looked over the remaining pastries.  “Excellent concert last month.  The work with Burton is certainly paying off.”  

Erik leaned against the table.  “His socks were bright green, but we felt it was a workable compromise.”

“Franco is excellent in front of the crowd.  Has he met the flamenco dancers yet?”

“I put in a call.  I think he’s going to their weekly meeting next Thursday.”

“Marvelous.  Let me know how that goes when you hear, won’t you?”

“Of course.”  Erik felt his chest tighten the longer Nadir perused the snacks and chose to tear off the bandage himself.  “Anything else?”

“There is, in fact,” Nadir did not look up from the muffins.  “Christine’s performance was exceptional.  Truly filled with passion.”

Erik tried to take a sip of coffee but his cup was empty.  He faked it.  “She’s a wonderful artist.”

“Yes.  I couldn’t help but notice--” Nadir paused over the croissants, then passed them over to examine the cookies.  “You two seem to have a unique and strong mentor-trainee relationship.”

“Thank you.”  It had not been a question.  There was nothing here… yet.  “We work well together.”  

“I’m glad to hear that.  The program you’ve created is admirable for it’s transparency and integrity.”

“I agree.  Thank you for noticing.”

Nadir looked up with a slight nod, then selected a macadamia cookie.  “I’m sure the remaining six months will fly by, Erik.”

He had no idea how to respond.

...

Six months.  There were six months left in the visiting artist term.  There were more sessions, a mini tour, and a series of small concerts meant to showcase the new talent the department had ‘produced’.  

Six months of lies, pretending he was misunderstanding something.  Pretending he didn’t notice the way she was at his side and on his mind.  Then she would leave him to the dull, overworked life he’d made for himself in the hopes of making a name for himself while simultaneously avoiding attention.  More lies, but easier to swallow.  

Her voice came from the hallway.  “Erik?  I’m heating up some water, would you like tea?”

“Is it the one you brought?”

A light laugh.  Sparkling.  “Of course.”

He dropped his work and grabbed his cup.  “Be right there.”

…

A very successful fundraiser was wrapping up on the top floor of the performing arts center.  It had a view over the campus, the nice side, and the glow of downtown caught the streaking rain on the tall glass walls.  

The donors had been generous, delighted with the new features of the program and the willingness to be accessible.  Erik stayed to the side, avoiding the center of the room where Piangi and his wife Carlotta took up residence.  Nadir circulated the room, nudging him out from time to time for a refill and to participate.  When forced to do so, Erik sloshed some middling red wine into his glass and let himself slip into Christine’s gravity for a few minutes before drifting away again.  

He could feel her gaze.

The cocktail party was to end at eleven-thirty, and by then nearly all the guests had left.  The last ones were rushed  out and Piangi hurried to the bar.  

“Open season!” 

A quick crush to the bar and every open bottle was ‘liberated’ to the long-suffering exhibits.  Christine topped off her glass and passed the bottle to a fellow soprano, hardly twenty years old, and the two laughed and kicked off their heels.  Piangi and Burton laughed over an earlier flub and the cello player, finally able to pack his instrument and relax, demanded and received a full glass.

Erik tipped back a hearty, warm swallow and emerged from the hinterlands.

“Oh, hi Dr. Devereaux!  Did you just get here?” teased Carlotta.  “Your legend only grows the more you hide.”

“All part of my devious plan,” he conceded.  Christine’s giggle mingled with the laughs of her peers.  “If you’ll excuse me.  Piangi, brilliant as always.”

“Same to you, Erik!  We plan many parties now, no?”

Easing his way towards the mirth, Erik relaxed.  There were plenty of others around, and this was just the after party to a long dog and pony show.  Listen to the pretty songbirds and throw money at the program, invitation only.  They all deserved drinks after three hours of that.

Christine was plucking a pin from her hair.  She shook the curls loose.  “Hi Erik!  God, I’m so glad to see you.”

“Oh?”

She held up a bottle.  “Yeah, you need a refill.”  

It had been a long night.  These events could be tricky to navigate.  Sometimes there was politics, other times business rivals.  More often, donors expected special privilege and access in exchange for their checks, as if the last hundred years of progress meant nothing.  The way a few of them had looked at Erik, maybe it didn’t.  

He let her pour some white wine over the dregs of his red.  Improvised rosé.  “Everything go okay?”  

“Good enough.  I think I have some auditions, and some stuff nearby might open up for me.”

“That’s great.  Who with?”

A nice chorus.  A solid baroque group.  Both could springboard to bigger things.  A few bigger things were here.  

“What’s bigger?”  She asked, her eyes dark and soft.  

He had not meant to speak, and now he rushed his words.  “Things!  Choirs, operas.  There’s a few small opera troupes and there’s churches that need choral directors that know how to work with organ and piano.”

She sniggered.  “Organs.”  The other soprano dissolved into giggles.

Erik pulled out his phone.  Clearly neither was driving tonight.  He absently tallied up his glasses and admitted he wasn’t either.

“Do you play the organ, Erik?”

“Yes.”

Christine stepped closer and, on pure instinct, Erik put his arm around her as she turned her head to speak.

“Can I watch?”  

His collar was tight.  He pulled up the app and ordered a car.

They ran through the rain, more than sprinkled, less than soaked.  Plenty wet to shiver from the chill of the driver’s exuberant air conditioning, though.  Between giggles and poorly composed directions, they dropped off the other soprano who wobbled successfully to her door before their driver sped away.  Christine did not shift away to the other seat, but leaned into him, tucking herself against his side.  

The driver glanced in the rear view mirror, then looked away.

She was cool and smooth.  Her loosened curls had tightened from the wet and tickled his neck and brushed against his mask.  

Her hand on his thigh.  Erik said nothing.  If he was silent there was a kind of deniability, or denial at least, of what was happening.  If he could deny that her fingernails caught on the inner seam of his trousers, then she could deny that his hand was firmly planted at her waist, holding her close.

And if she could deny that, then she could also deny that her nose bumped his chin, her ragged breath loud in his ears.  And they could both deny that their lips grazed, a not-kiss somehow more intimate than if their lips moved and pulled at each other.  Like her singing, it was the pause that made your breath catch and your insides tug.

“What number?”

Dashboards lights reflected in her eyes.  “That one,” she said, and cautiously settled.  The driver pulled forward and Christine unbuckled.  

“Good night, Erik.  See you tomorrow.”

“Good night, Christine.”

The driver glanced in the rearview.  Erik looked down.  “Sorry.”

The driver shrugged.  

One more month.

…

He was hiding.  He’d been hiding for weeks; stopped looking for her, stopped even wondering where she was or if she was alone.  There was no way to be near her without the pretense of a piano that wouldn’t leave him shaking.  No way to think about her without wanting.

He was Erik, a composer, a conductor, performer, designer of auditory spaces and translator of music.  He was a collaborative pianist and vocal specialist.  He’d given everything to music and the service of it, the delivery of it.  He didn’t need this. He’d never had this.

No one ever offered.  So he’d found fulfillment elsewhere, until now.

Erik hunched over his work, safely tucked into his corner of the music labs building.  Between grading, senior thesis submissions, revisions to his own publications, and a request for a letter of recommendation, he could be plenty busy late into the night with no need for anyone to--

“Hello?  Erik?”

Erik snatched at his mask and settled it.  He’d been found.  Time to lie, except he can’t lie to her.

“Can I help you with something, Christine?”  He gathered a stack and stood.  She met him by his door.

“Well, yeah,” she paused, blocking his path momentarily before stepping aside.  “I need your signature on my visiting artist release.  And another on my endorsement for my new job.”

Erik hefted his armload to the work closet.  “I’m sure they look forward to meeting you.  Come on.”  He unlocked the door and held it open, then followed behind her, hitting the light switch with his elbow before catching the door on his foot, then he kicked the brick into place.  He had to hold the stack to keep it from spilling across the work table.

She handed him the forms.  Erik moved to a span of clean tabletop and started scanning the release form.  Government agency boilerplate to satisfy the grant was mixed with flowery language so no one would suspect they were anything but artists.  Yesterday Franco had brought Burton’s form-- yep, this was Christine’s.  So on and so forth.

Erik had just finished scratching out his signature when he heard a familiar scrape.

“Why on earth do you keep a-”

Click.

“--brick?”

Erik pressed the heel of his hand into his chin.  

“Are we… locked in?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”  A faint rumble vibrated in the walls.  “I don’t suppose that was just… construction?”

Erik let out a mirthless laugh.  “There were storms brewing earlier.  Besides, does this building look like they work on it?”

“Not really.”

Another rumble, louder, and the light fixture jittered.  

Christine finally took a deep breath.  “Have you been avoiding me?”

“No!  Yes.  I don’t know.”  He touched his hairline, recapped a pen.  “We crossed a line.  I had to get back behind it and I couldn’t if we…”  His hands skated across the table top nervously.  

“Is this about being my mentor?”

Erik barked an ugly, bitter laugh.  “What else?  God, you just, out of nowhere, with your smiles, and the way you look at me, and sing to me, and the Semele…” Erik’s skin grew tight as he recalled the cocktail party.  He turned, face growing hot beneath the porcelain and his throat tightening.  He was a ruin.

“--and the touching and wanting and you’re… you’re just going to leave!  I’m a fucking idiot!”

On cue, an extended, throaty roar of thunder rattled the stone and brick until the bare bulb above could suffer no more.  With a loud pop, the narrow room went dark.  They both scuffled in the dark until they had hold of something sturdy.

“Erik?”

He was embarrassed.  He was frustrated.  “What.”

“You need to sign the other form.”

“Want to get away that bad?  Fine.”  He reached for a desk lamp and tried to turn it on.  He flipped the switch furiously.  The power was out.

“Here,” Christine held up her phone and lit the screen.  Her screensaver was… them? Beside a piano together?

Erik snatched a pen from the table and slashed his name.  “There.  Just search for facilities or call the university police.  They can unlock the door.”

“Erik, did you even look at it?”

“Why bother.”

She snorted at him.  “God, you’re so blind.”

“The lights were out.”

“Fine, you want to be a jerk, be one, but at least look at where I’m taking a job before you decide to walk.”

She lit up her phone once more and he glared at the page like it was staring at his mask.  He tracked the offer and terms until he reached the party names and…

“You took a job at… a middle school?  Here?”  He looked up into the dim light.  “You’re not leaving?”

“Meet the new grade six to eight choir director.  Go Scotties.  And now you have no direct influence over my career.”

Her screensaver dimmed, and before it went dark, Erik could make out a flash of their faces, turned to each other.  He wondered if Nadir had seen this moment, because they looked as passionate as lovers despite being feet apart.

The room went black again, and he could hear her moving.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“That much has been apparent.  What do you know?”

She was close.  Close enough to feel the way she shifted the air.  “I know way too much about motif design, lyric phrasing--”

Closer.  “Go on.”  Her hips were near his. 

“Harmonic theory, vocals”

 “Can attest.”  Her fingertips were at his jawline, tracing his mask.  “I thought it would be cold.”

“It’s been on my face all day.  Early Romantic era competition and,” his voice scraped over gravel, “that I want you. So bad.”

Her kiss was her reply.  Erik’s hands flew around her as she pivoted to the table with him, dragging his mask upwards.  He gasped as cool air brushed his face, followed by light, curious fingertips and her hot mouth.  Erik knocked over the stack of papers and files with a satisfying splatter.

“Is that light over there?” she asked, dragging her lips from his.  “Around that cabinet door?”

“What?” he panted.  “I thought that was a panel.”

She pushed him off gently, peering up at the wall.  “Right there, see?”

Sure enough, there was a thin line of light.  It was a hidden door with a magnetic latch. 

“They can’t keep the regular door from locking you in but they put a trick door at the back?”  Erik complained as he climbed through awkwardly.  Very awkwardly.  Her lips were red and swollen.

“Let me grab my things and we can get out of here.”

Erik checked his watch.  “First, we’re turning in your forms.”

“It’s almost five!”

“We’ll make it if we run.”

Panting, they caught the dean just as he was packing up to leave.

“Erik, Christine?  Are you alright?  That was some storm we--”

Erik shoved the forms at him.  “Yep. Terrible storm.  Here.”

“Indeed, Erik.  Why, your hair is a mess and I’ve never seen your shirt untucked.”

“Big wind.  Yep.  Almost hit by lightning.  Here, time stamp?”

“Miss Daaé, you may want to adjust…”

“For God’s sake just take the stupid form so we can go!” Christine shouted.

Nadir laughed and scanned the forms.  “I don’t want to see you until Monday, Erik.  You better be late.”

He didn’t make it in until Wednesday.

...

[ineffably-good]

I Will Follow You Into the Dark (2/10) (Good Omens fic)

Read the whole thing on AO3 - it’s finished!

Summary: In which a snake learns he cannot be a ringbearer, and Aziraphale realizes he can get free cake for months.

Aziraphale was surprised to wake up the next morning after having apparently slept the entire night entangled with Crowley. This was a rarity for him – while he did occasionally indulge in a few hours of sleep, a half night was usually about the most he could pull off. This morning though, he let out a long breath and relaxed back into his partner’s arms. Why not indulge for a while longer?

The demon was so peaceful when he was sleeping – it was the only time Aziraphale ever really saw his face at rest. Usually watching Crowley’s face was a race just to keep up with the lightning-fast thoughts and changes in emotional states; when he slept, though, the lines and angles smoothed out and he looked younger, somehow, and much, much more vulnerable. It made the angel’s heart ache with adoration just to look at him.

“You’re staring at me, angel,” the demon muttered sleepily. “All prickly feeling.”

Aziraphale leaned in and kissed him on one eyebrow, then the other. “Just admiring, my dear,” he said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Mmmhmm,” the demon mumbled, rolling away from him. “Not done yet.”

Aziraphale took pity and abandoned the bedroom, taking a moment to pull on a warm, cable-knit jumper. It was still a little chilly out, and as he padded downstairs he thoughtfully raised the ambient temperature by another ten degrees, hoping that it would maybe keep his companions comfortably awake for the rest of the day. He swung into the kitchen to set up the cappuccino maker, knowing the aroma would soon bring Crowley to his senses, and then headed out to survey the mess of wedding magazines from the previous night.

Frederick was up and moving, so he pulled him out to join him on the floor. Frederick hissed approvingly at being allowed to try out the new den; he burrowed under a magazine that was lying open and upside down, with just his head and tail sticking out of either side of the spine.

“It would nice if we could have you be part of the wedding ceremony, Frederick,” Aziraphale said thoughtfully.

OH SURE, NO PROBLEM. Frederick thought. WHAT’S A WEDDING, ANYWAYS?

“Think you could carry a ring?” Aziraphale asked. He pondered for a minute, and then slipped off his angelic sigil ring for a moment – he certainly wasn’t going to try this with his engagement ring, after all. Moving slowly and carefully, he placed it on the tip of Frederick’s tail, where it snugged down a few inches before coming to rest.

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? Frederick shrieked, feeling both the cold metal and the touch of some kind of powerful energy on his tail. IS THAT SOME KIND OF COLLAR? I DON’T WEAR COLLARS YOU FLUFFY IDIOT!

Frederick thrashed around, trying to get a good look at his tail, and in the process sent the ring flying across the room, where a series of clinks indicated it landed under the feet of one of the larger bookcases.

“Well so much for that idea,” the angel said frostily, heading over to look for it.

++

Crowley awoke to the smell of brewing coffee, and couldn’t resist -- he made his way slowly down the stairs and out into the main area, where he stopped in surprise at the sight that greeted him. Aziraphale, down on his hands and knees, head on the floor as he squiggled and tried to get an arm under various pieces of furniture. Across the room from him, Frederick was lounging on a pile of magazines. He would swear it looked like the snake was highly amused.

“Well this is a lovely sight,” he commented drolly, and the angel sat up so fast that he knocked a few books over. “What’s all this?”

“Oh, er, hello,” Aziraphale said. “Nothing, just call it a failed experiment. I tried my sigil ring on Frederick to see if he could maybe be a ring bearer and he had a full body convulsion and sent it flying across the room. I can’t quite get to it.”

Crowley pursed his lips and tried not to laugh. The angel had dust bunnies all over his waistcoat and in his hair, and he looked absolutely adorable. “You’re an angel, Aziraphale.”

“Yes, and?”

Crowley shook his head. “And you thought it was a good idea to put your angelic sigil, which holds some of your powers, ON A SNAKE.”

“I did, yes,” the angel said, stubbornly.

The demon sighed and snapped his fingers, and a glint of gold appeared in his hand. “Also,” he said patiently, “you have powers and don’t have to actually get down there and dig around, you know.”

Oh. That was true. Aziraphale walked over and took the ring out of his hand, unable to think of any adequate response.  

“You’re so lucky you have me around, love,” Crowley said, before blowing him a kiss and walking off to get a cup of coffee.

Aziraphale followed him a few minutes later, dust bunnies removed and dignity restored.

They chatted for the next half hour about essentials about the wedding, and managed to set some parameters. They both wanted a small wedding, with just friends and no real wedding party. Budget wasn’t really a concern, as various questionable investments over the last two hundred years had left Crowley with nearly unlimited funds at his disposal, and Aziraphale also had a tidy sum socked away himself. Having some portion of the event outdoors would be lovely, the both agreed. Top priorities were flowers and food.  They’d go simple on the invitations, focus on mostly candid photography from a low key professional, and just make the reception a nice, enjoyable party.

“So, what are my jobs?” Aziraphale said.

“You pick the food. And the cake.” Crowley had obviously already given this some thought. “I’ll head up most everything else.”

Aziraphale looked concerned. “Are you sure? This shouldn’t be a burden on you, Crowley! I want to help.”

“Oh you’re going to help!” Crowley agreed. “But you’re just too easy to please to make some of these decisions. I mean, you’d never know if the flowers were good enough or not, would you? I’m not going to let a sub-par ranunculus mess up our special day. Everything needs to be right.”

Aziraphale stared for a moment. “You will NOT berate our wedding flowers, Crowley, I just won’t have it. I’m not standing up to marry you surrounded by terrified, sobbing plants.”

“Oh please, you exaggerate,” Crowley scoffed.

“I mean it, Crowley,” the angel warned.

“All right, all right. I will be nice to the ones I pick out, promise.”

One battle won, the angel thought.

++

They went out of the next view days to visit a number of sites around town, including libraries and gardens, hotels and schools. Oddly enough, each place they visited found that they did indeed have a prime Saturday in August available for rental, despite usually booking two years in advance. Aziraphale frowned at Crowley over that one and made a mental note to find out later whose bookings he cancelled and restore them, but he put up with it as likely unstoppable at this point.

Each venue was lovely in its own way, but the one that won both their hearts was the Nash conservatory at Kew Gardens. Small and intimate with huge floor to ceiling glass walls on three sides, it offered just the right amount of space for their smaller wedding party and the garden setting felt welcoming and homelike to them both.

They took a few minutes to walk around the grounds before they made a final decision.

“Remember how many dates we spent here?” Crowley said.

“They weren’t all dates,” Aziraphale said. “Most of them were before the apocalypse.”

“They were dates and you know it,” Crowley said. “All of it was dates, really.”

“So we’ve been dating, in your view, for over six thousand years?”

“At least for the last four thousand, yes.”

Aziraphale squeezed his hand. “That’s a lovely thought. You might have told me, though.”

“You just weren’t listening hard enough,” the demon teased.

They had reached the Palm House, always one of their favorites.

“Remember the night we broke in here?” Aziraphale asked. “Had a midnight picnic?”

“Oh sure, you sound all calm about it now, but you were practically hyperventilating about the breaking and entering then,” Crowley reminded him.

Aziraphale waved a hand. “Was not. I just wanted you to feel comfortable, and you like it when I’m a little flustered. Don’t even try to say you don’t.”

Crowley grinned at him. “You’re an idiot.”

“You’re the one marrying me,” he retorted. “Let’s go back and book it, my dear – you’re right, this is perfect!”

Crowley had it booked and paid almost before he had finished the sentence.

++

A few days later they chose a simple invitation at the neighborhood printer and put together the guest list – their friends from Tadfield and their families, Madam Tracy and the Witchfinder, the staff from a handful of local merchants, bakery owners, and restaurants who had become friends, and a few favorite customers. All in all, it was a small set, about forty people, just perfect for the space they were thinking of.

They pointedly did not send invites to anyone from their respective former employers.

“Do you think we need any security, Crowley?” Aziraphale asked worriedly as they walked back to the shop.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Aziraphale said carefully. “Do you think Above or Below is going to try to interfere in any way? They wouldn’t be particularly happy to hear about this, I suppose.”

Crowley frowned and thought it over. “I don’t know. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of them since the big capture in the park. Seems like maybe they’ve decided to wash their hands of us entirely.”

“You’re right,” Aziraphale said. “It’s been very quiet.”

“And Adam did set some changes in place to lessen interference from either side,” Crowley added. “But I can talk to Anathema about some warding for the wedding site, just in case. She ought to be able to set up spells or glyphs around the buildings and the grounds to keep any entities other than us from being able to enter the day of the wedding.”

“That’s a good idea, dear,” Aziraphale said. “Let’s do that.”

“Angel,” Crowley said slowly, “Do you have some reason to be worried?”

Aziraphale thought about that brief, odd twinge he felt outside the bookstore the prior week. Had that been anything, or had it just been his imagination? Things had certainly been perfectly calm since.

“No,” he finally said, “I haven’t. Just being cautious. You know me.”

Crowley appeared satisfied with that answer, and let it go. He did place a call to Anathema that night, though, and invited her up the following weekend to talk strategies.

++

The next morning Aziraphale was downstairs making a racket in the kitchen when Crowley woke up, and a quick sniff indicated that it was clearly a waffles morning. Hit with an instant fit of hunger,

Crowley quickly dressed and headed down.

Aziraphale greeted him with a smile, looking a little tired and pale, and immediately plated him an enormous waffle the size of his head. He was sure the angel had fiddled with the waffle iron, somehow, to make it larger, as no one made waffles that big. It was also, oddly enough, heart shaped.

“Isn’t it a little early for this kind of sentimental display?” he teased.

Aziraphale simply made a face at him and added syrup and powdered sugar with a heap of berries to his plate, then plopped down the foamiest, creamiest cappuccino he’d seen in weeks.

“Your breakfast,” he said with a flourish. Then he plated one of similar size for himself and sat down across from him.

Crowley smiled his thanks and took a large sip of his coffee, before leaning back contentedly.

“Now this is the way to live,” he sighed, contemplating whether to start with waffle, berries, or both. “You look tired, by the way. Everything okay?”

“I didn’t sleep very well,” the angel said. “I had a – what are they called? Ill dream? Night torment? Never had one before.”

“Nightmare, angel. You had a nightmare?” Crowley looked at him reproachfully. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Because you were asleep and it was just a silly dream,” the angel said, ever reasonable. “I don’t even remember the details, honestly. Just woke up in a panic with my heart racing. I was able to calm myself down.”

Crowley stabbed his fork into his gigantic waffle and left it there, twanging vertically. He leaned forward with both elbows on the table and fixed the angel with his most serious of serious looks.

“Listen to me, angel,” he said quietly. “You are my fiancé and soon to be husband and if you have a nightmare I don’t want to hear this utter bullshit about letting me sleep. You. Will. Wake. Me. Up. Do you understand me?”

“I really don’t think that’s necessary –”

“I really don’t think you get a say in this one,” Crowley snapped. “The entire point of this is that I get to be here for you when you need me. You’d want me to do the same, wouldn’t you?”

Aziraphale stared at him, transfixed, while a rush of heated love and mild shame roiled through him.  He was right. He was entirely right.

“Yes, I would,” he finally admitted. “I will if it happens again. I promise.”

Satisfied, the demon pried his fork loose and returned to cramming food into his mouth as if the world was coming to an end.

“So,” the angel said after a bit of a pause, eager to get back to more pleasant subjects. “We’ve got the venue and the invitations done. What’s on the wedding agenda for today?”

“Oh, you’ll like today!” Crowley said with a grin. “It’s cake tastings today.”

As expected, the angel’s face lit up like a kid at a birthday party. “You get to go taste cakes?” he asked, almost afraid to believe it. “Like, people give you actual slices of cake just because you’re planning a wedding?”

Crowley laughed. “Yes, angel, they give you cake. As many flavors as you like. As many bakeries as you like. In fact, if you like, you can go taste cakes every day for the next month, as long as you pick different places each time. No one’s going to turn away a well-to-do patron who’s wedding shopping.”

Aziraphale cut his waffle in half and pushed one portion of it aside. “I’d better save some room, then,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “This sounds like the perfect day!”

++

Crowley sat back and watched as Aziraphale had the time of his life that morning. He was clearly in his element, charming each and every one of the bakers they met with his intense love for fine baked goods and interest in the ingredients. Crowley had made appointments at the four top-rated cake shops in greater London and sped them to each in the Bentley. It was a sign of how much the angel was enjoying himself that he didn’t even comment on their record-breaking speeds.

The angel insisted on trying a little bit of everything. Sponge cake to fruit cake, buttercream and fondants, ganache and fruit gelees, profiteroles and cupcakes, and the ever famous croque en bouche, its tiny cream puffs piled high under hard swoops of caramelized sugar.

The only place the angel drew a hard line was at the idea of the currently trendy ‘naked cake.’

“Cake without frosting?” he gasped. “What on earth is the point of that?”

The proprietor insisted on bringing one out to show them. Aziraphale was polite and tried it, making encouraging comments about the tastiness and moistness of the cake, but as soon as they left the building he was full of criticism.

“Cross that one off the list, Crowley,” he said acerbically. “I can’t trust the judgment of someone who thinks cake laid bare of frosting is a good thing.”

Crowley smiled. “Whatever you say, angel. Just do me a favor and don’t make it cupcakes, either.”

“No cupcakes?”

“Cupcakes are for children.”

“I agree, actually,” Aziraphale said. “You can have cupcakes anytime. You only get to have your own wedding cake once.”

They reached the car and Crowley held the passenger door open for him. “Off to patisserie number four,” he announced grandly, closing the door with a flourish.

++

They were walking down the block to the final cake tasting when Aziraphale stumbled and caught onto Crowley’s arm for support.

“Are you all right?” Crowley asked, peering at him.

“Yes, I think so – I just felt a little dizzy for a moment,” the angel replied. He stopped and took a few deep breaths.

“Do you need water?” Crowley asked. “Want to sit down somewhere?”

The angel let go of his arm and straightened up with a determined smile. “I’m fine, really! It’s just been an exciting day and I got a little overheated in this big coat. Let’s keep walking.”

Crowley frowned and undid a few buttons of the angel’s overcoat, then unwrapped a layer of the lightweight scarf he was wearing so the angel could get some air.

“Better?” he asked, concerned.

“Fit as a fiddle,” Aziraphale assured him, moving on.

++

“Welcome, welcome!” said the proprietor at the final shop. “You are Mr. Crowley and Mr. Fell, I presume?” She handed them each a glass of champagne and ushered them back to the finely appointed tasting room.

“Please tell me a little about what you had in mind for your wedding cake,” the woman said, pulling out a little notepad.

Aziraphale filled her in on the basics – the venue, the number of guests, and what they had liked or not liked so far.

“And you, sir?” she said, turning to Crowley.

Crowley leaned in and smiled. “Just make him happy,” he said. “This man LOVES cake, and I want him to have the best wedding cake he’s ever seen for our big day. Oh, and no cupcakes. And nothing cutesy. Flowers would be nice, possibly.”

Aziraphale laughed a little as his ‘I have no opinions on cake’ fiancé turned out to have rather a lot of opinions after all.

They tried three or four spectacular cake samples there and were just settling in to try a second portion of their current favorite – a chocolate sponge with pomegranate filling and a rich, decadent buttercream, when it happened.

“I think we might have a winner,” Crowley said, turning to Aziraphale with an eyebrow raised.

Aziraphale paused with a forkful halfway to his mouth, and then laid the fork down with a clunk.

“Oh,” he said, placing his hand on the table as if supporting himself. “I don’t feel so well.”

Crowley and the baker looked at him, concerned. “What is it angel?”

“I’m dizzy,” he said, whitening alarmingly. “The whole room is –”

He broke off and made a strange noise deep in his throat.

Crowley grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to get the angel to focus on him. “Angel, what’s happening? Breathe with me,” he said. “Get him some water,” he shouted to the baker, who rushed off to the kitchen.

Aziraphale raised frantic-looking eyes towards the demon and wobbled in his seat. “Oh no,” he said in a panicked tone. “I think – my dear I think I’m –”

Crowley blinked as the angel appeared to become slightly transparent around the edges for a moment. It almost looked like he flickered.

OH FUCK, he thought, as he realized slightly too slowly what was happening  just as the angel managed to get the words out –

“—being summoned!”

“SHIT!” The demon frantically looked around for salt but it was already too late.

There was a flare of light and when his sight cleared, the angel was gone.

[exyjunkies]

14 + andreil? (“Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always.”)

…………………………..

so i needed to write this plot bunny outta my damn mind

(and i liked this enough to post it on my ao3!!)

fic meme 1-100: andreil + 14. “Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always.”

send me a pairing (preferably from aftg/trc) and a number and i’ll write you a drabble (1-50) (51-100)

Andrew has often thought of how a clock, something built totell time, can fail at its very function the moment it’s set wrong. The thoughtwas unnerving, really, because it only strengthens the truth that time was oneof the many things that was out of anybody’s control.

One of the other things was change. The Columbia house, forall its glory and all the moments it’s lived through, cannot fight against thewishes of time. Though it did look like it tried to put up the best fight itcould possibly attempt. The windows, some slightly cracked and others difficultto open, merely provided glimpses into how much the structure has been through.The welcome mat had the letter O blacked out by ash, from theone time Nicky had set it on fire. The doorbell still worked, but the buttonwas long gone from its mechanism. The house paint was peeling off, and theplants around the side of the house were long gone.

It’s been almost three years since that day. Everyone Andrew knows has told him that this, what he wasdoing, wasn’t helping anyone move on with the natural course of things. Nothim. Not Neil.

Walking up to the house, Andrew wondered when he’ll everstop wanting to coming back.

He checked the time on his watch. 11:38 PM.

He doesn’t think twenty-two minutes will be enough to readyhimself for what was coming.

(Really, he doesn’t think any amount of time will ever beenough.)

The doorknob is cold and unsettling to the touch as ever.Andrew opened the door, and a wind blew in his face. He coughed because of thedust that got to his nose. A few seconds later, he heard the night cricketsoutside drift to a steady silence.

Nice job, Josten. Shaking his head, Andrew broughtout his flashlight, and shone a light throughout the dark house.

When they (Andrew, Aaron, and Nicky) had bought the Columbiahouse in their freshmen year, it was mostly empty, save for the appliances thatthe seller was generous enough to leave them. They acquired a microwave, ablender, and a pressure cooker (that none of them knew how to use until theirthird year). It was a really spacious house, which meant the three of them wasfree to fill it with whatever they deemed was necessary for each of theirsurvivals. Money was no object.

So Nicky was in charge of furnishing, while Aaron made tocall in men for the repairs, and Andrew shouldered costs and looked over wherethings were supposed to go. After three months of arguments and fussing about,it was done, and they had a place to stay whenever they needed to get away fromPalmetto State. They began bringing Kevin along a few weeks later. It was ateam effort to put the house together, that much Andrew knew.

Nicky and Aaron were not the least bit surprised, then, whenAndrew and Neil had ended up taking over the house later on. Nicky had a placewith Erik in Germany, and Aaron was in med school with Katelyn in anotherstate. This was around the time Neil had graduated and was well on his way to anoffer with the US Court, and Andrew was being bombarded with the same offerfrom the US Court that he had rejected the previous year. Andrew remembered walking into the living room and seeing Neil with both contract proposals fromthe Court’s recruitment team.

Leaning against the wall, he hadwaited until Neil noticed he was there at all.         

You’re not seriously judging me for going through job offers.Neil’s tone had been playful, a smirk on his face that was probably amused atAndrew’s glowering.

It’s more of an addiction for you, junkie.

It’s what’s keeping me alive. Sorry if this life is so addicting.

You know, if you needed someone to go with you and hold your hand,that’s not going to be me.

Yeah? At this, Neil had put the papers on their coffee table, stoodup, and walked over to where Andrew was standing. In the years that they hadknown each other, Andrew had not grown taller, but Neil had two inches added tohis height. The smile on his lips not withdrawing, he crossed his arms andlooked Andrew square in the face.

Then how are you going to stare at my ass from behind if you’re not inthe games with me?

Andrew remembered looking up atNeil’s face, unimpressed. Tell me onegood reason why I should go back to that game again.

You know the gig’s not half as bad as you make it out to be. ThenAndrew had glared, turned around, and walked away.

A few hours ago, both of them hadsigned with the US Court, and were set to start practices next week. Once theyhad both gotten the notification, Neil had looked and did his best not to burst outlaughing.

I am irresistible, he had declared, winking at Andrew.

One week, huh, Andrew had muttered, hoisting a laughing Neil up onhis arms and carrying him back to their bedroom. We shouldn’t waste any time then.

Andrew shone his flashlight aroundthe living room, the furniture in it now dusty and chipped. Their sofa still had that gash across the middle,and their pillows had almost all the stuffing falling out and frayed. Thetelevision set, once a flatscreen and of the highest quality, now couldn’t beswitched on or even plugged in. A circle of dustless surface was on the coffeetable, where the last ever coffee cup used to be. Andrew didn’t know if Neilhad taken the coffee cup off, or if someone had gone in to take it. Honestly,it didn’t really matter anymore.

To the side, their bookshelf wasstill crammed with books, half of which they never got to read together. Nearit was another shelf, which held framed photos and some souvenirs from thecountries they got to travel to. A mini Eiffel Tower, a golden cat that used towave its paw, a box of one red chopstick because they lost the other one. Atiny Mexican hat, from the first time they flew anywhere. Andrew surveyed thephotographs, looked at the all the faces. A family portrait, with him, Neil,and Sir Fat Cat and King Fluffkins. They had taken it intending for it to be aChristmas card, but Neil liked it so much he wanted it to be the family’s copyand theirs only. A picture of him and Aaron, arms around each other’sshoulders, taken by Neil himself. And beside it, a picture that Andrew hadtaken of Neil holding one of Dan and Matt’s kids, from when they babysat forthe couple.

Of the two of them, Neil had beenmore vocal about wanting kids, simply because Andrew was rarely ever outspokenabout anything. Andrew had it memorized – that look of want that Neil used tohave, whenever one of Dan’s kids would bring him something they had drawn orwhenever they wanted something from their kitchen. Neil had both been subtle(adoption flyers lying around the counter) and obvious (bringing it up whenthey were in bed, before they went to sleep). But what he didn’t know was thatit was a fleeting want between the both of them, something that never happenedonly because they were too busy with everything else.

Looking at his watch, Andrew sawthat he had seven minutes before midnight.

“You don’t mind if I’m a littleearly, do you?”

The voice had come a little tooclose behind him, but Andrew had learned to calm himself down. Neil never meantto scare him, even if his hair stood on end almost every time this happened.Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. Inhale.Exhale. That’s it.

He turned around, and behind himwas Neil.

In his spiritual, yet mostcorporeal, form.

A ghost.

“You were always one forsurprises,” Andrew whispered, tightening his grip around his flashlight. Neillooked back at him, shrugging in the most Neil-like fashion.

Ever since Neil had become thisstate, he was always different. Sometimes, he was his cheery, annoying self,following Andrew around the house and talking his ear off. There have beentimes when he was an angrier, snappier version of himself, levitating objectsaround the house and throwing them against the walls. Most of the time though,Neil was merely a shell of himself, less responsive, drifting out of realityfrom time to time.

He liked it when Andrew came tovisit, which was twice or thrice a week. Always around midnight, and not formore than half an hour. Neil had explained, once before, that there wasn’t muchspiritual energy around their part of South Carolina for him to stay long.Andrew didn’t know much about the supernatural and ghosts and spirits, so hetook Neil’s word for it.

At the start, Neil being a ghosthad helped Andrew cope with his death, had helped him mourn the loss. The shockhad lasted quite a while, and then the anger came. Andrew was not proud of howhe handled himself.

It was a day like any other,specifically a day when Neil was home and Andrew was out, taking care of thegroceries. Between the both of them, no one knew that Lola Malcolm hadn’t beencaught by the FBI, and was instead on the lookout for Neil to seek her revenge.Andrew had come home to the struggle between Lola and Neil, and hell had brokenloose from there.

Andrew had succeeded in getting aknife through Lola’s head through her eye, but not until after she had shotNeil in the stomach. There was blood everywhere. And the hospital could only doso much that much blood loss. Andrew threatened as many doctors and nurses ashe could, but he couldn’t change what had happened. Neil was in a coma for agood eight months, before the doctors had the talk with Andrew regardingpulling the plug.

A voice had come up behind him, inthat hospital hallway, and whispered, “Letme go, Andrew. The machines are terrible. It hurts so, so much.”

It took Andrew another monthbefore he could agree to pull the plug. Wymack, Betsy, Abby, and the Foxes,both the old and the new, were there with Andrew, and that was that. No fancyfuneral. No televised news about Neil’s death. No articles in the newspapers,no interviews with the sports channels.

Just a cremation, a jar, andNeil’s ashes, sitting in one of the Columbia house’s cupboards.

It’s been almost three years sincethe accident. And a small part of Andrew was uneasy, if not scared, about Neilstill not being able to transition to the afterlife.

Three years.

Neil put his hand to Andrew’s arm,and Andrew shivered. He could feel the faintest sensation through his shirtsleeve. He saw Neil solidify a bit more and sigh in relief.

“I get the feeling that you havesomething to tell me that couldn’t wait.”

“We’ve got all the time in theworld, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Seventeen years of marriage doesn’thelp you become a better liar, dummy.”

Andrew gritted his teeth. Hefrowned at Neil. “Yeah, well, the real world doesn’t make me deal with thetruth any better, either.”

“And what has been happening in the real world?” Neil’s voice was lessinterested and more of a drone. As if it was draining him to push every singleword out. He went to sat down on their sofa, and continued, “Tell me a story.”

So Andrew told him. About Reneeand Emilio’s third son, who was born premature and had to stay in the incubatorfor a few weeks. About Allison and her fiancé, and their upcoming wedding inthe Bahamas. About Nicky and Erik visiting for Christmas this December. AboutAaron and Katelyn opening up a new private practice in the east. About Robin andher girlfriend, and how she had been coaching the Foxes for almost seven yearsnow. About Wymack in a plush and comfortable retirement home that just happensto adore Exy and him, so they had no problem with Kevin’s specifications. AboutDan and Matt starting an Exy Little League, and how it was going to be biggerthan they had anticipated. About how he and Kevin were still with the Court.

“But you know how I keep thinkingof,” Andrew broke off, inhaling a little shakily. He sat beside Neil. “Ofresigning. They have enough goalkeepers there anyway.”

Neil did a lifeless haha and replied, “Good luck. Last timeI joked about you leaving, Chief always said that wouldn’t happen. “Not on my watch, Josten.” With the gruffdisagreement and all. That kinda shit.”

“It doesn’t do anything for meanymore.”

Which was true. Financially, Andrew was set for (what he believedwere) the remaining years of his life, and he still had some of his fortune fromhis teenage years to add to his Court savings. He didn’t really care much forthe Exy celebrity life, and he only had a few friends in the sports industryand even less of a desire to make more. On top of that, the only reason why hewas still with the Court was because of Kevin, who was still a little abovetwenty-five years or so from retirement. Kevin was convinced that he and Andrewwould be together on the team until then.

Every single day with the team andplaying Exy served to be a reminder to Andrew about just how much Neil livedfor the sport. They had played games with one off the court, but when they wereboth on the court together, they were a force to be reckoned with. Eventually,everyone had ended up looking forward to the games that had the both of them onthe lineup.

Now that Neil was gone… well.Andrew could still close off the goal when the team needed it, but even theleast invested fan could see that games against the US National Team were lessexciting now. It was something no one dared to speak of.

“Well, you know I wouldn’t mind ifyou did,” Neil said, leaning back and closing his eyes. Or at least that’s whatit looked like to Andrew. “Resign, I mean.”

They sat in silence for a longtime after that, Andrew and his arm on the couch’s arm rest, and Neil sittingback on the couch. It was never an uncomfortable silence, that much they bothhad to be thankful for. From time to time, Andrew looked over and watched Neildo his best to materialize, take as much energy as he could from the ground,sometimes from Andrew. But then Andrew knew Neil always felt bad about tiringhim out, so the touches were subtle. Andrew didn’t want to admit that it wasmore draining that he let out.

Besides, if it meant that he couldsee Neil a little better, then Andrew would hold onto Neil himself – if Neilwouldn’t violently lash out and throw Andrew off of him.

“Ugh, we never really got thishouse to look the way it should,” Neil suddenly said, his eyes darting aroundthe room. Andrew snapped out of his thoughts.

“Your eye for real estate ischarming, junkie.”

“Shut up. This place was a dumpbefore I got here.”

Andrew felt his mouth twitch up abit at that, and he saw Neil laughing quietly. For a bit, he looked almost… alive.

“Yeah,” he murmured, shiftingcloser. “You were a real lifesaver.”

Neil looked Andrew in the eyes,and smiled.

Then, as if a spell broke, he suddenlyclosed his eyes and groaned slightly. “Ugh.”

“What?” Andrew was alert, a bit ofpanic rising in him. “Anything I could do?”

“No, I just,” Neil stopped, facingaway from Andrew. After a beat, he spoke up again.

“This always happens. I hate it.”

“What does?”

“Oh, don’t act like you don’tknow,” Neil scolded, a little sadly. “Me wanting to hold your hand, or mewanting to kiss you, and then remembering that— that I’m just… this.”

And here I was, about to tell him that he has to move on. “Neil, pleasedon’t do this.”

“Don’t do what?” Neil snapped, standing up suddenly, making his form waver abit. Andrew was starting to feel his own anger too. It was anger not at Neil,but at the situation that led to this. He did his best to keep it down and puttwo fingers to the bridge of his nose.

“Don’t… ugh— don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

Neil looked down at him, a littleconfused. Then, understanding showed on his face, along with a very pissy mood.

“Oh. Okay. I see how it is.”

In all the years that they’ve beenmarried, they’ve had their fights, and they’ve each had their share of faults.After everything though, they always, alwaysmade it a point to resolve their issues. This was because of the two of them,Neil was the one that hated going to sleep with something wrong between them.

Still, they were human, so nothingwas as perfect as how the movies almost always made everything out to be.Andrew tended to be unresponsive a lot of the time, because he didn’t believein wasting a single breath on useless things, and Neil always had some smartremark prepared to everything because he liked being the last say, socompromises were only arrived at after a lotof work.

So of course, this meant thingsalways had to get messy before they get fixed.

“Neil,” Andrew began, standing upand taking a few steps away from Neil. “You know it’s been far too long. It’sunnatural.”

“So is being murdered at the ageof 46, Andrew!” Neil yelled, theground shaking a little, just because he can make it shake. “This is so unfair.I’m not fucking ready.”

“And no one ever is,” Andrew replied,stepping forward slowly. It was so hard to keep himself composed, but he knewhe had to do it. “But I’m telling you now. You’re not doing yourself any favorsby staying here.”

“Wow, now you’re telling me about what’s best for me. Well, news-fucking-flash, Andrew Minyard. Ithink I can handle myself.”

“No, you can’t! If you can, you would’ve been gone from this place a longdamn time ago. You know I’m making sense. You’renot human anymore, Josten. You have to fucking accept that.”

“And what about you, huh? What is it about methat keeps you coming back? I’m ‘not human anymore’? Fine. Then why do you keep going here, at the crack-of-God’s-ass‘o clock, visiting me?”

“Because I care about you, idiot. Don’t you think it hurts me to see you likethis, too?”

“Oh, boo-freaking-hoo, Andrew Minyard is still alive, getme a tissue.”

Andrew exhaled, getting the rageout of his system before he did anything drastic. Crossing his arms, he saidthe one thing that’s been on his mind ever since he got there.

“So if I went and offed myself.Would that help?”

Neil, as always, doesn’t properlylisten when he’s in the heat of the moment. “If you— what?”

Clearing his throat, Andrew repeatedhimself.

“If I died. Passed away. Left thislife. Etcetera etcetera. Would you finally move on to the afterlife?”

“You’re being ridiculous. Wheredid you get that dumb idea? It’s not that easy.”

“Then what, for God’s sake, wouldmake it easy—”

“Nothing, Andrew! Don’t youfucking understand?”

Neil’s outburst was so strong thata wind blew through the house, and every door in the house began openning andslamming back shut. Andrew was taken aback. The pressure in the room was sostrong, and the doors were so loud.He shut his eyes and took a few more breaths to steady himself. Anger and fearwas not the greatest combination to deal with.

Easy, Minyard.

After calming down himself, Neilshook his head.

“Don’t you get it?” He startedagain, less harshly this time. “My entire childhood, I never got to make anypart of it mine. It was always, new nickname this time around, or new state thenext month, or new house to break into later on. Mom died, and I had to livewith her voice of disappointment wherever I went. It was absolutely miserable. Andthen I came across Exy, which gave me the chance to take a small part of itback. For myself.

“And then the Foxes came along,and. And you guys were everything.Not from the start, no. At the start, a lot of you were major assholes,” Atthis, Andrew nodded in agreement, and Neil continued, “But then you guys becamefamily. And every game that Palmetto State got me to, gave me even more andmore reasons to keep going. Wymack was, sort of, the father I never knew Ineeded. And somewhere along the way, I saw you in a way that I never saw anyoneelse before, and, well, I guess the rest was history.

“I finally, finally had the life Iwanted. And I had that life to share with you. It wasn’t perfect, and it suretook some work getting there, what with my father and the Moriyamas and all,but I made it. I was myself. And I hadthat going for me for a long time. Seventeen years with you was wonderful. ButI knew I wanted the lifetime package. But then Lola came that day, and… andtook it all away. Just when I was just getting ready for the long haul.”

Neil sat back down, leaving Andrewabsolutely speechless. This was a side of Neil that he has never heard before.A lot of things were going on in his mind right now, and none of them was theright thing to say in this situation.

“Do you know what I was doing thatday, Andrew?” Neil continued, not looking up at him. “Because I do. I stillfucking remember. I was about to put in a call for this house I wanted, justoutside of South Carolina. Somewhere in Pontiac. Matt told me about a reallygood deal by a friend of his, so I went to check the house out a couple weeksback. I was going to say yes to the realtor and put in the first payment. Itwas going to be a surprise.”

Sitting back down carefully,Andrew made sure to look at Neil this time, listening to everything he had tosay. He put his hand on top of Neil’s spirit one, watching Neil’s materializedface shed a tear.

“Shit,” Andrew whispered. He hated seeing Neil cry. “I never knew.”

“Yeah,” Neil sniffled, putting hishand to his face and wiping off a tear. “It’s because I did my best to keep thesecret this time around.”

And they stayed like that, staringinto each other’s eyes, for a little bit longer. Andrew could only hear hisheartbeat, the crickets outside, and Neil’s labored breathing, from his entiredialogue earlier.

“Andrew,” Neil murmured. “I’mscared.”

Gritting his teeth, Andrewreplied, “I am too. It was hell tolose you the first time. But this is something you have to do.” After a beat,he added, “It’ll get easier.”

When Neil didn’t reply, Andrew puthis lips to where he saw Neil’s cheek was, and kissed. Andrew didn’t feelanything, but Neil let out a humorless chuckle.

“Thanks for trying, asshat,” hesaid, and Andrew knew they were okay again. He didn’t really know what to saynext, so he only nodded. Neil inhaled, exhaled, and clenched both his fists.

“Fine. I’ll stop being a ghoststuck in the past,” Neil said, and stood up. He rolled his shoulders back, andstretched his neck. “The afterlife can’t be thatbad.”

“If you get sent to hell, please reserve my slot.”

“You know there’s one with your name on it already.”

They could sit there and jokeabout it for another hour, and it still wouldn’t make the goodbye any better. Neilwas off staring at absolutely nothing, like he was trying to find the words tomake it easier. Andrew knew this, so he stood up with Neil, staring into thesame nothingness.

“Hey,” Neil said, after anotherlong, quiet minute. “I’m with you, okay?”

Andrew thought about how a clockcan fail to tell time the moment it was set wrong. It was a fact of life thathe used to be frustrated with, because he had wanted to go back and change thepast. He had wished he did things differently, sway the odds in his favor. Dothe groceries the previous day instead. Get home a little earlier. Kill Lolabefore she got to shoot Neil.

But now, Andrew knew that he neededto stop playing god. Every single thing in the universe was going to come andgo, no matter what anyone did, and nobody could change that.

What made everything morebearable, Andrew knew, was the people that he went through time with.

“Always,” he replied, looking atNeil one last time. He couldn’t believe this was going to be the last time. Thetightness in his chest was enough to stop him from breathing.

It was almost like he was losingNeil all over again.

Neil smiled sadly at Andrew,almost as if he was trying to hold back more tears.

Then, he looked up, and he wasgone. And for the first time since he had bought the house, Andrew was on hisown.

For the first time, Andrew wasalone.

[seriouscuttervoice]

Apotheosis

Chapter 2 | I

Fandom: Mystic Messenger/Death Note (Crossover)

Characters: Rem, V, OCs (V’s family), Jumin Han

Links: AO3 | FF | First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Notes: This chapter is long, long, long overdue, initially because of writer's block and then because of the stages of grief that came with realizing V route was going to (and did) redact a lot of my fic into firm AU territory. I've decided that instead of changing my plans for this fic to align with the information provided by V route, I'm going to continue with what I originally had planned for the fic. I'm not complaining about having additional canon information-- it's fantastic-- but I fear my motivation to finish this will dwindle into nothing if I have to go off my original course too much. I started writing this chapter before V route and finished it after, and it's probably the first time I make a major divergence from canon (other than, you know, having V be the reincarnation of a shinigami from an entirely different series) on purpose. I really hope you enjoy this and I apologize for taking so long to get it out!

It's not her first week or even her first month at school when another student, not by his actions or anything he's said but by his mere presence, strikes Rem breathless. She's seen him before, in church, in class, but she never realized until now that she isn't the only person who spends their recesses outside alone. As if pushed away by some invisible force filling the air, he stands at the edge of the school courtyard; perhaps it's the same force that compelled Rem to wander off here in the first place. The tall and empty walls that should have diminished him with their size are inferior to the look in his eyes, ice and fire all at once, passionate scrutiny, and with a start this young boy reminds Rem not of her own downfall but of Misa's, the man she loved who used love like a weapon and turned a god to ash. It's too much memory for a boy so young, and when he turns that gaze on Rem in this soft, child's body and asks, "Why do you look at me that way?," Rem has spent enough time as a human to know that he is art.

"Do you want me to stop?" she asks, uncertain if she's disturbed him. He's a little shorter than Jihyun is, but it doesn't feel that way. The boy's eyes survey her up and down, appraising her with eyebrows arched, lips twisted for a moment in thought, before he shrugs and turns his face away.

"Do as you like," he tells her, and for a moment the command stupefies her, desperately searching in her mind for what exactly it is that she'd like to do so she can comply. Her eyes find her shoes, black and freshly shined the night before by Yunseo. The other boy wears similar ones of a slightly different style, his pointed at the front where Jihyun's are square, standard footwear for the compulsory school uniform. Rem hesitates, then raises her head again to look at his face.

"What's your name?" she asks, and the question feels too personal, a few characters on a page that could be the difference between life and death, a secret to be closely guarded yet is so easily taken away.

"You don't know it?" the boy questions, an overly critical crease in his forehead for someone his age. "We've been in the same class for two months and twelve days, we attend the same church, and we've visited each other's houses before, but you don't know my name?"

He speaks like he spends his free time reading the dictionary, a pastime Rem can't deny she's participated in herself before out of boredom, selective of his words in a way that's unnatural for his stature. She stares wide-eyed at him for his harshness. Human names and even faces are difficult, slipping in and out of her mind without a trace no matter how hard she tries, and she's tempted to ask how he can remember her name before she realizes he's not given any particular indication that he does.

"I suppose I've forgotten," she mumbles, allowing her language to slip back into the stiff formalness she was accustomed to as a shinigami to match the other's speech. She's surprised to find how unforced it feels, realizing for the first time that her quietness around most humans might be due to the amount of effort it takes to vocalize as they expect Jihyun to.

The other blinks, scowling but apparently unable to look away from her, and after a moment of contemplative silence he slowly utters, "My name is Jumin Han."

Jumin Han.

It's a name she's heard before, the Han part certainly is, in her parents' dinner conversations and dripping with bitter spite from Yunseo's lips. His family doesn't live far from where Jihyun's does, a large house with black panels that's more modern than most others in the neighbourhood, though the inside is more traditional than one might expect.

She repeats the name several times in her head, Jumin Han, Jumin Han, the words more precious than the other boy could realize, and somehow she knows that this time she won't forget.

"The conventional thing to do, at this point," the other says, startling Rem out of her thoughts, "would be to introduce yourself, but there's no need as I already know who you are."

She nods, her lips feeling stuck together, and though the boy is stern she finds herself taking his word for it easily, something about him exuding honesty and trustworthiness even while he rebukes her with his words. She feels she's somehow unearthed something, trespassed into a space she wasn't meant to be and stuck gold, like the earrings she wore as a shinigami, like the pink paint she took from the human world. He doesn't seem bothered by her staring, though he doesn't meet her eyes, and for a moment Rem longs to stay like this, silently drinking in the details of this boy's world, a world that appears to be all his own, separate from the oversaturation and noise she's come to associate with the human realm. He doesn't interrupt her, completely still and with perfect posture, and she knows then that she was wrong in her initial assessment of him. This boy is better than Light Yagami, greater than Light Yagami, and if the gods fell for him it would only be natural, his effortless honesty making him worthy of it, with no need for deception or delicate maneuvering to make it happen. He emanates magnetism, seems almost composed of it, and it's a quality she thinks can't be taken from him, a fundamental of his being that makes him meant to walk this earth.

She tears her eyes away; too much, too much, and when she does he takes a step toward her and she finds herself breathless once more.

"Spend recess with me," he says, his right foot barely a few centimetres from hers, eyes full of intensity. She nods again, refusing to look away this time, and he remains for just a moment, holding her there in his world, before he moves back.

And then he smiles.

Muscles in his face relax, eyebrows lose their arch, his lips curve just barely upward, and he looks at her with a carefreeness she wouldn't have thought him capable of as the warm light of morning seems to envelop her from his face.

"Good," he says, motioning to a bench by one of the paths in the courtyard. "Should we sit? I think we'll like each other, Jihyun."

Rem knows he's right, and it's a strange feeling, unaccustomed to attention or her presence being wanted, and together they walk away from the towering wall.

Jumin becomes a fixture in her life with ease, occupying a place she didn't know existed and fitting perfectly into it. The two of them are silent more often than not, but it's a different sort of silence than that she shares with her family, a silence that's whole instead of hollow, a silence that's full like a sponge with water, and while she can't tell if she herself contributes anything to that completeness, she knows Jumin does with his overwhelming presence. They don't speak because there's no need for words, and when the words do come they are easy, unedited in their clunkiness, too big for either of them and their children's bodies. She's half-tempted to tell him her history, to ask if he was a god once too, but otherworldly as he seems Rem knows there's something irrevocably human about him, the very thing that drew the likes of herself and Gelus to this world in the first place.

Rem's searches for gods who'd become humans are mostly fruitless, references to human descent almost invariably linked to Christianity. Typing in Gelus's name does nothing either, the other apparently uninterested in making himself known to other former shinigami, if he's even here at all. It's possible that if he too became human then he's in a completely different time period than Rem is, or a different timeline altogether. And there's also a chance he didn't become a human in the first place.

It's much easier to find references to the opposite, the concept of humans that become gods, deification or apotheosis as the process is called. Humans appear to be fascinated by the idea, and Rem supposes she can understand what the allure of power and eternity could be to people who never had them within their grasp. She too might find it enthralling, were the power she had not the power of death, and were the eternity she had not dependent on it. Her parents never ask what she's searching for, so she never has to hide it, though she likely could if she wanted to because Jihyun apparently inherited her talent for going unnoticed, though not through any ability to be literally invisible. He slips in an out of places almost without a sound, and those just realizing he's entered the room remark that he surprises them with his quiet. She doesn't broach the subjects she searches for with Jumin, either, though he'd undoubtedly be interested in the concept of descent from godhood, but he's too sharp and too perceptive for Rem to fully trust he wouldn't put the entire picture together.

He starts inviting her to his house, and though Jihyun is allowed to invite over anyone he wants, he's also allowed to go any place he wishes, and Rem prefers to be at Jumin's. The other boy's house is full of invisible people; kitchen staff and housekeepers that Rem rarely sees, going about their obligations to maintain the orderliness of the place. Jumin doesn't think twice about it, and soon neither does Rem, the novelty of being seen both unnerving and difficult not to enjoy. Jumin listens to her, and Rem knows that if she ever asked him to make her a promise he wouldn't break it, possessing a degree of respect for her that's totally foreign to her life.

Jumin's father is rarely home, though his mother always is, and Jumin makes a point to correct Jihyun when he refers to her as such, firmly informing her that the woman living in his house is not his mother. Rem gives him a questioning look, less aware of human customs than she expected, and Jumin says he'll explain it another time.

Jumin's insistence that he and Jihyun be alone most of the time is no discomfort to her, used to adults taking little interest in her life. Even when their parents get together for dinner, Jumin prefers that the two of them take off on their own as soon as the meal is finished, circling the perimeter of his garden or sitting on the rug in his bedroom.

"I thought you were looking forward to having dinner together with your father," Rem comments, purposely not phrasing it as a question so the other doesn't feel obliged to respond. Jumin leans back against the footboard of his bed, so large it could probably swallow him.

"I was," he says, tracing circles on his kneecap. Even outside of school, Jumin dresses as if in uniform. Jihyun wears a t-shirt and jeans, though Rem isn't sure whether or not they're expensive. "But his girlfriend is with him, and I don't like her."

"Oh," Rem says, and suddenly everything makes sense. She wondered why the woman who appeared to be Mr. Han's wife was so young, but time spent with Kyosuke Higuchi should've told her that this was normal for businessmen. Jumin's father seems so kind, though, she wouldn't have thought to connect the two even in spite of them having the same occupation.

"Mm," Jumin acknowledges. She watches him for a moment, wondering if he wants to elaborate, but he says nothing more so she doesn't press him. Jumin's bedroom is nice, a bit oversized but so is Jihyun's. Everything from the wooden floors to the bed to the armchairs on either side of the table in the middle of the room are white, the only exception provided by a fish tank that sits on top of the table, the fish swimming inside reflecting the sunlight with vibrant colours.

It's quiet for a long time, and Rem wonders for a moment why Jumin sits on the floor when his room has armchairs and a window seat, and she's trying to decide if that's too impolite to ask when she feels a weight press against her arm, eyes widening as she realizes Jumin has shifted to lean on her, just slightly, his dark hair falling on Jihyun's shoulder. The touch is unexpected, accustomed to her only contact being Yunseo's hand firmly grasping Jihyun's when crossing the street or in a crowded place.

"Jumin?"

Jumin stiffens, and Rem regrets it for a moment as he raises his head ever so slightly, then seems to change his mind and leans on Jihyun again.

"You know," he says softly. Jihyun waits. "I've never had a friend before."

This isn't surprising. Jumin is young, has hardly had enough time in the world for it to be confusing that he hasn't made friends before, but the word puts Rem on alert.

"Friend?" she echoes, and Jumin shifts off of her shoulder to engage her in a serious look.

"That's what we are, right?" he asks, and though his voice is steely the question is sincere, searching her face with his silver eyes for answers. "Friends?"

Rem returns his eye contact and for once wonders if Jumin feels her presence as strongly as she feels his, because he averts his gaze slightly to look at her nose instead of her eyes. It's a word Rem hadn't considered for them before. Friends… the weight with which Jumin spoke the word makes sense now, though Jumin himself wouldn't be able to understand it. He's a young boy with the body of a delicate child, only a few short years into school. Rem is ancient, lived for centuries without ever having a single friend, the closest perhaps being Gelus, but even then it was she who was fascinated by him, the other shinigami sharing no similar interest in Rem or anyone other than the human girl he watched. That, of course, was natural. And Misa could hardly be called a friend, care for her as much as Rem did.

But him… Jumin Han. He seeks out Jihyun's presence, remembers things about him that Jihyun doesn't remember about himself, hangs onto his every word even when they're clumsily put together and say nothing of importance. He's unselfish, doesn't only care for Jihyun to the extent that Jihyun can be useful to him, whether as a willing sacrifice or a soundboard. Jumin is considerate of Rem, gives her special attention that even her parents don't give her. His eyes are the only place that Rem holds any significance—that Rem ever held any significance.

"Yes," she breathes, and Jumin watches her, unwavering. "I suppose we are."

Jumin slowly nods, then shifts again, replacing his head against her shoulder once more. Silence overtakes the air, the distant sound of parents' voices downstairs drifting into the room from behind the closed door.

"Let's stay this way," Jumin murmurs, and Rem can hear in his voice that this time it's not a command.

It's a plea.

"We will," she says.

She hopes he can hear in Jihyun's voice that it's a vow.

[jyuanka]

@softkillua Happy Birthday, Kaz! I wish you a kind year filled with love and inspiration ❤️❤️❤️

(The fic on AO3)

Ode to Summer

Canary wondered if she had ever seen a place so soaked in light, wondered how the overwhelming scent of soap simultaneously eased her and set her off. A part of her appreciated the cleanliness, another, deeper part, was wary of it. In her experience, things that were glowing and smelled good usually concealed awful realities behind them, but perhaps not here.

Her eyes surveyed the room, studying it in cold detachment. This very act felt wrong, because she was missing her staff, missing her uniform, and she was, for the most part, in a civilian house. The lack of nen was disconcerting, knowing the owner of this room, and his history. The lack of nen was disconcerting, too, oddly enough, because it added to her sense of dread.

Throughout her life, lack of visible signs of danger caused not comfort, but abnormal eeriness, and Canary had to silence the voice in her mind, ever alert, telling her to watch out.

“Are you okay there, Canary?”

She sucked in a breath and turned around, meeting her companion’s bright eyes with a smile. “Yes, I’m fine.”

Her eyes moved about his face, searching for what, she wasn’t sure. Was he feeling the same uneasiness? His face was set in a deliberate expression of boredom, one she could see through, but something told her he was truly disinterested in the room; his sharp blue eyes weren’t shifting around like hers, they were staring up at the ceiling, their owner sprawled quite comfortably on his friend’s bed, hands behind his head, legs crossed.

“How long are we going to stay here?” she asked him, still standing in the center of the room, disengaging herself from the space she occupied by not sitting, by not touching or moving anything.  

Killua shrugged. “Not for long, it’s just a little mission, we’re not visiting or anything.”

Canary nodded. “It’s a lovely place.”

He squinted at her. “Canary, do you wanna stay?”

“Do you?”

Killua uncrossed then crossed his legs, seemed to shrink a bit on himself. It was hardly noticeable, but all the same, she heard the evasive grunt he swallowed. “I like this place alright, but I don’t want to stay.”

III

“Hey, wait for me!”

Killua chugged off his shirt and sprinted after his two friends, following them into the water. “I remember there were some weird creatures in this pond, right, Gon?”

Gon laughed, drawing circles around himself in the green water of the pond. “Nothing you can’t handle, Killua!”

“I know, dumbass!” Killua flipped his head awkwardly to the other side, standing on a sloping rock with his arms crossed. “I just don’t want something gross to touch my feet while I’m swimming.”

Canary was straying away from the other two, legs flapping gently in the warm water, the scent of weeds and humid air pervading her senses. She submerged her head, and tried to peek in the dense waters, to discern some shape or another, but she only saw her feet lulling in a lurching canvas of muddy green.

She brought her hands to her face, and creeped three long fingers out of the water, enjoying the different temperatures. The sun up above reflected misshapen patches of whiteness on the surface; Canary swayed her hand through them, disturbing their placidity. When she could no longer hold her breath, she popped her head out of the water.

“Hey, Canary, what are you doing?” Killua’s voice reached her from above, and she had to turn around and crane her neck to see him standing alongside Gon on a high rock, hands on his hips. “We’re gonna jump!”

“Jump with us!” Gon reiterated, and even from this distance, Canary could see the beautiful sheen on his brown skin, his long hair amess, toned arms waving for her to climb up and join them.

As she pushed herself out of the water, and started making her way towards them, she reveled in the warm soil under her feet, the unfamiliar, heavy tinge in the air, droplets of water bouncing off her hair, trickling on her back. Her hands coursed through brambles and leaves of plants she had no name for, ears trying to distinguish the differences between the various twitters and trills of hopping birds, half-lidded eyes wanting to see everything, take in all the sights around her, and when she finally reached the high rock, the world around her fell into unnatural silence.

“So, who goes first?” Killua asked, white locks stuck to his forehead, inspecting his two companions with challenging looks.

A bird zipped out of the branches in panic when Gon screamed in joy, and jumped.

III

Hair sprawled around his head like spilled ink, Gon titled his head to the side to look at Canary. “What have you guys been up to? Are you traveling with Killua all the time?”

Canary was lying beside him, one hand resting on her stomach, the other fiddling with a twig, and found herself contemplating the apparent lack of resentment in his voice. “We travelled together for a while, after I resigned from my job at the Zoldyck mansion.” she said, not meeting his gaze, twirling the twig between her fingers. “But not as much anymore. Killua has his various jobs, and I have mine.”

Gon smiled. “Have you thought of taking the Hunter Exam? I bet you can pass easily!”

That made her look at him. “I did think of it.” she answered him, finally deciding to prop herself up and face him. “Though I believe I don’t have any grand purpose to become a Hunter.” Canary smiled. “Maybe one day I will.”

His smile widened. “Yeah.”

“What about you?” Canary asked, drawing circles between them with her twig. “The Nenless Hunter, you’re quite famous.”

Gon laughed. “Am I?” his eyes shifted up to the sky above them, the glow of the sunset reflecting in his eyes, then he looked back at her. “I’ve been doing many things, trying to visit aunt Mito as much as I can, since grandma passed away — and last year we discovered a new species of birds on Ioni Islands and I almost died trying to catch one!” he laughed again, and even though it was genuine, she could hear the self-deprecation in it.

Canary nodded awkwardly, her mouth drawn in a forced smile. Gon didn’t seem to notice, and moved from one subject to the next, from one story to another, quick and disjointed, almost like he’s attempting to fill in the space for the sake of evading silence.

Finally, he sighed, and smiled at her. “Do you like Whale Island, Canary?”

She returned his smile. “Very much.”

Gon seemed to take pride in this, and his smile widened. “I’m glad!”

“Glad about what?” Killua’s voice reached them before they saw him hopping over jagged rocks, leaping to the ground, and flopping gracelessly between them.

“Killua! Why did it take you so long?” Gon inquired and propped himself up, looking down at his resting friend.

Killua grimaced, throwing his arms up in exasperation. “Because Gon, I had to use the phone in the post office. The post office. In this century. You don’t even have a landline in your house!”

“But Killua, what about your cellphone?”

Blue eyes looked everywhere but at Gon. “Dead battery.”

“Why didn’t you charge it with your nen?”

Killua groaned. “Last time I did that the battery fucking melted.” he rolled his eyes. “I still don’t know how you can function without a cellphone.”

Gon frowned. “I told you, it got smashed to pieces in my last mission! I just never bought a new one.”

“Typical.” Killua spat out.

“Hey it’s alright.” Canary interjected, waving her hand between them, then shifted her attention to Killua. “How did the phone call go?”

“Fine, we’re set to leave tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Gon echoed in a murmur. “I thought you were gonna stay for longer.”

When she caught Killua shifting ever so slightly in his position, Canary spoke. “We came here to deliver a message for you, from a client who didn’t know how to contact you.”

Gon’s shoulders slumped, his face contorted in a disappointed frown. “I knew there was a reason behind your visit, but still I thought you’ll stay longer.” his eyes wandered from one guest to the other. “Why don’t you stay until the end of August? We can leave together then.”

He wasn’t even attempting to hide the pleading in his voice, his genuine desire for them to stay, and Canary found herself lost as to what words she should say next. She knew that now, she was free to do whatever she wanted, go wherever, live anywhere, yet she couldn’t shake off the effects of more than a decade of loyalty and devotion to her previous master; if Killua wanted to leave, then she was going to leave, too, no matter her personal desires.

Canary wished to stay.

After a long moment of silence, after the pink tint the sunset had left in Killua’s hair faded, and after every drop of water on their bodies dried, Gon sighed. “What does the client want?”

III

An hour before their departure, Canary found herself once again in Gon’s room. Now that she’d spent time with him, she could tell that not only was his nen absent - as she had sensed upon their arrival - but so was his entire presence. She couldn’t feel any Gon in this room, or at least a Gon that had bothered to spend any significant amount of time here, anyway.

If Gon was visiting his hometown as much as he claimed he was, then he was certainly not spending time in this room. In fact, he wasn’t spending time in the house at all.

Canary glanced out of the window, and saw the two boys conversing in a peculiar mix of yelling and whispering, interspersed with awkward laughter, strolling back and forth in front of the house, skipping a rock, shifting the weight on their feet, chancing two steps away before tackling each other.

If she wanted to, she could discern the contents of the hushed, lounging words passing between them, but she didn’t.

Downstairs, Mito greeted her with a bright smile, and a box of pastries.

“Don’t let Killua eat yours, I already gave him his box.” Mito told her with a playful mock frown, aware of the boy’s inclinations.  

The blue pastry box passed from Mito’s hands to hers, Canary tucked it carefully under her arm, and looked up to meet the woman’s soft gaze. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Do it again.” a whisper.

“Pardon?”

The smile on Mito’s face waned. “Visit us again.”

There was that tone again, almost the exact same one that trickled out with Gon’s request, asking them to stay until the end of August, and again, Canary tried to grasp at proper words to reply. If this was just an act of courtesy she would’ve had no problem saying something, but it was more than thanking a host, which should have been enough, because nobody had ever hosted Canary with such warmth, if only for two nights.

Was Mito aware of what the two of them had in common? The distance, between them, and a loved one. Unintended, comforting to think of as inevitable, but isn’t.

There was no resentment in Gon’s voice, because she and Killua weren’t as close as would appear. He knew that. Gon wanted them to stay longer as a good way to evade the staleness permeating this house, his relationship with his aunt.

Killua’s cellphone battery doesn’t melt when he uses his nen to charge it. Gon probably knew that, too.

Perhaps it was all something else, but Canary settled on this, settled for the vague connection these realizations created between her and Mito. Displacement, maybe even a bit of boredom. Bored with walking the distance, breaching gaps, tagging along, staying behind. Bored, and restless.

“I will.”

Mito snapped out of her own thoughts. “What?”

Canary smiled, and reached a friendly hand to the other woman. “I will visit again.”

There was no hesitation in Mito’s firm grasp, her palm cold from washing the dishes. She winked. “Maybe I will visit you.”

Canary widened her eyes, and her mouth hung open for a second before she composed herself. “But I travel a lot.”

Mito arched an eyebrow. “Who said I don’t like to travel?”

Canary smiled and nodded. “Okay then, I’ll give you my number.”

As they said goodbye, Canary didn’t mind leaving Whale Island all that much. There was something resembling the place quite beautifully in the woman waving goodbye to her, and in her subtle, casual proffer of companionship.

III

On the ship, she opened the box for the first time, tasted one of the delicious homemade confections, which she didn’t know the name for, and sighed in bliss.

“Hey Canary, what’s that?” Killua scooted closer to her, his eyes inspecting the box with unabashed greed.

She swallowed, savoring the sweetness in her mouth. “It’s a gift from Mito.”

“Eh?” he widened his eyes. “I can’t believe she didn’t give me one.”

Canary smiled. “Oh? That doesn’t seem like something she would do.”

“I know!”

Slowly, Canary closed the lid, denying Killua’s hungry eyes the sight of her pastries. “Have you checked in your bag? She might’ve left it there as a surprise.”

Killua crossed his arms. “I’m sure there isn’t any.”

Canary offered him an apologetic shrug. “Then I suppose she gave me the box as a first time visitor, maybe it’s a Whale Island tradition, hmm?”

“I don’t remember such a tradition.”

She hummed. “Then maybe she liked me more?”

Killua pierced his lips and trotted away, perhaps planning how to sneak some of her food from the box, but as Canary glanced back at the magnificent slope of Whale Island, at the blue summer sky, she knew; she wasn’t going to give him any.    

[katsitting]

AN: This is my volunteer contribution to the Tomarry Dark Spring Exchange for @darklordtomarry! I saw someone else volunteered and even picked the same prompt! Well, I was already 10k words in so I hope I am not stepping on toes for posting it. Also, because this fic is 56 pages, I will be posting the rest on AO3 and will tag the link accordingly!

I hope you love it as much as I loved writing it :)

Warnings: Graphic depiction of Violence, Gore, Explicit Torture, Manipulation, Character Death

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Harry scrunched his nose when the strong smell of mildew hit him, the stench enough to draw an unwilling sneeze from Harry as he maneuvered his way through the cluttered space. It should not surprise him that the room was in such a state, there was a reason it was called the Room of Hidden Things in the first place.

He could see the towers of junk dwarfing him in their grandeur, sturdy despite the obvious wear and tear of some of the pieces. He could see where moths had eaten through some of the fabric, where termites had nibbled their way into the wooden frames of some dressers he passed as he moved. But it was not at all surprising that the mounds of lost things managed to keep themselves together. It seemed that there was little magic could not do―even for items long since abandoned and forgotten by their owners.

There was something about being lost among these items that gave Harry some sort of peace. Sure, it was chaotic and smelled rather offensive to his nose most of the time, but this room was one of the many that Harry visited when he needed time to himself.

He had found the room when he had been stuck in a particularly prickly situation―out past curfew and Professor Snape hot on his heels. Harry had made the mistake of taking Malfoy at his word when they had agreed to settle their score in the Trophy Room. Only to find that the slimey professor had been waiting there instead of the equally as slimey student of his.

It was a miracle in and of itself that Harry had managed to survive that chase unscathed, but he had lived to tell the tale.

He was quite the survivor when he put his mind to it.

Harry turned his attention back to the bleak room, noting that the room had not changed since the last time he had been there. The same items were still piled on top of one another. The more valuable ones, still very much neglected, but tucked away in their own corners.

The sight of the chaos of the room should have been enough to deter Harry from coming back, but really, it was just so bloody cool and he had the room all to himself really. He had mulled over the idea of telling Ron and Hermione about it, but knowing Hermione, she would most likely tell a professor about his find. He loved her, truly, but she was too by the book at times. It was near impossible to pry her away from her books and from the framework of rules she clung furiously to.

Harry could have told Ron, but Ron was horrid at keeping secrets. The ginger-haired boy tended to shove his foot in his mouth more often than not―so much worse than Harry when was stuck in the same room with Malfoy.

So it was really only Harry’s secret room, even if the room was not ideal.

He paused when he saw something flash at him from a tight corner, the light forcing him to blink furiously to melt away the spots that danced across his vision. Harry was not used to things flashing at him from the dim light of the room―the few once pretty trinkets were so tarnished from disuse that Harry had yet to see anything glimmer.

Until now.

It was curious that there was something in there that still had some light to it, and like a moth to a flame, Harry chased after the source. He almost tripped in his haste to reach it, eager to learn just what the object could be.

After tripping countlessly over some small piles of clutter on the floor, Harry was finally rewarded with the source of the light.

He stood before a flat square object, the width and length of it so grand that Harry had to step back for a moment to take it in completely. It was hidden underneath a gray rag, but there was no mistaking that this was the source. Harry could make out something glittering through the moth eaten holes in the fabric, and he tried to breathe in deeply to calm the excitement he was feeling. He could see something smooth and clear from behind one of the larger holes, and it was with great eagerness that Harry finally tore the offending fabric away from the object of his desire.

He did not know what he was expecting when he unveiled the object, but it was definitely not a mirror. Harry was frozen with disbelief, annoyance quickly overtaking him when he realized he’d almost killed himself tripping over rubbish for a mirror.

Nice job, Harry.

Though admittedly, the mirror was rather beautiful. Its frame looked sturdy, the patterns carved into the wood intricate and unlike anything Harry had ever seen before. He was familiar with runes after spending years training in Hogwarts, but none of those symbols were engraved into the wood―the patterns looked more like squiggles than an actual design. Harry could not help reaching out to touch them, a jolt of something shooting up his arms where his fingers made contact with the mirror.

It felt smooth to the touch, the varnish relatively intact despite how old the mirror had to be. Everything in the Room of Hidden Things looked like it was ready to break to pieces, to melt into tiny puddles of sand if it were breathed on too harshly. But this mirror was nothing like any of the other items in the room.

When Harry tore his gaze away from the carvings on the wood, he was met with his own reflection in the glass. Not a speck of dust to be found.

The glass was immaculate. As if decay was not permitted to touch it.

It made him pause, unsure and pensive as to how this particular piece was left untouched by the atrophy that had consumed every other thing in the room. Golden lanterns and silver jewelry had all been made the home of tenacious bugs and vermin―forgotten by owners long since dead, but not abandoned by the whims of decay.

But the mirror was unspoiled, radiating a kind of elegance that made Harry’s lungs feel tight with awe.

Harry was seized immediately by curiosity, his fingers reaching to touch the glass. He didn’t care that he was most likely going to smudge his dirty fingers on the glass. It was a habit his mother often chastised him for when he could not resist sticking his fingers on all the pretty things at the markets. It was a dangerous habit―one he should have kept in check after one of the girls his year had been cursed when she had found a beautiful necklace. But he could not help himself, there was just something about the mirror that spoke to him.

He sighed at how cold the surface felt against his fingers, the ice of it chilling him to his core. But it did not deter him despite it.

His hand grew numb from the frigidness, but it was hardly a concern for Harry. No one could come upon him and see him touching the mirror. This was a private moment for him to satisfy his own curiosity. And give in to the strange compulsion squirming in his gut.

“Harry.”

The boy jumped, snatching his hand quickly away from the mirror to survey just where in the room the voice had come from. Harry was sure he had been alone; no one knew about the room, save himself. He was absolutely sure of it.

He was tempted to search the room to uncover just where he heard the voice, but there was a nagging in the back of his mind that begged him to remain where he was. It was that strange sensation again, a tingling that reminded him that there was something of interest behind him that he should be more interested in than who could possibly be in the room.

Harry waited with baited breath for the voice to speak again. But the seconds that Harry waited stretched to minutes, and those minutes stretched to an indeterminable amount of time without a single sound. Harry was wary of the room now, distrustful even of the space he had only moments before been savoring.

It left a bad taste in his mouth, but something had said his name.

It was with great reluctance that Harry turned his attention back to the mirror, his own reflection staring back into his own. Harry could see the suspicion in his own eyes, a tenseness to his shoulders that had not been there moments prior.

Harry was afraid to admit that he was unsettled, but he refused to let it show. To let the voice in his mind dictate how he should conduct himself.

Nothing could be dangerous here. Dumbledore had made sure of it when he had defeated Grindelwald and saved the wizarding world from chaos. It only made sense that his protection would extend to the school as well.

Though Harry was not sure that also applied to hidden rooms too.

But that did not mean that Harry was going to leave.

Harry reached out once more, pressing his fingers against the glass as he had been earlier. It still felt cold, but it was somehow warmer? Harry knew there was something different this time, his fingers still felt numb, but the glass was not a glacier.

“That’s odd…”Harry murmured to himself, concentrating on the room reflected by the glass rather than himself. Everything looked the same.

It made Harry wonder if the mirror was somehow enchanted. It had to be if time refused to touch it. In some way, all of the items in the room were magic, so it only made sense that this mirror would retain its own glamour too.

But what kind of power could it have?

“Is there a particular reason you are touching me so? It is quite rude.” Harry froze, snatching his hand back as if he’d been burned. There was nothing reflected in the mirror, but Harry was quite sure he had heard something speak from it. The tone had been soft, curious even, but not one Harry had ever heard before.

“...You can talk.” Harry managed to choke out, but only just. Looking for some sort of person behind the glass, to see his own self speak to him as the enchanted mirrors in Hogwarts often did. Except he had complete control of his own reflection and there was nothing in the clutter reflected that revealed anyone else.

Harry was alone. Or at least, he seemed to be.

After a long pause, the mirror spoke again. It felt like it was trying to gather enough to strength to speak.

“…yes. It has been a long time since I have had the strength. You are the first person to come across me since I came to be here.”

Harry pursued his lips at that, drinking in the rich sound of the man’s voice. It was beautiful, almost like a melody Harry had long forgotten. It was odd though, because Harry was sure he had never heard this voice before, in both his time in Hogwarts and on the radio.

“How did you come to be here?” Harry was curious, plopping his arse on the dirty floor to wait for the mirror to speak. He wanted to hear its story, charmed by the idea of an object somehow retaining some sort of sentiency.

He faintly recalled the warnings of his own parents when he was a young boy, even of the Weasley’s, urging him to steer clear of objects that seemed autonomous. Very rarely did good things come out of it, but what his parents didn’t know would not hurt them.

The mirror was silent for a moment, just as it had been earlier when it answered, before the rich sound from it came again. Harry wanted to close his eyes to listen, but he refrained. It was embarrassing how a voice could make him feel so at peace and intrigued.

What would Ron say to that? Harry almost snorted at that thought.

“…I used to be a student just like you. I had dreams and aspirations. Plans prepared for when I would graduate and set out to explore the world…” Harry’s breath hitched at how sad the voice sounded, the melancholy clinging onto him like a second skin. The mirror had grown silent, but Harry somehow knew that the mirror was not finished telling its tale.

“…I was an avid scholar. I wanted to learn the secrets of the world. But then, I made a mistake when conducting one of the many experiments I did in pursuit of knowledge.” Harry listened avidly, drinking in the words as they were said. He did not understand why he felt so empathetic. It was almost as if he himself had been trapped in the mirror, his own dreams crushed through no will of his own.

“The experiment went wrong. And I somehow ended up here, in this mirror. No one knew I was here…this room was my haven from the prying eyes of my peers.” The mirror’s voice sounded strained at the end his phrase, and Harry felt an unexplainable fear coil in his gut at the prospect of the voice never speaking again. “Lost… forgotten. Until you found me.”

The voice sounded happy then, and Harry could not help smiling in response. Harry was surprised at how much he wanted to help the mirror then. He didn’t know a single thing about this sort of magic, but he had to help. He couldn’t just leave this person trapped in the mirror for Merlin knows how long. He steeled himself for the difficult task and sat up from the floor, careful not to touch the mirror after being admonished for it earlier.

“I’ll help you get out of there.”

Harry spoke with conviction, his eyes staring into the mirror as if to convey just how readily he’d act. He could not help that he was a bleeding heart, often picked on by the Slytherins for his habit of helping those in need. His parents had taught him the importance of helping others, and this mirror was not any different than Neville when Snape was particularly cruel to him.

There was no ifs, ands, or buts. He was going to help even if the mirror did not want it.

“…you would help a perfect stranger? I could be dangerous.” The voice sounded almost amused, and Harry grimaced at the wisdom in the mirror’s comment.

“Stranger or not, you need my help! I can’t just leave you like this.” Harry was stubborn, lifting his chin despite the likelihood that the mirror could not actually see the gesture. “You used to be a person, I'm sure there is a way to bring you back.”

The mirror was silent once more, but Harry knew it would respond. It just had to.

Even if it did not agree, Harry was simply going to help it anyway. He’d get Ron and Hermione here post haste to get started on their plan.

They’d probably call him an idiot, but they’d help him all the same.

“…You’re too kind. It seems that you are bent on helping me regardless of my wishes. Then please, help me. But I have a few conditions.” Harry nodded his head eagerly, pleased that the mirror did not put up a fight.

“You are to tell no one about me…my predicament is one of its kind. I might be carted away to the Ministry to be experimented on, otherwise.” Harry was shocked, understanding dawning at the reality that that would definitely be his fate. The Ministry was at peace now, but that did not mean the same thing for a lot of magical items. Harry recalled the many raids into wizarding homes for dark objects---for things that had been a part of generations of families, to be dissected and never to be returned to their true owners.

Harry did not want that for the mirror. He refused to give it up to the wolves when Harry had only just found it.

“Okay, I won’t.” Harry almost nodded his head before he caught himself, recalling again that the mirror could probably not see him.

“What was your name before you became trapped in the mirror?” Harry almost kicked himself at not asking earlier, feeling rather rude that he had practically forced his help on the object but did not bother to ask the most simplest of questions.

“…Tom Riddle. I was a seventh year…what is the name of my savior?”

Harry melted at the sound, intrigued by the name.

It suited the mirror. It was definitely a riddle.

“My name is Harry Potter, and I am also finishing up my last year here at Hogwarts.”

Harry grinned back at the mirror, entirely too trusting of the mirror he had found.

[etoilesdephan]

Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt? (Chapter 8: Efferno)

Chapter masterpost

Chapter words: almost 3.5k!!!

Overall words: 20.5k

Read it on ao3!

Trigger warning: Dissociation, Sexual abuse/Non-con elements, homophobic slurs, general slurs, blood, violence!!!!!!

FOR THE SAKE OF THE PEOPLE WHO MAY BE UNABLE TO READ THIS CHAPTER DUE TO THE AMOUNT OF TRIGGERS IN IT: I will write a basic summary of the fic at the end of this chapter, so if you'd prefer to avoid any of the aforementioned themes but still know what happened in this chapter, scroll to the bottom of this chapter for the summary <3

He was floating.

His head was full of the medication that they had put him on and it was the closest to peace and inebriation that he had felt in what felt like an eternity. And perhaps he had been there for millenias, because there was no sense of time inside his skull, his movements felt foreign and the lights and sounds were just a jumbled mess that he was swimming through.

His chest felt too light and too heavy at the same time, his breathing felt too shallow, his thoughts were snails and he closed his eyes, unaware of the voice addressing him.

The next time he came to it again, it was a lot dimmer and his mouth was too dry. Grunting a little, his muscles sore, he turned over and it was then that the steps resonated in his mind and he looked up. A man in medical clothing was surveying him while Dan pushed himself upright, a little uncertain in his movements.

‘’What…’’  He began to question, but he didn’t finish, the memories returning quite swiftly. ‘’Panic--’’

‘’-- Attack, that is correct, how are you feeling now?’’ The man who Dan assumed to be prison’s local doctor took over the conversation with ease, bringing out a small light that was soon shone into Dan’s eyes and he felt the sting of the sudden change of brightness but it was gone before he could fully comprehend it.

‘’Fine. Sore…?’’ His response was automatic, voice as void of emotion as was his whole being. There was faintness in the muscles and he didn’t even bother attempting to push his hair aside though a particularly long curl was starting to fall into his eyes by now. His scalp ached faintly, but he didn’t question it, too familiar with his panic response and the tendency to pull at his hair subconsciously.

It had been so long since the last panic attack where he had blacked out or had required medicine to calm him down. Usually there was a pair of hands, a soothing voice, light touches that would grow to be a full on embrace and lithe fingers drawing calming circles on his spine. There would be the familiarity of the surroundings and the actual issue at hand would be something minor; usually a combination of things piling up for far too many months finally tipping over.

It had been forever since the last time he had felt like he was a prisoner of his own flesh, his soul screeching on the inside and filling his own head with noise for nobody else to ever hear.

It had been so long since he had felt that pulling himself physically apart would remedy the chaos.

‘’Do you feel like you can walk, return to your cell for the night?’’ he barely registered the question, but nodded, accepting the cup of water that had been offered to him and emptying it quickly, a cold dribble running down his chin and neck with some of the spilled droplets.

It was before he knew it that he was back in the cell, and the silence was heavy, a little awkwardness hanging in the air. Dan, however, was used to it by now.

It always felt like his cellmates weren't saying something.

======

The calls and visits came and went, his parents and, eventually his brother, visiting. They worried, at first out loud, then - quietly, though Dan could see right through their calm and casual questions and attempts at small talk that involved bringing Dan up to date with random entertainment happenings and life things.

Lesters and others arrived, explaining the damage control done and the things that they had done to mend the mess that the media had caused. He politely responded and thanked accordingly.

He made calls, as always; it was a tradition that he nor wished nor dared to break. It was one of those moments of being in control, pressing the buttons, before it was all gone and he had to hope for the best when the voice on the other side spoke, most of the time - in Martyn's persona.

April had bled into May and May was wrapping up with ease. Dan, however, was all the same.

Bruises painted his body. Stoic or trained expressions kept his features exercised. Work kept him busy.

Nightmares were an earned punishment still, having exceeded most of the bloody shock, now lingering in every dream to taint the fondest of memories and the calmest of nights with a sudden change. The few times of pure blackness were a blessing that he didn't dare to appreciate consciously, were they to be taken away from him just like everything else he held close.

=====

“Hey fag, get out of my spot,” There was laughter and he would have squirmed at the slur if he hadn't yet gotten accustomed to hearing it.

Though a lot of damage was done outside the prison, Dan had soon become aware that as much had been done on the inside of it, too.

It had been a passing hiss in his direction when someone shoved him in the hallways (A form of violence that was the most popular, due to the easy nature to defend against any accusations if a guard was to notice it). It was the looks some of the men gave him in the showers, and the snickering about how he probably was getting off to what he saw there. It was how they went out of their way to make his life harder, pushing him out of familiar places and knocking things out of his reach.

Having lost his already non-existent appetite, he pushed up from his seat and emptied his tray in the trash, feeling eyes on him and noticed the few men speaking in something that sounded like mockery.

Dan, however, had grown numb to it. Just like the knuckles had hurt at first, so did the words, but soon enough it had become enough of a routine for him to just zone out or to let them sink so deep that they were buried in the void of his being. He zoned out of his own mind and body, just moving through the days with a trained facade of expressions, responses and movements.

Days and nights blurred together with ease at those moments, but Dan found solitude in that disconnection from the reality.

=====

“Happy birthday, honey,” She was as gentle as ever with her greetings, the genuine greeting mixing with the worried nature of the mother when they met a day after the 11th day of June had rolled around and disappeared into the blur of the days. Dan regarded her warmly, though there was a certain emptiness in his dark gaze and the smile didn't quite reach anything else but his lips.

“Thanks, mum,” He said as fondly as he could muster and his eyes trailed over to the next face. When did his father age so much? Dan couldn't remember seeing the creeping greyness in the man's hair before.

When did his brother become so holed up? They hadn't been super open to each other, but it felt like it had expanded from a lack of talking between the brothers to a coldness between his family members. Though they never said a word about it, he could see it, and there was a part of him, a jumbled mess of emotions that worried, that was angry, at them, at himself, at the law and situation. A part of him felt so helpless that his mind was beginning to slip again and the picture before his eyes felt less and less real with every passing moment but he clung to the reality with the remains of his will.

“How's grandma?” He tried to steer the conversation into a more familiar direction, to try and find some familial love still, to see that his mistakes hadn't tainted his whole family as terribly as he felt it had.

“She's well, and sending all of her love,” His mum began to speak, before Adrian budged in, a light laugh escaping the younger brother's lips “Keeps going on how she would kick all of the judges for throwing you in the harm's way. I think she would actually slap the lawyer if she'd ever meet him face to face again.”

Warmth poured into his bones a little and he leaned slightly closer to his brother, finding what he had been looking for, even if only a little bit of it ''Look out, grandma might actually pull out grandpa's hunting shotgun to go after them at this rate.''

Thankfully, his weak attempt to joke was well received and the air eased a little, the reality remained. His emotions, however, began to pressure his chest and the knot in his throat was becoming more prominent.

It was before the meeting was even over that he had slipped back into the familiar blurry fog again.

======

There were some rare rays of sun flooding in through the window as Dan was scrubbing away at the shower floor, the action robotic in his weakened muscles, and it took a light jab at his ribs to finally realise that his inmate was trying to get his attention.

“You sure are absent-minded,” Rudy commented and that Cheshire-like smile was still gracing his lips, the pearl-whites clear in Dan's line of vision.

“What do you want?” He asked, and through it all he tried to look natural, rolling his eyes though the action made him feel unwell.

There was a certain degree of kinship that he had found in the odd prisoner. Though they failed to have proper communication, Rudy had still remained the one constant person in Dan's prison life that wasn't threatening, even through all the trouble. Sure, their conversation was usually very one-sided, Rudy rambling away about whatever was on his mind, jumping topics quicker than Dan could follow even if he tried and with Dan just listening, only nodding briefly once in awhile.

It was almost like he had a friend, though he didn't dare to call their kinship anything remotely close to that.

“A rug?” There was a lingering edge of laughter in the other man's voice, one that always seemed eerie to Dan but he had learned to accept it over the months.

“Can't you get it yourself?” Dan moved the mop as if to say I am kind of preoccupied here right now only to receive an unintelligible mutter back from the other man and Dan's lips bowed a little in a vague reminiscence of a smile. There was a kind of comfort in the minimal banter, and though it was a painful reminder of a fading voice, he still liked to imagine that it was Phil and not Rudy who turned the corner when Rudy found no rug in the cart and retreated to the supply cabinet. That the mop of black hair was not of a vaguely familiar persona but of someone he truly still loved.

He knew that Phil would never land himself locked behind the bars though. Though not exactly the angel that their fans had used to paint him, Dan knew that Phil was a good person and his mistakes were never quite as bad as Dan's.

A faint sigh fell from his lips and Dan turned back to his work, scrubbing at the floor and letting his mind wander off.

The last he had heard, there'd been no change, they said.

But there /had/ been a change, and it was in the voice that he had heard through the receiver; it was the sound of someone beginning to lose hope. Someone who struggled to stay positive and who was slowly starting to accept the worst probable outcome.

Dan had succumbed to tears that night. They hadn't fallen for a while, he couldn't will them to, but it took that little waver in Martyn's tone to tip Dan, and his pillow had still been moist in the morning when he woke up.

By now he had returned to that numb state, where he liked to think that nothing truly bothered him. Where a large gap had formed between him and the other inmates, enough to keep him safe, even if safety was a fake term, and the bruises on his skin were as fresh as those on his soul from the harsh words spoken.

There were silent steps behind him and Dan assumed Rudy's return, not bothering to turn around as he continued to scrub at an annoying spot on the floor, determined to at least succeed at this single task given to him today.

It took him a moment though, to realise that there was none of the usual muttering, and instead there were eyes on him.

“Can you stop staring?” He asked, turning to look over at the other man, but instead of meeting that Cheshire grin, he was met with the squared features of the man he'd come to learn was named Stanley. The same one whose knuckles he knew too well, whose voice was poisonous and thick, the same one who was usually there with his pals, but now stood too close to Dan on his own, yet no less threatening.

“Heard you like dick,” Though not a something that he hadn't heard before, Dan still felt a threat in the words and he gripped the mop tighter, holding it close to his body as if it could keep him safe.

“Bet you miss it, too,” Stanley took a step forward and, instinctively, Dan took one back. Though jokes were common, nobody had ever made Dan feel this threatened. The burning power and an unwelcome desire in the eyes that made Dan want to either hurl or run.

It was another step back that he realised that he was trapped against the corner of the showers, and for the first time in his stay in the prison, he truly missed Rudy's presence. “I have work to do,” He tried to tell the man off without a profanity in his mouth, a small part of him afraid to trigger the usual violence that he had come to accept, because something told him that it wouldn't be the only thing on the line now.

His words, however, were completely ignored and Dan felt trapped against the tiled corner when the man came too close. His frame was too large and seemed too immovable; it was like being trapped in a room with the walls closing in on him.

It was when the other leaned in too close, that Dan finally reacted, shoving the mop forward and using it as a leverage to push the other man away “Get OFF,” his throat felt raw as the anger bubbled up from within finally, so carefully buried for the past months, suddenly breaking through that numb facade.

His world faded to black then, for a moment, when a heavy fist collided with his face forcefully, and his knees buckled, ready to fall. But he never hit the floor, and instead he felt the tight grip on the front of his sweater, the fabric cutting into the sides of his neck painfully and he groaned, both in pain and the dizziness that was ringing in his head from the earlier impact. His temple was pulsing and he could already imagine the bruise that would soon appear on his skin, now visible to everyone.

“You really don't learn, do you? Fucking pain slut,” and before he knew it, he was yanked away from the wall only for his face to collide with the cool tiles soon after, body turned around, his cheek pressed flat against the tiles as his teeth clattered together painfully, the sound echoing inside his head unpleasantly. He felt the other man's body forced up close against his back, pinning him to the spot and there was that poisonously dripping tone hissing right into his ear again “How about I fuck that ass of yours, maybe you'll become more obedient when you've finally got a taste of a dick again, hm? I bet your stupid little boyfriend couldn't satisfy you enough.”

There were hands, foreign, rough and so very big, on his body, trailing over his sides, his hips. There was breath, hot and wet against the back of his neck.

He hated it.

So many memories had been tainted by his own mind with the help of the nightmares, now life had thrown in a real life reminder of how the sweetest moments could be turned sour so easily. How the things he associated with trust, love and gentleness could be ripped away from him so easily.

The hands were offending, groping around, having a taste of what could not be had so easily.

It was a moment of complete dread when Dan realised that a certain tightness against his body wasn't just the muscles pinning him down and instead there was a bulging in Stanley's pants that the other was too keen to press close against Dan, searching relief. Instantly, he squirmed, hands grabbing at everything that he could, and he dug his nails into the other man's thigh as tightly as he could when it was the only thing that he could grab onto.

There was a hiss of pain and the grip weakened for a moment, allowing Dan to draw in a breath.

He had to scream. He had to call for anyone to not let this happen.

Of all the things.

They could hit him. Call him names.

But he was not ready to give away the remains of his already fading dignity.

It was only a brief sound that he managed to make though, before a hand was clasped over his mouth and nose and his breath caught, eyes wide, and he tried to struggle when he felt the tug at his pants, the fairly loose fabric giving in easily.

He whimpered, breathlessly, against the hand, the lack of oxygen leaving him grasping around frantically for anything that he could use to free himself.

The feeling of hot, rigidly hard flesh against his glutes was not welcome and Dan's heart was going nuts, both, from the lack of oxygen and the absolute panic. He tried to push his hands against the wall, to try and leverage the much bigger man off from himself.

He felt too exposed, too vulnerable and he hated it and it pounded in his head with the bubbling mixture of anger and fright.

There was another hiss as their bodies came closer, but instead of dissatisfaction, Dan realised, it was one of pleasure, and a cold shiver ran down his back.

This couldn't be happening. So many things had been stripped from him, but he'd never expected that this would be part of the price that he would have to pay--

Suddenly, Stanley's loud yelling filled the showers, echoing painfully against the walls and the inside of Dan's pulsing head when the first initial sound had begun right next to his ear. But there was a blessing in the sound, too, because suddenly Stanley was pulled away, and his screeching swears were pronounced in, what seemed, pain.

Dan quickly pulled his at his trousers to pull them back on and turned to witness a scene that he'd only expected in some weird horror and thriller mix. Rudy had leapt on Stanley's back, arms around the large man, nails digging into Stanley's chest and his teeth had sunk into the taller man's shoulder.

He could see blood spilling from where the skin gave into the pressure of the teeth, and it made Dan freeze for a moment before Stanley backed into a wall, attempting to get rid of the smaller man attached to his back. It was when a pained yelp escaped Rudy's lips that the cold shiver was exchanged by the hot red flash that ran through Dan's body and suddenly his mind was blank.

There was only one thought.

And it was to hurt the man in front of him. For what he had done. For what he had attempted to do. For what he had said.

He launched forward, fists hitting everywhere they could reach, feeling the returned blows but numb to the pain, though his vision was losing clarity with every impact that sharply shot through his body, unnoticed by the rage-filled brain.

He didn't even realise when several guards had ran into the room, pulling the three men apart, and it was soon that Dan was thrown against the floor and held down, a knee pressing into his lower back painfully. He didn't struggle anymore then though, the numerous hits finally starting to resonate, and he moaned, lowly, the pain shooting through the entirety of his body and landing somewhere in the centre of his head.

It hurt.

It hurt so much.

His face was wet when his consciousness faded once again.

=====

=====

=====

CHAPTER SUMMARY: After the panic attack in the previous chapter, Dan awakens in the medical side of the prison, but is soon released back to his cell.

Dan begins to dissociate, finding it the best way to deal with the fading days filled with not only being punched now but also with the other prisoners calling him homophobic slurs and making jokes related, as well as by pushing him out of the familiar places in the prison, such as not letting him calmly finish his food etc.

His birthday comes and goes, his family visits as soon as possible, but Dan notices that there seems to be some distance between his parents and brother that hadn't been there before. This makes him both, angry and sad, because he doesn't remember things getting this bad.

One day Dan finds himself at shower cleaning duty with Rudy. Too distracted, Dan doesn't realise that Rudy has been trying to get his attention. Soon enough he gains it but they don't find the rug that Rudy has been looking for and Rudy leaves to find one.

Left alone, Dan reminisces of Phil privately and doesn't react much when he hears someone coming into the shadows, thinking it's Rudy. It's not, and Stanley corners Dan and attempts to take advantage of him and Dan struggles to try and not let him do it.

Thankfully, Rudy comes to the rescue, attacking Stanley from behind and therefore freeing Dan.

Dan blanks out in anger and the three get in a fight until several guards pull them apart. Having suffered a lot of blows, Dan, once again, blacks out.