#the coffee pot i can perhaps redirect

[sealochs]

half the things i made in pottery this past term were christmas presents for his parents. what the fuck am i meant to do with them when they come out the kiln. i made a coffee pot for his dad, a paint pallet for his mum, a dog bowl for their fucking dog. i feel so mortified & so angry & so so sad.

[winterscaptain]

joint chiefs.

Aaron Hotchner x Gender Neutral Reader

a/n: aunt tali is back for the third night in a row (whoops). this can be a stand-alone, but the original intention was to follow up in the dark, a few years later. it’s totally not necessary to read that one beforehand, but it might be fun! as always, tell me if i’ve screwed up somewhere and i’ll fix it right away :) words: 3853 warnings: swearing, some good kissing, snark, a couple of references that you get bonus points for recognizing some vocab, just in case: CARD: child abduction rapid deployment team, SAIC: special agent in charge, taking six/on your six: covering your partner’s back

ao3 | masterlist | requests closed

+++

You rolled over when your phone rang, answering it right away. “Hotchner.” You checked your watch on its charger. Just after 6am.

Can’t kidnappers wait until the sun’s up?

“We need you in the field today. CARD presence has been requested in Chicago for an all-hands, time-sensitive joint case. Details are incoming, but may be slow to reach you - I have very few myself. When can you be in the office?” The voice of your section chief came at you rapid-fire, and you sat up, rubbing your eyes.

“Yes ma’am. I can be there as soon as my sister-in-law gets here for Jack. I’ll call her now and give you an ETA when I have one. I can’t imagine it will be more than an hour.”

“Thank you. I know it’s a lot to ask with Aaron out on a case as well.”

“It’s alright, ma’am. I’ll be in touch.” You hung up and dressed quickly, calling Jess.

“Got a case?” She sounded terribly chipper for this hour.

“Yeah, I do. I’m so sorry to wake you,” you added lamely.

She chuckled. “You didn’t, and I should thank you. You just saved me from my 7am yoga class.”

“Well, put it on my tab. How quick can you get here?”

“I’ll be there in 20.”

You thanked her again and padded down the hallway to Jack’s room. Kneeling beside him, you brushed some hair off his forehead. It was enough to wake him. He blinked sleepily up at you and reached for you. You wrapped him in your arms, stroking the back of his head. 

“Hey bud. I’ve got a case I gotta go on, but Aunt Jess will be with you until Dad or I get home, okay?”

He nodded, closing his eyes again.

You kissed his forehead. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” he mumbled.

You shot a text to your section chief. Be there in 35 mins.

You made yourself a quick breakfast and a pot of coffee. You pulled a travel mug for yourself and a mug from the cabinet for Jess (It said Someone from San Antonio Loves Me!, but that was neither here nor there). 

Your go bag was already in the car – BAU habits die hard.

Jess arrived in record time, giving you a quick kiss on the cheek and taking her cup of coffee out of your hand. You’d grown close in the last few years, and considered her as much of a sister as Aaron did at this point. 

You slipped out the door as quietly as possible, jumping into the car and driving straight to the Quantico airstrip.

The plane was waiting for you, and you greeted the CARD B-Team as you sat down.

+++

The flight to Chicago wasn’t too long, but you managed to get some sleep on the way.

When you were on your final descent, you checked your email, finding no further information from your section chief, other than a case file for a series of missing children and address for the precinct. You didn’t have any information about the other factions of the joint case. Hopefully it wasn’t those jokers at the State Department. They meant well, but they never played nicely with the bureau.

You almost laughed out loud when you arrived at the local precinct, finding the backsides of both Spencer Reid and Derek Morgan in front of an evidence board.

“Hey, Chief?” One of your SSA’s – Agent Esme Salinger, stepped up beside you. “Aren’t those guys from your old unit?”

“They sure are.”

She snorted. “This’ll be fun.”

The back door opened, and Aaron, Emily, and Dave barreled in, heading straight for the conference room.

“You may be right about that,” you said distractedly. 

Aaron was barking about something in his Unit Chief Voice™, but you couldn’t make out the details as he kept moving. They pinned new evidence on the board right away, not taking any time to clock your presence.

That didn’t last long. Your newest agent, Knowles, jogged up to you with his go bag slung over his shoulder. “Hey, Hotch,” he said, way too loudly, “where should we park the cars?”

You whirled to face him, directing him to park by the other federal vehicles around the side of the building. You stifled your smile as you felt eyes turn to your back.

When you turned, you found the entire BAU grinning at you. You crossed to the conference room, wordlessly asking your team to hold where they were as you left them behind.

“SSA Hotchner. Good to see you again.” you said, approaching Aaron, your hand extended and tone extremely formal. 

He bit back a smile and he shook your hand with an unreasonable firmness. He matched you note for note. “SSA Hotchner. Glad to have you with us.”

You winked at him.

With a wave of your hand, your team trailed across the room and fell into a line at your back like a pack of well-trained ducklings. With a certain degree of pride, you introduced them to the BAU one by one.

“...And this is SSA Aaron Hotchner, BAU Unit Chief.” You looked at your husband with a small, fond smile before sobering and redirecting your attention to your team. “For the sake of clarity, we’ll switch back to my SAIC callsign – Ace – while we’re working with the BAU. Understood?”

They nodded, and got to work, pairing off with your former teammates to determine their plan of action.

Aaron stood beside you at the board. Staring straight ahead, his arms crossed, he asked, “Ace?”

“Yeah – I used all your poker tricks and cleaned them out my first week back at CARD as SAIC.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Excellent.”

+++

Aaron let himself into your hotel room just as you finished hanging the rest of your clothes in the minuscule closet. He came up behind you, dropping his hands to the waistband of your pajama pants and kissing your neck with a kind of desperate gentleness.

You smiled and tilted your head, bringing a hand up and carding your fingers through the hair at his temples. “Miss me?”

“You have no idea,” he said against your skin.

You turned in his arms and kissed him, pouring all your love and pride into it. He opened his mouth to you, and the way his tongue ran against yours stole your breath. He emitted a low groan when you scraped your teeth along his lower lip and he backed you up toward the bed.

“Planning on gettin’ some tonight, Agent Hotchner?”

He huffed a laugh, his mouth falling to the underside of your jaw and around to the sensitive skin over your carotid artery. You fell back on the bed, and he followed. 

There was a knock at the door. You both froze, his body hovering over yours. 

“Fuck,” you whispered, nearly throwing him off you.

He pressed his back to the wall by the bed, out of sight from the door. There was a shit-eating grin on his face. You rolled your eyes and straightened your shirt, hoping things weren’t too out of place.

Agent Salinger was on the other side of the door. “Hey, Ace. Do you have a minute?”

You leaned against the doorframe, trying to imitate something that looked casual. “Sure. What’s up?”

“Did you happen to bring any Advil with you? I’ve got a splitting headache and I’m out.”

“Sure, give me just a second.”

You left the door cracked and dug your med kit out of your go bag. Aaron tugged on the back of your shirt as you passed, and you swatted at him out of habit. Retrieving a small handful of tablets, you poured them into a little ziploc, sealed it, and returned to the door.

“Here, Salinger. This should hold you over if it continues through the end of the case. If you’re still hurting after we land back at Quantico, go ahead and visit the infirmary to see if they can do anything for you. That concussion’s still healing.” You smiled at her. “We need you sharp, alright?”

She took them gratefully, and gave you a mock salute. “Thanks. You’re the best.”

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” you joked. “Anything else you needed?”

She shook her head. “Have a good night, Ace.” She paused, hiding a smile and raising her voice a little, rising up on her toes. “You too, Hotch!”

You huffed and rolled your eyes. “Goodnight, Salinger. Sleep well.”

“Feel better!” Aaron’s voice came from around the corner, and you rolled your eyes. 

“Sleep well, you two.” Then, with a suggestive, curling smile, “Need a wake-up call in the morning?”

You shut the door in her face with a laugh and another farewell. As it closed, you leaned against it heavily. “Oh, I am never going to hear the end of that.”

Aaron turned the corner, loosening his tie. “Now, we’re even.”

You looped your arms around his neck as you remembered that day, years ago.

“You know, for a pair of profilers you guys really suck at sneaking around.” JJ’s voice echoed in your head. 

“I guess so,” you laughed. “This marriage is about give and take, after all.”

He kissed you languidly and you could feel the tension as he did his best to hide his smile. 

+++

“Hey, Hotch, how come you don’t have a cool nickname?” Derek said, grinning behind his sunglasses as they all piled into the car.

“I’d have one if you gave me one,” he quipped. You drove the car in front of him, the window rolled down and your elbow visible where it rested in the frail Chicago sunshine. 

He was excited to see you back in action. With your position as deputy unit chief, your role in the field was limited to emergency situations only. And with the CARD A-Team up in Pennsylvania for the week, you were stuck wrangling the younger agents on your own. 

That said, it was exciting for you to take point, and even more so to work alongside Aaron again.

The difference this time? You were peers. You had the same title, the same posture, the same authority. 

And perhaps most importantly, very little scrutiny regarding possibly-shared hotel rooms.

+++

He knocked on your door in the little pattern he picked up from you, and you opened it with a faux-serious expression. 

“Agent Hotchner, we can't keep meeting like this.”

He raised an eyebrow at you. 

He has a motive. 

You opened the door further and draped yourself against him where he stood in the hallway, continuing dramatically, “What will the people think?”

With surprising, but still gentle, force, he pushed you back into the room and pressed you against the wall. There was a click behind him as the door swung shut. 

You gasped, and your hands were suddenly over your head, locked between his fingers. 

“I think,” he said, wet, breathy kisses trailing down your neck and behind your ear, “the people will be appalled,” his lips closed around your skin as he painted marks over your collarbones, “by the unprofessional,” he released your hands, dropped to his knees and raised your shirt, “shocking,” he laved kisses across your stomach, “and unbecoming conduct of two senior agents.” His final words were delivered against your left hip.

You wound your hands in his hair and inhaled shakily. He pressed kisses and swept sweet bruises into your skin until you couldn’t feel anything but him.

When his mouth ghosted over you through your pajama pants, you knew exactly where the night was going. 

Your knees gave out, and you dropped into his lap, straddling him. You traced a hand down the side of his face, over his jaw. He leaned into it, and you roughened, taking his chin between your fingers With a firm, controlled jerk, you brought his lips to yours. His hips twitched, and you bit his lower lip in retaliation. 

He let out a low moan in his chest and his hands rucked up your shirt. They splayed across your back and shoulders, calloused and familiar. 

Allegedly, you made it to the bed at some point. If your exhaustion the next morning wasn’t enough evidence, the duvet on the floor and the pillows on the wrong side of the bed would happily testify to the lack of sleeping you did once you got there. 

+++

The next day at the evidence board found you and Aaron with identical, massive cups of coffee. 

Agents Salinger and Knowles sat at the table the next room over, reviewing interviews with JJ. 

“Do you think they ever, you know,” Knowles made a vaguely obscene gesture with his hand, and Salinger covered her mouth to hide her laugh. 

JJ didn’t look up from her notes, but replied, deadpan, “You have no idea.”

The younger agents snickered and watched you two work. 

It was easy. Even considering the stressful, time-sensitive nature of the unsub’s escalation over the previous four hours, you both moved around each other with a grace that only came with time. 

+++

A critical error. 

That’s the only thing you thought when you busted into the unsub’s house, minutes after your agents. The unsub was nowhere in sight, and Salinger was on the floor with her partner, putting pressure on a mild wound on his forehead and temple. 

Your jaw tightened and you shot them a look. 

I’ll deal with you later. 

Later came faster than even you could have imagined. You rounded the corner of the precinct to find Aaron laying into your agents for their screw-up back at the house. 

You stepped up to them with purpose and put a firm hand on Aaron’s arm. 

“Hotch, can I speak with you for a moment?” you looked at your agents and then back at him. “Privately.” 

It took everything in you to resist slamming the interrogation room door behind you. 

“What on this God-given green Earth made you think it was appropriate to discipline my agents?” 

He took a deep breath before replying and dropped into what you, usually fondly, referred to as Lawyer Mode. It was far less endearing in that moment, and only served to further piss you off. “Their mistakes cost us an arrest today. With this level of escalation, we could have two more missing kids by sundown. They needed to be made aware of their critical failure.”

You pressed your hands to the cool table, realizing you two were facing off over the surface like two cowboys in an old Western.

This town ain’t big enough for the both of us…

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

“No, I think it’s time sensitive and needed to be addressed immediately.” He crossed his arms. 

Damn it. 

You changed tactics, opening your shoulders as you braced yourself on the table. “I’m acutely aware of the time-sensitive nature of this case, which is why I was waiting to reprimand them until they had the time to actually process it. They’re young. They get caught up in it, and Salinger is particularly prone to amplifying rejection, so she’ll be unwilling to take risks until we fly home for fear of inspiring your ire and my disappointment. They fucked up, I know. But I know my team, I know how they need to be handled so we can continue working on this case. You don’t.”

The frustration had drained out of him during your tirade and was replaced with contrition. You were right, and he knew it. You softened your tone, but only a little.

“Aaron, I need you to trust me to handle my team effectively. I don’t need you to step in on my behalf.” Your frustration crawled up into your throat, and you begged your tears not to betray you. Swallowing, you collected yourself and stared him right in the eye. “You undermined my authority today. Please don’t do it again.”

His mouth pressed into a thin, remorseful line. He looked down at the table and took a deep breath. Meeting your eyes again, he said, “I respect and value your leadership and your position. You are, and always will be, the best person to lead your team. I got caught up in my frustration and failed to consider the optics and the specific needs of your agents. I’m sorry.” He rounded the table, crossing to you. “It won’t happen again.” 

There was silence for a moment. Then, Aaron crossed the chasm between colleagues and spouses and reached for your hands, running his thumb over your wedding ring. It was a silent reminder, for both of you. 

Fight nice.

“Thank you.” Sighing, you brought one of your hands to the lapel of his suit jacket, fiddling with it just for something to do as you spoke. “You need to apologize to my agents for overstepping and emphasize that you defer to me on all aspects regarding CARD involvement in the case.” 

“I can do that.” His lips quirked up into the smile you loved, the smile that only you saw. “Forgive me?” 

You heaved a sigh. “I guess so.” He met your eyes and you broke, a little smile threatening at the corners of your mouth. “Let’s get out there and save some kids today, yeah?”

He released your hand and crossed the room, opening the door for you - a wordless agreement, as well as a reiteration of support you so deeply cherished. 

+++

It only took you another hour to locate the unsub - even though he used forensic countermeasures, he wasn’t all that bright. One swipe of his credit card, and Garcia had him in her clutches. 

You raced to his location. Aaron drove the lead car with Derek behind him, and you brought up the rear with the rest of the team. It was more than a little thrilling to drive impossibly fast, sirens wailing, headed to end this man’s reign of terror on Chicago families. 

Throwing the car into park strategically perpendicular to Derek’s SUV, you jumped out of the car and drew your weapon. You took Aaron’s six through the front of the house, a calm settling over you as the pair of you fell right into line. 

Aaron found the unsub in the back bedroom, with a knife held to the most recently kidnapped child. You squared up just off Aaron’s left shoulder for a clear line of sight, avoiding his right side. If you had to fire a shot, the last thing you wanted to do was aggravate his bad ear. 

Out of the corner of your eye, Derek lined up a clean shot through the window. He knew to wait for Hotch, who had started to talk the unsub down, before taking any action. 

Your heart swelled with both pride and affection as Aaron successfully and handily de-escalated the situation and made the arrest himself. He passed the unsub off to the local officers, and you both continued searching the house for the missing children. 

JJ found them first, unharmed and terrified, in a hidden shed out back. She deferred to you, and you called your team over to perform a quick trauma eval on each of the children. 

Knowles and Salinger, still twitchy from their earlier run-in with Aaron, settled down once they were able to perform their designated duties with their colleagues. 

When they were finished, Aaron pulled them aside and spoke quietly with them for a moment. Salinger’s mouth twisted into a little smile, and Knowles took a deep breath. Every once in a while, one of them looked over at you as Aaron spoke. 

After a final set of smiles and nods, they exchanged handshakes. Aaron looked significantly lighter as he approached you as you leaned on the SUV. With your sunglasses on, you looked decidedly and federally important. 

Aaron settled in beside you, slipping his sunglasses over his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. You bumped his shoulder, and kept your voice low. “It was nice to work together, again.”

A ghost of a smile crossed his face, but it was one only you (and maybe Dave) would notice. You could carry on entire conversations without physically acknowledging each other just as well as you could communicate without words at all. Aaron stayed focused on something in the middle distance as he replied. “It was.”

“It’s nice to know you’re still good at your job without me.” You bit back a smile as your eyes tracked your team, wrapping everything up. 

You could almost hear his eye roll. “Glad to hear my performance is consistent and up to your standards.” 

“Your performance is always consistent and up to my standards.” 

The double meaning was not lost on him, according to the dimple that pressed into his left cheek. 

After a moment of silence, the humor dropped from your tone. “Sorry I got mad at you.” 

He huffed a laugh through his nose, his face unchanged. “I deserved it.” 

“You did,” you agreed, “but I forgot how much I dislike getting upset with you in the field.” 

“As opposed to getting upset with me at home?” 

“Exactly.” 

+++

Knowles and Salinger placed a bet on something while you were all in the car, but you weren’t sure what it was. You shook your head at their antics, feeling very much like a parent all of a sudden. 

When you all landed in the hotel lobby, BAU and CARD combined, Hotch checked his watch and said, “We’re all taking the jet back together. Adjust accordingly. Wheels up in thirty.” 

With a smug grin, Salinger collected her cash from Knowles. 

You exchanged a glance with Hotch, one full of long-suffering understanding, and shook your head. 

+++

To save on space, it only seemed reasonable to cozy up to Hotch on the flight home. The three extra bodies meant that almost every seat was full, and sleeping in a ball was the only option. 

Your head rested in Hotch’s lap, pillowed on his suit jacket, while the rest of you curled up on the seat beside him. A case file rested lightly on the side of your head as Aaron reviewed it, flipping pages every once and awhile.

Your phone rang, and Hotch pulled it out of your pocket before you could reach around for it. 

“Hotchner….Hey buddy...Yeah we’ll be home really soon. We’re on the plane right now…” He checked his watch. “It’ll be past your bedtime when we get home, so we’ll come in and say goodnight to you really quick, okay?...Alright. See you soon. I love you.” 

He hung up and tossed the phone on the seat, reclining and stretching his long legs out in front of him. You tapped his knee. “How’s the kid?”

He chuckled. “Good. Apparently there’s mac ‘n cheese for dinner. It’s very exciting.” 

You hummed contentedly, bringing your arm up to rest on his knee as you endeavored to get a little more comfortable. 

Aaron’s hand landed on your shoulder, and he squeezed once. “Missed you.”

You covered his hand with yours. “Missed you, too.”

+++

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[dragonshoard]

Don’t Leave Me (With a Smile) Chapter 1

Charlastor 1920s AU AO3 Link

Summary: New Orleans, 1926. Charlie Magne was the daughter of old money. From the city to the stock market her family had their hands in every pot. In her parent’s ideal world, she was to marry into a wealthy family for connections and continue her mother’s work with the city’s richest, but Charlie never wanted that. Her father was a reasonable man, she could make him see things her way... maybe (though her time was ticking).  

Alistair was a coincidence, a happy happenstance. And her way out. She shouldn’t have been surprised when she fell in love with him. Before, it had been enough to know that he had loved her. 

(If you could call the dark, twisted thing in his chest love)

i’m sorry for any typos ahh

--x--x--x--x--

From the glittering skyline to the bustling streets, New Orleans was truly the place to be if you were anybody. Jazz was the city’s lifeblood and the nightlife was flooded with the clarinets and trumpets playing in tune, drawing in people from miles away. 

Men and women dressed to the nines walked the streets, laughing and sometimes dancing their way to their destinations whether it be to another club or the coffee shop still open down the block. 

Similarly, a small group consisting of one man and two women, just at the start of adulthood, barely squeezed their way past the door of a small cafe into the winter air, clutching onto their hats and fur coats respectively. 

“I don’t know why we don’t do this more often!” The blonde with a brilliantly powdered face smiled through the cold, viciously happy to be surrounded by friends and free of the demands of her parents, however temporary it may have been. 

Her clothing was, perhaps, slightly too conservative to have someone call her a “flapper”, but was well within the style. She was fitted in a gorgeous black dress with golden accents and embroidery in a geometric pattern that shimmered in the streetlight. It covered her arms with sheer golden lace and came up to cover her collar bone. The signature sequin tassels swayed at the cut off just below her knees. Covering it was a beige fur coat that screamed wealth. 

Perhaps she was a bit sheltered, but it had yet to cause any issues. Well, besides the teasing from her friends that ranged from funny to rather ruthless at times. 

“You want me to answer that or ya wanna keep walking, Charlie?” The laugh that followed was loud enough to turn heads. 

The young man in question was visibly taller than most people, in general. He was roughly a head taller than his companions. White hairs artfully laced through his slicked back brown hair despite his obvious youth. His eyes were a warm brown, complementing the slightly tanned skin. 

“I know I don’t get out a lot, but things are changin’, Angel! Daddy’s been getting more clients downtown, so he doesn’t come home as much as he used to… Mama’s been really busy too but she’s also willing to give me some leeway…” The girl directed her beaming smile at him as she hurried along down the sidewalk, nearly running into a pole when she turned back around. 

“Careful! You don’t need a bump on the head to ruin your night! And, honestly, do we have to call you that Martin?” 

‘Angel’ gave her a sharp smile, looking every bit the shark that many had claimed him to be. Charlie was, of course, aware but chose to redirect the two of them to other topics. Even if it meant drawing attention back to herself. 

“I’m fine, Vaggie! You worry too much!” Charlie smiled down brightly at the dark haired woman who had pulled her away from what may have resulted in a very tedious evening. Vaggie had sun-kissed skin with dark eyes that looked nearly black in the low lighting. She had been her first (and at times her only) friend that her father had approved of. 

“Says the one who tried to slip in past the broads that you know you couldn’t have fit a quarter in between the three they were so close together.” Angel smiled even wider, before looking over to the side and waving at a group of people across the street.

Charlie’s smile dimmed to a more mute, yet still appropriately impish, grin before she tucked into Vaggie’s side. “It’s just - I’m so excited! Can you blame me?” 

The answer differed from the faces her two friends made at her. One entirely endearing while the other was more… over it, for lack of better words. Charlie frowned a bit, mostly for show. 

She tried to justify herself. “Lights, crowds of dancers, and all the latest music.” She popped up, almost twirling in place. “It’s just so glamorous, and Daddy has been home for days now, and you know how he is,” she drawled, smirking almost innocently up at the tall “Angel”.  

When “Lucifer” (as many of his business partners had taken to calling him) was home, he preferred older tunes that practically put Charlie to sleep. She could barely find moments where she could put in her records or turn on the radio to listen in without her Daddy hollering for her to turn that trash off. 

Charlie’s father was a charming and charismatic man, when he wanted to be. He treated his daughter as if she was the most precious object in the entire universe. The amount of photos stuffed in nearly ten photo albums from ages zero to three showed the dedication he had towards his little girl. 

And perhaps that was the reason it had become a problem, especially as of lately. The only good thing that came out of the attention these days was that it extended the time she spent in the house and not out finding a husband. Even now, he was hesitant about giving her away and having her no longer in his sights (perhaps that was why he was looking so meticulously, to find someone that may easily fit under his thumb). 

“If you ask me, your pops has got a few screws loose up in his noggin. I mean, come on, you’re twenty-one! Practically an old maid, and he hasn’t even let you go out on a date!” He laughed, hand casually hooking her away from Vaggie and into his side, squashing her into his fashionably striped suit. 

They were nearing the club, the music growing audibly louder from the sidewalk. 

“I’ve been on dates before!” 

“Honey, being chaperoned by Daddy dearest who makes it a point to play with the steak knife ain’t exactly what I would call a date.” He flipped his hair up, tilting his head down so Charlie could see the near mocking grin painted across his features. 

“Lay off her, Angel. I don’t see anyone coming to ask to date you.” Vaggie put a protective hand on Charlie’s shoulder and practically yanked her away from him. 

“Aw come on; don’t be such a tart, I didn’t mean any harm by it! I’m just saying that’s it’s not natural. She should be goin’ out! Having the time of her life! Not sitting home all day doin’ whatever her ‘daddy’ wants her doin’,” he made a derisive hand motion, rolling his eyes.

A sly grin took over and Charlie knew exactly what he was going to say. 

“If you’d just let me introduce you to some of my friends - “ 

“You mean some of your family, Matra - “ 

“Shhush!” He nearly jumped over them to cover both of their mouths, regardless of the fact that Charlie wasn’t even saying anything to begin with. It drew a few lingering eyes to their party. “You want me to get ganked? You can’t say that type of shit in these parts.” 

Vaggie didn’t look particularly apologetic and simply shrugged him off, opting to pull Charlie along with her. She gave him a smug look as they stepped up to doors that barely seemed to contain the music inside. 

“‘K, but seriously toots. I got a cousin that goes by Arlo. He’s a bit of a sap, but he’d treat you right.” 

“None of you would get Daddy’s money if he didn’t approve, and I’m not so sure he’d be happy getting involved with your family.” 

New Orleans wasn’t as bad as, say, Chicago or New York when it came to gang or mafioso violence, but it wasn’t the cleanest either. A politician had been mysteriously “removed” when he’d attempted to go after one of the organized crime rings. 

Angel pouted at that, “Come on, you’ve known me for ages! You think I’d set you up just for the money?” 

They both looked at him with the most unimpressed face they could individually pull. Charlie was the first to let up and laughed as she waited for the entryway to clear. 

A man smoking against the wall gave Charlie a second glance, confused but with a look of vague recognition crossing his features. He opened his mouth, likely to ask if they’d met before, only to be cut off by the tall mafioso whose eyes felt like daggers going into his skin. 

The man quickly turned away and Angel seemed to do a one-eighty, once again smiling at his friends as they were finally able to push open the doors. 

“Welcome to the Lodge! It’s been open for a few years but they added a few ah features that made it more popular over the last couple months.” 

Charlie’s eyes seemed to glimmer as she took in the large space, absentmindedly taking off her coat and hanging it to the side. The Lodge was absolutely luxurious, from the wallpaper to the nearly reflective wood flooring. The band was booming, but not loud enough to drown out the laughter and chatter that was a testament to the hall’s popularity.  

“Oh my - “ Charlie was practically hopping in place, excitement practically vibrating off of her. 

“Hey! Careful, lets not get separated, okay?” Vaggie, being the voice of reason and caution, was quick to hook elbows with Charlie, the only thing that had kept the girl from shooting off into the crowd. 

“Aw, come on, there’s a ton of people here! Not to mention the bulls in literally every corner.” Angel discreetly let his eyes wander around the room as he leaned against a pillar. 

If anyone were to pay close attention, they would notice the men in unremarkable suits lingering near the bar and every little hideyhole you could think of. It made Charlie shift, unsure of how to feel about the knowledge and and slightly concerned. If any of them were in her father’s pockets she was so dead. She ducked her head at the thought, almost attempting to hide via Vaggie despite their height difference. 

“Speaking of the ‘bulls’, should we be concerned,” Vaggie questioned. “I’d rather not get arrested or hauled away in a cab tonight.” 

“Don’t worry about it! They’re the reason the club gets to keep their juice.” Angel was quick to get distracted by a handsome fellow on the other side of the club. “I hate to cut this gaggle short, but I got some tail to catch, if you get my drift. See ya ladies later!” And with that he was off in the other direction. 

Vaggie was thoroughly unimpressed and neither of them looked surprised. Charlie couldn’t help but shake her head. It was a common trick he pulled after they’d all been to a few places; always looking for a guy to end the night with. Charlie admired his boldness; however, couldn’t imagine herself dating so many men, much less having sex with them. 

And it wasn’t like she was there for any of that nonsense to begin with. She was there to dance.

“Come on, Vaggie!” 

The look of sheer panic on her friends face was telling, but it didn’t stop Charlie from dragging her to the packed dance floor. Charlie knew that her dancing was a bit intense for her friend’s (most people, really) liking, which is why she usually ended up dancing solo, but it didn’t mean that she couldn’t make them try for a while before they wore out. 

Charlie tapped her slight heels to the dance floor, tuning into the beat and began shimmying sideways until her hip bumped Vaggie’s. Her glittering smile almost effortlessly brought her friend out of the doom and gloom the thought of dancing with Charlie had put Vaggie in. There was some exasperation, but it was mostly fond. Charlie would take what she got.  

Giggling, she did a small spin. Her feet followed the basic steps of the Charleston to warm up, surprisingly considerate of her reluctant dance partner. Charlie gave Vaggie a mischievous smile that Vaggie had come to know as the turning of the tide against her favor. 

Heart pounding already as Charlie began to speed up, smiling so wide that her face was beginning to hurt: one foot to the side, back and forward. The music seemed louder like this, as if it had drowned out everything else: from the slight static of the stereo someone seemed to be playing in the background to the dancers who seemed to have begun to back away. 

So engrossed in her own movements, she didn’t notice when Vaggie tapped out, unwilling to try and compete with her. And even had she been paying attention, she wouldn’t have noticed that she had caught someone’s eye in a unique way. 

A man, who had taken the invitation for a night on the town by a fellow colleague and had been regretting it deeply, was watching her with the hungriest gaze anyone on that side of New Orleans had ever seen. A tall man with slicked back dark brown hair in a fairly tailored pinstripe suit with a burgundy tie to match similarly colored dress pants. His eyes looked nearly red in a certain light, pulling the look together flawlessly. 

A few years ago, no one would have noticed him, but these days he was too public for at least a few people to recognize the voice of the Alistair Trahan. 

He watched as she pulled up her dress every now and then to perform a kick or jump. His grin grew in glee as she practically leaped across the dance floor, feigning falling a few times only to skip and tap away unscathed. The grace in her movements was uncanny. 

She teetered in between stages of nearly falling and stability so often, he wondered how she hadn’t become dizzy from the whiplash. Perhaps it was the danger that bid her to prefer the dance style (or maybe she just enjoyed it). 

Her energy was something he had rarely seen before. What made it even more energizing was how she never stopped smiling no matter how her dress clung from the sweat that must have been pouring off her in waves or how those heels must have been a pain to dance in. 

She caught his gaze for a split second and those eyes. Dark and piercing as they were compared to his own dreadful gaze. He imagined what it would be like to have those eyes on him and only him. 

He raised a hand to his face, surprising himself when he noticed how flushed he was. He was brought back to reality when he noticed that the band had stopped playing. She was practically glowing as she panted, looking victorious in her stance (and a part of him imagined it as a form of armor, and he wondered what she would look like bound in steel). 

It would be a pleasure to pull apart that cheerful manner and see what was underneath it; see if she was just as golden inside as she was out. 

His mood dimmed slightly (though his smile didn’t show it) when he noticed that another woman had tucked herself into the personified sunshine’s side. 

It seemed there were obstacles that needed to be removed.

[ryik-the-writer]

Chapter 27: 

A03

           Chapter 1: Pan meets a Wendy

·         Chapter 2: Scars (Felix’s Story)

·         Chapter 3: Day One

·         Chapter 4: Revenge and Fireflies

·         Chapter 5: Brighter than Stars

·         Chapter 6: filler: The Tigress

·         Chapter 7: Operation Spotless!

·         Chapter 8: Operation Spotless: Reporters Down

·         Chapter 9: A Dance with the Devil

·         Chapter 10: filler: Felix and the Pancake

·         Chapter 11: The Girl with Blue Eyes pt. 1

·         Chapter 12: The Girl with Blue Eyes pt. 2

·         Chapter 13: The Girl With Blue Eyes: Underground

·         Chapter 14. Recovery

·         Chapter 14.2 Recovery some more

·         Chapter 15: Trapped

         Chapter 16: Filth

         Chapter 17: Fairydust pt. 1

         Chapter 18: Fairydust pt. 2

         Chapter 19: The Mystery of the Dead Nun pt. 3

         Chapter 20: The Mystery of the Dead Nun pt. 2

         Chapter 21: The Mystery of the Dead Nun pt. 3

         Chapter 22: Reflections pt. 1

         Chapter 23: Reflections pt. 2

         Chapter 24: Closing

         Chapter 25: Felix is helping Pan

         Chapter 26: Temporary Fix

Wendy—surprisingly—slept better on Pan’s lumpy couch than she did in her own bed most nights.

Well, with exception of the 20-plus pound cat snoring on her chest.

She sat up with a moan, her lungs feeling deflated. The cat yowled in protest at being shifted from his spot so suddenly.

Wendy stretched as her brain started up.

Pan was missing.

Ugh.

The asshole could wait, and, she decided, he could deal with her raiding his kitchen for substance.

Fuzz the cat seemed to think so as well. He circled Wendy’s legs as she walked, demanding he be fed first.

“Okay, okay,” Wendy yawned. This was the reason she was a dog person.

Still, he was cute enough that when she couldn’t locate kibble, she went for a can of tuna wedged into the back of the cabinet.

She smiled as he gobbled the meat down, not at all mourning the loss of the dry food—or his master for that matter.

Wendy nibbled on her lip, wondering just where he went—or with.

Is that what happened, she wondered. Did he see someone he knew and just…dumped her?

August perhaps? Maybe Lily, or even Felix? Tink?

She dug through yesterday’s mess to find her notebook, purposely avoiding their boxes of cases. She flipped to a new page, writing out names to call.

He was somewhere in this town, and he was with someone.

Somehow, someway, she was going to find him.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Pan was indeed with someone—but at the moment he was alone, and very close to chewing off his own hand to get away from him.

“I’m going to fucking rip him apart,” he growled as he fought with the shackles binding him to the meat hook above his head. “I’m going to rip his fucking eyes out and turn them into earrings!”

His arms were becoming numb again so he rested, though the fire spreading through his veins didn’t.

I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna kill him!

He shook his limbs out, trying to keep the movement going as often as he can. This, of course, wasn’t the first time he’d been tied up by some maniac.

Jekyll…

“Motherfucker!”

Yeah, he was going to be fine.  He’d been bound, drugged, beaten, among other abuses he didn’t want to immediately remember.

But there was something much worse to be worried about this time.

He didn’t know what to expect from this new nightmare.

Cruella was pliant. Her goal was clear, and her bloodthirst was acceptable.

Jekyll was mad, but transparent. Pan was certain he hadn’t even had a goal. Just kept riding wave after wave of insanity as it came. In the end one hit him too hard he drowned.

But Jones…Pan couldn’t place him.

He was an enigma. No roots to him or Storybrooke.

Only one this was clear: he was not acting on his own accord.  

I’ve been sent by someone who really wants you dead.

That wasn’t a truly original revelation, but it meant that there was another foe to look out for when he defeated Jones. Someone who knew about Felix and Wendy, and anyone else he gave a freaking damn about.

He flicked his wrists, trying to keep the blood going as much as possible. As much as he wanted to tear Jones’s throat out with his teeth, he’d have to—regrettably— wait. He had no idea who he was up against, and that pissed Pan off more than anything.

“I’m going to fucking kill him!”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Tink was at the top of Wendy’s hit list.

She could just see Tink’s form near the window, watering plants it looked like. She kept glancing back, to someone behind her, smiling. Wendy could only guess it was Felix.

They would know, Wendy reasoned. They’ve known Pan much longer than her. They know his patterns, his stomping grounds.

Yet Wendy found herself ducking her head and hurrying down the street as inconspicuously as possible.

She couldn’t face her just yet, not while she was still healing. Besides, she’d probably care less if Pan was missing or not, and Wendy didn’t blame her.

She’d probably care even less that Wendy was looking for him.

She buried such thoughts away, redirecting her focus.

The newspaper was next. Maybe Pan had finally snapped and was demanding that Glass take him off suspension right now. Honestly, she’d be almost relieved to deal with one of his yelling fits…as long as she got to have one afterwards.

The newsroom was very quiet, the few other reporters the Mirror had off on assignments, making her quiet entrance much louder than she wanted it to be.

Sydney noticed her instantly and made a stiff beeline to her, the lines of his back brace clear through his shirt.

“Kid…” he warned exhaustedly.

“I’m not here to fight,” Wendy sighed.

Glass physically sagged. “Thank god. What’s up?”

Wendy chuckled. “I’m looking for Pan.”

Glass tensed once more. “That’s worst, come on in.”

Wendy followed him into his office, the smell of a fresh pot of coffee lingering in the air. It was comforting, and for a moment Wendy had hope things might be okay.

“He hasn’t come in today,” Glass said. “In fact I haven’t seen hide or hair of him since the other day.”

And all hope is lost.

Wendy sagged in her chair, groaning.

“I’m going to kill him,”

Glass chuckled. “Set a date and send me an invitation.”

Wendy scoffed. This was nice. Familiar. If only the brick of anxiety wasn’t weighing her down.

“When did he go missing? What happened?” Glass inquired.

Wendy swallowed, knowing she’d and Pan be in more trouble if she revealed that they were exploring old cases.

“Just hanging out, trying to…find some common ground.” Wendy answered, satisfied that her answer was vague enough to surpass suspicion.

However, Glass gave her a peculiar look.

“You two are spending time together now?”

Wendy felt her face alight. “What? No! Of course not, no!”

Glass barked with laughter. “Relax kid, I’m staying off that train wreck.”

“Do you know where he’d go?” Wendy redirected. “I just... want to be sure he’s okay.”

Glass mused, still smirking at Wendy’s embarrassment.

“Have you talked to Tink or Felix?” he inquired a bit more seriously.

“Not yet,” Wendy admitted, feeling a bit childish. “I’m going to them last, if Tink will see me of course.”

Glass nodded, setting jokes aside.

“Try the diner, and maybe the hospital, just in case.”

Wendy’s stomach turned at the idea, but made herself remain calm. Surely they would know if he was there by now.

“Okay, thanks,” she said, heading to the door.

“Kid!” Glass called after her. He hesitated for a moment, looking a bit paler.

“You know, I only did what I did to keep you both safe, right?”

Wendy smiled mildly at her boss’s conflicted conscience. She hadn’t given Glass’s decision much of a second thought, knowing the alternative would have been jail or straight out firing. Pan had been the only one vocal about it.

“I know,” Wendy nodded, watching as he relaxed as she headed out of the Mirror.  

Yawning, she decided to go to the diner first. Surely someone would have seen him if he’d been there today.

The crisp air cooled the heat on her cheeks, the embarrassment from her conversation with Glass easing some.

She’d have to be more articulate with her story as her search for Pan continued. The last thing she needed was for a rumor to pick up around Storybrooke.

She recalled how quickly word used to spread through her neighborhood back in London. With her parents being such prominent members in their community, eyes were constantly on them. Anytime something would happen—from her brother’s unfortunate trouble with the law, to Mrs. Darling’s cancer diagnosis so short after her mother’s departure—everyone would know in less than a day.

Storybrooke could fit in her old neighborhood, and word spread much quicker.

She would simply ask people for now on if they’d see him, and cut their last interaction off at the hospital where they surely had witnesses during their failed attempt to visit Belle.

Just as she was circling the corner to get to the hospital, the sound of a loud engine began to grow just behind her. Wendy glanced back and saw someone on a motorcycle coming her way, and she turned to face it when the motorcycle stopped right in front of her.

Wendy felt the wall, all the apprehension she’d built up in the past several weeks keeping her on edge.

In a flash however, her fear turned into embarrassment when the rider removed his helmet, revealing August’s Booths smiling face.

“August.” Wendy gasped, her face going red when she recalled the last time she saw him at Peter’s apartment. “I was…actually looking for you.”

“Oh,” August replied, eyebrow quirked in amusement, leaning onto his handlebars.

“For Pan,” Wendy croaked, throat awkwardly dry. “I lost him.”

“Just shake his food bowl, he’ll come back,” August chuckled.

Wendy couldn’t help but smile at the image. “Have you seen him in the last day or so?”

“Not since the last time I saw you,” August smirked.

Wendy wished the ground would open up and swallow her.

Thankfully, August sensed her distress and cease his teasing.

“Have you tried the Mirror? Maybe Tink?”

“Yes and…” Wendy groaned, realizing she’d have to tear the band aid off and face Tink once and for all.

August saw her expression and frowned. It was no secret that Pan had done major damage within the town. Tink had high regard in Storybrooke, from the nuns to the drunks she would slip free coffee to. Everyone knew she was hurting, and the town would want blood if they found out.

Yet they didn’t know Pan’s involvement, even if a select few did.

But August knew. He knew from the moment Pan called him at 1 a.m. the night Mother Superior died and pleaded with him to meet him outside the Mirror.

He knew from the light coming through the second story window of the paper.

He knew it when he saw the look on his face when he was locking the door—and when he gripped his sleeve and took him back to his apartment.

“You want to tell me what happened?”

“No.”

Pan was feeling.

He hadn’t realized until word of Mother Superior’s death got to him just how serious the situation was, and that somehow the blame had been shifted to the woman in front of him.

“You know,” August said. “He does stuff like this a lot. Maybe just let him breathe. He’ll come back when he’s ready.”

Wendy looked up at August, this strange man who had such a strong link to Pan.  

She wanted to take his advice but…something was wrong. She could feel it just on the surface of her bones.

Like a sickness…

“Maybe,” Wendy finally answered. “I’ll look around anyway.”

August frowned, but nodded his consent. It really wasn’t his business, no matter his relationship with Pan.

“If you say so,” he said, putting his helmet back on before heading off down the street.

Wendy bit at her lip, exhaustedly turning back to the direction of Tink’s apartment. This would suck, but it was  her last resort.

She had to find him—bothersome moron that he was. She had to fix the damage she helped caused—by making him see the light.

She stood outside of Tink’s door for what felt like hours, wondering just how she could approach the woman without getting thoroughly thrashed.

She’d probably would scream at her, which Wendy couldn’t blame her for—even if they both knew none of this was her fault.

Still, Wendy would take a good thrashing if it meant her and her friend could just talk. It was time, past time at that.

Just as she summoned the courage to knock, the door swung open just enough for Felix to ease through, closing the door softly behind him.

“You’re asking for trouble,” Felix greeted through a clenched jaw, closing the door softly behind him.

“I’m not here for that,” Wendy assured, though she knew good and well it was unavoidable.

“She’s not ready,” Felix warned, nearly desperate.

Wendy frowned, staring at the door that separated her from Tink. She wondered if the woman even knew she was here, if she was just on the other side listening, waiting.

“I’m actually here for Peter,” Wendy said.

Felix stiffened, and Wendy could see a secret just behind his eyes.

“I’m looking for him,” Wendy clarified. “Here…I mean…is he here?”

“No,” Felix answered, his body sagging some.

“Have you seen or heard from him since the other night?” she questioned, her jaw clenching when she saw his face.

There was something there. Call journalist intuition or common sense, but Felix was trying to keep something from her.

“Felix…what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Felix shook his head. “You need to go. Please.”

Wendy swallowed a hard lump in her throat. It hurt to be dismissed so coldly by the one person she’d been on such even ground with.

“Fine.” She said, turning on her heel quickly.

Fine.

No one knew, and no one was going to be able to help her.

She was alone and Pan was gone.

And for whatever reason, he didn’t want to be found.

Maybe Glass and August were right, perhaps she should leave him be, let him sweat out whatever toxin had found its way into his blood.

Maybe he was simply being his usual bastard self and dropping her the second they were making progress.

Wendy tried not to let the pain from that idea settle in. She should be used to such a thing by now, should be used to him hating her.

She was circling into the diner—just a peak, she swore, for Pan—when an immediately recognizable man came into view.

“There you are!” Killian Jones greeted from his place at one of Granny’s outside tables.

“Mr. Jones,” Wendy swallowed, her cheeks heating up as she remembered their last, very odd, encounter.

Jones twisted back just enough to single to a near-by waitress, making some kind of signal with his hand that caused her to nod and hurry back inside.

“I…” Wendy began to protest, still unsure just where she stood with the man who had kept her from bashing her brains in twice now.

“I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I ordered us the same thing,” Jones said as he motioned at the chair across from him.

Wendy gulped, itching to run and barricade herself somewhere safe. Who is this man and what was his interest in her? Yes he helped her, and she applauded him for that, but why the pursuit?

She couldn’t help but think that Pan would know.

Before she could dismiss herself, the waitress came out with two to-go cups, sitting them in front of Killian who nodded his thanks before taking the one closest to him.

“Irish coffee, hold the Irish,” he laughed.

Wendy blinked. Well, at least he wasn’t trying to get her drunk.

He stared at her as he sipped his coffee, waiting, and by the looks of it, hoping.

Wendy made a sound. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, and really he’d been a gentlemen during their previous encounters.

Also, a little caffeine might make her feel better. What was the harm in one drink?

Wendy took the provided drink and held the warm cup close, waiting until he took a sip from his before she followed suit.

“What happened when you found him?”

Wendy blinked. “Pardon?”

“Your fellow, the one who left you at the club last night. Did you give him a what for?”

Wendy snorted, hiding her grief behind a smile.

“Not yet,” Wendy said, tapping her cup. “But I think I’ll take a break from looking for him for a while.”

Jones eyebrows rose. “Oh really?”

“He doesn’t want to be found right now ,” Wendy said, more to herself than to the stranger in front of her.

“Indeed,” Jones laughed, hiding his smile behind his cup. “Don’t let him steal your good days, lass. You never know when they’ll run out.”

Wendy arched an eyebrow in question. What an odd thing to say.

Jones didn’t seem like an odd man—or at least he was odd enough for Storybrooke’s standards.

He was clean-cut, and had a fondness for leather jackets it would seem. And of course he was uniquely handsome; she hadn’t seem a pair of eyes that blue since Belle.

It was odd that the other day was the first time they had come across one another; especially since he seemed to be around every corner now.

Wendy felt a tenseness in her throat. Strangers were meant to keep one weary; that was taught human nature. But strangers in Storybrooke seemed to be a whole different species. Carnivores if she had to label them properly.

Psychopaths.

“Have I lost you already?”

Wendy blinked, finding Jones staring at her, amused.

“My apologies,” Wendy smiled, “I was just trying to make a decision.”

“Oh,” Jones responded. “About?”

“You.” Wendy answered bluntly. “I’m trying to decide just who you are and whether I’m doing the smart thing by allowing myself to be so close to you.”

Jones listened to her, his expression not betraying what he was feeling.

“I find it just a bit odd, that I don’t know you at all but I’m here having coffee with you as if we’re old friends,” Wendy stared harder at him, hoping he’d say or do something that would give him away. Something that would reveal he was like everyone else she’d come across with.

Cruella.

Jekyll.

Monsters.

But Jones simply smiled, and to Wendy’s chagrin, his eyes filled with sympathy, as if her damaged psyche was spread out before them.

“Perhaps we knew each other in a past life?” he offered kindly.

Wendy groaned and covered her face. What the hell was she doing? She was accusing a man who had honestly saved her from having her brains bashed in twice of someone else’s crimes. She was being a suspicious ninny, and it was below her...

It was something Pan would do.

Pan got to you. You’re just as filthy and selfish as he is.

Wendy jolted. “No!”

“What,” Jones jumped. “What is it?”

Wendy shook her head, willing any of the god-awful thoughts in her head to simply fly away.

“I’m sorry Mr. Jones,” Wendy sighed. “I’m afraid I’ve been mulling far too much lately. Not exactly the best company.”

“On the contrary, I’ve found you be exceptional company so far,” Jones shrugged.

Wendy snorted. He certainly had manners. He almost reminded her of the boys in her social circle back in London. Overly polite with the weight of an entire society on their shoulders. Walking midlife crises.

But Killian Jones was no boy. He was a man, and the darkness under his eyes showed her that perhaps he wasn’t the nicest one. Wendy blushed when she felt her heart begin to pound at the thought. It was nearly shameful that such a well-bred lady like herself would even think of a man like him in such a light.

Then again, Pan was about the same. At least Jones had some kind of pedigree.

“So why me?” Wendy asked bluntly, eyeing him carefully. “What’s with the sudden…interest?”

Killian Jones tilted his head, smiling at her indulgently. It embarrassed Wendy a bit, making her feel almost like a child. Overly paranoid.

“Let’s see,” Hook mused, leaning back in his chair, feigning deep thought. “I had just docked and was enjoying the scenery when suddenly,” he paused, staring at Wendy so intensely a shiver ran up her spine.

“Suddenly, there was this woman and walking down the street. I saw the ice before she did and…”

Wendy gulped. God his eyes…

“And the second she was in my arms, I knew I couldn’t let her get away again.”

Wendy stared at him, her mouth slightly agape. Not the most ladylike reaction, but it suited the insanity of the situation.

Killian Jones was certainly a charmer, and had the air of a gentlemen to woo in any heart-eyed woman.

It would be nice to fall into them, be a foolish young woman who lived the way any woman would. Free, wild and maybe a little careless.

She’d never had a fling before, not even in college. She’d been too studious, too content with being ‘good’. And technically, she was dating Edward at the time.

Not the most exciting time of her life, but not wasted in her opinion. Her hard work brought her here, and even if she wasn’t sure yet if that or not, it had prepared her for the world and its grittiness.

But maybe it had stilled her personal relationships. It had pretty much destroyed the friendship she’d built with Tink, and with Felix too, it would seem.

Gods only knew what it had started or destroyed with Peter.

She outwardly scoffed. She couldn’t call what they had a relationship. He squashed their progress at every turn, the other night was evidence of that.

And now there was the man before her. What kind of a woman just jumped into a relationship with a man they just met? It was ridiculous, and after her run-ins with her various foes, she was understandably uncertain of anything.

She was…damaged.

“You flatter me,” Wendy said honestly, sliding her empty cup aside. “But I…”

Am afraid?

Don’t trust you?

“I’ve come on too strong,” Jones offered, and Wendy nodded reluctantly, and it was rather true. She just didn’t know anymore how to have a normal interaction with another person. Every conversation she’d had up to this point had been a confrontation turned into an act of survival. She didn’t know anymore how to separate that instinct from the calmness in front of her.

He got to you.

“Coffee was a good start.” Wendy said quickly.

“Perhaps…” Jones began with a raised eyebrow. “Dinner could be the next step?”

Wendy smothered a grin. He really was trying, and she felt oddly calm at the thought.

Perhaps…just maybe with Pan sulking in a ditch somewhere…she could try? Maybe with Pan at a distance, without the insanity that lurked in his shadow that always cast her way…she could be-

Normal?

What an odd, lovely thought.

“How about lunch?” Wendy jested. Lunch was smaller, simpler. Small was good. Small was safe.

“I’ll endeavor to be patient,” he agreed, standing. Wendy followed his cue, ducking her blush.

“We’ll run into each other soon, I’m sure.” Wendy said.

“Oh I’d count on it,” he returned, bowing a bit. “Until then.”

Wendy nodded and began to leave, leaving Jones at the table. She could feel his eyes on her as she walked and for the oddest reason it did not make her feel paranoid or on edge.

She was suddenly a normal woman who had just had flirtatious coffee with a polished stranger.

It was inspiring an exciting, and so new to her she could have burst.

She turned then, meeting his sparkling eyes with a smile.

“Wendy Darling.”

He laughed wetly. “Pardon?”

“My name,” she reinstated, the words leaving her lips with ease. “You’ve earned it.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Pan startled awake at the sound of—what the hell—whistling? Why the fuck was his kidnapper whistling!

He glared as Killian Jones entered the underground bunk he was keeping him in, glared even harder when he took off his jacket and casually threw it over a chair before sitting a brown paper bag on the back of a chair.

Pan squinted and could just make out Granny’s logo on the paper.

“Here,” Jones greeted, throwing a foil-wrapped sandwich at his feet.

“And just how the hell am I supposed to eat this?” Pan growled.

“You’re a clever boy, use your imagination.” Jones smirked as he pulled up a stool to sit in front of Pan, staring at him expectedly.

“What’s the point of feeding me if you’re just going to kill me?” Pan spat.

“What can I say, I’m a showman.” Jones shrugged, his thoughts instantly wondering to the pretty blonde distraction he was having to deal with at the moment.

“Why don’t you go ahead and tell me what she knows so I can kill both of you and be done with it.”

Pan yanked against the cuffs, his arms too numb to know if he made a difference or not.

“For the last fucking time, she doesn’t know anything. I don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about!”

Jones shook his head. “Of course you don’t. Then why did your little lackey request all those files, hmm? Information not even the police wanted, but for some reason you did.”

“I was fucking bored!” Pan shouted. “Do you want me to burn them to a crisp? I’ll burn my whole damn apartment if that will make you shut the hell up!”

Jones smirked. “I wish it were that simple lad, but you hardly seem like the type to let things rest.” He leaned in some more, enough to make Pan slightly more uncomfortable. “Are you?”

Pan didn’t answer. Why would he? The answer was already obvious.

“She’s the kicker, isn’t she?” Jones mused. “And she was so concerned about you. Tell me, would she keep digging after you die?”

Pan’s eyes narrowed.

“Or maybe she’s be happy that you were gone.”

Pan caught how his smirk drooped some, and how his eyes hardened.

“Tell me something lad,” Jones began, leaning in some. “Why is she so on edge when it comes to you.”

Pan held off a smart remark, wanting to put the blame on all their misadventures.

But it would have come back to him. It always would.                                      

“Did you hurt her?”

Pan’s throat tightened. Of course he had, and he never had to lay a hand on her to do it.

When he didn’t answer, Jones stood. He’d have to lay his suspicion to rest and focus on why he was here. He had to regroup and find out how to get Wendy to talk without making her suspicious, which judging by today, would be a lot harder than he’d thought it would be.

That’s fine though.

“She has nothing to do with this!” Pan croaked as Jones began to leave.

“I’ll find that out for myself,” Jones sighed.

“Stop!” Pan yelled out before he was locked away once again.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

August stood outside Pan’s apartment, ringing his phone for what had to be the tenth time that hour.

He wasn’t answering, which wasn’t a surprise, but something still felt off. When Pan did things like this, he was always back within a day or so, the quiet getting to him quickly.

With an aggravated sigh he got back on his motorcycle and began to head back to the woods, already deciding to go to Felix first thing in the morning. Felix kept better track of Pan than he did, and even if his relationship with Tink was keeping them apart, there was no doubt Felix wouldn’t know something.

He glanced down and noticed his gas tank was nearly empty and shifted towards the docks where the closest gas pump was.

He signaled to the attendant behind the glass and began to fill up, sighing exhaustedly as he looked out into the ocean in the distance.

Things had certainly been a lot more interesting in the sleep town lately. Sure, Pan and his antics usually kept things very lively, the bouts of excitement have become more of a constant occurrence than the usual spontaneous happenings since Wendy got involved.

He smirked when he thought about the blonde spitfire. She didn’t realize yet just how loyal she was to him yet, like most people didn’t.

It would be interesting to see what she would do next, what they would do next together.

Pity, he liked the casual fling he had with Pan, but the wild boy needed someone constant in his life. Someone could tame him just enough to keep him out of trouble.

August scoffed. Like Peter Pan would ever stay out of trouble.

As he waited for this tank to finish filling up, he pulled out his cell phone to give him one more ring before calling it a night.

His hand was poised on the gas handle when a very familiar song rung out in the air.

August’s heart leapt, and he moved away from the gas pump to follow it, ready to call again if the sound stopped.

Within a moment he found Pan’s cracked phone buried in a mess of dried grass near what used to be the town’s cannery.

The battery was on 11 percent. He hadn’t been gone long at all!

He looked up, hoping to see some evidence of Pan along the docks, but there was nothing there but a few shacks, seagulls, and oddly antiquish ship tied off several yards away.

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 Whoa…this took three months…whoa.

Yeah, work takes a lot of my concentration, and this last month has been especially hectic with the coronavirus. As a journalist, I really don’t get a day off -_-* but you know…

I’m especially having problems writing Hook. I’m trying to remember pre-season 3B when I actually liked him but then I think about how icky he became and I just…ugh.

Gonna have to take it slow with this arc, but will update soon…maybe…

[hi-i-love-u-bitch]

Truly Prince Charming

I got inspired by this picture here by @secondus which was inspired by this headcannon by @pastel-virgil . Please ENJOY!!!

Patton was in the kitchen humming a cheerful tune as he moved around the kitchen to gather the ingredients, he needed to make dinner. He was thinking spaghetti with meatballs, maybe some garlic bread to and a side salad dish just so Logan wouldn’t start ranting about how a meal needs to be well balanced and not just full of starch and protein. Though maybe he was right? Patton had started to notice himself getting a bit softer around his sides, which he didn’t know was possible since he was only a figment of Thomas’s imagination. Even so, perhaps Patton should cut back on the extra snacking?

Before he thoughts could trail any further down that rabbit hole Patton was swept off his feet and twirled around. Patton yelped in surprise, wrapping his arms around the culprit’s neck for support, who he now noticed was Roman. The princely side sang merrily as he twirled and danced with Patton carried in his arms like a princess.

“I’ve been dreaming of a true loves kiss!”

Patton blushed, squealing in delight as Roman continued to dance them around the kitchen with the ease and grace of a Disney prince. Patton always loved when Roman did this, it made him feel like he was flying while also being held close, so freeing and warm. As the song came to a close Roman leaned his forehead against Patton’s, adoration in his eyes and a large grin stretching across his lips.

“What are you doing, dear heart?”

Patton’s face was still flushed red and he couldn’t help the giggle that escaped from his lips, “I was trying to make dinner.”

“Oh,” Roman said innocently as he nuzzled against the side of Patton’s face “and what’s on the menu today, my dearest?”

“Spaghetti,” Patton squealed, legs kicking up as he squirmed in delight “and some garlic bread with a salad.”

“Mmh, good choice with the salad, keeping Logan’s nagging to a minimum.” Roman hummed, running the tip of his nose up and down the side of Patton’s cheek.

“Be nice, Ro,” Patton scolded, though it wasn’t very affective with his face so red as he tried to calm down his laughter “uh, can I come down now? I need to start on dinner.”

“Depends,” Roman purred, snuggling Patton closer to his chest “may I be so bold as to ask for a kiss first?”

Patton giggled, amused by the creative side’s antics, “You may.”

Roman did not hesitate as he leaned forward and planted a sweet, passionate kiss upon Patton’s lips. Patton chuckled softly against Roman’s mouth, raising a hand to cup the side of his prince’s face. Roman apparently took this opportunity to angle his head for a much deeper kiss, causing the fatherly side to squeak in surprise but very soon melted into it. He found himself chasing after Roman’s lips as the creative side slowly pulled back with a chuckle before diving in once more for another kiss. Then another and another, moving from Patton’s lips to his cheeks to his nose to his eyelids. Patton’s face flushed deeply, continuing to squeal and giggle as Roman peppered every inch of his face with kisses.

“Romaaaan!” Patton whined through gentle laughter “I have to finish dinneeeer!”

“Mmh, just a few more, I promise, my love.” Roman murmured softly against his skin.

“You always say that,” Patton squealed, half heartedly pushing against Roman’s shoulders “then we’re here for thirty minutes.”

“Fine, but only because you’re cute.” Roman pouted, planting one last kiss on Patton’s fore head before carefully placing the moral side back on his feet. But Patton had only a moment to breath before Roman hugged him from behind and began to trail kisses up his neck. Patton laughed and squirmed under his boyfriend’s hold, trying in vain to swat him away. “Romaaaan!”

“What? I put you down like you asked,” Roman chuckled, planting a long dramatic kiss against Patton’s cheek before finally letting go “but I guess since there’s still more work to be done I shall spare you from my affection…for now.”

Patton snorted, hands on his cheeks as they rubbed against his burning face, “Well, I mean you could always stay and help? If we can get things done faster, I may be compelled to give you a reward.”

Roman smirked, raising a perfectly arched brow at him, “A reward you say? My, my, how that is tempting, may I ask what kind of reward?”

Patton said nothing, merely giggled as he leaned forward to cup Roman’s face and plant a deep yet passionate kiss against his lips. Roman melted immediately, practically swooning, and Patton couldn’t help the swell of pride when he pulled away and saw Roman’s lips chasing after him. Patton smiled sweetly, admiring the dazed look in Roman’s eyes as his lips turned upward into a wide grin.

“My, that is a quite a grand reward,” Roman hummed happily “I accept your offer.”

Patton could only giggle in response.

---

Logan was having a very difficult week, scheduling and rescheduling all of Thomas’s important events this month, helping plan and edit videos, as well as helping reorganize and clean the house. Logan was exhausted but he was determined to not let it happen again and had set about outlining a new and even better schedule for next month. Of course, that seemed to take up even more of his time and brain power but even with his drooping eyes and pulsing headache at the back of his head he was too stubborn to stop until he had finished.

Logan had been walking to the kitchen to put on another pot of coffee while looking over his daily planer and scribbling notes ever now and then. He was much to focus on his task that he hardly noticed the tiptoeing closer behind him until it was too late and he was lifted into the air like a newly wed bride. Logan yelped in surprise, accidently dropping his planer and pen to grab on tightly to his offender’s broad shoulders for fear he’d fall. After his shock and dizziness wore down a bit it only took a moment of spinning for Logan to properly pinpoint who it was.

“Roman!” Logan squawked, face flushed red.

“Hello my dear Spock!” Roman replied with a wide mischievous grin.

“Put me down immediately!” Logan squeaked, trying to squirm out of Roman’s hold.

Logan didn’t get flustered very easily but for some reason this never failed to make the logical side a sputtering blushing mess. Of course, when Roman found this out he used it to his advantage to surprise attack his nerdy boyfriend with love and affection. Not that Logan didn’t secretly enjoy the attention (though he would never in a million years confess that to Roman) but it also made him feel silly and unprofessional. He needed to be taken seriously, damn it, and he could not achieve that by being twirled around like some dainty princess!

“Mmh, no can-do Specs,” Roman smirked, though his eyes held a serious tone to them “you were fairly close to passing out there.”

“Falsehood,” Logan said with a stubborn pout “I feel perfectly fine.”

“Yeah, which is why you were tipping forward without noticing,” Roman said with a raised eyebrow “when was the last time you slept Lo?”

Logan had to think a moment, brain still too sluggish and slow due to lack of caffeine, “I woke up this morning so…last night I suppose.”

“Logan that was three days ago.” Roman said with a deadpan expression.

Logan’s cheeks flushed a deeper scarlet as he avoided making eye contact with the princely side “A…slight miscalculation.”

“Logan what time is it?” Roman asked with a frown.

Again, Logan took a moment to think, “Eight thirty P.M.?”

“Love,” Roman said slowly, chin gesturing towards the clock on the wall “its three in the morning.”

And so, it was, Logan blushed once more, pretty sure at this point that all his blood has redirected itself to his face. Okay, so maybe Logan had gotten a bit carried away with the whole planning ahead thing but that still left another question to be asked.

“Why are you up at three A.M., Roman?”

And just for a moment Logan thinks he’s gotten the upper hand but soon falls flat, “I heard somebody stumbling out of their room and went to investigate in case they had gotten themselves hurt. I followed you just in case you fell down the stairs but thankfully you didn’t and thankfully I was there when you did eventually fall.”

Once more, Logan was left a blushing sputtering mess, how unprofessional of him to act so irresponsibly and clumsy. But before he could descend down a spiral of self-loathing Roman kissed the top of his head and smiled at him in that soft, tender way that filled Logan with so much love and adoration. “Let’s go to bed, my shining star.”

Logan was pretty sure he had a ridiculous goofy smile spread across his face but he didn’t really mind, though that was most likely due to his exhaustion. And it was because of his exhaustion that Logan chose to boldly lean forward and capture his prince’s lips in a sleepy, soft kiss. Roman had momentarily been taken aback by his boyfriend’s sudden boldness but was quick to redeem himself and return with his own gentle, lazy kisses.

They pulled apart slowly, Logan’s eyes closed in content as Roman kissed over them softly, gently humming a soothing toon. He slowly crouched down to pick up Logan’s book and pen, never once putting down the bespectacled side for fear he might jolt him into full awareness and Roman would never get him to sleep. Logan wrapped his arms firmly around his prince’s neck, nuzzling into the crook of Roman’s neck as he carried him up the stairs and into his room where they both continued to snuggle under the covers.

---

Contrary to popular belief Virgil actually enjoyed physical affection, the problem being was that he had no idea how to ask for it. For as long as he could remember he had always been the “bad guy” and had taken to keeping at arm’s length from everybody else. But then there was that whole redemption arc with Thomas accepting him as his anxiety and as a part of himself which in turn lead to another conversation afterwards when he left the sides to their own devices. Turns out that they actually liked Virgil, a lot, and not just in the friendly way.

He was surprised of course, because he had never in his life thought that they would return his feelings which he had kept hidden for years, but they did and the overwhelming emotions that followed after caused him to be, surprise, surprise, anxious. They helped comfort them and assured him that they didn’t need to be anything more then friends if he so choose. But of course, Virgil did want to me something more than friends but he wanted to take it slow and they all agreed.

So, now they were here, having found each other’s comfort level both physically and emotionally but communication was still a bit iffy. He knew the others weren’t mind readers, regardless of being projections of Thomas is consciousness, and Virgil knows he should try a bit harder but sometimes it was difficult to ask for hugs and kisses and snuggles without sounding ridiculous. Which would lead to moments like these where Virgil would aimlessly walk around the mindscape hoping to bump into one of his boyfriends and maybe, just maybe, they’d initiate some sort of physical affection so that he wouldn’t have to.

But of course, just because he had been wanting it does not mean he had been expecting to be lifted off the ground and spun around like a damsel in distress. He knew it was Roman as soon as he heard the telltale sign of some romantic Disney song being sung, because the princely side was cheesy that way. Vigil haphazardly hissed and kicked at Roman while also grabbing onto the material of his princely outfit so as not to fall off. Between the options of fight or flight when surprised Virgil more often then not chose fight which has led to the rest of the group to have really good dodging reflexes.

“Hey there Hot Topic.” Roman chuckled, spinning finally coming to a stop opting to rub his cheek against the emo side.

“Roman, you ass, put me down!” Virgil growled, face flushed as he half heartedly tried to shove Roman’s face away from his.

Roman turned his face towards Virgil’s palm and kissed it which cause the emo man to hiss in embarrassment and pull away, reveling a Cheshire cat grin from the prince. “Now why would I do that?”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll kick your ass!” Virgil snapped, though it was a hollow threat, Virgil was hardly strong enough to take on Roman who went out adventuring almost on the daily.

“Hmm, I’d like to see that actually happen, my little storm cloud,” Roman teased, kissing the tip of Virgil’s nose who squeaked and pulled his hands back to cover his face, though he still glared at the prince. “but if you so happen to be in a merciful mood, I have a Disney marathon set up in the living room we can distract ourselves with until our darling heart and nerd get back from helping Thomas. What do you say?”

Virgil will forever deny that he pouted as he turned away in seeming annoyance so as to think over the offer. “If I agree, are you gunna put me down anytime soon?”

“Nope.” Roman smiled, loudly popping the “p” in the word as he nuzzled against Virgil’s neck.

Virgil squealed and squirmed against Roman’s affection, trying desperately to conceal the giggle that threatened to escape from his lips. Sometimes Virgil forgets that it’s okay to let down his wall every once in a while, not always having to be this dark and scary figure. Especially, with Roman, they had a rockiest relationship before all of this and sometimes that still peeked through every now and again. But they were getting through it, bit by bit, they still bickered constantly but now it seemed to be more playful than anything else.

“Is this okay?” Roman asked, suddenly very serious, which once more caught Virgil by surprise.

“Y-yeah, why?” Virgil said curiously, face still dusted pink by Roman’s earlier affection.

“I just don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable,” Roman said honestly and Virgil’s heart practically melted at his sincerity “I know how difficult it is for you to talk about these sorts of things but the last thing I want is to push you past you comfort zone. So, if you really want me to put you down I-”

“No!” Virgil said much too quickly, wrapping his arms tightly against Roman’s neck and curling into himself “I-I mean…I don’t mind, it’s…nice.”

Roman smiled again, this time warm and soft and full of love, “May I kiss you?”

“It’s not like you need to ask.” Virgil said, mumbling against the princely side’s chest. Roman chuckled, moving Virgil higher up in his arms so that they were now faced to face, “I know, but I would still like to hear an answer.”

“Yeah.” Virgil whispered softly, cheeks flushed as Roman gently pressed his lips over his. It was soft and warm and passionate and everything Virgil loved about Roman, his idiot prince.

Roman had carried Virgil all the way to the living room, not once letting him go as promised, and plopped down on the couch with Virgil draped across his lap. Virgil half heartedly rolled his eyes, a small smirk forming at the corner of his lips, as Roman grabbed the remote and pressed play on their first movie. As Snow White began to sing into the wishing well Virgil started to relax, leaning back to tuck his head under Roman’s chin who responded by draping his arm across Virgil’s shoulders and bring him in closer. Virgil smiled softly, basking in the radiating warmth of his prince as the melodic sound of Disney played in the background.

[3431jessica]

A Road to Tomorrow

In homage to the recently released “Paw of Destiny.” I reshare my old fic that seemed to be suiting to the occasion. 

Complete set could be found here. (dedicated to my fellow KFP lovers @pixarchan @m4dg4rl @7oy7iger @ani-dragmire  @gsmith1030)

Po's very favourite thing about his daughter was.. - well, to be fair, there's really not just one thing. It's more of a list. A long list.

Of everything about her, basically.

After over a decade married to the love of his life and raising a number of orphaned panda and turned their life around, it was finally their turn to taste another facet of parenthood.

Ping Ying Yue - as the name meant: the reflection of the moon - she was a revelation to him almost every day. He saw his father's kind eyes, his mother's selflessness, his own regrettable clumsiness, and, most endearingly, the sparkling intellect of his wife, Tigress, all packed into the small form of his daughter.

She's also so amazingly herself, somehow - a four-year-old dynamo that exhausted him more than most of the things he'd faced during his time serving the valley. Ying Yue wasn't the natural Kung Fu Master that Tigress was at her age, but she loved the art anyway. She'd got his curious nature, an irrepressible energy level, and her mother's fierce ability to focus when she's doing something she loved.

Like right now.

She was on the floor, adorably folded in half so that she could colour the picture of grandpa Shifu she'd drawn for Tigress. His fur was - unfortunately - discoloured into blue and green - the colours of crayons she could find, and his ears appeared massively disproportional to his body (well, it never was!). Ying Yue was so intent on her work that she didn't hear the door open, or the familiar pad of Tigress paws as she approached, offloading her sack, training vest, and house keys as she went.

Po looked up from his spot on the couch, grinning as his wife reached the living room doorway and stepped out of her shoes, continuing towards them on bare feet. She's wearing a flirty blue qipao that showed off her curves (slightly snug in the right places), and Po let his appreciative gaze linger. She still seemed troubled, some days, by the changes to her tight figure after childbearing, but Po saw her strength and the creation of their child in her body and was at least as attracted to her as he'd always been. She's still sexy as hell, but he's even more worshipful now that he'd seen her carry his child - the child that he had never thought would ever arrive after ten years of their marriage.

Tigress approached, dropping down beside him with a groan. "Hi," she told him softly, leaning in for a lingering kiss. It's not until she settled in beside him and raised her voice that Ying Yue noticed her presence. "Hey, kiddo, come give your mom a kiss."

Ying Yue's little stripey head whipped around, traces of dumpling still bore evident around her maw. "Mommy!" She pushed herself up, literally leapt to the small empty gap on the couch only to rush flying back to grab her drawing. She ran full tilt around the edge of the coffee table, ignoring her parents' admonitions to slow down, and hurled herself for the second time onto the couch. With a giggle, she settled in against Tigress, her arms around her mother's neck. "Hi, Mommy. Miss you."

"Hi, baby girl," Tigress answered, and Po grinned at the pet name. It was both funny and endearing to see the fearsome Master Tigress used that kind appellative on anyone. He thought he would never live to see that day.

"How was your day?"

"Good, Mommy," Ying Yue chirped, climbing over Tigress's lap to resettle between her parents. "Daddy and I went to the park and played on the swings, and there was a really loud fight between the croc bandits..-" She dropped her drawing in favour of broad hand gestures meant to, Po assumed, sketch just how big the croc bandit was- "and daddy was about to stop them when grandpa Shifu suddenly appeared and froze them with just one finger," she beamed with pride. "One. Finger. I bet the stick he used for walking was just a decoy," she concluded to both Po and Tigress' amusement. "And then I draw you this!" She picked the picture up and presents it to Tigress proudly. "Perhaps you can give this to him tomorrow?"

"Of course," Tigress' eyes light up, and her smile was delighted as she accepted the slightly crumpled paper with a rough sketch of big-eared creature - that was Shifu alright. "Good job, Yue. Is this…-?"

"It's nerve attack!" Ying Yue interrupted, "pointing at the yellow blob she coloured on the tip of Shifu's finger. "Daddy said he used chi, the power to one's soul. So even when grampa is small, his chi can be as big as an elephant! That's how he beats Daddy and throws him all around the Training Hall like a rag doll. So, if I meditate more to make my chi stronger, I can beat Daddy too!"

Po rolled his eyes. Ying Yue had always had a crazy way in deriving and analysing phenomena around her; it fascinated Po, even when she's asking twenty minutes' worth of absurd questions that made connect to each other only in that amazing brain of hers.

"Oh," Ying Yue breathed, her eyes wide, "I need to show my picture to grampa Ping! Who knows he would want me to draw him too."

She wriggled out from between them and scampered off to her room to grab her drawing supplies.

Tigress huffed a laugh, leaning more heavily into Po as she traced the lines of Ying Yue's drawing. "This is pretty good," she observed.

She's not wrong - Ying Yue had trouble colouring in the lines, but the basic shape was recognisably a red panda, featuring large ears, small body, bushy tail, and four semi-proportional limbs. It's the fact that Shifu was gliding in the air with a gigantic ball of chi on his skinny hands had really made it clear that this version of Shifu had sprung from the bright imagination of a four-year-old. Tigress smoothed the paper a bit. "Shifu would be glad if he could fly."

"He almost could fly," Po remarked at his Master's gravity-defying ability. "I can't imagine what will happen if he were born with wings. And so were you."

Her forehead crinkled. The "Am I?" was silent, but he saw it plastered on her face.

"You flew from the Jade Palace rooftop to the ground and zipped right across Valley of Peace to the Thread of Hope. That was..-"

"Bodaciously Awesome?" she finished with a chuckle.

"Yep," he nodded. A large grin split his face when he caught a glimpse of Ying Yue dashed in impossible speed crossing the living room to the bathroom and back into her bedroom. "And you know where our feisty princess got her energy from, see?"

Tigress tilted her head and crossed her arms in faux annoyance.

"She's your daughter," he said as an explanation.

Tigress scoffed but snuggled closer. "She inhaled for a bowl of dumpling yesterday - literally. She's your kid, Po."

Po laughed, but before he can argue, Ying Yue came tearing back into the living room, a sack full of painting equipment clutched in one hand and Tigress action figure that she inherited from her big sister, Lei Lei. "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, can we fix Daddy's marks now?"

Po leaned forward, and Ying Yue redirected, launching herself at him. She grinned up at him. "Hi, Daddy."

"Hi, Little Dumpling." Po dipped his head to kiss his daughter's tiny nose, which made her laugh and wriggle in a fake attempt to avoid him. She loved the scratch of his rough panda stubble but liked to pretend she didn't.

Her hand landed on his cheek, and she patted his jaw. "Daddy, can we fix your marks now?" She's grinning up at him, and her enthusiasm made his chest ache.

He glanced at Tigress with a wordless question. He could tell she's had a long day - the Valley had suffered from a few bandit attacks and she's been putting in long, tough hours to try to make sure the situation and normalcy rebounded quickly. It won't surprise him if she's not up for taking care of him tonight.

But Tigress was already scooting forward on the couch, reaching for Ying Yue. "Let's go get everything ready for Daddy," she told her, and Ying Yue went eagerly into her mother's arms.

Po watched them head upstairs, then pushed himself up with a little groan and made a detour for the kitchen. He grabbed some Camomile tea for Ying Yue, brew a large pot of Oolong for Tigress, and refilled his water jug before heading upstairs. He could hear their voices, Ying Yue narrating everything she's doing for her mother ("I did a split kick, Mommy!"), and Tigress praising her and occasionally correcting her as needed.

Pausing in the doorway to the master bedroom, Po watched his daughter crawling around on the bed, carefully straightening the clean bath sheet they've laid down to protect the red and grey duvet. Tigress had the hot herbal patches and the jar of solvent for his scars on a small hand towel to the side. Ying Yue tended to need more cleaning up than Po after each "mark fixing" session. It was a ritual these days, now that 40 was fast approaching and his years of injury have started to make themselves known in the form of aches and pains, for his girls to spend an hour every couple days easing his pain and healing his scars.

He couldn't believe, some days, that this was his life. Becoming Dragon Warrior was merely a small part of the adventure - a beginning of many things. He couldn't believe he had Kung Fu. He couldn't believe he made friends with his idols - the Furious Five. He couldn't believe he became the Master of Jade Palace. But mostly he couldn't believe he deserved the kind of love his daughter and his wife give him so effortlessly.

Before he could get too maudlin, Tigress spotted him and reached out her paw. "C'mon over here, mister." She noticed the Oolong tea in his paws and grinned. "I knew I married you for a reason."

"Bet ya," he said with a smile that he forced because the thought of his life without her nearly squeezed the tears out of his eyes.

Tigress handed her the cup and Ying Yue's Camomile tea - they learned early that Ying Yue - just like Tigress - was not a particularly good multitasker when she spilt scalding hot tea down Po's spine. He deposited his water jug on the bedside table, tugged off his shirt (which he wore because Tigress insisted he needed to stop being shirtless in front of other people - she was his only exception), then climbed onto the mattress, settling on his stomach. He pulled his pillow closer, then craned his neck to see Ying Yue kneeling by his ribs. "Okay, Little Dumpling."

She patted his back twice and put Tigress action figure right beside his face, making Po laugh. "Relax, Daddy," she directed. "You can snuggle with my Tigress if you need to," she added, then turned her attention to her mother. "Mommy, can I have the Wonder?" Po grinned into the pillow at Ying Yue's butchering of the complicated, pharmaceutical name of the scar cream's component.

"Of course, darling," Tigress answered.

And they got to work.

Tigress knew his tight spots, the deep tissue aches and pains that responded to the patches, so she methodically applied them. She took a few moments to work on his muscles, too, massaging when she felt a knot.

Ying Yue, meanwhile, fingerpainted the white lines and raised skin of his scars with the healing cream. She was so careful and so gentle as she worked. The first time they'd done this, by the time he'd flipped over to let them work on the scars on his chest, the sight of little Ying Yue leaning over him, her tongue between her teeth as she concentrated on soothing his old injuries had brought Po to tears. His baby girl - who barely graduated from wearing diapers - hadn't noticed the tears slipping down the sides of his face, but Tigress caught the way his breath hitched, cupping his face with her paws and pressing a soft kiss to his lips to ground him.

He didn't cry every time these days, but he felt it just as acutely. Ying Yue was as openly protective as Tigress, and as deeply affectionate as he was - and they both told him at least once a day that they love him. But something about these moments, something about the way he could feel the love in their careful touches, in the time and attention they put into making him feel just a little better, it hit him hard every time.

"Thank you," he murmured into the pillow, and he's honestly not sure whether he's thanking his girls, or whatever deity or fate brought him the two great loves of his life: Tigress and Ying Yue.

His wife pressed a kiss to the back of his shoulder, and his daughter patted him again. "You're welcome, Daddy."

Po smiles. "Thank you."

[nauseateddrive]

BROWNIE OVER SINK by Patrick Daniel

Every short story I wrote in that period ended up being 846 words long. In an effort to bring this state of affairs to an end I took up a job in an office. The desk was covered with pale summer moons from the undersides of energy drinks, and these caught the sleeves of the coat and the seams of the gloves I had to keep on in there. My job was to go through documents replacing each ampersand with the word ‘and’, which apparently had to be a manual job because of the presence of ampersands in the code. I went about this with three fingers drumrolling across the relevant letters while the main part of my attention was trying and failing to get further down the page of the book that was open in my lap. It led to ‘Dan’. It led to ‘nad’. 

Sat to my right was a bloke called Adrian. Legend had it that ‘the boyband’ was his vice of choice, which is to say he liked to take on a pint, a line of cocaine, a cigarette and a spliff in crazed simultaneity. He lived near the university. 

“Continue to live in the vicinity of an institution you’re disgraced from because it builds character,” he said. 

He explained that the PhD had been on the way a certain poet’s use of a plus sign instead of the word ‘and’ indicated that the presence in the poems of what had commonly been thought of as em-dashes ought to be thought of instead as minuses, or so his thesis went, the words after the line detracting from the truth of the words before. Prising all of that apart. 

“I went quite publicly insane,” he said. “You can’t treat art like it’s maths.” 

I didn’t tell him what they had asked me to do at this desk each day but laughed privately to myself at the strange connection, announced the arrival of the supervirus.

“What did you just call me?” said the supervisor. 

“Just my dyslexia playing up!”

My main impression of this supervisor was that he referred to specific prisons by name a lot, in cryptic utterances to the tune of ‘didn’t realise we were in Bure’ or ‘you’ll see Wayland.’ 

“Put that book down or you’ll see Wayland,” he said, and then departed. 

I looked out at the tree branches which were at the level of the floor we were on. These were slung here and there with plastic bags picked up off the ground by the wind to billow in position like flags. I redirected my attention to the interior. They had really overdone it with the pot plants thing, to the extent that it felt weird to be indoors and yet bound between so many piles of soil. 

We sat in silence for the rest of the day. Maybe the supervisor had saved me the trouble. The novel in my lap was about FBI guys in the run-up to the Kennedy assassination, and I had been finding that the dedication and lack of cynicism applied by these men to their working lives came at the expense of the idea that they were tough and brave. 

The supervisor had been at the office the longest and had eventually attained a kind of authority from this fact that might not even have been official or reflected in a higher rate of pay. 

I understood what it must have been like to live in the vicinity of an institution you were disgraced from. A person who eats his meals over a sink understands that he does this thing in front of a window.

*

I was with Lydia at the market getting some kind of reputed cookie she had heard about with a brownie inside it and a nostalgic lunchbox-classic chocolate bar plonked across the top of it. She wasn’t particularly into drinking and so presumably this would be the kind of stuff we would do together. Perhaps there was redemption there. The coffee that went with it was about as good as the coffee is at a place by the bus station where you buy a coffee so you can use the printer. 

“I challenge you as a writer to tell me something disgusting enough to put me off a food item of this magnitude.” 

“I used to get stinging pains in my arsehole as a child. I realised this was because I was biting off my fingernails and swallowing them, which caused the fingernails to line my turds like the spikes around spike-headed clubs. Eventually I stopped swallowing the fingernails and instead started idly discarding them around the house. My mother would always later find the full ten piled up by where I was sat and she would gather them up in this one black ramekin. She would place the ramekin by my bedroom door to joshingly confront me with my disgusting habit. Your turn.” 

She said that she couldn’t compete with that, but that she had “always been taken with that backwards thing of how you know it was a good bath and sorely needed when the bathtub smells bad afterwards.” 

That night the excess of sugar caused me to dream that a word gets written across the surface of the town and all who read it perish. Only the town’s illiterates survive – a contingent comprised of one adult illiterate and, of course, all of the town’s babies. As the babies become adults they wonder why whatever killed their parents spared this one aging, imperfect guardian who has tried and failed to raise them in his image. As the years beat on they suspect it has something to do with illiteracy.

*

Everyone at the company was a transparent demonstration of the type of night’s sleep behind them. I realised that Adrian must have lived with pub and restaurant workers who made loud noises late at night on Sundays and Mondays, because there were tell-tale marks on his face from sleeping on his back wearing too-tight ear protectors of the kind used in clay-pigeon shooting and chainsaw work – perils of different working cultures living on top of each other. 

“Go easy on the supervirus,” he said, adjusting his jaw after the night long vice-like grip of protective equipment. “Doesn’t he strike you as a bit too heavy on his feet to make fun of in good conscience? You weren’t to know.” 

“Adrian,” I said. “You’re a real saint.” 

Under the desk I made a list of the various well-worn metaphors for what I was up against. By lunchtime I had realised that these metaphors fell into roughly two camps: negotiations with some internal disconnection (stammering, impotence, trying and failing to remember something), and negotiations with some external, withheld satisfaction (difficulty tuning an instrument, fruitless chiselling in archaeological ventures and speculative mining). 

It led to ‘DNA’. 

Pocket dictionary of the saints, received in childhood as a present from an elderly relative along with the bigoted instruction that I check it for the name of any potential friend before committing to the friendship. The cover boasted that the contents gave biographical due to over 10,000 saints, which struck me at a young age with a sense of the enormity of virtue. I was at an impressionable and credulous age when I received this object and, true to form, instead of rejecting the elderly relative’s advice I took the book to school with me each day. This was the kind of guilelessness that left me at a loose end company-wise during the early years of secondary school. Struck for something to read at these times, I would set out to get through my pocket dictionary of the saints cover to cover. I got as far as ‘Adrian’ before I became tall and people started to like me.

END

Patrick Daniel is a writer from Norfolk, UK. His short stories have appeared in Openwork Magazine, Necessary Fiction, and as part of Hello America’s Stories Mixtape.

[nakediconoclast]

Bracken: Professor Raoul X    Posted on January 14, 2011

Western Rifle Shooters Association

It was late June and I was sitting in a café seven hundred miles from home, doing a little web surfing. There was plenty of room at mid-morning, so I could sit at the end of the coffee bar with my laptop. I was scanning the breaking news about the new mass-shooting. Like most people I was morbidly fascinated with the deranged young man who was the killer. That is, the trigger puller. But I was looking over his shoulder for something else: signs of a guiding hand.

Why? Because I know something about the subject.

You see, being a guiding hand is my life’s avocation. My secret avocation, that is. Outwardly I’m a tenured professor of sociology at a Mid-western university. A life-long bachelor, so my summers are my own. Ostensibly for writing, research, quiet reflection, bungee jumping or what have you. My summer hobby is traveling and meeting interesting people. Everything I do on these road trips can be explained under the rubric of field research, but even so I pay with cash and move like a ghost. I’m old school. It’s a harmless quirk. Nobody cares.

I suppose if you polled my students, they’d declare me to be left wing, but not a rhetorical bomb-thrower. Am I closer to Karl Marx than to Ayn Rand? Well, naturally. Progressive politics were part of my upbringing and education. And of course that is also the best way to get along in academia, and I do like to get along.

No question my academic career has been lackluster. That does not concern me. I have no wife or significant other to be concerned with my apparent lack of greater ambition or wealth. Seeking publication for papers that a few academic gnomes might eventually peruse does not interest me in the least. Writing some groundbreaking tome that will be reviewed in the New York Times and read by millions is not a realistic aspiration. I am no Jared Diamond in the rough. I won academic tenure, and that was enough. I have a house and a ten-year-old Beamer. I enjoy my little comforts. A small circle of friends, none close. I’d be the first to admit it’s been a mediocre life—outwardly.

But my secret life has been anything but mediocre. I have engineered extraordinary events, but truth be told, there is little joy in secret celebration. So I am creating this document, properly encoded and hidden, to save for posterity. When my unsurpassed run is finally over, due either to my natural demise or other more precipitous causes, my secret history will conjure itself from millions of computer screens unfiltered, unspun and uncut. The truth will be known. This is my story, and no one can take it from me. My name will ring down through the ages, when my complete story is told!

But not yet. There is more secret work to be done.

I did not drive seven hundred miles to ponder my life’s ledger and tap on a keyboard. What interested me was the creature standing on the other side of the white coffee shop counter. The gaunt, long-haired young man by the espresso machine could have been taken for a college student in a college town. Really not too bad looking in person. Pushing six feet, skinny. Gray-blue eyes, a little too closely set. Decent complexion for his age. Maybe a few days since his mouse-colored hair had been washed or properly brushed, but overall he was quite presentable. Duncan it said on his plastic name tag. I already knew that his last name was McClaren. I wasn’t in this picturesque college town by accident. I was here to meet him, but he didn’t know this.

Duncan McClaren was one of the most promising prospects I’d run down in years. My own students unknowingly provide me with many of my leads. We have free-ranging discussions, in and out of the classroom setting. From practice I know how to guide them toward a discussion of the weirdest people they’ve ever known. Duncan went to high school with one of my female students. His first name was mentioned casually by the student, tossed off her lips and promptly forgotten. Duncan sometimes heard voices, she said. Talked to himself. And he could not stop talking about whatever obsessed him at the moment. He cut right into conversations among people he hardly knew, and went off onto bizzaro-world tangents. And what really set him off was the country’s most famous talk radio host.

Following that disclosure I did my own internet research. There was only one Duncan listed in her year at her high school. As a professor, I stay on the cutting edge of internet trickery. A critical part of my secret avocation involves doing internet research without leaving digital fingerprints. My students constantly come up with what they believe to be new ways to cheat or plagiarize without detection, so I’ve become somewhat of an expert at internet security. I do not take risks. I’m a very careful person. Typing this secret history and hiding it inside my computer is perhaps the biggest risk I’ve taken.

In the course of my background investigation I learned that he had been expelled or otherwise ejected from high school numerous times. He’d been arrested and he’d been to juvenile boot camp. There were a number of sealed records and denied files, both medical and legal. But reading between the lines of what I could access, it was a safe guess that there had been serious drug use and there had been family violence. Rumors of arson at a very young age. His family had money and pull, and he was accepted for admission to an out-of-state institution of higher learning. His brief transcript was telling. His GPA for three completed semesters was made up equally of As and Fs. He had not finished his second year. No reason was given.

Since dropping out of college Duncan had been adrift for a year, hitchhiking around the country, supporting himself mostly as a dish washer or at other menial short-term jobs involving limited social interaction. On his own walkabout journey of self-discovery, to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was for the moment a barista in this New England college town, and I arranged for our paths to cross.

It’s always an intense moment, my first close look at a subject I’ve known only as an internet phantom. Duncan came over to take my order: regular coffee, with cream and sugar. When he filled my cup I laid a few dollars on the counter.

Duncan tapped the bills and said matter-of-factly, “So, somebody still believes in paper money.”

I looked directly at him and replied, “For some things, yes. Like paying for coffee.”

He returned my gaze, his eyes narrowed to slits and he said, “Smart. Fly under the radar. Render unto Caesar—while you can. But it’s all just a matter of time. Just a matter of time.” He slowly nodded his head, as if agreeing with himself.

To release his floodgates all I had to ask him was, “What do you mean?” Then I listened attentively to a five minute diatribe covering many tediously familiar theories and a few original ones. A thirtyish female with a severe hairstyle, whom I guessed was the café’s manager, edged over and tried to redirect my waiter. “Dunc,” she said breezily, “You’re not bothering this man, are you? No more talking about that bank stuff, right?”

Holding the full pot of hot coffee he slowly turned his entire body and fixed an icy glare upon her, but said nothing. He held his stare, boring into her with flat eyes. His arm seemed tensed to hurl the burning-hot brew at her. Her smile wilted, she turned and walked away. “She doesn’t understand,” said Duncan when she was gone. “Her mind is closed to the reality around her.”

“Does that bother you?” I asked him.

“I’m used to it. Ninety percent of humanity is closed off to reality.”

I laughed and said, “I think you’re giving humanity too much credit.”

He smiled in a peculiar way. One side of his mouth went up markedly while the other side remained nearly flat. “Yeah. Probably. Look, I have to serve some other humanity or I’m going to get canned. I’m on thin ice around here.”

Twenty-year-old Duncan, who had a post-graduate’s demeanor and a startlingly high IQ, had never held a job for longer than a month. He could operate independently in society as a functioning adult in most situations. He could shop for himself and drive a car. He’d briefly kept an apartment in college. But he could not hold a conversation without promptly veering into the Bush-family CIA dynasty, the truth about 9-11, the Jewish bankers, right-wing talk radio and God help me, the Queen of England.

Duncan was a bug. A raving lunatic. Yet in his outward appearance and mannerisms, he was as normal as you and I. But what does one’s outward appearance signify? The faces we show to the world are mere avatars, are they not? Who truly knows our inner hearts, our souls if you will? No one. Certainly not a God who doesn’t exist. So am I normal? Define normal. A sophomoric tautology. Yes, outwardly I can easily pass as normal, and I have for most of my forty-seven years. But inside? Honestly, what a question. Who wants to be no more than a random semi-conscious insect in a hive of billions?

Not me. No, I’m not normal, and have no desire to be.

Normal means average, and let me assure you, I’m way above average. Average people don’t make it their life’s work to ferret out certain types of borderline personalities and convert them into useful tools. As far as I know, I’m the only human toolmaker of my kind. No semi-sentient insect brain resides within my skull, making me a slave to laws, traditions or norms of so-called acceptable behavior. I operate outside of the rules of the hive, and I enjoy a freedom mere insects can never know. So what, you say? I’ll say what. By my actions I have personally changed the course of history, and I will do so again.

Can you say the same thing? What “normal” hive insect can claim to have done that?

Have there been others like me? I tend to think so, but it’s an area of pure conjecture. A familiar example. Most Americans dismissed the story of James Earl Ray’s mysterious helper, known only to him as “Raoul,” as a self-serving fantasy. I always thought that Raoul was more flesh than fantasy. James Earl Ray’s actions and travels before and after Memphis make me believe that he had assistance of the kind that I have given to some very special people.

If you take a ‘Parallax View’ of history, you might allow the possibility that rogue government agencies or other cliques could also be grooming likely candidates, but I tend not to believe in elaborate conspiracies. Could it happen? I suppose. But in my experience, no conspiracy involving a large cast of characters can remain a secret for many years.

On the other hand, the temporary private relationship between a mentor and a singular student, that relationship can indeed be kept a secret. My writing this secret history in freedom instead of in captivity proves that this is so. And even if one of my human tools is someday arrested alive, his mad barkings will be disregarded. His minor side-story of a mysterious helper, if heard at all, will be disregarded as just another in his cornucopia of delusions.

Converting a certain type of lunatic into a useful tool is not too difficult when you understand the dynamics that are in play. Practice makes perfect, and I’ve had a lot of practice. Good candidates for a direct action mission are often quite intelligent, at least as measured on certain scales. They can navigate by themselves between cities, and arrive at a place and time without causing alarm to the general population.

But in my experience the best candidates for a guiding hand are not true “loners.” They often seek friendship and employment, and they may even succeed for a while. But the men who interest me invariably sabotage their social relationships by compulsively discussing their paranoid obsessions. Each human rejection adds heat to their simmering rage. Yet still they crave human companionship, and simple affirmation of their delusional belief systems. This makes them soft putty at my touch. These men, deftly guided, become my arrows. To the world, these arrows seem to plunge at random from the clear blue sky. Sometimes they do, but not always!

It’s not hard to convert a lump of inchoate anger into an arrow. At first all I do is offer them a receptive ear, and confirmation that they are not alone in their beliefs. Our dialogues lead me toward the best approach to take. I adapt my temporary cover story to fit my current subject’s preexisting delusional views. In the past I’ve pretended to be a liaison from the CIA, from Mossad, from Al Qaeda. I’ve posed as a former leading member of the Trilateral Commission, now working against their globalist designs. Sometimes I’ve convinced them that their medications are part of a conspiracy to chemically lobotomize them, robbing them of their most brilliant insights.

After a few private conversations I eventually steer the subject to “doing something really important.” Hypothetically, of course. At least at first. Then we play a conversational game of, “If I could, I would.” A good prospect will soon be describing the precise medieval tortures, punishments and execution methods merited by his worst enemies. Once I have tapped into his personal fantasy realm of gory revenge, it’s “game on,” as they say in the vernacular.

At that point it really doesn’t matter to me who or what is the focus of the subject’s hate, or what group he blames for his own shortcomings or for the ills of the world. Left, right, capitalism, socialism, religion, nationalism…in truth I stopped caring very much about them long ago. When an action will advance the cause of social justice that’s great, but generalized mayhem is also a worthy end in itself. “The worse, the better,” in Lenin’s words. Create the pre-revolutionary conditions. Some days I still half believe the old dogma. But at least I’m not just another insect in the hive.

I slid my empty cup away, and awaited the return of my barista. In a minute I’d be commiserating with him, discovering that we were practically soulmates, rare men of true vision. Posing as an out-of-town business visitor, I’d ask him the best place in the area to eat. It would turn out that he and I shared similar culinary and beverage tastes, fancy that! And I’d gladly spring for lunch or dinner if he’d agree to be my local guide. Then we’d discuss further his hatred for the Jewish bankers who run the world, and the right-wing talk radio hosts who are their willing accomplices and mouthpieces. At least, in the world according to Duncan McClaren.

Right-wing talk radio was very much on my mind, because one of the icons of that loathsome industry was going to be passing through the region two weeks hence. Ben Rafferty wasn’t the king of right-wing hate radio, but he was one of the rising princes, nearly up there with the big three. Currently he was on a national book tour, promoting his latest toxic spill of racist hate-speech. Oh happy day, his entire schedule, with bookstore locations, dates and times, was available online.

I’d discovered some other useful information in an interview Rafferty had given to a pro-gun blog. The talk host traveled without an armed bodyguard, due to the vagaries of conflicting state gun laws. This was particularly a problem when flying into New York or New Jersey. It was just too damn hard to stay in compliance with a thousand local gun laws that could cause you to be imprisoned over a technical firearms violation. So instead of an armed bodyguard, he had some kind of karate guy for protection. An ex-soldier who had been wounded in one of America’s wars of imperialism. Poor Ben Rafferty, who never saw an assault rifle he didn’t want to French kiss, couldn’t have a gun during his East Coast book tour. Beautiful.

The imminent proximity of Duncan McClaren and Ben Rafferty had brought me seven hundred miles to this coffee shop. With a little stroking and massaging of Duncan’s twisted and deformed ego, I hoped to convince him that his empty life could at long last have genuine meaning. He could make a real difference! He could change the world! He could accomplish something important, and be remembered forever. I already had an untraceable pistol to provide him, if he proved receptive to my guiding hand. Oh, the mayhem potential, when one of the leading right-wing haters is finally knocked off! Mayhem-fest, indeed. Mayhem squared. Mayhem cubed!

Radio talker Ben Rafferty meant nothing to me, but he had millions of rabid right-wing followers who clung to his every screech and scream for three hours a day. After Duncan McClaren approached the book-signing table, pulled out his pistol and gave his miserable life meaning, Rafferty’s fans would rise en masse in blind rage. And a few of his most rabid fans, feeding their own dark fantasies, would predictably strike out in violent reprisal against progressive leaders. Secondary explosions, if you will. A chain reaction, possibly my greatest work ever.

Duncan returned to my end of the bar when he saw my empty cup. While he poured my refill I quietly said, “You know, you’re right about those Jewish bankers and how they control talk radio. They’re all in New York, right? I mean, most people have no idea what’s going on around them.”

His eyes widened and a half-smile formed on his lips. He set the coffee pot down and leaned on the counter until his nose was a foot from mine. One eyebrow raised in expectation above the high side of his demented grin. He glanced back down the counter to see who was in earshot and then said, “You know about the Illuminati, right?”

Did I ever.

I smiled.

This plan might actually work. I’d know better after a long conversation with Duncan McClaren in a dark restaurant. Duncan might be my masterpiece, the one to light the fuse of Civil War Two. And if he does, eventually I want the world to know who handed him the matches, the gun and Ben Rafferty’s book-signing schedule.

But for now just call me Professor Raoul X, a guiding hand of history.

*************************************

Fiction by Matthew Bracken, author of the Enemies Foreign And Domestic trilogy and the upcoming Castigo Cay.

[morguswritings]

The red door to one of the bedrooms opened and James walked out. He looked across the living room, papers strewn across a center table, and out the sliding glass door to the sun lit balcony. Andrew, sitting at the desk on the right, looked up from his paper and waved with a flick of the hand. "You're up late."

"Bad sleep." James stumbled to the kitchen to his left and pulled a cup from the open cupboard.

"Eat late?"

"Just a bad sleep. They happen."

"Coffee's there for you."

James poured the rest from the pot into his cup and took his seat at the empty desk. A closed Chromebook sat on the left and a notebook open to a half full page of point form notes sat before him. He looked over the notes as he sipped the coffee. Some points on the different feelings a city can portray, others on the basic practices a city may use to manage homelessness. "This feels like bullshit."

"At first, it is."

"Then why do it?"

The sound of typing slowed and stopped. Andrew tilted his head upward. "Well, we don't know how to make a difference yet, right? So we research and we write. We write to narrow down ideas from the world and find ways to apply them."

James cleared his throat, picked up one of the pens from a black metal mesh holder behind the notes and wrote a single sentence.

How can this help someone?

"I guess that's a start," he concluded.

Andrew began his typing again and James opened a book. He spent the next hour filling another two pages with point form notes on basic city planning before standing up again. He walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge. It was mostly bare. He pushed a half full jug of mixed fruit juice to pull out a half carton of eggs and threw two into a pot with some water. "Boiled eggs, want any?" James called out to the livingroom before seeing the empty pot of stove top oatmeal on the back of the stove.

"Already ate."

"What kind did you have?"

"Plain, threw some strawberry jam in it."

"Nice."

Setting the timer for 20 minutes, James returned to the living room and knelt down at the table between them. A copy of the Economist sat cut up in the center. Different articles about world leaders and fraud were organized by subject matter. Andrew saved the document he was writing and swivelled the chair around. "Thought a lot about information," he said, looking down at the cutouts with a frown.

"Just, in general?"

"Well, why do people need to know this?" He slid off the chair down to the level of the table and picked up a snippet at random. "Does this help me in my daily life?" He cleared his throat as he read the clipping. "World leader found guilty of redirecting millions into personal bank accounts."

"Wait, they can do that?"

Andrew put the clipping down in front of James and chuckled. "Perhaps. It was actually on a change in the Netherlands banking policies. You believed it though. That's the kind of thing you expect to find in here. How does knowing this benefit you?"

James frowned and looked up from the article to Andrew. "Well, it doesn't. Not directly."

"Indirectly?"

"Well, it makes me a more knowledged person."

"If any information makes you a more knowledged person, and some information helps you, then focus on that."

James shook his head. "There's something off about that.

"Lay it on me."

He shuffled through the clippings before finding one on a paper mill fire. "We're finicky creatures. We don't quite know what we want, what paths we should take, or what to specialise in. These may be random, but they're inspiring. Without being exposed, how do we know what we're interested in?"

"If you're unsure, just limit it."

"What?"

James picked up three pieces of the paper and looked them over before turning them towards James. Expose yourself to seemingly random and new information, but then get to work. Delve deeper. Balance the breadth and depth. First," he plucked out the paper on the far right and put it down on the table," there may be nothing more on Australian politics that really interests you other than that headline. Second," he plucked out another piece of paper and put it on the table, "you have a lot of work to do before getting to the point where these matter. Last," he threw the piece of paper down at the table, causing it to flutter off the side and onto the floor. "Do we even know if any of this is real?"

He stood up and sat back down in his chair. "Focus on your current topic. Get something figured out."

[counter-of-the-stars]

Well my newly found condition P.O.T.S. won't let me smoke the pots, would you believe that?

Perhaps because it was an indica and not a sativa. I passed out last knight at my neighbor's house, it was rather scary how fast the room began to disappeare, it sounded as if I was going into a different dimension. This has happened before I just never knew why, and it was never this prominent. For a split second I could see everyone looking at me funny but I couldn't talk I couldn't move or explain to anyone what was happening it just happened. Aside from that it was my last time smoking anyways for a while being as disability will require drug test so until I can get to Colorado (semi-permanently) I'll find the right strain then. We're going to get my life in order again I have to be sober from anyting that could possibly sabotage my growth. Not to mention it also deeply it's your happy hormones "Grrrrrr"

I can't even have fucking coffee, let's not even get into alcohol. Unless you want me to pass out from thinking about it so hard.

I will probably allow myself mild forms of caffeine, green tea, half cups of coffee, decaf coffee but it does dehydrate me so much after it elevates my blood pressure to an over extent causing it to rapidly drop soon after, if I do not continue to drink it. (Lemon water it is!)

It's not that I don't like lemon water it's just (every day?) Where's my bitters!?

I do suppose I can add some dehydrated dandelion to my lemon water that would help with the caffeine cravings. It's just still not the same.

[hartleykeiner]

Hiiii could you one where Betty and jughead are friends with benefits (not sex, but at least they kiss and act like a couple but aren't) and neither wants to confess their feelings so they play games with each other (teasing, flirting, jealousy, etc.)? Thank you :)

notes: this idea is pretty different from the usual stuff i write (i usually love angsting everything up haha) so yay for new things and nay for i’ve never written anything like this so pardon any, y’know, potential cringe (also yikes this was longer than i expected, which is why i added the ‘keep reading’ after the first extract). also since these two aren’t together i assume this is vaguely au.

.

.

Here’s the thing:

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you’ve always harbored something—be it fondness, the feeling that you’ve encountered a kindred spirit, genuine appreciation, or perhaps simply a juvenile schoolboy crush, whatever so, just something—for her. However you have long made your peace with the fact that a relationship with the merry cheerleader that oversteps the boundaries of platonic waters may never come into fruition.

Here’s the other thing:

You never considered the possibility that long nights spent in the confines of the Blue and Gold offices would eventually lead to moments otherwise few and far in between—endless cups of coffee, the conversation switching from the contents of Wednesday’s chicken pot pie to your familial woes (to which she offers a sympathetic smile and tales of her own Cooper-based troubles)—could open doorways to a very different change in your dynamic with the blonde girl.

Till, well.

Perhaps you could blame it on caffeine-induced vision leading to impaired judgment, or the fact that all common sense tends to fly out the window once the clock strikes past midnight, but it’s dark and the only source of light is the luminescence from your laptop and she’s halfway through scribbling feverishly on her notebook when she looks up and meets your gaze. Her ponytail is loose, there are flinging sunshine tendrils framing her face.

“Hey,” she says, prodding your sleeve as she leans closer. A curtain of blonde hair falls against her cheek. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m… great.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, you don’t look great.”

“You always do.”

The words leave your mouth before you realize and, when you do, you inhale a sharp take of breath and she clucks her tongue before her face blossoms to a darker shade of crimson as she retreats from your gaze. And your heartbeat soars.

So you kiss her.

And she hooks her arms around your neck.

Which leads you to develop a new-found appreciation for the school staff’s blatant lack of after-school supervision.

.

.

It’s a simple concept, really—no strings attached.

That’s what you two agree on.

Never mind that if you learned anything from the plethora of ‘chick flicks’ (as Archie likes to call it) that the Cooper girl herself made you watch with her throughout the years, it was that assuming mainly platonic relations with several non-platonic benefits isn’t the ideal way to sustain a promising friendship.

In fact, it seems to be the quickest way to end it.

Not that either of you are particularly bent on listening to reason at this point.

Perhaps it’s because you’ve always been the voice of reason, and so has she, so swimming in shark-filled territories does spark something you wish to salvage, above all.

“Really,” she tells you, gathering her self-made pie-charts as she displays the evidence on the acorn-colored table. “This way, we can have—”

“Some ounce of normalcy in the midst of all the chaos.”

“Yeah,” she responds. Pauses. “Also, we don’t need to worry our friends with this.. arrangement.”

“Although Archie could certainly use some songwriting inspiration,” you state, which incurs a half-smile from the blonde.

So that’s what the two of you settle for—stolen kisses in the shadows after football games, quiet nights over takeaways while editing the Blue and Gold (which soon becomes your favorite pastime), brief brushing of hands when you’re around company (stealth is the key, you quickly learn), and high-pitched “we’re just friends!” whenever anyone dares to suggest otherwise.

A good system, if you do say so yourself.

That is, until—

“My cousin Vince is in town for the weekend,” the Lodge girl declares. “He’s visiting from New York and he wants to hang out on Friday, but Reggie and I already have plans. Which I have no intention of cancelling. So long story short, Betty are you free Friday night? After the game, that is.”

So she pauses, clearly stumbled. “You mean like a blind date?”

“A double date,” clarifies Veronica. “And blind on your part, yes.”

Therein lies the silent killer.

“Come on, Betts,” insists the raven-haired girl. “The only thing you ever seem to do nowadays is spend your very valuable time cooped up editing the school newspaper after hours, might I add.” When her remark is met with silence, Veronica sighs deeply and turns to you. “Holden Caulfield, some help?”

You focus on your bag of chips, “The Blue and Gold needs all the help it can get.”

She raises not one, but two groomed eyebrows. “Well,” she eventually says, crossing her arms slowly. “Suit yourselves.”

.

.

“Does it worry you that our arrangement includes, and often requires, us lying to our friends?”

“Very much, so.”

“Are we not seeing other people?”

“Maybe not for the time being.”

“But we’re not together.”

“No, no we’re not.”

“But we’re still sneaking around?”

“Well we are hiding from our friends in the janitor’s closet so yes, yes we are.”

“So,” you gesture to the little space between the two of you, tapping rhythmically on her arm. “That’s that.”

She nods, leaning in. “That’s that.”

. 

.

You wonder if this is what hell feels like.

Kevin brings peaches to lunch and distributes it at the table, clearly unaware that you’re notoriously allergic to the brightly-colored fruit. Which you don’t initially mind; it was simply an honest mistake made by the Keller boy. You spend your time enjoying your bag of chips, instead.

That is, until, the Cooper girl arrives and quickly indulges in the supply, starkly reminding you of one grave fact.

Betty loved peaches.

It always seemed like she was mocking you whenever she would eat them in your presence, but today the fact rang clear as bluebells. She sat across you at the table and placed the bowl right between the two of you.

And she chose to sport red lipstick that day.

Go figure.

So while the others spend their fleeting minutes of freedom animatedly discussing the contents of a certain television show that aired the day before (and you’re thankful for the shift in attention), she raises an eyebrow at you and smirks as she continues nibbling.

You sigh deeply.

She’s taunting you, really—for many reasons, you figure, the top being because you can’t really do anything about it. The newly peach-ified aura reeks of saccharinity. Then she takes another bite.

“You okay, Jug?” she asks, voice coated with merriment (and she’s not even trying to hide her amusement, at this point). 

“Just peachy,” you blankly state, to which she replies with a bright grin.

So when the bell rings and everyone promptly retreats to class, you snake your hand into hers and lead her to the supply closet because, damn it, you need to kiss her and if rash breakouts were the price to pay then so be it.

And so it was, when you excuse yourself from Biology class to visit the nurse (which you were twenty minutes late for, anyway).

.

.

You don’t quite know how you ended up here, trying your best not to seethe on the bleachers during halftime.

You can speculate, however.

Perhaps it has everything to do with the golden-haired girl donned in navy cheer, and your lack of emotional restraint, who is all bright-eyed and buoyant as she stops to glance in your direction and raise a neat eyebrow. Which is Betty Cooper speak for this is a challenge, (and after half a decade of being in her life, you are now fully aware of the hidden mischievous nature that juxtaposes her otherwise candy-coated exterior). So you narrow your eyes which is your speak for I’m above and beyond this—this, you’re betting, she already knows. Which is probably why she responds by turning and redirecting her attention to the raven-haired Lodge boy once more. You momentarily wonder whether football games or pretty cheerleaders were Vince’s forte and when he links his fingers with Betty’s in one swift, fluid motion you swallow the lump in your throat and redirect your attention to the luminous screen when you feel two dainty fingers tap your shoulder.

“Working hard?” presumes Ethel, gesturing to your laptop. “Of course you’d be reading during halftime.” Her smile broadens. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” is your response and she promptly sits down, glancing over your shoulder.

“The Beautiful and the Damned?” she remarks. “I always did peg you as an F. Scott Fitzgerald fan.”

You continue observing the situation and watching it unfold; Betty’s doing that thing where she half-smiles while she tilts her head to the left and lets her damp ponytail swing in the air and it always works damn it (on you, anyways) and apparently Vince too because he grins once he takes her cue and leans in further. “If anything, I’m the Damned,” you deadpan, which incurs a laugh from Ethel.

“I think you may be luckier than you realize.”

“I sure hope so.”

“I have a hunch.”

You feel a pair of eyes on you, so when you turn to the football field, you meet the Cooper girl’s marine gaze. Which leads you to turn back to Ethel, who only half-smirks, and this spurs something akin to a power shift in the atmosphere and you, dare you say it, relish it.

“Wanna add fuel to the fire?” she adds, a playful glint glimmering in her eye.

“What do you mean?”

Without warning, Ethel leans in and captures your lips in a quick kiss. It stuns you, defers you and leaves you frozen for a good split second, but you manage to gather your thoughts and break apart from her when you do. She’s undeterred, however, and simply responds with a small smile.

“I think that did the trick,” she remarks, as Betty retreats from the football field in what appears to be a quick hurry. You pack your things and go after her.

.

.

“I should have known you’d find me here,” she deadpans, when you open the door to the Blue and Gold office. “First place you’d look.”

“You were always the worst at Hide and Seek parties during middle school,” you state lamely, closing the door as you walk in. “Sometimes I wonder if you simply wanted to be found.” She doesn’t respond to this, which tells you that you’ve struck a chord. With a deep breath, you begin. “Betty—”

"I saw you with Ethel."

"Well, I saw you with Vince."

And so a silence ensues between the two of you. Regardless, one thing overwhelming fact is clear—the both of you are on even playing fields, the waters are equally turbulant, yet neither of you feel like you've won anything in particular. So you sigh and gulp before you turn around and cross your arms.

"Clearly," you say. "This isn't working."

“So does this mean you want to end whatever this,” she gestures between the two of you, “is.”

“No.” Then, you step towards her. “I don’t want this to end. What happened out there, I, well, frankly I don’t quite understand it myself.”

She nods slowly. “I don’t really understand what’s been happening, either.” She looks up to meet your gaze. “Guess the only thing I really know is that I don’t want to stop spending time with you, I don’t want to date Veronica’s cousin,” you pause to laugh and so does she. “I don’t want to keep this a secret, either. Whatever it is.”

And so you follow her lead, walking towards her. “I don’t know what it is that we have, but maybe we can figure it out. Together.”

This makes her smile. It reaches the tip of her marine eyes and she bites her lower lip to restrain it, slowly linking her fingers with yours. “I like the sound of that.”

And so you brush a golden strand from the corner of her face, and she embeds her lips onto yours. 

It feels like coming home.

.

.

“We’re together.” 

These are the words Betty utters, her hand intertwined with yours, on the couch within the confines of the student lounge. You nod concurrently. Every so often, she turns to meet your gaze, so you tighten your grip on her hand as you turn to face your group of friends.

This proclamation is met with stone-cold glances from Archie, Veronica and Kevin.

“We know,” they state in unison. 

“How,” you begin, frazzled. “How did you—”

“Choosing to spend your Friday night with Broody over here instead of a fun night out with a fellow Lodge?” deadpans Veronica, her bright almond gaze locked with Betty’s marine ones. “I put the pieces together pretty quickly.”

“Then your peach show added to our already-heavy suspicions,” adds Kevin, half-chuckling. “Also I figured it out by Jug’s allergic reaction and the both of your uncharacteristic tardiness that followed soon after.”

“And next time, you might wanna lower the blinds in the Blue and Gold office and janitor closets,” finishes Archie, voice blank. “They’re there for a reason, y’know.”

“We did inquire the help of Ethel to knock some sense into you two,” states the Lodge girl, smilingly. “I think she did a pretty good job.”

“Excuse—”

“She always had a thing for you, so getting her on board was relatively easy.”

“Well,” is all you say, which is all you can say really, as you take in the newly-distributed information. The Cooper girl follows suit, clearly stunned as she leans over to take a slow swing of her coffee. You draw out a long breath and turn to face your friends once again. You quietly wonder if your friends were involved in other intense, intricate conspiracies.

“We’re not mad,” clarifies Veronica, voice gentle. “We just want to know if you’re happy. Are you?”

And so, you turn to face the blonde beside you, who is already looking back at you with a tentative smile. And so you return it, slowly but surely.

“Yeah,” you say. “We’re happy.”

“With all the strings attached,” she adds.

And it is enough.

.

.

[raphiot]

Easter

In the middle of the aisle, there was a white rabbit. It stared me down, its beady little pink eyes imparting on me a mix of disgust, judgment and coercion. They were transfixed and unblinking, and I couldn’t help but feel just a little silly with how it bothered me.

The rabbit in question was part of a cardboard candy stand that housed many small, tinfoil-wrapped eggs. Blown up in an emboldened comic sans near its fluffy neck-puff was a passive-aggressive, condescending slogan, ‘nobunny knows Easter like Cadbury!’ The nerve. The very idea that this little cardboard animal knew more about a catholic religious excuse to paint eggs and eat candy than I did was enough to incite me, and I felt I had no recourse but to walk right over and pick up a chocolate candy egg and buy it. That’ll show the smug little bunny.

It was a rare occasion in my backwater little town when the sun dare show its face in the sky. It was still half-hidden behind a blanket of white clouds, yet even half a ray of sunshine was enough warmth to dry up the post-winter downpour of nights before. For the first time in a long while, I wouldn’t be dripping with the moon’s tears when I walked in my door.

In the bed in the middle of the room lie a familiar shape. Little ears poking out of the blankets, darting around like antennae, searching for signs of intruders. As soon as I shut the door behind me, however, the sonar system in the bed had picked me up, and had activated emergency waking mode.

“Oh… good morn-ning…!” A small, light-haired person rose slowly from the blankets and set her violet eyes on me. It’s not so strange for me to refer to her as a person, but someone else might think it odd, if they got a good look at her long, thin, fluffy white ears. They fluttered about as she addressed me, as if finding feeling among the air and rousing to waking. Eventually, once her eyes had brightened and she was standing, they fell lazily to rest atop her head.

“Hey.” I sat down in my creaking chair next to the counter and took the plastic shopping bag out of my jacket. The rabbit-girl came before me, her nose subtly twitching with curiosity.

“Did you go? Somewhere?” She asked, ears perking.

“Just went to buy a couple things.” I pulled the usual coffee can from the bag and set it on the counter, then I took out the tinfoil-wrapped chocolate and showed it to her. “I thought you might like this.”

“What, what is it?” She held out her hands and I dropped it into her palms. She rolled it around amongst her fingers and took in its texture, eventually puzzling out that the colorful packaging needed removing. She meticulously pulled at one of the loose edges and removed it little by little, revealing the oval chocolate confection.

“Oh. It is, ah, can-dy,” she said, sniffing it.

“Take a bite,” I told her, “there’s a surprise inside.” Her ears crooked to me inquisitively, as if trying to form a question mark shape. Without much hesitation, she sunk her teeth into the chocolate confection and pulled away with a sizable chunk of it, chewing reservedly-- and her eyes opened wide.

“This! This fill-ling...” She exclaimed, her mouth full of chocolate. Looking down at the egg, she found the inside to be filled with a white and yellow cream filling, resembling that of an egg white and yolk. Just tastes like sugar, though, I’m sure.

“Yeah, it’s like an egg.” I said from the mouthpiece of my coffee can. “I thought of you when I saw the little bunny that lays them at the store.”

“Lay…? Rabbits do not-- do not lay eggs.” She gave me that familiar look of perplexity, but had not stopped eating the chocolate.

“At Easter, they do,” I smirked at her. “Little bunnies hide in the grass and lay colored eggs for people to find, filled with candy.” The questions were boiling over in her head as she become confused. She gave me a troubled look.

“But! Eggs…? I cannot lay any, ah, eggs...” She gazed down at her body, which was largely covered by a white button-up shirt I had given her to wear, her legs bare as she had forgotten to dress herself after getting out of bed.

“Ah!” She squeaked in alarm, quickly turning red as she scurried into the bathroom to dress herself.

When she returned, her wild hair had been tamed into its usual tied twintails, and she had adorned herself with her white skirt, her hooded jacket, a pair of my long socks and her denim-color sneakers. Though it took her an eternity each time, she emerged from my filthy bathroom looking like a dainty flower grown from a pot of dirt.

“Ahm,” she began, her hands together at her waist, “what is Easter?”

“Oh, well,” I scratched the back of my head, trying to think of a way out of explaining the awkward practices of Christian holidays and how rabbits had become related to the concept of hidden eggs that bear treasure inside. “It’s a time when, err… When rabbits become really popular on earth, I guess.”

“Real? Ah-- really?” Her bright eyes hid briefly behind her long, silver eyelashes as she blinked in wonder at me. The idea of humans liking the company of rabbits was probably not something she thought was possible.

“Yeah. And, so, uh, we make these baskets with food-- and rabbit eggs-- and we share them, in celebration of humans and rabbits coming together.”

“If, if that is so… Then why do earth rabbits not live openly? With, ah, with humans?” She touched her forefinger to her lips in thought. Shit, she’s right.

“Err, well, it’s because humans think rabbits are animals… like, fluffy animals that live underground. Rabbits like you-- they’re sort of like a fairy tale to them.” I never was very good at lying. If I kept going on like this, I’d end up with a story much more contrived than the one about a bearded arab who came back to life after some Romans killed him.

“I am no fairy,” she said, and outstretched her ears. “I am Luminous, the Lunar Emissary.” She looked oddly proud of herself, puffing out her chest a little. I kept my covetous hands to myself as she did so, redirecting my mind to the door.

“I think I know a way to show you. Come with me,” I outstretched my hand to her, the other reaching for the door. She timidly placed her long, thin fingers in my palm and followed after me as I turned the knob and guided her out. A light drizzle had come to accompany the sun, so I pointed to her head and she complied by covering her ears with her hood.

It had been many years since I had attended an Easter celebration at a church. I figured there wouldn’t be a better place for Lumi to see what it meant to people with her own eyes than an official gathering for it, and there were certainly plenty of places in town to do so. In fact, I wasn’t sure which one to attend, not being particularly bent to any specific branch. The Seventh-day Adventists had likely already had their Easter celebration the previous day-- on Saturday-- so I’d have to go someplace else.

“Easter? To think thy crux of thine earthly faith should’st lead thee to mine doorstep. A funny thing, t’would be, were it not so queer.” The exiled Lunarian laughed plainly in my face from her carpeted threshold, beyond the wide double-doors of the Church Mouse Gallery. Her loose, blonde bun bounced to match her chuckling.

“Right, I forgot you’re an ancient, evil alien who sneers down her nose at lowly human beings like myself. I just thought you might have gotten Ethel to lay some eggs.” I said, plainly. Beatrix was her name, and seeing her for anything religious was probably not a wise decision-- but I still had reservations about taking Lumi to any public place, where many people might see her funny ears and kaleidoscope eyes.

“Ethel doth lie in a bed of whimsy and foolishness, but none so deeply she had a mind to lay an egg.” She wrapped a finger in one of her blonde curls as she spoke. “Verily, thy head seems to crack like that of an egg, should’st thee believe such a thing.”

“So you guys don’t celebrate Easter. I probably should have known better.” I rolled my eyes at her, but she was so old – and probably so senile – that she likely didn’t know rabbits ‘laid eggs’ during Easter.

“Oh, hello, Lady Emissary,” a calm and youthful voice called from behind Beatrix. A young woman in a servant’s dress with long brown locks that flow down her back stood aside the Lunarian and gave a polite bow-- and her hair tumbled over her shoulders to reveal that it was, in fact, not hair at all, but very long lop rabbit ears. She rose and smiled at Lumi, looking glad to see her again.

“In truth,” the servant rabbit began, “I had proposed the idea of painting eggs to my Lady Beatrix, but she thought it a silly waste of time. ‘Why should a rabbit be concerned with the contrived rituals of humans,’ she said. Far be it from me to inquire upon a ritual that involves my kind, of course.”

“Be they your kind, dear Ethel? The rabbits seen in human eyes are not they with human forms. Nay, they bethinks you a furry animal bred for thy meat and thy feet.” Beatrix reached out and took Ethel’s long ear between her thumb and forefinger. “Though I am loathe to admit, I have many times borne the thought of the fine leather belt that might be fashioned from thine ear...”

Ethel merely tilted her head to the side and gently tugged her long appendage out of her master’s clutches, who chuckled into the back of her hand. The lop rabbit maidservant took a dainty stance in front of us, feet together, and looked to Lumi.

“Emissary. Perhaps I am being presumptuous, but you are interested in Easter too, are you not?” She asked warmly, giving a slight smile.

“I, ah-- I wanted to, to know. During Easter… do earth rabbits really lay… lay eggs?” Lumi timidly repeated what I had told her, turning pink.

“Lay eggs?” Ethel’s eyes widened in confusion, and she looked at me to see the dumb smile on my face, which she returned with a reserved giggle. “Oh, I see! Yes, it’s true, Lady Emissary. In fact, I was planning on laying a whole batch today. Would you like to join me?”

“Ahm! I do not know if, if…!” Lumi protested, even as Ethel took her by the hand and lead her into the building. The sound of Lumi squirming and squeaking could be heard all the way down the hall.

“Oh, fie. The trivialities of little hares, dug into earthly holes. Prithee, spare me your pagan rituals...” Beatrix waltzed back inside, nearly shutting the door before she realized I was still standing there. “Methinks you await some invitation? Pray, come inside afore I lose what graces of hospitality I can bear to muster.”

The Lunarian hostess showed me to the dining room, with its mahogany table and rainy window that overlooked the dilapidated houses nearby. The table had been decorated with a few new books, such glowing titles as Alice and the Machina Mirror, the cover bearing some young girl in a trance staring at a computer screen. Some social commentary, I imagine. There was also And I Don’t Have a Gun: How One Woman Changed the Music Industry Forever. I wouldn’t have figured Beatrix would be interested in human celebrities. Maybe she just likes the cover illustration-- it’s a shotgun lying on a table covered in heroine.

“Careful, Emissary. We shall need each and every one of those eggs,” I heard Ethel say from down the hall. Lumi soon came shuffling past the dining room door, dressed in a white apron, holding a basket full of white eggs. Ethel followed closely behind, her arms loaded with painting utensils.

Beatrix’s lids strained as she glared at me, her glowing, ice cold irises intensifying with malice.

“Now listen here, boy. Did’st thee conspire to pilfer my stores of eggs, as if Church Mouse a veritable hen house? Ethel most certainly did not lay those eggs!”

Eventually, the two rabbits emerged into the dining room, bearing plates full of painted eggs and a bowl with a golden mixture of yolk and potatoes. Ethel set the painted eggs around the table, between each of our plates, and then disappeared for a moment to retrieve a metal tray with yet more plates; a plate of egg white slices with the devil’s filling of yolk and mayonnaise, a plate of chocolate pie that I’m told is made from turtles, and a plate of pink, soft-looking meat that practically begged for teeth to sink into it. It was a feast fit for a king.

Lumi sat next to me, still wearing her apron and looking a little flushed. The white garment was covered in smears of mayo and cream that was likely meant for the pie. I wondered briefly if she’d ever cooked like this before.

Ethel quickly made a small plate for each of us, and sat down herself. Beatrix, stabbing her finger into one of the deviled eggs, looked pointedly at her servant.

“Pray tell, was it very much trouble when’st you thrust the eggs from your being, Ethel?” She was none too amused, even as she stuffed the egg white into her mouth whole.

“My lady, if I were to cook only when commanded, we’d be gagging on raw moon peaches for the rest of our days.” The lop ear took a small chunk of pie on her fork and lifted it smoothly into her mouth. Lumi followed suit, and her ears flew up like party streamers before falling weakly onto her head.

“Ohh,” she whimpered. “It is so, so sweet...”

Ethel saw us out and bowed politely to the two of us as we left. Lumi was still licking the chocolate off of her fingers even as we left the Gallery’s gate and shut it behind us.

“She, ah, she did not lay them,” Lumi said aloud, as if she needed to confirm it with me.

“Well, you both did, sort of. The eggs come from a chicken, but when you paint them, it’s as if you’re creating something new. That’s what rabbits represent to humans, anyway. A new start.” My thoughts streamed unfiltered from my mouth before I realized what I was saying.

“A new… start.” She repeated, a curious whimsy in her tone.

Feeling boldly full of food for the first time in quite a while, I felt foolishly more encouraged to take Lumi to a real church gathering for Easter. I didn’t expect her to absorb any of the religious meaning for the event, nor did I have any interest in trying to impart it on her, but I thought it would be fun to take her to a place with lots of merry people and free wine.

On a road leading south, into untended hills overgrown with tall trees and wealthy houses, there were two churches on opposing sides of the street. One housed a glass enclosure with a bronze statue of an empress bearing a cross in her arms, Saint Helen. But I didn’t know anything about her; to me, she was as a woman on broadway, with how the statue was adorned with stagelights at her feet. The place was crowded with old folk in black suits and ties, exiting their fancy cars, looking as though they were attending a funeral rather than a celebration.

The building across the street threatened the pierce the clouds with its high-rising cross, far above the power lines and the tallest trees around. A stained glass angel observed us as we crossed the brick entrance and the door with its multicolor tiles. Some duty looking men with heavy overcoats were being welcomed inside by a white-collared pastor who seemed to be assuring them there’d be something to eat inside. Yeah, this is the place.

It was a humble place on the inside, a contrast to the bold cross that dared raise itself into the heavens. A simple carpet along the runway with a hardwood floor under the pews; white walls, lightly decorated with simple red tapestry; ordinary people in ordinary clothes sitting among the pews and listening to the pastor blather on about some arab guy who couldn’t possibly have pushed a rock out of the way of his tomb. I wasn’t really listening, I was merely taking in the sights of other people – an unfamiliar vision, for sure – and watching in amusement as Lumi clammed up and hid herself in her hood.

There was a basket full of colored eggs, pastries, wine and offerings in the middle of the aisle where people could share donations. A thin looking woman, her hair hidden in a nun’s coif, took a bottle of wine from the basket and began handing out small glasses of the red colored grape juice, along with little pieces of bread. I couldn’t quite place her face, but she was dressed very conservatively, like a real sister of the faith. When she had gotten around to everyone, she came to Lumi and I, but instead of handing us our share, she sat down next to us.

“Here,” she said, offering Lumi and I our glasses. The rabbit-girl looked to me to be sure, and I just knocked back my glass, downing the booze in one go. Lumi elected to take reserved little sips.

“It’s nice to see you again, little drummer boy.” A coy whisper in my ear. Electricity shooting through my nerves, I turned my head in a panic to see the nun flashing me a toothy grin.

“Why did you call me that?”

“That’s what the drug-pastor calls you, yeah? It’s a cute nickname.” She covered her mouth to hide her smug smile. She scooted next to me and rubbed her shoulder against mine, as if we were old friends. “C’mon… Don’t tell me ya don’t recognize me.”

Her voice sounded familiar, with a rhythmic thrum like a harmonica. And her eyes, that bewitching blue-green color. Oh, it’s her.

Her frame was small, but not as tiny as Lumi’s, and her face was surrounded by the coif in such a way that her hair was perfectly hidden. She tugged at the piece that hugged her forehead, pulling it loose from her head… and a little brown lop ear fell out.

“Matilda,” I said, nearly accidentally. “What do you want?”

“M-Matilda?!” Lumi cried, in a hushed panic.

“Calm down. I ain’t here with anybody who’s got a beef with either of you. I came here on my own. I never thought I’d see the likes ‘a you here, to be honest.” She just shrugged off our surprise and stuffed her ear back into her holy hood.

“Why? You wanted to know about Easter?” I asked, plainly.

“Not exactly...” She began, tapping her indexes together. “Ya see, I come here all the time. I even have this...” She pulled a silver rosary necklace from her dress and let it fall into full display in front of her. “Somethin’ about this place, how it brings people together. When I come here, I feel like… Like I belong, y’know? Like, I can come here, and wear this necklace, and talk to people. And they accept me. I feel like… That’s what we’ve been tryin’ to do, all along. I mean, ain’t it?”

Lumi and I just looked at her. I couldn’t think of even a single word to say in response.

“Maybe during Easter, we’re all rabbits. And all rabbits, they’re human. And we come together and have some nice food and get drunk. That sounds like a Heaven on Earth to me.” She stood up and entwined her fingers in front of her, nodding to us. And we silently nodded back. “See you later.”

I couldn’t figure out why, but after that, I felt lighter and the world more at ease. Cars passed us in a blur of light and speed. The air tasted sweet. Lumi touched her hand against mine, and I grasped it without thinking. I was walking on air.

It was only afterward, once we’d retreated to the apartment, and Lumi’s ears were sticking out of her blankets while she snored and sucked hair into her nostrils, that I realized why Matilda had stopped to talk to us.

She’d snuck a shot of acid into the drink, that little rat. I’d be seeing rabbit ears coming out of the walls for the rest of the night, and I would never get to sleep.

Well, I suppose this story is a few days late for Easter at this point.

Thanks for reading. More Moondust is coming, soon.