#the french one had a drop shadow which took me a PAINFULLY long time to erase

[gloomuraishroud]

TWST Birthday Pins - Pomefiore & Diasomnia

Pomefiore (Rook, Vil, Epel)

Diasomnia (Malleus, Sebek, Lilia, Silver)

[arty-chase]

A Failed Betrothal (4)

Am I doing this right? I mostly do write this when I am between the state of sleep and awareness. Hope you enjoy this.

[Masterlist]

(Part 1) (Part 3)

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PART 4

Marinette came to a dungeon cell with two other prisoners. One of them was awake and he looked vaguely familiar. The other had an ugly red helmet that didn’t help with the headache she had.

“Do you know where we are?” She asked the handsome stranger with beautiful green eyes, her throat a little dry.

Wait. Handsome?

No bad Marinette. Don’t fall for fellow prisoners, no matter how cute he looks. Oh Kwamis, she was already screwed.

He still hadn’t replied. Maybe he didn’t understand French. She tried to ask again in another language before her enhanced hearing picked up the sound of footsteps. She faked unconsciousness. Later, she heard the iron door open. She looked through the tiniest slits of her eyes she could muster while the two held a staring/glaring match. Oh shit, that’s the fame Talia Al Ghul, daughter of Ra’s, head of the League of Shadows, and the boy she was glaring at had some resemblance to her, so he must be her son, Dennis? Daniel? Damon?

"Damian, I hope you know what you should do."

Ohh..Damian. Where had she heard that name before?

"To be forcefully married to that little girl. She is no one special. Why am I getting married to her?"

Ouch, that hurts. Well, Damian, just because I forgot your name does not mean you can call me a little girl. I can also kill you very easily and painfully.

“Well, Jason, you are awake. You can be the best man for the wedding.”

“No. I don’t know what game you are playing but you better release us. B is gonna find us and you will pay. Let the girl go. She is innocent in all of this.” Red Helmet, Jason, is officially not going on her hit list for his atrocious fashion choices. But that red monstrosity still needs to go.

"Ladybug may not seem like it but she possesses great power that my father converted for centuries. Speaking of, she should be awake by now."

Marinette felt her hair being yanked. A little pain was expected but the really sharp claws digging into her scalp was not. Making her cry and tear up.

”I am so sorry, kit.” Plagg whispered in the kwami language, loosening his claws.

"Tch, See, she is more pathetic than I thought. She is not powerful." Damian growled out.

Geez, thanks for the compliment, it’s not like you ever had a tiny cat dig its claws into your scalp out of surprise. (Damian once had a kitten thrown at his head and if he knew about Plagg, he would have been sympathetic.) Marinette started begging for mercy, hoping they would buy the helpless girl out of the suit that is ill-suited for the job she had been chosen for and had no idea on how to escape.

“Like I thought, weak. She is not deserving of the title of my wife.”

Oh kwamis, what did she ever do to have such a picky groom? The more he insults her, the less she wants to be married to him.

"Appearance can be deceiving. Despite her demeanor, she is the current wielder of the Ladybug Miraculous and the Current Guardian. The old Guardian, the old fool had promised her in exchange for his protection."

Great, another reason to stop her mother from killing a senile old man.

"That doesn't mean I want to marry her. She is not worthy of an Al Ghul or a Wayne. Look at her, crying at the slightest feeling of pain."

So that’s where she heard it from. The boy was the son of the daughter of a guy who leads a secret order of assassins and a man that owns a multi-million business. How even did a billionaire meet an assassin, ends up in bed with her and lives? Something to think about for later. She quieted down her sobs, (beat that acting, Rossi) kept her voice low to hatch out a plan with Plagg in the kwami language while the mother-son duo bickered.

“Hey, Plagg before you go, you think I can do that thing, the one which your one of your past holders from Japan can do.”

“You have a lot of potential for destruction but you have not used the ring for a long time yet so I am not sure.”

“I will give it a go anyways. Nothing to lose after all. See you later, Plagg.” Marinette smiled, one that drove fear into the hearts of even the bravest of people. Plagg returned it, already loving the new Guardian before zipping out of the cell to do some scouting. Using the enhanced strength the French superheroine got from prolonged use of the Miraculous, she yanked the chains of the walls and wrapped them around Talia’s neck, cutting off her air supply.

The League of Assassins thought that they could kidnap her and get away with it. But they were no match for the daughter of Sabine Cheng, the deadly Blue Reaper. A high ranking member from the group of assassins and mercenaries called the Guild of Night, who had semi-retired. Kidnapping her was a bad move to make as it meant they had declared war on the Guild, despite the reason behind her abduction having a completely different intention.

She whispered as such to the older woman in her tight grip, making sure the League would know how much they had fucked up. After dropping the limp body, she took a deep breath and tried channeling some of her energy for what she was about to do.

Well, here goes nothing.

She breathed out on the shackles, turning it to rust.

Success!

She introduced herself as Lady and concentrated the energy from before into her hand, forming inky black orbs of destruction in order to free her fellow captives. She felt a little drained from doing magic out of the suit and tried not to show it. Plagg returned, informing her of where the Ra’s and the Pits were. She grinned at the thought of showing old Ra’s who the boss is and made sure he regretted ever messing with her. She explained about Plagg as vaguely as she can, no need to let anyone know about the miraculous than necessary. Sure her plan sounds insane but the boys don’t know who they were with.

She would worry about that curse after she got out of Nanda Parbat. Although she could probably find something in the grimoire to reverse it, she was still an amateur at magic so it was best to have a professional to take care of it. Marinette didn’t want to be with such an asshole, no matter how striking he looks in those regal robes.

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Picking off the League assassins, one by one was easy especially in her transformed state. She hadn’t appraised her suit properly but from what she had seen, it wasn’t like Chat Noir’s leather get-up. She was armoured in vital areas and her colour scheme was mainly black with green accents. There were vials that were probably poisons and pouches which she decided to look at later. She still had a long braid as a tail from her brief stint as Lady Noire and she wondered why her suit was different. While hiding in a niche she found, she called the bakery via the comm in one of her various pouches.

“Hello?”

“Papa, it’s me, Marinette. Do you know where Maman is?”

“She went out of Paris, talking about how this League must pay. I think she is meeting up with several of her old friends. Are you alright, my little blossom? I know you can take care of yourself but I worry.” The relief in Tom’s voice was palpable. However, she was right and the Guild was going to war against the League. Marinette was adored by nearly everyone in the Guild due to her strangely bubbly and cheery personality in the harsh and brutal lifestyle.

“I am fine, Papa. Did Maman use the Horse to leave? And how are my friends?” She knew they might be in a panic after her disappearance.

“I think she did. I didn’t see Kalki when I went to feed the kwamis. Your friends panicked when they found out you were kidnapped. But they are fine now, mostly worried about you. Took care of some akumas and senti monsters by themselves. I think your fencer friend, Kagami, knows more about the League than she lets on.” Of course, she does. Her mother was a member of the Guild before being blinded due to a mission. Kagami and her actually first met during a reunion party of sorts.

“Thank you, Papa. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

She hung up and dialed the personal phone number her mother uses that only Marinette and her father knows about. She waited for the call to connect, trying to think of ways to stop her mother from storming into the League’s base of operation.

“Maman, it’s me. I know you want to attack the League right this minute. But I have a better plan. Can you get Tikki’s earrings from Alix? We can use them and the ring to destroy the Lazarus Pits. Make them really angry.” She peeked out of the niche she was hiding in. She had been there for a while and needed to move to gain some grounds.

“Where are you? And are you okay?” Panic and worry filled her usually composed mother’s voice.

“I am somewhere in Nanda Parbat and I am fine. I was nearly married off to Talia’s son but I am not now. I think.” Marinette replied. Better to rip that band-aid off before she showed up with her would-have-been-husband. She jumped out of the niche and looked

“Kalki, Full Gallop. Okay, we will talk about the ‘nearly married’ part later. What was this plan to destroy the Lazarus Pits?” Sabine thought she was already used to Marinette’s brand of craziness that was her normal but apparently, not.

“I am currently on my way there. Plagg said we need Tikki to get rid of them. Since the League pissed me off and by extension you and the rest of the Guild, I thought our first move against them is to destroy the Pits and a trail of bodies. By the way, can you get some cheese for Plagg?” Marinette ran through the halls, knocking out some poor sod with a whack on the head.

Silence. She thought Sabine had hung up when-

“Voyage. Alix, where are you? We need Tikki for one of Marinette’s insane plans. And Marinette, stay safe, sweety, I’ll be there in 15 minutes.”

“Bye, Maman. See you there.”

Marinette turned another corner, the last one before the path that leads to the entrance where the Lazarus Pits were. She only managed to find it with Plagg’s voice in her head, whispering directions and Tikki’s luck. Unfortunately, the luck ran out because the entrance had a lot of guards who had spotted her.

Crap.

She hoped her mother would get here soon. Thankfully, being transformed gave her a boost and would help her to hold her ground for a while.

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Damian and Red Hood followed the trail of unconscious bodies and sounds of fights, trying to find Lady. Damian was impressed at the level of her skills to defeat many of the League’s assassins although he could probably do better. They relied on his memory to find the Lazarus Pits which was their best bet to finding her as she claimed to be able to destroy them. If Lady possessed such powers, they must find out whether she is a threat to the world or not. And also break the infernal curse they have.

Red Hood was silent mostly. He made a few jabs about how kick ass his ‘bride’ was and how the current Robin should not let her get away. Damian tried really hard not to just maim his adopted brother and also ignore that little fluttering in his chest that happened every time they saw an unconscious assassin left behind by Lady. The sounds of fighting got louder as they got nearer to the entrance. They turned the final corner to see Lady fighting against the guards who outnumbered her. But she seemed to be doing fine against them. Mostly.

One had slipped through her defenses and nearly stabbed her in the back if it weren’t for Damian grabbing one of Red Hood’s guns and shooting a rubber bullet to the neck. He jumped into the fight, grabbing the fallen assassin’s sword and taking out the knife he got from his mother. Jason joined in too, not going to let the two teens have all the fun.

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“Thanks for the save, Al Ghul but I don’t know why you bothered when me being dead would solve your curse problem.” Lady said as the guards laid around them and they tried to catch their breath.

“It’s Wayne. I go by Wayne these days. Being an Al Ghul is not something I learned to be proud of. And as much as I don’t want this curse, your death is not worth that price.” he replied, “Although, I have to wonder why you would choose to die rather than live.”

She chuckled, “Okay, Wayne, to answer your question. Petty teenage drama makes death much more preferable. On top of that, I have responsibilities that I was practically forced into for doing one little act of kindness.” Her tone was joking but there was a touch of bitterness in it. It made Damian want to find out what caused it. Red Hood looked at her in concern. Lady went down the stairs, ignoring their reactions to her words. They followed her, not wanting to lose sight of her again.

The Lazarus Pits emitted a green glow that lit up the cave and cast strange shadows on the walls. At the edge of the glowing toxic green waters was a woman in dark blue clothing and strangely enough wearing sunglasses. Strapped to her sides were two Dao, ancient Chinese swords. She wore a vindictive expression on her face as she stood staring at the green lake, likely to kill anyone who gets in her way. Damian didn’t recognize the woman as part of the League but taking no chances, he got into a fighting stance and Hood did the same. Lady calmly approached the woman. He reached out to grab her to stop her suicidal nature when she shocked him by speaking to the blue-clad assassin in French,

“Hey, Maman, sorry I am late. I had a little trouble with the guards upstairs. You have Tikki?”

Lady’s mother rushed to hug her, “灵儿 (líng er), I am just glad you are alright. I knew you could handle yourself.”

How the hell did Lady’s mother get to the Lazarus Pits faster than them and snuck past several vigilant guards? Before Damian could question further, a red blur appeared and went to Lady’s face, hugging her cheek. It appeared to be the same size as Plagg but was red, looked like a bug and had a black dot on its forehead.

“Oh, Marinette, you are alright. I was so worried when your mother showed up, saying you were kidnapped and needed my earrings to escape.” Unlike Plagg’s nasally voice, her voice was sweet and shrill.

So, my bride’s name is Marinette. Such a unique name for an intriguing girl.

Wait what?

Wayne, stop thinking such ridiculous notions. That is probably the curse working. Resist against it. He will not be ensnared in the traps of such magic. He hoped that the curse will be reversed before he turns and act like those fools in Grayson’s idiotic shows or Todd’s ‘secret’ romance novels.

“I am fine now. See,” reassured Lady, “We actually need you and Plagg to reverse the Lazarus Pits to what it was before someone made the wish that resulted in them in the first place. Oh, I almost forgot. Plagg, claws in.”

Green light flashed, leaving Lady in her wedding robes (which actually flatter her body. Shit. Think of something else. Drake with a smug superior smile that needs to be wiped off his face. Grayson and his plans for ‘family bonding’) and Plagg to reappear.

“Cheese.” whined the cat-like kwami(?) to which the older woman held out a brown bag that smelled and made Plagg perk up in delight. He proceeded to open the bag, taking out a slice of stinky cheese, muttering about the greatness of camembert.

Todd cleared his throat and asked in English, “Umm...Pixie as much as your reunion is touching. Who’s the new lady?”

“Oh Right, sorry. Well, Red Hood, this is my mother, the Blue Reaper of the Guild of Night. Maman, this is Red Hood and the one next to him is my husband-to-be and Talia’s Spawn, Damian Wayne.”

Lady introduced them, also in English. Damian stilled in fear, recognizing the name. The Blue Reaper nearly became his mother-in-law. She was famous for her efficiency and ruthlessness. And gained her nickname from the blue clothing she often wore as she killed her targets. His eyes also widened at how his grandfather had gone a little too far now by kidnapping the Reaper’s daughter. There were other organizations that could possibly take down the League if it weren’t for the somewhat truce between Ra’s and the other leaders. The Guild was one of them and having the Lazarus Pits to revive their soldiers made the League a little more powerful. But if what the mother-daughter duo were planning succeeded, then the League was going to have one of its most deadly wars in its history and would probably never recover from.

“Tikki, Plagg, you guys ready?” asked Lady.

“Yes, Guardian.” They both replied and emitted a blinding red and green light which Damian shielded his eyes from. When it died down, the Lazarus Pits no longer glowed a toxic green and looked… like normal hot spring water.

“Oh. I wished I could see Ra’s face when he finds out.” Lady laughed. Plagg and Todd joined in.

“Pixie, I am beginning to like you.”

“Voyage. That being said, it’s time to go home, Marinette. Your father must be worried sick about us by now. I hope you boys can find your own way back.” A portal opened up, showing a cozy living room. Damian grabbed Lady’s wrist as she moved towards it.

“Wait, let us come with you. We need to contact someone to get rid of the curse on both of us. And we can also call our father to send us tickets for a ride home wherever you live.”

“Curse? Marinette, you never mentioned a curse in your call.” Blue Reaper said, raising her eyebrow.

“I will explain later. They can come with us and I am pretty sure Ra’s knows that we have escaped by now.” Lady grabbed the two brothers and dragged them through the portal.

She then threw herself onto the couch after releasing her hold on them and the two pocket gods went to comfort her after her ordeal. The Blue Reaper stood where the other portal was and fed a floating tiny gray horse, that must be the same species as Tikki or Plagg, some sugarcubes.

“You boys must be tired but the showers are upstairs and we might have some clothes your size. Dinner will be ready in an hour. You can stay the night if you want. Welcome to Paris.”

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Tag list: @alysrose-starchild, @buginetye, @lookatthestars1, @blackroserelina, @macncheesemonster, @mochinek0, @myazael, @tonicxworld, @thewitchwhowaited, @t1dwarrior-of-earth, @kissa-chan, @iwantasecretidentity, @theymakeupfairies, @user00000003, @woe-is-me0, @kashlyn, @mochegato,@moonlightstar64 , @greatcatblaze, @moongoddesskiana, @tazanna-blythe. @tonicxworld, @toodaloo-kangaroo, @frieddonutsweets, @local-witch-of-mn, @lady-bee-fechin, @iglowinggemma28, @indecisive-mess-named-me, @k-tea-and-coffee, @jayjayspixiepop, @all-mights-asscheeks, @idk-j-go-with-it , @loysydark, @thenillabean, @lolieg, @zalladane, @silvergold-swirl

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(Part 5)

[lu-undy]

New Sniper/Spy long story!

Aaaand I am back with a new Sniper/Spy story!

It’s called “Un-alone” and can be found here!

Hope you enjoy! :D

"I need a minute, if that is possible." The French accent would have sounded pleasant and exotic if not for the circumstances.

"Of course. If you need a drink, help yourself. I will be back to give you more details."

The man in the suit nodded and the notary left the room. He waited for the door to click shut before sighing and loosening his tie. He looked around him, the wooden and serious walls seemed to close on him, as the walls of his skull pressed painfully on his brain. He lowered his head and held his hair in his hands.

After a sigh, he slid on the sofa to the table at the corner of the room. He pushed the flower vase aside and looked at the tray with bottles and glasses. Water? Wine? Non, he needed something stronger. That whiskey would do. The glass cap yielded with a pop and he poured some in the glass. He didn't add any of the ice cubes. Non, he felt cold enough. 

The bitter whiskey burnt the back of his throat down to his knotted stomach. The Frenchman held his head low. What should he do? Cry? Punch? Destroy? 

Not yet. The notary gave a short knock before entering the room again. His eyebrows jumped when he realised that he had left a proper and prim man, to come back to what he could tell was a man barely holding himself back, to protect his dignity. He was used to being the bearer of bad news, he was used to seeing people cry, shout, get in all sorts of states. But experience also taught him that those who remain like marble are the most dangerous to themselves.

"You mentioned details?" The French accent asked.

The notary nodded, a distraught expression on his face, before he sat back at his desk. 

"She left a letter for you." He put his glasses on. "I understand you were married?" 

The man sitting on the sofa took another quick yet generous swig of his whiskey, the burning liquid making him almost gag.

“Oui.” He simply answered after taking a deep breath to soothe himself, his fingers only ending up clenching harder on the glass he was holding. 

“But you were not living together, if what I heard is correct.”

The man on the sofa nodded, his head still lowered, his grey front tuft of hair waved in the air. 

“I also understand that only her family was at her side in the end.” The notary said and the poor man frowned. “They were surprised to learn that all along she was actually married. They did not know of this union.”

“Non, they did not.”

The notary knew he was dealing with no ordinary man but this…? This added up to the exception.

“The ceremony will take place tomorrow. Her family will be there.”

The Frenchman nodded and stored this somewhere in his mind before asking what he had been burning to.

“May I see the letter?” A shaking voice asked before the man lit up a cigarette, his gaze still evading the notary’s. 

“Of course. Here is a copy.”

“Do you have the original?”

“Yes but I cannot let you see it, it is-”

The notary’s voice stopped when the man sitting on the sofa finally raised his eyes to him. His face was dark, furious, boiling. His light blue eyes sliced the shadow cast by his front tuft, a menacing curtain falling on his forehead, and the tip of his cigarette shone in a more fierce shade of orange.

He handed him the original.

Instantly the man took it to his nose and smelt it. Tears came to his eyes that he prudely closed for a moment. Rose water and a hint of jasmine. Oui, that was her. Thank God the perfume hadn’t faded yet! He smiled, but his body and his face were screaming bittersweetness, nostalgia and deeper down, something he hated to show, like a weakness. 

Love.

He loved her with all the fibres of his body. There wasn’t a sight more pleasant than her smile, a song more melodious than her voice, a taste more forbidden than her lips’.

He raised a shaking gloved hand to his forehead and opened his eyes to read the will. The handwriting was unmistakingly hers. He recognised it. It was a bit more shaky than when he last saw it, but it was hers.

“My sweetheart Lulu,”

The man clenched his jaw further, feeling the strain on his cheeks and grinding his teeth to hold back what he would let out later, in his own private time.

“I am sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier. I didn’t know how to, I didn’t know where you were, how you were. But I knew you never forgot about me. As long as I received the flowers, the gifts for Jay, the chocolates and sometimes, the cassettes, I knew you were alive and well.

The last letter I received from you dates back to my birthday and I kept it under my pillow until the very end. If you are reading this, my family then knows about you, they must be wondering about a million things. But I didn’t answer anything. I couldn't tell them that Jeremy’s father is a French spy, that we got married in secret more than twenty years ago, that when Jeremy came into our lives, we decided to live separately with as little contact as possible to protect the boy, now a man. I couldn’t tell my family that I miss you everyday, yet I love you more by the day. 

My Lulu, I am not leaving you at all. I might even be closer to you now than before, who knows? Maybe the warmth you feel in your cheeks now is my touch? Maybe the tears you are hiding right now, I will dry, when you finally let them go.

My love, everything I have, I have left it to our son. It isn’t much and I am afraid it is more debt than help…

I ask of you two things, please, my sweetest of hearts. The first is to help Jeremy. Help him with a job, please. He still doesn’t know you, I never told him who you were. I think it is your call to make. If you ever decide to know him, I know you will see how much he got from you... 

The second is please, never stop singing. Promise me to sing more, I want to hear you now, more than ever.

Je t’aime and goodbye,

Your little flower, Marie.”

The Frenchman’s heart was in his throat. He was on the sofa, in this wooden room where the sun didn’t shine, where the flowers in the vase next to him where fake, where he wished he could bite in his glass of whiskey and chew on the glass shards, crush them and let them slice through him, let the pain be physical, anywhere on his body, his face, anything but this. It was harder to bear with each second.

He didn’t realise it but his hands were trembling on the letter. He stared at it a bit more and cleanly folded it before putting it in his inner pocket. 

“Sir, I-”

Again, the sheen of the light blue eyes left very little room for discussion.

“I am sorry but I must ask you to give me back the original, it is an official document for this procedure and I can hardly-argh!”

In the blink of an eye, the Frenchman had leapt in the air from the sofa to the desk, overlooking it. His face was less than an inch away from the notary’s astonished one. 

“I will keep her letter.” The French accent threateningly said, his teeth clenched like a furious panther’s.

“B-But Sir-argh?!”

Something cold was against the notary’s throat. Something cold and pointy. It was pressing against his fragile column of air.

“A-Alright, y-you can keep it…”

The Frenchman backed off from the desk and the notary watched him flick some sort of blade between his fingers before he dropped it in one of his pockets. His jaw dropped. He had just been threatened with a knife.

“I was not asking.”

“W-well…” The notary pulled on his collar to have a bit more air come to his lungs. He wiped the sweat off his brow. “W-why threaten me then?” 

The Frenchman took his jacket again and put it on before heading to the door. He left without adding a word. 

It was still the afternoon of that late September day and in Boston, the weather started to get colder but was still very bearable. 

Lucien took a deep breath and sighed when he was finally out of the notary’s practice and into the street. The light breeze did not help get more oxygen to his lungs. Or maybe it did, but no amount of air could help. He slipped back into the taxi and the driver took him back to his hotel. 

As soon as he set foot in the five-star establishment, a young man in a red and golden uniform came to him. 

“Sir, there has been a phone call for you, they said it was urgent and you should call back, here is the number.” He was holding a tray on which was a card. Lucien took it and read the number that he recognised only too well. He nodded and headed to the elevator. 

As it took off and hovered higher and higher, Lucien could see more and more of the city underneath him through the windows. He saw it all. The restaurant they had met in, while undercover as a singer, the park he had taken her to, the movie theatre he had invited her to, where they had shared their first kiss, the streets of her city, the roads, streets, avenues that were once so familiar. They now looked like grey, narrow valleys dug in the concrete of buildings, slithering like the bed of dead rivers. 

Ding ding.

The jingle of the bell in the elevator broke his train of thought. 

“Here we are, Sir.”

Lucien turned away from the windows to face the doors that slid open. He entered the carpeted corridor and soon found his door. The keys jangled as they exited his pocket and the next thing he knew, he was inside. 

He had rented an en-suite room with a double bed - habits die hard - and went straight to the minibar to help himself to some more strong alcohol. He didn't mind the taste and just wanted the burn and bitterness; anything really to move his pain from his heart to his body.

He grabbed a bottle of God knows what and poured some before drinking, chugging the entire glass down his throat in one go, before the glass hit the counter again loudly. He hissed under the unpleasant feeling of the alcohol scorching as it glided through his oesophagus and stomach.

Lucien removed his jacket and threw it on the coathanger before he undid his tie. He only fished out the letter and slipped it in his trousers' pocket.

“Mon Dieu…”

He grabbed the bottle and the glass, and headed to the sofa. On his way, he kicked his shoes off and frowned. He hated seeing people do that - remove their shoes with their feet, damaging the leather. But he couldn't be asked to do it properly with his hands. For all he knew, those shoes could go to hell.

He flopped down on the sofa and poured himself some more whiskey. The glass and the bottle shone under the flames of the fireplace opposite him. It caught his eye for an instant and blinded him. He grumbled and looked away, to his left and - oh, the bedroom door. 

His eyes hung there for a while, the bottle and glass hanging in mid-air. 

From where he was sitting, he could only see the bed, large and empty, cold even, he could feel it. 

He would have killed for one more night with her. He would have… 

Lucien sighed and drank some more before lighting another cigarette and sucking his anger away at it. 

His eyes came back in front of him, and he saw the letter. His mind rolled back more than two decades ago. Meeting Marie, falling in love with her, falling in love for the first time. 

But his job as a spy was way too dangerous for her, for him, and soon, for the little boy that Lucien was delighted to hold in his arms for the first time. And it was soon decided. A wedding, in secret, just him, her and two witnesses, people who happened to be in the church praying that day. They didn't even know them. They got married and Lucien stayed long enough for baby Jérémy to have a vague souvenir of his father. 

He loved them. Lucien loved Marie and Jérémy. He loved them so much that he left them, and it broke his heart. Everyday he wished he could hold them in his heart. But he was too good at his job and wanted to keep it. It paid him a fortune and he could send some money to help. 

Another sigh that failed to take his frustration and his guilt out of him. 

Lucien stood up and walked to the window that he opened wide. He looked at the tiny city, busy underneath him. To all these people, today was a normal day. Some of them might even be happy… 

But for him, today felt awful. 

His eyes swept across the streets as he walked back in time to where he had met her. Mary, his Marie. It had been a busy night in the restaurant he was working at. He was undercover, a singer, trying to get closer to a frequent client. He had worked hard for months to approach his target. But that night wasn’t the one he managed to sit and dine with that shady nobody. Instead, an angel crossed his path. 

Marie.

She wasn’t shy and he liked her boldness. He thought it was very American of her to be this way, to think that she could get whatever she wanted, if only she worked hard enough for it. Mon Dieu… She had come to his changing room, backstage, with her blue dress and matching headband, her lips were glossy red and her eyelashes, more beautiful than a butterfly’s wings in summer, fluttering to half hide the deep blue irises that he saw too vividly now.

She had knocked at his door and the moment he had opened it, the sight of her seized him like a hand to the throat. She raised her eyes to him and gave him a smile that still burnt his insides. Without hesitation, she started talking as if they had known each other for a long time, asking him a million questions.

Of course, back in those days, Lucien was quite valued on the market of love. Tall and slim, his hair still all black and combed back, light blue, almost grey eyes that looked in the deepest corners of one’s mind, impeccable manners, a smirk that weakened the knees of any woman in sight and a French accent that made them fall in his arms effortlessly…

He remembered that she kept coming to listen to him night after night. They would enjoy something to eat together. She had tried to invite him but he always insisted. 

Une aussi jolie fleur que toi ne paie pas.

Such a beautiful flower as you are does not pay.

It had started as a distraction, a pleasant surprise in his life. But soon, Lucien found himself waiting for those knocks at his door, in the changing room backstage. He realised that on the few nights she wouldn’t come, he would feel uncomfortable. Something was odd, something wasn’t right, like a pebble in his shoe, something he could live with but… 

And looking inside him he understood that in fact, he was missing her. Him, the man with more love conquests than there were stars in the night sky. He had fallen. In love oui, but he had fallen. Fallen under those eyes, fallen on his knees for her, always looking for her when he sang now. His eyes would frantically scan his audience, the crowd who came to applaud him, he did not hear them! Of course not! Oh! There she was! Ah, Marie…

His eyes would stop on her and from the moment he found her, his secret flower, he would sing and dance for her. Oui, he would even stand up from his piano and dance, make a fool of himself in front of a full room of guests. He would smile only after he would see her grin and wished oh so dearly the whole room would fall silent to hear only her beautiful laughter...

Oh he remembered how they stayed so late in the restaurant that countless times, they had to be pushed out of it. It had happened a few times before Lucien one night asked her to stay.

“Marie?”

“Yeah?” She raised her round eyes to him.

“Stay, please. Don’t walk back home so soon.”

“It… It’s very late, Lucien.” She chuckled and wrapped her arms around herself tighter against the cold.

Oui, with Marie, he had given her his real name straight ahead. Something in his guts had told him that it was safe to do so. He knew it was wrong and dangerous, foolish even! But non, with Marie, it felt wrong to lie.

“Please, ma petite fleur.”

[my little flower]

She had blushed. He could barely see it in the darkness of the night, but the street light was enough and he did see it!

“Fine,” She yielded and Lucien never knew, but of course she wanted to stay. “What is it?” She asked.

“Let us wait for a few minutes. Are you cold?”

“A bit, yeah.”

“Here.” Lucien removed his coat and wrapped her in it.

“Aren’t you cold?” She asked and he smiled. 

“Jamais quand tu es près de moi.”

[Never when you are near me.]

“You know I don’t get French, right?”

“Oui, I do.”

“Then say it in English.”

“Non.” He chuckled and blushed, turning slightly away to hide himself.

“Come on…! It’s unfair!” She pulled him back from the panes of his jacket.

“I cannot.” He confessed, still looking away from her.

“Why not? I’m sure you know the words and all. Your English is perfect, c’mon!”

“Non, Marie, please, don’t make me say it…” He looked down and his front tuft of hair, the same one that is grey now, it fell on his forehead. 

“Lucien…”

The Frenchman closed his eyes when he felt her cold hand on his cheek. He raised his eyes to her.

“Please…?”

And for the first time in his life he understood what it felt like to be the one who is in love, to be the one who feels ill when the other one isn’t here, and to feel blessed when they were together.

“My little flower, I’m never cold when you are near me.” He yielded eventually and to his greatest delight, her grin widened before she hugged him, like that, unexpectedly. She had just leapt to him and held on to the panes of his jacket dearly, with her head and her black hair right below his chin. He wrapped his arms around her and kept her close. He was freezing but he didn’t feel it. All he knew was that he held in his arms the first and only person he ever loved.

[emmylarsen]

Land on Your Feet: a K Howard deathday fic

Katherine Howard was too afraid to cry.

There had been tears—so many of them—over the past forty-eight hours, since she was manhandled out of her apartments at Syon and wrestled, screaming, into the river barge. Her face had been constantly red and puffy, if not outright dripping, for weeks.

But now the tears were gone, maybe forever, because the fear coiling in her gut was too overwhelming. It had always been there, a frozen stone dropped through her stomach; but now the stone was dissolving, worming its way into every crevice of her body, flitting in between her organs and into every crack in her skin, and it had begun to constrict, to squeeze like a python, forcing the breath from her and making every vein in her body so, so tight. She could feel the tension squeezing her toes all the way up to her face, where her muscles were clenched so tightly that her tear ducts were blocked and she could not cry for the fear.

The block wasn’t helping. She had asked for it, to be sure—asked for an executioner’s block to be brought to her chambers so that she could practice, so that she would know just how to fold herself over it when the time came, so that there would be no chance of adding insult to injury or of making an irrevocable mistake that would increase the humiliation of her last public performance. She had knelt over it for hours, now, practicing how to walk over to it, how to kneel (right knee, left knee, flex your feet, tuck your dress under your shoes), how to lay her head precisely in the divet in the block, how to wrap her arms around and cradle in her palms the rough wood of the closest thing she would ever have to a coffin.

Some time ago, she had suddenly lost the energy to stand back up; the constriction of the fear had gotten too overwhelmingly painful, the exhaustion from the constant crying had sapped all the energy from her bones, the knowledge that it would all ultimately be meaningless twelve hours from now had infused her with insurmountable apathy. And so now she was just crouched on the floor, still folded over the block in the position she lacked the energy to move from, eyes closed, struggling to breathe. God, all her muscles were ablaze with the fear, tensed so tight it stung; how was she going to get through twelve more hours of this?

It was quiet in her chambers, with everyone gone, with her ladies-in-waiting dismissed (except for Jane, in the room next door, awaiting a similar fate), with her husband God-knows-where—so very quiet that when the voice spoke, she yelped in startled fear, even though it was barely above a whisper.

“Katherine, darling. You have to stop that.”

She tried to jerk back, but—kneeling as she was—her feet caught on the long hem of her dress, and she tumbled backwards onto the ground. Her face burned with the humiliation, and her eyes burned especially, and the tears threatened to return, because she had nothing left, no scrap of pride, the fear was worthless because she had nothing left to lose, she was helpless and sprawled on the floor, the hollow shell of a forgotten queen—

“Oh, Katherine,” came the voice again, this time layered with even more sorrow. “Don’t cry, love. Everything is okay.”

Katherine tried to look around, but the room was dark; the moonbeams slipping silently through the windows illuminated uneven scraps of the floor. But there, the candles on the far wall were illuminating a slender figure, perched on the edge of Katherine’s bed, cloaked in shadow and all the scarier for it.

Katherine barely had the air to speak. “Who are you?” She had to give herself the credit for getting it all out without her voice catching, stumbling, sprawling into cracks.

“You know, I think,” the voice said softly, and the figure stood—melted, it looked like—and slipped off the bed to rise to its full height. In the silhouette, Katherine could see a middle-aged woman, slender but poised; and then the figure moved into one of the puddles of moonshine and Katherine caught a glimpse of her face and realized that she did know.

“Queen Anne.”

The woman dipped her head in assent. “Queen Katherine.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, painfully aware now that she was still sprawled on her back on a dirty stone floor in the Tower of London. “I am not so much a queen anymore.”

Anne shrugged, ever so slightly, as if indifferent. “No less than I.”

Katherine lowered her gaze to the ground, where she could see hazy scraps of floor through Anne’s shoes. “How are you here?”

Was that a tiny smile flitting across Anne’s face? It was gone too quickly for Katherine to be sure. “The supernatural—has its ways. It is not often safe, nor prudent, for us to visit the world of the living; but some days warrant an exception. Some people warrant an exception.”

“Then—why me? Why today?”

When Anne spoke, it was gentler, soothing. “I thought you might like some—company, tonight. I thought you might not want to be alone. I know I didn’t.”

Katherine wanted to speak, wanted to thank her, wanted to say anything, but her throat was sticky and it caught her words before they could reach her mouth. She felt the shame collapse back over her��what kind of a queen couldn’t even respond when spoken to?—but Anne seemed to understand. “It’s okay, Katherine. Don’t speak. Get up from the floor, now, and come sit with me. Over here, my lovely.”

Anne stayed there in the moonbeam, waiting with divine patience as Katherine took in a shuddering breath, got to her feet, and made her way over to join Anne. Up close, Katherine could see even more clearly that Anne was ghostly, that she was not solid; half of the bedroom cell was visible through her chest. And yet somehow Anne’s arm, when she wrapped it over Katherine’s shoulder, was warm, not misty at all.

Anne guided her gently over to the bed, settling her down on the mattress with her back against the headboard and her legs stretched out on the bed, and then sat down next to her. “Katherine, it really is wonderful to see you all grown up, though I hoped I wouldn’t have to see you again for awhile.”

Beneath the numbness of the morbid horror, confusion sparked dully in Katherine’s brain. “Again? Have we met?”

And Anne giggled lightly. “A few years after I came to England—1526, I want to say—I paid a visit to your father, who had been—shall we say, aggressive in his correspondence with me. I got to meet you just after I arrived. You probably don’t remember; you were perhaps three years old at the time? But you were ever so proper, even then; you gave me a curtsey and complimented my hood.”

Katherine almost—almost—smiled. “I’ve always adored French hoods.”

“And they look so very lovely on you.”

“What high praise, from the woman who brought them to England.”

Anne chuckled weakly. “Mary—Henry’s sister—is the one responsible for that, I’m afraid.”

“Really? Everybody at court says it was your doing.”

“Well. We both know, I think, that what ‘everybody at court’ is saying cannot always be trusted.”

And just like that the grief—which Anne had so momentarily banished—was back on her, as she thought of court and remembered her household collapsing around her, remembered each of her ladies-in-waiting methodically condemning her (except Jane Boleyn, who had said she would follow Katherine anywhere and would tomorrow follow her to the executioner’s block). She was overcome again with a flash of vertigo, which had never really gone away; they called it a fall from grace for a reason, she supposed, but her stomach had not stopped feeling hollow and swooping since they mentioned Mannox’s name. She was falling through the bottomless infinity of space, unable to stop, and now she was beginning to see the ground beneath her, but that was not better because it would crash into her and drive the life from her body with a single smack. Katherine squeezed her eyes tightly shut, willing her breathing to calm, to little avail.

“Katherine.” Anne’s voice was a little hollow, and Katherine was afraid to look up at her, expecting a scolding or worse—Anne was such a towering, legendary figure, and Katherine could do nothing in front of her but cry—but Anne began stroking her back lightly. “Oh, Katherine, I am so, so sorry.”

***

It had been hours, and they had barely moved; Anne didn’t feel there was any need to make the child get up, and, besides, there was nowhere to go. Some time ago she had checked with Katherine, just to be sure that Anne’s suspicions were right and that Katherine had no plans to sleep tonight; Katherine had confirmed this with a weary nod and slipped into silence.

Anne had begun, some time ago, to braid Katherine’s hair, twisting it into complicated patterns and then undoing it to weave it into something else. It had begun as a ruse to get Katherine’s French hood off of her head so she wouldn’t have to do it in public—Anne remembered that humiliating moment of having to take off the ermine-lined hood at her own execution and replace it with that horrid white cap, and Katherine was certainly not in a state of mind to think of proactively taking off her hood herself—but the braiding had become soothing. It was something rhythmic, routine, engaging but not hard for Anne to do with her hands; and Katherine was leaning into the touch with an ease and an eagerness that made Anne wonder when she had last felt unthreatening hands on her.

The moonbeams were receding across the floor, snaking back out the windows; the moon was setting. The sky outside was gray now where before it had been black, and it wasn’t morning yet but it would be soon. Katherine would undoubtedly be escorted outside as soon as the sun was bright enough for everybody to trust that the axeman could see his mark clearly enough.

Still, though, it was not yet light enough—not quite—and so when the knock came on the door, Anne was shaken to the point of fear. Who was at the door? It shouldn’t be the executioner, not yet; it was not morning yet, and so who—?

The same fear had obviously electrified Katherine; her hand flashed out and grabbed Anne’s, squeezing in a vice grip, and a whimper escaped her lips. She was looking up at Anne with undisguised terror, and seeing her fear somehow tamped down Anne’s: she had much less to be afraid of than Katherine, and so she had to—would—be the strong one, the brave one, the one to answer the door. And so she rose to her feet.

But Katherine was shaking her head, fully panicked now. “You have to hide!” she cried breathlessly, her voice so tight. “You can’t let them see you!”

Anne felt a gentle smile rise to her lips. “No matter,” she told the child. “I have the power to decide who gets to see me; they will look straight through me if I want them to. I am invisible to them.”

Anne watched Katherine’s face relax, but only very slightly, and she would have swooped over to soothe but there was no time. She could already hear the deadbolts on the other side of the door being undone, letting in whoever wanted to come torment Katherine.

And then the door swung open to reveal three heavily-muscled, heavily-armed Tower guards. They were sneering. The man in the middle stepped forward to speak.

“Lady Howard,” he drawled, and bile rose in Anne’s throat, nearly choking her, at the sickening contempt in the guard’s voice. “His Majesty King Henry here to see you.”

And Anne was nearly bowled over by the shock; and then a sick adrenaline began churning in her stomach. She turned back to the girl huddled on the bed, pleading with dreadful desire. “Let me let him see me,” she breathed. “Katherine, please. Tell me I can show myself to Henry.”

Katherine’s face was twisted, crumbled, overtaken by terror and anger and total bewilderment and Anne couldn’t begin to identify what else. She stared openmouthed at Anne, seemingly entirely confused, and then she nodded. Anne felt her face curl into an almost cruel smile, relishing in the sheer power she felt coursing through her veins: she was going to get up in Henry’s face, to scream at her for what she’d done to the bouncy three-year-old she’d met when she first arrived to England who was now a sobbing teenager in her last hours of life—and he wasn’t going to be able to touch her.

She hid herself from him when he first walked through the door, going fully invisible, so that his face, when he entered, locked straight on Katherine and Katherine only, who was curled in on herself. He was so much fatter than he had been when Anne knew him, and his skin was beginning to sag, and his ulcer-ridden leg smelled disgusting; but the gleam in his eyes was one Anne knew only too well. It was the look that contorted his face when he played his sickening mind games, when he slowly and methodically twisted the perception of the person in front of him until they collapsed in on themselves, and it made Anne sick. It made her want to vomit. Especially because it was directed now at the girl on the bed, at Anne’s baby cousin.

She stepped right in front of Henry and she let her figure materialize; she let him see her face appear in thin air less than a foot away from his. She smiled; and when Henry yelped, screeched so loudly that the sound bounced off the walls and echoed crazily throughout the room, Anne let herself laugh.

She had wanted to let Henry speak first, but the way he was gaping, openmouthed and horrified, at her made it clear that he would not initiate conversation, not for a while. And so Anne let herself chuckle and ask, “I take it you didn’t expect to see me here?”

He gaped, stared, spluttered—and then he watched his eyes shutter and his face go hard and blank, blocking out all emotion. It was a look Anne knew well; it was, in fact, the last look she had ever seen on Henry’s face, on the scaffold barely five years ago.

Henry’s voice, when he spoke, was as emotionless as his face, hard and firm. “Move.”

Anne raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think I will, no.”

“I’m not here to see you.” He shot out an arm, aiming to shove Anne out of the way; but she let her ghostly body go misty and his hand passed right through her. He stumbled, off-balance, and his face went beet-red.

“I know you’re not here to see me,” said Anne, “but I am here to prevent you from seeing her. I am here to prevent you from ever looking her in the eyes, ever again.”

“That is not”—and Henry grunted again, trying unsuccessfully to shove a ghost—“your decision. This is not your place! Move!”

Anne smirked; a bitter giggle escaped her lips. “No.”

“How dare—”

And hearing his bitterness, his anger, cut through Anne’s restraints and opened the floodgates to her own bitter outrage. “How dare I? How dare you, Henry? How could you? She is younger still than your own daughter. You marry this child and you condemn her to death for being still a girl, and then you come here tonight to laugh at her, to rub it in, to frighten her more just so you can see her cry again? How dare you?”

Henry had apparently not learned that he could not touch Anne—had not learned that she could make herself misty, let his hands pass through her—and so when he brought his open palm down in a vicious slap and he made contact with nothing, he was pulled off his feet. He stumbled sideways twice, and then he landed heavily on his left leg, oozing pus and unusable from the ulcer; he gasped at the sudden weight and then, unable to support himself on the rotted leg, toppled to the floor with a cry.

Anne smiled, at Henry’s predicament and at the awed gasp from the bed behind her; her grin only widened when Henry finally, with lots of stumbling and cursing, got himself back to his feet. His face was bloodshot at the humiliation; he opened his mouth, gulping like a fish a few times, before abruptly turning on his heel and stalking out without another word.

Anne watched his retreating form with a smirk; and when she turned back to look at Katherine, still huddled on the bed, the child was shaking with silent laughter.

***

Anne’s diversion had been pleasantly distracting, and Katherine was grateful for not having had to speak to Henry—god, even imagining such a confrontation left nausea snaking through her stomach—but it had of course Anne’s control had been temporary. And if Henry was awake, it meant it was nearly morning, and that meant it was nearly—time.

And so she was quiet, again; she did not have the strength or the bravery to summon words. Anne didn’t seem to mind; she seemed to understand. Katherine was tucked under Anne’s gentle arms, cuddled up in a side hug against Anne’s warm body.

After perhaps too long, she wondered how Anne could hold her so tightly, so safely, when Henry’s hand had passed through her so cleanly. She licked her lips a few times, looked up at Anne, and garnered up the courage to ask.

Anne smiled gently, reaching out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Katherine’s ears; Katherine shivered at the contact, touch-starved. “This—substance—is the form I take when I choose to visit your world. I can control it fully: who can see me, who can touch me. I didn’t let him feel me; but you I want to hold. No matter. I use this—body—rarely; I am nearly always… elsewhere.”

“Heaven.” It was not a question.

“No.”

“No?” It was what had sustained her, just barely, through the panic, knowing that there was a safe place waiting for her once she got through the terror. If not—if Heaven was not there—she felt her breath quicken, and suddenly the tightness in her heart was no longer bearable—

“Katherine, Katherine.” She heard Anne’s voice just faintly. “Focus on me, love, you’re okay. It isn’t the Heaven you’re picturing, but there is somewhere safe waiting for you. I promise, sweetheart, you will be warm and safe afterward. You will be with me.”

Anne’s voice was getting clearer; Katherine finally felt herself suck in a whole breath. “You promise?”

The arms around her tightened. “I promise.”

Katherine nodded, and slipped into silence. Anne had shattered her entire understanding of the world—how could there not be a Heaven?—but she was still here, holding her with warm arms, and if Katherine would soon be where Anne lived most of the time, then that was okay with her.

She lapsed into silence again, leaning into Anne; Anne cradled her and began to stroke softly across her hair. Katherine just buried her face in Anne’s shoulder and tried to breathe, tried to keep the oxygen flowing uninterrupted. Time passed; she could not guess how much, but it was warm and safe in Anne’s arms, and that was enough.

And then—and then. Heavy footsteps, faraway, growing closer.

Katherine bolted upright; leaving Anne’s side, the cold shot through her. “They’re coming.”

And she watched Anne close her eyes and nod. “They are.”

The lack of any denial sent the panic, which had been coiling in her gut, spiking up through her chest to stab her heart. “They’re coming to—to—to take me—and—”

Anne took her hands, which she had not noticed quaking, and held them tight, quelling the spasms. Anne’s ghostly hands were somehow miraculously warm, and the skin-on-skin soothed Katherine as much as anything could have. “I know. I—I know, Katherine. Just keep breathing for me.”

A sharp retort shot through Katherine’s brain—something about breathing and not being able to now and soon not being able to ever again—but she tamped it down. Anne was trying to help. And she was trying to comfort her, she was holding Katherine and stroking her back, she was here—and that in itself was soothing. Suddenly Katherine couldn’t imagine what she would do when Anne left.

And so Katherine just swallowed, and when her voice came, it was a whisper. “Will you—I mean, can you stay with me?”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

“How long?”

“Until the very end, Katherine.”

“You promise?”

“To the scaffold and to the block, Katherine; and I will see you immediately after. I promise.”

Katherine’s heart lurched, seized: it was suddenly twisted so tight. And it was painful with panic, but it was also painful with the intensity of the love for Anne that was overwhelming her. The love and the panic were inextricable—she didn’t think she could feel such a deep immediate love if it wasn’t triggered by the gratitude she felt for Anne comforting her, bringing her back from the edge of sheer hysteria—and all of it together made a sour cocktail in her heart. Her chest was painful, bitter; but it was bearable, because it was capped with adoration for Anne, and Anne was still here.

But the footsteps were getting louder, and she could hear voices now, and she couldn’t breathe; she could feel her entire body trembling from the oxygen deprivation. And then Anne grabbed her, seized her by the shoulders so their faces were an inch apart, and stared straight into her eyes.

“Katherine. Be brave. You have to be brave. I know how scary it is, I know how afraid you are, and I know there is nothing that will make it even the slightest bit less frightening. But you need to tamp down that fear for half an hour—half an hour, Katherine—and then it will be over and you will be safe and you can cry and I will hold you and you will be with me forever. Shut off the emotion for now. Separate your mind from your body; keep yourself calm. Go through the motions. I will stay by your side, but you have to be brave from within your own self. I know you can. I know you are strong. Show me, Katherine. Show me your courage.”

And then, with hellish timing, the door opened. Anne didn’t let her go, just kept staring at her. Katherine nodded. There were things more important than fear right now—things like honor and dignity—and she could already feel the terror draining from her, replaced with a sense of inevitability. There was no other ending now; she might as well submit with grace.

And so when the door opened, when the guards who stood there just looked at her and beckoned, she got to her feet by herself. Anne slipped off the bed beside her, still clutching Katherine’s hand; the guards looked right through her. Instead they slipped into a circle behind Katherine, not touching; they would grab if she fought, but she wouldn’t, not now. There was no point in fighting; there was no other ending. Better to leave this world with dignity, and enter Anne’s composed.

Anne squeezed her hand slightly as Katherine made her way, surrounded by guards, down the back steps of the Tower, into the courtyard. Katherine swallowed and cast her a glance, and then felt her lips turn slightly upward when she saw how widely Anne was beaming. “You’re doing so well, Katherine,” she whispered. “So well.” And Katherine nodded. The fear was gone; her chest was cold; she felt brave.

And then she saw the scaffold.

It was just there, rickety yet imposing; her ladies were there, and Jane, and—god—the executioner all in black with his axe, and the scaffold’s floor was covered in hay to soak up the blood that would spurt everywhere when it happened—to soak up her blood because there would be so much of it—god, her blood spilling everywhere, her blood, her blood, her—her—her—

“Ten minutes, Katherine,” came the whisper in her ear. “Be brave, my darling. I’m right here.”

Her entire body felt numb; she couldn’t feel her legs. But when Anne guided her to the scaffold and stepped up onto the first step, Katherine felt herself following, chilled to the bone. “Look at my eyes,” Anne whispered, and Katherine did, barely aware of her own body following Anne, step by step, up to the scaffold, until the steps ended on the flat platform.

The man waiting there nodded, then turned to address the crowd. “The Lady Katherine Howard,” he announced dryly, “to be executed for treason, in accordance with the laws of the kingdom of England and by the consent of the Royal Parliament and of His Majesty King Henry VIII.”

She knew what she had to do, and yet her mind had gone strangely blank—empty—paralyzed; and so she just stood there staring numbly until Anne nudged her and whispered, “Your speech, Katherine.”

She gasped; she nodded; she shook herself. She spoke. She was a wretched sinner, she had undermined Henry, a beheading was too merciful for her. Her throat caught on the very last word of her well-rehearsed speech—“death”—and she realized with a morbid chill that it would be her very last word ever.

Anne must have felt her shaking, because she snaked an arm over her shoulder. “Pay the executioner.”

This, too, she had forgotten; it came back in a rush, that she must pull out her own coin purse and make her very last purchase, compensating the axeman for his services. Her fingers were shaking so badly that coins spilled everywhere. Nobody moved to pick them up.

Finally she had pressed the sum into the executioner’s palm—so warm, so sweaty—and Anne squeezed Katherine to her side. “Now, Katherine.”

Anne drew back slightly to let Katherine to kneel in front of the block, and a chill shot through her as her cousin’s form—invisible to everybody else, yet so clear to her, so warm—left her. She had practiced this; she would get it right. Her heart was hammering so loudly, thunderously drowning out everything else, but she did not need anything else. She did not need to think. Her muscles knew what to do; they would never need to know how to do anything else.

Right knee, left knee, flex your feet, tuck your dress under your shoes.

Tilt your head to the side—cheek against the wood—so your neck is exposed.

Anne reappeared in her field of vision, kneeling on the side of the block; she reached out to adjust Katherine’s chin, so very slightly, so that their eyes were locked. “You’re doing so well, Katherine. So very well. Keep looking at my eyes.”

She nodded faintly; nothing in the world could compel her to look anywhere but Anne’s soft eyes, she told herself. Nothing could make her want to look away.

But it was never as easy as what she wanted, and when the executioner’s form, shadowy in her peripheral vision, shifted violently and raised the axe, she could not help but jerk her eyes over to watch him. For the briefest of moments her eyes caught his face, cruel and stoic; and then her gaze was drawn to the axe, the blade, glittering so brightly as it reflected the early morning sun, and that blade would soon be slick and red with her blood and oh god—

“Ah-ah-ah,” Anne chided gently, and her chilled fingers brushed against Katherine’s chin, readjusting her gaze so she had no choice but to stare straight into Anne’s face. “Eyes on me, Katherine. Nowhere else. Look at me. Keep looking.” And she kept her hand there, against Katherine’s face, so that when shadows danced in Katherine’s peripheral vision and figures loomed over her, just out of sight, she had no choice but to fight the urge to care about them and stare instead into Anne’s steady eyes.

And even though her heartbeat was drowning out all other sound, and even though she was choking on terror, her gaze stayed locked on Anne, staring unmoving into her cousin’s face as the world moved around her—until her neck erupted in pain, her vision lurched sickeningly, and the world went black.

***

She was disoriented before she even opened her eyes, like the way she felt whenever the court moved to a new palace—like the way she’d felt the first time she woke up in Henry’s bed. Her whole body was achy, especially around her neck, and her head was tight and throbbing; but more than the pain was a disoriented confusion, one that was made worse by the blackness. And so she forced herself to open her eyes.

And there, right where they’d been when her vision cut out, were two familiar green eyes, just like they’d promised. Katherine hadn’t felt how tense she was until she deflated, relaxed. “Anne.”

“Oh my darling.” Those gorgeous green eyes were wet. “Oh, Katherine, you’ve done so wonderfully well. You’ve been so brave.”

“Anne.” She couldn’t say anything else.

“It’s okay, my lovely, it’s okay. Take your time. You have nothing but time.”

Katherine nodded. Still not trusting herself to speak, she instead let herself look around. The room was shadowy; she was lying on a couch in a warm puddle of candlelight. And just on the edge of the light were other figures, other women.

Some were unfamiliar, but one—she had seen her face in portrait after portrait, still dotting palace corridors, and she was breathless, almost starstruck. “Queen Jane?”

Her thin lips widened and the woman dipped her head. “Queen Katherine.”

She flinched; she wanted to ask for them to please not say that, but she didn’t know how. She was so tired of it, of the title, of being reminded over and over again that she used to be Queen but she was no longer, she was disgraced now, and lost—

Jane must have seen something in her face. “Would you not like to use that name?”

Katherine bit her lip, because how did you explain you didn’t want the title of utmost respect? “I—”

“If it is the word Queen you dislike,” put in another woman—a figure Katherine had only barely noticed, her face half-shadowed—“that is understandable. Anne dislikes it as well.” Her voice was powerful, regal, but heavily accented; Katherine knew at once this woman was Spanish and knew just as immediately who she was.

“I think,” she got out slowly, shaking with the tension of trying to avoid any further humiliation in front of her predecessor, “that would be preferable.”

The woman nodded. “Of course. What would you like to be called, then? Just Katherine? Or you may choose something new entirely—I am a Katherine too, after all—whatever you would like.”

“I—” She stuttered, stumbled, felt her face burn.

“Take your time,” Jane soothed. “No need to answer us right away.”

Katherine nodded. She was comfortable here, safe, but—something was missing, something was odd. She was lying down with the others clustered around her, and she suddenly felt very cold, and very apart, and very alone, and—

“Anne?” It was barely a whisper, and it was almost embarrassing—she would have been embarrassed about such vulnerability in her past life, but she was so far past the point of humiliation now—“Anne, will you sit with me?”

“Of course, darling.” Katherine tucked up her feet to let Anne join her on the couch, then twisted around so she could put her head against Anne’s shoulder; Anne just wrapped her up in a hug.

Anne’s hand strayed to Katherine’s hair and began to stroke; barely a second later she drew back with a surprised laugh. “Your hair is so soft,” she giggled; “I couldn’t feel it quite the same before!”

Abruptly there was another hand on her hair and another soft laugh, and she looked up to see Jane Seymour stroking her hair next to Anne. “So soft,” Jane agreed in a low murmur, and then: “Comme caresser un chaton!”

Anne giggled, and Katherine caught her look straight at Jane, as if sharing an inside joke. Katherine felt her nose wrinkle: did they think she didn’t know what they were saying? “Je peux te comprendre, tu sais,” she told them: I can understand you, you know. I speak French; I understand when you say my hair is so soft that it’s like petting a kitten.

“Ah, un chaton intelligent!” It was playful and it was lighthearted—“ah, a smart little kitten!”—but the ease with which it slipped from Anne’s lips made Katherine wonder if, perhaps, this playfulness was the more real side of Anne, when she did not have to be the comforter to a teenager about to die.

“Un chaton du monde,” Jane added, and it made Katherine tear up, because she had never thought of herself as worldly, as well-traveled; she had never been outside of England, and her French had always felt stilted for it.

“Je me sens plus comme un chaton—piégé,” she told them, and there was an instant outpouring of soft, sympathetic denials from Anne and Jane—no, don’t say that, it’s not true anymore, you’re safe now—and she almost sobbed at the gentleness of their words and the strength of Anne’s squeeze.

And then the other Catherine spoke. “Forgive the intrusion, but would somebody mind informing the non-Francophone what on God’s green earth you all are saying?”

Katherine felt a surprised laugh jolt from her without her permission; she clapped a hand over her mouth (laughing at Catherine of Aragon? How dare she? How could she?) but Catherine just looked amused. Exasperated, yes, undeniably—but lightheartedly so.

And Anne and Jane were grinning too, not remotely frightened, and Anne said, “I was just mentioning how soft her hair is, and Jane said it’s like petting a cat, and—well, then it went a bit odd—but the point is, she said she felt trapped, and—”

“Pardon. Who said this?” Catherine interrupted, eyes bright with what Katherine could only identify as concern. “Who felt trapped?”

“Kitty,” Anne said simply, unthinkingly, and then she recoiled and shook herself. “I mean—Katherine—I—”

But now all of them were laughing, except Catherine, who was staring at them with a look of bewilderment. “‘Kitty’? Where did that come from?”

“I—it just did—but I—I’m sorry, Katherine, I don’t know why that came out. I’m sorry.”

But Kitty was smiling, and her face was softer and more relaxed than it had felt in awhile, and her whole body felt light in a way that it hadn’t since November—maybe since her wedding. “No—no, it’s okay, Anne. I’d like to try—Kitty, maybe? Just for a little, just to see?”

“Of course.” Anne’s arms were warm around her, and Jane Seymour settled on the couch on the other side of her, and Catherine of Aragon came to sit at Kitty’s feet (the rightful Queen of England, sitting on the floor!—it took Kitty’s breath away for just a moment, and she pulled back instinctively, so as not to touch Catherine with her shoes; but Catherine just gently brought Kitty’s feet to rest in her lap, and it was somehow soothing). “Of course, mon chaton, my darling. Oh, lovely, you’ve been so brave today, so very brave. I’m so proud of you.”

And she had heard that before, she had heard people say they were proud of her—Francis Dereham, when she stole Henry Manox’s letter; and her grandmother, when she was sent away to court; and her uncle, when she married the King—but she had always felt bitter when she heard it before, undeserving or uncaring or unwilling to take the praise. Now, for the first time, she relished it, leaned into Anne’s touch; and maybe Anne realized it was a sentiment that had been lacking, because she just burrowed her hands into Kitty’s cat-soft hair and leaned down to whisper in her ear.

“You have done so wonderfully well, darling. I am so proud of you—so proud, my Kitty.”

***

Also posted on AO3 here; please comment if you enjoyed. Happiest of deathdays to Lady Howard.

[cordytriestowrite]

Knocking On Your Door

Bucky Barnes x Reader

One Shot College AU

Summary: Bucky can't sleep and you can't find your door.

The strip of light under the door was too bright and the heavy footfalls just outside sent shadows across Bucky's eyelids so that every time he felt compelled to open them. He knew it was late but didn't dare touch his phone and have his retinas burned by the intense, artificial light. Ten feet to his right his best friend let out a loud, choking snore reminding Bucky he was the only one having a problem adjusting to dorm life. 

A shiver ran down Bucky's body as his left shoulder escaped from the warm cocoon of his comforter and he had to expose his right hand to the cold to tuck everything back in. A sleeping Steve missed Bucky's lukewarm glare in the dark. The man could sleep soundly on a bed of ice but Bucky? Well, Bucky hated the cold. The thermostat for the whole floor was just down the hall behind a plastic cage. He spared a moment to fantasize about ripping it off with his bare hand before hurling it out the window and watching it shatter on the sidewalk below. And while the fantasy was nice the reality was Bucky should probably just put on a sweater, but he hated wearing shirts to bed so he stubbornly suffered in silence. 

Two students passed through the hall in a heated conversation at full volume. Did anyone take morning classes on this floor? Bucky wondered bitterly as he burrowed his head underneath his pillow and let out a tiny, totally manly whimper of exhaustion. He knew college would be tough, was told as much by everyone he knew, but no one thought to mention how impossible it would be to get some fucking sleep.

The tips of his ears and nose warmed with his head planted under his pillow and while his neck ached slightly and his inhales became filled more with exhaled breath than fresh air he found his eyes suddenly heavy with sleep. 

The rattling of the door knob had Bucky bolting upright. The sound was insistent, offending Bucky's ears every few seconds while he blinked sleep from his eyes. The sudden cold air on his chest helped rouse him enough to pull the covers back and put his feet on the equally cold ground. He took a moment to grit his teeth against the chill. 

What sounded like an open palm smacked once against the wood spurring Bucky to leap the short distance across the room. His hand gripped the still wriggling knob and wretched the door open.

"Jesus, do you know what time it is?"

The greeting growled out of him, he couldn't help it. He knew he was wild-eyed, hair messy, and torso bare to display the stump where his arm should be and that alone would have made even his closest friends take an instinctual step away.

But you only blinked owlishly at him.

"You're not Carol?" You managed to slur out the cohesive thought as you stared at the man in front of you who was definitely not your roommate. 

"Uh," Bucky's forehead crinkled with his own confusion. 

"No?"

It was obvious you were drunk. If Bucky didn't have eyes he'd still be able to smell the reek of booze pouring off your skin. 

"Why are you in my room?" 

"I'm not. I'm in my room."

"Who are you?"

"Bucky, who are you?"

Your gaze hardened and your hands braced against your hips. You knew where you lived god dammit and this...this...Bucky would not put you out on your ass.

"Get out of my room you creep!"

Bucky's movements were quicker than yours, his arm coming up to block your two handed push. What neither of you anticipated was the lack of balance on your end that had you crumpling into each other like a car crash. It took your brain a minute to breach the surface of understanding and reorient your sense of space to its current status: horizontal with a bloom of pain in your knee and your face pressed to bare skin. Your tongue swiped along your bottom lip and the action was answered with a pulsing sting and the taste of copper.

"Ouchies." You moaned with a pathetic warble.

A groan of agreement rumbled beneath you. Bucky, with the wind still knocked out of him, glanced up at the bed half expecting a disheveled blond head to lean over the edge. If Steve woke up at all from the commotion he already deemed it not as important as sleeping.

You didn't seem interested in moving off of Bucky and occasionally he could feel your tongue leave a wet trail against his chest which was kind of weirding him out. The last thing he wanted was to be accused of taking advantage of a drunk girl by another loud late-night hall walker. With his arm on your opposite shoulder he tugged gently until you fell onto the rug beside him. 

"Where's Carol?" You asked again, feeling your eyes sting with big, fat, extra salty tears.

"I want french fries." You added as an afterthought. 

Bucky let out a surprised chuckle, muffling it behind his palm as he let it slide down his face and pull at his lower lip.

"Me too."

Your stomach contracted with a mix of hunger and nausea. Turning on your side you tried to settle into a comfortable position on the hard floor. Bucky turned on his side toward you, his eyes flitting over your face with concern.

"Don't fall asleep."

Your lower lip jutted out, the pull of skin ripping the split open further. Your tongue ran along the wound again. 

"I'm not!"

Your eyes closed of their own accord though your mind was still very much active. You wondered yet again where Carol was. But finding her was only  secondary to your new mission.

"I want french fries."

You heard a sigh and cracking one eye open your vision swam for a moment before taking in the man next to you. His hair was long, pooling onto the floor under his head. His eyes were rimmed with dark circles and weary with the need for sleep. His chest was bare, pale and toned and scarred where his limb suddenly ended.

"Did I do that?" You wondered out loud, your fingers inching toward the pink, tight skin. 

"No." he answered, his voice soft with vulnerability. 

Bucky felt as if he had hit the floor all over again. He felt dizzy and breathless and unable to do anything but watch what was happening. Fingers connected with flesh and the sharp intake of air hurt his lungs. It didn't feel like much, the nerves dull and your touch light, but Bucky's body was awake with awareness. 

"I've never…" 

Your thought floated away halfway through speaking it, but Bucky nodded as if he understood. Eventually your fingers stopped stroking and Bucky rolled over to his back. There was a second of stillness before he sat up and stared down at you.

"Tell you what: let's go find your friend Carol and get you some french fries."

You ignored the pain of your lip in favor of offering Bucky a wide smile.

"Fuck yes let's go!"

Bucky sent a quick glance to the lump in Steve's bed which remained unmoving despite your exclamation. Rising first he offered his hand to you, bending his knees and keeping his balance low and centered as you stumbled your way up to standing. 

-

"Wake up sleeping beauty."

You groaned, pulling your blanket above your head. Your head was pounding, blood pulsing painfully behind your eyes. Your mouth was dry, breath foul, and bladder full. In essence you were hungover. 

"Carol, I'm dying." You moaned, your voice breaking with overuse. 

"I know sweetie. Now sit up and take these."

Carol pulled the blanket back and waited patiently for you to sit up before dropping the pills into your awaiting palm. You dropped them into your mouth and tried not to gag as you washed them down. 

"So you had an interesting night, huh?"

You had settled back down, the effort it took to stay upright too much to handle right now. You draped your forearm over your eyes and let out a sigh of relief.

"I don't know, did I?"

Carol didn't answer but you could still feel her weight on the edge of your bed. You snuck a peak from under your arm.

"Carol Danvers what do you know?"

She shrugged, but the burgeoning smirk on her lips suggested she wasn't entirely ignorant. You sat up again, your body hunched over with nausea, but you persevered. 

"Tell me what you know, woman!"

Carol's lips quirked upward, her stare steady in silent resistance. You were about to flop back down and leave last night a mystery but Carol must've seen your interest waning. 

"Imagine my surprise when there is a knock on the door at four in the morning and it's you holding a basket of fries in one hand and waving goodbye to some tall, dark, and handsome with the other."

"Who was it?"

Carol shrugged, finally getting up and crossing back over to her side of the room and tugging on her brown leather jacket.

"I'm meeting Maria for breakfast. Want me to bring you something back or do you think you can brave the journey."

As much as you wanted to spend the day in bed with your roommate bringing you food you knew the best way to recover from your monster hangover was to walk your tired ass downstairs and across campus to the cafeteria, load up a plate with greasy food, and shovel it all into your face until you felt human again.

You pulled back your covers to find yourself still in the outfit you wore last night, a wrinkled shirt and skirt combo that did not look as cute as it did last night. Pulling on sweatpants and a hoodie you followed Carol at a much slower pace. 

Maria was leaning against the outside wall of the cafeteria until she spotted Carol. You watched her jog to meet her girlfriend sooner by a few seconds with a flutter in your own chest at just how fucking cute they were. 

"Not that I don't like seeing you two be adorable but I need hash browns."

Maria took one look at your current state and nodded seriously, pulling Carol along under her arm.

"Well shit who am I to deny you breakfast?"

The cafeteria was surprisingly busy for a Saturday morning, but the lines of food were already being switched out for lunch items and you realized it was later than you thought. 

You were plopping your third scoop of eggs onto your plate when you felt a presence next to you. Looking up beyond the edge of your hood a spark of recognition barely ignited in your memory, but something about him seemed familiar. His plate sat mostly empty on the runner and you assumed he was waiting for his turn with the eggs. 

"Sorry." You muttered, dropping the spoon and moving along the line.

"For which part?" 

Bucky had barely registered that the hunched and bundled body next to him was you until you spoke. He had dropped you off at the door a floor below his only six hours ago then took the stairs back to his room and promptly passed out. Steve tried to rouse him for a morning run with Sam but unlike Steve, Bucky hadn't caught a wink of sleep until the sun was rising. Steve's return and Sam's insistent prodding at Bucky's body beneath his blanket had spurred him awake and in a foul mood. He escaped the room with his foul mood intact wondering if Natasha would let him crash in her bed while she worked. She didn't answer when he knocked on her door and in a futile attempt to catch up on sleep he ventured to the cafeteria. She wasn't there but now that Bucky was his stomach begged for substance. With an energy drink shoved into his pocket he pushed his plate down the line waiting for something to catch his eye. 

Turns out that thing was you. 

Turns out Bucky was not quite out of his funk.

He followed you, pushing his plate past what remained of the eggs. 

"Do you want to apologize for showing up at my door in the middle of the night? Or for accusing me of breaking into my own dorm? Maybe for pushing me?"

Your eyes widened with each word until the dryness stung and forced you to blink back the moisture. There was a smudged image in your mind of the same man before you, hair loose and eyes tired, not too different from how he looked right now. 

"All of it?" You offered up with a half shrug. 

Bucky didn't know what he expected, wasn't sure he expected anything. Maybe he just wanted to be angry and for you to feel guilty. 

But he remembered your fingers grazing the scars on his chest and arm, how you leaned into him as he walked you to your door, your nonsensical stories barely uttered through drunken giggles, and how much many times you muttered 'cute' when gazing at him with a dopey smile on your face. 

Silence stretched between you, Bucky's gaze far away with the night he luckily could remember. You moved down the bar, suddenly not as hungry as you were a few minutes ago. 

You reached the student cashier, who barely looked up as you reached into your pocket to fish out your id card.

"I got it."

Bucky leaned over to place his card into the cashier's awaiting hand. Who swiped it without hesitation before passing it back in Bucky's general direction. 

"Thanks."

You picked up your plate, waiting for Bucky to do the same.

"I really am sorry for whatever I did last night."

Bucky placed his plate down at an empty table then set his energy drink down before pulling out his chair. You could see Carol and Maria sitting a few tables away, but the couple was wrapped up in a conversation and hadn't noticed you.

"I assume I have you to thank for getting me home last night?"

Bucky nodded, a smile forming on his tired face.

"And your precious basket of fries. I'm surprised you're still hungry, I bought you three baskets."

A flush of heat rippled down your body, self-consciously you licked your bottom lip and felt a tenderness you didn't have before you started drinking last night. 

"Holy shit, I ate that many fries?"

"Nah, you wanted to bring one back to Carol."

You glanced at the woman in question. Catching her eye and watching her very obviously mouth 'that's him!'

Yeah, no shit Carol. Thanks. 

"So after I wake you up in the middle of the night, insult you, push you, and drag you out of your dorm you not only buy me fries but you buy my friend fries and my breakfast this morning."

Bucky shrugged, shoving a forkful of food into his mouth and staring intently at his plate. 

"Are you single?"

Bucky choked a little before he managed to swallow the large amount of food he had unwittingly dumped into his gob to keep from making an ass of himself. Turns out he could do that anyway. Coughing to clear his airway he let out a strangled answer.

"I am."

"So would it be weird if after all of that I asked you out?"

Bucky couldn't keep from smiling this time and to be safe he set down his fork and pushed away his plate. He had a date. He had the weirdest night of his college experience and now he had a date. Bad mood banished he felt an influx of endorphins urging him to run or jump or dance or do something equally stupid in public. 

"Yeah, yeah, I'd like that. But I'd like to take a nap first." He confessed with a chuckle.

"Oh my god, me too." You said wistfully, already imagining crawling back into bed, maybe with…

"First date idea: want to nap together?"

Bucky's heart swelled in his chest to the point he thought it might send him floating away. 

"Fuck yes! Can we go now?"

You nodded, letting out a surprised squeal when Bucky gasped your hand and pulled you up and out of the mess hall. You caught up with him so he was less tugging you along and more so holding your hand. 

"Maybe while we walk you can help me fill in the gaps of last night. So your name is Bucky and why were you in my room?"

Bucky groaned, albeit with no frustration. You were so fucking cute if you let him he was going to kiss you before you both passed out cuddled up in the small, thin dorm beds, ignoring the sounds of passersby and daylight streaming though the window.

And fuck anyone who knocks on the door.

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[artificialqueens]

Beneath the Amber Moon, Part 1 (Galactica AU Group Fic) – TheDane & Veronica

Heyyy!! Welcome to “Beneath the Amber Moon,” a group fic set in the Galactica Universe. (If you have never read a Galactica story and want a little background, click here for character descriptions/relationships.)

We hope you enjoy! Let us know what you think!

Summary: Fame brings her nearest and dearest on a luxurious vacation to Brazil to celebrate her birthday. Shenanigans and drama ensue.

/////

Fame opened her French doors, a fresh wind of ocean air hitting her face as she took a deep breath, enjoying the sounds and scents of the sea that was spreading out before her. The sun was rising on the horizon, Patrick still sleeping in the bed behind her. They had arrived late last night, and poor Patrick had been so good at keeping her calm for the flight that he had fallen asleep the moment his head touched the pillow.

Choosing to go to Brazil had been brilliant. Raja offhandedly mentioning that she should do something for her birthday while they had both been trapped in Fame’s office, mountains of paperwork for their official branch into Asia on her desk, and Fame had taken the idea and run with it as fast as she could. Patrick had agreed right away, her husband the most amazing man she knew, and when she had accidentally told Alaska of the idea at work, Jinkx had called her that night, charter planes already booked and the network of assistants put into work to take them to this little slice of paradise 4 months later.

Fame took off her robe, sure no one else would be awake as she slipped into the sea, the water feeling amazing against her naked skin. Fame dunked her head underneath the water, a gasp leaving her lips as she came back up, the hot air filling her lungs. Fame heard a noise, and she turned around to see the door to Bianca's bungalow open, the other woman sipping on a cup of coffee, her own bathrobe hanging off of her shoulder.

“Morning!”

“Morning blondie.” Bianca smiled, and Fame felt a stir in her stomach. She and Bianca had gotten closer and closer lately, and Fame would lie if she said it didn’t please her immensely. “Great view, huh?”

Fame looked down at herself, the water barely covering her breasts, a smile playing on her own lips. Fame stood up, water dripping down her body as she pushed her hair back, making sure she was on full display.

“Isn’t it?” Fame turned around, the feeling of Bianca's gaze following her all the way back inside the best present she could ever have gotten for her (seventh) 35th birthday.

/////

“Shhh, lay still.”

“No!” Isolde shrieked. “More!”

Raja smiled, shaking her head. Both Tanya and Isolde were snuggled on her chest, the girls curled up around her as they watched a show on her phone. They had woken up at 6, Raven ready to call the nanny to be with them the moment she heard the screams from the baby monitor. Raja had pulled them into bed instead, Raven turning over to continue sleeping with a roll of her eyes. Raja was attempting to turn off the screen and have a little quiet time before they had to rise for breakfast, but Isolde was adamant about watching another episode.

“More! More!”

“Okay, okay, shhh!” Raja soothed, letting Isolde snatch the phone in her hands, clearly engrossed by the musical puppets on the screen. Miraculously, Tanya had slept through her sister’s mini tantrum, dozing with her thumb in her mouth, and Raja kissed her dark head gratefully.

/////

“Violet, come on, we’re going to be late!”

“I’ll be right there!”

Violet was in what many people would consider paradise, and somehow it was her own personal version of hell instead. She sighed, turning to the side as she watched herself in the mirror, her hand coming to rest on her middle.

Fame had flown everyone to a resort in Brazil for her birthday, Sutan RSVPing straight away without even considering to ask her if she wanted to come along. Not that she could have come up with an excuse that was good enough to stay behind in Paris.

The resort they were staying at was beautiful, no doubt about it, all of them in bungalows that opened up to a crystal clear sea, and Violet felt terrible.

She hated being here, the sun giving her migraines whenever she wasn’t wearing sunglasses, the sand impossible to run in, the strange new smells making her nauseous more often than not while the heat made her feel sweaty and dizzy. To top it all off, everyone had somehow decided that spending time by the water was the only way to spend their time in Brazil, so for the second day in a row she was forced to spend her time in beach attire looking like a pudgy, chubby mess. The weight at the gym only said 3 pounds, but Violet was only 26, and she had no idea why her metabolism had suddenly almost stopped completely.

She looked in the mirror once again hoping it had changed, but no. She looked exactly the same. Violet had no idea when her apparent new allergies had started, but no matter how careful she was, avoiding both dairy and gluten, she couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t looked like a snake mid digestion, her belly looking painfully bloated, even though it didn’t hurt to the touch. On the plane from Paris to Brazil Violet had even avoided alcohol and sugar, a last ditch effort to find out what was happening to her body, but there had been no such luck. Violet knew she was most likely the only one who could see it, Sutan not commenting or acting any different, her ass still pleasantly sore from the feel of his palm last night before he had fucked her into their mattress.

Violet grabbed her dress, sliding it over her head, the flowy fabric and pale color hopefully hiding her body away from the prying eyes and backhanded comments of the people Sutan considered his family.

/////

“Aand there we go.” Juju smiled, Grace giggling as she filled the three year old’s plate with fresh fruit. The resort staff had put tables up on the beach for them, Karl sitting next to her still half asleep, coffee mug dangerously close to spilling over and Juju couldn’t blame him. Their waiter from the day before had not been hiding anything as he had flirted shamelessly with Karl, Karl basking in the attention and probably also pure afterglow if the sounds of pleasure Juju had heard from his bungalow as any indication. Juju was happy for Karl, though she was a whole lot happier her kids were all heavy sleepers.

“Morning!”

Juju waved as Jinkx, Alaska and Adore joined them. Jinkx looked like a vision in a tight red vintage style bathing suit, a white cover up covering her shoulders, her face protected by a large floppy hat. She was holding Alaska’s hand, the blonde in a long flowing maxi dress that made her look as if she could reach the sky, and then there was Adore, a ratty band t-shirt from someone called ‘The pussy lickers’ slipping off her shoulder while Juju really hoped she was wearing shorts underneath.

Everyone slowly showed up, Fame and Patrick, Bianca and Sutan discussing something they had seen on TV, while Violet was a step behind, then came Raja and Raven with their wailing, squirming twins, Raven practically tossing Tanya to the nanny hurrying by her side. Lastly, Detox with Julia and Owen in tow, all three of them already in bathing suits, barely dry from their first swim of the day. Detox sat down, a brief kiss landing on her cheek before she had a lap full of excited kids, telling her all about how daddy was such a quick swimmer, Owen almost bursting with excitement.

Breakfast went by fast, everyone chatting and laughing and eating, Juju feeling a deep sense of peace wash over her since she couldn’t remember the last time they had all been together like this. Raja wasn’t herself without her brother around, the glint in her eye barely there if she didn’t have him near. Juju hadn’t even realised how much it had mattered to Raja, but it didn’t come as a surprise. Juju was in many ways Raven’s best friend, and even though she had known Raja since she was in college, she’d never really truly gotten to know her best friend’s wife, Raja incredibly closed off to everyone and everything if she didn’t feel like opening up, which she practically never did.

Fame dinged her glass, a bright smile on her face. “Thank you all for coming to celebrate me, and for taking time out of your calendars to spend a week in what I hope will be the best vacation spot we ever visit!”

Juju stopped listening, Fame happily rambling on, interrupted by everyone and everything, but it didn’t really matter, since they were all there together.

/////

Adore dropped down onto her towel, spreading it in the sand. Jinkx stirred in the lounge chair beside her. As usual, she was worried about sunburn, and so she was slathered with sunblock, covered in a mumu, a giant hat shielding her face and an umbrella on top of everything. Adore pressed a kiss to her cheek, grinning.

“Mmmh, hey,” Jinkx said, eyes fluttering open.

“Hi,” Adore replied, leaning her head against the chair. “You taste like sunblock.”

Jinkx reached out and caressed her cheek, and Adore smiled up at her. A shadow fell over them, and Adore looked up to see Alaska, holding a large ice tea for Jinkx, two beers dangling from her fingers.

Alaska handed her girlfriends their drinks and then perched on the edge of Jinkx’ chair.

“God, it’s beautiful here…” she breathed.

“I know,” Adore agreed. “And that water is perfect. You should go in.”

Alaska gazed out at the crystal blue water, where Detox was teaching Grace and Owen how to bodysurf, both kids loving the attention from their dad.

“Maybe,” she said. “Look how cute they are…”

Adore bit her lip as Jinkx put an arm around Alaska, pulling her close. Alaska settled against her chest, sighing contentedly, brown eyes meeting Adore’s, a small, shy smile playing on her lips.

Adore wasn’t stupid. She knew that Alaska had had babies on the brain for months. So far, she’d successfully avoided any conversations about it, but with a week in this setting, surrounded by all their friends’ kids? It was going to be much tougher. Which is why Adore had called in reinforcements.

“Jinkxy, is everything cool with the plane for Courtney?” Adore asked.

“Of course, lil bear,” Jinkx replied, resting her chin on Alaska’s head.

“Good,” Adore sighed.

“It’ll be so nice to see her,” Alaska commented, pretending to be casual, like she didn’t know exactly why Adore had summoned her best friend there from Los Angeles.

“Yeah, totally.” Adore shifted, turning to face the water again.

/////

“Bianca, open up!”

Bianca opened the door to find Fame posing. She was wearing a sarong and what appeared to be nothing underneath.

“Sooo...” Bianca raised an eyebrow. She wanted to wonder what kind of vacation her dearest friend had in mind, but ultimately she was just happy that they had grown closer once again.

“Patrick is taking too long.” Fame pushed by her and into Bianca’s bathroom, setting her bag down.

“Ah.”

Bianca could already hear Fame rummaging around, and as she popped her head in Fame was rearranging her cosmetics.

“How have you already made such a mess B? We arrived yesterday.”

“Well, I didn’t expect to have company.”

Fame tutted and picked a few of Bianca’s products, smiling a little as she read the labels. “Snail extract? Really? What are you? A korean beauty expert? Haven’t you listened to Alaska? What’s next, a vampire facial?”

“Not really no.” Bianca crossed her arms, the serum in Fame’s hand one she had been giving by dermatologist. “Besides, what room do you have to judge? It’s not like you haven’t had your face sucked by leeches.”

“What a peculiar way to describe yourself, dearest.” Fame smiled.

“May I remind you, someone you’re actually married to is less than 10 feet away?”

“You know steam isn’t good for my pores right now.” Fame opened her own bag, and started doing her morning routine. Bianca watched her. “Are you not going to get ready?”

“I didn’t realise turtle watching required ‘getting ready’, unless they plan to strut down the runway?”

“Let’s hope not, in that case we would have to worry about you fucking them.” Fame smiled, mischief shining in her eyes.

“I don’t do models anymore,” Bianca retorted, hands on her hips.

“Oh right. You’re exclusively into bored trophy wives now, right?” Fame giggled. “No divorcées, though. That might get serious.”

For the past couple of years, Bianca had been working her way through the Upper East Side Ladies Who Lunch circuit. Though they were slightly more age appropriate than her former flings, screwing married women at charity events was not exactly helping her with her commitment issues.  

“Oh, like you’re one to talk.” Bianca reached out, grabbing Fame, pulling the other woman into the bedroom, Fame shrieking with laughter as Bianca dumped her on the bed, the two play fighting, Fame putting up a fair fight. “When the hell did you get so strong?!”

Fame laughed, bucking against Bianca who held her down. “It’s called, no, no Bianca don’t tickle me- ah! No! Mercy! Mercy!”

Bianca stopped, hands holding Fame’s wrists, both of them breathing hard. Fame was beautiful. In her own way, her face one Bianca knew so intimately well. More than ever, Bianca wished she knew what Fame was thinking. She had come to her cabin, dressed like this, surely flirting, tempting. Bianca wanted to know exactly what naughty thoughts hid behind those mysterious eyes. They stared at each other for a few more heated moments, neither daring to make a move, when a sound at the door startled Bianca, making her jump up.

Adore peered through the glass door, knocking.

“Hey sis!”

“What do you want?” Bianca sighed, opening the door.

“Do you have a bandaid?” Adore held up her foot, wrapped in t-shirt, the amount of blood alarming. “I cut it on a seashell.”

“Jesus Christ, Adore! Why wouldn’t you go see a medic for this?” Bianca led her sister to the chair and sat her down. Fame was still on the bed, slightly dazed.

“It’s just a tiny cut.” Adore scowled. “Hi, Fame.”

Bianca unwrapped her foot, seeing that it was in fact a small cut, and pulled out a first aid kit.

“You’re like a five year old… Couldn’t one of your two girlfriends help with this?”

“They’re in the spa, I didn’t want to bother them.” Adore winced as Bianca swabbed her foot with alcohol. “Ouch!”

“But bothering me is fine?” Bianca asked, applying antibiotic ointment to the cut.

“Exactly.” Adore flashed a bright smile.

Bianca covered her cut with a waterproof bandaid and then sat back on her heels.

“Alright, there you go.”

“Thanks, B!” Adore chirped. “Now y’all can go back to whatever boring grownup discussion you were having!”

Or not. Bianca looked at Fame on the bed, who was now all business, legs folded primly, top straightened, applying a thick layer of snail goo to her face.

/////

“Isolde! Get back here!”

Sutan hadn’t seen Isolde take off, the little girl running the moment she spotted a crab, Sutan only grabbing her seconds before she slipped and fell, his niece nearly cracking her skull open on the rocks they had been playing in.

Isolde screamed, tears rolling down her face as if someone had just died, the little girl sobbing uncontrollably.

“Shit!”

Sutan had looked away for a single second, his phone ringing while they had been talking, Raja asking him where they were.

”Let me see you.” Sutan moved his niece slightly, drying her tears away with the edge of his sleeve, the little girl only hiccuping now as fat tears continued to roll down her cheeks, the scare over for now and Sutan was so grateful he had caught her. She appeared unscathed, so Sutan started walking, quickly filling the entire thing away in the ever growing cabinet of things he’d never tell his sister.

“Isolde, you have to watch where you’re going-”

“No Isolde!”

“.. Say that again?”

“No Isolde!”

Sutan stopped, stunned at the girl’s words. Sutan moved her on his hip, he was sure it was Isolde, but as he looked at her, he realised that he had been mistaken. His sister’s twins was like mirror images, completely identical, their skin the same shade of brown, their hair jet black and already thick, their eyes shaped exactly like Ravens.

“I’m sorry Tanya.” Sutan put her down. “I didn’t realise.” Tanya looked up at him, a strange expression on her small face. “Can you forgive your uncle?”

Tanya nodded, and Sutan smiled.

“I’m glad.”

[bewitchingwitch]

Constellations pt. 7

Hey y’all this I my first fanfic and since I’ve been obsessed with Newt Scamander lately I decided to do a series about him depending on if this part gets good reviews

Word count: 3,190

If you really want some Theseus Feels listen to lie to me by 5 seconds of summer

The Minister of Magic was standing in Theseus office as you both walked in, hand in hand, and she did not look happy. She was scowling, but despite that still looked beautiful as a powerful figure of authority should. She had long golden hair that was inches away from skimming the floor, it had a series of interact braids weaving in out. "Ah it seems our lovebird chose to sleep in zee morning." She had a French accent as if English was her second language.

Her icy blue eyes surveyed over you both noticing that you were walking hand in hand and that Theseus had a protective stance. You were both still standing in the door way. Theseus dragged you forward and closed the door, if a scene went down he didn't need the whole department to know.

She moved closer to where you both were standing her heels clicking on the hardwood. "I would think our head auror would know better than to show up late, especially when zee knows that she was expecting zeem this morning." She seems to slur some of her worlds but he remarks still seemed to strike Theseus painfully.

Theseus quickly dropped your hand, and bowed his head in apology. "I'm sorry Minister. I should have known better than to be late."

"But Theseus-" he shot you a look urging you to keep your mouth shut.

"I lost track of time, it's as simple as that."

The Minister had a look of distaste on her face. You always assumed the Minster of magic was a man, but it seemed you were mistaken, and wrongly so. This women seemed to be far more intimidating and powerful than any wizard.

"Hm lost track of time Theseus? Are you sure you weren't just, how do you say fooling around with your new "trainee."

Theseus' ears turned bright red and you felt yourself heat up and cast your gaze downward. "I would never do something like that on the Ministry's time." Theseus was defiant, but the Minister could see right through him.

She leaned towards him and whispered softly so that you couldn't hear. "But I bet you'd love to fool around with her on your own time. I zee the way you look at her your thoughts aren't so innocent chéri." She smiled wickedly as she pulled back, leaving you baffled at what she said to Theseus.

Theseus was red with both anger and embarrassment. The Minister moved to lean on Theseus' desk, still addressing him. "I shouldn't reward you for your unacceptable tardiness but, there is no one who is capable other than you two to carry out this mission for me."

You stepped forward to stand even with Theseus and looked at the Minister as her smirk grew wider by the second. "We have gotten new information about the whereabouts of some of Grindelwald's closets followers. They are staying in a hotel across the city and I need you both to go there and try and bring them back for interrogation."

"Of course we'll go right away."

"Tsk tsk dear Theseus. There is still more." She seemed to pause for the liking of dramatic effect. "To avoid suspicion you will need to pose as a couple."

You were taken aback and so was Theseus. "A couple what for?"

"Theseus when you ask zee stupid questions like that it makes me think you are too incompetent for this task." She looked down batting her long lashes. "I thought you were a professional and would know better than to question a women in authority."

Theseus held himself back from giving a response, biting his tongue.

She stood up straight smoothing out the creases on her dress as she made her way over to you. You gulped as she inched closer her eyes analyzing every feature of your face. She reached a hand up and gripped you lightly by your chin. Her nails were painted a light pink  and were long almost like talons.

She turned you head side to side, tilting your head back and then pulling it down. "Nice bone structure, strong jaw." She took a long finger and ran it along your jaw tracing the outline. "Close your eyes." You obeyed, but you could still here her mumbling to herself. "Long lashes." She released your chin and placed both hands on the sides of your cheeks and ran her cold hands down you cheek bones. "You may open your eyes now."

You opened your eyes to see her still standing in front of you her arms crossed and one hip pushed out. She grabbed Theseus by his forearm and spun him around before he landed next to you, you were standing side by side as he gripped your arm for support. "Perfect."

She clasped her hands together and smiled softly and you could see just how beautiful she was when she wasn't scaring the crap out of everyone. "I'll have Margret put a little makeup on her and I'll have you guys ready to go in about a hour."

She surged forward and grabbed your hand before you had a chance to protest as she dragged you out of the office. "Wait here Theseus I'll come get you when I'm done."

Theseus stared at the door in shock not being able to form any words. He felt anxiety building up in his throat, he didn't know what to do with himself in the meantime. But he made himself stay busy. He spent the hour making calls and signing papers. He was aimlessly twirling his quill between his fingers when his door burst open to revel the Minister.

He stood up at her arrival. "May I present your girlfriend." And for the first time Theseus couldn't find it in himself to correct the fact that your were not his girlfriend.

You stepped through the door and he felt his breath catch in his throat. You normally wore no makeup and you hadn't put much on but what you had on made you look like an angel standing before him. Everything seemed to capture just the right things the light eye shadow made your eyes pop out and sparkle drawing attention to them. The light pink that decorated your lips made them look so soft and gentle. The lightest touches didn't change who you were it just made you look like yourself at full volume.

He swallowed hard. He noticed that she had also changed you into something new. You were now wearing a black floor length gown that hugged your body in all the right places. It had a v neck that went painfully low, very uncommon of the era. The gold trimming decorated the fabric in a pattern that was very star like. Wrapped around your shoulders was a brown mink coat that hung loosely.

He felt the need to loosen his tie as he felt that he couldn't breathe. You looked so painfully beautiful he couldn't stop himself from staring. You looked at him. "What?" You said quietly.

"Now now you will have much more time to stare at Ms. (y/l/n) later." She moved over the Theseus and frowned noticing very imperfection in his outfit. "Close your mouth Theseus you'll catch flies." He quickly shut his mouth. "I didn't think I'd have to fix you up but you look disheveled. Are you sure you weren't fooling around with her this morning." She whispered as she took in his messy hair and untucked shirt.

"I didn't fool around with her." He said through gritted teeth.

"Well alright no need to make zee big deal." She turned to face you her expression going soft. "I'm just gonna fix him up a bit wait here love." She pushed him out despite his protest and seconds later to your surprise she was back.

She stepped in followed by Theseus. He was wearing a soft dark grey suit with a cool grey colored button up underneath. He had a thick silver tie that was stripped that was tucked into his grey vest. His outfit was so simple but so visually stunning. You found yourself noticing how good he looked especially when he walked in with one hand in his pocket and his hair slicked back with gel. He looked like he could be on the cover of a fashion magazine. His freckles, which some saw as imperfections, made him even more stunning as they decorated all this features. You found yourself wanting to trace over every one of them.

She led you both to stand side by side and noticed how well your outfits complemented one another. You really did look like a couple made in heaven.

The Minister took in both of your reactions to each other smirking to herself. She had dressed you both in what she figured each other would fancy and it worked out wonderfully. Her plan was going better than she anticipated.

"Well here's the address I'm sure you won't have any problem finding it."

"Thank you." Theseus took the slip of paper from her hand and placed it in his coat pocket.

She made her way to the door her long dress trailing behind her. She looked over her shoulder as she was about to exit, her hand grabbing onto the door handle. "One more thing. The hotel is were a lot of muggles typically stay so to blend in you will need to take a muggle form of transportation. Preferably a car, but that you will have to find on your own." She closed the door leaving you both to your own devices.

"How are we gonna find a car?" Theseus questioned.

"I may have an idea."

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

"No way! No fucking way! Excuse me cursing. But no way!" You giggled as Theseus worked his way around your car taking it all in. "I can't believe you have a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost!"

"Mhmm."

"How'd you get a car like this?"

"My dad is an American mechanic and he bought it cheap from a client and sent it up to me." You had both Apparated back to your apartment after the Minister left. You had a car and figured you could take it to the hotel. "I didn't know you were into cars."

"I took muggle studies at Hogwarts and the mechanical engineering behind muggle transposition always fascinated me. Especially cars." Theseus ran his hand over the body of the car whistling. You thought it was so cute how Theseus, a wizard, someone who had seen magic, who could do magic, could be so fascinated with something as simple as a car.

"It's beautiful." The car was cherry red and in the sunlight it seemed to sparkle. "And you can drive?"

"I sure can." You smiled and he looked at you with adoration. He was over the moon about not only about the car but about you.

"I always wanted to learn how to drive but that was never something that was taught at Hogwarts." He laughed sadly as he continued to stare at your car.

"Do you want to learn?" You smiled as you dangled the keys outs in front of you.

"Are you serious?" He smiled ear to ear.

You tossed the keys to him and he caught them. "Of course." You got into the passengers seat and he rushed into the drivers seat settling in before twisting the key to start the ignition. It roared to live and he couldn't stop himself from laughing in excitement.

"Okay so I have the basics down but I just wanna be sure." Theseus looked like a child on Christmas morning as he grabbed the steering wheel. "So break, gas, shift," he went over all the mechanisms checking with you to see if he was correct. You nodded along he knew a surprising amount about cars.

"Here we go." He pulled out and began driving along the stretch of road you could tell he was nervous.

"So just make sure to use turn signals and your all good." You smiled.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

He hollered out in joy and you laughed along. You had so much fun with Theseus, sharing new experiences with him. You glanced to side and noticed how at ease he was behind the wheel, sure his knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel to hard, but other than that he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

Theseus loved being with you. And he loved everything about you. The way your hair waved in the wind, the ways your eyes crinkled when you smiled. He smiled at you without you knowing and turned back to face the road.

As you drove along you brought up the topic of your mission. You discussed how you were going to act out being a couple. "Would you like me to call you something?" You asked him.

"Call me something?"

"You know like babe or honey or darling or beloved..." you listed possible pet names as Theseus felt his face heat up with every suggestion.

"Um you don't have to call me anything."

"Of course I do we want people to believe we're really in love with one another."

But I'm already in love with you. He thought to himself. He saw the hotel in the horizon and attempted to change the subject. "We're here." You rolled up to the hotel it was an architectural masterpiece. It glistened in the sun, your were surprised you hadn't seen it from a mile away.

Theseus got out of the car and made his way to were you'd at to open your door for you. You stepped out as Theseus pulled you close whispering softly. "Remember we're supposed to be a loving couple."

"I remember and it won't be be a problem my beloved." You whispered back as you saw his ears tint red at the pet name.

You looped your arm through his and let him lead you into the hotel as the doorman opened the door and you gave him a thanks. As you made your way the the recipient desk you noticed that the muggles were all starring around you. Theseus seemed to notice too.

"I don't think they think we're a couple." Theseus muttered as he glanced down at you.

You glanced around at the other couples in the hotel and noticed how at ease they were with each other. Theseus however kept a small distance between you too and it seemed as if he was an escort not a boyfriend. "You're too stiff you need to loosen up." You shot back.

"I'll try." He relaxed his shoulders and tried to seem more at ease but it wasn't enough. Unknown to you Theseus was nervous because he was posing as your boyfriend something he would rather be a reality. And he couldn't help himself from thinking that you found him so unappealing and would rather be with his brother on a mission than with him.

You decided to take matters into your own hands. You nuzzled into him and smiled up affectionally at him. He knew what you were doing but part of him couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if all this was real. If you everyday could look at him like that.

"Darling I need to tell you something." You said loud enough for onlookers to hear.

"What is it my love?" Theseus stopped walking and and turned to face you tucking a stray hair behind your ea, his hand lingering and caressing your face.

"Come closer." You smiled at him batting your eyelashes. He leaned closer. "No closer." You we're now inches apart and you closed the space surprising Theseus and everyone around you. You were standing on the tips of your toes kissing Theseus Scamander. You paced a hand behind his head running your hand though his geled hair and placed your other hand on his chest.

Theseus melted into you cupping your face and closing his eyes and he kissed you back all of his dreams coming true as he prolonged the kiss. You slowly pulled away as your eyes fluttered open as both of you out of breath. "Surprise." You said softly. He ran his thumb softly over your lip staring  at you in a way very woman wanted to be looked at.

And at that moment you felt such love and affection for the Scamander brother who was fascinated with cars and who made you happy by being excited at the smallest things.

You broke out of your trance and leaned up again to Eskimo kiss him before whispering," let me handle the talking."

You led him forward to the desk were a uptight proper muggle sat. "Hello sir I'm here to check in with my boyfriend I believe it's under the name Scamander."

The man looked up at you two and you could see that he had a soft spot for couples, something you decided to take advantage or it. "We've been dying to come to this hotel."

"Really?" The man asked.

"Oh yes of course it's a beautiful hotel. My boyfriend and I are architects that's how we met actually. He and I were assigned to work on a project together and we just clicked. This is our first trip together and I'm ever so excited to be taking it with a man as wonderful as my beloved." You turned to smile at him and he returned it and nothing about his look was faked.

The concierge looked at you with loving eyes. The way Theseus looked at You was in no way faked or staged and he could tell. "Of course and for such a lovely couple I'll upgrade you to the honeymoons suite."

"Oh that's too kind we're not even on our honeymoon." Theseus remarked as he pulled you close to kiss the top of your head.

"Ah but the way you look at one another I can tell that wedding bells aren't to far away my darling." The man remarked as he handed you the keys to your room.

"As wonderful as she is and as happy as she makes me, your aren't wrong sir." Theseus shook hands with hand as you passed on your way to the elevator.

As the elevator door closed on you two you both let out shaky laughs but you didn't move away from one another. In fact you nestled yourself closer and rested you head on his shoulder and he wrapped an arm around you. "We did good." Theseus said as he squeezed your shoulder.

"We really do make a good couple." You closed your eyes leaning into him smelling his expensive cologne, the smell putting you at ease.

"Hmm." He hummed in response.

"That was some good acting. For a second I almost thought you loved me." You said wistfully  you were sad that it was probably all an act. You had said the comment without thinking but it hurt Theseus even though you didn't intend it to.

"But I-" he started but then stopped himself thinking better if it. "Yeah it was good acting." He mumbled as he swallowed the lump that was forming in his throat.

Taglist: @hearteyesmotherclucker @gaenahelleborus @melodramaticmelon2118 @michellekstr @nctyong-xo @preppy-by-the-c @sweetlyshinylady @emo-plaidin @dreacantsleep @theetherealbloom @lily2089 @mywckdmind @barbarachern @imbiandiwanttocry @ollyoxenfrees @newtslatte @pettylady @februarycalum @justanotherenglisheducationmajor @feelthefeelingsinsideyou @ombriescent @ztinge @liloefuru @reindeerdaisies @babywizardoll @missanonyma @heckin-kat @thewitchmadness

[eurosong]

ESC 2018 vs 2019 - Semi-final 2

Good afternoon, folks! A few days ago, I took a look at the songs of Eurovision 2019’s first semi-final, comparing them with songs from the same countries in 2018 and sharing my verdict on which year was better and why. Now it’s the turn of semi-final 2! Again, I try to see as much good as possible in each song and I mean no offence to anyone who disagrees with these opinions. 

·        Albania – 2018 – Albania had always been a bit of a bête noire for me at this contest, because they would so often pick fabulous songs at their long-running Festival i këngës national final, only then to completely mutilate them musically and (with the help of Bing translator, lyrically) in the revamp. Last year, that trend hopefully came to an end in the most glorious fashion when Eugent Bushpepa didn’t make any major change to Mall, one of the songs that most impressed me in this era, a soaring, moving, poëtic cri de cœur of a song. This year, they have also opted to neither translate nor musically mutate. I like their 2019 song a lot, but it’s a Scafell Pike to last year’s mighty Everest.

·        Armenia – 2019 – as a glossophile who always advocates the use of national languages over English, I have some respect for Qami, the only song Armenia ever sent entirely in their language. Respect, but no love, because I found it merely ok and rather repetitive. I thought this would be a second year in a row that I’d be underwhelmed by Hayastan, but whilst this year’s offering cannot shape up to the majestic Fly with me, it’s become an earworm and I enjoy the fiery defiance of Srbuk’s lyrics and the incorporation of traditional instrumentation into something otherwise decidedly contemporary.

·        Austria – 2018 – I seem to be one of very few people rating this year’s gentle, stripped-back but impassioned Austrian entry. It more than tilts its cap in the direction of Kate Bush, but I am down with that. However, it would really take some doing to beat last year’s Austrian song, Nobody but you, in my estimations – a worthy winner of the jury vote and probably the ESC’s best ever gospel-infused song for my money.

·        Azerbaijan – 2019 – I’m not as won over by this Azeri effort as many people that I know. I was expected something rather different from their snippet (a word I wish I will never hear again given the amount of them this year). It’s not bad by usual standards though, and is certainly a class above Delete My Heart and its bizarre computer-generated lyrics last year.

·        Croatia – 2018 – Last year’s Croatian song was a rather lame reimagining of Sam Brown’s Stop. I didn’t like the original and I sure didn’t fancy the semi-skimmed version that much either. Having said that, Franka, all is forgiven. Your song is a delight compared to the demonic screeching of this young budding ego ironically wearing (fluffy) angel wings. I thought Jacques Houdek had unleashed enough hell with his Maa fwenn/Moy frennddd but it was nothing compared to this abomination. It’s so bad that it almost scares me how bad it is.

·        Denmark – 2019 – Another one where I go against the grain is Denmark. I never got the hype for Rasmussen, whose song sounded like a soundtrack for some 90s direct-to-video movie about Vikings. The only thing is that they managed to make even Vikings feel lame. It all seemed a little OTT and gimmicky to me, and the amount of repetition and the cliché pitch shift both annoyed me. On paper, this hyper-sweet Danish song should also grind my gears, but in a subpar year, I’ve actually grown a fondness for it. Maybe the Frenchness of it all was what won me over. I hope they’re not actually going to sway side to side on a big chair in the actual final, though.

·        Ireland – 2018 – Two decent songs in a row from Ireland and it’s difficult to choose between them, even though neither set my world alight. I still think the staging of last year was rather cynical – two enamoured lads who had little to with the song about heartbreak, but did seem to win over some folk who otherwise would have dismissed it as a boring ballad. Seeing it live, it was quite moving, and I was able to put this incongruousness out of mind. This year’s entry has rather less artifice and a low-key charm, but I have to go for ’18 as having more depth as a composition.      

·        Latvia – 2018 – Despite never having reached the heights of Aminata who pulled them up from the non-qualification doldrums, I’ve enjoyed every subsequent song from Latvia, even though the standards of Supernova have dropped since the Riga Beaver stopped delighting us in the ad breaks. This year’s Latvian song is delightfully low-key, the kind of thing I imagine hearing on the radio late at night, driving in the rain. At the minute, though, I have to say I still prefer the sultry, tempestuous Funny Girl – though Esam­iba would have topped both.

·        Macedonia – 2018 – Macedonia, perhaps the country at the contest who least has received their dues despite some excellent songs, is a perfect illustration of how difficult these 2018 vs 2019 choices can be. Their entry this year, “Proud”, is touching and impactful on first listen, but I’ve seldom sought out to listen to it much since then. On the other hand, I was absolutely obsessed with last year’s “Lost and found”, bewitched by its changes in style and tempo. Unfortunately, the live version of 2018 was an absolute clusterfuck; it felt as though someone had been deliberately tasked with ruining their qualification chances, and that casts a shadow over the song in retrospect. I wouldn’t be surprised if 2019 is a more effective song on the stage, but for the time being, I prefer 2018 musically.

·        Malta – 2019 – There is absolutely no contest here for me. This is the first song sent by Malta that manages to hold my interest since “Tomorrow” way back in 2013. It’s more daring and contemporary than I ever imagined would be their choice. In a different universe from the screechy “Taboo.” It’s also refreshing to have a Maltese song that doesn’t try to get brownie points from their message.

·        Moldova – 2018 – A truly plague vs cholera choice. 2018’s bizarre Kirkorov-spawned ode to the ménage-à-trois versus this year’s painfully, painfully dull ballad-by-numbers with rhyming-also-by-number (rhyming say with stay, never with forever. Troolee jeenyuss.) I have to go with 2018, which creeped me out, but at least was kind of interesting in its own weird way, and its staging showed ingenuity despite limited resources.

·        Netherlands – 2018 – I’m sure for a lot of people, this choice is a no-brainer, but for me, it is very much a difficult choice. I really loved “Outlaw in ‘em”, Waylon’s country style is up my street and, whilst I still think “Thanks or no thanks” would have been a cannier choice, I appreciated one of the few moments last year in which one could rock out. “Arcade” is a different beast entirely, so comparisons are odious. Both are stirring, but OIE is riotous and defiant, whilst Arcade is poignant. It’s hard to choose just one, but I have to go for the one I’m more likely to have on repeat, last year’s song.

·        Norway – 2019 – Oh, Norway. For a few glorious years, with Margaret Berger, Karl Espen and then especially Mørland, they were the coolest thing going out of the Nordics – but how the mighty have fallen. I haven’t really liked a single one of their entries since then and once again, I am faced with a choice between two unsavoury options. Their entry this year sounds like Aqua went into the woods for a spiritualistic retreat, came back, wrote a shitty b-side about the experience and then decided not to release it, only for some Norwegians to find it about 20 years later and pass the song off as their own. Everything about it makes me cringe on an almost existential level. It appals me that the “come on barbie, let’s go pardy”-style joiking is being compared to JHF who actually representing joik in a classier way. I say all this, and yet, this year’s offering is still not ás bad as 2018’s “That’s how you write a song”, a “children’s TV show theme” song whose cosmic irony would be funny were it not so tragic.

·        Romania – 2018 – I didn’t think this would be such a tough decision when I found out the results for Selecţia Naţionala, and was absolutely amazed that the public had only 1/7th of the result, and that the juries had catapulted a song that only picked up 3% of the televote (Laura Bretan, the televote winner, got a 42% share, in contrast) on the back of a rather dubious live performance. I’m still not sure why Ester puts on a vocal affectation that makes her sound like she’s having a tantrum, but somehow the song’s dark ambiance and the hilarious video won me over. It still can’t compare to last year’s emotional, underrated effort which brought to mind departed friends.

·        Russia – 2019 – Sergey’s return is a little pompous and will certainly be wrapped up with unnecessary staging frills; that being said, it’s a decent song, which is more than I can say about the truly ghoulish “I won’t break,” whose only virtue for me – being slightly better than the hideous and ungrammatical “Flame is burning” – was removed when I saw that impossibly bad staging, confining their singer almost embarrassedly into the background.

·        Sweden – 2019 – For the first time in a few years, Sweden have sent an artist and song that I don’t find completely objectionable. That isn’t to say that I don’t find any objection at all – soul is not really soul when it is so heavily manufactured, and I cannot help but feel that they’ve taken more than a fair amount of inspiration from both Austria of last year and Bulgaria of 2016. Nonetheless, I can bear it a lot better than Dance you off.

·        Switzerland – 2018 – For once, I actually had a little bit of hope for Switzerland, who have been going through the motions with some turgid fare for the last number of years, with the only exception for me being Hunter of Stars. Going internal made me feel they had something exceptional, and I guess they thought they did, but for me, instead they brought a thinly veiled male take on Fuego and little more. Last year’s effort also didn’t impress me much, a dirgey bit of trust fund faux-rock (frock?), but I’ll take it over the Chernobyl levels of radioäctive smugness exuded by this latter Swiss attempt.

And as for the automatic qualifiers:

·        Germany – 2018 – When I heard that Barbara Schöneberger, she of the eyes that are bigger than Lake Baikal and seems permanently traumatised, was coming back after a year’s absence as host, I joked that I was amazed she was given back the gig given that every year she’s been in charge, there’s been an abject failure and the one edition where she was absent, Germany managed to get a fantastic result. I feel they’re back to their losing ways with Sister, a song performed by a group called S!sters who have only known one another for a few months if that. It’s one of many songs this year with decent verses but a horrible chorus. It’s supposed to be a celebration of sisterhood, but it feels moreso like these two want to scratch the other’s eyes out whilst they stand there, wailing at one another. There were things that annoyed me about last year’s German entry too, particularly the large section in which he merely said “whoahaoaoaoa” as if he’d run out of ideas for lyrics, but it was otherwise a stellar, well-written effort. In another league to these imaginary sisters.  

·        Italy – 2019 – Italy is one of the very few countries where I prefer 2019 to 2018, 2018 to 2017, 2017 to 2016 and 2016 to 2015! They just get better year on year. I adored “Metamoro” and still consider their song a huge highlight, one of the best of last year and of recent years. It’s incredibly difficult to choose between them and Mahmood’s Soldi, but he somehow managed to win me over even more with his anthemic, autobiographical song which has a contemporary edge but also the timelessness and quality of San Remo orchestral compositions. My number one this year so far.

·        UK – 2019 – Eurovision: You Decide got even drearier than usual this year. Whilst other countries like France increased the number of songs from which their viewers could choose, BBC cut their choices down to three, got two sets of people to perform each song in a different style pastiche and then didn’t even allow the viewers to choose which rendition they preferred. We ended up with a bog-standard “X factor winners’ single”-style song that SVT told John Lundvik not to perform for them. It has the edge because it at least “hey muvva, bruvva” lyrics or random Casio noises in the background like Surie’s song. She really deserved more.

[barpurplewrites]

Common Appetites

Today’s grisly tale was born from @a-monthly-rumbelling non smut prompt.

This one is gory with descriptions of blood injury and cannibalism, (I bet you can guess which RC character stars) Enjoy, but read with caution.

-x-x-x-x

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

A hulking shape stepped out of the shadows at the back of Thomson’s Barbershop. The weak light from the streetlamps glinted off a tooth and the edge of a knife. Barney sighed and backed up against the locked door of his shop.

“You really don’t want to try this pal.”

“And what is a short arse like you going to do to stop me?”

Barney knew exactly what he was going to do, the problem was he had no idea what his damn cursed luck was planning. The mugger stepped forward and Barney turned on his heel and scarpered down the alley.

The alley behind the shops on Main Street was perfectly straight, but filled with obstacles; the dumpsters, the boxes that the grocery store had out for recycling, and the bicycle that the pharmacist still hadn’t got repaired. Any of them could be a hazard, even the wobbly slabs were capable of sending a man sprawling to his doom.

None of these caused the wee accident Barney knew was about to happen. A sickening screech of metal and a wet gurgle stopped him. It took several shaky breaths before he was ready to turn around.

“How the fuck did that happen?”

The now very dead mugger was still standing and would have looked threatening with his arm raised over his head brandishing the knife. Would have been threatening if it wasn’t for the rusted ladder of the fire escape that had dropped and impaled him, pinning his arm to the top of his head. Barney edged closer and swallowed bile when he spotted the sharp end of the ladder sticking out of the man’s gut.

“Oh, fuck. Fucking hell. Fuck.”

Barney was terrified. Again. You’d have thought after all this time, he’d be used to this sort of shite. But no, here he was out of breath and feeling like he was going to puke his guts up, with a would-be mugger standing six foot away from him.

“I’m sorry pal. I didnae mean it. Yer were just waving that great big knife around and I panicked.”

If he wasn’t so much of a coward he would have stood and took the beating, or even the stabbing the man wanted to give him. It might not have been that bad, and there was a fair chance that he would have lived to tell the tale. Instead he’d run, knowing full well that it wouldn’t end well for the mugger.

“I’m cursed, you see. It was my Ma, she was the killer, I just had bad luck, but it’s all gotten so much worse.”

He’d thought his luck had changed. The police hadn’t even looked at him for the deaths after those four coppers topped each other in the woods. Then old Mr Henderson had passed away of natural causes and left him the barbershop and a tidy lump of cash. For the first time in his life Barney had felt free. He’d sold the shop and moved to the States, thinking a fresh start would do him the world of good.

For six months good had been an understatement. His shop was doing a roaring trade, he’d made some friends and was even enjoying a wee bit of flirting with the librarian. Then some dumbarse rumour had started that the comb cleaning fluid was a great high. It was shite of course, but late one night some desperate sod had barged into his shop and tried to hold him up. It had gone down just like it had with Wullie; Barney’s scissors sunk into the robber’s chest, and a dead body on the floor.

Of course, he didn’t get away with it quite as clean as he did with Wullie. He’d have given anything for Charlie to have blundered in, but his luck was an evil bitch. What had walked through the door and found him standing over a bloody body was proof that his mother hadn’t been the worst monster lurking in the world.

After that his bad luck returned in force. For the past six months he’d counted himself lucky if he made it a fortnight without killing anyone. This bastard had broken his current streak at nine days. Barney was tempted to kick him in the shin.

“You’re a fucker, you know that?”

A wee part of Barney’s tattered soul told him he could call the Sheriff. It had been an accident after all, there was no way that anyone would think he’d forced the ladder through the man’s head. In fact, whoever own this fire escape would cop it, because they’d let the ladder get into a bad way. He could call the Sheriff. He should call the Sheriff. He wouldn’t. He dialled a monster instead.

Calhoun picked up on the fourth ring; “Good evening Barney. Let me guess there’s been another wee accident?”

“Aye. A mugger. It’s a right mess.”

“This can’t keep happening, Barney.”

A cold sweat broke out on Barney’s brow; “You ain’t gonna help me then?”

He didn’t want to threaten Calhoun. The man was bloody terrifying, but he would if he had too. After all he knew where all of Calhoun’s skeletons were hidden, he’d helped him lug them to cold storage.

“Of course, I’ll help you Barney. I’ve never fed so well as I have these last few months.”

Barney shuddered. There would be no point threatening Calhoun. There was very little left of the bodies he’d helped move. The sick bastard ate them. Wendigo he called himself. How the fuck had Barney’s life come to this?

He was so wrapped up in contemplating his miserable existence that he didn’t notice a pair of blue eyes watching him from the window of the library.

 -x-x-x-

 Ives strolled into his home and dropped his jacket directly into the trash. Getting the blood out of something that cost so little was too much effort. Besides ‘Mr Calhoun’ was a very rich man. He’d been feeling a touch nostalgic when he last updated his identity; it had been a very long time since he’d used the name of the unfortunate priest, but it was an easy one to answer to, almost like slipping into a comfortable pair of slippers.

He poured himself a drink and smiled. Barney Thomson was a walking disaster; painfully awkward but a master of his trade. Ives appreciated a barber who didn’t blather on while wielding scissors or razor, and Barney took quiet while plying his trade to an extreme.

Very little scared Ives these days, but realizing he recognized Barney had given him pause. From what he recalled of the caustic way Cemolina had spoken of her son he doubted that she would have mentioned their little arrangement to him, but caution was wise. In his own way he rather missed the old whore turned murderer, she’d supplied him with fresh meat for a few months before his wanderlust had made him move on again and had been the closest thing to a friend he’d had in years.

After ascertaining that Barney had no idea who he was, he’d decided to eat him. A little tribute to dear Cemolina who’d always said her son was a terrible waste of space. Ives chuckled to himself as he recalled that night six months ago when he’d followed the junkie into the barbershop. He’d fully expected to either have to finish Barney off, or simply pick up his body after the junkie had killed him. It hadn’t turned out like that and Ives was oddly very pleased with his new arrangement.

Fate had chosen a strange plaything in Barney Thomson. He was either the luckiest bastard to walk the Earth, or the most unfortunate bugger under Heaven. He didn’t appreciate how what he referred to as his ‘bad luck’ had rendered him damn near unkillable. Ives certainly wasn’t going to tempt whatever forces surrounded Barney, no matter how tempting it was to carry out his plans to eat him occasionally. He couldn’t help but wonder if the man’s good fortune would pass to him via his flesh.

Ives finished his drink and strolled into his study. Putting Barney’s curious talent to one side for the moment, he had a small problem of his own to deal with. Someone was stealing from his larders. He’d suspected Barney at first, thinking the man had decided to take the limb or two as insurance. He was far to squeamish to be eating them, but being able to throw the Sheriff a bone, as it were, would be a plan if the focus of the law turned upon him.

He’d dismissed Barney as a suspect. The man was petrified of the Sheriff and turned in to a stammering mess if she so much as wished him good morning. Setting the cameras up in his larders had been a calculated risk. There was a chance that the CCTV feeds could be hacked and then he would be in very hot water, but he needed to know who he was dealing with.

As he settled down to watch the feeds the cat that had adopted him finally deigned to grace him with its presence. He scratched it’s furry head and said; “What do we think, Puss? Whose been pilfering from our supplies?”

The cat just purred at him. Ives had expected to have to spend a long night waiting for a glimpse of his thief, but in less than an hour there was movement on the screen. The cat grumbled its displeasure as he leaned forward to peer closer at the image.

“Well, this is certainly surprising.”

Of all the people he’d considered, he’d never once thought it would be the little librarian raiding his larder.

“Miss Belle French. Whatever are you up to?”

[derrickperegrine]

@snakepitnet: obscure characters

i wish you could see the wicked truth caught up in a rush it's killing you

a continuation of the last meal

(click ‘keep reading’ or read on ao3)

London during the day can be something that seems ordinary and mundane, at the first glance, but to Lucian Bole it was something immeasurably extraordinary. Like any European city, it was a territory commandeered by sleek, modern skyscrapers and timeworn edifices alike, a metropolitan tug-of-war between the past and the present. However, London presented this vision with a twist. There was something more complex, more thorny about London. It was not a spontaneous conflict between the two disparate bodies; it was more like a brokered arrangement of a sort, a tailored compromise.

Everything about London was preternaturally neat, organised; things belonged where they belonged, in their own neighbourhoods of stereotypes, values, and norms. Yet these open demonstrations of identity seemed to imply that, beneath the obvious displays, existed something sinister and hidden; and that idea caused a visceral reaction of unease, curiosity, and excitement within Lucian. The emotion was multiplied threefold when Lucian wandered the streets in the evening, when all the proper markers and brands of the city disappeared into the muggy dark, and it seemed like secrets were swimming around him.

Which is why he preferred to work during the day, when his judgement was not obscured by the unseen shape of these prearranged mysteries, these exiled truths in the dark; when he could see what he was dealing with, and stay focused and objective.

The serenely flat, grey sky mirrored Lucian’s heart as he navigated his way through this city, a labyrinth with tall buildings for hedges, and he peered into the shadows cast around the city for his clues. His clear grey eyes darted around his surroundings swiftly, bouncing off glossy glass and rain-smoothed stone both, like sunlight deflecting off of water. It was not the look of a curious wanderer examining his path forward; it was not the look of a hero seeking to defend himself from the Minotaur within. It was the look of a hunter surveying his grounds.

Curling his lip, he bared a row of painfully white teeth; he passed a quick, sharp pink tongue over his ivory fangs. He would hunt tonight.

Carrying a briefcase in one hand and a folded umbrella in the other, Lucian sauntered into the British Library, his tan overcoat flapping behind him. The British Library was an august construction, its acute and precise contemporary style not making it seem less authoritative or respectable as an educational structure; the terracotta colour its exterior more evocative of the art of older worlds, than the aesthetics of the modern age.

He walked through the doors, into a large, airy expanse that stretched into another dimension entirely. Lucian took a deep breath, and breathed in the cool, clean scent of silence and good lighting. He found his way to his usual spot, in a corner of the library rarely accessed by the tourists who also tumbled in everyday in large and fumbling numbers. Lucian threaded through stacks and aisles with the familiarity of a resident, and the briskness of a shark through cold water. However, when he got to his usual desk, he noticed that someone else was sitting there.

Peregrine Derrick looked up from his book to stare at Lucian, his flinty brown eyes meeting Lucian’s slightly startled grey ones. Lucian also noticed that he had never seen Peregrine wear glasses before, and the sight disturbed him somewhat.

Peregrine closed his book deliberately.

‘What do you want?’ Lucian’s whisper came out a hiss. Peregrine took his feet off the desk -- of course, the ruffian never learnt how to sit with proper posture even whilst they were at Hogwarts -- and pushed himself away from the desk. He unfolded his spindly limbs with a certain degree of awkwardness, before collecting his book and then walking over to Lucian. With irritation, Lucian noticed that he did not bother to push the chair back in.

‘I want you to look this up for me,’ Peregrine said as he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and took out a ripped piece of paper, folded up haphazardly. Lucian accepted it and unfolded it; the weight and brightness of the paper suggested that it might have once been part of an envelope. In Peregrine’s untidy, stormy script was a single name. Agni.

‘Falcon, you know I’m here for a mission, right?’ Pansy was going to meet up with him soon -- in less than ten minutes -- and establish a legilimency link in order to supervise him. Peregrine can’t just shove another task onto --

'You’ll want to know, too,’ Peregrine said simply, staring down at Lucian. Now that he was standing up and half a head taller than Lucian, the shift in the elevation of their eye contact made Lucian feel annoyed. Though he had to admit that this wasn’t like Peregrine; Derrick was usually a more withdrawn bloke, and rarely talked to anyone outside of a mission. The fact that he was asking for Lucian’s help meant that this was a subject of great significance that he couldn’t get done himself.

And it bothered him that someone like Derrick would feel helpless, or perturbed by something. Or someone; Lucian didn’t know. It bothered Lucian that it bothered Peregrine enough to chase him out of his cheap sofa, and made him swap his sweats and flannels for an actually presentable pair of jeans, a respectable button-up, and fucking glasses. No, he still wasn’t over the glasses.

Lucian glared up at Peregrine and stuffed the piece of paper in the back pocket of his slacks. ‘Why me?’ he grumbled; if this was something important, Peregrine could have just gone to Cassius.

‘Angel can’t know.’ Peregrine shot him a stern look that read, So you better keep your trap shut. ‘And I don’t trust anyone else. Besides, we’ve always made a good team.’

‘Yeah, those days are long gone,’ Lucian laughed bitterly. Indeed, during their Hogwarts year there was no couple of beaters as synchronous and collaborative as Derrick and Bole; save for perhaps the Weasley twins. But even so that made their partnership impressive, since the two of them didn’t share a uncanny identical twin connection.

‘You know where to find me,’ Peregrine said by way of goodbye, and left Lucian alone.

Lucian walked over to the vacated desk, and dusted off its surface as well as the seat of the chair. He settled in, pulled the chair closer, and opened his briefcase. He took out a sleek laptop, and set it on his table. A cold light shined against his face as soon as he flipped up the monitor. With nimble fingers, Lucian logged into the machine. Placing a finger on the trackpad, he located the Messages application and clicked it open. He hovered over the contact list on the left sidebar, until he located one labeled ‘Nightshade’.

‘Dinner is ready to be served,’ he typed, hit send, and reclined in his seat.

Around fifteen minutes later, Pansy showed up, and dropped her bag on the other side of Lucian’s desk. She grabbed a chair from another desk, pulled it over to her side of Lucian’s desk, and sat down. As she booted up her computer, she tapped her foot against Lucian’s, and the link fizzed to life.

‘Lumos, do you copy?’

‘Affirmative, Nightshade.’

Lucian began sending his files over to Pansy. ‘So here is what I have on Mulciber,’ he spoke over the link, ‘Since Mulciber is known to favour routine and control -- if you see footnote 23, it explains that he uniquely favoured the Imperius Curse, and I have a collection of human intelligence on his regimented schedules for each day of the week -- I think it may be a better tactic to haphazardly reveal what we know to him; as he will not be able to control when he receives these messages, and therefore cannot anticipate them.’

Pansy nodded. ‘This seems reasonable to me. And once again, all of these sources check out?’

‘Naturally. I’ve taken precautions to verify the information given by doing a bit of personal reconnaissance when I had the time, as well as taking pains to ensure that our sources are not double agents and to motivate them to keep quiet.’ He looked up from his screen and smiled at Pansy. ‘You know that I can be very persuasive.’

Pansy said nothing. She was never one much for words, after the War, Lucian thought. It was almost saddening, as she had been a bright, talkative personality at school. Although it got annoying at times, Lucian found that he still missed it, especially when faced with the immense emptiness of silence.

‘Stop being sentimental, it won’t bring any of it back,’ Pansy chastised him, not sharply, though; and Lucian dropped the train of thought. He forwarded a detailed schedule of his plan for the next few months over to Pansy, so she could follow his progress after they deactivated the legilimency link.

‘Very well,’ her voice buzzed over the link. ‘I’ll be keeping in touch. Take care, Lumos; though you’re probably the most careful of all of us.’ She made eye contact with him across the desk, and then packed away her things, got up, and left, the link fizzing out behind her.

Lucian took his time logging out of his computer, and putting it away into his briefcase. He loitered around the library for while, browsing the shelves; not that it amounted to anything, as he couldn’t borrow anything out of the library. He hoped that one day he would walk into this library, with the time and energy to read for pleasure. Unfortunately, it seemed like that wouldn’t happen in a long time.

As soon as Lucian returned to his apartment, he started on a fresh pot of coffee. He enjoyed the ritual of it -- scooping out the beans, whirring them through the grinder, and then putting the grounds in his french press, then adding boiling water. The orderly, logical sequence of it appealed to him greatly; he’d always been an organised person, but in recent years, with his life greatly unbalanced and uncertain thanks to the War, he’d come to appreciate this ... structure and stability even more.

Lucian left his coffee to steep as he retreated to his study, extracting several heavy folders from his desk, labeled in neat block letters, OPERATION IMPERATOR. He brought his files to his living room, and set them on the heavy oaken coffee table. He pulled his computer out of his briefcase, logged in through a different account, and got back to work.

As technology began to evolve in the Muggle world, it naturally caught up with the Wizarding society as well. The age of the Internet provided a whole new level of anonymity for its Muggle users; and wizards sought to benefit from it too. There was a myriad of various services one could employ under an anonymous alias -- and whether these activities contributed to a surprise birthday party or the murder of an ex-Death Eater, no one would know.

Logging onto an anonymous owls service, Lucian requested a particular message to be sent to a particular address, and paid with the credit card that Graham had given him. For members who had more ... expensive methods -- which were really not expensive at all; it was just that no one really spent money to take out a mark -- they were all sponsored completely by the Organisation, though no one knew where Cassius had gotten the money. Knowing the nature of groups and sources they had ties with, no one really wanted to know.

Was this what Peregrine had wanted him to look up? Lucian frowned. Peregrine should know better than to poke around the Organisation’s business. What’s gotten into him?

Lucian padded over to the kitchen and poured himself a mug of coffee. He returned to the living room and hovered over his laptop, watching the progress of his order -- monitoring when his message would be printed and attached to the bird he had chosen.

It was a rather risky choice, to use an online company to print out confidential information and tie it to a bird that anyone could shoot down. However, Lucian needed to make Mulciber dance; he needed to use methods that would obviously have him feeling exposed and vulnerable. It’s always the easiest way to flush them out of hiding.

He kicked back onto his sofa and sipped his coffee quietly. The sky outside his window darkened slightly, and he was expecting to hear the pitter-patter of rain anytime. It was almost unbelievable that he now had the free time in the middle of the day to watch the rain fall.

In another reality, Lucian Bole would be a very busy man indeed. He always strived to be the best version of himself, to fulfill his true potential; so he would socialise tirelessly, meeting all sorts of important witches, wizards, sorcerers, and mages to network; he would go to university to push himself and hone his skills; he would work himself up the ranks and become a respectable man.

He wasn’t born into a particularly aristocratic family. He didn’t have an already established estate to lean back upon, nor a notorious name that would brand him. He was simply Lucian Bole, the son of two middling purebloods, who named their son ‘light’, expressing their hope for a brighter future, a prominent reputation.

Unfortunately, his parents were clumsy and misinformed in their pursuit of status; they sympathised with Voldemort in hopes of receiving a social and economic boost for supporting a pro-pureblood politician. It was clearly an unwise move, but Lucian had not been able to persuade them to drop it. Lucian never trusted Voldemort, naturally ... but his parents’ actions nevertheless condemned him to association. His parents’ greatest desire, to become better -- which also became his desire -- ended up damning the whole family.

Now he had no prospects to speak of -- being an amateur spy, investigator, and blackmailer was perhaps the best use of his abilities at this point. It wasn’t like it was a particularly bad situation. Lucian still enjoyed that he held such power over other people; but what was his legacy? What would he be remembered for?

Nothing. The name ‘Lucian Bole’ is as good as dead right now. Since all the Organisation’s operations were strictly anonymous for the safety of all involved -- a strategy that Lucian greatly understood and respected -- it was unlikely that his efforts would ever be commemorated. They may be credited to ‘Lumos’, but they’d never be his achievements.

His deeds would change the world; but he would not.

Lucian had more or less made his peace with that. At least he was being useful, and he was good at what he did. These two conditions kept him more or less happy, even though his situation was not ideal. However, he would rather remain like this, if the other option were to throw his life out the window and indulge in self-destructive behaviours, succumbing to existential depression. Living is not about achieving one’s dreams or being happy -- living is learning to make do with what’s been thrown at you.

And life had thrown a lot of stuff at Lucian -- including a treasure trove of information, contacts, and sources connected to the Death Eaters. Lucian’s parents’ dabbling in Voldemortian politics granted him unique access to some of Voldemort’s closest subjects, and while his parents were trying to pander onto these greater, aristocratic purebloods, Lucian learnt a lot about them.

Ugly secrets that they never told anyone. Locations of secret hideaways. Personal habits, preferences, and even fears. It’s amazing how much an adult will talk after a few servings of alcohol down their gullet. He stored all this information neatly away, because if he were to get revenge for his stunted future, these details would be his weapons.

He was the ultimate puppet-master, threading together implicating evidence and twisting the ropes to make his marks dance. The weak-willed often caved in earlier to the fear, startled by the incredible amount of incriminating information sent their way. Many of them commit suicide, rather than face the authorities. Others stuck out, convinced that Lucian wouldn’t dare go to the aurors, that he was just bluffing; for if he really wanted to go to the aurors, he would have just taken that information and gone. They thought that Lucian kept this information between them because he wanted something out of it. The truth was that Lucian was bored; and he enjoyed watching people react to him. He often followed up this tactic by having Peregrine and Graham hover around menacingly at his marks’ place of residence; show them that Lucian and the Organisation could really hurt them. Since Peregrine and Graham were pretty terrible, that was usually enough to scare them into submission. If even that didn’t work, Lucian would just tip the aurors. He had better things to do than to play a passive-aggressive game of blackmail tug-o-war with a former Death Eater. Or he’d sic either someone else on the job.

No one survived the Organisation. Lucian would hound them down.

In fact, this contributed greatly to the Organisation’s notoriety as ‘The Last Meal’. Since word of their rogue assassination team’s extraordinary success and horrifying methods got out -- thanks to some of the flashier messages left by Millicent -- the amount of Death Eaters turning themselves in, so as to escape a gruesome death, increased significantly.

This pleased Lucian greatly; he was very smug about the success rate. After all, he deserved to be; he put a lot of hard work in verifying his evidence and planning out most of the missions -- since he was the master of information, he headed Death Eater-hunting, and supervised mark-assigning as well.

He would find every last Death Eater if it was the last thing he did. Maybe then would they be able to reveal who they truly were; and perhaps after seeing the proof of atonement for these Slytherins, the public would be willing to accept them back into their society again.

Maybe he still had a shot at that life.

Lucian watched Mulciber for two months. Since he didn’t really have much of a job -- he worked as a Wizarding technology consultant over the Internet, as well as a ‘research librarian’ for hire, in regards to more ... esoteric subjects. After all, there are topics that ordinary libraries don’t usually cover; and Lucian was a master of hidden informations and clandestine intelligence.

He enjoyed working in the British Library. It was well-lighted, public, and peaceful; he attracted nearly no attention, a well-dressed young man diligently at work. He had a peaceful demeanor and a trustworthy expression, and no one ever noticed him selling secrets of the Dark Arts over the Internet.

He supposed that he shouldn’t be selling those secrets over the Internet; after all, he was supposed to be good now. He was supposed to be taking the bad guys out, not sponsoring their activities. Though, another way too look at it was to see it as a trap -- they come buying intelligence from him; and he ends up tracking them down and in turn gathering intelligence on them. It’s a win-win situation for him -- he gets the information he wants, and gets paid by the victim for it. Lucian was an opportunist, if anything.

Between his usual activities and monitoring Mulciber, Lucian also did some research on ‘Agni’. He was quite irritated with Peregrine, who basically just handed him a torn-off corner of an envelope with ‘Agni’ scribbled across it. He did a quick search on Google, and of course the results are pertained to the Hindu god of the name, a god of fire and messengers. Obviously, this was not what Peregrine had in mind. He called Peregrine about it; but he only told Lucian that it was an alias of someone he found but didn’t recognise. Peregrine was looking through the Organisation’s files to decide on his next mark, and this name cropped up several times, which was suspicious, considering that it had never been mentioned before.

Peregrine thought that perhaps it was the codename for a new operative, but when he checked the personnel list for a handler, he didn’t find any new names. So, he naturally came to the conclusion that something was afoot, and purposefully happening behind all their backs. And Peregrine did not like having any blindspots. Neither did Lucian, so he carried on with his search.

It was obviously near-impossible to find any information with only an alias to go off of; and moreover, it was also difficult to conduct this research anonymously, since no one could work out what they were investigating the Organisation. That would perhaps end in very untimely deaths for the both of them. Lucian thus confined his probing to his private circles, asking other ‘librarians’ if they had received queries regarding a figure going by the name of ‘Agni’; nothing turned up. Similarly, none of his victims-turned-sources reported any information regarding Agni, either.

Lucian also logged onto the Organisation’s database and combed through the entire thing -- he did not want his history to record a specific search for ‘Agni’, in case someone in the know may find that suspicious -- but nothing turned up. Knowing Cassius, it’s entirely possible that he only kept the information in his own mind, and any mention of ‘Agni’ would be kept on easily destroyable paper. However, it was unlike Cassius to leave such files just lying around, letting Peregrine find them. Uneasy, Lucian felt like it could be a trap, and pursued this investigation unusually cautiously.

Meanwhile Mulciber was positively writhing in his ‘secret’ hideout. Lucian scheduled his owls in advanced, and whenever a delivery was due to be made, he walked into a café across the street from Mulciber’s hideaway, and camped out there to monitor his reactions. He also went there on non-scheduled days, however, partly to shake off any detection of espionage on Mulciber’s part, but also because the coffee there was damned good.

Mulciber sent him multiple owls back, scans of which Lucian received on his account for Owlnonymous, and they mainly contained empty threats regarding how Mulciber would end him soon; ‘I have sources,’ he told Lucian, not knowing that Lucian had already bought-out or threatened all of his sources. Lucian enjoyed being thorough. He did not dignify those threats with a response, and merely sent Daily Prophet clippings on ‘The Last Meal’’s hits to Mulciber. One day he caught Mulciber reading one about Graham and visibly paling, as Lucian was sipping an exceptional caffè latte.

Mulciber had no one important to him that Lucian could threaten him with, so he merely sat back and calmly denoted the ways he could take him out -- to report him to Lucian’s Organisation, who would no doubt send a less merciful person to take him out, in a variety of gruesome ways; or he could release all this information at a random moment, and sic the aurors upon Mulciber; or, he could sell Mulciber out to the highest bidder, and God knows what would happen then. Certainly a lot of his victims would love to get a good chunk out of him.

Mulciber then pleaded for forgiveness, tried to offer him bribes, and sought to sell himself as a new source for Lucian; but Lucian was interested in neither of these, naturally. He could fetch a better price from other buyers, and who would want Mulciber as a source, a Death Eater who had lost all his connections as soon as he went off the grid? Besides, Lucian had more than enough sources -- how else would he have found Mulciber?

Mulciber then asked what Lucian was going to do with him. Perhaps it was a desperate attempt to forge an escape plan; maybe he was just seeking the comfort of knowing his fate. Lucian would not grant him either luxury. He merely wrote back, ‘You’ll see,’ and ceased replying to Mulciber’s frantic pleading.

He then waited out by the café, keeping an eye on Mulciber whilst he continued his hunt for Agni. He was now narrowing down his suspects by filtering the people who could be in contact with the Organisation. based on their knowledge of Hindu mythology. Although, it occurred to him that it was equally as likely that ‘Agni’ was an acronym, and that possibility would be a serious pain to deal with.

At night, if he was bored, he would sometimes leave some indications that he hadn’t forgotten about Mulciber -- ordering a parcel owl to deliver rat bones to his address, or sending a howler of Millicent’s favourite lullaby. It was like the ticking of a bomb before it exploded; except more erratic, more unnerving, more uncertain.

By the end of the month Mulciber had caved in. The last straw was a small effigy of Mulciber, wearing the clothes he was wearing the day before, and another effigy in ragged, bloody clothes that Lucian fashioned out of a shirt that Peregrine so generously donated. Not many people knew this, but Lucian was rather good at handicrafts.

Mulciber opened his window -- the first time that Lucian had seen him do it -- and whistled for a crow. With shaking hands he attached a letter to the crow, and sent it to the aurors. Within the hour, a discreet group of figures dressed in Muggle clothes appeared at Mulciber’s doorstep, and rang his bell. Mulciber came down willingly, looking around fearfully. He did not spot Lucian, who had been watching calmly, sipping his coffee. The aurors bundled him away, and Lucian spotted the great Harry Potter amongst them.

He opened ‘Nightshade’ on his Messenger application and sent, ‘Target neutralised.’ He then sat back and enjoyed the last rays of the autumn sun, the feeble breath of a season fading into cold darkness.

The Daily Prophet reported Mulciber’s turning himself in very soon, in the next day’s paper. Apparently he had sent a frantic letter to the Ministry, begging them to ‘save him.’ Lucian smiled smugly as he sipped his coffee.

Although Lucian was not the fastest operator in the field, he was the most thorough, and his long-term approach inspired a dogged and omnicient reputation for the Organisation. More underworldly characters found out about them, and defected to their side before it was too late. Therefore, he was often assigned to take out the most prominent targets, as well as the ones with the most connections.

His webs stretched out infinitely, and he could play them like a harp; however, sometimes, he could not control what fell onto his plate.

An Owlnonymous owl flew into his window the day following Mulciber’s arrest. In scratchy black handwriting, it read, ‘You won’t find me. -- A’.

Lucian nearly poured his coffee down his front. He set it down on his table; and, scrambling, he ran over to his phone and dialed Peregrine’s number.

‘What?’ Peregrine responded, his voice crunchy with static.

‘They know,’ Lucian whispered.

‘I know.’

[5om8ra]

On Nightmares [AWAY NOTICE]

Ever have one of those dreams that makes you want to run more than anything else? Sombra still does, sometimes.

It’s a peculiar thing, fearing something so intangible, but it’s so fucking constant. Her past is buried so deep that even if she wanted to dredge the details up, she couldn’t: her own name has been struck from her vocabulary, her parents have become little more than stoneset epitaphs, and the old pathways woven through faulty firewalls and weak security have been reduced to so much binary.

The memories, though. She can’t do anything about those.

It’s that moment of sheer panic that gets her, always - the sick lurch of realizing that she’d been really noticed for the first time, after years of hiding in plain sight. Pinned under the scrutiny of a thousand glaring eyes. Sombra has never worn vulnerability very well.

The aftermath of being found out had been a waking nightmare. Every innocuous corner store security camera had tracked her, specifically, every stranger glancing her way had been watching on purpose, she knew. She’d never thought she’d be so glad to wipe out her identity, but she’d only felt stark relief when the last of the files broke down, and the mod tech had laid the cybernetics out for her to inspect.

Anonymity and a fresh start. She wakes feeling like she has neither of these things. Bolt upright, eyes wide in the dark - it’s just a dream, she tells herself. No one watching. Just a dream. She can’t shake it, though. Just a dream. Fuck.

It’s happened a few times since she signed on with Talon. Sometimes it’s at the organization’s expense: camera feeds fried from here to kingdom come, massive security crashes, techs knocking back espresso and cursing her under their breath as they try to undo the damage. One late-night walk through the compound is really all it takes. They’re never happy about it, of course, but what can they really do besides replace what she’s broken?

Other times - the worst times - she leaves. There’s a certain mistrust that comes with working with Talon, and she’d accepted that when she’d joined, but sticking around HQ when she gets like this feels a lot like suffocating. She can scramble every camera feed in the immediate area if she really feels like trying, but sometimes it’s just… easier to go. Put as much distance between herself and HQ as she can, just for a few days, until the nerves fade and she can walk down a street without being compelled to hug the shadows and - always - look over her shoulder. Talon doesn’t like that much, either - she’s gotten plenty of flak for it, either when they track her down or when she comes sauntering back of her own accord - but it’s a small price to pay for being able to get her head on straight again.

Tonight, she is inclined to run.

A glance at the clock reveals that it’s early morning - painfully early, any other time, but there have been missions this early before. She can work with it. She dresses in the dark. Packs sparingly - most of her belongings stay behind. Make no mistake: her heart is still crashing against her ribs and already there is a sinking conviction that they know, somehow, that she is preparing to bolt again, but she knows already that she’ll be back.

Someday, maybe, she won’t bother returning. Not this time, though.

The common area should be dark at this hour. It isn’t. Sombra rounds the corner at the bottom of the stairs and finds a couple of sleepy-eyed guards crosslegged on the floor, playing cards by the glow of the (muted) TV, which doesn’t make a lot of sense until she glances up and sees Widowmaker watching her unblinkingly from the couch. Yikes. It’s not often that Sombra has trouble sleeping, nightmares aside; sometimes she forgets that other people (Widowmaker, especially) do. Well, no sense in pretending she hasn’t seen her. Sombra steps around the guards (neither of whom say hello - rude) and approaches the other woman with as much casual saunter as she can muster.

“Buenos días. What are you watching?” She cranes her neck to look at the TV before Widow can answer. Some old 007 movie - French subtitles. Figures. When she looks back, Widowmaker’s eyes are on the bag she’s slung over her shoulder. “Leaving?” From anyone else, it’s an innocent question. From her, however, it feels very much like a thinly veiled threat. “Yeah-” Sombra begins, and Widow surges off the couch so swiftly and silently that Sombra has to take a second to convince herself that she was, in fact, sitting down just a moment ago. Belatedly, it dawns on her that Talon may have gotten a little more offended than they let on the last time she took off. Sombra hastily holds her hands up placatingly. Widowmaker is very close. She can’t help but remember the sarcasm on their last mission: It would be a shame if something happened to you on our next mission… a real pity. Pity indeed. “- Dios mío, Lacroix. Relajaté! I have intel I’m supposed to follow up on in Castillo. Supposed to do a stakeout, or some stupid thing. You think I’d be up at this hour otherwise?” This is inconvenient - she’d planned on spending the entirety of her time in Castillo, but she’ll have to make it a quick stop now. Widowmaker is still staring her down. Sombra can think of about half a dozen things she’d be willing to do to get her to look at her like that without the promise of a snapped neck behind it. “What, you want to come with me? Bet we can do the stakeout from the bar.” That does the trick. There’s some minute shift in the Frenchwoman’s expression - too fast for Sombra to figure out if it’s a flicker of annoyance, or what - but she sinks back onto the couch, giving Sombra one last unimpressed look before her gaze flits to the silent TV screen. “Non. Finish the job quickly. We’re expected in Numbani this evening.” Ah, she’d forgotten. They’ll just have to go without her. “Yeah, yeah. Should be no time at all. No hay problema.”

And by the time anyone thinks to drop by Castillo to check in with her, she’ll be long gone.

She lingers for a moment - talking to Widow is always a little off, especially this early; she keeps waiting for her to say something else, but she never does. Sombra settles for mumbling a quick “See you” as she heads out. The guards make no move to stop her. Why would they? She has places to be.

Yeah, maybe someday she’ll stop coming back. Maybe when they stop making it so easy to leave.

[[Ayyy! I am going to be away from Thursday to Sunday because I have friends coming from out of province for Animaritime. Any threads I have are currently on hold until my return! In the meantime, don't do anything I wouldn't do. xP]]

[sarahlikesthat]

Who needs a damn title, anyhow?

Chapter 5 Castiel held the back door open as Dean carried in the sprayer, the chlorine smell hanging on them both. John looked up from the coffee pot, gesturing to Sam, who was pouring lemon juice into the super soaker tank. "You guys realize this place has never smelled cleaner?" Dean chuckled lightly, setting the sprayer down on the table, but Sam rolled his eyes. "We've only been here three days." Dean shrugged, "Sure beats the last hotel, though, that place smelled like-" "Don't." Sam warned. "If a skunk ate a big lump of French cheese-" "Dean," "Then got a stomach bug-" "Dean!" "Puked it up, then ate it again-" "C'mon! We have guests!" Sam protested as Dean continued to ignore him. "And then took a huge-" "Shit." John exclaimed, looking out the window. Bobby moved to stand next to him. "What are they doing?" "Only one of them is on the porch, the rest are just looking through the windows... I count twenty-three." John backed up from the window, "We should move, they know she's here. What we don't know is if they know we're coming." "If one knows, they all know." Castiel said quietly, "They're a collective." "Like the borg?" Dean asked. John rolled his eyes as he motioned them all to head into the living room. Bobby hit the light switch before they moved, giving them all a clear look at the shadowy figure standing on the porch, staring in their direction. Christina stood frozen next to the table in the dark kitchen, staring back until Sam tugged her arm to get her to follow. Dean looked around the room as Sam passed him the filled water gun tank, "So, now?" "Who's got the salt?" Bobby asked. Castiel lifted the large box from a side table by the couch as John set the insecticide sprayer on the floor and primed it. "We might as well get this over with." John muttered, heading for the front door. "Wait!" Sam barked, "We need a plan." Dean shrugged, "We go in swinging, and try to stay together, right?" "Works every time." John replied. "Except when it doesn't." Sam answered. Bobby appeared to be fed up with the whole mess, and pulled a pair of machetes from the large box he'd brought, passing one to Christina, "Remember, aim for the neck, and swing hard. And whatever you do, don't get emotional. They aren't really your moms." Christina nodded, and as a group, they moved out into the cover of night. John had left the exterior light off, and they quietly slipped under shadow along the front of the house, close under the eaves. John stood straighter, still carrying the sprayer, adopting a nonchalant pace as he stepped out of cover, walking toward Christina's porch, where, now, two of the moms waited. "Hi there... I just moved in next door. Wanted to come over here and introduce myself, since nobody came over to welcome us to the neighborhood with a bundt cake..." John prattled as a distraction, slowly making his way closer. Christina cringed in horror, certain they could smell the bleach by now, and that they'd soon turn on him. John swung the sprayer wand across them, a thick mist quickly assaulting them both, clinging to their skin, hair and clothes as they helplessly clawed at their throats, their airways burning. "Sorry," he chuckled, "I never know when this thing's gonna go off." Bobby hurried straight for the porch, "John, quit dicking around!" Christina found herself getting carried along with the group, moving forward at a similar pace as silently as possible, going up the steps and crouching to the side of the door, subconsciously clearing her mind. She gripped the machete tighter, trying to control her breathing as someone, possibly John or Bobby, kicked in the front door. One of the moms rushed them, it was Mona, but before John could raise the sprayer, Dean shot her in the face with a spurt of lemon juice. Christina hadn't expected Mona's scream to rattle her the way it did, tugging at her emotions, but soon, Sam caught her shoulder, and pulled her into the house, "C'mon, we have to stay together. Don't get distracted." Bobby turned and swung his machete abruptly, as Lydia had been coming up behind her, quickly decapitating her, leaving Christina splattered with red. "Sorry, sweetheart. Better get swinging." he said, giving a small motion to three more coming close. Christina froze as Sam swung a fireplace poker at Amelia, but it wasn't until Carla grabbed hold of Sam's neck that she finally snapped. Christina swung hard, landing her blade at an angle, crossing Carla's spine, trying to avoid hitting Sam. Carla's spinal cord was clearly severed somewhere in the bloody mess, and she struggled to pull the machete free from the flesh and bones in which it had become lodged. The third, Rosie, Sam only punched hard in the face as she came close, knocking her out instantly. He turned and looked down at the mess as Christina pulled the machete loose, "Thanks..." Rushing to the kitchen, where more seemed to be gathered, they found John and Bobby attempting to barricade the basement door as Dean covered the doorway to the hall. Castiel threw a handful of salt in Donna's face, but she brushed it off, leaving behind only red speckles of tiny pitted holes in her skin, "You're the little Novak boy, aren't you? You climbed our roof the other day. Not very well behaved, dontcha know." He quickly tapped two fingers to the side of her temple. Dean looked down as she dropped to the floor, "Is she dead?" "No." Dean sprayed her with two shots of lemon juice to the face, "How about now?" Castiel nodded, and moved to wedge a chair against the basement door. "Awesome." Dean said gruffly, "We got anything else? Sammy, check under the sink." In the moment's distraction, as Dean looked to Sam, and Sam headed for the kitchen sink, Christina let her guard down just long enough that Jody's arm came through the doorway, catching Christina by the throat and dragging her out of the room. Jody shoved her back roughly, making her stumble toward the stairs, "You're not going anywhere, dear, you're grounded. Go to your room." Christina backed away, raising the bloodied machete, shaking as Sam barreled through the doorway, his father attempting to pull him back, shoving Jody to the side, knocking her over, and had barely caught Christina's upper arms to pull her back to the kitchen when five other moms swarmed out of nowhere. Sarah clawed into Christina's back, audibly tearing flesh, making her stumble toward the stairs. Sam lunged forward, wrapping his arms around her, putting one hand over the wound. Left with nowhere else to move, and no weapon as he'd dropped the fireplace poker, he scooped her up and headed up the stairs. She watched over Sam's shoulder as Bobby came through after him, through the door they'd just come through, decapitating Sarah in one clean stroke before turning to the next mom. She vaguely heard John's voice demanding Dean follow his brother before she fell into a haze. Sam looked around, ducking through the nearest open door. At the sound of heavy footsteps approaching, nothing at all like her moms, the bathroom door shut behind them, and Christina grimaced as the pain became clearer. "Um, Sam...?" "What?" "Dude, I think that's her kidney..." "Oh, shit..." Sam adjusted his hand, and Christina tried to ignore the squelching sounds as the hole in her side was suddenly filled. Sam pulled her into the tub as Dean was suddenly stomping on several outstretched hands coming from beneath the door. "Back the fuck off, you bleachable bitches!" he grunted. "It's not staying in!" Sam called. "Then hold it in there!" Dean replied, "I got an idea..." Dean grabbed the shower head and aimed it out into the room, turning the water on full blast as he stepped up onto the closed toilet to sit on the tank, and dumped the rest of the lemon juice onto the floor, "Might be a little weak, but this should slow 'em down." "It's not fair!" Christina whined weakly as her blood continued to flow past his hand, both of them sinking lower as she grew paler, "I didn't want to die like this." "You're not going to, we're going to get you out of here, we'll get you to a hospital, just stay with me, okay?" Sam did his best to reassure her. Dean was busily kicking the lemony water towards the door with one boot, and want paying attention. Sam leaned in, kissing her softly, "You're gonna be fine, just stay with me." "It's just... I just met you, and you have your arms around me and your fingers inside me, but this wasn't how it was supposed to happen!" she said, choking back a sob as she clutched at Sam's shirt. "Christina?" Sam asked, but it was painfully clear as her eyes glazed over, that she was gone, "Dean?!" "What?" Dean asked harshly, wheeling around. "Dean, she's gone." Dean stared down at the young woman's corpse in his brother's arms, and the pain evident on Sam's face as helplessness took over. ------ Falling back into the kitchen, Bobby took over the door, pressing Castiel back. "Bobby, you still got that plastique?" John asked, leaning heavily against the basement door. "You can't be serious. The kids are upstairs, how the hell are we supposed to get 'em out in time?" Bobby bellowed. John continued to press the door shut as something, or multiple somethings tried to come through it, "They'll be fine. They can go out a window. Meanwhile, we start a fire with it instead of blowing it up, all we have to do is keep these things inside." Bobby clearly didn't like the idea, but pulled a small package from his vest and threw it to John. "Okay, you handle it. Don't get your sorry ass killed, I'll take this one and we'll clear a way out for the kids." Bobby said, gesturing to Castiel before leading the way through the door with a swing of his machete. Castiel scooped up the machete that had fallen from Christina's hands, and in three swift motions, dropped five of the moms that had clustered in the hallway. "Where'd the kids run off to?" Bobby asked, looking around as he pulled his blade out of one of the other moms. Castiel started up the stairs with no hesitation, as John called Bobby back to the basement door. He cleared the upstairs quickly, leaving only a cluster of moms pounding on a locked door as best the could while avoiding a growing puddle at the bottom of the door. Castiel's eyes glowed white as he stepped into their midst, and with several sharp movements, they fell to the floor in pieces. He shot a glance to the ceiling before kicking in the door, and stepping inside, not appearing to notice the spray. Dean stared at him for a brief second before seeing the body parts that littered the floor behind him, and carefully got up from the toilet tank, dropping the water gun pieces and accepting the machete as Castiel passed it to him. "Your father is demolishing this place with an explosive. You have to go, now." Castiel said firmly. He stepped through the sprayer and took hold of Christina's foot that had fallen over the side of the tub, and his hand flawed with a white light that spread to her, "Sam, take your fingers out of the girl." Dean started to scoff, but was taken aback ad Christina coughed and sputtered for air. "What happened?" she asked, as Sam and Castiel pulled her to her feet, hurrying her from the room. "You died. But you should be alright now." Castiel answered, "Quickly- which one is the guest room?" Christina wobbled as she pointed, and Dean stepped in to take her arm on the side away from Sam. The floor shook hard as a small explosion sounded below them, and as debris settled, the sound of flames grew. "Go! Now!" Castiel said loudly, gesturing to the stairs. It wasn't until they found their way outside, Sam and Dean half-carrying Christina's still weak frame, that Sam noticed two things. Bobby was dragging John's unconscious form further away from the burning house, and Castiel was not immediately behind them. "Bobby? What happened to dad?" Dean asked over the sound of the blaze. "This idjit shoulda known better, got himself knocked out in the blast... Dumbass... Where's your friend?" Bobby asked, looking between the three of them. Dean looked around, "What?" "I sent him up there after you. Where is he?" Dean shook his head and let go of Christina's arm and began to run back to the now nearly engulfed house, despite Bobby's protests. ------