#the party was chill with them until he mentioned the missing staff being in the teleportation circle

[venisonhare]

Right! My players met him on sunday and to say the least they're dragging him around to try and unbind him from strahds tome. So, here are some things about victor in my campaign, I refused to believe that some normal dude (ok as normal as a barovian is) could start using it without any repercussions so now he has somewhat of a warlock pact with the spell book with blood hunter side effects like blood for blood prices. He did wind up rejecting our bard (he didn't know him so it's expected) but vargas confirmed a marriage so I have no clue what's gonna happen atp

[hermannsthumb]

hey I’m not sure if you’re taking prompt requests but I just had this idea if you ever want to write it. I know it’s not anywhere near New Years right now but I had an idea for if there was a little NYE party with all the ppdc staff there. All the homies are just vibing, getting crunk on shitty alchohol or whatever and y’know Newt and Hermann have a lil New Year’s Eve kiss 🥺

That’s all I have to say I hope you’re having a good day!

@owengrose said: Prompt: "My New Year's resolution is to finally tell him I love him."

happy new year’s eve to both of you!!! i let the first one sit in my ask box for a while before getting to it lol. my annual Newmann NYE fic. here’s to hoping next year is moderately better (and I actually get more writing done...)

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“Here we are, then,” Hermann says.

He hands Newt a glass of something he concocted at the lab kitchenette—judging by the color, and the pitiful wedge of a clementine garnish he squeezed onto the brim, some sort of gin and tonic, though less tonic and more watermelon La Croix. It was the only thing they could find in the breakroom fridge that would work remotely as a mixer. It’s probably been buried in there for months. “Thanks, dude,” Newt says. Then, noticing the lack of a similar glass in Hermann’s hand, asks “Not drinking?”

“None of that,” Hermann says. “I’ve got a bottle of decent wine buried somewhere under all the rubbish in my desk. I’ll have that if I want any before we go.”

“Suit yourself,” Newt says. “It’ll be more fun if we show up tipsy, I’m telling you.”

New Year’s Eve used to be a lot more exciting when Newt was in school, and young and invincible and all that shit. There were parties—bar crawls—the Times Square ball drop at midnight, queued up on someone’s laptop or a television screen wherever he was—drinking until he needed a classmate (or later colleague) to walk him home. The Shatterdome staff still goes as hard as Newt used to, and God, Newt envies them for it, but the end of the world kinda killed it for him. He just kinda exists in a low, humming state of anxiety now. He and Hermann both. It’s good for them to get out of the lab every now and then and strive for normalcy, and Newt has a feeling Hermann knows it, which is probably why he didn’t put up a fight when Newt suggested they go to the big base party tonight.

Newt still needs a good few drinks in him before he can drink more and pretend to be merry. He finishes the gin and tonic with a wince. “Too much gin,” he says. “Okay, let’s go.”

Newt drinks, and he dances with a few people, and he engages in a few genuine non-work-related-conversations before he finally admits to himself he’d rather just chill with Hermann in one of the deserted corners of the room. Hermann is waiting for him in a stupid gold party hat with a cup of water—what a guy. Always there for Newt. The hat is a cute look on him, too. Newt wonders if he picked it out himself, or if it was forced on him; either scenario is cute.

“I just don’t fancy dealing with your hangover tomorrow,” Hermann says with a sniff, as Newt swallows the water down gratefully after a few thanks. “Last year—”

“Yeah, okay,” Newt says. Last year was bad. He ended up falling asleep on the floor of the lab, and when Hermann made him coffee the next morning, he puked it up all over a very important stack of Hermann’s paperwork and the subsequent shouting match just made his headache worse. Drinking water is good, very good. He kicks his feet up on a nearby vacant chair. The music is loud, and people look like they’re having fun. Normalcy. He and Hermann are just two normal dudes right now, who aren’t fighting monsters from another dimension. “Can you believe we’ve survived another year?”

“Frankly, no,” Hermann admits.

“One whole year,” Newt says. “One whole year of not being squashed by a kaiju, or eaten by a kaiju, or murdered by you…”

Hermann snorts derisively, though a bit of a genuine smile does peek through. “One whole year of you not blowing the laboratory up. That is a feat, isn’t it?”

“You fucking bet it is,” Newt says. He really thought Hermann was going to kill him over the puking incident, and only a day into the new year too. He slings an arm around Hermann’s shoulders. Two normal dudes, and friends at that. He really likes Hermann, y’know, but that might just be the gin and watermelon La Croix talking. “You got any resolutions, dude?”

“Er,” Hermann says.

“I want to try to get into yoga,” Newt says. “For exercise, and shit. We should do it together.” Back when the base enjoyed more funding and workers, Newt was always seeing flyers for weekly yoga classes taped up in the elevator and at the announcement board in the mess; once, he got it so into his mind that he was going to start going that he bought three whole pairs of yoga pants. He never got around to it, of course. The classes kinda fizzled out when the PPDC budget was slashed drastically anyway. Hopefully YouTube videos work just as well, and that the pants still fit him...

“If I’m being honest, Newton,” Hermann says, and Newt spies the tips of his ears turning pink, how cute, “I still haven’t quite managed to accomplish last year’s resolution. Or technically this year’s, I suppose. My—well—my nerves failed me every time I thought I was close.”

"Eh, no big deal,” Newt says. “I never did mine either. I think that’s just as much of a tradition.” He went vegan for all of two weeks before realizing most of the rationing-standard food they served in the mess wasn’t exactly catered to those particular dietary needs. Also, Newt likes fancy lattes too much, and oatmilk just wasn’t kicking it for him. “I totally am gonna do the yoga one though. I need a stress reliever. I don’t wanna go bald before we’re even killed by kaiju, you know?” He crosses his legs. “Or go grey. I can’t decide which is worse. What was yours?”

“Nothing important,” Hermann says quickly. He takes a clumsy sip of his own cup of water, and spills a bit of it down his sweater. Newt decides not to mention. “It must be nearly midnight. Don’t you want to run off to find someone to snog?”

“Nah, not this year, I don’t think,” Newt says. Last year (before the whole blacking out and ruining the paperwork thing), he made out with a ranger he had a crush on for, like, months, and the guy never even called him back. And Newt slipped his official PPDC email into his pocket too. So totally rude. He reaches out and plucks the elastic string holding Hermann’s hat on, and is delighted when Hermann scowls. “You’re stuck with me. Why don’t you find someone to kiss?”

Hermann opens his mouth, and then shuts it. The blush is spreading down from his ears. “I am staying right here, thank you, and I am not kissing anyone.”

“Suit yourself,” Newt says.

“Five minutes to go!” someone in the crowd shouts.

Newt locates a party hat of his own on a nearby table and pulls it on. It’s silver, unlike Hermann’s. He doesn’t think it looks nearly as cute as Hermann’s. “What was your resolution?” he finally asks. The burning curiosity’s too much for him. What did Hermann mean by nerves? Hermann’s never afraid to speak his mind around Newt, at least—Newt can’t remember the last time he’s held back anything. This must be a pretty big thing. 

“Oh, it hardly matters now,” Hermann says. “The year’s about to end, isn’t it? Better luck next go around, I suppose.”

“Were you going to request your own lab?” Newt says. That’s a big thing. And it’s a big thing he’d be hesitant to share with Newt, too. Not that Newt would be upset over having his own lab, obviously, sharing with Hermann totally sucks. It’s the worst.

“Mm. No,” Hermann says.

Newt feels a small twinge of relief, but only for a moment. “A different Shatterdome?” It’s the sort of thing Hermann’s always threatening—by Jove, Newton, if you don’t clean this mess up right now, I’m marching into the Marshal’s office, and I’m going to demand...

“Oh, it’s hardly that dramatic,” Hermann says. He plucks at the elastic of his hat this time. “It’s one minute until midnight.”

“Just tell me!” Newt says. Their fellow partygoers start counting down around them. “You’re killing me. I just wanna—”

“Ten—”

“It’s not important,” Hermann says.

“It is to me,” Newt says.

“It’s really not,” Hermann says.

“Tell me, tell me, tell me—”

“Fine,” Hermann says.

He grips the front of Newt’s shirt. Newt shuts up immediately. “I’m in love with you,” Hermann growls, “you wretched little man. That was my bloody resolution.”

“Oh, shit,” Newt squeaks.

Someone pops a bottle of champagne to loud cheers; confetti is suddenly raining down on Newt and Hermann. They totally missed midnight. “Oh, shit,” Newt repeats, and then, because Hermann looks utterly mortified and like he wants to book it out of there as fast as he can, thinks fuck it. He leans forward and kisses Hermann.

“Newton,” Hermann gasps, half in shock, half in delight, and returns it enthusiastically.

[quicksiluers]

Here’s a dumb story of Grant not talking to Sherman all day and Sherman has no idea why and is stressing way too much about it and Grant is super embarrassed by it when they actually talk about it. (it’s needlessly long so I apoligize in advance) (I also posted it on ao3 if it’s easier to read there)

With special appearances byyyy Rawlins, McPherson and Comstock cause why the hell not

“And this play we saw, it had to be one of the worst things I had ever seen.” 

McPherson raised a brow, a playful smirk on his lips, “Sherman, if it’s not some professional play, you always think it’s the worst thing you’ve seen.” 

Sherman frowned, ignoring the low chuckle coming from Grant beside him, “It’s not my fault all these actors out here are awful.” 

“Maybe you’re being too harsh?” Grant asked, rolling his cigar between his fingers, “You’re standards seem...high.” 

“Should I set my standards low?” The redhead pushed back, glancing back and forth between the two generals, “If that is their job, they should at least try to be good at it.” 

Snorting, McPherson shook his head and waved the older man off, “Out here I’ll just take what I can get.” 

The wood in the fireplace beside them cracked, the embers filtering up through the chimney. A small chill settled through the room, the winter air creeping through the walls. Sherman ignored it, occasionally rubbing his hands together for a small bit of friction. A little cold wasn’t going to bother him when McPherson and Grant were around. 

Memphis was a city he had spent far too much time in. The people were a pain to deal with, the press even worse, and the weather had been awful the past week. Somehow he found himself missing those summer months outside in the Mississippi heat. 

“I’ll take anything over those balls they invite us to,” Grant grumbled, stuffing the cigar in his mouth, “Those are tedious.” 

“At least the food is good,” McPherson argued, crossing his arms, “I’ve only been to a few and that’s usually the best part.” 

“That’s the only good part.” 

Sherman laughed, “Mac when you go to as many of those things as Grant and I have, you’ll understand how absolutely god awful they are.” 

The younger general’s brows pinched together, his thick beard hiding a small pout, “Well if I was invited to more of them…” 

“Trust me when I say you don’t want that invite,” Sherman jabbed his thumb over in Grant’s direction, “Grant finds a way to scurry off half the time when we’re at them, he’s a genius at finding the easy escape.” 

Laughter filled the room. The redhead covered his mouth, trying to control himself. He wished he had that talent, it would come in handy in a number of situations. 

“Plus, those absolutely awful people you have to deal with,” Sherman continued, “The politicians and the men who claim to be with the Union when it’s incredibly easy to tell they are two-timing snakes.”

“I”m shocked you can tell the two groups apart,” McPherson teased, kicking Sherman’s boot, “You seem to describe them the same way.”

“They essentially are.”

A small movement caught his eye and Sherman turned, watching as Grant pushed back from the table. The cigar was set firmly in his mouth, his expression clouded. Their eyes met briefly before Grant looked down at his pocket watch, the beat-up item resting in his palm. 

“It’s getting late. I have some work to do,” Grant snapped the watch shut, nodding to the two of them. 

“Rawlins can’t do it for you?” McPherson asked, moving to stand up before the older the general waved him down, “What could be so press-” 

“Everything is always pressing with Washington Mac.” 

“It can’t wait until morning?” Sherman questioned, eyebrow raised. If there was something urgent, Rawlins would have crashed the party without an invitation. The young aide had a knack for coming in at the worst times. 

Grant glanced at him and Sherman was taken aback by the coldness of the stare. 

“I would prefer it be finished tonight,” he replied, quickly looking away from Sherman. With a small nod and a muttered goodbye, the leading general gathered his things and made his way across the room. As he left, either from the wind or maybe his own strength, the door slammed shut. 

Silence hung between Sherman and McPherson as they sat in the room, eyes glued to the door. McPherson scratched the side of his face, eyebrows pulled together, “That seemed abrupt.” 

Sherman couldn’t help but agree. Grant could be blunt, but that sort of abruptness wasn’t like him. Especially towards him. The coldness of Grant’s glance unsettled him as well. Had they mentioned something they shouldn’t have? 

He shrugged, leaning back in his chair, “Must be something important, you know how they get on his back for anything over there.” 

McPherson nodded slowly, the puzzled expression still on his face, “I suppose…” 

“If Washington had to deal with me, they wouldn’t get an answer until I felt like giving them a goddamn answer.” 

“And that is why,” McPherson pointed with a laugh, “they don’t have to deal with you.” 

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The morning was brisk with a light flurry in the air. None of it stopped the people from roaming up and down the streets, either greeting him with a polite smile or an angry sneer. Sherman tried his best to ignore both. 

The stairs underneath him creaked as he climbed up, bypassing a flushed-looking staff officer. Probably the young man’s first day at the job, he knew the look of someone given too much information in one meeting. He was sure it made the boy’s head spin.  

Striding through the other aides, Sherman entered his office and grabbed the papers and envelopes off his desk. 

“Anything important come in colonel?” Sherman turned, the young man glancing up from the hand full of other papers he was shuffling through, “Don’t tell me I have to look through all that crap.” 

“Oh no sir,” the colonel, Williams, replied. He shook the papers lightly, “Just some complaints from the city folk, which I’ve mostly gone through and divided up.” 

“And?” 

“And most of it is not all that important or interesting,” he shrugged, pushing up his glasses, “the normal complaints and requests that are usually dismissed or denied.” 

“Lovely,” Sherman muttered, walking around his desk and sitting in the chair behind it. 

Shuffling through the mail, there was a few telegrams from Blair and McPherson he would have to review. Some requests for leaves, an invitation or two for another party one of the wealthy city folk was putting on. He’d have to come up for an excuse on those. There was no chance in hell he’d get caught up in those parties again, especially if Grant managed to sneak off. Half the reason he went was because the younger general would be around. 

“Nothing from General Grant this morning?” Sherman questioned, flipping through the papers again. There was a letter from Ellen he would have to read. And it looked like John had sent him something as well. 

“No sir, nothing that came across your or mine’s desk.”  

Odd. Grant made it a habit to leave him a note or something in the morning. Maybe whatever he was finishing up last night didn’t leave him time to have anything sent over. 

Sherman leaned his chair, pulling a cigar from his breast pocket. Ellen had tried to tell him not to smoke so much in the morning, but he couldn’t help it. With the damn cold, he needed to warm up somehow. It wasn’t as if the building was producing any heat to give him comfort. 

Colonel Williams sat silently off to the side of the room at his small desk, eyes flicking back and forth over the pile of papers before him. The young man was useful, he knew exactly what Sherman did and didn’t want to see and brought only the important things to his attention. He also had a knack for reading his moods, which was something all his other aides seemed to lack. 

“I’m sorry sir,” the colonel said, crossing the room, “It seems that General Grant did send something, it just came from General Rawlins. I apologize,” he placed the single sheet down on Sherman’s desk, his eyebrows pinched together. 

“Is there something wrong with it?” Sherman asked, grabbing the sheet. 

“No sir, just…I guess I’m used to General Grant writing to you personally.” 

The redhead shrugged, “When he gets caught up, Rawlins sometimes takes care of it.” 

His eyes trailed over the words, General Sherman, General Grant is unable to accompany you to dinner later this evening. He apologizes in advance. -  Your Obt. Servt. Brig. Gen. J. Rawlins. 

Oh. That was sudden. 

Sherman frowned, chewing on the butt of his cigar. It was incredibly unlike Grant to cancel a meeting, especially this one in particular. It was just going to be the two of them, talking over potential strategies and plans for the upcoming campaign season. Putting together a framework of what going forward would entail and what Washington may or may not above.

Dread crept over him as his eyes went over the note again. 

Maybe Grant decided he didn’t need Sherman to come up with a strategy. He was a man of action and came up with his own movements frequently, which Sherman would follow. Even when they didn’t agree. But they always talked things over, even if Grant didn’t take his input.

What if Grant didn’t need him to make plans? The brunette didn’t really need Sherman’s input at all. Maybe Grant somehow realized and is thinking of moving on, maybe- 

He let out a small breath, the smoke blowing in Williams’s face. The colonel coughed but Sherman was lost in his spiraling thoughts. Stop thinking like that. Just try to go by Grant’s headquarters later. There was no need to make this a bigger deal than it had to be. 

“Thank you, Colonel,” Sherman replied, trying to wave the smoke away, “I’ll be sure to handle it.” 

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“What do you mean he isn’t here?” 

Cyrus B. Comstock raised an eyebrow, annoyance creeping up into his face, “Do you need me to write it down for you General Sherman?” 

He could almost feel his eye twitch. Cyrus was newer to Grant’s staff, an engineer from the east, but they had gotten along well around Vicksburg. A no-nonsense sort of man, probably from dealing with all the catfighting over in the eastern army. He appreciated that sort of attitude, just not at this exact moment. 

“General Grant is usually here during the day,” Sherman retorted, trying to keep himself calm, “Did something come up to call him away?” 

“Rawlins said that they had some errands to run,” Comstock shrugged. He placed his stack of books down on the desk before him, hand resting on his hip, “They didn’t say when they would be back.” 

Rawlins. Always Rawlins. The boy was practically glued to Grant’s side. Sherman didn’t know how Grant stood it. If Colonel Williams followed him around like a puppy, he’d lock every door behind him.  

Sighing, Sherman carded his hand through his hair. It wasn’t fair to be annoyed at Rawlins. He just needed to know everything was ok. The cancellation was just…so unlike Grant. He had to know what he said or did to bother him.

“How was General Grant this morning?” 

“How was he?” Comstock repeated. 

Now the younger man was getting on his nerves, “Yes, did he seem…fine?” 

“He seemed like his normal self,” Comstock’s eyebrows pinched together again, confused, “Why? Is he supposed to be upset?” 

This was going nowhere. The annoyance mixed with panic was making every nerve feel like it was on edge. This room was stuffy anyway. “No, I just…never mind, I’ll talk to him later.” 

Sherman stormed out, passing by the other busy body aides Grant had working. 

Everything was fine. He would just talk to Grant later, find out what was keeping him so busy. It had to be something extremely important. Probably telegrams from Washington, acting like chickens with their heads cut off. 

Surely that had to be it. 

He stuffed a cigar in his mouth, chomping down on the end. The tobacco ground against his teeth. There was something he was missing. What had brought this on? It wasn’t like there weren’t any secrets between them, but Sherman felt like Grant was always open and happy to see him. He had given him that chair at Chattanooga for god’s sake! 

It must have been something he did. The sheer thought of that made the panic grow. 

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“I think you’re overthinking this Sherman.” 

“Am I?” He asked hotly, the floorboards squeaking as he paced back and forth, “Grant doesn’t just cancel something we’ve been talking about for weeks. There has to be a reason…” 

McPherson rolled his eyes, chin resting in the palm of his hand. The younger general’s desk was neatly organized, papers stacked to perfection. Just like McPherson, always organized and ready to go. Calm, cool, and looking at him like he was crazy. 

Maybe he was. 

“Grant is probably just busy with other things and can’t make it,” McPherson explained, watching the redhead tug at his beard fiercely, “it probably isn’t more complicated than that.” 

“You wouldn’t understand.” 

McPherson sat up a bit, crossing his arms over his chest, “I wouldn’t understand? Sherman, I was on his staff for a good portion of time. I think I know a little about how Grant operates.” 

Sherman glanced at him, stopping in the middle of the floor. His fingers pulled at his beard again, his irritation building up. He had racked his mind over their conversation over and over. There was nothing he noticed that may have irked Grant, everything seemed so perfectly normal until he left.  

Sighing, he dragged his hand through his hair, his other hand resting on his hip, “It was hard to schedule it as is, god knows how long we’ll stay in the same place together. And it came in this morning too, which seems…” 

“Abrupt?” McPherson finished with a small smirk. 

The redhead frowned slightly at that, “Yes. It seemed very sudden.” 

“Like how Grant left last night abruptly?” McPherson continued, “when he said he had important things to work on for Washington?” 

“He would have finished that by now,” Sherman countered, continuing his pacing, “And if he didn’t, I’m sure he would have told Rawlins what needed to be done.” 

“You know Grant likes to do that stuff himself, with it going straight to the president and all.” 

“Did I say something last night?” He changed the topic quickly, tired of McPherson’s counterpoints. They made sense of course, but there had to be more. Surely there was something else behind this. He must have done something to bother the younger general. 

The brunette frowned, looking up the ceiling for a moment, “Last night?” he muttered, taking a moment to think about it. He shook his head, “Nothing that stands out.” 

“Nothing that would offend him?” 

The younger man cracked a smile, a small laugh escaping him, “Offend him? Now I do think you’re overthinking this.” 

This was going nowhere. He just needed to talk to Grant, that’s all. Clear the air, find exactly why he couldn’t meet him tonight. It wasn’t too much to ask for. Just an explanation.  

That was perfectly reasonable, wasn’t it? 

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The candlelight in his office dimmed, casting small shadows across his desk. Beyond the window, he watched the last streams of sunlight disappear into the night sky. Winter was the worst time, with the short days and what seemed like everlasting nights. Plus the cold air that would nip at his bones, even with his warmer clothing on, was not pleasant.   

Sheman puffed on the cigar resting between his lips, leaning back in his chair. Since he came back to his office, he hadn’t moved from the spot. Every single thought in his mind was racing, trying to solve this riddle. Was it a riddle? Was he making something out of nothing? Wouldn’t be the first time. 

But dammit, maybe he just really wanted to have dinner with Grant.  

The younger general was busier than ever. Between his new command of all the armies from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River, Grant barely seemed to have time for himself. The fact that they were able to get together last night was a miracle. He had joined last minute and like a flash, he was gone again. 

Plus that rumor of him getting the rank of full lieutenant general seemed to hang over his head. The idea of losing him to the eastern theater gnawed at Sherman. That theater was a disaster. The politicians got their hands into the army’s business far too often and the men there couldn’t do anything worth a damn. And even when they did score a victory, they seemed to somehow let it slip through their hands.  

Out here in the west is where the war would be won. There was no doubt of that in Sherman’s mind and he wanted to reiterate that again to Grant in their meeting. But now he wouldn’t get the chance. 

It wasn’t as if Grant was going to disappear off the face of the earth. He just wanted...what did he want? 

Maybe he just wanted to spend time with Grant before he was dragged off hundreds of miles away from him. 

Sherman frowned, sliding down in his chair a bit as he felt his cheeks flush. What he wanted didn’t matter. It was up to Grant and for some reason, the younger man didn’t want to see him.  

Which was fine. Totally fine. Nothing wrong with that at all. 

A light knock echoed through the room. “Come in.” 

The door creaked open and Sherman looked up, meeting the confused and slightly concerned expression of Colonel Williams. He waved the young man in, sitting up in his chair. Pull yourself together dammit.  

Williams saluted before walking in, a folded piece of paper in his hands, “Sir, a message arrived from General Rawlins for you. It came in only a short time ago.” 

Sherman perked up at that, rising in his seat. What could it mean? He quickly took the slip from Williams’s hands, his eyes scanning over the short message.  

When you have a moment, would you please come over to General Grant’s headquarters to speak with me? There is a matter here I would like to discuss with you. Your Obt. Servt. - Brig. Gen. J. Rawlins.  

Incredibly cryptic, which was very un-Rawlins-like. His frown deepened, reading over the message again. What would he need to discuss? 

Sherman stuffed the paper into his breast pocket, next to the cigars, and rose from his chair. “Thank you, Colonel. If anyone needs me, advise them that I will be with General Rawlins.” 

He left the young man behind before he could answer, his nerves on end. It had to be related to Grant. Rawlins would surely know what caused him to cancel. If Rawlins didn’t know, then Sherman would never find out without going to the source. And that scared him like hell.  

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John Rawlins looked like absolute shit. Sherman knew he has been sick, Grant mentioned it offhandedly, but it still shocked him to see. The younger man’s back was to him, hacking into a handkerchief. 

Rawlins wiped his mouth, stuffing the handkerchief into his pocket. He turned and Sherman took in his sunken cheeks and the dark circles under his eyes. It looked like he hadn’t slept for days. “General Sherman, can you close the door?” 

Puzzled, Sherman obliged him and gently shut the door behind him.  

“Did you say something to Grant?” Rawlins asked directly, leveling a smaller glare at the taller man.  

His stomach dropped. So it was something he said. Goddammit, but what was it? “If I did, I don’t know what made him upset.” 

“Upset?” Rawlins repeated, hands resting on his hips, “He’s not upset, he’s just been...so goddamn moody the entire day.” 

“Moody how?” Sherman asked, stepping closer to the brunette. So he wasn’t upset? 

“Like he hasn’t spoken a word all day.” 

“Well you know that isn’t uncommon for Grant,” he replied, “Sometimes he can go hours without talking.” 

“Yes, but he hasn’t spoken to anyone all day. Including myself, which is an issue when you’re supposed to be his chief of staff,” Rawlins responded with a hint of annoyance, “he’s been in this mood since he returned last night and you and General McPherson were the only ones to see him. And in combination with that letter from his fathe-” 

 “Well, why isn’t General McPherson here?” Sherman interrupted, irritation rising, “Have you asked him?” 

“I know General McPherson wouldn’t say something to somehow offend General Grant.” 

Sherman’s anger flared up, planting his hands on his hips, “So you just ASSUMED I said something that’s made Grant moody all day?”  

Rawlins glared at him and pointed his finger, “Either something you said or something that happened in that room.” 

Sherman’s cheeks flushed at that, the anger boiling up, “Well if you and Grant were together all da-” 

“We weren’t together all day.” Rawlins cut him off, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I just told Comstock to tell people that so they would leave Grant alone.” 

“Unbelievable!” He tried not to shout, but he couldn’t hold it back. All the pent-up anxiety and anger were going to make him lose his mind, “I just wanted to figure out why Grant canceled out goddamn dinner and you go and make Comstock, and I’m sure all the other aides I may have asked, lie! Perfect! Fantastic!” 

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Rawlins muttered, rolling his eyes, “That’s another reason why I knew it was you because the ONLY thing Grant requested from me all day was to send that note to you and for the life of my don’t know why.” 

The words stopped him cold. In an instant, the anger was overtaken but the anxiety. It was something he did to bother Grant. He couldn’t stand it, knowing he had made Grant feel like...whatever he was feeling like.  

“Well, where is he?” Sherman asked, taking a small breath. His heart felt like it was going to burst from his chest. 

Rawlins stared at him hard, his frown deepening. Sherman was beginning to think he was going to have to plead to the other man to know. Grant had a knack of slinking off when he didn’t want to be found.  

A hard knock on the door broke the silence. Rawlins’s shoulders seemed to drop slightly as if a weight had been lifted, “Come in!” 

Come in? They were in the middle of a conversation! His annoyance spiked, who the hell did Rawlins think he wa- 

The door behind him creaked open and Sherman turned, eye’s widening slightly when he saw Grant’s familiar tired face. The younger general looked up and their eyes met, and he seemed to freeze for a minute. 

“Rawlins...” Grant grumbled, stepping into the room more. His eyes jumped from Sherman to Rawlins, who had a small smirk tugging on his lips. The young man seemed very proud of himself.  

“Now that you’re both here,” Rawlins clapped, “you can discuss whatever the hell is going on between the two of you.” 

Sherman felt his face heat up and he saw Grant’s eyebrows pinch together, his frown deepening. “Rawlins, there isn-” 

“Don’t you say there isn’t,” the young man interrupted, brushing past Sherman to stand in front of Grant, “because clearly there is and it’s been a pain all day.” 

The two brunettes glared at one another, neither wanting to give ground. Grant’s eyes flickered over to Sherman. There was something beyond the look that he couldn’t place.  

Grant sighed, holding up his hands, “Fine.” 

“Good, now if you’ll excuse me,” Rawlins looked back at Sherman and then to Grant, “I’m going to get something to eat. Deal with...,” he waved his hand between the two of them, “whatever the hell is going on here. Please.” 

Before Sherman could say anything, the young man slipped out of the room, closing the door with enough force to make his point. 

Then it was just the two of them, standing a few feet from one another. There was an awkwardness, Grant fiddling around with a cigar in his hand. Looking anywhere that wasn’t at Sherman. It was going to drive him mad. 

“Grant...” Sherman trailed off, unsure of what to say. Which was rarely a thing that happened. But he didn’t know what he was apologizing for, hell he didn’t even know why Grant had ignored him all day.   

The general walked past him, sitting on the edge of the desk in the middle of the room. He continued to fiddle with the cigar, suddenly interested in the tips of his boots. Why was he acting like this? Grant never acted like this. Sure he was silent a majority of the time, but there was still a presence there. People knew he was commanding the room. But this didn’t feel like that at all.  

“I didn’t realize this was what Rawlins asked me to come here for...,” Grant muttered with a shake of his head, “Should have known.” 

“Well, if it’s any consolation,” Sherman shrugged, trying to break the ice, “I just assumed he was having me come in to yell at me.” 

The younger general chuckled, finally looking up at him. There was a flush to his cheeks that surprised Sherman, giving him pause. Maybe Grant wasn’t feeling good? That would explain some things. But why not come out and say that. 

Grant waved his hand to the empty space next to him on the desk, inviting him over, “That is something he tends to do.” 

Walking across the room, Sherman sat on the edge of the desk, a small space between him and Grant. He sighed, combing his hand through his beard, “Grant, I don’t know what I said or did but I’m sor-” 

Grant held up his hand, Sherman shutting up immediately. He watched the other man as he rolled the cigar between his fingers, the flush on his cheeks getting darker. Did he have a fever? 

“It’s nothing you need to apologize for, I was just...,” Grant stopped himself, scratching the back of his neck, “It’s childish really.” 

“I mean, clearly I said something.” 

“It wasn’t really anything.” 

“Well, it upset you enough that you didn’t want to see me all day.” 

Grant sighed, fiddling around with the cigar again. The flush had gotten darker and Sherman couldn’t wrap his head around it. He had never seen Grant like this, everything about this situation was completely foreign to him. Grant didn’t get embarrassed, he didn’t get frazzled. In the midst of battle, he was incredibly cool under pressure.  

Sherman watched him, trying to understand. Maybe he was sick. It could be making him act out of character. That had to be it.  

On impulse, he reached out his hand and placed it on Grant’s forehead, making the younger man jump. It did feel a bit warm but nothing that would indicate a fever... 

“Wh-what are you doing?” Grant spluttered, grabbing Sherman’s wrist and pulling it away, his eyebrows pinched together, looking at him with confusion. 

He was reaching his breaking point. Why couldn’t he just tell him for god’s sake? 

“I’m trying to figure out if you’re sick or something because I can’t understand what the hell is going on,” Sherman declared, waving his free hand dramatically, “I’ve been trying to figure it out all day! Just...,” he deflated, trying to compose himself, “just tell me what I did so we can move on.” 

Grant stared at him, the normally stoic expression clouded with embarrassment. Sherman felt a gentle squeeze on his wrist, a small warmth coming over him before the other man let go. Grant’s hands sat on his lap, his fingers twisting the fabric of his pants.  

“I don’t ‘scurry’ away.”  

The voice was barely above a whisper, Grant looking straight at the wall, away from him. Sherman blinked, trying to understand.  

“You don’t what?” 

Sighing, Grant looked at him, a small pout on his face. The red on his cheeks hadn’t faded away, they had intensified if anything. “You said I ‘scurry’ away at parties...I don’t I just...,” he carded his hand through his hair, messing up the small style he had to it, “I just don’t like being around that many people.” 

Sherman blinked, staring at him. And then he blinked again. The information whirled around in his head, “You don’t... ‘scurry’ away,” he repeated, slowly putting the pieces together. 

The younger general nodded, watching him like a hawk. As if he expected some sort of reaction from Sherman, though he wasn’t sure what. It obviously hit some chord with Grant. He couldn’t imagine why, everyone knew Grant wasn’t into the big social scenes.  

“No,” Grant replied curtly, “I...,” he paused, running his hand through his hair again, “It’s dumb, I made it something it didn’t have to be.” 

On the one hand, Sherman was more confused than ever. He had no idea that Grant had this side. Julia had mentioned it in passing once or twice, her little teasing making Grant blush, but he had chalked that up to their cutesy romance. He was the shyest fellow you ever saw, she told him one night over dinner. But also extremely determined, it was something Julia appreciated about her husband. And it was an aspect that Sherman also appreciated.  

On the other hand...there was this flop strand of Grant’s hair hanging over his forehead that Sherman wanted to reach out and push back. His hair always seemed so put together. And those clear blue eyes were looking at him, the flush on Grant's cheeks making the color come out more. All frazzled like this, the younger general was...extremely cute.  

Oh for god’s sake, listen to yourself. Sherman crushed that feeling down immediately, grabbing a cigar from his pocket so Grant wouldn’t notice his own flustered face. Acting like some fucking damsel.  

“I didn’t realize that bothered you,” he stuffed the cigar in his mouth, the smoke calming him down.  

“It’s...,” Grant stopped, tapping his fingers against his knee. He pushed off from the desk, back to Sherman, stuffing his hands in his pockets, “We can just move past it.” 

“Obviously not,” Sherman countered, “If it’s something that bothers you, I’d like to know why.” 

He could see the tension in Grant’s back, slightly rocking back on heels now and again. There couldn’t be anything like this between them, not when they were about to move into what they hoped was the final months of the war. The planning, everything hinged on them working together.  

“You would?” Grant answered with a mutter, nodding a bit. Like he was coming to terms with something. He turned toward Sherman, his shoulders deflating slightly. He looked tired, worn out.  

“Yeah, I would.” 

“I didn’t mean to take my...annoyance out on you. It just happened to be the combination of what you said and…,” Grant paused, gesturing with his hand slightly, “a letter I received from my father. It had...more to do with him than you but he’s not here so…” 

Jesse Root Grant. Sherman had met the man once or twice when he came to visit Grant in camp. The older man would be warm in greeting but there was a look in his eye that always unsettled him. Like he had an agenda while visiting. 

He also happened to be an ass. Causing more problems than what they were worth, publishing Grant’s letters in the papers. Then all those journalist half-wits would pull from them and disparage Grant in the miserable little articles.  

The pieces all fell into place for Sherman. It just happened to be a wrong comment, the wrong time. The nervous weight he had carried around all day lifted from his shoulders.  

“Your father does have that charming personality,” Sherman remarked, pulling out his cigar, “All that talk and scheming, can’t see how that could affect anyone poorly,” he smirked, waving a hand in Grant’s direction, “such as yourself.”  

For a moment there was no reaction. Grant stared back with that blank expression of his and Sherman thought this time he had taken it a step too far. 

Slowly, a smile tugged onto the young general’s face. Then a chuckle and Grant put his mouth over his face, trying to hide his laugher. It was a rare sound that Sherman delighted in and his smile grew wider.  

“Real ol’ shame for the papers when Jesse stopped blasting your letters for headlines, then they had to do actual work for a story to come up with.” 

Their laughter bounced around the room, the tension evaporating. Grant’s face was flushed again, shaking his head as he came over and stood before him. He wiped at his eyes, a small smile on his face, “It was a sorry day for them.” 

“Really made them scurry off,” Sherman jested, kicking the toe of Grant’s boot with his own, “Probably wailing in the streets too!” 

Composing himself, Grant took a deep breath, that wave of calm Sherman knew so well seemingly coming over him. But the smile didn’t disappear, “Yes, scurrying off I’m sure. Heading for other camps, picking up their rumors too.” 

“But really, your father is an ass.” 

Grant bit his bottom lip slightly, incredibly unfair to Sherman, keeping his smile from growing. “He can be...a handful. Stubborn.” 

“Impossible. He seemed extremely reasonable when he visited.” The sarcasm was oozing from the words, but he couldn't help it. The man was a pain in Grant’s side.  

“You should him when he’s in a good mood.” 

“Charming I’m sure.” 

They shared a small laugh, silence settling over them. Sherman’s eyes looked Grant over, the tension seemingly gone. More at ease, like he normally was around camp. 

Grant pulled out his pocket watch, clicking it open to the clockface. His thumb brushed over it, “Did you eat before coming here?” 

Sherman almost jumped at the question but he calmed himself, trying to keep that aloof personality in place. He didn’t want to seem too eager, “As a matter of fact, I thought I had plans...but it seemed like the scheduled time for them changed a bit.” 

Snapping the watch closed, Grant tucked it back into his breast pocket, “Funny...I seemed to have the same issue.” 

“Well then, it seems we’re two fine men who’ve been stood up,” Sherman jested, trying to keep a serious face. He pushed off from the desk, toe to toe with Grant, “it would almost seem practical if we had dinner together.” 

Those blue eyes stared up at him, a small twinkle in Grant’s eye, and goddammit if those ridiculous thoughts didn’t come back into his head. His brain never knew when to shut up.  

“It would seem so,” Grant conceded, staring at him for a long moment before stepping back. He bounced on the balls of his toes slightly, “Shall we?” 

Walking out into the chilled Memphis air, the two walked side by side, arms brushing together. 

Grant lit up a cigar, puffing on it briefly before blowing out the smoke, “I am sorry Sherman, I shouldn’t let something like that…”

The redhead waved him off, “Water under the bridge. Your father has a big mouth. It gets under your skin.”

“It shouldn’t.”

“Well, the next time you get something from him,” Sherman bumped him with his elbow, a small grin on his face, ���and it says something idiotic, let me read it and we find a way to laugh about it.”

Grant smiled, “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”

“Or you can burn it.”

“Everything doesn’t have to be burned Sherman.”

“Makes it easier to ignore though.”

[silverselfshippingchaos]

With his dark past long behind him and revenge long-since attained, Maxi is ready to move on. He's ready for a new beginning. And so, he asks Ash the most important question he ever has.

"You kids can head on home, ya know." Maxi says, waving the two eager siblings away.

"Got it, Lord Maxi!" Nods Leixia, grabbing Xiba's arm and turning in the opposite direction. Faintly, Ash can hear him saying something about being hungry.

She chuckles, "Xiba... We just finished eating..." Ash shakes her head playfully, "But, if you insist, there's some leftovers from last night. Just go ahead and warm 'em up."

That seemed to be enough motivation for Xiba, because he went sprinting in the direction of their home. Leixia followed, screaming after him, but Ash didn't miss her giving a look towards Maxi. As for what that look meant, Ash had no idea.

Ash looks up at the man beside her, but he was just gazing fondly into the distance. She couldn't help but notice how her lover, usually incapable of the ability to (respectfully, of course) shut up, had been oddly silent that night.

A soft smile settled on his lips, sharp features accentuated by nothing but some lanterns on buildings shining on them in the dark night. Ash found herself questioning how he always managed to look so damn handsome regardless of where he was.

His eyes looked faraway. Maybe he was just thinking about the kids? Well, they weren't kids, per se. They were teenagers, well on their way to adulthood, but Maxi regarded them as such anyway. Ash could understand, often doing the same herself.

He had taken them in because, according to the Edge Master, it was the only way to save Kilik, Maxi's closest friend since he lost his crew.

Funny, wasn't it? That Maxi would find salvation at the hands of Kilik's master, and would set off to save Kilik, just like how Kilik and Xianghua had saved him. The roles had been reversed. It wasn't Maxi who was alone this time. He needed to save his best friend's life.

The kids by themselves weren't strong enough, so Maxi made the decision to mentor them and travel with them. After all, Maxi's skill in combat was nothing short of legendary. His journey may have been a tough one, but he'd fought off some pretty crazy things over the years. From random bandits to the wrath of literal gods, Maxi had seen it all.

With Leixia came a third party named Natsu. She didn't seem to be related to any of the others, but Maxi welcomed her on the team with open arms. If she had protected Leixia for so long, she could be a valuable addition.

And Ash had also tagged along. She may not have been as great of a fighter as Maxi (after all, who was?), but she figured that they could use the extra support. Along with, of course, not wanting to leave Maxi all alone again.

As time went on, traveling with the children had led Maxi and Ash to develop quite the emotional bond with them with the trio. They had their more stressful moments, but the couple cared for them nonetheless, and took care of them because they wanted to, not out of a feeling of obligation since they were so closely related to their friends.

Eventually, the kids had begun to look up to Ash as a motherly figure of sorts as well. Although she couldn't quite deny that they gave her a headache more often than not.

Well, perhaps aunt would be the proper term rather than mother. Ash was no idiot, and neither was Maxi. They knew who these Xiba and Leixia were. It was painfully obvious. They were Kilik and Xianghua's children.

Leixia didn't know Xiba at first, so Ash figured that they weren't aware of being related at all. Leixia had mentioned that her father had been a general back in Ming, whereas Xiba never knew his father. How ironic that he'd end up being taught the way of the staff that Kilik was oh-so passionate about, despite not even knowing who he was.

That's... A hell of a sticky situation. Poor kids. Awfully unlike Kilik and Xianghua to abandon their own. I wonder what happened. Ash found herself thinking.

The resemblance was uncanny between them and Maxi's friends, and just housing the Sacred Treasures they protected all those years ago was enough for Ash to raise an eyebrow. Not just in the form of their weapons, but in Leixia's pendant as well. Ash would recognize that familiar green glow anywhere.

Her theory was only proven by how Maxi's body tensed up oh-so slightly when around it. The influence of the evil seed, although mostly repressed, could not be cured.

Maxi hadn't brought up the topic of their parents with the children, only confiding in Ash on occasion. But he knew. He probably figured it out even before Ash did, considering how long he had spent traveling with the couple nearly two decades ago. He didn't have anyone else but them and Ash after the attack on his crew happened.

But the iconic trio of Maxi, Kilik, and Xianghua had long since split, and now it was just them. Ash had no idea as to Kilik's whereabouts, but she had heard that Xianghua had gotten married to some other man back in Ming. It had been years since he had seen either of them.

So, the responsibility to save Kilik, protect the Sacred Treasures, and take the children west while making sure they didn't die along the way fell to Maxi and Ash. How wonderful.

Ash squeezes Maxi's hand, "Hey, everything alright?" Even after all these years, their hands seemed to be made for each other. Maxi's hands were so much larger than hers and were so warm. He was always warm, almost like her own personal campfire. They felt nice in the slight chill of the night, and Ash wanted nothing more than to cling onto him and never let him go.

Some sick part of her found it almost comical that he felt even warmer after having a shard of the cursed sword itself place inside of him. He would agree too, always trying to keep a cheerful outlook on everything that had happened to him in the past. He even often joked about the unusually slow rate his body was aging because of the shard. At the end of the day, Ash was just glad that he had control over himself again.

"Oh? Me?" Maxi questions, snapped out of whatever trance he was in, his eyes snapping towards her. Ash sighs, "Nooo, not at all. I was simply speaking to my other boyfriend." She says sarcastically, "Of course I'm talking to you. Who else is around here?"

She was right. The streets of the town had been long empty, the sky dark. Ash looks up, the sky twinkling with so many bright stars. It wasn't far from where they had first met in India all those years ago. She was glad to be back to her home country.

Maxi chuckles, leaning down to give her a kiss on the forehead. "Ha ha, very funny." He responds dryly, "But yeah, I'm doing fine. Just thinking."

Ash smirks, but her voice is sincere. "That's a first, so be careful, alright? Don't hurt yourself."

"Hey, I think!"

"Hm... Debatable."

Ash goes silent for a few seconds, but eventually reaches over to grab his other hand. "I hope you know that you can tell me if anything is bothering you. I'm here to listen, and if you want, I'll do my best to help."

"Thank you. I mean that." He whispers.

Ash nods.

"Hey..." Maxi starts, beginning to walk towards the open fields on the outskirts of the town, "I wanna talk to ya."

"Take your time. I'm listening."

Maxi keeps walking further into the field for minutes, until the town is long behind them. He stops, staring up at the star-filled sky. Ash notices that he loses his easy smirk for once, face hardening into a firm expression. This is... Odd.

Maxi is the first to break the silence. "I... I never saw myself having a future after the guys died." He whispers, eyes still glued to the sky.

"I mean," He glances towards her, chuckling in an attempt to lighten up the mood, "You saw me back then. I didn't care about nothin' but my revenge."

… And seeing him hurt you too.. That was the last straw.

Ash remembers it all too clearly. His thirst for revenge against the thing who murdered his crew nearly destroyed him, and for so many years, that was the only thing he cared about. Killing the monster. Regardless of what it took.

Things only got worse with the shard. The bloodlust that was already there only increased, and it never died down. He isolated himself, pushing everybody away. Eventually, his humanity itself began to slip away. The shard always craved more, and it took years with the Edge Master for Maxi to even be able to think straight again.

But he had grown so much since then. He was still Maxi, her Maxi, cocky and confident with a sharp tongue to boot, but he had grown. Ash could see it in how he treated Leixia and Xiba. He wasn't the lost young man he used to be anymore.

"Yeah, that's right..."

"But I've gotten that revenge now, haven't I?"

Ash nods. "Yeah, you killed that freak."

"So I think that it's finally time for me to move on." Maxi says, taking hold of both her hands and staring at her directly.

"Even through everything, you never gave up on me. I pushed you away, but you never thought I was a lost cause. You taught me that I didn't need to walk alone anymore. If it weren't for you..." Maxi gulps, shaking his head with a soft chuckle, “Actually... Nope, not going there. It hurts to think about what could’ve been. Anyways,” He stops, as if pondering the right words.

Her eyes go wide, "Maxi..."

It was unlike him to be this vulnerable with his words, or even at all. Maxi preferred to let his body and actions do the speaking, but Ash didn't mind. He was loving and sweet. As he gathers his thoughts, she gently runs her fingertips along the callouses on his hands, worn down from years of battle.

"... I feel like when I’m with you, maybe I can have that future again." Maxi finishes, cupping her face in his hands. Ash softly smiles at him, leaning into his touch.

"I'm glad. That makes me so happy to hear. It..." She takes a deep breath, blinking back tears, "It really does mean the world to me that I can be that pillar of support for you. All I want is for you to be happy because, hey, you deserve that future."

Ash chuckles softly, and Maxi can feel his heart fluttering at the sight of her smile. She continues.

"But I hope you realize it wasn't all me, though. You made the effort to change, don't forget that. I love you more than I can say, and I am so proud of you. You’re the strongest person I know. Even through everything, you never let it consume you.”

Her voice was nothing more than a warm whisper fanning his lips. But since there were only mere inches separating them, he could hear her just fine.

He buries his face in the crook of her neck, the fur lining of his jacket tickling her cheek. Ash can't help but smile at how warm his face is. One of her hands reaches up to gently pat the back of his head.

"I love you too. More than anything. It was the thought of you that stopped me from giving into the curse, ya know." He replies, holding her tight.

Maxi steps away from her, taking a deep breath and staring at the grassy ground, "Man, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be..." He mutters, running his fingers through the swoop of his hair.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I guess I should just say it, huh?" He says, anxiously picking at his fingers, his gaze drifting to the side.

"You're not breaking up with me, are you?" Ash jokes, laughing softly. Maxi smiles, and in that moment, he is convinced that he has never seen a woman more perfect.

He shakes his head. "Not in a million years. In fact, the exact opposite."

Maxi reaches for his back pocket and gets down on one knee.

Ash gasps, her hands flying up to cover her open mouth. "Oh my god... No way."

"Yes way. I want you to marry me, babe." Maxi says, and he's never been more sure of anything in his life. For all these years, Ash had never given up on him. She was the light at the end of the tunnel of rage and blood he had built around himself. He had never loved anyone more.

“Will you marry me?” He asks, voice firm. His heart was pounding in his chest.

In his hands, a ring. It was nothing overly large or extravagant, but the fine gemstone in the center seemed to twinkle in the moonlight. Tears Ash had tried so hard to fight against came rushing back.

There was no hesitation in her answer.

“Yes!” She exclaimed, and Maxi couldn’t contain the pure glee that rushed through him as he slid the ring on her finger. He stood up and laughed in pure delight.

“This is the greatest day ever! She said yes!” He says to himself, picking her up and twirling her around in a circle. He pulls her in for a kiss, and she is more than happy to oblige, her lips moving in unison with his. She had been with him for so long, kissed him so many times, yet the feeling of his lips on hers was so magical even still.

He cups her face in his hands and gently wipes away her tears with his thumbs.

“Hey now, don’t cry.” He whispers.

“They’re tears of happiness, I promise.” Ash responds, and she can’t hide the smile from her face.

Ash giggles as he pulls her in for a hug, “I can't wait for you to be my wife." He murmurs into her hair, and she simply grabs him by the face and kisses him again.

Their lips lock for what feels like an eternity before they finally pull away. Ash rests her forehead on his, and he smiles. His cheeks were beginning to hurt from smiling so much, but how could he not?

Goodness, he’s beautiful… Ash thought as she gazed into his dark eyes.

“I love you so much. So fucking much.” She says.

“I love you too, baby. I love you too.”

Ash smiles, gazing down at the ring in her finger. Beautiful. In that moment, she is convinced that there is no place she would rather be. After all, he was her home, and there was no place she felt safer in than his arms.

[sleepdeprivedheretic]

Those Shoes (Ch.1)

Notes: The title is referenced to a song by The Eagles, it’s a classic song about exotic dancers, as well as a popular song to play in the clubs. Rita, or @youtubequeens and I brainstormed this piece, and I was so excited to finally write it :3

Warnings: Language, Exotic Dancers and their life, talk about sex, Trigger Warnings!!!: Mentions of and non-consensual acts such as groping and touching, and other horrors.  

Notice: Dancers should be treated with respect, and this is not a fic to downgrade them, nor to spread false truths. It sheds light on what can and does happen in real life, and how that it can be a dangerous job. The warnings are here for a reason. Thank You.

 “Honey, I neeeeed your help!” Your mother whined through the phone. You sighed loudly as you sat on the bed. You’ve just finished with a hefty amount of homework, two tests, and you had another coming up, soon. Not only were your friends squealing that they need to celebrate your upcoming graduation, but your mother had called you, needing something. Again.

“Before you hang up!” She started as your thumb hovered over the red button. “I know that you’ll be graduating college, soon, and you’re needing a job, asap, sooooo, I was wondering if I could hire you, soon?” She baited, and you felt a chill of dread down your spine.

“No way in hell.”

“Oh, Come on! You know that you’ll need a job! I can’t find decent hire, anywhere. How about I hire you until you find a better job? Please? These outfits need to be patched up, and I need makeup expertise! Other than my own!” She added.

You felt your stubborn nature wilt as common sense pile drove in. Your mother was a crafty, sneaky, snake, and she knew that you were needing money to make end’s meet, especially when you were about to move to a better apartment. There were good businesses waiting to hire, and some even were willing to sponsor you, but of course it could take months until you could officially land a good job.

Unfortunately, your mother knew this.

“Above minimum wage, and I get to wear what I want.”

“Deal.” She didn’t even hesitate.

“Fine. I’ve got tests…and the girls are throwing me a surprise party, of all things at the end of the month, so I’ll see you when I see you.” You breathed out, and your mom giggled.

“Oh, a surprise party? Maybe I could send-”

“Mom, no.” You blurted out, and she laughed.

“Oh, my baby girl!” She cooed. “You don’t need physical experience to enjoy-”

You clicked the red dial, ending the call as you sighed with defeat. How did your life turn out like this?  More than likely, she’ll gather your small group of friends and convince them to try to get you to loosen up. It was not only your graduation day, but also your birthday, coming up.

 Your mind froze with fear at the memories of past birthdays. After you’ve turned eighteen, she tried multiple times to send out one of the male dancers, scantily dressed in an ice cream sundae uniform, holding a card that basically said “to pop your cherry”.    

Yeah, you didn’t really had any contact with her, really.

…………………

“Surprise! Happy Graduation and Birthday, Girl!” Your friends screamed with joy as you entered your apartment. Finally. After years of hard work and several job offers that will get back to you within a month, you were a certified beautician with a knack to patch and design clothes. Sure, it wasn’t your first idea of a job, but it grew on you. Dying hair, painting nails, mastering different techniques of applying makeup, and seeing the sparkly eyes of your patients as they admired your hard work, had won you over.

Of course, your mother had a major influence over you. Although you weren’t into dancing, you were happy to practice makeup and help patch up certain outfits. As you grew older, you went with what you knew, and soon, your school had paid for your college due to your good grades, and you made your way up, ever since.

“Oh hey, girls! Where’s the cake?” You wondered, and they wasted no time with mischievous giggles. You stilled.

“What-”

“Don’t worry, Babe! It’ll be here, soon. Try this cucumber Sake!” Rumi grinned as she held out the small cup. The white-haired woman had been your friend since late high school, the only one knowing about your mother’s business back then. She and your other friend, Keigo, had now opened up a pet store. Said man who had bird-like perception wasn’t here, right now, but your more…flirtatious friend, Nemuri, was here with her girlfriend and your attention-seeking friend, Yu. Both girls had worked for your mother, and although you were close, you were weary of their similar antics.

“You’re hiding something.” Your eyebrows furrowed. Nemuri smiled coyly as she slung an arm around a giggling Yu.

“It wouldn’t be called a surprise if we weren’t.”  

“True.”

The four of you had cut up and were laid back, enjoying small talk and stories that you all missed out on. Nemuri and Yu were doing great with the future wedding funds, Rumi had admitted that Keigo was trying his best to win over some goth from Hot Topic, and you, well, you were still doing the things that you loved to do, despite a busy schedule. Rumi smiled, knowing fully well that your more secretive hobbies had leaned towards being more humanitarian, despite your busy schedule.

You wanted to do things that you wanted to do, not gain attention from them, yet your close group of friends had known of your little skits: Feeding not only stray cats, but taking time to volunteer to help with the homeless and the orphanage. The conversation had quickly turned to about working at the strip club, and you were relieved that the subject had changed.

“Ugh. I hate it when they get up. They’re suppose to sit, and be obedient.” Nemuri huffed.

“Isn’t that against the regulations?” You wondered, and Yu nodded.

“Yeah. I heard that one girl in the private room was far into her dancing, she didn’t notice the guy standing up. Luckily there’s cameras, and so when the staff noticed that he pulled his dick out, they broke into the room and threw him out. Hah, he didn’t get his cash back or anything.” She finished, and you couldn’t help but feel sympathy.

You weren’t raised in the club, but your mother had told you plenty of stories, and dropped off the outfits or brought home a “dummy” to practice makeup on while she told you to never let your guard down. It wasn’t until you were nineteen when you fully knew what she had meant as you were working as a hostess at her building.

Although you were dressed in bartender clothes, it didn’t stop anybody from trying to make a grab at you. You were lucky that your mother had hired good bouncers, and she herself was like a tiger who prowled upon those who didn’t belong there.  

“That’s awful.” You admitted, and Nemuri nodded in agreement.

“Yeah. It’s especially gross when you’re giving them a lap dance, and you feel something gross and sticky on the back of your thigh.”

“Or when they kept saying that ‘you’re too pretty to work here’. I know I’m pretty, and I want the attention and attraction to work here. Just because I dance, doesn’t mean that I’m easy. I’m in a committed relationship for six years, thank you.” Yu bantered back while Rumi and you listened quietly.

“You girls go through a lot. Damn. Poor birthday girl had to wear a miniskirt while handing out food and drinks.” Rumi piped up, offering to say what she knew about the subject. Nemuri sighed.

“I remember that when Yu and I first started. Her mom’s not too picky when it comes to help, especially when it’s low pay and her own kid. Like a lamb in a den full of lions, I tell you. Luckily our ladies and gents knew how to swoop in to the rescue.” She finished, and you felt yourself blushing.

Everyone jumped as the doorbell rang, and you watched the Grinch-like grins spread on Nemuri and Yu’s faces, as Rumi let out one that was almost feral.

“Cake’s here.” They said, and you couldn’t help but feel a case of dread as Nemuri didn’t hesitate to waltz over there, and sling the door open, and you couldn’t help but to swallow thickly.

“You did not.” It was a whisper that died on your throat.

Of course you should have known. Of all things-

 He stood in the middle of the door, holding a prettily frosted cake, but it wasn’t the cake that caught your attention.

 Tall, blond, muscles, was sporting thin square glasses that were about to fall off of his nose, a sleeveless white vest with a loosened tie and one button undone. His pants were no better, the zipper and buttons were undone as it snagged nicely on his hips, leaving a blond treasure trail for the world to see, and of course, sleek black and orange high heels that looked as if they cost more than your rent.  

“I’m here to teach our Birthday Girl a lil’ lesson.” Came out the smooth purr as he twirled a red sucker in his mouth, and damn it did that not help you. You hated to admit it, but he was the handsomest ones that you’ve ever seen, and of course you knew who sent him. Pretty amber irises stared at you, drinking you thoroughly as if he was silently contemplating something.  

“Name’s Fatigue, Sugar.” He grinned, lolling the sucker within his mouth as Nemuri took the cake from his hands and set it down on your living room table.  

“Don’t work our girl too hard, Tai. Poor thing gets a little flustered, easily.” She giggled, pinching your cheek rather playfully. You gave her a small glare despite that your ears were burning, now. Tai, or “Fatigue”, let a slow, lazy smile stretch his face as he looked down at you with a cocky look mixed with hunger.

“Jus’ sit back an’ relax, ‘nd enjoy the show. You deserve it for workin’ so hard.”  He cooed with what seemed to be affection, and you swallowed thickly and nodded. Sure, you could do this. Giving an affirmative, he didn’t give you much time before he took out his phone and pressed some button, instantly music had started playing as he started.

He was like a magnet, snapping your attention to him in awe as he spread his legs wide, letting himself sink low to the floor, heels perfectly grounded into your carpet as his glasses stayed neatly perched on the crook of his nose. He grinned at your amazed stare, as if eating it up. Of course he had a bag full of tricks, and you couldn’t believe that you were finding yourself eager to know each one.

He didn’t fail to deliver, hopping back up with a dive of his hips, sliding a hand down to the side of his pants, palming his thigh as he bent low, ass in the air. Each movement was in sync with the beats, and was absolutely filthy as he used his body to curve and twist into movements that oddly made you feel hot and your throat dry. Who was he? Where did your mom even find somebody this good?

Your friends were no better. Rumi had sported a look of stupor, and to your own surprise, Nemuri and Yu looked impressed, a rare sight for you knew that their technique was high dollar and quality, too.

He was all over you, not touching, but close, not letting you take your attention away from him as he ran his hands close to his hips and inner thighs, his sharp focus was only on you as he gauged your reactions, seeing which little movements brought a spark to your eyes or a flush to your face.

Then, like his routine, he did another unexpected move. Taking your cake, he set it neatly on your lap. Not giving you time to really question anything, he gingerly took your hand, dipping your fingers into the frosting, and brought it to his mouth.

Hot. You couldn’t help but feel hot all over as your lips burned on how he licked and sucked at the frosted digits, lolling his tongue over each one as he gave you such a dirty, heated look, and you swore that you heard him groan. Or was it you? You couldn’t tell as he gave your digits one final suck, letting go with a wet pop as the last song ended.

“Delicious.” He purred, and you couldn’t help but bite your bottom lip at how he sounded it.

“Holy shit.” Nemuri broke the silence.

“Language, young Missy.” Fatigue tutted, waving his finger at her, laughing lightly as she gave him one of her own, before turning his attention back to you.

“Didja enjoy the dance, Sweetling?”

“Yeah.” You admitted in  choked voice, and he gave a small laugh of affection as he walked towards the door.

“You have a Happy Birthday. I do hope that I can see ya, again.” He gave one last final look at you that you couldn’t decipher, as he headed out.

Silence enveloped you girls, before Yu started laughing.

“You were so blushing! He looked as if he wanted to eat you up!” She noticed, and you could feel your lip starting to hurt from biting it constantly.

“Woah, did he even know that you’re the boss’s kid?” Rumi asked, and Nemuri shook her head.

“Nah. We hired him yesterday, and her mom didn’t say anything, other than that she had a very special job for him. Heh, I didn’t know that the new meat was this good.” Nemuri explained, staring at her nails.

“’I do hope that I can see ya, again’.” Yu mimicked before giggling with glee. “Somebody’s has taken a shine to our homebody.” She grinned and your face flushed with realization.

“I gotta go see my mom.” You blurted out, instead, and was rewarded with grins and knowing smirks.

“It’s so cute how you’ve finally began to open up, my little touch-starved Chickadee. A stripper, of all things, huh?” Nemuri laughed at the irony, and you couldn’t help but join.

“I guess that it’s time to admit that I don’t have to live my life as the Lone Wolf, anymore.”

“And finally get laid, right?” Yu said it ever so casually, and you rolled your eyes.

“Ah, leave her alone. It’s nice that those brick walls are falling down.” Rumi grinned, slinging an arm around you and you smiled.

“It’s getting late, ladies. I got to see my mom early, tomorrow. Before you leave, take some cake with you.” You admitted.

“Will do! I’ll tell her that the new guy had done the impossible, by gaining your heated stare.” Yu giggled as she wrapped an arm around Nemuri’s waist.

“Hah, Kei’s gonna have a laugh at this.” Rumi smiled as she got up, leaving for your kitchen to grab the plates and forks.

….………….

After cake was cut and eaten, and the girls hugged you and kissed your cheeks before heading out, you were now laying on your bed, face flushing furiously as your heartbeat quickened. A stripper of all things shouldn’t have done that to you. You grew up with your mom’s flirty attitude towards strangers, and from an older teen, had been working in the club in a vest, shirt, and miniskirt with low heels, being constantly flirted with.

You didn’t know what made him to be so different, but like a magnetic connection, you were pulled, and despite you loner, homebody attitude, you kind of did wanted to see more of him.

…………..

He sighed, slipping off the expensive shoes as his feet and body ached for a hot shower. She didn’t know him, but he knew somewhat about her. Although the two of them shared the same college, he’d never shared a class with her, and she had lived in the apartments that was near, but not the dorms. Yet, he seen her almost everyday while either to or from his way to classes, work, or in general.

She tried to hide it, but he knew of the little empty cans of tuna near the dumpster that kept the stray mother cat and her kittens fed, was from her. He could hear her cooing to this day, smile rivaling the sun, as she looked down at the bunch with a touch of softness, not noticing the world around her as he took the same route past the alley every day.

 Of course, he was a little intrigued. He had a sweet tooth, and despite his refusal in ever taking a bite, he wanted to drink in on what this strange woman was doing. He knew that she was busy, if the bags underneath her eyes indicated anything, and yet she still took time to do small and big things. Picking up littered cans and tossing them in the recycling bin, helping struggling students study, and he’d even seen her face at the soup kitchens, pouring generous amounts of soup into the bowls which were held in the hands of the hungry.  

All around. She was all around and yet tried to make herself small and trivial. Others didn’t really notice, but he did. He couldn’t help it. Like a little magnet, she pulled him in, and she was unaware of it. Honestly, he felt like a stalker, yet he knew that he wasn’t. She was just…all around. Existing, helping, laughing, and smiling. It cut through a crack in his dark little world.

Of course, then she graduated, and he was surprised on how much he had missed her laughter, the softness in her eyes as she handled the kittens or gave out food. He didn’t know her. Didn’t speak to her, never went to the same classes, and yet, he felt a little empty when she was gone. It boggled and irritated him.

The literal icing on top was when he had finally gotten hired, the smirking woman telling him that he had a special job, and he couldn’t help but look in surprise at the address. The same door number that he seen her excitedly rush out from while he was on his way to class, was written on the address sheet with instructions. He had already met her friends, who were surprising her on her birthday. To be honest, he was surprised that the woman had friends such as Nemuri and Yu, but he didn’t question it further, as he felt the excitement build up.

Then, he couldn’t help himself when the two of them had finally met. He suppressed a shiver. He had a no touching rule. He didn’t want to touch, and he didn’t want to be touched, but something broke in him. He wanted to be touched by those shy inquisitive fingers, wanted to be stared at so innocently, and yet so dirty, and he couldn’t help himself. She was so sweet, and he didn’t mind letting himself having a taste, for once.

He really did hope to see her again

…………  

[drabbledragon]

Linktober: Graveyard

Here’s the start of Nocturne of Shadows week!

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26749021/chapters/65839948

Summary: A few Links have something in common, and wonder why that is.

Warnings: Mentions of death but nothing too graphic

Day 7: Graveyard

It was cold and rainy when the Links arrived in Legend’s Hyrule. It was good that they ended up so close to the castle, because a majority of them were unsure if they could go another half - day’s trip to the nearest inn with how exhausted they were. As soon as the castle guards caught sight of their resident hero, the group was immediately led inside with open arms and welcoming smiles, and had no qualms about bringing the Links to this Hyrule’s Zelda.

A full - course meal was a nice surprise for them. After they had gotten the chance to check in with the princess, the staff had eagerly ushered them into the royal dining room where every food known to man stood freshly prepared on the table, the warmth radiating from the meals almost palpable in the air. The afternoon was spent with light banter and hums of satisfaction as the heroes easily chatted with each other, enjoying the taste of real food and simply being grateful that they didn’t have to spend another night sleeping in a monster - infested forest. Soon late noon had turned into early evening, and the heroes took to doing whatever they wanted to do: from writing letters to reading books to whittling to sleeping, all the Links were busy doing something.

“Hey, you see that?”

Twilight stopped in his tracks and directed curious eyes towards Wild’s direction, following the latter’s gaze to where a castle window stood. He squinted past the clear panes to get a better look at what his protege was so interested in, and finally drew his brows together when he caught sight of a lone figure sitting in the heavy rain. 

He leaned forward as he noted, “ Red tunic, blond hair … that’s Legend, isn’t it? What’s he doing out there?”

The clack of heels didn’t become evident until they were just a few steps away from the two heroes, and both of them turned just in time to catch Fable, Legend’s Zelda, looking through the window alongside them.

She scrunched up her eyes as she searched around outside, and when she finally found the person of interest, her lips pressed into a thin line.

“It’s that day already, huh,” She murmured as she drew back. “ Felt like it’d only been yesterday since he last did this.”

The two others were quiet for a second, before Twilight hesitantly spoke up.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Princess, but I’d like to know why Link is outside on a day like this.”

“That’s none of your concern, now is it?”

The both of them were taken aback by the sharp words, but her tone held no bite. She appeared solemn and serious, not a single bit of her boisterous and mischievous personality to be found.

She soon continued her steady pace down the halls again, eyes trained carefully ahead as if the harsh rain outside did nothing to faze her; but before she was able to round the corner, she paused and quietly said,

“Link is at the Royal Graveyard, mourning someone he had lost two years ago.”

Her words were weighty, and they were enough to make Twilight and Wild feel like a wave had crashed down on them. They were at a loss for words, and neither of them made any move to pry more information from the princess or even bother to stop her from disappearing from view; the two simply stood there in stunned silence, acutely aware of the little rain droplets that dribbled down the window.

It was Wild who finally broke the silence when he said, “ I’m gonna go talk to him.”

“Wait, seriously? Don’t you think he could use a little alone time? He’s usually really keen about settling things on his own, especially when it comes to people.”

“I know that but I...” The Hero of Wilds bit his lip for a moment as he glanced between his mentor and the window. “ … but I just have a feeling. Listen, I’ll hang out there for a sec, and if he really wants to be left alone, then I’ll leave, okay? Promise.”

Twilight opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it. If there was anyone that could deal with mourning and loss in the group, it was Wild, and if his instincts told him to go to Legend, Twilight wouldn’t even second - guess it. He held his breath as he watched his protege’s retreating form, hoping with all his heart that his cub was right on this one.

It didn’t take long for Wild to find the graveyard - just a left, a right, another quick left, down the stairs and he was there, the rain’s cold chill already beginning to settle in his bones. He carefully made his way through the neatly lined graves, and didn’t stop until he found Legend silently kneeling in front of a particular stone.

The Hero of Legend looked worse for wear: his blond hair was pasted haphazardly to his face and neck, and his red tunic was soaked with the rain from above and the mud from below. He looked weary from where he stood, and his shoulders were hunched forward as if the weight of the world were pressing down on them, forcing him back to the ground whenever he had an inkling of hope that he might be able to stand up and walk away. 

This was a different Legend, Wild frowned, not the gruff and testy teen they all knew and loved, but rather a young boy who had seen one too many destroyed towns, fought one too many battles, and saw one too many people die because of him. The Hero of Wilds felt his heart break at the sight.

“Go away.”

That was Legend’s voice, but his tone was low and raspy, holding none of its usual fire. Despite the other’s command, the champion tightened the grip on his cloak and took a step forward.

“Legend, you shouldn’t be alone here.”

“I want to.”

“You say that but you don’t mean it.”

“I do.”

“Look, I know what you’re going thro -”

“Hylia, Wild, just take the hint and leave!”

The outburst was enough to shut Wild up, and prevented him from taking another step. He stood quietly as he watched Legend’s head dip lower, and he had to strain his hearing in order to hear the other murmur out,

“Please, just leave.”

He could’ve sworn that it started to rain harder, like Hylia herself was crying for Legend’s loss. The graveyard became enveloped in a misty fog, and any semblance of the evening moon was covered up by gray clouds that refused to leave. The Hero of Wilds stood still for a few seconds before eventually settling himself on the muddy ground, just a row away from where Legend’s loved one resided. With a steadying breath, he began,

“I used to have a lot of friends and family, y’know. According to Zelda, I used to be one of the most loved soldiers in all of Hyrule, and the pride and joy of my family. I lived with my mom and dad and sister in a little house in Hateno, and the people there told me that I used to spend the whole day playing with the village kids until the sun setted. My dad was a knight, and the whole reason I was even discovered to be Hylia’s Chosen was because one of the visiting soldiers saw that I could wield a sword at the age of five. It’s kinda weird, right? Having a bunch of old guys watch a little kid wave a sword around.”

Wild looked up to see if his attempt at humor had worked, but Legend remained as still and silent as before.

“And Zelda said I was thrown into the army by the next night. She said she remembered me following my dad around like a lost puppy, and I barely talked to anyone, even when they were asking questions directly to me. I made friends with Mipha and Daruk really quick, and then Zelda and Urbosa and Revali; I wouldn’t talk to them no matter what, but Zelda said Daruk and Revali were doing most of the talking anyway, so it didn’t really matter. I would spend the whole day training instead of playing, and she said I almost never went home because Rhoam forced me to stay so I could protect the castle and the royal family. My dad went home to my mom and sister, and Mipha, Daruk, Urbosa, and Revali all went home to their families, and I was the only one left.”

“I was alone, and Zelda started to hate me because of how annoying I was. Soon everyone started to hate me because of how much Rhoam loved me, and I couldn’t do a single thing about it. I was told that since I was a hero chosen by the Goddess, I had to do whatever the kingdom wanted me to do, and whatever I thought didn’t matter; it was always protect Zelda and do whatever the king asked. I missed out on a lot: my childhood, my friends, my family, all because I was supposed to be some legendary hero.” He choked out a watery laugh. “ Now I can’t even remember any of that: I can’t remember my mom’s or my dad’s or my sister’s faces, I can’t remember how the soldiers used to treat me before they started to hate me, I can’t remember the places Mipha, Daruk, Urbosa, Revali, and Zelda used to take me - I can’t remember anything. I’m just some former champion that was nearly killed by the Calamity 100 years ago, and I have feelings that I can’t explain the reason of.”  

Wild’s throat grew tight with emotion, and he did his best not to let the sobs wrack his body. A small part of his brain reminded him that no, he shouldn’t be throwing himself a pity party, he should be comforting Legend, but he couldn’t help it. It was all so unfair: all the other Links could remember their friends and family even if they were long gone but Wild was the only one who couldn’t; all he could remember were fragments of his time under Rhoam and whatever his Zelda told him to be true. He was a blank and empty slate that could barely remember his friends and family but still held a myriad of emotions towards them. 

He wondered if he should just go on in life pretending that the last 117 years didn’t happen - that all the good and bad memories he had of his friends and families were all due to vivid fever dreams.

“My uncle died two years ago.”

The champion was caught off guard when Legend finally spoke, and although the former was barely holding it together, he did his best to listen to the other’s soft words.

“It was when I was on another adventure. I came back to the castle as soon as I was back in Hyrule, and the moment I stepped inside, I saw Zelda waiting there with my uncle’s sword and shield. She didn’t need to say a thing; by the way she looked at me, I knew what was up: my uncle was dead, stabbed by an Armos when he least expected it. She told me the death was quick, and that the soldiers travelling along with him made sure he died as comfortably as possible. They said his last words were ‘tell Link I’m proud of him’, but I don’t know if that’s what he actually said; maybe the soldiers were just trying to make me feel better.”

“I was locked up in my house for days, and no matter how many times the castle’s soldiers tried to break down my door and threaten me, I wouldn’t leave. I was depressed, and I didn’t want anything to do with Hyrule anymore. He was everything to me: he took me in when my parents were trapped in the Dark World, he taught me how to fight and wield a sword, and he gave me all the unconditional love I could ever ask for.” He tilted his head up to the sky, and Wild wasn’t sure if it was rain or tears falling from his face. “ I wonder if things would’ve changed if I was back home instead of out there adventuring - if I just became a regular soldier at Hyrule Castle instead of being a Goddess - forsaken hero.”

His frame was shaking, but his voice stayed strong and firm. “ I miss him more than anything in the world, but I don’t regret having any memories of him, and you shouldn’t regret having any memories of your friends and family either, no matter how little they are.”

It was ironic, the champion thought: here Legend and Wild were, two links in the same heroic chain, that were supposed to be selfless and loyal and a beacon of hope to the citizens of Hyrule, crying in a graveyard. They had been through their own set of adventures, faced their own trials and tribulations, but they both still had the same feelings as a citizen towards death. They were two broken kids who just wanted to enjoy a happy life.

Wild took in a shuddering breath and quietly asked, “ Do you think people die because we’re Chosen Heroes?”

Legend’s answer was short and simple, not an inking of hesitance in his voice, “ Yes.”

<Previous Next>

[thewinedarksea]

thief/assassin au pt 4

ft. (the mention of) handcuffs and a river. also liel’s flip-floppy emotions. mildly suggestive.

(part 1, part 2, part 3, part 3.5)

Sirens drifted through the air, faint from distance. There were at least five blocks between them and Liel but she walked faster nonetheless, gait casual as she strolled down the chill city streets. 

A cold wind skittered after her, slicing through her thin shirt; she’d been counting on a getaway car to provide warmth, so she was clad only in a pair of leggings and a top made for attraction and not practicality, her toes frozen inside the thin leather of her boots. Another gust of wind and she curved her shoulders inwards, tightening her grip around the hot chocolate cup in her hands. Warmth bled through the cheap cardboard and into her fingers, a mild protection against the temperature. It was the only thing keeping her going. 

Well. That, and the promise of getting revenge on Johann’s worthless hide ten times over. Liel was thinking a lifetime subscription to some truly awful porn mailing lists, maybe a stint in a minimum security prison depending on how long it took for her to get back to her hotel. Half a million in diamonds, ripe for the taking, and she’d had to abandon them all. Idiot kid. She didn’t know what street corner Emory had picked him off of, but he could damn well put him back. 

She stepped off the street and onto a bridge, blending with the horde of pedestrians making their way across. And there, propped up against the railing, her long black coat whipping in the wind, stood Celine. 

Despite the cold and the bustle of people flowing past her she looked unbothered, eyes on the river’s banks, just one of the many citizens taking a break from her everyday life to admire the view.

The sight of her sent a confusing tangle of emotions rushing through Liel: fear, always and ever-present, because she hadn’t survived ten odd years as a criminal without a healthy dose of being able to recognize a predator when she saw one, and wanting, too, sharp and immediate as a knife to the gut. More than both of those though was the annoyance, a matchstick flare that promised to ignite.  

Liel should walk away. She should go back to her hotel, drink a staggering amount of wine, and sink into the suite’s luxurious tub until the water washed away all the frustrations and disappointments of the afternoon. She should. But Liel had just had two weeks of planning go up in smoke thanks to a jumpy kid and an early guard patrol, and all that irritation was just begging for an outlet. Celine would do nicely.

She tossed her cup into a nearby trash can and wandered over, propping herself up on the railing, so close her arm brushed Celine’s sleeve. The river below was a chaotic swirl of dark water, shiny bits of aluminum and old coffee cups caught tumbling in its hold. On its banks the sidewalks teemed with life, awash with shoppers catching up on last minute holiday gifts. 

“I was going to complain about the cold, but I find I’m plenty warm just by being around you.” 

Celine didn’t so much as glance at her, her eyes fixed on one of the cafes lining the waterway. Liel squinted, trying to make out what she was looking at, but saw nothing besides some red striped umbrellas and a few customers enjoying a meal in the freezing cold. Masochists. 

“Because you’re from hell,” Liel elaborated. “Like a demon. Hellfire. It’s very amusing.” 

A faint smirk touched Celine’s lips, but that was the extent of her reaction. No teasing, no clever remarks. Not even an acknowledgement that the last time they’d seen each other Celine had had her hands around Liel’s neck, before they’d shifted to other, less mentionable places. 

The annoyance flared brighter the longer she ignored her. Liel wanted to draw a reaction, to claw some control from her perfect grip. Crack it, like she had the night of the party, Celine’s mouth on hers, gasping and half-breathless, teeth and tongue and sweet words that had spilled like a river from her lips.

Liel smiled up at her, batting her eyelashes in the way that normally made people fall all over themselves to give her what she wanted. 

“What’s a girl have to do to get some attention around here?”

“Try coming back when I’m not working.”

Okay, see, that was just rude. Liel had been working every time they’d crossed paths, but that hadn’t stopped Celine from fucking her over or just fucking her, period. It was called a double standard, and Liel had no intention of letting it get in her way. 

“Ooh, are you on a job?” She slid closer, pressing their sides flush together, and made a production of following Celine’s gaze back to the cafe. It didn’t take long for her to hone in on the trio sitting off to one side, their clothes worth far more than the cafe’s old facade warranted. The woman on the left was definitely packing a gun. 

“A hundred dollars says it’s the one in pink.” A shot in the dark, but it landed, Celine’s expression going even more carefully still. Liel pressed the advantage. “I could make some phone calls. I’m sure the police would be very interested in knowing someone hired an assassin to go after Miss Dior and Co. over there.” 

“And I could snap your neck right now and throw your body over the edge.” Celine’s voice was as cool and dangerous as ice. “But you wouldn’t make me do that, would you pet?”

The fear came back with a vengeance, her annoyance snuffed out beneath the douse of ice water sliding down her spine. It might have been a mistake antagonizing the girl who killed people for a living. A small, small mistake. 

“That does sound unpleasant,” Liel said as lightly as she could manage. “My neck is much prettier when it’s in one piece. Tell you what, I’ll just come back when you’re not working.” 

Celine’s hand lashed out, gloved fingers wrapping around Liel’s wrist as she moved to step away. 

“Oh no,” she said softly. “You said you wanted attention.” 

She was watching Liel now, cafe abandoned for more interesting prey. Her eyes slid over Liel’s body, noting the lack of a coat, the goosebumps littering the bare skin of her arms. Despite the chill Liel felt herself heat up, all too aware that the last time Celine had seen her it had been without a stitch of clothing. From the smug slant of her mouth she remembered it, too. 

“Poor thing. You’re shivering.” She tugged Liel in front of her, her head against her shoulder. Celine was unfairly warm despite the weather, warmth bleeding from her in far more pleasant ways than the hot chocolate had managed. Damage control, Liel reassured herself as she snuggled closer, allowing herself to melt into the heat. She had to protect her pretty neck, after all.

“And here I thought we were getting along so much better,” Celine murmured. Her breath ghosted against Liel’s ear, lips brushing skin with every word. “Threats don’t suit you.”

“Everything suits me,” Liel informed the sky because, honestly, she didn’t have much more to lose. It stared back, a pale, dispassionate gray that put her in mind of a blade. “Also, I’m angry at you.”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” Celine’s voice echoed in her ear as she wrapped an arm around Liel’s middle, drawing her ever closer. “Why so upset, sweetling? I thought our evening together went very well.”

“You tied me to a bed.” Liel’s legs struggled to hold up beneath the assault of Celine’s pet names, the scent of her rose perfume curling around her, light as a kiss.

“I did,” Celine agreed. “But I seem to recall that you begged me to do it. Quite prettily, too.”

Liel flushed all the way down, cheeks burning red. Memories stirred, flickers of Celine’s mouth on her neck, between her legs, biting at the skin of her thighs. She’d worn the bruises she left for a week, and the memory of them a hell of a lot longer.

“You didn’t untie me,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. One of the hotel staff had found her and boy had that been a particularly humiliating conversation to have. She’d been lucky the maid had proven sympathetic to her tale of a prank gone wrong. Luckier still that Celine hadn’t been cruel enough to call the police.

She could sense Celine’s smirk where it rested against the side of her head. “Consider it your punishment.” 

“For what?”

“You stole a drive from me when we first met.”

“That was three months ago!”  

A few heads turned in their direction at Liel’s cry, glancing away when they saw the two of them entwined. Liel made an effort to squirm out of Celine’s grip, swearing at the lack of give. Pettiness was her deal. It looked way cuter on her.

With an exasperated noise Celine crowded her forward against the rail, bending Liel over until Celine’s chin rested on the top of her head, her body pinned between metal and flesh with no easy method of escape.

“Stay still,” Celine chided. Her grip tightened until Liel subsided, slumping back against her. “That job cost me a lot of money, to say nothing of what it did to my reputation. You’re lucky all I did was tie you up.”

And threaten to kill her, and actually try to kill her. The list went on.

 “Can’t imagine how great your reputation is going to be if you get yourself caught throwing me off a bridge,” Liel muttered.

“Believe me, there are far more interesting things I would rather to do to you.” 

That sounded promising. Interesting typically required alive, which was a step up from a watery grave. Liel wriggled even further back, pressing herself into Celine until any distance between them was eaten up. 

“Elaborate on that?” she asked, sweet as she could manage. 

Across the river Celine’s target stood. Her pink dress, terribly impractical for the weather, swirled around her legs as the wind blew again, a bright streak against the dull pavement. At the motion Celine straightened, stepping away from Liel as quickly as she’d grabbed her. 

The frigid rush of air that crept into the space she left set Liel trembling all over again, colder now that she’d found protection and lost it. 

“Business calls,” Celine said, composed once more. God Liel hated her. “You have my room key?” 

And her bracelet, and half her credit cards. Liel hadn’t taken her gun, though, so honestly she should be heralded as a paragon of self-restraint. She didn’t bring that point up though. 

“I’m still cold.” Scared and pissed off, too, but she doubted she would care about that. 

Celine’s mouth twisted in amused exasperation, and then she stripped out of her coat, wrapping the garment around Liel’s shoulders like a shawl. The fabric was warm, the scent of her perfume clinging to the silky lining. 

“Be a good girl and wait for me in my room.” She leaned forward, pressing a kiss to Liel’s cheek. Her lipstick left behind a mark. “I’ll bring my handcuffs.”

“What if I say no?”

Celine paused in the middle of turning away, an eyebrow raising in mock surprise. “I thought you wanted me to elaborate. Although if you prefer the river, I will have to ask for my key back.” 

When Liel made no move to hand it over she smiled, teeth gleaming sharp in the sunlight. “It’s the Royal Suite. Don’t bother with clothes.”

[eksperimentgaj]

Day 6 - Have you ever been to a competition? If yes, describe a little your experience, if not, what competition would you like to attend?

So far I’ve been to Wisła (SGP 2017, SCoC 2019), Kranj (SCoC 2018), Oslo (SCoC 2018, WC 2019), Planica (WC 2019, was supposed to be there in 2020 as well, but corona happened  🙃), Szczyrk (ladies’ SCoC 2019) and Lahti (WC 2020).

Wisła in 2017 was the competition I chose to go quite spontaneously. It was only after half a season I was into ski jumping, didn’t really know anyone in the fandom. I managed to convince my brother and friend (who is not really into sports) to go with me. I hope they had a good time 😀

In Wisła we’ve met few people (with whom I sadly have no contact, I’m not good at this 😟) to fangirl with. Got to sing national anthem twice, as team Poland and Dawid Kubacki won the team and individual comps 😀 One thing I remember very clearly from after the quails, when I lost my group and was trying to locate them, saw two girls taking a photo together next to me. After a moment I realized they were not two girls, it was a girl and Anders Fannemel 😅 Well, I judged from height only 🙃

I’m glad it was not too hot, considering it was July.

old phone, sorry for shit quality

Kranj 2018 was the first time I was flying a plane ever and also my first time traveling abroad alone. Already in Slovenia I met two girls from tumblr sj fandom. I got to see the town, which is very charming and the hill (obviously first journey destination, when I had some time alone). The comps itself made me fell in love with CoC, such a nice atmosphere, ski jumpers walking among the crowd and easily accessible. Oh, and I’m visible on a transmission from that comp 😂 Before going to Slovenia, I had to buy a new phone, as in Wisła the old one trolled me with its battery and turned off in the middle of a qualis, when I was taking photos 🙃 Funny thing was that in between the rounds there was a little archery contest for chosen fans from the crowd watching competition. And, considering it was CoC, there were quite a lot of people. You can really tell that Slovenians enjoy sj.

Also. Locate Domen’s car 😂

 Going to CoC in Oslo in September of 2018 was possible thanks to the fact we were already visiting family’s friend who lives in Norway (yes, I suggested the date, luckily it was also this weekend the plane tickets were cheaper). Only saw one comp, on Saturday. Sadly we missed girls jumping, as we needed like 3 hours to get to Oslo and it was simply too early (instead I followed text transmission while on a train to Oslo). When we arrived to Midtstuen station, obviously we took wrong route to the hill and somehow, through the woods, got to the smaller hills 😂 Anyway, we found the right hill quickly. The comp was not attracting almost any interest at all. Apart from my brother and me, ski jumpers and their families, there were barely a few people. Sometimes bikers would stop and watch for a moment but as the water break start, they would go. The barriers were prepared but not used at all, you could just walk wherever and nobody seemed to care. Nice. The café did not sell all the coffee and waffles they had prepared, so this lady was walking between  people and offering them for free 😀 I cannot eat waffles and my brother didn’t want any (why?) so we politely declined.

It was the first comp of Andreas Stjernen after an injury break, he did nice finishing third. And also gave me a weird look when I was shouting something in Polish to my brother, as he passed me by 😂 I got to see flower ceremony standing right next to Joakim Aune 🤩 And by a coincidence, during the second round we stood behind Marius Lindvik’s… family, I guess? Daniel was there too, not jumping himself but cheering on the ones who did.

WC in Oslo in 2019 I described earlier. I can add that on Saturday there was a snowfall since morning, I’ve almost froze my fingers off (stupidly sensitive hands). Also – seeing a bunch of Norwegians traveling at 9 am to watch cross-country skiing, leaving metro station and already getting drunk, dancing to party music being blasted out of the nearby windows – quite something.

photo from Sunday, with metro station mentioned

Planica 2019 was my very first time seeing ski flying live! Again with Slovenian crew. But because I’m an idiot who did not book place to stay at early enough, had to travel to Kranjska Gora every day from Kranj (like an hour and a half with a bus if I remember correctly) 🙃 Missed evening attractions of Kranjska that way 😅 But back to sj, got to see some really nice flights, personal best results, Ryoyu’s record of Letalnica (holy shit, the excitement that went through the crowd!), last jump of Robert Kranjec’s career (one of childhood faves ❤️),  team Poland’s first ski flying win, Žiga Jelar playing with his band and much more 😀 From personal experience I don’t recommend forgetting sunscreen to Planica. Ended up with sunburn in a shape of sunglasses and a beanie 🙃 And I was really surprised how hot it was in full sun on the stands. It truly turned from snowy winter on Thursday to full spring on Sunday. Felt like spending two seasons there in just four days 😀

 CoCs in Szczyrk and Wisła in 2019 were basically joint events, same week in two nearby towns. First day I went to girls’ event alone, on the next Julia @lewanarta​ joined me. And what sort of sj trip would that be without a fuck up by me? This time, apart from not having courage to approach Virág, who jumped in Szczyrk twice to fifth place (pleasure to see), I could not watch last jumps of second comp and flower ceremony because at the time I was throwing up in the toilet of a bar by the hill 🙃 Took wrong backpack in which I had no painkillers and got surprised by period 🙃🙃🙃 But until that, watching jumpers from the so called ‘river tribune’ was a very pleasant experience.

Also hill in Szczyrk is the very first I was to (and at), in 2005, before it was rebuild to its current state.

Having in memory SGP in Wisła two years earlier, the chill CoC comp without crowds was a nice change. Obviously, it’s Poland, there were still people, but not as many. First day was rainy… But only between rounds and after a comp. And as always, my job was following the comp with text transmission on my phone, while Julia was asking for autographs and taking photos 😀 I’m always trying to follow results during watching live, but it’s almost impossible with all these distractions 😅 And how nice it is to finish day spent on watching ski jumping live with watching ski jumping on tv – Courchevel was the same day 😀

 And finally WC Lahti 2020, the last thing before everything went nuts because of corona. Again with Julia, we’ve planned for a while to go to Finland. First sj related experience we had still in Warsaw – it turned out we’re on the same flight as team Poland. Later, at Helsinki airport, we’ve waited for a bag together with Norwegian xcs and noco teams as well 😀 we’ve been at the Lahti Ski Games since very morning as I wanted to see noco sj part, so we’ve had plenty of time to see the place, small hills, tracks, big hills… Surprisingly, there was no snow, apart from the artificial one produced for the events. Local people seemed a little bit sad because it’s usually naturally snowy around the time of Lahti Ski Games. It also turned out that we were to the 1000th individual comp in World Cup’s history. We’ve met Finnish Tumblr crew and I had an unexpected encounter as among them was a girl that I’ve briefly met in Wisła in 2017! World is a small place, isn’t it? And at the end we’ve had photo together with God of Wind himself. Last occasion, couldn’t let it pass. Oh, and I got a bouquet from flower ceremony 😀 No idea whose, it was given to me by Austrian staff member after team comp 😅

Uf. That was a long one. Congrats and thanks if you’ve read it all ❤️ I’m physically unable to write ‘a little’ 😅

[imagine-nation20]

The Happiest Place On Earth

Summary:During a normal day at work, you’re dragged from your job and into the middle of a supernatural hunt. The happiest place on earth just became the scariest.

Requested By: Anon

Request:omg could I request a supernatural imagine where you work as a disney princess at disneyland (like, Merida or tink or something) and they have a case there and you're like, hmm this seems interesting.. so you just tag along on their adventure? maybe like tfw and chalie because I love charlie so much okay ;-; and take care of yourself okydoky?? <33

Warnings: Mentions of blood and violencem, graphic descriptions of a crime scene, minor swearing

A/N: This request has been in my inbox for so long and I feel so bad. I hope you like it though!! I tried not to specify which character the reader plays so that it gives more leeway for whoever is reading it. I haven’t seen SPN is so long so this is gonna be a cringe party.

~~~

“Disneyland?” Dean asked, whipping around to face his brother. Sam sat, staring at the email displayed on his laptop.

“That’s what Charlie said,” Sam sighed out. He turned the laptop around to Dean, letting him skim over the beginning of the message.

“What does she think it is?” 

“Werewolf.” The younger Winchester stood, closing the top of the laptop. Dean sat down in one of the uncomfortable motel chairs, kicking his legs up. His left hand came up to scratch the back of his neck, fingers brushing his hairline.

“Why does she need our help?”

“Dean...”

“Yeah yeah, I know we have to go, but I don’t have to be happy about it.”

—

The costume wasn’t pleasant. You were sure that other actors or actresses had it worse, some not indoors at the moment, with the hot sun beating down. Still, the wig was itchy and your were sure you were sweating around the edges of it.

“Walking time starts in ten,” Your staff member for the day, Amelia, said. Her rosy cheeks were even redder than usual, the heat bringing the color to her face. 

You nodded, moving to finish up your makeup. Staring into the mirror, you thought to the rumors spreading through the park. There was a knew ride being built, one that was supposed to have opened last week, but was pushed back when a worker had been killed inside. Torn apart, everyone said, but something else was going on. The company had said he had been caught in open machinery, but the staff of the park said he had been strewn about the decorations, and nowhere near any machines. And they were right. It had been a sight that made you puked and gag when you had discovered it. 

The blood and body parts strewn about may have well been enought to turn even the most season CSI’s stomach.

“Time to go,” Amelia interrupted, pulling you from your thoughts, It relieved you, to not be forced to think about it for lack of a better pass time. 

You stood, stepping out of the door to the room and following Amelia. You would be walking around the entrance to the castle today, so not far and not for long. If you were being honest, the idea of being out there with the threat of more deaths that would be brushed off as accidents scared you. Sent a chill down your spine at the thought of ending up like the worker.

The worst thought yet being that someone had meticulously torn him part and draped him over the ride. Maybe they would come for you next, as a way to tie up loose strings.

The thought alone was nightmare fuel.

~~~

“I hate this place,” Dean grumbled, dodging past a screaming kid.

“Weren’t you the one who begged Dad to take you that year we were here in California?” Sam retored, raising a brow at his brother. Dead scoffed, sending the taller brother a look.

“Yeah, when I was ten,” He scowled at a passing Mickey actor. “Now it just smells like piss, disappointment, and shitty food.”

Weaving through the crowd, Sam shook his head.

“The park manager said that there was only one person who saw the body before the cops arrived. They found the worker the night he died, and all we have to do is ask them a few questions and then we can come back tonight.”

“I’m having fun,” Charlie popped up out of nowhere, hair pulled up into a high ponytail to relieve her neck of the summer heat. “Have you tried the churros?”

“Focus, Charlie.” Dean grumbled, pulling the churro she held in front of his face from her hand. He stared at it only a moment before sighing and taking a bite. Charlie only grinned, practically skipping down the walkway.

Sam chuckled, pointing across the way to where an actor was taking pictures with a kid. “That's them.”

“Let’s get this over with,” Dean said around another bite of churro.

~~~

The summer sun was becoming almost unbearable as yet another child approached you, begging for a picture. The smile never left your face though, fake or otherwise. You wouldn’t have taken the job if you didn’t love the look of absolute adoration on the children’s faces that you got when they looked up to you.

The line dispersed suddenly, two gentlemen in suits and a redheaded woman in normal clothes approached. They flashed a badge, to Amelia, and she leaned to the other worker, whispering.

“Come with us, away from the crowds,” She said to the three people, motioning for you to follow. Confused was an understatement of how you felt, but you knew what this was probably about. Though, why they felt the need to question you again was unknown.

Once away from the park goers and in a place with ample air conditioning, you sat, looking up at the three people while Amelia and the other worker left.

“You’re here about that worker I found, aren’t you?” You asked, looking down at your hands as you fiddled with them. The tallest of the men nodded, smiling down at you gently.

“We heard the detectives had already questioned you, but we had a few of our own.” He showned his badge, and the sight of the letters ‘FBI’ was enough to have you reeling back.,

“Federal agents? But don’t you guys only work on special cases, like serial killers and people like that?” The other man, shorter and meaner looking, nodded, taking a slight step towards you.

“Yes, we have reason to believe this isn’t the first time the person responsible has done something like this.” His voice was gruff, not wasting any time in being gentle with his words.

“I thought it was being ruled as an accident?”

“It has, but we are just being thorough,” The woman cut in, and awkward smile plastered on her face. You knew a fake smile when you saw one.

“Bullshit, and you aren’t feds.” You said bluntly, standing up with a bored look on your face. The woman looked surprised, while the two men shared a glance.

“Why do you say that?” The taller asked nervously. 

You tilted your head in a ‘seriously?’ manner, motioning to where he put his badge. “Your name on your badge says ‘Geralt Rivia’, who it the main character of The Witcher. Plus, I know acting when I see it. Especially shitty acting.”

The shorter one opened his mouth in protest, but the woman cut in. Her eyes were wide, voice quick. “We are monster hunters and we think the worker was killed by a werewolf.”

“Charlie!” The taller one hissed, turning to the girl. She shrugged, motioning to you.

“She was already onto us, and plus, we need someone who knows the park and the workers!” She moved across the room to you, who still stood stock still, eyes wide. “Do you know anyone who has been acting strange, or acts strange about once a month, Maybe even misses a few days.”

You snorted, shrugging. “Any woman with a period.”

“We mean around the full moon.”

You thought about it, going over all the workers who you knew. There weren’t many who would risk missing any days, and even fewer who didn’t act weird on a regular bases. All of you were incredibly close, and weren’t afraid to be odd with each other. One person, however, did come to mind, one that made sense now that you thought about it.

“The man killed, Thomas, was dating one of the other workers until recently. They broke up when she found out he was cheating, but everyone thought they were over it. She mostly just ignored his presence.” You moved around them to the door.

“Who?” Charlie asked?

“The girl who led us here, Amelia.”

The two shared a look, nodding to you. “Then I think we should be asking Amelia a few questions.” The taller said. He walked over to you, holding out a hand to shake.

“Sam Winchester, and this is my brother Dean.” He motioned to the still angry looking shorter brother. You smiled at them, strained but still an honest smile.

“I’m (Y/N).”

[cosmosfated]

  TWENTY SEVEN DAYS.  That’s how long he had stayed in the ward.

  Just shy of a month, just shy of four weeks.

  It wasn’t bad, per se. The people were... nice. They understood, though Fleur knew it was one of their jobs to understand to the best of their ability. The people that he was with also were extremely nice, when they weren’t having their own troubles. He wasn’t sure whether or not to expect the worst or go into it with high hopes. He wasn’t sure whether to be himself there or to be a bit more restrained, in order to trick people into thinking he was better off than he was, better off than he knows people thought he was supposed to be.

  He remembers going into it afraid. He remembers walking into that establishment and having his guardian, having Whisper sign him up for the psychiatric ward for care and being afraid for his life. He’d never been in one of these before. He didn’t know what to expect. And oh, this was long before his madness had taken a grip on him again. So there wasn’t that to worry about (yet). He remembers being afraid of the walls. The staff. The fellow people in the ward with him. 

  They told him to relax, and he remembers being even more afraid for a couple days. His roommate was a lovely lady that couldn’t have been older than twenty one, human;   Fleur didn’t ask her reasons for being here, she didn’t ask his, they left it where it was. She introduced herself as Cass. Cass said she had been there for months now. She told him that the staff would take great care of him, but she couldn’t really help the fear of being there for a first time. It’s a bit scary, she had told him. Being here when you’re so young. Being here and being part of the media. She had smiled then and said yes, she knew of him from the television, from the news, but she doesn’t judge. The two of them made fast friends. He really liked Cass. She was a nice introduction. Three days in, she was someone irreplaceable to him.

  Five days in, he was starting to settle into the routine. Taking his medicine was normal. Going to therapy was normal. Talking to someone about what was really bothering him, now that was hard. No one really believed him. That’s why he kept being told that he had stay longer than the two weeks initially. Dying countless times, the death of innocents on your hands, madness so sickening that it would make a chill run down your back, eldritch abominations, pacts with keepers, enchanted weapons, other worlds. Who would believe him? He’s practically gone insane in their eyes. He eventually gave into their words and said they were just dreams. Just dreams that he had due to the medications. Dreams and nightmares. Oh how does he wish that was all it was. 

  And of course, there was... not hurting himself.

  Nightmares is all they were. That’s what he told them. That’s what they wanted to hear, in the first week and a half. For that first little while, that’s what they were. Nightmares that made him unable to get restful sleep. Waking up in the middle of the night, frightened and tossing and turning, but nothing more. They were being frightfully nice to him. It scared him. 

  And then one night after about a week and a half, his magic flared up and he lashed out against the staff that were trying to help him calm down. He had dug his magically enhanced claws into his skin and tore down, clawed away at himself. Clawed, clawed, clawed away until he could feel nothing but numbness and blood down his arms and chest and the wounds glowed with purple light against his will. The burn of Perseverance was agony and beautiful wonder when he wanted to feel anything, just anything against the moonlight and emptiness, but it still burned and he wanted it to stop. Maybe that’s when the staff there finally began to learn that he wasn’t joking. That he was telling the truth about at least some of it. 

  A part of him howled and laughed and cried all at once towards the moonlight, and he could see Cass out of the corner of his vision that night, and she looked... scared. Not of him, but rather for him. It was a strange feeling, seeing someone being afraid for him instead of being afraid of him. So he laughed and laughed and laughed some more, howled like a madman as his mind threatened to break underneath the weight of his LV that even just a smidgen more would tip over the edge into madness. They didn’t get him to calm down for at least two hours, but when they finally got him to calm down, it was sudden. With a crash into sudden serenity and awareness of self. With staring at the people around him and apologizing for causing a ruckus and trying to give his word to prevent from doing that again. 

  The very next day, he was in and out of tests. So many tests. They thought he was struggling with some version of brief psychotic disorder that is so strong when it shows up that it disrupts everything that he’s doing and can cause him and everyone around him harm. Thus the reason for extended stay, yet again. More days, more concern, more days without his phone, without contact with the rest of the world, without his garden, without his pokemon, without his friends.

  It’s so suffocating.

  Cass had approached him after a few days of extensive therapy and tests and medicine treatment with a snack, though she had checked with the doctors to see if she could offer it to him in the first place. “Hey, Fleur. You look like you’re ran pretty ragged.”

  He looked up from his place at the bed, still scratching at the bandages that are irritating the places where he had scratched himself rather raw. “There’s so many tests. I’ve tried to explain what that episode was. They don’t believe me. My medicine is fine. I don’t think I’m psychotic... mad, maybe... wait, is that the same thing as psychotic?”

  Cass laughed, somewhat awkwardly. “I... can’t speak for that, but it may fall on the spectrum?” She took a seat on the chair nearby, resting her head on the palm of her hand.

  Fleur sighed rather heavily, taking the snack, a nice apple, and bites into it.

  “You know, you definitely look healthier than when you came in here.” Cass said after a few minutes of silence. “You’re probably still afraid of this place, I would be too in your situation, but... you seem like you’re getting better. You might be out in a month or so. As long as you’re recovering nicely from whatever put you in here to begin with. You know?”

  He went quiet, thinking about what he knows put him in here to begin with. Too much to think about, there. Too much to consider. Too much to put him in the ground. He’s actually kind of glad that he considered doing this, but he’s also nervous that because he had that meltdown, they won’t let him out of here. Not until they figure out what’s wrong with him, at least, and that might be forever. He shuddered. Don’t consider that. “I know. Thanks, Cass.”

  Another few days go by.

  The tests started calming down. They all seem satisfied with some answer they’ve gotten from him. He doesn’t know what they’ve gotten out of him, his answers haven’t changed, but maybe they’ve just found something they’ve come to accept. Or maybe they’ve just come to accept that he’s a little off his rocker. That would be bad for him. Worry gnaws at him, now. 

  He didn’t really know what to do with the information that they had gotten some of what they intended to get from him. It meant that he had complied with what they wanted. It meant something bad, usually. It meant something had gone wrong. That’s what it meant for doctors! That’s his experiences with doctors! The worry grows. But nothing happens, not for a while. Therapy continues. Medicine continues. Friends are easy.

  Smiling is easy.

  Around a week until he left, he had another lapse of reality. 

  But this one, he was unresponsive to everything outside of himself for hours on end. Nothing could get through to him. Not music. Not touch. Not even the mention of family members or friends. He was growling and snapping and snarling at everything and everyone that came close to him, sometimes whimpering, for the entire time he wasn’t himself. He only snapped out of it after a few hours and then sat down and apologized for another hour, claiming that he didn’t know what he was doing, that he didn’t have any control over himself. In reality, he truly didn’t. But they didn’t know anything about that. 

  They put him through some more tests and more therapy. He didn’t see Cass for a while after that. He did notice Cass looking much more tired after seeing him like that though... he had wondered why but he didn’t have the chance to ask before he was ushered into a different room.

  After a few days of being taken care of, he heard talk about being given leave to go home. His spirits soared, but then they sank again. It’s been so long. He had gotten used to people taking care of him. How could he get used to taking care of himself again? It would be so difficult. He’d need help. So much help. How could he bear to rely on them for something like this? Fear took over. How could he do something like that to them?

  “Cass?”

  She had looked up, the hour before he was due to be discharged. “What’s up, party boy?”

  “... What if I just end up back here?”

  “Well. You know you’ve got a friend here.”

  Fleur smiled. He does, doesn’t he? That’s a little less scary. “Thanks, Cass.”

  Upon seeing his soulmate again, he couldn’t hold anything back. He wants to go home. He wants to go back to see his sister, his sibling. His garden. His pokemon. He wants to see his friends. He wants to see everything that he’s missed. He’ll do whatever it takes to stay better.

  He’ll do whatever it takes. He’ll get better, and stay better. He hopes.

[elsarah]

Favorite clips of s5

Thank you so much @smblmn​ for tagging me, I love the idea! While the season as a whole was kinda underwhelming, it was full of amazing clips and I do have a lot of favorites. Here’s my top 10 and a few honorable mentions. I tend to have one favorite clip by episode, except for episode 8, which I REALLY didn't like. I didn't rank my picks, I'll just list them chronologically.

And since I didn't have the opportunity this season, I'm also making gifs to illustrate my picks :) I need the practice, as you can see.

Ep.1: Samedi 0:25 - Le choc

One of my favorite things this season has been the symbolism and the metaphors around sound and silence. In the first episode, there were 2 occurrences: Arthur seeing Noée for the first time underwater at the pool and him looking in the street as snow falls and slowly realizing he's gone deaf. I thought this was an amazing idea and that it gave disability more depth and beauty.

And that look at the camera in the last seconds… And the piano music… It was so chilling.

Ep. 2: Jeudi 20:59 - La nuit de

Globally, the scenes at the association were my favorites, even though I have a complicated relationship with them. Before shooting started in October, someone from the crew promised they would invite me on set during the filming of these scenes, but they ended up breaking their promise. I try to be as drama free as possible on the internet so I didn’t talk about it publicly but now that the season has ended I’m like “Why should I bottle this up, I’m not the the one who screwed up and I’m still hurt about it”.

The first time I watched that clip in January, I was heartbroken. Not just because of the missed opportunity but because I realised I never got to experience what Arthur did; there was no association for me, no one. But I still have a really soft spot for this scene because it's just gorgeous. The aesthetic is incredible and I totally understand what Arthur feels (minus the alcohol). Overall, as bittersweet as it is, it's probably one of my top 3 scenes this season (and it looks like it's one of David's too, this man has great taste). I can’t help but feel for the teenager I was and I wonder how I would have felt watching it then.

Ep.3: Vendredi 13:12 - Check de frérot

Arthur and Basile's friendship was one of the highlights of this season, heck Basile WAS the highlight of this season. Basile and Arthur never shy away from hugs and I'm living for it. I'm so looking forward to see more of Basile in season 6 (since I guess we'll see more of his relationship with Daphné). I loved seeing him be so well-intentioned, despite his usual clumsiness. Seeing Paul in a more serious register (for instance when Arthur lashed out at the boys in episode 6) was delightful.

Ep 4.: Lundi 19:02 - Les entendants

This one also belongs in my top 3. This is the representation I was looking for when I learned Skam France would tackle hearing loss and deafness. It doesn't come in the same package for everybody, and I love that they tried to show it through so many different characters. The situations described here are universal among deaf people.

On a more personal note, I loved that the extras were actual deaf people and sone of them well known. The lady interpreting is Jennifer Lesage-David, co-director at IVT, and she helped David and Niels a lot this season. And the girl speaking about her relationship with her dad is Lulu, she has a YouTube channel with her sister where they raise awareness about hearing loss. The instagram post that was published that day also featured a lot of people I more or less know.

Watching this clip was an experience in itself. I was attending a conference that night about deaf TV archives. The clip dropped 2 minutes before it started and I had to wait for it to end to finally watch. It was excruciating. Also, half the staff of IVT was there and I actually ended up watching the clip in front them. There were like "Wait? Jennifer was in Skam?".

Ep.4: Vendredi 20:43 - Ma vie a changé

While I'm still sceptical about No��e falling in love with Arthur so quickly (this sign song is unambiguous), I think this is one of the most beautiful scenes in the whole series. I don't care very much about this being romantically coded, I just choose to focus on the sign song, because I'm so happy they featured deaf visual arts.

My friend and I spent hours trying to decipher what the song could be about and our interpretation differed a lot from Winona's original text but we loved doing this. David was curious to see how my friend would understand it (especially the part where Noée signs a growing love which she cradles) and he was so happy when she understood it right.

For those interested, here’s what we interpreted (roughly translated into English):

Like two souls lost in the storm, Swayed by the tide, Never really seeing each other Until ours eyes meet. Something is growing inside me, something new, That sets my heart beating. You take off my mask and the truth in your eyes, Fills my heart. Look at me, I also see you.

Ep.6: Mercredi 18:31 - Un simple bout de métal

Also one of the scenes I was expecting the most this season, especially when it transpired that Noée was a bit radical. Her letter echoes my own fears and I thought it was really on point. Arthur admitting he needs her made my heart melt, he's so lucky to have met her. And Winona was amazing in that clip.

Ep.7: Vendredi 20:31 - Sourd dating

Just like for "Un simple bout de metal", I was also expecting that scene. I like that they made Noée and Camille voice their opinion like both faces of the same coin. It was a great way to address cochlear implants as they're a sensitive topic in the deaf community. I think this is one of the most shining example of the research work they did. They could have just stopped at Noée’s letter. But since they had deaf actors like Lucas, who is also implanted and has faced prejudices from radical Deaf people in the past, they had to show implants were not evil and that the situation was more complex than just “Doctors who want to act as gods”.

Learning Noée’s backstory was also interesting, although I didn’t expect her to be an "ex-implanted" deaf. She explains that she learned sign language at the association, which can't be more than 3-4 years ago (and if you look closely in ep 3, when Arthur checks the website, she says she joined the association at its beginning), but there's no way Noée would have that proficiency in sign language in just 4 years of practice. Winona's fluency in sign language is clearly that of someone who grew up with it. I loved being able to notice these subtleties.

Like all the clips at the association, it was a joy to watch because of the atmosphere and the sign language. The deaf extras were lovely. I actually got to meet a few of them last month and had an amazing time with them.

Ep.9: Vendredi 20:17 - Choisir pour toi

Coline. singing. Do I need to say more? I like that both Noée and Alexia had their shining moment and as clumsy as the story got, I appreciate that the writers didn't try to pin one girl against the other and make one superior. Noée had her sign song and Alexia her own composition. And both were breathtaking. What really gets me in this scene are the colors. I'm a sucker for aesthetics.

And of course, it was great to see Alexia stand her ground and break up with Arthur. I have nothing but respect for her and I'm team Alexia + happiness all the way.

Ep.10: Lundi 10:04 - La même vie que vous

When Melchior, Laura and the brochure subplot was introduced, I was a bit wary because their introduction scene was really, really awkward (it wasn't very well tied at first). By their second scene, at Arthur's place, I was sold. It was great to address accessibility and show that there's no point putting people with disabilities in the same bag, because there are hundreds of them and the needs are different. What doesn't change is our wish to live our life at the fullest, just like abled people. And this scene was precious. Seeing Arthur endorse this new part of him and support his peers was everything.

Ep.10: Vendredi 20:47 - Le meilleur des mondes

I'm still very emotional about this scene. Like… I don't know what to say, the music still sends shivers down my spine.

Honorable mentions :

Ep.1: Mardi 11:59 - 3, 2, 1,…

One of the only things Robin told me about the season when I met him at IVT was that the first clip would drop on New Year's Eve at 11:59 p.m.. That date became a beacon during fall and oh you wouldn't believe how much I waited for that clip to drop and how much I was looking forward to it. And it freaking delivered. The atmosphere, the tense music, that first shot on the loudspeaker, the confetti clogging it gradually… That teaser was a masterpiece.

Ep.2: Like… the whole episode actually. The alarm clock concept was genius.

Ep.4: Samedi 10:15 - Nouveau style

One of these gorgeous clips without dialogues that still say lots.

Ep.5: Samedi 10:03 - Maîtriser le langage

Oh my, this one was so relatable and a joy to watch. Camille explaining that sign language and mimes are different, Arthur being that dimwit asking about swear words and being told off for speaking… Kuddos to the deaf extras who had to pretend they didn't know any sign language, it was so funny (looking at you, Enzo).

Ep.6: Samedi 8:30 - Mythos

Seeing Arthur lashing out at his friends was cathartic. He roasted them so well, I wished I had his ability to speak so well when I'm angry. A+ work.

Ep.6: Dimanche 14:41 - Envie de rien

Alexia being the real MVP, as always.

Ep.7: Samedi 2:15 - Pool Party

It’s strange, because even though a lot of the story went down in this particular episode, it must be one of my favorites, like… tied with episode 2. It has probably a lot to do with the fact there were mostly deaf characters and that they had so much fun together. It’s something I can relate do, the sheer joy of signing the night away, which is something I didn’t get to experience until very recently.

As gorgeous as the underwater scene is, I'm not a fan of Noée and Arthur's almost kiss. I picked this scene because I love the moment of sheer joy that follows; everyone joining in the pool and having fun together. And of course the rise of Camika. I know it's a bit convoluted to have the two openly gay guys fall for each other first time they meet but… it just worked so well.

Ep.9: Mercredi 21:34 - Frère

This clip was about to make the top 10 cut when I remembered about another one and I had to remove it. Just Basile being lovely Basile.

Ep.9: Jeudi 17:30 - T'es pas tout seul

This clip was so important, bless the nurse and bless Jérôme. I wish Jérôme was my audiologist, to be honest.

Ep.10: Samedi 13:39 - Maman

Arthur's mom was so lovely and I'm so sorry she had to go through this shit with her trashcan of a husband. I liked her relationship with her son and her reassuring him he's not like his father was very soothing. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Arthur at the end of this season and I appreciate he’s well looked after after what he went through.

Ep.10: Jeudi 17:46 - Recommencer

Just like "Nouveau style" from ep 4, it's another one of these silent clips that has lots of meaning. Arthur putting back his glasses, slowly accepting his life won't be the same and that he has to move on. Except now things are clearer. Skam France love its symbolism and while sometimes it's very poorly done (like the love triangle emphasizing on Arthur's balancing between two worlds), more often than not it's very compelling.

Now I want to rewatch everything, so see you soon I guess :)

[mnemememory]

sweet little lamb

(part 1)

beauty in the beast au; where jester is a teapot, caleb is a candelabra, and yasha is an evil demon (except she's really not)

.

Beau exists in a perpetual state of making bad decisions. 

At least, according to her mother. Beau’s gotten good at tuning out the rants about coming home late, coming home drunk, coming home with hickeys on her neck or not bothering to even come home at all. Beau spends most of her nights crashing on couches with people she hadn’t known before that evening. The village of Kamordah is small, but the city located just an hour out certainly isn’t. Every time Beau leaves behind the stink of a thousand people, she feels a little less herself.

Still. She hadn’t actually expected them to kick her out.

“Hey,” she yells, banging on the door. The locked door. They even moved the spare key out from under the doormat. “I’m back! Let me in!”

Nothing.

Beau scowls and kicks at the doorframe one more time, before turning and stuffing her hands into her pockets. She looks around at the street. Thankfully, it’s still early enough that no one was out and about to witness her inglorious disownment. Apparent disownment. If they want to get rid of Beau, they’re going to have to look her in the eyes and say it. If anything, she wants to be able to punch someone before the village police are called.

The neighbourhood is already fairly used to bursts of random shouting coming from wherever Beau turns out to be, so no one rushes out to demand Why are you awake at this ungodly hour of the morning? The answer is, obviously, Beau is drunk off her ass and wanted a nice place to sleep tonight. It is her birthday, after all.

Well. It had been her birthday, right up until midnight last night. She is officially eighteen years and one day old. Hurray.

Beau can just imagine what her mother would say now: “I can’t believe you’ve managed to survive this long.” Even in Beau’s imagination, she’s dressed immaculately, holding tight to her little brother’s hand. “Given how often you’ve tried to drink yourself – and us – into an early grave.”

Beau doesn’t drink that much. Her mother tends to overexaggerate for comedic effect, especially when the neighbours were involved. Beau can’t count how many times she’s hidden at the top of the staircase as her mother entertained guests, listening to the horrible things they said about each other. Your daughter certainly is a handful, was often the topic of conversation. I heard she –

It was different, every time, but the tone never changed. Beau always thought it funny how different they sounded when they thought no one was listening.

“I can’t believe this,” she says, kicking at the sidewalk and stubbing her toe. She spits out a few curses that her mother would have killed her for had she uttered them around her baby brother, and then collapses onto the hard ground. She spreads her limbs out like a starfish. Beau is just intoxicated enough to know that this is a bad idea but not particularly care. If someone runs me over with a cart, she thinks, then at least my death will be as messy and inconvenient as possible.

She wonders what her parents would tell her little brother. Maybe he’d wake up early, like he always seemed to do. Maybe they wouldn’t catch him fast enough to stop him from looking at her mangled corpse. People died all the time in villages like hers, where hygiene came in the form of bi-weekly bathes and soap strong enough to give sensitive skin chemical burns, but her little brother hadn’t really been in the forefront of all that.

Beau stares up at the stars. She counts the specks of light until she loses track, until the sunlight starts to bleach the sky pale. It’s cloudless and beautiful. The weather is perfect. Of course it is.

(It had been raining yesterday. Beau can already feel the water pooling in-between the cobblestone cracks, soaking into her jacket and chilling her to the bone.

Of course the weather was perfect for her little brother’s birthday, but not for hers. Of course).

“You’re looking rather down, young lady,” someone says.

Beau opens her eyes. There is a man standing above her, silhouetted by the rising sun. He’s a drow, his long tattered black cloak pulled loosely around a set of grey leather armour. There’s a blue cloth wrapped around the lower half of his face, obscuring everything but his eyes. Yellow eyes.

Very slowly, Beau sits up. There’s still no one around, which is odd but not unusual. It’s the day after a festival, after all. People were probably still nursing off their hangovers in the comfortable cool darkness of their own homes.

“What do you want?” she says, reaching up to press a hand to her forehead. Gah. That was such a bad idea. Now the world is spinning. As much fun as it would be to get robbed just outside her parents house, she doesn’t exactly feel like mugging some poor random to get back whatever shreds of her dignity remained.

The man seems to smile down at her. It’s a little hard to tell, with the only reference she has being the slight upward curve of his glowing eyes. “I was just passing through,” he says. “Thought you might be in a bit of trouble.”

Urgh. “No,” Beau says, bracing herself. She jumps to her feet without too much wooziness, which she’s going to count as a win. “Everything’s fine. Nothing to see here.”

“Is that so,” the man says.

“I haven’t seen you around before,” Beau says, flexing her fingers. She bends down again to grab her staff. “You here for the festival?”

“You could say that,” the man says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Beau says. “I don’t speak bullshit.”

“On the contrary, I expect that’s the only language you do speak.”

Beau lunges forward. “Excuse –”

He’s gone.

Beau whirls around at the sound of mocking laughter. The drow is standing behind her, eyes in half-moons, arms crossed. He’s leaning casually against the pole of a streetlamp.

Twirling her staff, Beau rushes him. She lands a blow with a sickening crack, following up with her fists –

Only to hit the pole. Beau’s knuckles bounce off the metal, numb.

“I’m here to collect a debt,” the man says. He’s still behind her. How did he manage to get behind her again?

“I don’t owe you shit,” Beau says. “I don’t even know who you are.”

The man tuts. “I think you owe quite a few people you don’t know quite a few things,” he says. “That speakeasy you opened up in the city certainly hasn’t been making bank on generous donations from wealthy benefactors, after all.”

“You’re here about the Mighty Nein?” Beau says, clenching her teeth. “What are you, a tax collector?”

“Well, you certainly don’t pay for all that alcohol,” he says. “But no. In this, you’re not incorrect. You don’t know who I am. But I certainly know who you are, Miss Lionett.”

Beau briefly closes her eyes. She shifts around her grip on her staff. “Is this something Dad owes you?”

The man lifts up his hand, like he’s ringing an imaginary bell. “Ding! And your father insisted on you being slow. No, I think you’re just the intelligence level I need for this.”

“For what?” Beau says, and then snaps into a flurry of blows. He’s gone before she can even land a glancing hit, which is nothing if not a blow to her pride.

“Just a little job I need done,” he says. Beau doesn’t turn around this time. She looks from side to side, mind frantically working out some new strategy. There’s still no one outside, despite the sun being well above the buildings by now. Festival or no festival, the harvest must be tended. Beau’s father would skin anyone who thought about skipping a day of work because of too much late-night partying. Beau would know. She’s borne the brunt of one-too-many early-morning shouting matches over that exact situation.

“I don’t work for assholes,” Beau says.

“And yet you work for your father,” he says.

Beau grins into the distance, sharp as a knife. “I wouldn’t say I work for him exactly.”

The man snaps his fingers. “Of course! What I meant was ‘embezzle’! But that’s not important right now, Miss Lionett. I’m here because I was promised something very valuable in return for services rendered, say – hmm. Eighteen years ago?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Beau says.

“Why doesn’t it surprise me that Thoreau Lionett never mentioned how he came into his wealth?”

Beau stops short. “You can’t be.”

“Oh, he did mention me. How delightful.”

Beau spins on her heel to stare at him. “You were the one who told him to come here. To start making wine.”

“And oh, how he has prospered,” he says, holding out his arms wide to encompass the buildings behind him. “And all I asked in return was a promise for help. Eighteen years later, and here I am, seeking to have that promise fulfilled.”

“I didn’t promise you shit,” Beau says.

“But your father did, when I talked to him last night,” the man says. “He suggested that you might be more than capable of killing the beast that hunts in the dark forest. You are decent with that weapon of yours, am I correct? Decent enough to kill a monster?”

Beau narrows her eyes.

“You want me to kill something,” she says. “That’s your repayment. Eighteen years ago, you looked at my Dad – who is pathetic when it comes to weapons – and thought, gee, this guy looks like just the man for the job.”

“I didn’t know I wanted this beast killed eighteen years ago,” the man says. “Now I do.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to believe me,” the man says. He snaps his fingers. His eyes flare an intense gold, and for a split-second Beau can almost see the misshapen shadows of wings burned into the wall behind him. Then the wall is gone, the ground is gone, everything is gone. Beau unbalances and falls down onto her knees, staff automatically digging into – into something to stabilise herself. She blinks heavily and looks around.

They are no longer in the village. Beau cautiously gets to her feet, head still pounding, and looks around at the dense forest that stretches out as far as she can see – which isn’t very far. The trees are packed so closely together that it’s impossible to make out anything from more than three feet away. She takes a step forward and gets her foot tangled up in a web of tree-roots that are just sort of chilling on top of the dirt.

“Find the monster and kill it,” the man says. Beau looks up. He’s sitting in the branches of a tree, lounging casually. “All your father’s debts will be repaid, and I will never trouble your doorstep again.”

“I didn’t agree to this,” Beau howls, stumbling over to kick viciously at the tree trunk. She peels off some sodden, moss-covered bark, but the rest of it is healthy. Mostly she just gets wet for the effort.

“Who knows,” the man says. He sounds almost amused, the jerk. “Maybe it will kill you first. That would certainly be entertaining, if inconvenient.”

“Take – me – back!”

The man snaps his fingers, and he’s gone.

.

Beau would like to say that she handles the situation with maturity and poise.

What she does is yell out every swear-word known to man (and a few only known to halflings) and kick at things until her ankles are swollen and her knees are bloody and damp. It takes her a good ten minutes to calm down. By then, she’s already figured out that she’s probably scared off all the small game in the area and attracted this “monster” for an easy feast.

“What a dick,” she says, trudging in – a direction. A random direction. There are no signs of anything monstrous anywhere, Beau is literally faking this whole thing until she can make it. “What was Dad thinking, listening to someone who won’t even show his face – it’s shady, that’s what it is, and I know Dad isn’t as stupid as he pretends to be –”

Beau keeps walking. And walking. And walking.

There’s some part of her that thinks that maybe she should just – stop? For a little while? Take a break, try to get some bearing on her surroundings. Climb a tree, yeah, that’d be a good idea. Beau is too irritated to be thinking logically, though. Maybe in half an hour. Maybe in an hour.

(It takes two hours and twenty minutes).

“Okay,” Beau says to herself when she’s finally calmed down from her impromptu temper tantrum. She limbers up and looks around for the nearest sturdy-looking tree, which is all of them. There are so many trees here. Beau is starting to feel claustrophobic just thinking about it. “Here I go –”

And then she’s shooting towards the sky.

There’s nothing quite so freeing as parkouring up a tree. Beau can’t quite stop herself from laughing as she twists mid-air, catching onto a low-hanging branch and propelling herself up. She’s at the top almost too soon, but she hasn’t even broken the canopy, so she just jumps onto the closest trunk and keeps going.

It takes a while to find somewhere she can get a decent view from. She clings to the bendy part of the top of the tree and sways with the wind. The sun is already settled comfortably into the centre of the sky, heat tickling the back of Beau’s neck. The view is incredible.

And also – unfortunately – familiar.

“Oh fuck,” Beau says, staring in dismay at the castle which emerges out of the canopy in the distance. It looms, dark even in the sunlight. “That’s what he meant by monster.”

.

Once upon a time…

(“Why do you always start your stories like that, grandpa? Can’t you just tell me when it happened?”

“I don’t always know that. And shh, stop interrupting you impertinent girl. It’ll be worth your while.”)

…there was a girl.

These things always seem to start with a girl. She was beautiful, because all good heroines must be beautiful, and brave, because they must always be brave too. And she fell in love, as beautiful brave girls do, and everything was right in the world.

Only, she fell in love with the wrong person.

Destiny is a funny thing, little girl. She fell in love with teeth and claws and bloodstained blades. There was a Creature stalking in the night, and the girl went outside and made it her friend.

(“That’s stupid. Who would fall in love with something like that?”

“Hush, it’s only a story.”)

And when the time came for the girl to be married to the man chosen for her, she repudiated him and instead ran to the comfort of her Creature. Her family, fearing the worst, hurried after her, and –

(“And? And what? You can’t end things like that!”

“It’s getting late, Beau. I’ll finish this story tomorrow night.”

“Please? Please? Tomorrow is so far away, grandpa.”

“What do you want me to say? The girl dies and the Creature forever haunts the forest. The end.”

“That’s a horrible end.”

“That’s the one I was told, and the one I’m telling you.”

“Make up a better ending, then.”

“Go to sleep, Beau.”)

.

There are stories about the castle.

Of course there are stories about the castle. Kamordah is a small village. There are stories about the well being haunted. There are stories about how Miss-So-And-So definitely killed Mister-So-And-So at that crossroads over there, and if you look on the night of a full moon, you can still see the bloodstains. There are stories about the castle.

Kamordah is surrounded by a forest, as all good villages are want to do. Beau has to trudge through an endless expanse of greenery to get to the city, and has to trudge right back through to return. As with any forest that encompasses more than sixty square feet of shrubbery, people get lost.

It happens. The village has learned to accept that sometimes, people walk too far into the trees and don’t come back for a good few days. Maybe even weeks, depending on how stupid they are. They come back wild-eyed and so scared.

(some of them stay scared for the rest of their lives).

“There’s – there’s something in there,” people say, shaking. Always shaking. “A beast – a monster – I was walking for hours – days – lifetimes – and then there it was. A castle, right out of a fairy tale. Tall enough to touch the sky. Spiked to stab the sun. And there was nothing else, no other way out. I turned around and walked away and it was still there in front of me. And eventually I had to go to the gate.”

Beau used to hide on the side of the staircase, half-hidden by wine barrels and the railing. Her father was the unofficial-official leader of the village, and the police always brought crazy people to his house when they reappeared.

Her father had never seemed surprised at any of the insane ramblings. Beau would peek out between the slats and stare at him, and the policeman, and whatever person for that month was hunched over in a chair.

“Wings,” they would say. “Bat wings – skeletal wings – eyes right out of the fires of hell. A bloodless face.”

“And what happened to you when you went inside?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Beau heard a thousand times. “No matter how far I ran, the castle would always be waiting for me. I opened the gate and that – that thing was there, and it spoke to me, but I can’t remember what it said. It was too horrifying. I passed out.”

(Or, sometimes, if they were more foolish than fearful, it was:

“I opened the gate and it was there, the creature. It spoke, but I don’t remember what it said. Then it led me into the castle. I don’t remember what happened after that, only that it was – it was horrifying beyond words. Please. Please. Don’t make me think about it anymore.”)

They would all walk free the next day, unrestricted by wounds, barely a half-hours straight walk from the village. And they could not stop shaking.

Here’s what everyone knows:

There’s a monster in the castle.

It’ll get you if you wander too far.

.

“Looks like I’m caught,” Beau says to herself, leaning back against the tree and closing her eyes.

That was something everyone had agreed on. Once you saw the castle, there was no escape.

She slides down the trunk and lands on the ground with her knees bent. She doesn’t immediately straighten up, just looks down at the ground with pursed lips and balances her elbows against her knees. She has to think this through.

On one hand – the monster has never really killed anyone. Traumatised, yes. Ruined lives, absolutely. But not necessarily killed.

There’s something she’s missing here. Something that man doesn’t want her to know.

On the other hand…maybe this would do it. Maybe this would be the thing that stopped her father from looking through her. Maybe he would finally see that he fucking owed her for throwing her under the cart like this. Maybe –

Beau leans back and collapses into a cross-legged position, laughing.

“Sure,” she says, grinning up into the green-dappled light of the canopy. “Yeah, that’s gonna do it. Let’s wash the slate clean.” She rolls her eyes.

Beau gets up and brushes herself off. She’s spent the last few years bouncing off from person to person, learning what she could and stealing what she couldn’t. She’s gotten good at reading people, is what she’s saying. And that man had wanted nothing good from her, or from her family. In the loosest sense of the word, of course.

She starts walking forward. It doesn’t matter if she’s walking towards the castle, or away from it. According to the stories, it’ll find her eventually.

And it does.

Beau isn’t surprised when she looks up and sees the castle. Still, it’s a little jarring – she’s been periodically checking the horizon, trying to catch a glimpse of anything off in the distance. There aren’t too many clear spaces between the branches, so she’s working with a very limited amount of vision. She’s careful, and methodical, and it still manages to catch her off guard.

The castle is large. It imposes itself between the spaces of the forest, dark and ominous despite the light. The bricks are old obsidian, chiselled smooth and worn rough. The walls are crumbling in on themselves, the edges uneven and covered in thick layers of ivy. At the front there is a gatehouse, tall and spiked, framed by the two separate towers built into the far edges.

Beau breaks free of the forest and into the clearing, stopping at the edge of the still lake that surrounds the building. Around the sides, the trees are reflected almost perfectly against the dark waters. The only entrance to the castle is the long, thinly arched walkway leading to the front gate.

She wets her lips and unslings her staff from across her back. Okay. Okay. The castle has stepped out of her dreams and made itself stone, surreal and beautiful and imposing.

Beau walks forward.

.

Beau doesn’t remember walking across the moat.

It’s like she’s in a dream, already being pulled too many ways. She’s following flawed logic. The closer she gets, the more muddled her thoughts become, until she’s a hazy mess of thoughts and images. She leans forward, and back, forward, and back, and keeps moving. The Creature who greets her is tall and solidly built, with sad eyes hiding beneath a white mask.

“Beauregard,” it says. “You’ve returned.”

Beau blinks a few times, but nothing comes into focus. She tries to say something, but the words don’t want to come out. All of a sudden, she’s drowning. Her lungs strain under the thick weight of the air.

What’s happening to me? she thinks.

The Creature steps forward as soon as Beau’s feet hit the end of the moat, lifting Beau like she weighs nothing (which is certainly not true, it’s all muscle) and carrying her back towards the Castle.

“It will wear off in a few hours,” it says.

Beau makes a noise in the back of her throat. Mostly she’s trying not to vomit.

“I’ll leave you with Jester until then.”

Which means nothing to Beau. She grabs onto the Creature’s fur coat with all the strength in her inexplicably weakened body. Leaning up into the Creature’s ear, she hisses: “What the hell is going on?”

The Creature stares down at her through the expressionless mask. There are no wings. There is no fire, or blood, or ice. Beau is almost let down by the lack of melodrama – or she would be, if her head would stop spinning.

“You’re here to kill me, aren’t you?” the Creature says. “You’ll want to sleep off the nausea before you do that. I’ve heard it’s rather unpleasant.”

Beau punches the Creature. Tries to.

Embarrassingly enough, she faints.

.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Everything Money Can Buy (4/12)

Summary: The Greatest Store in the World AU. When misfortune strikes and leaves Emma Swan and her son homeless just before Christmas, the ever-resourceful Emma has a ready solution. They’ll move into Mills Department Store, a place they can only dream of affording to buy from. It’s not easy, having to deal with a perpetually grumpy doorman, a nasty assistant manager, and an extremely suspect Santa, but Emma and Henry soon learn that the kindness of strangers is something money can’t buy.

Swan Believer centric, with eventual Swan Queen and background Rumbelle and Dwarf Star.

Rated: G

=====

[One] [Two] [Three] [AO3]

=====

Four

Henry wasn’t really sure what to make of Mum’s plan to camp in Mills until the holidays were over. On the face of it, it seemed like a brilliant idea. There was more than enough space for them, after all, and even if they had to keep dodging Zelena and Gold and various security guards, it wasn’t like there was nowhere to hide. Mum had already proved very good at blending in and getting by with sheer audacity.

Henry couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to go wrong, though. Living out of a department store that they couldn’t afford to buy from seemed fraught with danger. What if they broke something that, unlike the microwave, was actually for sale? What if they ran out of sell-by scones to eat? He didn’t want to confide his fears to Mum, because he knew that they really didn’t have any alternative, and he wanted to go back to the homeless shelter as little as she did.

They had ended up back in the toy section as they waited for the shop to close, and as good a time as Henry had been having with the display models, there was only so much he could do with them whilst the department was still full of other kids and parents frantically searching for the one gift that their child was clamouring for in time for Christmas. The adults were behaving even more badly than the children were, and nowhere was this more embodied than in Santa Claus himself.

Mills had a new Santa this year. For all the previous years that Henry had visited the store during the Christmas period, whilst Santa’s grotto was in residence, their Santa had always been played by the same man, one who had a genuine beard and merry twinkling eyes.

This year’s Santa was a much younger man with a fake beard that kept falling off his chin to show scrappy black stubble underneath. He was also accompanied by a new elf. The previous Santa’s elf had been a jolly little old lady whom Henry was fairly sure was actually Mrs Santa. The new elf was a small, fat man, trailing after Santa as he made his way around the toy department advertising the grotto. They passed Henry and the elf thrust several flyers into his hands. Henry discreetly got rid of them by shoving them under a display of action figures.

There was something very off about this Santa, and it wasn’t the way that he was swaying slightly and smelled rather strongly of rum. In fact, his sack was making a distinct sloshing noise as he swung it around haphazardly, and the elf kept having to duck to avoid being brained with contraband liquor. No, Henry didn’t trust him an inch, and his mistrust was rewarded when Santa came across Mum, who was back sitting in one of the tiny chairs in the corner playing with a Rubik’s cube. It was good to know that Mum was still a kid at heart as well.

“Hey, gorgeous. Fancy a ride on my sleigh?”

He waggled his eyebrows and Mum just gave him a disgusted look.

“I think you might be the worst department store Santa I’ve ever met,” she said conversationally.

“Yeah, well, it’s only a seasonal job,” Santa muttered. “I get much better gigs in the summer.”

“Don’t let the children hear you say that. You’ll be ruining the magic of Christmas for them, and I don’t think that the management would take too kindly to that. I’d be careful if I were you. You don’t want to lose this gig in the winter, however much better your summer ones might be.”

Santa just glowered at her, and moved away, his ho ho hos having lost what little merriness they’d had to start with.

Henry went over to Mum, sitting down on the chair beside her and wondering what to say. He couldn’t really tell her that he was bored, it would be ungrateful. He was in the greatest toy department in the country, probably, surrounded by every toy his heart could possibly desire, but the problem was that he didn’t actually own any of them and at the end of the day, they would all have to go back on their shelves. He wanted his own things, even if they were shabby and worn from years of love. He wanted his own space, his own home. The store was great, but it was nothing like a home. If only they could just go down to their tent and hole up against the world with all their own stuff.

Mum successfully completed the Rubik’s cube and looked over at him.

“You ok?”

“Yep.”

Mum raised an eyebrow and Henry sighed. She was always able to tell when he was lying. Well, she could generally always tell when anyone was lying, which was a useful superpower to have in most situations, but not when she was using it against him.

“Yeah, you’re right, it’s downright depressing here,” she said. “Let’s go downstairs to books. I reckon that as long as we don’t dog-ear them and we put them back on the shelves when we’re done, they wouldn’t notice us taking a couple for personal use for a while.”

Henry could get behind that idea whole-heartedly, and they made their way down to the books section. Just like toys, it was stupidly busy, but at least there were a lot fewer screaming babies and toddlers throwing tantrums in this department. There were even armchairs. Henry made a beeline for the children’s section and was soon wrapped up in the world of fairy tales. Maybe there were some upsides to living in the store after all.

X

Behind the customer service desk, Belle eased one foot out of her stiletto heel and wriggled her toes before replacing it and doing the same on the other side. Whilst she was used to wearing sky-scraping heels on a regular basis, standing up in them for ten hours a day was not something that she would wish on anyone. Christmas was always the worst time for anyone working in retail, be it the cashiers in the food hall or her at the customer service desk. Everyone was always in a bad mood, everyone was always ready to throw down and fight over the slightest perceived annoyance, and no one spared a thought for the poor staff for whom it was also Christmastime, and most of whom didn’t have the cash to splash on anything from the store that they worked at.

Still, however much her feet were hurting her, Belle knew that Alistair had it worse, standing outside in the cold all day, in all weathers. The man must have an immune system made of iron, the elements that he was exposed to. If she’d been in that position she was sure that she’d never be in work due to catching colds and chills and flu all the time. Since everyone’s first impression of Mills was the doorman, it really wouldn’t do for him to be standing there sneezing every five minutes.

She hoped that the handwarmers would help him. She found them to be a godsend herself when she was walking home after work. Belle sighed. She probably shouldn’t be thinking about Alistair quite so much. People would start to talk. In fact, people were already talking. Her friend Leroy from maintenance had been complaining that she should just ask Gold out already before they both died from mutual pining, to which Belle had promptly responded that if she was going to make a move on her crush then Leroy also had to ask out Astrid in the tearoom.

Leroy had somewhat grudgingly stopped mentioning it after that, but Belle did have to admit that he had a point. She was hardly going to get anywhere if she kept dancing around her feelings like this. She’d hoped that giving him the handwarmers earlier would have shown him how she felt, and maybe elicited some kind of reciprocation from him. Leroy maintained that the feelings Belle had were requited, but Belle wasn’t so sure. Alistair had always been closed off and reticent with everyone, and Belle considered it an honour that his usual cool demeanour thawed out a little with her. She knew that he considered her to be a friend, but she couldn’t help wondering if it meant that he considered her slightly more than a friend.

Presently, the man himself came into the shop, rubbing his arms through his coat.

“It’s brass monkeys out there,” he grumbled, stamping his feet to try and get the circulation flowing again and grimacing when the motion jarred his bad ankle. Belle’s heart went out to him; if she’d had a chair she would have offered it to him, but apparently senior management did not approve of chairs. “Thanks for the handwarmers, though.” He took off his gloves and pulled out the sachets. “I’d be losing fingers to frostbite if it wasn’t for them.”

Belle took one; it was still warm and her own hands weren’t exactly scorching after spending all day in the foyer with people constantly coming in and out; letting the central heating out and bringing the cold air in. She was looking forward to a long hot bath when she got home. Maybe by the time she went to bed she’d have thawed out enough to get some sleep.

She looked over at Alistair, and found that he was also looking at her, and they both looked away, embarrassed at being caught. Belle straightened up. This was the perfect moment to ask him, really. There weren’t any customers coming in or out; there was no-one queuing up to complain at her. All she had to do was ask him out. Ask him if he’d like to go for a drink after work.

“Alistair, I…”

“Ah, Mr Gold. Miss French. As much as I hate to break up the party, I do believe that the doorman is supposed to be on the outside of the building?”

Alistair rolled his eyes, grabbing his gloves and the handwarmers off Belle’s desk. Belle just glowered at Zelena. Trust her to come and break up their moment. She had a knack for that. No matter if she had been nowhere near them five minutes before, she had the uncanny ability to know when Belle and Alistair were ‘fraternising on the clock’ so to speak, and she would appear in the nick of time to prevent Belle from ever managing to get the words out.

“You know, Miss West, I’d like to see you stand outside for ten hours and see how you get on with it,” Alistair said.

“Well, unlike you, Mr Gold, that’s not what I’m being paid to do.” She made little shooing motions towards the door and Alistair moved away, back towards the bleak December streets. He made a rude gesture at Zelena’s back as he left, and Belle couldn’t help but giggle.

“There’s really nothing funny about it, Miss French,” Zelena said. “You shouldn’t be distracting your colleagues. It sets an extremely bad example, and as I’m sure you’re aware, it’s almost Christmas. What does Christmas mean, Miss French?”

“Christmas means customers,” Belle intoned. It was the mantra that Zelena drilled into them every day at the staff briefing. Christmas means customers, and the customers are always right. Customers pay your wages, so they must be treated as if they’re God’s gift to humanity.

Sometimes, Belle thought that senior management might well be worse than the customers themselves. She often got the impression that Zelena would stake out the shop looking for potentially unhappy customers and then persuade them to complain, just so that she could get her money’s worth out of Belle.

Every Christmas, Belle swore that it would be the last one that she worked in retail for. Every Christmas found her living a lie. At least at Mills the money was much better than in the previous places she’d worked, but really, all customers were the same when you got down to it. For all the Mills clientele were the crème de la crème, their manners were just as shocking as everyone else’s when they were complaining. In fact, more so, most of the time, since they worked on the principle that money gave them a license to behave however they pleased.

Belle sighed, trying not to feel bitter, but it was hard. Too many festive seasons spent listening to people far richer than her scream at her that she had personally ruined their Christmas had made her lose the faith in humanity that she’d tried to hold onto for so long. Maybe that was why she sought solace with Leroy and Alistair so much. They had to deal with the ungrateful public just as much as she did, and to the public, they were invisible, the door holders and the microwave menders, of no note to the customers, who were naturally the most important people in the universe, and boy, did they know it.

Speaking of important customers, though… Belle caught sight of the mother and son (at least, she assumed they were a mother and son) that she had met earlier when she’d taken the handwarmers out to Alistair. They were coming down the stairs into the foyer, and she could have sworn she’d already seen them going up and down a few times today already.

Well, it wasn’t unusual for people to make a day of a shopping trip in Mills and go from top to bottom of the store and back again to make sure they hadn’t missed any of it, but they seemed to be suspiciously free of bags. In fact, they’d lost the bags they came in with somewhere.

Belle wondered, because the more she thought about it, the more she remembered seeing them come in the previous day as well, still laden down with all their baggage.

Unlike some more naturally suspicious souls would be, Belle wasn’t worried about them being shoplifters. In her experience, the people who stole from Mills were either professionals who stole to order for customers who could no longer afford the luxuries to which they had become accustomed, or people who could well afford what they were taking but who nevertheless baulked at the price and felt that since their haggling didn’t work, they’d just take it anyway. If you were desperate enough to have to steal to survive, then there was no way that you’d steal from Mills. The goods would be too hard to shift and would be completely useless. If you were living hand to mouth then you needed basic essentials; Belle knew that from experience after her father had lost his livelihood and she’d been breadwinning for the both of them. Mills provided a lot of things, but basic essentials wasn’t really one of them.

The pair coming down the stairs looked around furtively then ducked down towards the basement, and it made Belle wonder. Living in a department store was better than living on the streets, after all, especially so close to Christmas. Although she had no intention of telling another soul about her suspicions, she vowed to keep an eye out for them, just in case. She didn’t have all that much to spare, but she could help them out in her own way.

[fluffy-marshmallow-heart]

Drake's Diary ch.24 -Meet Me In Shanghai

The Royal Romance canon from Drake's POV

Words: 5547

The Engagement tour arrives in Shanghai

Master List (catch up here)

Drake hovers in the back of the group in the towering grove of bamboo. It had been a long flight to Shanghai, which he shared with Liam and Madeleine, and the entire time he felt like he was in hell. Liam and Madeleine argued the entire flight, and when not arguing, were giving each other icy glares. It definitely topped his list of worst flights ever. Once they arrived, Liam split off with the diplomats, leaving Drake behind. He shifts uncomfortably until he finally sees Emma arriving with Maxwell.

He grinned. “I was wondering when you’d make it Rose.”

“Looks like we’re just in time.” She replied, nodding towards Liam.

  King Liam steps out at the front of the crowd and clears his throat. Madeleine joins him as everyone quiets down, turning to listen. As he began speaking, Drake immediately tuned out, watching Emma from the corner of his eye. She was taking his breath away, wearing a wispy light blue ethereal gown, which floated lightly with the breeze.

“…… Now, if you’ll all follow our hosts…” Liam nods respectfully to a group of staff members in matching slacks and shirts. A man in a suit, standing in front of all of them, bows.

Drake leaned over to whisper in Emma’s ear. “I swear none of the bamboo looked this tall from the outside…”

Maxwell nodded. This place would make even Bertrand feel chill.”

“Where is he anyway? I thought he’d be on the plane with you.” Hana observed.

Maxwell frowned. “The last time I saw him was at Liam’s bachelor party. He texted me to say he was going to talk to Savannah, but since then…radio silence.”

“Really? I’m proud of him. It must’ve been hard to hear all of that at once. They probably have a lot to talk about.” Emma said

Drake scowled. “If he hurts her again…”

“I don’t think he will. I think he went there to apologize.” Maxwell said hurriedly.

Yeah, right. You know absolutely nothing and have no idea how your family’s actions affect other people. “Right. Because you’re such a great judge of…”

“Dad!” Hana excitedly waves the man in the suit over, interrupting Drake’s snappy response.

“Ah! There you are.” The man greeted.

“Everyone, this is my father, Xinghai Lee.”

“Ni hao, Mr. Lee.” Emma greeted politely.

“Ni hao. You must be Drake, Lord Maxwell, and…Lady Emma. Hana never mentioned that you had a diplomat’s sense of style.”

Emma smiled. “Thanks.”

He nodded respectfully. “You’ll fit right in at tonight’s dinner. You know, Lady Emma, I’ve heard a great deal about you from my daughter…and from the tabloids. Hardly ideal to have one’s name in such publications.”

“Honestly…paying attention to them just adds fuel to the fire.” Emma explained.

“An interesting strategy. You devalue the rumors by refusing to grant them a response. I’ve used similar tactics on occasion when false claims were pressed against my business. I didn’t expect you to have such a mind for public relations.”

“More like basic fire safety.” She retorted.

Mr. Lee frowned. “However, it’s clear you have enemies. I worry that my daughter’s association with you puts her at risk. The scandal may affect her reputation just as much as yours.”

I really hope we clear her name soon. It’s still all anyone talks about. I feel so awful I didn’t stop this from happening. I was just too late getting to her room.

Emma’s face fell. “Mr. Lee, if Hana asks me, I’ll give her space. I’d never do anything to hurt her. If my being around her puts her in a bad position…I’d miss her, but I wouldn’t want to get in her way.”

Hana gasped. “Emma, I’ never ask you to do that!”

“That’s…very considerate of you. I’m glad to hear that you have my daughter’s best interests at heart. Perhaps she should follow your example.”

Huh. He’s actually smiling.

“That’s one thing you can count on. I’ve always got her back.” Emma said proudly.

Drake felt a wave pride wash over him as well. She’d do anything for her friends. I’m so lucky to know her.

Just then, delighted laughter comes from up ahead, and Maxwell’s jaw fell open. “Pandas!!!” He sprints past Emma, Hana, and Xinghai to the side of a small enclosure. Liam is standing inside cuddling a fluffy panda cub. A nearly identical cub wanders out from behind the bamboo and paws at Liam’s shoes.

Maxwell grabbed Emma’s arm and Drake glared at him. He better not be holding her as tight as that looks. “Emma, I think I’m dead. Our plane must’ve crashed on the way here. I am in heaven. Panda heaven.”

“Remarkable, aren’t they?” Mr. Lee agreed.

Hana nodded excitedly. “They’re adorable! Can we go inside too, father? Please?”

“Hmm. Ordinarily, the staff doesn’t allow many visitors. They’ve made an exception for King Liam, but…I might be able to convince them to make another exception.

Maxwell cheers. “Woohoo!”

But…they might not be friendly. And I’ll be damned if anything happens to Rose.

“Hey, those are panda bears. They could be dangerous…” Drake reminded everyone.

One cub tries to grab Liam’s pant leg, misses, and does a little somersault across the ground. It rolls to a stop next to a sprig of bamboo and immediately starts chewing on it, its unexpected tumble forgotten. Chance prances around Emma’s feet, his tail wagging and his eyes wide as he watches the panda cubs.

“Come on, Drake. Even Chance likes them!” Maxwell laughed.

Drake sighed. Alright, alright. Definitely not dangerous. “…Okay, they’re kind of cute” He admitted.

“Victory!” Hana grinned.

Drake turned to Emma. “I’m in if you are, Rose.” Even though I already know your answer is yes.

She glances at the enclosure, where the first cub is pawing at Liam’s hand. Liam shakes the paw with his gloved hand grinning. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

Emma looked back at Drake, biting her bottom lip adorably. “Let’s do it!”

Mr. Lee gave a nod. “Very well. Let me speak with their keepers” He walks away to confer with a pair of khaki-clad staff members. A minute later he returns to the group smiling.

“You can all join King Liam and the cubs. Including this one, as long as he’s up to date with all his shots.” He nods at Chance.

“He’s got a clean bill of health! And he’s extremely well behaved.” Emma chimed.

“Very well.”

“Thank you, father!”

“Best. Day. Ever.” Maxwell had a gleam in his eyes.

One staff member unlocks the gate and hands the group blue gloves and a thin smock to wear over their clothes while they play with the pandas. Liam waves them all over as they step inside.

“Everyone, I’d like you to meet Yue Yue…” He pats the cub sitting beside him. “And her brother, Yang Yang.”

“They’re both so precious.” Hana picks up Yue Yue and gently nuzzles her. “Hello there!”

Maxwell clapped. “I’ve never seen anything cuter in my entire life. I mean, apart from Chance.” Chance sits down at Maxwell’s feet with a satisfied huff. Yang Yang backs away from the sight of Chance and reaches his paws up toward Liam. Liam obligingly picks him up.

“Alright, but only for a minute. My arms are starting to get tired. Does anyone else want to hold him?”

“I think Maxwell should.” Emma winked.

Holy crap, for once she didn’t choose me. Thank God.

Maxwell gasped. “Emma…I will never forget this.”

“You owe me one.” She laughed. Liam carefully places the cub in Maxwell’s outstretched arms.

“Uncle Maxwell’s going to take good care of you, little buddy. I read that pandas like having their bellies rubbed.”

That sounds…odd. It’s still a bear…“And you read that…where?” Drake questioned.

“On the internet!”

Everyone watches in alarm as Maxwell tickled Yang Yang’s belly. The cub blinks at him and then playfully bats at his hand and curls up against his chest. “I think I’ve found my calling.” He sighed blissfully.

While Maxwell cuddles Yang Yang, the other cub looks around wistfully.

“Is he okay?” Emma asked, eyes full of concern.

“She’s probably hungry. One of the tour guides was saying they eat for hours every day.” Liam told her.

Maxwell’s jaw dropped. “Wow. Living the dream.”

Emma breaks off a small bamboo stalk and gives it to Yue Yue. She immediately takes it in her paws and starts munching.

“Here, Yang Yang. Same for you too!” Hana holds out another stalk of bamboo to the other cub.

Maxwell sets the cub down as Hana walks over to place a crown of woven bamboo strips on his head. Yang Yang sits still for a moment, then bats it off his head and begins munching on it.

“Oh…”

“It was cute while it lasted.” Emma shrugged.

“He’s a panda. From him, that’s probably a compliment.” Maxwell reassured.

“You might have a career in edible hats.” Emma joked

Chance trots over to sniff Liam’s shoes, but before he reaches them, he spots Yang Yang again. The cub tilts his head as Chance approaches him. They circle each other…and then Chance’s tail begins to wag. He yips happily.

“Chance has good taste in friends.” Liam smiled at Emma.

“I didn’t think these cubs could get any cuter…but I was wrong.” Hana admitted.

Chance picks up a bamboo stick in his teeth and goes bounding away. Yang Yang waddles after him eagerly, and soon they’re playing a game of tag.

Suddenly Emma turns to Maxwell. “Maxwell, are you crying?”

Holy shit he is. Good god, man, pull yourself together.

“N-no! I just have some bamboo dust in my eye.”

A cub falls off a nearby rock and Emma catches it, the cub squeaking in delight. “Hey, you should be careful!” As soon as she sets her down, she goes toddling over toward the rock again.

“Oh no…”

Drake smirked. “I think you just taught her a new game, Rose.”

“It’s okay, I’ll watch her.” Maxwell ran over to the rock.

Drake’s eyebrows furrowed. “Umm…does anyone was to watch this one?” He stops abruptly as Yang Yang is trying to climb up his leg.

What the hell is this?? Get it off!!! Get it off me!!! “Hey! I’m not a tree!” He tries to walk away, but the cub clings to his leg as he moves.

“Drake…he wants you to pick him up!” Emma laughed.

“But what if I drop him?” I can’t be responsible for this thing. It’s terrifying…with those big fluffy ears and those eyes that look right through you and…

“You won’t. Just pick him up!” Emma encouraged.

Drake looks at her, then down at Yang Yang, who’s pouting. “Aww come on, don’t be like that.” He bends down and hoists the cub into his arms.

This actually isn’t so bad. He’s so soft and cuddly and warm and…

“He likes you!” Hana exclaimed.

Drake cleared his throat, resuming his usual scowl of disapproval. “If any of you take a picture of this, I will never forgive you.”

“Aww.” Maxwell complained.

“We’ll just have to savor the moment.” Liam grinned, watching him. They all spend a few more minutes playing with the pandas before one of their caretakers opens the gate and looks at them expectantly.

“I guess that’s our cue.” Emma sighed sadly

“Already?” Maxwell whined.

“We don’t want to wear the cubs out.” She gives Yue Yue one last pat on the head, and Chance trots over to lick her nose. She headbutts Chance playfully before he follows Emma, Liam, and the others out of the enclosure. They remove their gloves and smocks as the panda’s caretakers close the gate behind them.

“So? What did you all think?” Mr. Lee approached them again.

“That was an incredible experience.” Liam told him

“My life has been forever changed.” Maxwell agreed.

“They were so friendly!” Hana chimed in.

“They were pretty cute for glorified balls of fluff.” Drake admitted.

“That was unforgettable. Thank you, Mr. Lee.” Emma smiled, ever the picture of politeness.

Hana has certainly rubbed off on her.

“I’m always glad when visitors appreciate the wonder of such creatures.” Mr. Lee smiled fondly.

Everyone walks ahead except Emma and Liam. Casting a glance over his shoulder, Drake wonders if he should stick behind as well. But then he saw Liam place his hand on the small of Emma’s back, and his fists curled. Nope. I need to keep walking. I’ll see her later.

Up ahead, the towering bamboo stalks begin to open up as the path leads them back to the reserve’s entrance. By now, everyone had caught back up to Drake.

“Ah, this is where I must say my farewells. I need to double-check a few things at the restaurant before the court arrives.”

“Do you need any help?” Hana asked her father.

“No, no. You must stay here with the court!” He gives Hana a quick hug and shakes Drake and Maxwell’s hands.

“I’m glad to have met you both. And I’m especially glad to have met you, Lady Emma. Considering the rumors about you and some of the things I’d heard from Hana…I wasn’t sure what to expect. But now I can see why my daughter considers you a respectable friend.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lee. It was good to meet you too.” He shakes her hand and quickly strides away to the waiting car.

“Emma, that was an actual compliment. He really liked you!” Hana exclaimed enthusiastically.

“I knew we’d hit it off!” Maxwell said confidently.

“It’s not like he complimented you.” Drake said in frustration. Always trying to make things about himself. It doesn’t matter that Emma does most of the talking and the work.

“Yeah, but I could tell that we were bonding.” Maxwell retorted.

Drake rolled his eyes. “…Sure. Anyway, where’s this dinner everyone keeps talking about? We’ve been walking around all afternoon.”

“it looks like the royal motorcade is leaving for the restaurant now.” Hana pointed

“Take me to the food!” Maxwell proclaimed, leading them all into a waiting car and following the royal motorcade to the entrance of a high-end restaurant. Inside, a waiter ushers them to a table. Liam and Madeleine are seated at the front of the room, and beside them, Constantine and Regina.

Emma leaned over the table and spoke in a hushed tone. “I can’t let Constantine out of my sight tonight. If any of you see him getting up to leave…”

“Don’t worry, Emma. We’ll help you keep an eye on him.” Hana patted her shoulder.

“You know what they always say. Four pairs of eyes are better than one!”

“Nobody says that, Maxwell.” Drake snapped.

Maxwell shrugged, unaffected. “It could catch on.”

An elegant shadow falls across Emma as a waiter pulls out the one empty chair at their table. Drake glances up.

Oh no. Not her. Anyone but her.

“I should’ve guessed Madeleine would seat me with all of you.”

Emma grinned. “Olivia, that’s because we’re friends!”

Speak for yourself, Rose.

“Excuse me?” Olivia asked incredulously.

“You’ve helped us a lot with this investigation. We have a common goal. Besides, haven’t you ever heard that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’? Let’s just enjoy dinner together.”

Olivia’s mouth was practically on the floor. “I…I suppose I’ve survived worse meals”

“That’ll do.”

Maxwell looked around the room. “When is this food happening, anyway?”

“It should be coming soon, and there’ll be plenty to share. Dinners here are usually served family style. I promise, it’ll be delicious!”

“Forget food. We’ve already got drinks.” Drake nods at an elaborate ceramic bottle in the center of the table that contained rice wine.

And I definitely need a drink to deal with this red headed bitch that just joined us.

Emma picks up the jar and looks at the empty glasses in front of them. She immediately takes Drake’s glass and pours for him first.

His face flushed. “Thanks, Rose.”

“I know your priorities.” She winked. “So, how is it? On a scale of one to whiskey.”

He takes an experimental sip of the rice wine. “…an eight.”

“High praise.” She smirked.

Hana looked over at Olivia. “I, umm, didn’t see you earlier today, Olivia. Were you at the nature reserve with the rest of the court?”

“Yes. A pointless excursion if you ask me.”

“You didn’t get anything out of it? Tranquility, relaxation…cute cubs?” Emma asked.

“No. Watching those sorry excuses for bears tumble about is something that only the weakest of the weak would take pleasure in”

You would think that.

Maxwell tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Someone sounds defensive. The pandas totally got to you, didn’t they?”

Olivia glared at him. “Just because they’re so pathetic and small and defenseless…and furry…with big ears…”

The first course arrives before anyone can reply, but Drake was shocked that Olivia just complimented pandas. Maybe she does have a heart.

Drake looked at his plate and sighed. “Hana…you promised me down to earth food.”

“I promised you good food, Drake. This is a traditional Chinese banquet! It’s time for you to have an open mind.”

Maxwell nodded. “If Olivia can learn to love pandas, Drake can learn to appreciate gourmet Chinese food.”

Olivia’s stare turned icy. “I never said…”

“Come on, Drake, give it a shot!” Emma broke in, ignoring her.

“I know you’ll all love it. This is my favorite dish here!” Hana reassured.

“Hana this looks delicious. I should’ve known your family would feed us something as beautiful as it is tasty.” Emma uses a serving spoon and helps herself to a portion of crispy noodles with steaming vegetables. “MMmmm!”

“Come on, Drake. It’s got the Emma seal of approval.”

Drake ran a hand through his hair.  “Okay, okay…” He serves himself some food and hesitantly bites into an aromatic bell pepper. Damn. This is the best pepper of my life. “For gourmet food, this is…really satisfying.”

“I told you!” Hana squealed in delight.

While everyone eats, they also keep an eye on the royal table. Drake sees Liam locks eyes with Emma and tilt his head in a subtle nod before turning to whisper something to Constantine. A moment later, they both rise from their seats and head down a narrow hallway.

I guess this is it.

Emma turned to the rest of the table. “I need you all to hold down the fort. I’m going to follow Liam and the King Father.”

“What? Why?” Olivia asked, looking completely surprised.

She never told her?

Emma stood up quickly. “Maxwell can explain. Just stay here and act like everything’s normal.”

Drake nodded firmly. “You’ve got it, Rose. We’ll head off anyone who tries to follow you.”

“Be careful Emma.” Hana said nervously.

Emma made her way across the room as inconspicuously as she can. A quiet fell over their table, each person lost in their own thoughts until…

The Queen mother suddenly rushes off with a group of guards to the hallway that Liam and Emma had disappeared to.

Oh no, no, what happened? Is she okay? Is she hurt? I swear to God if Constantine hurt her I will crack his face open.

They waited and waited, but no one ever returned. Whatever happened, they must have left.

“We should really get back to the hotel…” Hana suggested quietly.

“Yeah. I don’t think they’re coming back tonight. We might as well go.” Maxwell agreed.

“Well. This food is getting cold and the hotel lounge has a fireplace so I’m ready.” Olivia stood up and strode away from the table, not waiting for everyone to follow.

Once back at the hotel, the 4 of them waited for Emma in one of the lounge areas. She has to come back eventually…right?

“I’m sure she’s okay, Drake.” Hana murmured, positioning herself so only he can hear.

He gave her a worried look. “You don’t know that.” He responded, just as quietly.

And then they waited, none of them wanting to speculate. Drake only listened as Maxwell filled in Olivia about Constantine being the one behind the scandal, silently willing his dark thoughts out of his mind.

“What are you all doing up?”

Drake snapped to attention as Emma walked into the lounge, a confused look on her face.

Hana breathed a sigh of relief. “First you and Liam disappeared at the dinner, then the Queen Mother ran off….we didn’t know what was happening.”

“We were worried about you!” Maxwell cried, running over to her.

Olivia scoffed. “Speak for yourselves, I’m just here to see if you accomplished anything useful.”

“Did you talk to Constantine?” Drake asked, ignoring Olivia’s comment.

Emma nodded. “Yes, once the doctors at the hospital stabilized him.”

Drake froze. The hospital??  “What?”

She fills them in on Constantine’s collapse, his hidden illness, and his confession. Drake shook his head in disbelief.

Why wouldn’t Liam tell me any of this? He’s known about his father…he kept it all in. Drake couldn’t help but feel hurt at his supposed best friend. Liam used to tell him everything. It was their thing. They were always honest with each other. But then again…It’s not like I’ve been very straight forward with him either, considering I’m in love with the same woman he is.

Olivia glowered. “How dare he. If it weren’t for him, I could have…I could have…” But then her face fell. “I guess it doesn’t matter now. He’s dying. Liam must be heartbroken.”

Drake had to agree with her. “That’s…that’s a lot to take in, Rose.”

Hana nodded slowly. “Yeah. At least you finally know why Constantine did this to you…”

“To both of us.” Olivia reminded, and for the first time, Drake actually felt somewhat sorry for her.

Somewhat. Just a teeny tiny bit.

Emma raised her head high. “Honestly it felt good to confront him. I finally made him face what he did to me.”

There’s my girl.

The corners of Drake’s mouth turned up. “It’s about time he dealt with the consequences.”

“Now, we just have to find Tariq.” She continued.  “And since Constantine said he’d back off, for the first time, I don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

A smile spread across Hana’s face. “Well, since we’re not going to find him tonight, and we’re all up late…we might as well make the most of Emma’s new-found freedom!”

Drake narrowed his eyes. “And what, exactly, does that mean?”

“I want to take you all to the market! Some of the best food I the city is sold at these little outdoor markets, and my favorite one isn’t far from here.”

“Hmm…I won’t turn down more food.” Especially regular food. The food served at the restaurant was good but…still fancy.

Maxwell nodded. “My stomach agrees with Drake. Besides, when’s the next time we’re going to be in Shanghai? We’ve gotta make the most of it!”

“If you’re all heading off to do…whatever it is you’re doing, I can finally get some sleep.”

“You’re invited too, Olivia.” Hana told her gently.

Drake frowned. “She is?”

Hana shrugged. “We couldn’t have unraveled this mystery without her. Olivia, you’re part of the team, like it or not!”

Olivia blinked. “I think it’s clear that I do not…still…I am a big hungry, I suppose we could head in the same direction…at the same time…to the same place”

Hana turned to Emma. “What do you say, Emma? After the day you’ve had, you deserve a treat.”

“And a chance to hang out with your favorite people in the world.” Maxwell added.

Excellent. She’s asking Emma. That means we’re definitely going. Drake smiled as Emma agreed. I really know her so well.

Hana clapped. “Great! You’re going to love every bit of food there.”

“I’m an omni-lover when it comes to food.” Maxwell announced, Drake rolling his eyes.

Emma grinned. “What are we waiting for?”

“For you to catch up!” Maxwell runs out of the hotel.

“He doesn’t know where he’s going!” Hana cried.

Good. Let him get lost.  “I say we go on without him. He’ll find us eventually.”

Olivia sighed. “This is going to be a long night.”

Not like you have to come. I really don’t understand why she wants to hang out with us. Despite what Hana says…she’s not one of us.

After tracking down a very lost Maxwell, the group takes a short walk and comes across a slew of market vendors. Rows of lanterns light up the street.

“Oooooo” Emma looked around in wonder.

“It’s beautiful” Hana agreed

“I suppose it’s nice.” Holy shit I’m in food heaven!

Olivia glared at them. “You expect me to eat food that’s been prepared on the street?”

Emma laughed. “What did you expect when we said we were going to an outdoor market?”

“…Not this. Though I suppose in times of war and conquest, Nevrakis rulers have eaten in dire conditions…”

Ah geez, here we go.

Maxwell runs up to a shop. “Hana what’s this one?”

“That’s shansi eng mian. Eel noodles.”

Eel noodles???

“Is it spicy?”

“Not really.”

Maxwell pondered a moment. “Oh, well…I still want it.” Hana speaks Mandarin to the shopkeeper. The woman smiles and hands the food to Maxwell.

“Behold, morsel! I am Lord Maxwell of House Beaumont, tamer of any meal. Prepare to be crushed by my mighty mandible mastication!” He chomps into the roasted tendril.

Drake looks over the delicacies. I have no idea what any of this is. “I…what do I pick?” He asked uncertainly.

Olivia smirked. “I’m sure there’s a grease stain in the kitchen. That’s more your taste.”

“Funny.” Drake snapped.

“I try my best.”

“Drake…can’t find the one labelled whiskey?” Emma teased.

He rolled his eyes. “Ha…ha.”

“I can find something equivalent for you.” Hana promised.

He nodded. “That’d be nice.”

Hana orders a drink for Drake, and he takes a sip. “At least somebody cares.”

Maxwell suddenly shouted. “Hey, guys! Check this out!” They turn to see Maxwell balancing his now-empty bowl of noodles on his nose. He weaves back and forth, trying to keep it upright.

Emma gasped. “Maxwell---“

“Watch out!” As Maxwell stumbles toward a stand full of large soup pots, Drake grabs him. The bowl clatters to the ground, but Maxwell stays on his feet…then doubles over laughing.

“Gotcha!” He sang out.

Drake looked at him, confused. “What?”

Maxwell grinned. “It was all a clever ruse! I wanted to make sure you still care about what happens to me, and you do!”

That little…. “Maybe I should’ve let you fall into a batch of soup.” Drake told him angrily.

“His foolishness would’ve made for pungent seasoning.” Olivia agreed.

“I object to that statement!” Maxwell pouted.

“I don’t know. She’s got a good point.”

He heard another gasp come from Emma. “Hey…did Drake just compliment Olivia?”

No. No, I didn’t…did I?

“I…”

“Don’t deny it.”

He sighed deeply. “This is a strange day. Let’s not talk about it.”

“Agreed.” Olivia said haughtily, looking just as annoyed as Drake felt.

“I’m glad my antics can still bring people together.” Maxwell walks up to Hana. “Hana, can you help me pick out more food?”

She looked at him uncertainly. “Only if you promise not to put it on your nose.”

“I’ll try.”

Hana chuckled. “I suppose that’s good enough. Come along.” She leads Maxwell down a few stalls.

Olivia turned to Emma and Drake. “I don’t know how you put up with him.”

“It takes a lot of effort sometimes. Not too different than putting up with you.” Drake retorted.

“Olivia, why did you come with us?” Emma questioned.

Good question.

Olivia’s expression turned sad.  “Playing such a minor role here has made me realize…just how much I miss antagonizing people at court.”

Oh my god.

“Olivia, say it with me…friends. Frriieeeeeennnddddsssss” Emma rang out

“You look like an idiot when you do that.” Olivia glared.

“Drake join me. Frreeeeiiiinnddsds”

He shook his head. “Gonna have to take a hard pass on that, Rose.”

Olivia gestured at him. “No, go ahead, Drake. You’re always welcome to make yourself a fool in front of me.”

Emma smiled. “Then you can make yourself look like a fool, too, Olivia. Then we’d all look like fools together. That’s the true meaning of friendship.”

Olivia furrowed her eyebrows. “You’ll have to keep waiting. Forever.”

No issues there.

Maxwell and Hana return with a small basket full of dumplings. “Hey, Drake…I got this for you. It’s called a xiao long bao. Hana says it’s great and I trust that food recommendations are another one of her talents.”

“Oh. Thanks.” That’s….surprising.

“I got some for you too, Emma.” Hana handed Emma a few.

“Mmmmm” Drake was captivated by her lips, the way she wrapped them around the dumpling and the pleasure her face showed.

Drake could feel eyes on him, and turning his head, he noticed Olivia watching both himself and Emma with amusement written all over her face. He cleared his throat and, finally tearing his eyes away, he takes a small bite of the soup filled dumpling, letting the steaming contents cool as Maxwell lingers next to Drake for a moment. “Can we talk?”

Drake sighed. “I suppose I’ve got time while I eat this.” Guess it can’t be avoided forever.

“I’ve never fully apologized for everything that’s happened.” Maxwell started. “I wish I could’ve told you about Savannah. I should’ve figured something out.”

“Oh…” Jumping right into it, alright, I can respect that.

Olivia burst out laughing. “Maxwell knew where Drake’s sister was this whole time? This day just keeps getting better.”

“You hush.” Emma scolded

Olivia rose her hands in front of her. “Of course. I don’t want to interrupt the Shakespearean tragedy before me. I wonder if anyone gets stabbed.”

Ignoring her, Drake turned back to Maxwell. “I’m the one who should apologize for getting out of hand at the bachelor party. I saw Bertrand, and all I could think about was my sister crying.”

“Yeah…That was bad.” Maxwell agreed quietly

“I still don’t understand why you defend him. I know he’s your brother, but still…”

“People only see glimpses of Bertrand, but I know what he’s going through. It’s not something I can share, even with Emma, but he’s sincere in that it’s for House Beaumont.”

Ugh. House Beaumont this, House Beaumont that. “That phrase will be the death of him.”

To his surprise, Maxwell nodded. “That’s what I’m afraid of too.”

Maxwell looks down into his food. Drake taps a finger on the paper plate. This…was good. Good talk. “Hey, Maxwell, thanks.”

“For what?”

Drake smiled wanly at him “For looking out for my sister. I should’ve done more to make her feel like she could trust me.”

“I don’t know if I deserve any thanks. I kept her hidden from you.” He said sadly.

“Because she asked you to. You were supporting and protecting a friend. Look, you had to make some tough choices. Even I’m not sure what I would’ve done in your place. But at least someone good was there for Savannah when I couldn’t be.”

Maxwell smiles softly. “Anything for my friends.”

Drake slowly nodded.  “You’re unlike any noble I’ve met. Or any person for that matter. But I’m glad to call you my friend.” He extends a hand to Maxwell.

“Hey guys, you should hug it out!” Emma broke in.

Are you kidding? “That’s not real—”

“Put ‘er there.” Maxwell embraces Drake in a big hug, and Drake slowly returns it, unable to keep the smile off his face.

“Alright. We’re huggin this one out.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a great hugger?”

Drake immediately pulled away. “Alight. Moment over.”

Olivia looked back and forth between them. “This is disgusting.”

“You’ve barely eaten anything.” Emma said

“Not the food. This display of affection.”

“I think it’s sweet.” Hana piped in.

Olivia rolled her eyes. “Anyone else ready to go? Because I’m ready to go.”

“It is getting late.” Hana agreed.

What? This is terrible timing! “But I just got more food.”

“Speed eating!” Maxwell wolfed down the rest of his food in just a few seconds.

Emma stared at him. “Wow. That has to be some kind of world record.”

“I’ll be waiting up the street, away from this nonsense.” Olivia stalked off, Maxwell running after her while Hana trails behind him. Drake falls back, still working on his food.

“Hey, Drake.”

He glanced up. “Hey, Rose.”

“You know you’ve got a bit of sauce on your face, right?”

Oh that’s so embarrassing.  “I do? Where?”

“There.” She kisses him on the corner of his mouth, and Drake tries but fails to contain his smile.

“Thanks, Rose. What would I do without you?”

“Spend less time blushing, probably.” She winked.

“Who’s blushing?” Oh god, even more embarrassing.

“It’s okay. It’s cute.” She laughed.

 After a short walk, they finally reach the hotel and say their goodnights. Everyone else had already split off into their rooms, and Drake walked Emma to her door.

“Goodnight, Rose.”

“Hey, Drake. What would you do without me?”

He was completely taken aback by the question. “What?”

“You know. If I wasn’t here, what would you be doing?”

Drake pondered a moment, before leaning in and kissing her gently on her cheek. “Just dreaming about meeting you.”

He smirked as her face flushed and turned towards his own room. Mission accomplished.

    @annekebbphotography @carabeth @gardeningourmet @eileendannie @dancetothestoriesinyoursoul @alesana45 @thequeenofcronuts @zigortega4life @drakewalkerfantasy

 @hrhdes @drakewalkerisreal @akrenich @feartheendlesssummer @moonlightgem7 @i-miss-trr @noey718-blog @snyggflicka @rhymesmenagerie @be-still-my-aching-heart @i-only-signed-up-for-fanfiction @crookedslimecreatorpasta 

@notoriouscs @agent-bossypants @flowerpowell

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 1: Can We Just...Ignore the Apocalypse? Let’s Just Ignore the Apocalypse.

Ah guys, we’re back, it’s a new season! Sort of! It’s a filler arc that probably won’t make a huge difference on anything in the plot but bro has promised is hella weird so lets dive into it.

Remember all the stuff we were talking about last season, and how I had to like basically carry around a notebook and take character notes like for the first time since my High School English class when we read Shakespeare? Remember how freakin complicated everything got?

Well the writers for this season decided to do a soft reset on all of that mess. Apparently they’ll get back to that crazy stuff we spent a whole season building up but with a new season they’d get a new audience of viewers, and maybe they didn’t want them to be confused. Because, lets be honest, nearly all of the latter half of S2 would be unwatchable if you did not know what was happening.

They also knew they had a problem, especially since they were waiting for the manga to catch up to the show at this point so they couldn’t accidentally step on the manga’s shoes and invent things that later negated the manga entirely. They had to edit. They had to stay as far away from the manga points as they could. And they did it in the most ridiculous way.

Y’all don’t even know this blog was *almost* a SeaQuest DSV blog. But it was pulled. So then it was almost a Kolchack the Nightstalker blog. But that got pulled. Yugioh was my third choice. Much like my dating life.

That’s right, we’re going to do a soft reset by adding a whole new set of characters! A whole new plotline to keep track of! To show us this tantalizing view of Kaiba island and then just.......detour.

It’s honestly, a welcoming thing for me, a reviewer, because I was getting hella lost and now it’s back to basics. Although, there are certain things they just...didn’t even address.

Cold as ice, Yugi. Cold as freakin ice, like way to appreciate your most interesting friend. Like maybe put that house fern where Bakura died or something. Anything.

What teenager finds out their other teenage friend freakin died last night and is like “well...that happens” and of all teenagers--especially Yugi Muto. Yugi is usually so freakin extra but he doesn’t really...seem to be freaking out. I’m so used to this kid having a melt down so often, that when he’s not having a melt down, I assume there’s something absolutely wrong with him.

Yugi kind of glazes over the more complicated parts of Season 2 in some flashbacks, and then the blimp starts shaking violently to get us right off course in both location and plot.

(read more under the cut)

We did not get a peek at anyone’s mirrors to see if the giant mystery purple bottles are still around. A shame.

Also, guess what time it is, just by looking at this image. Just guess in your head, knowing that all these people went to bed at like 3AM last night.

Yeah it’s canonically 5 AM. In grand Yugioh tradition, all these kids, mostly a bunch of really gross boys, who are still in clothes from the day before, who miiiight not have showered, are now going to continue their adventure, just piling on the gross as much as possible until this season ends. It’s like every little kid’s dream honestly.

Anyways, we’re gonna fly right into a plot dump that is maybe one of the most insane dumps this show has ever dumped--and y’all we’ve had some nuts dumps--but this one is especially weird because it actually makes sense within the continuity.

Just remember when you hear this that we are in Season 3. It is Season 3 and this has never once come up, not even once before. That one guy on the writing staff who really, really, REALLY stans Seto Kaiba apparently walked into work the day when they were making this episode and was he like “wow, everyone called in sick to work today and no one’s here but me and I can go home or I can finally just go NUTS.”

So this entire time, the Kaiba’s were basically the Patriots. OK.

I mean, it actually makes so much more sense as to why these children know how to ride a helicopter and why Seto randomly knows CQC. I never thought I would ever get a proper explanation for this but here it is. Kaiba was being honed to devote himself to the...war economy...but then he said “actually nah, because that’s too effed up even for Yugioh” and then to spite his father replaced every weapon with trading cards.

And then...accidentally weaponized trading cards in the process thus turning into his own Father. 

I guess that’s why people are legit dying in this tournament and Seto and Mokuba are like “Yeah? This is what happens?” since they were literally raised by some Hideo Kajima mini-boss. They probably have no idea what children’s games are supposed to be like, so when Yugi loses his nut and starts Shadow Realming they’re like “hm. Is this what kids are into? I’ll go along with it. See Dad? I am blending into kid culture real well. Really good at kid stuff.”

Like, it’s a good layer of irony that these two decided to bring peace and harmony to the whole earth by replacing weapons with games you’d play with children--but then they chose the one game that will absolutely end the Earth quicker than a weapon of mass destruction. Congrats. You did it.

This show, man, sometimes I’m not sure what it wants Seto Kaiba to be. Because, yeah, Seto just showed us a very nice thing he did as he randomly does--he’s basically won a Nobel Peace Prize by default--but he’s still a complete asshole. Like did he just feel like he has to show up Yugi again for saving the Earth last season by reminding us that Seto has already done that before this show ever started? That he dissolved the freakin Patriots before this show ever began?

Like Seto single-handedly fixed the entire plot of Metal Gear. Like this is the child that ended how many wars with getting rid of the ammunition? This is the child the writers chose? Seto freakin Kaiba?

And then he turned around and essentially put cards into a bunch of guns and you wear them on your wrist what the hell is even going on with this kid?

But don’t worry we won’t get even five seconds to register this plot dump, much like that time they told me that Seto freakin Kaiba has a dead soulmate from 5000 years ago who is now four separate playing cards and also probably his Great^nth Grandmother.

The Seto lore is rapidly getting more complicated than the Yugi lore and Yugi Muto is two people. Just saying.

Anyway, lets meet our new villain.

So the theme of this arc seems to also be a theme that the writers are currently wrestling with. You got Yugioh which has a very--INTERESTING background, it’s this horror manga turned effed up anime turned much more tame child’s anime and it’s like, that’s a lot of pressure for this team. Kinda feels like every time they try to do Yugioh there’s going to be people that are pissed off because it wasn’t like what came before it. And so this whole story of Kaiba trying to get out of his problematic Father’s shadow is almost like the entire writing team at this point just begging us to please let them do a thing without having to do 158 on-screen murders.

(JK, they’ll murder off more people in this very episode.)

And so this arc they decide to make this character who, as bro mentioned, is a throwback to Season Zero Kaiba, but with better hair. Sort of. Honestly, I mostly only see the white shirt as a reference but I can see what bro is getting at, especially since their hair shape and eyes are like...VERY Kaiba-ey. Anyway, I called it right away before we saw this kid that he’d be a distant relative here to claim his cut of the Kaiba inheritance pie so, because his hair is Mokuba blue-green, we’ll just make him a Season Zero green. Because it looks like no one else’s font color.

Honestly, hopefully that won’t get too confusing if he and Mokuba are speaking at the same time but I have changed Mokuba’s font color once already and now I might have to change it again...

They’re already kidnapped, right? Like all of these people on this blimp have absolutely been kidnapped by Marik and are at this moment at his mercy? (mercy meaning “he just doesn’t feel like it right now”)

So yes, Noah kidnapped them, but at the same time he’s just borrowing hostages from Marik for a little while. He’s just babysitting some other person’s kidnapees from how I see it.

Also, his name is Noah and he lives on a very big ship. That’s uh...a little on the nose there with the naming conventions, Yugioh. As far as villains go, at least this kid doesn’t live underground and get tortured with back tatts. But, with the way this show is going, I would not be surprised if all the Kaibas got Agent 47 serial codes on the back of their heads.

*I love a good Star Trek tractor beam, don’t get me wrong, but never in my life did I think I’d see a sci fi tractor beam being used on a freakin party blimp*

Marik, PS, is still standing here on top of this blimp saying “this will be very interesting to just let another villain waltz in here on my territory while I just chill on the couch for a little while. I am tired.” which was...actually pretty true to Marik. This kid will let anyone else do his job for him if given the opportunity. Such a lazy villain. In a show where all the villains have been pretty lazy.

Now, Noah insists that everyone get the hell off this blimp, but Seto was like “Really, honestly, I just want to keep one secret today. Just any secret. Lets just have this conversation in private and everyone else, please don’t mind my family issues. No need to call the cops, it’s just a light kidnapping, no big deal. Family, amiright?”

So because they’re getting shot at, they stubbornly get off the blimp.

And then Marik wrote himself right out of this arc. At least according to my bro.

So, in honor of blimp, lets give that blimp a good send off. One last time, for blimp

I will miss you, blimp.

So, down a hallway and in a room of so much bloom they run into...these guys?

I had to like really think for a while to remember who the hell these guys were, it feels like 10 years ago since that one-off MMO arc that I figured would never come back.

Apparently time doesn’t work the same, much like in Narnia, so the Big 5 are just straight up insane now. Got it. Really glad I get to try and keep track of the names of 5 new people, don’t hold me to it, I’ll absolutely forget the name of every one of these mini-bosses. Anyways, while they were strapped to Kaiba’s game for 2 months, they freakin died.

Yeah, what?

Wow Yugi killed 5 people and it’s not even Season Zero! Like this is a Yugi kill, right? Like Yugi did this entirely? Like that whole game would’ve been a lose if Kaiba wasn’t told exactly what to do by Yugi and Pharaoh? Nice.

And then they got...the digital version of Shadow Realmed.

Ah the digital space. We can go anywhere here. Any environment. Anywhere. lets see where they go.

Man this show and it’s obsession with island climates.

I say that, forgetting they’re all from Japan.

Apparently every season of Yugioh contractually has to have at least one reference to Tristan’s enigmatic ass. Thing is--assuming they’re all hooked up to sensors or whatever---is there just one that covers...farts? Like there’d have to be, right? Google, stop whatever weird self driving car glasses you’re making and get on that.

After Kaiba proves that you can’t actually touch anything in this universe, Tea immediately sees a great opportunity and just starts touching all the stuff that she can’t touch, too. So she goes over to the bushes and sees this looking back at her. From a bush.

This still doesn’t answer the question of why the hell there was a clone in the bush!

Anyway, apparently Kaiba has made hundreds of clones of himself so he could play cards since he had no friends growing up and that wasn’t even the weirdest Kaiba plot dump this episode. Kaiba and his Clone Wars just feels so tame now.

So they go over rules--it’s a lot of words all right. Whatever, we don’t go into duels here, but overall they have to choose a mascot whenever they play to act a King in chessboard. So if their mascot card dies, then they lose.

Honestly they could just kill everyone straight up but youknow, it’s Yugioh so we’re gonna throw some honor into this murder by making it card murder. It’s fine. Don’t think about it.

Ishizu just slept through everything, right? Like she looked outside, saw all this go down and was like “NOPE” and then went right back to bed? I mean...that is also sort of what she did for half of last season.

And no, Yugi never ever once mentioned that Bakura freakin died last night. Amazing.

[foxofthedesert]

Arrow FF | Dinah x Laurel | A Christmas Miracle

A Christmas Miracle, Part 1 - The Pursuit (Click to read on AO3)

Winter has arrived in earnest to Star City, a little late to the party but right on time for the main event. The holidays are right around the corner. Literally. Christmas Eve is already fading into history along with the setting sun.

After a benign autumn, meteorologists had predicted this season would be Northern California cold at worst, which is to say mild compared to the rest of the country with temperatures hovering between the high forties and fifties. Up til now, they'd been spot on with their forecasts. Unfortunately their crystal balls ran out of juice yesterday while today a never ending assembly line of huge gray clouds rolls is currently lazily by, announcing more of the same dreary, wintry weather. If Dinah didn't know better, she'd think it was about to snow. In Coastal California.

Teeth chattering, she tugs her coat tighter around her shoulders to ward off the chill of an uncommonly cold afternoon. This is exactly the kind of shitty weather she thought she left behind when Central City was firmly in her rear view mirror. California was supposed to be sunny and warm, or so said the movies. Well, from where Dinah stands they were lying because she is a bundled up in several layers, a thick coat and scarf atop a sweater and tee with mittens on her hands and woolly socks on her feet, just like she always used to in Missouri.

Dammit. And I just had to wear jeans. Oh well, at least my boots are keeping my toes from freezing.

Cursing the weather and her own foolish choice to be out it in when she doesn't have to be, Dinah curls her shoulders in, stuffs her hands into her coat pockets, and soldiers on. She is on mission right now and has no time to feel sorry for herself.

The sidewalks of the Triangle are bustling with activity in spite of the cold and the waxing evening hour. Shoppers flitting about care little for the rules of polite etiquette in their single-minded pursuit of last minute gifts for their friends and loved ones. Others are meandering aimlessly about, stopping every now and then to gawk at the intrepid shops that bothered to put up decorations or lights or both. Others still have their heads down like Dinah, trying to blend in with the crowd and filter through on their way home or to their jobs. That Dinah's motive for laying low is far less innocuous is beside the point.

Earlier this afternoon she got a surprise call from the District Attorney's office informing her of a prosecutorial change for a current case. Not just any current case, either, but one involving a corrupt, insanely powerful chemical manufacturer based in Gotham which had spread its disease into Star City while the government was occupied preventing one disaster after another. For the better part of a month, Dinah has been grinding through evidence and conducting interview after interview with the one and only Laurel Lance. Since the beginning Laurel has been her partner in overseeing the Ace Chemical case and they were really just hitting their stride on it when the rug got pulled out from underneath her feet. Finally after months of tedious police work and highly stressful court appearances, the CEO and a bevy of her criminally corrupt lapdogs all guilty as sin of dumping toxic waste in the Triangle right on the outskirts of a school zone were fixing to go to jail. Dinah had thought Laurel would want to see it through seeing as she put as many grueling hours in than Dinah has, if not more, ensuring all the I's were dotted and ever T was crossed. With one call from A.D.A Martinez, Dinah was dispelled of that notion and it caught her completely off guard.

The case being pawned off to the longest tenured A.D.A. would not have sat so wrong with Dinah if it hadn't seemed to be as intensely personal to Laurel as it is to her. Normally Laurel Lance acted the prototype of a picture perfect D.A.: a bulldog who is always in control in the courtroom, professional to a fault in the office, and able to politic with the best of them. This case was different, though, even more so than when Laurel went to bat for Oliver while he was still stuck in Slabside. She was burning the midnight oil like never before and spent more hours with Dinah at SCPD going over investigative and arrest reports over and over again until they both had just about memorized them to the letter. Also Laurel's intensity levels were constantly through the roof, and that was saying something considering she is, in every avenue of her life, perpetually cut throat and high strung. Laurel often chastises her staff for no good reason, such as failure to include one minor detail in a relatively inconsequential report due for filing, which is par for the course for a hothead with a combative streak as wide as the Space Needle is tall. But she never did so publicly until working this case. Only last week when one of her paralegals forgot to pass on an innocuous enough message from a DAI, she berated him in front of half the office so badly the poor kid burst into tears, so traumatized that he fled work early and missed the entire next day as well. Once the outrage ebbed, Laurel actually confessed to Dinah that she felt intense guilt over her treatment of that employee.

Laurel Lance. Formerly of Black Siren notoriety. Felt guilty for hurting an underling's feelings. That alone told Dinah how important this case was to Laurel. That she went on to say that this was the first case she'd worked on since assuming Earth-Prime Laurel's life that she categorically refused to lose. Once she went on a bender working on the case, refusing any and all attempts by her employees to get her to go home. Finally after thirty-six hours they called in the cavalry.

"All those people that soulless, greedy bitch made sick deserve justice," Laurel had told Dinah upon being confronted about her obsessive, incredibly unhealthy behavior. "And I'm gonna get it for them. If that means I don't sleep until I get a guilty verdict, then so be it."

If Dinah hadn't put her foot down, she's pretty sure Laurel would have made good on that promise. As it was, she had to all but drag Laurel out of the Court House into the parking garage and then deposit the District Attorney in her shiny new Lexus with perhaps a little less gentleness than was called for.

The point of all this is that Dinah is worried – a lot – about Laurel shrugging off a responsibility she has been obsessing about so religiously over the past two months. Worried that something is wrong or worse, that Laurel has at last fallen off the reformation wagon. Dinah sort of hates herself for jumping to such a cynical conclusion, but there it is. Sometimes those old feelings of bitter acrimony crop up and taint the progress she has made with her former enemy.

Enemy. There's a word Dinah hasn't associated with Laurel in almost two years. Since they teamed up with Felicity to free Oliver from Slabside, she and Laurel have made such significant strides that she would consider Laurel her closest female friend. Which is still sort of shocking when she actually sits down and thinks about where they came from to arrive at what she would categorize as as intimate a friendship as she is capable of forming. No one could have predicted the turn their relationship would take thanks to Felicity's meddling, least of all Dinah, who had once believed the aptly utilized designation of frenemies would be the best she could ever attain with the woman who killed the man she loved. Yet here she is, wading through a sea of people on the streets in ass-clenching cold just to make sure Laurel is alright when she could be at home bundled up on the couch in her favorite blanket sipping on hot cocoa. And it's Christmas Eve for Christ's sake! That alone speaks volumes about how much she actually cares for Laurel.

What's even more amazing is that there is not a shred of doubt in her heart of mind that Laurel feels the same for her. Of course, there is some cause to call that into question, or at least to redefine what care means from Laurel's end. Of late, Dinah has been getting these weird vibes from Laurel, who has started looking at her and even treating her differently than she used to before they tackled this case together. Ordinarily that would be a bothersome development. Except the change is not in a negative direction. If anything, Laurel has been noticeably more attentive and considerate, which when combined with those vibes produce strange feelings and urges in Dinah she has yet to figure out the meaning behind. And that's not to mention what she is supposed to do about this sudden spike of awkward, nervous, excited energy that buzzes between them whenever they are in the same room together. There is a word for it, she is sure, though right now she is not prepared to break out her dictionary so that she can officially print the term on a label to slap upon the deeply complicated relationship she shares with Laurel Lance.

That said, not yet being ready to face what her subconscious has been screaming at her is going on but her conscious has been deliberately and stubbornly annoying does not preclude Dinah from springing into action whenever Laurel starts acting wonky. Such as today when she dropped a case they were both so passionate about for no reason this morning and then inexplicably cut out of work after lunch without so much as an explanation to her immediate subordinate beyond a clipped response, "Worry less about what I'm doing with my afternoon and more about closing this case. Your future here depends on it."

Since getting the call from A.D.A. Martinez, Dinah has been unable to shake a feeling in her gut that something is going on. Something she should be concerned about. So she did what she does best. Pulled rank at the precinct and decided to indulge her nosy side. Leaning upon all she has learned as a vigilante and as a cop, she stalked Laurel on the traffic cams to the street she is currently plodding down, having covered six blocks already, only to lose sight of her at the intersection of Weisinger and Papp. There is only one significant place of interest Dinah can think of at that location, and she cannot for the life of her figure out what Laurel would be doing there. Her gut feeling tells her to follow through, though, so she complies without further complaint other than some more grumbling about the weather.

Upon rounding the corner, Dinah spots the homeless shelter, the city's second largest, and trudges down the sidewalk towards the entrance. Foot traffic here has dwindled down to a negligible amount. Only the inhabitants of the shelter and what few individuals are willing to brave being seen among such a lowly, somewhat dangerous element. Such as Laurel. For whatever reason…

Once perpendicular from the shelter, Dinah quickly cuts across the street when the street traffic gives her a pause. She gives no thought to the fact she, a police captain, has just blatantly broken the law. Jaywalking isn't the first misdemeanor she's committed today and probably won't be the last. Now on the correct side of the street, she picks around the exterior of the shelter until she finds a bedraggled older man perched on a cinder block just inside the alleyway on the east side of the building. Prepared for just this opportunity, she pulls out her badge and then the stock photo of Laurel she'd snatched off her desk.

"Calm down," she says to the startled man warily eyeing her badge – former military judging by his close cropped hair, rigid posture, and army surplus jacket. "I'm not here to arrest you. Or anyone else. What's your name?"

He exhales, fiddling with an exotic, expensive looking watch on his wrist that seems off beyond it being worn by someone without means to purchase it. A second later he offers her a shaky nod, then responds, "Name's Marv."

"Nice to meet you, Marv. I'm Dinah." Dinah's eyes are again drawn to the strange watch, only to have it quickly hidden under a well worn jacket sleeve. For a split second she considers pressing about how a homeless vet came by such an extravagant piece of a bling, only to change her mind in favor of an expedient end to her mission to find out what the hell Laurel is doing here. Now that proper introductions are made, she doesn't feel bad about thrusting the photo of Laurel in his face. "Have you, by chance, seen this woman this afternoon?"

"Yep. That's Dinah. Been here every day this week. First time before eight, though."

Brows searching for her hairline, Dinah almost comments on the name Laurel gave out before she remembers that it actually is Laurel's name. Dinah Laurel Lance. Whose mother's maiden name was Dinah Drake. The synchronicity of those facts alone are enough to keep Dinah awake at night. When factoring in all that conspired to throw them into a collision course trajectory, which they somehow survived only to be caught up in a mutual orbit, she can't help but feel there is some unknown force at work. Call it fate, kismet, destiny or any other whimsical designation, something out there clearly wants her and Laurel close to each other, and Dinah isn't sure how she feels about that. Well, that's a lie. She knows how she feels, just doesn't want to admit it – even to herself.

"What's she doing coming here every night?" she asks around the lump in her throat that often forms when thinking about Laurel. When the man she's questioning shoots her a dryly outraged glare, she quickly amends herself. "Not that I'm judging. Just curious."

Marv accepts her apology with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "No sweat. I was a little skeptical too when she started comin' to help the staff and residents – ya know, pitchin' in where she can. Cookin' and cleanin' and all that domestic shit. Done some electrical repair work that needed doin'. Good at it, too. Also did most of the decorating for Christmas. Real talented gal."

Dinah's eyebrows shoot up into her hair line. Laurel Lance cooking and cleaning and fixing stuff and...decorating for Christmas? She fights the urge to pinch herself to make sure she isn't dreaming.

Marv laughs at her expression. "Don't blame ya lookin' that way. When she pulled up in that fancy car and came stridin' through the doors in that expensive suit, I figured she was some politician out for a photo op or somethin'. Only never was no cameras or reporters around and she outworked everybody the four hours she was here. And the next time she showed up, she dressed down for the occasion. To fit in better, ya know? Worn out tee, ripped jeans, nose ring, hair braided up nice and tight. Got down in the trenches without a single complaint. Nothin' like the high class bitch that strutted her fancy ass into a world she don't belong in. Nah. Figured out right quick she belonged alright. Just hides it real good out there." He indicates toward the wider world by a tip of the chin. "Good heart in that one, too. She don't know I know, but she's helped more'n a few us land jobs that start up after the Holidays. Like Jordie and Lew. I, uh, I'm one of 'em, too. Asked the guy who hired me why he did it. Wouldn't say anything except a pretty lady who has a way with words convinced him to give me a chance, that he wouldn't regret it. I knew who it was just like that." He snaps his fingers to accentuate the point.

Dinah hardly knows what to say to what she's heard. Never has she been given a less Laurel-like description, and yet she can sense beyond all doubt that she is being told the truth. The paradox being presented to her is confusing as all hell, and it only incites her curiosity into irresistible fascination. Another layer of the Laurel onion is being peeled away right before her very eyes and she is a captive audience spellbound at the unraveling.

"Wow. Uh...I have to say that surprises me," she says after a brief moment of speechlessness. "That doesn't sound like the Lau -" she stops herself short of giving out Laurel's name out of respect for her privacy, "Dinah I know."

"Guess that means you don't know her like you thought," Marv says, eyeing her wryly. "You showed up looking for her, though, which means she's awful important to you. What're you her girl or somethin'?"

"No!"

The denial comes a little too quickly and too defensively and too disingenuous underneath the abrasiveness for Dinah's liking. Her poor reaction only serves as an additional reminder that she is all too aware of her feelings for Laurel and is in that stage where she just can't accept them. Their ugly past is the main obstacle, and that should be enough, right? There is enough baggage between them to fill up the terminal in the O'Hare Airport claim center.

And then there is the fact that Dinah is pretty sure Laurel is straight. She has caught Laurel checking a few ladies out here and there, but chalked those smoldering glances up to either zealous admiration or incendiary envy. Most of the ogling Dinah has caught Laurel doing has been directed toward one particularly unavailable man who just so happens to be married to her closest friend on this earth and who treats her like shit most of the time – the latter of which seems aligned with Laurel's history of being attracted to men who treat her like shit, which is another subject Dinah would rather not dwell on to keep her blood pressure in check. Not that Dinah can use any of this evidence as definitive proof that Laurel is, in fact, straight seeing as the same could be said of her.

In so far as her friends-slash-teammates know, she has only dated men when that is not quite the truth. In college she had several experimental hook ups with hot coeds from other sororities, one of whom was a steady girlfriend for nearly a year whose name was Lynne. It was Lynne who helped Dinah sort through the mess of her emerging identity to figure out she was actually bisexual and not simply going through a phase. Since then she has primarily dated men since that is her preference, but she has slept with a few women in between boyfriends, the most recent a one night stand in Hub City right before Oliver Queen interrupted her misguided quest for vengeance. That said, Laurel has been the first she's thought of the way she did Lynne, and even then the comparison is lacking. What she feels for Laurel rivals how she felt about Vince when he stopped being her undercover partner and became her lover. And that frightens Dinah so badly that every time the thought crosses her mind she panics and quickly stuffs down all of those complicated feelings Laurel provokes.

Sucking in a breath through her teeth, she lets it out slowly to compose herself before giving a more rational response. "I mean...I know her, yes. We work together. We're also friends. Of a sort. I just..." she trails off into a sigh. "Look, it's complicated. And not that it's any of your business but I was worried about her. She took off from work early, which she never does, and then abandoned a case really important us both. Seeing as she has a penchant for self-destruction, here I am."

After a contemplative hum, Marv nods to himself. "So she is some sort of bigwig politician."

"How do you figure that?"

Marv chuckles drolly. "Ain't hard to figure out. To be workin' with a police captain – got that from your badge by the way – she has to either be a cop or someone real important. And she ain't no cop. Heard her let loose some salty language about some of y'all. Don't leave much else possible. Lawyer, I'm guessin'. No, wait." He snaps his fingers again, eyes alighting. "Now I know why I though she looked so damn familiar. She's the D.A. ain't she? What's her name? Laura? Laurel! That's it. Laurel Lance. Well. I'll be damned."

The expression of utter amazement upon Marv's face is mirrored in Dinah's. "You and me both buddy," she says, taking a pause to process all she's learned. That Laurel has been volunteering at a homeless shelter for the past two weeks. That while still her sassy self, the Laurel that threaded in so seamlessly into the upper echelons of Star City society just as fluidly accommodated to the acclaim-repellent, elbow-grease-required strata of the most humble of the most humble that the mass production and low human value culture of America can produce. Laurel has also made another and even more drastic transformation in shedding the cold, calculating, vicious skin of Black Siren only to casually adopt the fully functional, productive citizen persona of the woman so beloved by so many a statue was built in her honor as if it were no big deal at all. All taken together, her series of adaptations is in Dinah's estimation an accomplishment of which few aside from the most elite social chameleons can boast.

All of that begs the question: who is the real Laurel Lance? And that is a question to which Dinah has no answer except to say she is dying to find out. Laurel is a jigsaw puzzle with a million jumbled up, radically disparate pieces spilled out before her as if to taunt that part of her brain that craves a challenge. Solving the unsolvable was one of many reasons she decided to become a cop after serving her enlistment in the Marine Corps, and there aren't many she's encountered that have her more vexed – and more invested – than Laurel.

As much as she would love to say that was the only reason she's out here in the tit-freezing cold talking to a complete stranger, her heart is not absent of engagement in the mystery of Laurel, either. Something about Laurel has tugged at Dinah's heartstrings for a long time now, since far earlier than their detente to aid Felicity's quest to exact vengeance upon the Dragon and the subsequent cooperation to free Oliver from prison. Maybe it was watching a shell-shocked daughter silently grieve when Quentin died while maintaining a facade of strength in support of a sister she didn't even know. Or maybe it was watching her, with Quentin's devoted fatherly guidance, slowly but surely step out of the inky blackness she inhabited out into the light of a nascent dawn and prove one day, one act, one speech at a time that there really was a fleshly, beating heart in her chest capable of great warmth that courses with red blood that bleeds like every one else upon the infliction of a wound. Or maybe, just maybe, it was getting to know the woman behind the innumerable masks and finding her to be as infinitely interesting, and surprisingly funny and charming on top of that, as the projections she offers up to the world to protect a heart that is far more fragile than she could ever bear to admit. Whatever the cause, there is no denying that Laurel has – probably without even trying – slipped past Dinah's own inner defenses and taken up residence in a place precious few have ever occupied.

"So, is she still here?" Dinah asks after deciding she best not think too much longer about this lest she become unnerved and tuck tail to run for the hills. Which is distinct possibility as scary as these unfurling feelings for Laurel are.

As if ignorant of her internal turmoil, Marv nods sharply, then indicates back toward the building with his head. "Yep. You'll find her inside. In the kitchen probably. Or out serving. Dinner ran over 'cause she got here a little late. All she did, wasn't right to start without her. Worth the wait though. Prime eatin' in there."

"Glad to hear it." Dinah means that in more than one way, though she declines commenting along those lines out of curiosity as to why Marv here is out in the cold with her instead inside and warm tucking into some dessert or something. "By the way, why aren't you inside? Gotta be better than freezing your ass off out here, especially if the food is as good as you said it was."

In response, Marv grins as he gives his belly a satisfied rub. "Already been through the line. I'm stuffed, and it can get loud in there, so I came out for some peace and quiet. Besides, it's a nice evenin'. I'm from New York, ya know. This cold reminds me of home."

"Missouri here by way of St. Louis." Select few outside of Team Arrow know that about Dinah, and that prompts her to wonder why she feels so comfortable sharing it with a total stranger. There is just something about Marv that she can't quite put her finger on. Something familiar. Hmm. "Gotta say, I don't miss the winters down there and they're a far cry from what y'all get in New York," she then adds as she studies the older gentlemen, noting his features remind her a bit of her grandfather, which satisfies that pique of curiosity for the time being.

"Yeah," says Marv, one corner of his lips quirking up just like Laurel's do – a ridiculous comparison that comes out of left field and is swiftly dismissed by Dinah. "But it ain't Christmas less it's cold, you've been fed like a prince, and you're with family. Guess two outta three ain't too bad for a washed up old vet."

Dinah's heart goes out to Marv. She knows the loneliness of having no roots left to speak of worth contacting this time of year. An only child of two only children, her mother's death the year she enlisted signaled the end of any familial obligations. So she cut clean after her discharge, moved to Central and never looked back. Thankfully she has since discovered a new family in Star City, one she did not inherit but chose of her own volition. Also known as the best kind of family.

"Not bad at all. I don't have any family left either. Gotta take what you can get around the holidays, right? Also, you're not all washed up. You figured my rank out with a single glance at my shield."

"My eyes still work. It's the rest of me that don't. And no offense, Cap, but that question you asked me earlier can apply to you, too. What the hell're you doin' standin' out here in the cold yappin' with an old geezer like me? Didn't you come here for a reason?"

Brow raised at his cheek, Dinah nonetheless shifts nervously from side to side. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did. Just..."

"Not what you expected to find, eh?" Marv interjects, rich green eyes twinkling in amusement. "Looks like your girl's got some surprises up her thousand buck sleeves."

"That she does. And I told you, she's not my girl."

Marv chuckles amiably at the denial that rings hollow to them both despite it being the truth. Laurel may not be her girl, but Dinah is increasingly becoming aware of the fact that she wants her to be.

"Yea, sure," he says. "Keep tellin' yourself that, Cap, maybe some day you'll convince yourself." Abruptly he shifts on his cinder block throne, clears his throat, and just like that Dinah knows the conversation is about to be over. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to enjoy a few minutes of that peace and quiet I came out here to get before I go back in and rejoin the rabble."

Dinah holds her hands up in surrender, recognizing the dismissal not as a suggestion but as the command that it is. "Alright. Message received." Unwilling to depart just yet for the fondness for this man she has so swiftly developed, she hesitates for a second as her analytic brain sifts through various potential scenarios in which they might meet again. For a variety of reason, not the least of which is statistical probability, most of them aren't good. "Listen," she says after the silence stretches out too long, causing Marv to arch a brow impatiently. "Stay out of trouble, you hear? I don't wanna see you in my station for any reason. Got it?"

Her reply is a mock salute and an equally sardonic, "Sure, boss. No need to worry, though. I don't got any plans to get locked up until at least the New Year. But I'll be sure to target your precinct if I change my mind just for the repeat pleasure of your company."

Recognizing the joke at her expense, Dinah rolls her eyes and quips, "In that case I'll keep the cell warm I reserve for unrepentant smart asses," before swirling to beat a hasty retreat. Back at the alley entry, she veers in the wrong direction only to be course corrected by Marv's consequent shout of, "Hey, Cap? That's the wrong way to the door, ya know." Dinah does know. She was just too damn nervous and uncertain all of a sudden to go through with confronting Laurel about her unexpected injection of the Christmas Spirit. Apparently being called out for her cowardice by a down-on-his-luck vet is the cure for that malady. Straightening her shoulders, she nods her appreciation at a man who in such a small span of time made such a large impression upon her.

"My bad," she calls back. "Thanks!"

She can see Marv's cheesy, smug grin even in the low light afforded by the street lamps and the single outside fixture attached to the outer wall of the shelter. And she certainly has no problem hearing his reply.

"You're welcome! Now, stop lyin' to yourself, march inside there and do what you gotta do to get your girl and make this a Christmas to remember."

To her astonishment and a degree of elation she has not experience since she in High School, Dinah does not bother to correct him this time. In light of all the revelations she experienced tonight about herself and Laurel, along with Marv's timely encouragement just now, clarity descends upon her with an intensity that cannot be denied. For far too long she has been too terrified – albeit for oh-so-many very good reasons – to directly confront the undeniable reality that she is falling in love with Laurel. And instead of inciting a panic that will derail the astounding progress she has made in the process of a single conversation with a man with whom she has only just become acquainted, instead of making her want to run away as fast as her legs will carry her, it does the exact opposite.

Against all rational explanation, and wildly contrary to how she felt on seconds ago, all Dinah wants to do right now is run straight to Laurel. So that's precisely what she does.