#them old folk need to stick together

[mayopocket]

study buddies

[maacbrem]

Thinking about Lieve’tel and Bertrand and crying at the club

She’s off putting and she knows it, knows that she moves a bit too carefully to seem entirely natural and when she speaks there’s an unearthly resonance to her voice and when she closes her eyes she sees all the threads of the world converging into warp and weft. She’s seen generations pass her by while she remains unchanged, her goddess’s voice and silence guiding her onwards, and she knows when people look at her they reject what they can’t understand. The Champion left behind his family to serve the Matron, and she takes it as her duty to watch over them even when they insult, demean, mock and dismiss her (even when they watch her back in battle and allow her to guard theirs in turn, which for warrior folk like them is as good as a declaration of care even as they refuse to meet her eyes or hold her gaze too long in a challenge she won’t answer).

And Bertrand is… normal. Ordinary. Unremarkable until he opens his mouth, and prone to sticking his foot there. He’s an aging human enamoured with the idea of being not a hero, per se, but a heroic figure. The dream of a legacy drives him. He learned to duel in fencing clubs but his first real fight was a half-drunken brawl to reclaim a bard’s stolen tips. He has a sense of righteousness but doesn’t always act on it and the older he gets the more frightened he is of dying without meaning. He makes her laugh, and then he does it again on purpose, and he keeps doing it for as long as they spend together.

She makes time for him when he’s in Vasselheim, usually scouting out the up-and-coming young adventuring parties that make their way through the city because he wants to be a mentor but hasn’t quite figured out what he has to offer yet. He attends services and makes offerings and lets her unpick his tangled anxieties about what comes after. They get thirty years in intervals of hours to weeks, and they’re not exclusive - neither of them is ever in a place to make promises they don’t really need - but they keep circling back to each other.

She knows she’s going to lose him and he knows she’s already mourning him. He gives her a bell for her prayer beads and she passes on the name of an old supplicant with a bloody past who might have work that suits him in Marquet. When he dies, she knows he’s gone before she wakes that morning. When the world is poised to end, she puts herself on the line with his token in hand because it is her duty and her honor, and because Bertrand once said that to be remembered well is to be immortal without cost, and what they had might not have been love but it was important.

[misstycloud]

Bear hybrid

Synopsis: you were on your way to work, when suddenly a bear-hybrid sees you. The look in his eyes says everything you need to know. Not wanting to spend the rest of your life as someone’s possession, you bolt. Too bad he won’t let you get away a second time.

——

Ugh, another long day ahead of me.

You thought tiredly. The long shifts at the diner you worked at really took its toll on you. If you could, you’d quit. But free time wasn’t worth getting starved.

You sighed and stared down at the gum stuck on a trash can. There was a hint of pale pink on it, signaling the colour it was.

Gum sticking to practically every surface in the subway station wasn’t the only defects. There were plastic cups, cigarettes, paper towels and a lot more unidentified items scattered freely.

Frankly, it was disgusting. If the government spent less on hybrid establishment improvement and more on the condition of public spaces, the maybe it wouldn’t look like shit everywhere.

You felt like a shitty person for thinking such things, hybrids have endured thousands of things in the past and now with modern development, they can finally lead satisfactory lives.

However, the government have begun to focus all their attention to the welfare of hybrids and neglecting humans in the process. It wasn’t their fault, you knew that. Still, one couldn’t help what they felt.

It’s not like you disliked hybrids, yet you did not love them either. You were neutral in that department. There were still humans with the old views, but they weren’t as many anymore or they simply didn’t run around telling people since it wouldn’t be very well received. The biggest problem and maybe the only problem you had with hybrids were their mating culture.

Clearly, no one in the relationship had a choice(not that they complained) and suddenly you’re supposed to be together until you die.

And now that they’re allowed to mate with humans legally, there is little that can stop them from forcing their human partner from submitting to their will; living and accept them as a lifelong partner.

It was wrong to force someone into a relationship they clearly express they didn’t want, unfortunately the animal-hybrids did not care for unwanted courting and do what they want anyway.

You shuddered at the thought of being mates to one of those creatures. It must be hell. Especially if you already have a partner previous to meeting them.

The train arrived and you made an annoyed face at how crowded it was. What felt like hundreds of people were squeezed into one cart, rubbing against each other and breathing as one being, making it incredibly warm inside.

You grabbed a pole with your right hand, trying to steady yourself and also liking to have something solid ground you. You’ve seen way to many consequences of people not holding on to anything while standing.

It was uncomfortable. Arms and elbows poked you from all sides, and two teenagers were talking way beyond the proper volume in such a cramped space. You couldn’t wait to get off.

Suddenly, commotion stole your attention elsewhere. Sounds of irritated folk earned everyone’s stares. You heard men and women alike, complaining about movement and pushing.

“Hey, stop pushing me!”

“Don’t look at me, it’s someone else!”

“Alright, who is then?”

Angry remarks were thrown. Not that you could blame them. The uncomfortable ride paired with lack of oxygen were not suited for enjoyable time.

An apologetic voice exclaimed, “Sorry! I need to get through, it’s important. Sorry, didn’t mean to step on your toes!”

Eyes widening and mouth nearly falling wide open, you turn to see the biggest man you’ve ever seen! His form was easily towering above all others, making you think that he was part of the reason why the train cart was so crowded.

The ginormous man had dark brown hair reaching his broad shoulders, the locks were messy and thick, slightly falling in front of his eyes.

What stood out the most however wasn’t his unnatural size. It was the pair of two brown, rounded ears atop his head.

It instantly hit you. The inhuman height was because he wasn’t human at all. He was a hybrid. A bear one at that! One of the most dangerous hybrids there is. While they might not attack unless provoked or caught off guard, meeting one is definitely something most would avoid.

Your heart nearly beat out of your chest when the bear-man’s eyes connected with yours. They were an odd amber colour, you noticed.

Fuck! You shouldn’t have looked his way.

And like the dumbass wannabe-dead, something in your brain forces your gaze back up and you freeze. The look on his face when he sees you. The look. It was the look.

Oh no. Oh no no no no no.

This could not be happening. It was obvious what was happening. You’d heard about it. On TV. From friends. Seen it in real life. There was no way you could be someone’s mate. Not when you’d spent so many nights praying it wasn’t your fate, since you didn’t want to end up like those humans you’ve heard about.

Well now you knew why he was causing a disturbance on the train. It was to get to you. A hybrid can easily smell its mate hundreds of meters away. He must have smelt you the second you got on that train and gone searching for you.

A squeak escaped your lips as you saw him waving at you while attempting to close the distance. Of course it did not go fast because of all the people between you.

No. You refused to be chained down to some animal. You had to get out. And as if someone above heard you, you heard the train voice speak, “Station X.”

That was your station.

The hybrid seemed to have noticed someone was off, he observed your face before glancing at the approaching platform. Then it clicked in his head.

“No, wait!”

Too late. You were already bolting out the doors, listening to angry comments after you. You only had time to rush a hasted ‘sorry’ before making it on the platform. The man did not have the same luck.

“Don’t go! Please! Don’t leave! No. ”

He desperately tried to shove passed all the passengers to get to the doors, but there was no time left and the doors closed shut before he managed to reach within one meter of them. The wheels of the train were rolling the connected vehicles away.

You had no interest to stay and watch, though. You still had a job to go to and you couldn’t afford to be late, or else your boss would scold you fiercely again.

Half running and half jogging, you hurried to the diner while in deep thought. Had you lost him? Maybe, but probably not forever. As hybrid will stop at nothing to find their mate once they’ve entered their sights. Fuck. My. Life. The next station the train would stop at was a bit away, so perhaps you were lucky this time? If you were careful from now on and don’t go out as much, then you could possibly avoid being found. Also, your work place was somewhat far from the subway.

If you saved up a bit, then you could also by a scent masking spray to hide yourself further. Although it was risky to do that. Because hybrids need a fair chance of finding their mate, masking spray became forbidden after people started using it. So now the only place you can buy it is from shady markets or people who may or may not want to steal your kidneys. Besides all that, it was very costly too.

You dragged a hand through your hair and heaved a deep sigh. What were you going to do?

“Y/N stop daydreamin’ an get back ta work!” Your bosses yelled and slapped you on the back.

Massaging your shoulder you answered, “Sorry boss…”

The diner wasn’t too busy so you had no idea of why he tried to rush you. Sure, there were some customers here and there filling the tables, but you weren’t so understaffed that youd have to srint around like a maniac trying to get everyone’s orders.

Approaching a table with customers, you put on you employe smile, “Hello, what can I get for you today?”

The man looked at the menu an extra time to finalise his decision, “I’ll have the chicken pasta with sundries tomatoes and red wine, can we also order some garlic bread?”

“Yes,” you wrote down the dishes on your small notepad, “and you, ma’am?”

No answer.

“Ma’am?”

But she wasn’t paying any attention to you. It was as if you didn’t even exist, looking passed you like air with wide eyes. Finding this weird you turned back to her husband. Feeling your gaze he chuckled awkwardly.

“Honey? Aren’t you going to order?” She still didn’t respond which forced her husband to see whatever she was focusing so intently on.

It was then you realised they weren’t the only ones acting unusual. In fact, everyone inside the establishment had their eyes turned in the same direction. You swing around to witness the horror.

There, in the resturant entrance stood he. His form creating the illusion of the door being as insignificant as an ant. With heavy breath and droplets of sweat collecting on his forehead, you frantically whirling around until he noticed you.

Dropping your notepad and hand clasping over your mouth, you thought fuck, so I didn’t get rid of him?

Okay, even though it was kinda delusional to believe you could shake him off, you were surpsised he found you so fast. The hybrid wiped his eye and it was then you noted the redness surrounding them, an obvious sign of crying.

He stumbled forward, “There you are, I was so worried I wouldn’t be able to find you!”

Suddenly you were the centre of attention.

“W-what….?” Backing, you feigned ignorance.

“You saw me on the train earlier, I tried to stop you getting off but you took off without warning…” he hung his head in despair.

Yeah, guess why?

“You should leave..”

“Huh? No, I can’t g-“ the hybrid rushed.

“What’s goin�� on ‘ere?” The voice of your boss interrupted. With a deep scowl he paraded into the scene and crossed his arms in a defensive stance as soon as he laid eyes in the bear-man. “W-whatddya you want?” His gruff voice sounded unusually weak. “If there’s any trouble I’ll ‘ave ta call the cops, ya got me?” He said despite appearing like a newborn deer.

A bewildered expression crossed the tall man’s face, “No I’m not here to cause anything! I’m here for someone!” He explained while waving his arms. Unfortunately it had the opposite effect, the humans in the diner cowered lightly at the gesture and he instantly stopped. “Sorry…”

Your boss cleared his throat, “Alright. Who ya ‘ere for?” He’d make that person go with the scary man to make him leave as soon as possible. Not that he’d admit it, but he never liked those hybrid people. They just seemed unreliable it all. Nothing to be trusted. With their animal intincts present and sharp teeth, he couldn’t allow them to be in his resturant. He hadn’t the curious he to blatantly kick them out but he could at least give them what they wanted to make them lose interest as fast as possible.

The bear’s gaze searched yours and your boss put two and two together. “Oi, Y/N, come ‘ere. Someone’s looking for ya!” The man pulled your collar to drag you forward, earning a small frown from the hybrid but it vanished just as quickly.

You refused to look at him, keeping your attention to the floor and praying for him to go away. A rough hand carressed your cheek and you flinched and after hestitation it pulled away.

“Won’t mate look at me..?” A saddened voice said.

A twinge of guilt started brewing in your mind but you pushed it down. “I see this is new to you-being human and all, haha.” He tried to liven up the atmosphere. “Umm…you know what this is, though? Me seeing you and then following you here must be creepy, haha- but it’s not I promise! I just want to love you. Because we’re,” he giggled, “mates!” He happily sighed. “And you know what that is, right? If you don’t it’s fine, I’ll tell you. Being mates is loving someone no matter what, be it looks or personality nothing is important. Mates take care of each other, providing for your mate and making them happy is the best feeling in the world! There doesn’t exist anything that can compare!- not that I know that personally or anything since I haven’t had a mate before but I’ve heard from all my friends who have mates. Oh, I’m so jealous of them whenever I see them together with their mates doing fun things. Though it doesn’t really matter what you’re doing as long as it’s with your ma-“

“Please stop!” You yell, several customers flinch at your tone, not that you cared anymore. Having to listen to his constant talk about being mates had brought you over your boiling point. The man silenced at your exclamation. “Sorry, but I don’t give a shit about all this mate stuff or whatever- it doesn’t mean anything to me so please leave! I’m sorry that this isn’t what you want to hear but I have no interest in being your mate, not now, not ever.” You pointed at the door. “So go.”

The hybrid was stunned and stood quiet, appearing hurt. Then your boss promptly spoke, “Y/N, you showing speak to someone like that! Especially someone who loves you so much!”

“Huh?” What the hell was he going on about? He never cared for hybrids, certainly not their feelings. You’ve heard all those thing he said about them when he thought no one was listening.

“Clark.” The hybrid said and lowered his head.

“What?”

“My name- I apologise. I shouldn’t have barged in here expecting you to be chill about everything, I’m a fool. I’m just a stranger to you. The least I could do is tell you my name.” The apology sounded so sincere.

“No, it’s uh- fine..” you scratched your arm anxiously. Luckily he seems pretty nice and not someone who would just take their mate and go; it’s happened before. Perhaps you’ve got a chance?

“Oh come on Y/N! Give the poor fella a chance!”

You crash into the giant’s chest from the shove.

“He clearly loves you!

What the hell was he going on about?

Strange that the man was encouraging your reunion, you thought.

“Actually, since I’m so nice, why don’ I do ya a favour and let ya go? Someone like ya shouldn’t have to work in a place like this. This’a happy day!” Then he pointed at the beak room, “Get ya stuff and celebrate.”

“Excuse me-wha- let me go? As in I’m fired?” Your brain tried to comprehend what just happened and words fell out in unfinished sentences. Despite yourself, you fixed your eyes at Clark.

“Don’ worry he’ll be ‘ere when ya get back!” The rough man shooed you towards the break room.

Having no choice but to comply, you do as he wishes and abandons the scene, which might’ve been the best thing really, the continued staring of the present customers was starting to make you uncomfortable.

Glaring at your locker like it was the cause of your I’ll mood, you harshly ripped your jacket off the hook and stuffed some scattered items back in your bag. You could not believe it. Fired? You? You have been nothing but a good employee at the diner, even taking all the shit from the boss and not complaining once.

Through the small window in the door, you spot the cause of your troubles thoughts walking by. Angrily you grab his arm and pull him inside the room, a surprised noise leaving him.

“What the hell, why am I being laid off? I haven’t done anything.”

He expressed a long breath. “Sorry, but I can’t ‘ave some brute hangin ‘round here ‘cause of you, customer don’t like it and I won’t sacrifice my business for someone like you. Surely you understand.”

“He won’t hang around the diner, we’re not together! Besides, it not my fault!” You pleaded with him. You needed this job. Without it you’d definitely die in the end.

“Well, we both know he won’t leave so don’ make this any harder than it already is.” He said before leaving to do whatever shit he did instead of being a good manager.

Bullshit. It wasn’t hard at all. In fact, you bet he loved an recuse to get rid of you. He never liked you from the very beginning.

With despair, you left through the back door and as you listened to it close, you did not react to the loud bam of the heavy metal slam. Recalling at how you flinched the first time you went out the back, you clench your fist. How’re you gonna make it now? You doubted you had much savings in the bank.

Making your way to the station, blew passed you that there was still a bear waiting for you so he could properly introduce himself. He was in his own mind so much that he didn’t realise you’d already left until it was too late.

Good that he was born with a great sense of smell. How stupid of him not to consider your perspective in the beginning! Not to worry, he’ll make sure he doesn’t scare you off the next time. His species didn’t have the best reputation so he understood why you acted the way you did; it still hurt though.

The next time he’d just need to show you he wasn’t dangerous at all.

——

Sorry the ending sucked and was rushed. I wasn’t really sure how I wanted to end it so it turned into this.

[aperrywilliams]

More Than You Expect (Spencer Reid x Fem!BAU!Reader)

——————

Author Masterlist

Part 1: More Than You Know

Part 2: More Than You Say

——————

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!exBAU!Reader.

Summary: You have a new life, and Spencer isn't in it. But somehow, you both cross paths again. Will it be just like the wind passing, or will it stick?

Word Count: 7k

TW: ANGST WITH "HOPEFUL" ENDING. Strong language. Mention of sex, illicit acts, jail, typical CM things. A character gets injured (nothing life-threatening). If I forgot something, please let me know.

A/N: The last part of the trilogy "More Than You..." It's done, folks. What started like a one-shot a year ago is complete now. Thank you for all the comments I got about this one, your likes, and your reblogs. Tell me your thoughts about it.

——————

Big changes are usually something people are eager for or afraid of. You are in the second group. You don't like changes. There's no way you stayed in the BAU for more than a decade if it weren't in part for fear of making big changes in your life.

It's not that you don't like to imagine new things or dream of something different, but uncertainty is something you aim to avoid at all costs.

Although your predisposition, when you confessed your feelings to Spencer on a fateful afternoon at the BAU three years ago, you knew a big shift was coming, and there was no turning back. That same night, after he left your apartment, you knew it would be the last time you would see him.

And boy, that one was a hell of a change.

After thirteen years of spending together almost every day, he would no longer be a part of your life.

You handed your resignation letter to Emily the next morning. She tried to convince you to stay, but deep down, Prentiss knew whatever reason she could give you, it wasn't enough. You had already made up your mind.

-----------

From one big city to another. New York welcomed you with open arms. The NY FBI field office did, too.

Although you chose to stay as an FBI agent, your job would be slightly different from the one you had been doing at the BAU when you joined the Organize Crime division.

It was a little intimidating at first. There was a lot of action, certainly a lot of undercover missions, a bunch of criminals, too many drug busts and guns. In summary, a lot of everything. But with time, you learned that OC has so plenty of shit targets as the BAU had. It wasn't rare to come face to face with psychopaths sometimes. And your training as a profiler has come in handy more than once.

After you left DC, you never looked back. You asked Emily to please not tell anyone where you would go. You also write a letter to Garcia, pleading not to track you down, assuring her you would be fine, and if the future would make you cross paths again, so be it, but please do not push it. She replied with a full four-page letter, agreeing with your request but giving you her thoughts about why she felt you were doing wrong.

You appreciated her honestly, but it was done.

No listening to Prentiss's instructions, Spencer tried to reach you regardless. Your phone kept receiving daily calls and texts for months. You didn't reply to any of them.

Until someday, it stopped.

You should have felt relief, and sort of you did, but it was a bittersweet feeling knowing the last string that kept it joined to your old life was cut.

That was the change, and you took it.

Were you doing okay? Did you accept it without consequences? No.

But the new job needed to do its magic. You were so consumed by what you were committed to doing that nothing else mattered.

In the past three years, you have gone undercover so many times, some of them with direct life risk, but you were in one piece. You have been shot and stabbed, though, giving you enough scars to talk about.

Your teammates were and are still very surprised by your versatility and compromise. Your philosophy? Do the job, take another case, work your ass on it, and catch the bad guys.

They even started calling you the Lone Ranger. Why? Although your work involves a task group with more agents, most of the time, your missions are in solitary— weeks or months of not having contact with your team until there is some break in the case.

Once the job is done, you return home and just shut off from the world.

You only socialize after work a little or the bare minimum. Just a few colleagues know things about you besides your prominent former career as a profiler in DC. And certainly, nobody knows the true reason why you moved to New York in the first place.

It's better this way, and you are used to it.

And what about your current love life? While in DC, you didn't have one because you were pining for Spencer; in New York, you don't have one because nothing seems too serious to think of it.

Flings? Of course. But that's all. In some way, you became the same kind of person you criticized in Spencer.

Life works in mysterious ways.

-----------

"The NYPD called us an hour ago asking for one of our most wanted, Vincent Clark," your boss, Agent Lindstrom, says as Monday's morning meeting starts.

It's not something uncommon. Local police have their own OC task force, and you have worked together more than once. The weird thing is that from one moment to the next, they request information from a target, of which, in theory, only your team knows.

"And they want information because-" you enunciate the obvious question.

"They're working on a case involving a string of civilian murders in Manhattan, and for some reason, his name came up," Lindstrom fills.

"Murders? It doesn't sound like Clark's MO," John Miller - a colleague - muses.

"Certainly not. NYPD has to be wrong," you back Miller's observation.

"And why NYPD-OC are investigating civilian murders? Does it have to do with some kind of operation?" Adam Taylor - another teammate - asks.

"Not quite. The local task force is helping 1PP because things have been escalating pretty quickly," Lindstrom explains. "But we here must find out why Clark is a person of interest and verify if they're indeed wrong about him. We don't want them to blow up our intel for no reason. So, Taylor and (Y/L/N), you're assigned to go with NYPD and help to clear this up."

That's how you got a new assignment. And not as undercover; that's a shift.

Taylor is driving this time, and you only look out the window, focusing on nothing in particular.

"You okay?" He asks after some time, resting a hand on your knee. You turn to see him.

"Yeah, why?"

"You are too quiet. Maybe you are mad at me?" Taylor asks tentatively. You raise an eyebrow.

"Why would I?" He clears his throat at your question.

"Well. Because, you know, we haven't talked about the other night."

The other night. Adam is referring to when you came back from your last undercover mission of four months and ended up in his bed at the end of the day.

You tensed at his response. You knew it was a bad idea to sleep with him, but you always thought about it as stress relief, and you thought he understood the same.

"There is nothing to talk about, Adam. We both know what it was." You try to sound cool but soft as well so as not to hurt feelings - if they were there.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. I just was making sure you were okay with it."

Why do men have the compulsion to mask a question that only cares about them, like uninterested concern about you?

"I am. Don't worry," you assure Adam with a confident smile.

To your ease, the conversation ends there.

You always have kept your distance in this job, with the prerogative of not getting involved with colleagues. What went on with Taylor is still bothering you because it was something that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

-----------

The NYPD quarters welcome you with Captain Novak's handshake. Soon, you learn he wasn't aware the locals had called your boss for intel.

"I'm sorry you had to come here. We are already having the FBI help on this," Novak explains. It's a way to say they don't need you there.

But you have a job to do, so you can't just leave.

"Due to the information we got, I think we can be useful too, Captain," you point, as Taylor backs you up saying something similar.

Novak understands he should use all hands available, so he agrees to have you stay and join the group working on the case.

"Yeah. I think any information would be useful in this case. Come on, I'm going to introduce you to the task group working on this." You and Taylor follow him down a hall to the end, where a large meeting room is.

After opening the door, Novak is ready to make the formal introductions.

"As I told you, an FBI unit is helping us on this. Here is the BAU team. Agent Prentiss, Rossi, Alvez, Jareau, Lewis, and Reid."

Your breath suddenly hitch in your throat at the sight of your old team there. And everyone is looking back at you with a perplexed look as well.

Novak continues talking. "These are Agent (Y/L/N) and Taylor from the OC division." After a second of contemplation, Novak let out a chuckle. "Ha, it's weird. I have to introduce two FBI teams working on the same case with the NYPD."

The guy has a bizarre sense of humor, but he has a sense of humor nonetheless; you have to give him that.

Not that you keep a count, but it has been three years, two months, and twenty days since the last time you saw them. Plus seven hours if you consider the last time you saw Spencer. Since the night you kicked him out of your apartment.

You can't help but make eye contact with him. You both look shocked. And how not to be? Neither of you woke up this morning thinking about seeing each other again.

"Agent (Y/L/N), it's nice to see you again. Good thing OC wants to help here. I can tell you about what we have got so far."

Emily speaks, breaking the silence and setting the rules of the current interaction. She is as surprised as everyone, but it would be time for that later.

It's a welcomed way out of the uncomfortable moment, and you take it.

"Sure. Do you think Agent Taylor could catch up with the intel you got from the current suspect?"

Emily nods. "Of course, Lewis, Reid, can you help agent Taylor on that? Captain Novak, maybe you can give some insight from the locals, too?"

Tara and Novak agree verbally, while Spencer only gives a curt nod.

Spencer makes brief eye contact with you before leaving the room.

Hell, what were the odds of something like this happening? You chose OC in another city precisely because you would hardly end up working on the same case.

Well, fuck the improbability.

When you're left alone with the rest, you don't know whether to ignore the elephant in the room or acknowledge the three years in which none of them have heard from you.

"It's good to see you, bella," Rossi cuts your mind spiral.

"Yeah, hope New York has treated you well," Luke seconds.

"I'm sure OC is happy to have you," JJ adds.

Each one of your former teammates offers you positive words you didn't expect to hear after leaving the way you did.

"Thank you, guys," you mumble gratefully.

Prentiss speaks up before things turn too emotional.

"Okay, okay. We'll have time for that later. Now, we need to crack this case. Tell us (Y/N) what can help us catch this unsub?"

You proceed to explain your concern about whether they are focusing on the wrong suspect. Emily listens to you carefully, and the rest share their impressions. There is no clear conclusion, but you decide to proceed with caution, given Vincent Clark's importance to your team.

"Okay. This is what we are going to do. Luke, you and JJ track Clark's associates first. Discretely, of course. Dave, can you check with Garcia about what these buildings in this list have in common?"

Once they are all gone with a task in hand, you stay alone with Emily.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know they would call you for this case," Prentiss muses. Your mouth goes agape. Why is she apologizing to you?

"Emily, it's okay. It's me who should be sorry for disappearing like that. I - I never contacted you, and you have the right to -" You can't finish your idea because Emily cuts you off.

"I know what are you going to say, and no. We are not mad (Y/N), we understand. You didn't want to be found, and we get that."

You surely appreciate her reassurance, but it doesn't make the guilt go away.

"Spencer does, too?"

Emily furrows her eyebrows. "In a way, I think he does. But he won't tell you that," she confides.

It's better than nothing.

"Is he okay, though?" You ask, believing if his life improved after your departure, you could feel a bit less shitty.

"I can't answer that. You will have to ask him."

Emily's assertiveness strikes again, you think. She's right. It's unfair to talk about Spencer with you when you were adamant about her not speaking with him about you.

You nod. "Fair enough."

For the rest of the day, things are pretty hectic. Police officers and FBI agents are coming and going; new information comes to check, and there are more witnesses to interview. There's so much movement that you haven't been able to stop a second and think about how you feel seeing Spencer after three years.

Emily has been cautious about not assigning you tasks where you might coincide, but you still can see him in the police station, and you've even exchanged furtive glances from time to time.

Taylor catches you doing it one of those times.

"What's wrong?" At the question, you turn to see him.

"Uh? No. Nothing." You're too distracted to notice Adam doesn't believe you.

"So, they are your former team in DC," he remarks, trying to get you talking. Since you arrived at 1PP, you have barely said a word not work-related to Taylor.

"Yeah." It's the best you can give him. You know what Adam is doing, but you won't engage. You have a lot on your plate already.

Your mind starts mulling the idea of talking to Spencer. But why would you do that? You were very clear the last time you spoke about your need to step aside. You were explicit to him about not having the strength to keep supporting him in his free fall. Sure, he promised to change and all that jazz, but you knew staying would only have brought you more pain and disappointment.

Despite all the reasoning, in the back of your brain, there is still the question of whether he really did what he said he would do. It's a morbid thought you have sometimes entertained.

Taylor's hand on your shoulder brings you out of your thoughts. You look at him in a daze. "Novak is calling us," he announces, frowning. Adam knows there's more going on in your head than you let on, and he has a suspicion about what - or rather who - it's about.

-----------

It's late at night, and still, there are no clues solid enough to catch the unsub. You all start to feel the exhaustion but keep going. You haven't seen Spencer, Tara, or Rossi in a few hours, so you think Emily sent them to the hotel for the night.

Taylor told you he needed a break as well. So you're alone in one of the offices, going through folder after folder in case you overlooked something.

You're so focused that you jump when you notice the silhouette of someone standing in the doorway.

It's Spencer.

"Jesus! You scared me," you exclaim with a hand over your chest.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to do that," Spencer apologizes, closing the door behind him. His voice is calm and collected. You inspect him with curious eyes.

"What are you doing here?" You ask, a little harsher than you have liked. Spencer contemplates his response for a couple of seconds.

"Uh, I just wanted to say hi and to know if you were doing okay?"

His voice is unsure, and you look at him in disbelief. It's your confusion that prompts him to continue. "Well, if this had happened months after you left, I would possibly have come to yell and accuse you for leaving like that. Now? Just let's say I wanted to make sure you are doing okay," he clarifies, hands in his pockets.

"Well. I'm doing okay. I hope that satisfies your curiosity." Your response is curt and snarky, and you don't know really why. He hasn't said anything out of the ordinary. Spencer doesn't seem surprised by your tone, though.

"It does. Thank you."

And maybe it's enough for Spencer to turn and leave you alone, but you have the question at the tip of your tongue.

"So you're not mad at me?"

Spencer narrows his eyes. "Uh, I didn't say I'm not mad. I said I'm not here to throw it at you," he clarifies.

For some reason, the answer to your own question ignites an old bitterness you thought was gone.

"Oh, thank you very much," you mock. "A bit bold of you, don't you think?"

Spencer scoffs. "Bold? Bold being mad after you left from one day to the next?"

And there you go. So, Spencer's main problem is that you left in a hurry rather than the reason why you did it.

"What did you expect? Did you think I was going to stay after what happened?" You ask with incredulity, standing from your spot and crossing your arms over your chest.

"Maybe not. But head-ups would have been nice," Spencer matches your sarcasm.

"Yeah, and a goodbye party, too," you deadpan, and Spencer breathes a humorless laugh. Your irony is pushing his buttons the way you know it does, even after all these years. But why are you doing it? You don't really know.

"(Y/N), you literally disappeared! I was - we all were worried. I know you didn't want to talk to me or see me, for that matter. But why leave the BAU like that?"

Spencer looks distraught just at the mention of that fact. You don't interrupt his rant.

"For months, I really thought something bad had happened to you until Emily told me you were actually okay and that I should stop bothering you."

"It took you long enough," you mutter under your breath.

For a long time, you thought your reaction and later decision to leave like that was too much. Maybe it wasn't necessary to drop everything to start over, but you knew if you wanted to leave behind thirteen years of a lot of things, thirteen years of Spencer Reid, you needed to do something big—a major change.

"Yeah. It took me long enough. But don't expect me to be cool about it. It hurt (Y/N). It hurt like hell," Spencer admits.

"Why? Weren't you living the life you wanted?" you ask sardonically, and you see how Spencer's jaw clenches.

"You know I didn't. And I told you back then I realized about that, too," Spencer says, referring to the last time you saw each other—the night you kissed, and he told you he loved you, but you didn't believe him.

"But I get it. I understood why you didn't trust I was telling the truth, and it was fair. But to disappear like that? It was a lot (Y/N)."

In some way, you truly think Spencer's feelings about what happened are reasonable, and even you can understand the grudge he holds against you. But you are not in place to admit that to him. Not when the memory of what happened starts to burn in your brain and heart again.

"Are you done?" Pettiness is the only thing at hand you can use for now.

Spencer sighs. "I don't want you to think I'm admonishing you or whatever you think I'm doing. I really get I did wrong back then, and I hurt you. I'm not dismissing that fact."

"Good! Because here I was thinking you already forgot," you state, raising your voice.

"Jesus, (Y/N). Can you stop that?" Spencer's voice raises, too, to match yours.

You are about to make another remark when the door opens.

"(Y/L/N), we are going to -," Taylor starts to say but is cut off when he sees you with Spencer arguing. You both get startled and turn to see him. "Am I interrupting?" Taylor questions with eyebrows furrow.

"No-"

"Yes-"

You and Spencer reply in unison and make Taylor hesitate. "(Y/N)?" he asks you directly this time, tentatively approaching. He looks worried, and you don't want to make a fuss right now.

"It's okay, Adam. We are discussing something about the case. I'll finish here and join you, okay?" you say, with a soothing hand on his elbow.

"Yeah, okay. Yeah. I'll be with Novak," an unconvinced Taylor says as he retracts from the office, leaving you and Spencer alone again.

When you turn to see Spencer, he has his eyes trained on you, analyzing you. It's a piercing gaze you haven't seen in him in a long time—years, to be exact.

"What?" You ask, trying to break the trance. It seems to work because Spencer clears his throat.

"Nothing. Uh. I should go. Emily must be looking for me," he mumbles before passing you. Almost leaving the office, he turns for a moment.

"I really wanted to know you were okay. I'm sorry for what I said after that."

When the door closes behind him, you are left standing, questioning whether the last ten minutes have actually happened.

-----------

'I'm sorry for what I said after that.'

Why is he sorry? Is it because he didn't mean it? Is it because he didn't want you to know?

It's not that you feel guilty, or maybe you do to some extent. Whatever it is, the thought of Spencer in the past three years has haunted you in many ways and forms.

Yeah, you came to New York to put distance between yourself and him, but what you never saw coming is that sole fact started to weigh on you in many aspects of your life. At first, you thought that due to the bond you both had forged for years, things would not look very good. Sure, it was going to take a lot of work, but you thought time would do its magic.

You tried—you have been trying hard. And even though you still believe it was the right thing to do, why have you yet to make peace with yourself?

Why has happiness been elusive to you? You haven't been able to make real friends; you haven't been able to have a healthy relationship. You've immersed yourself in the job, hoping sooner rather than later, the moment when the pieces finally fit together will come.

Will it ever happen?

When you think about that, your mind wanders to Spencer and whether what you're feeling now is anything like how he felt at the time. Or maybe how he still feels. You don't know. The times you have thought about it always end with the conclusion it's not the same. He had you back then. You don't have anybody.

Seeing him now only has fueled your self-struggle, and although you think it's not fair to take it on him this time, your actions haven't reflected that thought.

After considering your encounter in the precinct office, you concluded the best thing to do is to keep the peace between you both. To be civil and avoid the bickering. You are an adult; you can do that.

What you didn't expect is it hasn't been necessary to put your resolution into practice since you haven't run into Spencer again. The times you've seen him, he's barely made eye contact and immediately gone in the opposite direction from you.

In the meantime, the hours have passed, and you are almost ending your second day on the case, at least with more progress than the day before.

There is a good clue about who the unsub is—Albert Thomas, who has a direct link to Vincent Clark, your target from OC. Indeed, the unsub would be part of Clark's team.

Given that, you and Taylor inform your boss, and he allows you to participate in the takedown only if you can get Clark as well. It would be the conclusion of more than a year of chasing him.

It is a complicated operation, so everyone—officers from the NYPD, the BAU, and the OC division—prepares to catch Thomas and those involved with him.

Upon arriving at the abandoned building where you expect Thomas to be, Emily sends you in pairs to different points. You go with Taylor to cover the back door. Upon entering, you realize it is suspiciously quiet. The lighting is bad, but you don't want to use your flashlight so as not to alert them about your presence. You go first, and Taylor covers you. You arrive at a room where some light sneaks in. You go a little forward and peek, realizing Clark is filling some briefcases with money. He has his back on you, so he doesn't notice your presence.

"FBI! Hands up!" you shout, approaching with your gun pointed at Clark. He turns around but doesn't seem scared. Why? He is not alone.

Unfortunately, that thought comes too late. In a matter of seconds, Thomas pounces on you, throwing you to the floor. Your weapon falls meters from you. You know Taylor is behind you, but you see Clark grab his briefcases and run towards another escape door.

“(Y/N)!” Taylor shouts, and you barely hear him in your fight with Thomas. But you know if he stops to help you, you'll lose Clark.

"Go for Clark!" You shout him back, rolling on the ground after Thomas jabs your face with his fist.

You can't see Taylor, but you know he is hesitant. "Go!" you insist until you hear him running outside. Now, you can focus on Thomas. You manage to asset a blow to his jaw and push him away from you, but as you are kneeling and about to stand, he is on the floor pointing you a gun.

Where did he get that?

He is going to shoot you. You can see it in his eyes. You know the profile, too. He hasn't nothing to lose. You need to think fast. Talking to him won't make a difference. You decide your best chance is launching at him and pray the bullet doesn't hit you badly.

But before you can do so, you hear a gunshot. You close your eyes because you think it's coming from Thomas's gun. When you notice you don't feel any impact and you hear Thomas's screams of pain, you dare to open your eyes.

Spencer is standing with his revolver pointed at him. He was the one who shot, preventing Thomas from shooting you.

You let out a sigh of relief before collapsing to the floor. Although you didn't get shot, you are very beaten up, and the adrenaline rush leaves you without the energy to keep yourself on your feet.

Spencer is fast to catch you before you hit your head. There is commotion around, but you can barely hear anything. Even Thomas's screams sound far away.

"Hey, hey. I've got you," Spencer mumbles, adjusting you in a lying position, holding the back of your head in his hands.

"Thank you," you breathe out.

You won't notice much of what happens next. Paramedics come to check you out, but you only focus on the squeeze of Spencer's hand in yours. It's the only thing that grounds you as your eyes begin to feel progressively heavy. There comes a point where everything goes black, and you lose consciousness.

When you wake up, you are in a hospital bed. You see Adam with his back to you, talking on the phone, possibly to your boss. When he hangs up the call, you get his attention.

"What happened?" Your voice is raspy, so you assume it's been a couple of hours since you got there. Taylor turns and gives you a little smile.

"It's good to see you awake."

Adam tells you he caught Clark, and they can link him not only to Thomas's murders but to all the evidence against him you have been collecting over the last year. Adam also tells you what the doctor said about your condition. Despite the pretty bad blows you got, there is nothing serious, and you will be able to be discharged in a few hours.

"Where is Spencer?" you blurt out, not fully registering what you asked. A slip you quickly try to disguise. "I mean, the BAU. They have Thomas in custody?"

"Yeah. They brought Thomas to check the GWS, and after his discharge, he got into custody. And yeah, Agent Prentiss and Agent Reid came to check on you a few times," Taylor adds to his recounting with a knowing look you prefer to ignore.

Why does learning they came to check on you make your chest feel warm? You blame the medication the doctors surely gave you.

As Taylor said, a few hours later, you are discharged from the hospital with instructions to go home and not back to work in a week.

Your boss gives you the instructions on the phone. He sounds very happy to have Clark in custody and even mentions a promotion for you for such a successful operation.

You should be happy, right? But in all honesty, it doesn't feel like it.

You decide to go home to catch some needed sleep. Maybe sleeping helps to stop overthinking things. But before you can doze off, a ding from your phone grabs your attention.

Emily P: 'I hear you were discharged. We are leaving tomorrow morning. Would you like to celebrate with us and have a drink tonight? For old-time's sake?'

A nostalgic smile forms on your lips. A drink with your old team? Why not? Even if Spencer is going to be there, you already think it's time to make peace with what happened for your own good and mental health.

-----------

The sound of music and laughter makes the bar feel lively and festive. Upon entering, that's the first thing you notice. The second thing you notice is you haven't been to this place for a while, being one of your regulars when you just moved to New York. At the back of the bar, you can see Emily, Luke, JJ, Rossi, Tara, and Spencer talking and laughing, each with their drink of choice. It's good to see them like this, relaxed, enjoying the moment. It brings back very good memories.

"(Y/N)!" Emily calls you, and everyone turns to see you. You wave and stroll where they are.

When you sit down, the first thing they do is ask you how you feel after the beating Thomas gave you. You don't know if it's on purpose or not, but no one is referring to the fact he almost put a bullet in you.

The conversation flows animatedly. While you tell the most notable anecdotes from your missions in OC, they review some of their most important cases from the last three years of the BAU. The ones who talk the most are Emily, Luke, and Rossi. While JJ and Tara rather break jokes and are more affected by alcohol than the rest. Spencer is the quietest of all, but he also participates in the conversation and even asks you questions about the things you say.

If you thought it might be an awkward instance, your former team proves the opposite, even considering the circumstances and reasons why you left the BAU. And although no one refers to it, everyone tacitly knows that it is there.

They don't resent you. They understood you needed to leave, and although you didn't tell them the reasons, they knew. Even Spencer seems comfortable when you have thought he wouldn't.

The conversation comes to a stop when Emily raises her glass, clearing her throat.

"Well. Uh. It's a weird time for this, but I do think things happen for a reason," Emily prephase, looking at everybody. "So, okay. Here we are tonight with an old friend who left the nest a few years ago," Emily looks at you. "To say goodbye to another of our own who is also embarking on new paths," now her eyes settle on Spencer. "I wish you the best in your new life. We'll miss you a lot. To Reid and his last case at the BAU," Emily toasts.

As everyone raises their glasses and cheers, you can't help but look at Spencer with surprised eyes.

Is he really leaving the BAU? After all these years? Did his last case end with him saving you from a bullet?

He gives you a short glance before sipping his beer.

"Come on, we want a speech," Luke demands, and everyone backs him. You're still in shock to say anything.

Spencer's cheeks redden a bit as he clears his throat before speaking.

"When Gideon recruited me for this job, I never imagined all the things I would experience in 17 years working here—the good and bad. I will always fondly remember everyone I met here and had the honor of working with." Spencer's eyes now focus on you.

"On my first day, I was so nervous I thought I was going to mess it up. But in the conference room, I met someone who was also on her first day. Knowing I wasn't the only one helped me not to run away."

Everyone is listening with raptor attention, and you know they are looking at you from the corner of their eyes.

"Do you remember the times we said everyone would leave before us?" He asks you, and now it's your turn to feel your cheeks burn.

"Well, it didn't happen that way. But I guess Emily is right, and things happen for a reason," he muses. "I wish some things could have been different, but we can't change the past," he says before averting your gaze. "I only hope the bond we forged all these years remains, even if we don't see each other that much or at all. I thank you for everything you have done for me, especially at my lowest points. I apologize for the little I gave in return," his gaze returns to you. "Thank you, guys. I'll miss you all."

Everyone clinks glasses, and Spencer's eyes keep on you. Why does the air feel suffocating from one moment to the next? You don't know what to do; the intensity of his gaze is overwhelming, and you think if you don't do something, you will faint right there.

You discretely apologize and get up from your spot. You need air.

Once outside, the cold of the night hits your face, but it is welcomed.

Your heart is still beating fast. Why are you so affected? Is it because Spencer is leaving the BAU? Are the memories he brought back during the toast?

"Are you okay?" A shy voice says behind you. It's Spencer. He followed you outside. You turn to see him with pained eyes, and Spencer worries even more. "What is it? Do any of the bruises hurt?"

Spencer believes your discomfort is physical. How ironic. In the last hours, you had even forgotten the beating you got.

You shake your head. "No, I'm okay. It's not that," you admit, and Spencer doesn't say anything, waiting for you to continue. "Is it true? Are you leaving?" He nods. "Why?"

It's weird how that fact has shaken you—or maybe not that weird. You never pictured Spencer in a place other than the BAU. You even talked about it several times. Like you, Spencer has never liked to make big changes, and you understand him more than anyone because you still feel the same about that.

"It doesn't make sense for me to stay anymore. It has been like that for a while," he shrugs.

"But you love the BAU. You always told me it was your life," you remind him. Spencer lets escape a little chuckle.

"You told me the same thing years ago, and you left nonetheless."

"It wasn't the same," you dismiss, shaking your head.

"I know. But since then, I've been questioning my reasons to stay."

"Why?"

Spencer takes some seconds to contemplate his response.

"Well. Maybe because it should have happened sooner? Honestly, I think the only reason I lasted this long after I was released from prison is because you were there supporting me. And well, after that? It took me months of therapy to realize it and almost two years to make the decision," he confesses. You are quite shocked hearing him talk about prison and therapy. Those things were banned for to mention three years ago.

"Months of therapy?"

Spencer shrugs again. "What can I say? I took your advice. You were right. I needed help to know what I really wanted."

His words bring you back to that night. The last time you saw each other. You wondered for a long time if Spencer got to make sense of what you said to him. Did he understand how hard it was for you to decide to step aside?

"You know? At first, I started it because I had the secret hope you would come back. And I promised you to change. With time and the certainty I had lost you, I began to accept I had to do it for myself."

Spencer's eyes drift to the distance like he can see those moments of realization he had back then.

"Did you?" Your voice is soft, trying not to cut him off from his reminiscence. His gaze comes back to you.

"Yes. And I thank you for it. I know I said a lot of other things at the precinct, but above all, I understood. I still think it's unfair, though."

"Unfair? Why?"

"I pushed you to do something I'm sure you didn't want to. It was me who should have left, not you."

"Spencer-" you start to say, but he cuts you off.

"I know, it is done. But what I said at the toast? I really meant it. I wish some things would have been different. Jeez, there are a lot of things I should have done differently. I wish I hadn't gone to Mexico. I wish I had told you I loved you sooner. I wish I hadn't chickened out when we first kissed."

Spencer's voice trembles a little. He is pouring out a lot of emotions, and you are there trying to digest all of them.

"But you said it yourself. It's done." Your tone isn't accusatory rather than nostalgic. He nods, clearing his throat.

"I know. And I can't go back in time to change it," Spencer acknowledges.

"Why are you leaving, then?" You are not saying it as if it's the wrong thing to do this time; it's more that you need confirmation that he is not running from reality as he did back then.

"Because I need to find my fresh start, as you did it. Well, and because after 17 years, to stay catching serial killers is not healthy, according to my therapist," he pulls a face after his last statement, making you chuckle.

"Am I listening correctly? Will Spencer Reid do what a shrink recommended to him?" you quip.

"What can I say? I'm a new man," Spencer shrugs, and you smile for real.

It's clear to you that he says it jokingly, but there is some truth behind it. It is not that people can go completely against their essence, but time has proven to you that things can change, and it's not necessarily totally good or totally bad. It's just different in shades of gray. And as something different, there is nothing wrong in looking for another change from time to time, even if that throws you out of your comfort zone.

As you both stand there, you realize that things in life are not linear. They are constantly coming and going. It's laugh and cry, condemn and forgive, mess up and amend.

"It's getting cold here," you start, and Spencer nods. "But I know a coffee shop nearby that is open this hour. Would you-? I mean, so we can keep talking. You don't have to, of course. I know you guys have a flight early in the morning." It's tentative; you can't really read him. Are you overstepping? Your overthinking dissolves when you see a grin forming on Spencer's lips.

"I, uh. I'd love to. I mean, to keep talking. Sure."

"Great. Okay. This way," you point, starting to stroll down the sidewalk. You adjust your coat to shield your neck from the cold as Spencer shoves his hands in his own coat pockets, walking beside you.

In a comfortable silence, you both bask in each other company. Is it like it used to be? Not quite. But it's a familiarity you can relish—a newfound understanding of what changes mean between you both.

Enough to lead you to talk for hours, laughing at your own silliness and crying at the painful admissions, causing Spencer to lose his flight the next morning.

Enough to make you leave New York months later and start teaching at the FBI Academy while Spencer gets his tenure at Georgetown.

And who knows? Maybe it's the same understanding that, six months later, will make you pursue a new step after a kiss under the street lights on a cold night in DC.

——————

Spencer Reid's Taglist: @dreatine @nomajdetective @jayyeahthatsme @rosalinasam2 @averyhotchner @lovelyxtom @princessmiaelicia @pastelbabygirl19 @reidsbookclub @alexxavicry @gspenc @spencerreidisbae123 @calmspencer @pauline5525mgg @anamiad00msday @milivanili99 @laylasbunbunny @leahblackk @miaxx03 @missabsey @taintedstranger @khxna @hiireadstuff @pleasantwitchgarden @dysphoricsanity @levi-of-starz @themoonchildwhofell @silver138 @lovelybaka @shinytinywhispers 

For those who asked for a part 2 or/and part 3: @gghostwriter @sebastiansstanswhore @evvy96 @pillsbury-doughgirl @singinghamtaro-blog @atlantica-angels @lukesmainpiece @ladyofhellhounds @gubzgirl @shqwqrma @hereforfun-31 @reader1402 @theoraekenslover @rac00ns-are-c00l4 @s1lngwns

[thebomb-thebird-andtheburntbitch]

Dragonfly: Lantern Rite

zhongli/fem!reader

genre: mindless domestic fluff

w.count: 2.2k

a/n: this lil treat is based around the reader/zhongli pair from my fic Dragonfly! (feel free to click through and give it a read hehe) you don't need to read the original material per se, but if you have, then enjoy the immortal couple going to lantern rite together for the first-time! c:

Happy Lantern Rite!

it had been a while since you had migrated from your sealed-off home in the middle of nowhere liyue into the busy liyue harbor at the insistence of zhongli (and shockingly enough xiao). according to both of them, you had spent the last few hundred years stuck in immorality and all alone; you had spent enough time in solitude. now, with your life being revealed to those who mattered to you, it was time to move forward again.

in truth, even with your experience dealing with all sorts of folks from your lifetimes, the move to the harbor was awkward. people would see you practically sticking to zhongli simply because you knew no one else and they would start conversations based soley on the fact that you must be someone he knew. he was much more popular and well-known than you suspected since he was just a mortal man now. it seems his knowledge and need to make things known when they could possibly be told in injustice worked in building his reputation.

the addition of hu tao in your small, new social circle was a burst of energy you had forgotten people had as well. her go-go-go attitude about work and seeming lack of fatigue was almost awe-inspiring. the fact that she was the boss of your archon-turned-mortal lover was just as entertaining; witnessing him try to reign her in as respectfully as possible and sigh heavily when she would flit out of his sight was a pleasantry. it made him feel more well-rounded as a person and not just the age-old archon you had known.

now, it had been about a month.

zhongli had invited you to stay with him since he was absolutely unwilling to let you get too far from him after believing you were dead for so long. he was a collectively calm man with control of his emotions, but any sane person would feel the smallest bit of clinginess- for lack of better terms- in this scenario. perhaps it was his innate instincts kicking in that he usually suppressed; the ones that made him bare his fangs or hiss at intruders on his territory... who could say?

as you sat at the open window of his home up on the second floor, you enjoyed the bustle of noises floating from the harbor and the breeze that greeted you at this height. your night clothes were wrinkled from your night of rest and your hair had only been haphazardly combed back with your fingers. the warm cup of tea in your hand had been brewed just before you took your seat at the window.

even after a month of this, you still couldn't understand how you forgot how peaceful mornings could be when they weren't steeped in lonesome melancholy.

small pads of footsteps invaded your senses and overtook the sound of the harbor before the door to the small tea room opened with a slight creak. one thing you always had zhongli beat at is being able to wake up before him.

his bare feet carry him further into the room before coming to your side and leaning down to kiss the top of your bedhead. the robe he wears slides down his exposed shoulder when he leans and his loose hair brushes against your cheek. his hand cups behind your back and slightly rubs against your shoulders in a warm, welcoming motion before his amber eyes glow in the morning sun mirthfully.

"good morning, my dear." his hand keeps rubbing your back and moves to press into your spine that is still sore from the stillness of sleep. "may i be so bold as to ask to join you?" he always asks the same question as if you'll ever tell him no. you have no doubt he does in simple jest now.

"you may, since i'm feeling generous." with a small chuckle, zhongli shifts his body to sit across from you at the tea table before pouring himself some of your brewed tea.

sitting in the orange morning sun, the veins of gold that run across his body look like rivers flowing on calm land.

"shouldn't you cover up? someone down there could see you," you tease as you take a sip of your cooling tea.

"there's no need," he sips his own steaming cup fresh from the pot. "we're far too high for anyone to take notice of my appearance properly." even if someone did notice his less-than-human traits running over his exposed skin, he'd just blame it on the sun- just a trick of the light.

the mornings were often like this. soft and quiet and slow before he knows he's needed at the funeral parlor and you would soon be needed at your own job. that was one other thing you were insistent on when moving to the harbor with him.

you didn't want to mooch off his paycheck and his home and his space forever, so you were quick to find a job anywhere you could. zhongli wishes you wouldn't have since he strongly thought that you deserved to live lazily and carefree- if not forever then at least for a while longer. still, when you didn't budge on your decision, he was quick to relent as he always was.

you had decided to go with a smaller-scale job and work alongside ying'er and her perfumes at the scent of spring. she was quite the character and when you told zhongli about your prospects of working with her- his slight flash of concern didn't go unnoted. 'she is simply a very... open person,' he had told you. the flirtatious way she often spoke to others was clearly what he was referring to when you got to know her more.

still, you had your pick and decided to stay. odd though she can act, she was a good person and offered you decent pay at easy hours. compared to running around preforming errands along with rites of partings like zhongli and hu tao- this was a pretty safe gig.

you stood outside the perfume shop with zhongli as he was about to start on his way to the funeral parlor. he always insisted on walking you to and from work- the one evening you made it home before he could pick you up was the first time you had ever seen his eyebrows droop in what you would dare to call a pout!

that miniscule pout now dared to tug on his expression this morning too. lantern rite was tonight and when the sun would begin to drop, he would be preoccupied with other tasks and mingling with friends from past and present- he was afraid the social traffic would prevent him from offering you his arm. you had no problem with the circumstances since the shop would be closing early today for lantern rite in the first place. you just told him you'd meet him at the docks before it starts.

it was mostly true; you hadn't found him in time when the lanterns were to be lifted and you instead stood among the crowd of strangers while gaming had performed his wushou dance among the calm waves of the harbor. still, you felt full watching all the festivities firsthand like this- the fulfillment filled you with such warmth. your vantage point atop the long stairs that leads down to the crowded docks gives you a sense of being on top of the world. it felt silly, but so very comforting.

"oh, y/n!" you turn your head to see the traveler and paimon coming your way, paimon waving her arm enthusiastically in the air. she then proceeds to float around you in awe of your attire. "wow! you look so pretty!" her cheeks tint as you feel yourself become the smallest bit bashful.

"well, it's my first lantern rite. i thought i should dress up a little for the occasion." wearing a styled hanfu of soft colors that easily complemented zhongli's color scheme, you picked up the skirt before letting it flutter back around your legs.

this was another reason you were okay with zhongli not being able to escort you. while it would've been wonderful to be with him the whole event, the idea of this small surprise of you all gussied up made your cheeks warm.

"you smell good too," paimon's comment made you burst out a small laugh since it was so unprompted. you clear your throat as she cups he chin with her finger. "why does your perfume smell so familiar?"

"it was a gift from ying'er. she told me it would 'suit my tastes', i suppose."

"ying'er," paimon's brows crunch in intense thought before the traveler placed their arms on their hips.

"remember the rite of parting for rex lapis, paimon?" paimon snaps her fingers and points at the blond.

"that's it!" she turned back to you to explain. "during the rite of parting, we offered perfumes up to rex lapis! this is the one that seemed to really resonate with the statue of seven. what was it- uh, something, something dusk... mist..? agh! paimon can't remember clearly." you chuckle at her.

"it's called golden house maiden. according to ying'er it's favored by the more mature crowd. the gentle scent makes it easier on me to wear since anything too strong really isn't my thing." looking at your wrist where you sprayed a small portion of it on your skin before applying it to your throat and neck, you feel yourself get hot all over again knowing it was favored by rex lapis. "anyway, are you two going to enjoy the event?"

"mmhnn!" paimon hums. "we just got back from visiting xiao, so now paimon's going to eat all sorts of delicious food!"

you shoot the traveler a sly grin before they were clearing their throat and looking away from you. oh, young love- how precious.

"so, where's zhongli anyway? normally he's hovering around you like a fly when you're not working!"

"he isn't that bad," you chuckle. "i'm meeting him in a bit. i was actually on my way down. if you'd like we can walk together?"

"sure!" paimon agrees while the traveler nods and soon you're all walking down the stairs to the warmly lit lanterns and the decorative float of one of the past yakshas. with you walking in front of the two travel companions, they both opened their mouths in silently 'ooo's at the sight of your hair all done up with a single hair stick- one they're familiar with. "they're so cute," paimon whispers to the traveler who easily agrees.

before too long, you're greeted by the bustling partygoers of lantern rite and was even offered a small lantern charm that you happily except from a passing sales pitcher.

"oh!" paimon pipes up before pointing through the crowd. "there he is!" she spots zhongli with hu tao nearby a table of small tea cups. he mentioned that he often watched the fireworks with her during events such as these. "zhongli!" paimon called, parting the crowd while you and the blond followed behind.

zhongli was glad he wasn't holding a teacup or standing up when you finally graced him with your presence. if he had, he knows he would've dropped the cup or lost his footing.

he stared at you in a daze when you offered a kind greeting to hu tao who was fussing over how pretty you looked just as much as paimon did. as if your looks weren't enough, the scent of your perfume wafted into his sense and if he were any less of a man he would've grabbed your wrist and dragged you off by now. the god of old was thankful the night was dark and light dim so no one could notice his blown wide pupils that took you in. when you finally look at him, he swallows hard.

"sorry for keeping you waiting so long. i know i said i'd be here before the event started, but i got a bit time blind... ironically enough." zhongli stood from his spot at the round table and found his voice.

"it was no trouble at all." his eyes catch sight of your hair and gently brings his hand up to cup around the dangling jewels hanging off the wings of your dragonfly hair stick. "it was clearly very much worth the wait."

"aiya, you two love birds sure are something else," hu tao sighs dreamily at you. she was no hopeless romantic or anything, but seeing zhongli so smitten was something was quite the sight to behold. "go! enjoy the festivities and relax!" her soft voice was encouraging as she pushes zhongli's back to get him moving.

zhongli offers you his arm, which you take before showing him your small little lantern charm you received while you both walked off together. the party of three you were leaving behind of hu tao, paimon and the traveler all smiled at your backs.

"they make a good couple," traveler says. the other two agree with no argument.

and although it's a little late, zhongli takes you out to the statue of seven just outside of the harbor and releases a lantern with you in solitude. while you watched it float into the air far behind its other lantern brethren, zhongli was latched onto your back, hands on your hips and his face in your neck.

this perfume really was favored by rex lapis after all.

[palesweetscherryblossom]

Tomura and Dabi see all the humans they are often given to kill. They are often either elder folk that "have no use anymore" or are just criminals. They don't know why the humans decided to be so cruel. All they knew was that they wouldn't be like that. Tomura considered it mercy when he brought the elderly to some nice coffins where their final rest would begin. Then he would very slowly drink their blood, death was gentle as they often fell asleep within minutes, not even noticing death gently caressing their faces.

Dabi, however, was supposed to take care of the criminals. Some of them were treated better while Tomura just looked at others and hoped that the mercy of death shall reach them soon. But he never interfered with his mate's judgment. He was far kinder than he himself.

Though this night they were surprised as they did not just receive a blind elderly man but also a little child by his side, shivering as the clothes they wore barely covered them up or kept them warm. It looked more like they wore a sack of potatoes.

"Are you alright, little one?" Dabi whispered as he extended his hand towards the small human before him. His lovely mate had taken care of her companion and will probably return soon.

The child just shook their head and backed away, almost stumbling over the sticks that were their legs.

"There is no need to fear anything, sweet little one. Just take my hand. I promise it doesn't burn. I promise it will be gentle and kind. Kinder than those hands from your own kind have treated you," he whispered gently as his glowing blue eyes took the little shaking child in. They were adorable, though his heart squeezed and burned at the thought of the villagers sending then here.

When the little one stepped closer, he smiled softly and soon caressed the back of their shaking hand. "Tell me, dearest, what's your name?"

"...Y/N..."

"What a beautiful name. It's truly a fortune which you bear. Now... Y/N, do you want something warm to wear?"

~~~~~~

Dabi carried the little child in his arms as they held onto his coat and long sleeves. He had washed and dressed the little ome. He knew they would be a perfect present for his mate. It was a present for both of them. They have been wanting to raise for a little pup together for centuries, and not this adorable little Hu was basically given to them. He couldn't help but glow with delight as he brought the little one to their shared coffin.

~~~~~~~~~

These strangers have treated you so kind. They didn't call you any nicknames or threw rocks at the mere sight of you. They didn't glance at you with disgust. Even your own mother couldn't manage to gaze into your eyes as she simply ignored you most days, leaving scraps for you to eat and old racks for you to wear.

You have been nothing more than a bastard.

These people who have been called nothing but monsters and cruel incarnations of the devil now cradled you as both wore the most gentle expression only statues of angles in the churches had held for you. Well, before you had been thrown out, they, too, didn't appreciate your mere presence.

One even let you play with their long and luscious hair as they hummed a lovely melody whole holding you against their chest. Their mere presence made everything around them glow as their faire skin looked so beautuful even with all the "flaws". You had them too, moles all over your skin where the devil had touched you and thin hair along with hollowed up cheeks and scared lips and face. But all they did was clean you and hold you in an incredibly soft blanket.

You hadn't even know what this had felt like. You had cried and begged your own blood to just look at you once. But now, this cold blood bore sure affection towards your pathetic and small form.

You close your eyes as you pet the ball of fluff in your arms, which had placed itself against your body. It was so warm, it... purred and loved you.

They loved you

A/N: Yes in this iteration of the AU reader is a vastard child aka. A child convinced out of wedlock. And that's the reason they were given to the vampires while their mother was stoned :>

I love this so much omg, I reread this so many times it’s not even funny

[etraytin]

I started working this past year for a home health company that contracts with the VA for a lot of its clients. It’s interesting because it means I have a mix of relatively affluent seniors who want to age in their homes and veterans of all ages and economic status who need help with their activities of daily living. My job is pretty similar with all of them, personal care, mobility assistance, light cooking and housekeeping, and companionship. I do okay at all of it and I’m learning a lot, but my favorite part is the companionship. A lot of these folks have amazing stories and hardly anybody to tell them to.

My newest VA client is a little old centenarian, a WWII vet, whose memories of his past are so startlingly clear I sometimes feel like he remembers his past better than I remember mine. I do respite care for him, coming in so his regular caregivers get breaks, and we will often just sit in his living room and he will tell me endless stories, one just segueing into the next.

Last night we watched a documentary together on the B-17 “Flying Fortress” bomber from WWII. I’ve seen many similar documentaries, but I’ve never watched one before with a vet who was counting the bombs that dropped from each plane and pointing out the positions of the fighter escorts and what they were doing. It was incredibly interesting to see what he was paying attention to in each scene and what was important because it was part of his lived experience. He likes to tell war stories, but he’s just as happy to tell me about how he used to stop by his friends’ houses at dinner time when he was a child because they were mostly Italian and would offer him little dishes of strange noodles and sauces, or how he and his friends got in trouble for popping snow fences because their parents got charged twenty-five cents for every stick they ruined.

I am happy to have had the opportunity to experience that, but at the same time sad, because the time for anyone to have that experience is coming to an end. He is one of the last ones to have lived through all the things we know from history books, and he is one of the last to remember the experiences he had with the generation that came before him. History spins out like a long piece of yarn, with each generation splicing into the next and the next, old threads tapering out as new ones are twisted in. We can see the trail of yarn behind us, but the part we can actually touch is so limited and so finite. It’s difficult but possible to imagine the time when it is my generation in the same position, when I am an old woman taking to a middle-aged Gen Alpha about my life before home computers and how my grandparents fought in the Second World War, and how that thread will connect two generations that otherwise would never touch.

[formosusiniquis]

A Steddie / Buckingham comedy of errors of sorts. It goes like this.

Robin thinks Chrissy Cunningham might be her non platonic soulmate. She's smart, a little goofy, observant, seems like a great listener, and after what the rumor mill is saying was a pretty intense summer has really come into her own. It's a shame she went straight from dating Jason to Eddie Munson.

"She said she's working on herself," Steve claims, more in tune with the gossip than she is, "pretty hypocritical of you to say guys and girls can't be friends."

Which is pretty hypocritical of him when she knows he only cares cause he's already planning his wedding to Chrissy's new boyfriend; he needs Eddie to be single otherwise he's pining away for his perfect co-babysitter for nothing.

But it doesn't matter if they are dating or if they aren't or if Chrissy Cunningham with her perfect strawberry blonde ponytail is her soulmate, because her parents keep trying to set her up with some friend of a friend. She needs to do something quick before disaster strikes.

Melissa and Richard Buckley still know how to tie one on, when the occasion strikes. They're parents now, they've settled down some. Given in to the picket fence life, keep their yard mowed so Gayle Collins down the way stops glaring. They haven't done anything really crazy since that weekend they left Robin with Minerva and went to see what that whole Woodstock thing was about. Now they mostly just stick to getting as high as they can and stargazing on the weekends that Robin is off with Steve, a sweet boy kind of a square but the brownie recipe he gave them makes the best edibles.

Melissa can tell her daughter is lonely, she notices a lot of things about Robin that she won't tell them. Richard has noticed that their dealer Eddie has started bringing a friend along with him. Eddie is a sweet boy too, raised well respects his elders something they care about now that they've become them, he is also obviously and fantastically gay. Like all the parents in Hawkins, Richard and Melissa have heard how Wayne Munson has taken in that Cunningham girl after she came back from her trip out of state. Melissa remembers being a vaguely out of control youth and knows that a trip out of state is code for one of two things, and Chrissy doesn't look like she's ever been pregnant. Chrissy seems like a girl who might like their daughter.

Steve would die before he denies Robin just about anything. She is the platonic love of his life, they nearly died together, they've come out together. He's pretty sure as long as he has Robin and his kids he'd be content for the rest of his life, romance be damned.

A sentiment Robin seems to agree with since she wants him to fake being her boyfriend. Obviously, he says yes. Steve is a good boyfriend, he's always been a good boyfriend. He's attentive, great with parents, knows when to keep the pda to a minimum but also knows when to put on a show. He used to be pretty sure that Mr. and Mrs. Buckley liked him. So he's not really sure why they pulled him aside before movie night.

"Your parents hate me."

"There isn't a parent in Hawkins who hates you."

"You mom just asked me if I didn't think it might be better if I found someone more suited to me."

"What does that even mean?"

"It's basically mom code for I think your the worst person my daughter could have brought home. If I had the choice I'd kill you so why don't you do us both a favor and fuck off."

"I don't think that's right."

"Rob, I love you but conversational nuance isn't exactly your thing."

Eddie likes his job. Sure it's technically not honest work, but who knows maybe down the line they'll legalize it. He's getting in on the ground floor, an entrepreneur. Hawkins is surprisingly pro-weed and Eddie is just fine sticking to that after this summer. His favorite customers are the old folks. Like Miss Brenda at the library or the Buckleys. He always brings Chrissy along when he goes out these days, she feels weird staying in the trailer by herself and he likes having her nearby. She puts people at ease.

Except the Buckleys, who seem strangely obsessed with her. They ask her pointed questions about Dorothy, and surely they mean an actual Dorothy, surely the nice middle aged couple aren't trying to figure out if Chrissy is queer. Sure he got some vibes off of Buckley the younger, but that was before she started dating the love of his life. Now he's starting to think his whole gaydar has gone to shit.

Chrissy, a baby gay who has just broken free of the nastiest case of comp het Eddie has ever seen, answer honestly. She doesn't know a Dorothy, is that one of Robin's band friends? How is Robin, she is so sweet. Chrissy just wishes she had more time in the day so they could see each other more. She's dating Steve right, they make just the cutest couple, don't they think?

Eddie can tell Melissa doesn't. A surprise when even Wayne likes Steve Harrington, thinks he's the bees knees. Loaned him a screwdriver or some shit when the guy was over fixing something at the Mayfield place. She smiles though and agrees that Steve is quite sweet, in a tone that Eddie is far more used to hearing used when people are talking about him than about Steve Harrington. He blinks and the next thing he knows Chrissy is agreeing for them both that dinner on Friday sounds lovely; she'll bring a dessert.

Like she's ever baked in her life.

Chrissy Cunningham has had a rough couple of months, but she's settled now. Sure, she had a breakdown so bad in Eddie's trailer that she ended up having to get professional help; but she got that help and a new support system for herself. Really, the only way life could be much better is if she were dating Robin Buckley.

Eddie likes to tease her, calls her a baby gay like she's a wobbly legged deer still figuring things out. She's had eyes on Robin since the fifth grade, when she got her hair cut short to her shoulders the first time and her teeth still had a gap before her braces went on. Steve is a great guy, she's seen him with the group of freshmen that follow him around like ducklings; she's also watching him now and he's spent most of dinner making moon eyes at Eddie instead of his girlfriend.

She doesn't understand how, Robin is a vision. Full of spit and vinegar, she is firecracker mad glaring at her parents across the table. "You really brought him here? I'm dating Steve, can you not accept that?"

A lot happens at once, Chrissy isn't entirely sure what is going on but it feels a lot like a pot boiling over, something left too long unattended.

"We aren't trying to set you up with our dealer," Mr. Buckley said. "You're not exactly his type."

"Chrissy is such a nice girl." Mrs. Buckley tries.

"You said you stopped that," Steve to Eddie, a lethal pout on his lips and downturned eyes.

"Well, I stopped with the kids," Eddie tries, "I gotta pay the bills somehow, sweetheart."

"Chrissy?" If Robin was a vision in her sharp eyed rage, she's radiant in her pink cheeked surprise.

Once the shock, surprise, and comedy wear off Chrissy thinks there will be tears. Robin's parents seem nice. They seem like the kind of parents you confide in and who hold you tight. She thinks about her mom doing something thoughtful, thinks of her quietly accepting who she is and who she loves; and when she can't do that she thinks of Wayne and Eddie and knows she'd cry once they were alone and the theater of it all was over. So she thinks she might need to make the most of her moment while it's there. "I don't want to be a homewrecker," she jokes, something she's picked up from Eddie, "but I think your boyfriend has his eyes other places."

"Boyfriend, what boyfriend?"

"They're showing Clue at The Hawk this weekend, if you want to go with me?"

Robin can't nod her head fast enough.

"Stevie, I noticed you find yourself newly single," Eddie says, sorrow so fake he should rethink his decision to go within 10 feet of the drama department. "If you could bear it, would you want to crash their date make it a double?"

Steve agrees so fast a bit of hair escapes his coif, it falls in a curl at his forehead.

Robin's parents both seem pleased, pleasant smiles that chrissy is becoming more accustomed to seeing on adults now that she resides in the Munson place. "They'll be smug about this forever," Robin confides. Her smile betrays her lack of real dismay.

Chrissy got her girl and her best friend got his boy, so she thinks it's all's well that ends well.

[dalilacherie]

hiiiiii idk if ur still taking requests but if u are could u pls write a dally x male reader where the readers a curtis and dally and reader have been together for like a while but then somehow darry catches them together and so now they are dealing with the fallout of all that (i am so so sorry if that made no sense 😭)

𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭

[𝐃𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐬 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐞!𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫]

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: So uh... I'm alive!! 🥳 I have nothing to say for myself except that I'm lazy💀 anyways enjoy this story.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: idk- more than 1,000

I’m sittin’ on the old couch in the Curtis livin’ room, feet up on the coffee table, cigarette danglin’ between my lips. It’s quiet. The kind of quiet you don’t get too often around here. The boys are all out. Two-Bit, Johnny, and Pony are at the movies, and Darry, Steve, and Soda are at work. That just leaves me and Y/N.

"Don’t ya get bored when it’s this quiet?" Y/N asked, lookin' at me with those eyes of his that I never could resist. He always had a way of seein' right through me, even when I was tryin' to act tough.

I shrugged. "Nah, quiet’s good sometimes. Can think better without all that noise. Don’t you like it?"

He smiled, that small, easy smile he had that could make me feel like maybe not everything in this world was as screwed up as it seemed. "Yeah, I like it. It’s nice just bein' with you."

I didn’t say nothin' to that. I wasn’t good at the mushy stuff, never was. I’d rather just show him what I felt, not say it. So I reached over and ruffled his hair, messin' it up like I knew he hated, just to see him annoyed. He swatted my hand away, but he was grinnin'.

"Quit it, Dal. I just fixed it."

"Too bad," I said, leanin' back into the couch, stretchin' my legs out. "You look better with it all messed up, anyway.”

I glance over at him, sittin’ close by, almost leanin’ into me. He’s been my guy for a while now, not that we make a big show of it or nothin’. He’s just always been there, and I guess I’ve always been here too, though I ain’t one to stick around for much.

“Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout?” I ask, flickin’ some ash into the ashtray. It’s one of those moments where I ain’t thinkin’ too much about what’s out there—what kinda trouble I could be gettin’ into. ‘Cause right now, I got what I need right here.

He shrugs a bit, like he does when he ain’t sure what to say. “Nothin’ much. Just… you.”

I smirk at that, pullin’ the cigarette from my mouth and blowin’ the smoke up toward the ceilin’. “Yeah? What ‘bout me?”

He turns his head, lookin’ me dead in the eyes. He’s always had this way of lookin’ at me, like he’s seein’ somethin’ more than just a no-good hood. Maybe he is, I dunno.

“I dunno,” he says, leanin’ back a little. “Just… how you’re always here, even when you say you’re not gonna be.”

“Guess I ain’t as bad as I like to think I am,” I mutter, leanin’ back against the cushions. I’m still gettin’ used to this whole thing, bein’ with someone who actually gives a damn. Most folks don’t. And hell, I’m used to it. Grew up that way, always lookin’ out for myself, ‘cause who else was gonna do it? But Y/N, he’s different. He makes me feel like maybe there’s somethin’ more out there than just fights and booze and dodgin’ the fuzz.

He shifts a bit closer, till his shoulder’s brushin’ against mine. He’s warm, real warm, and it’s kinda nice just sittin’ here with him, not havin’ to say nothin’ or do nothin’ to prove myself.

“Ya know,” I say, my voice a little quieter, “I ain’t used to this. Just sittin’ around, not doin’ nothin’. It’s kinda nice, though.”

He smiles, that soft, easy smile he’s always got, and it makes me feel somethin’ weird, like maybe I’m worth somethin’ more than just a cheap thrill or a quick fight. “Yeah, it is,” he agrees, settlin’ in closer, his head restin’ on my shoulder. “We don’t get much time like this.”

“Nah, we don’t,” I say, takin’ another drag off my cigarette before snuffin’ it out in the ashtray. I’m quiet for a minute, just listenin’ to him breathin’, the way his chest rises and falls against mine.

“I like bein’ with you, Y/N,” I say, the words comin’ out rougher than I meant ‘em to. I ain’t good at sayin’ stuff like this, but he deserves to hear it.

He looks up at me, those eyes of his all soft and understandin’. “I like bein’ with you too, Dal,” he says, reachin’ up to brush a hand through my hair, somethin’ he does when he thinks I’m not payin’ attention. But I always notice, even if I don’t say nothin’. “Payback” as he calls it.

“Yeah?” I say, leanin’ into his touch, feelin’ more relaxed than I have in a long time. “Glad to hear it, ‘cause I don’t plan on goin’ nowhere.”

He chuckles a bit, the sound low and warm, and it makes me feel somethin’ in my chest, somethin’ I don’t feel too often. “I didn’t think you would,” he says, settlin’ against me.

We sit there like that for a while, just enjoyin’ the quiet, enjoyin’ each other. And for once, I ain’t thinkin’ about what’s comin’ next, or what kinda trouble’s waitin’ for me out there. All I care about is right here, right now, with Y/N.

After a while, I reach over and grab the remote, flickin’ on the TV. There ain’t nothin’ good on, but I don’t care. It’s just background noise, somethin’ to fill the space while we sit here together. He shifts a bit, gettin’ more comfortable, and I pull him in closer, holdin’ him tight against me.

“Dal?” he mumbles after a while, his voice real soft, almost like he’s afraid to say what’s on his mind.

“Hm?” I reply, lookin’ down at him.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says, his eyes meetin’ mine. “I know you got other places you could be, but… I’m glad you’re here with me.”

"You think they’ll be back soon?" Y/N asked.

I shrugged again, not really carin'. "Probably not for a while. They’re prob'ly goofin' off somewhere."

He nodded, lookin' thoughtful. Then he looked to me, somethin' serious in his eyes. "You know, Dal, you don’t always have to act so tough."

I stiffened. "What’re you talkin' about? I ain’t actin'. I am tough."

He gave me that look again, the one that said he wasn’t buyin' my bull. "I know you are. But you don’t have to be all the time, not with me."

I didn’t know what to say to that. He was right, and I hated that he was right, but I didn’t know how to be any other way. The streets didn’t teach you how to be soft, didn’t teach you how to let your guard down. But here I was, doin' just that with him, and it might've scared me more than any fight ever did.

Instead of sayin' anything, I just pulled him closer, wrappin' my arm around his shoulders. He rested his head on my chest, and I could feel his breath against my neck. It was real nice, feelin' like we didn’t have to say nothin' to understand each other. We just fit, like two pieces of a puzzle that made sense when they were together.

"Dally?" he murmured after a while.

"Yeah?" I asked, my voice a little rougher than I meant it to be.

"You ever think about what it’d be like if we didn’t have to hide this? If everyone knew and didn’t care?"

I tensed up at that, the thought of it makin' me uneasy. "Don’t see much point in thinkin' 'bout it. Ain’t never gonna happen, Y/N. People don’t get us, don’t get me. They wouldn’t understand."

He was quiet for a bit, then he sighed. "I know. I just wish…"

I tightened my grip on him, hating how small his voice sounded. "Don’t worry 'bout it, alright? We’re good, just like this. Don’t need anyone else to get it long as we do."

He nodded against my chest, and I could feel him relaxin' again. We stayed like that for a long time, neither of us sayin' much, just enjoyin' bein' together without havin' to worry 'bout what anyone else thought.

I was startin’ to think we might actually get a whole night to ourselves. That was somethin’ that didn’t happen often, so I was gonna soak it up while I could. Y/N was leanin’ against me, his head on my chest, his breathin’ nice and steady. I had my arm wrapped around him, holdin’ him close, and I felt like maybe, just maybe, things were alright.

Then, the door creaked open.

I heard it before I saw him. The heavy footsteps, the way the air seemed to shift when he was around. I didn’t even have to look up to know who it was.

Darry Curtis.

He walked in like he owned the place, which I guess he did in a way, since it was his house and all. But right now, I wasn’t in the mood for him.

I glanced up, seein’ that look on his face. That one that said he wasn’t too pleased with what he was seein’. His brows were drawn together, his mouth set in a hard line, and his eyes? They were locked right on me.

“What the hell’s goin’ on here?” Darry asked, his voice low and controlled, but I could hear the edge to it. The kind that meant he was tryin’ real hard not to blow up.

“Nothin’,” I said, keepin’ my voice as casual as I could. I wasn’t gonna let him know he was gettin’ to me. “Just hangin’ out.”

“Doesn’t look like nothin’ to me,” he said, his eyes shiftin’ to Y/N, who was still leanin’ against me. I could feel Y/N tense up, probably knowin’ this was about to get ugly.

Darry crossed his arms over his chest, starin’ us down. “Y/N, mind explainin’ why you’re all over him like that?”

Y/N sat up a little, his face goin’ red. “We were just—”

“I know what you were doin’,” Darry cut him off, his voice sharper now. “And I don’t like it.”

I could feel my temper startin’ to rise. I wasn’t about to let Darry talk to him like that, not when he wasn’t doin’ nothin’ wrong. “Back off, Darry,” I said, my voice low. “Ain’t your business.”

Darry’s eyes snapped to mine, and for a second, I thought he might actually take a swing at me. He looked like he wanted to, at least. “It is my business,” he shot back, takin’ a step closer. “Y/N’s my kid brother. I ain’t lettin’ you screw him up like you screw up everything else.”

That stung more than I wanted to admit. I knew what folks thought of me. Hell, I didn’t care most of the time. But hearin’ it from Darry, with Y/N right there? That was a different story.

Y/N jumped to my defense before I could even say anythin’. “Darry, stop! You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

“The hell I don’t!” Darry snapped, his eyes still locked on me. “I know exactly what I’m talkin’ about. Dallas Winston ain’t no good, Y/N. He’s a player, and he don’t give a damn ‘bout nothin’ but himself.”

“That ain’t true,” Y/N said, his voice firm, standin’ his ground. “Dally cares about me.”

Darry looked at him like he couldn’t believe what he was hearin’. “He might say he does now, but what happens when he gets bored? When he moves on to the next thing that catches his eye? You’re gonna be the one left pickin’ up the pieces.”

That was it. I couldn’t just sit there and let Darry tear me down like that, not in front of Y/N. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” I said, my voice steady, but there was a hard edge to it now. “I’m with him ‘cause I wanna be. Ain’t nobody gonna change that.”

Darry didn’t look convinced. “Yeah? We’ll see how long that lasts.”

Before I could say anythin’ else, Darry walked right over and plopped himself down between us on the couch, forcin’ me to scoot over. I could feel the heat risin’ in my face, my hands clenchin’ into fists. He knew what he was doin’. He was tryin’ to push me out, make it clear that Y/N was off-limits.

Y/N looked like he didn’t know what to do, caught in the middle of all this. He glanced over at me, his eyes filled with worry, but I gave him a small nod, tryin’ to let him know it was alright. But it wasn’t alright. Not by a long shot.

I didn’t like not bein’ able to touch him, not after we’d just been sittin’ so close, all comfortable and quiet. And now Darry was actin’ like he had to play the damn protector, like Y/N was some kid who couldn’t make his own choices.

“So, what’re we watchin’?” Darry asked, like nothin’ had just gone down. He reached for the remote, flickin’ through the channels.

Y/N was quiet, too quiet, and I could see how much this was botherin’ him. But what was I supposed to do? Darry wasn’t gonna listen to me, no matter what I said. And I didn’t wanna make things worse for Y/N, not when he was already caught in the middle of this mess.

But I wasn’t about to back down, either. I wasn’t gonna let Darry think he could just walk all over me, or over what Y/N and I had. So, I leaned back, crossin’ my arms over my chest, and glared at the TV. I wasn’t gonna give Darry the satisfaction of seein’ me lose my cool. But I wasn’t happy, and I knew Y/N could feel it too.

For a while, we just sat there in awkward silence, the TV flashin’ random shows that none of us were really watchin’. Every now and then, Darry would glance over at me, like he was checkin’ to see if I was gonna do somethin’. But I just sat there, my jaw clenched, tryin’ to keep it together.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood up, shovin’ my hands in my pockets, and looked down at Darry. “I’m gonna head out,” I said, my voice tight. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

Darry just looked at me, not sayin’ anythin’. But there was a challenge in his eyes, like he was waitin’ to see what I’d do next. But I wasn’t gonna give him the satisfaction of seein’ me snap. I wasn’t gonna let him win.

I glanced over at Y/N, who looked up at me with those eyes that always seemed to know what I was thinkin’. I gave him a small nod, lettin’ him know it was alright, even if it didn’t feel that way.

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

02/26/24 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Cast&Crew;WeeJohnWondays; New Calendar; Watch Party Reminders; Uk Billboard; Trends; Fan Spotlight; Love Notes; DailyDarby/Tonight'sTaika

== Cast & Crew Sightings ==

= Wee John Wonday! =

No guests today! Just the wonderful Kristian Nairn himself! So I didn't get time to write up a synopsis, so I'll give you a few highlights I thought you might like!

Next Wee John Wonday will feature: Ruibo Qian and Anapela Polataivao!

Calypso's Birthday Airing Episode, the guests will be: Con O'Neill and Gypsy Taylor!

Tattoos!

GOT questions!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kristian Nairn (@kristiannairn)

== New Calendar ==

Weekly Calendar! Tomorrow is #TomatoTuesday!

#TomatoTuesday is a day to rave about OFMD's rave ratings on Rotten Tomatoes to different streamers! Please add your own review if you haven't already! Rotten Tomatoes Review Tutorial.

== WATCH PARTY REMINDERS! ==

= People of Earth S2 =

People of Earth S2 continues tomorrow Feb 27 at 9 pm GMT / 4pm EST / 3pm CST / 1pm PST. Need access? Reach out to @iamadequate1!

#PiratesOfEarth

= Uncle Season 2 Watch Party! =

Wed 28th + Thurs 29th GMT - 8pm / ET - 3pm / PST - 12 pm Streaming on I-player! Outside the UK? Follow this VPN tutorial to learn more.

#ForTheNewUncle

= Joe Lycett Watch Party =

According to the new weekly calendar you can join @lcwebsxoxo for Joe Lycett Watch Party at 10 pm GMT on twitter! #YoureATreasure

== UK Billboard ==

As many of you have heard, the Save OFMD Crew has been working on getting a billboard going in the UK.

"Our goal is to help achieve pick-up for Our Flag Means Death. To do it, we need the show (and the campaign) to continue garnering attention through sustained interest, viewership and fandom growth, and we need to prove to other streamers that picking up the show is a good financial investment."

Since there's so much information, I'm just going to give you some links that you can peruse at your leisure:

Save OFMD Crewmates Billboard Post on Tumblr

Transparency Policy

London Billboard FAQ

SaveOFMD Crew Contact Info

If you'd like to donate to the billboard/truck/subway effort (it's not required) please visit: Save OFMD Ko-Fi

I mentioned in another post-- if you don't feel comfortable reaching out to SaveOFMD Crew directly, and want to chat/forward feedback anonymously, I'm more than happy to do that on your behalf, just shoot me an anon ask. However, I will probably not get to them tonight because it's already very late, sorry! I'll forward them on first thing in the morning for me.

== Trends ==

Sure looks like #OurFlagBBC is still going pretty strong! Great job friends!

== Fan Spotlight ==

= Collages =

Almost at the end of the month of February -- and the Feburary LOVE #OurFlagMeansDeath Collage Fest! from our fabulous crew-mate @WanderingNomad on Twitter! So close to being caught up on the rest of the month!

Day 26: Season 2 Costumes!

Day 10: Ewan Bremner!

Day 11: Joel Fry

Day 12: Ruibo Qian

Wanna be featured in the fan spotlight? Send me a message! We're trying to make sure our creative crewmates are getting a chance to strut their stuff! I've been reaching out to several folks so hopefully we'll have lots more soon!

== Love Notes ==

Hey Lovelies. Tonight, I was gonna write a bunch of stuff but then I found this video of Rhys sending some love and encouragement, and I felt like it was needed more than anything else. I haven't gotten permission to share the full video on here yet, so if I do I'll get it posted. For now, @lividturkeys posted an uplifting section that I think we all need to hear tonight.

"Keep the laughter coming...We stick together and keep bringing love and joy to this planet, it needs it more than ever...Keep laughing, Love you"

== Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika ==

Okay so I'm running out of time, so tonight will be pics not gifs, sorry all. One of these days I'll finish catching up earlier in the day (ha!)

PS: I have no idea why but my 5 year old finds Taika and Rhys HILARIOUS. Like, laugh his ass off roll on the floor laughing when he sees Taika talking and Rhys making silly movements.

[hispieceofcake]

🎸MY THOUGHTS AND HEADCANONS TO ADAM FROM HAZBIN HOTEL - (for now)🍖

Hello hello folks, I've been thinking about writing about this post/blog for a while now and here it is, because Adam is my favorite character (obsession) and I have a lot of things in my head that I need share before I kidnap someone to listen to me talk about it for hours on end.

Hahaha I'm just kidding...or am I?

TW: Mention of profanity and sex.

I'm writing this blog because I have a lot to say about Adam and I think I'm already bothering my friends too much (just kidding, I'm going to keep filling them with Adam until I say enough is enough🤓👆)

Alright, let's start, firstly I was already a big fan of Hazbin hotel's work since the time Vizziepop had released the pilot on YouTube at the time of on October 28, 2019, and man, I was simply OBSESSED with the work, I had no idea who Adam was at that time, I was only 11 years old (And I know, I know, Hazbin Hotel was not and is not intended for minors, but I didn't have internet surveillance on my parents, so that's what happened and now I'm 18 years old).

And boy, oh boy

I was in complete EUPHORIA when it became public on August 7, 2020 that Hazbin Hotel was going to have a sequel on Amazon, I only knew how to talk about it and was excited waiting for the release date.

And when I watched that episode where Charlie has a meeting with Adam...I was like "THAT MAN, I NEED THAT MAN‼️‼️"

And that song..."Hell is Forever"... I can't remember a day that I didn't clean the house listening to that sound and pretending the broom was a guitar while I beat my hair like an 80s rocker high (I know, it's an exaggerated comparison but that's how I feel, so let me have it).

Here, listen to this work of art sung by our (MY) beloved Alex Brightman

In addition to the song "Stick it to the man" from the musical "School of rock" that Adam references in one of the items on the list of things to get into paradise, coincidentally his voice actor Alex Brightman also He is the main voice of the song and a character in the musical.

I spent all day listening to her today, but that's the least of it

There are also some songs by other singers that make me think of Adam because of their lyrics, for example Lana del Rey, there is a song of hers that all I think of when I hear it is Adam, unfortunately I can't share it here because it is a discarded song by the singer that I managed to download on a pirated website that has been taken down a while ago.

The songs that make me think of him are "Push me down" and what made me think of Adam is the following part "I'm your little baby doll and you are my mister rock 'n roll", the song "Brooklyn Baby" because of the music part "Well, my boyfriend's in a band, He plays guitar while I sing Lou Reed", the others songs are "Say yes to Heaven" and "Angels Forever".

Adam, besides being my favorite character and hyperfocus, was the reason I met the character Beetlejuice (my other hyperfocus) and the voice actor and actor Alex Brightman. Because he was the one who aroused my curiosity to know who his voice actor was since I recognized that his voice was the same as Fizzarolli's, and then when researching and discovering the actor, I also ended up discovering about Beetlejuice, I even have a blog about it, if you want to read it, this is it here.

Just like with Beetlejuice, I'm producing a page with drawings and collages about Adam in my sketchbook that I might post later in a future post about my sketchbook, but that's another topic.

In addition, I'm trying to put together some songs to create a playlist based on him, in it I'm putting rock songs from the 80s that I feel suit him or that he would listen to, some songs by the norwegian singer Aurora which are very reminiscent of and are based on the garden of Eden and Adam from the bible (although the Adam from Hazbin hotel and the one from the bible are completely different).

Some time ago I was writing a fanfic about Adam with an authorial character completely made by me, it was just a fanfic that I had written on character IA but then I decided to write it myself, but I never got around to posting it and kept it stored in my notepad.

The story took place in the timeline of the first season of the series, where heaven discovered that demons and beings from hell now possessed angelic fist weapons and could hurt or kill the exterminating angels after the death of one of the exterminating angels, they would need a new strategy or a new "weapon", and then with the decision of God and all the seraphim, she was created, an angel made to protect heaven and bring back balance by killing sinners in hell, her name was Angelita, and she would be handed over to Adam who would have to train her until the day of the next day of extermination (which would be the day in which Adam dies), throughout the story Adam would begin to feel something for her, unlike Lilith and Eve, he would fall in love out of true love and not obligation, this love between the two would be something forbidden (as a metaphor for the forbidden fruit of Eden) since by God's order she would have to be pure and virgin and that Adam would not fall into temptation for her, I won't tell the rest of the story, if you want I'll make a post just about that (I'll leave you curious hehe), all I can say is that Adam will not die and the ending is tragic, for all sides.

🤘🏻MY HEADCANONS ABOUT ADAM🎸

These headcanons are some things I thought Adam might like, do, or make me think of him, and I'm also writing this because most of the headcanons I find about him are about sex or couples things (Not that they're bad, some are actually quite cute and I read them when I need comfort), so I'm here to contribute some content just about him.

• About how he feels about have been betrayed

I know, Adam is not the best person in the world but man, he is not a monster, he is a human, the first human, unfortunately, human nature is curious and destructive, not that this is an excuse for everything Adam committed. But then I think, "How much did it hurt to be cheated on twice?", "Did he feel worthless, insufficient?", I know how much it hurts to be cheated on, then I think how bad he felt and feels, but he hides it all behind a false personality of "Dick Master" and "The First Man", titles, high ego and falsehood to hide your real self. The only part of Adam that we were shown about him was him being extremely selfish, rude, arrogant and sexist, but all in scenes where he was exposed to people, people who weren't close to him, and then I wonder if he's just all that, but I feel like Adam he's just a hurt man who hides what he feels behind a false personality, just like Angel Dust does. Proof that he cares about people (at least those he considers close) was his smile at Lute as he slowly lost his life in the arms of the exterminating angel who cried seeing him dying. (I cried so much at this scene 😭)

Adam is a sexist character, I can't deny that, but man, he's the first man, no one ever told him what was right and wrong, they always let him do what he wanted from the beginning of his creation, and even in heaven, but now he had Sera to put him in his place at least when she was around.

I might just be taking a shot in the dark or looking for something good in what isn't there, but that's how I think about Adam, so please let me have this, let me see there's still some good there.

• Adam has a chubby body (like a dad body)

Okay, this one took me a while to think about, because a lot of people draw him thin and we never see him without his tunic, which left me quite confused, but after analyzing some scenes and discovering he was made based on his voice actor (Alex Brightman) I had no more doubts.

In these scenes every time he is squeezed his belly ends up being marked and you can clearly see that he is a little chubby. I know there was that scene with Lilith at the beginning that shows him skinny, but let's face it guys, you can see from his scenes in heaven that he eats a lot, do you really think he wouldn't gain a little weight?

And even Lucifer during the fight in hell against him told Adam that he had really let himself go, kind of like he was different before when he was in the garden of Eden.

Honestly, I don't know why people try to say he's skinny, the fanarts are really beautiful and stuff, but come on, don't you think a chubby Adam would make more sense? I'm not saying this because I love chubby men (I think they're incredibly cute and it makes me want to hug them 😫💗) but I don't know, I just think that with all of his diet, which isn't the best, it made him gain a little weight in the meantime.

• He felt bad about being the only human in heaven

This is because of an art I saw on Pinterest and it made me reflect on it. Like, when he got to heaven he was the only one with human appearance, all other angels and winners (human souls who reach heaven) had different appearances, such as animal appearances, for example Molly, Angel Dust's sister, who is a spider.

So I think he may have made that mask with horns to feel more integrated into that society and less different.

•Adam plays guitar when he's feeling bad (sad, distressed, stuff like that)

I imagine that whenever Adam is feeling sad, distressed or even stressed, he goes somewhere alone and plays his guitar in calm chords expressing what he feels through the melody played, it would be calm notes but full of feelings, his black gloved fingers hitting the strings while all there is in the place are just him, his guitar and his mind, and no one else to see him like that.

I think that whenever he remembers Lilith and Eva's betrayals, he feels at least a little bad, and then playing his guitar stops and takes away all that bad feeling in his chest, even if it just goes away temporarily.

I imagine the following scenario, late afternoon almost dusk as the cotton white clouds take on a yellowish tone as the sun slowly sets bringing the night with it, while the sun brought the night with it, in Adam's chest that bitter feeling grew as memories knocked on the door again, leaving him more moody than usual, making him fly away from the city with his guitar to sit on the golden gates of heaven and as he plays the guitar calmly emptying that feeling from his chest so that the next day he pretends that nothing happened, but he knows, he knows that that will forever be stuck in his mind.

• He's not as popular as he says he is

Going back to that topic I said about him hiding behind a false narcissistic personality and high ego, I think that him being popular is a lie, both sexually and in society, I know, he is the first man and that would make him popular and the fact that he is a guitarist in a band, but think with me, would you like to be in the presence of someone or have relationships with someone who only knows how to curse all the time and talk about himself and how many girls he had sex with over the weekend?

Well, at least I think that everything he says is just stuff to inflate his ego and feel good about himself.

• He likes 80s rock bands

This is just in my head, I feel like Adam would like 80s rock bands like Metallica or Guns N' Roses, maybe even Slipknot, bands in general that have the same type of music that he plays, I also think he enjoys guitar solos like Slash or the solo from the song "Master of puppets".

I also think that his band's style follows the same style as these bands, I don't know, like I said it's just my headcanon.

•Adam has a fear or trauma of apples

This is supposed to be a little funny

This headcanon came to mind when a friend of mine who also knows Hazbin hotel made the joke that Adam is afraid or traumatized by apples because of the whole forbidden fruit of Eden thing and betrayal by Eve.

Imagine, Lute simply eating an apple near him and he freaks out, ripping the apple out of her hands and throwing it away.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

I honestly feel like Adam deserved a chance to change, a chance at redemption, a chance to really be loved and really love, no sex, no divine obligation, just real love.

Well guys that's what I have for now, I'll try to remember more headcanons for a next post, maybe even some +18, but for now that's all I have in my mind.

Thank you so much for reading, kisses in your heart 💗🤘🏻

[tmntheadcanons]

tmnt 2003 Michelangelo headcanons

Mikey talks to himself when he's alone. He'll either have a full on conversation with himself or he'll narrate what he's doing like he's being interviewed for a tv show. Like when he's cooking he'll be like "So folks you're gonna wanna fold not stir your batter." or like "Now for this part you're gonna need to use some hand mixers, these are a great set my brother Don found them in the garbage."

There's like a sweet old lady who has her own cooking show and Mikey worships her like he has all her cook books and if he's in a cooking bind he'll be like "What would betty do?". He just talks about her like they're old friends he'll be like "Yeah this is a new recipe. Betty told me to use cream instead of milk"

Or he'll be like "What are we making tonight? Let's ask Betty" and open up his cookbook

For tv shows Mikey will watch just about anything he has no standards. I like to think that when they first got the tv set up, they only had like free-to-air channels and Mikey just likes having something on the tv. Like he'll be watching the shopping channel and just be like "omg that's so tacky"

Like he'll be yelling at the tv and everyone will be like wow what's mikey watching? and it's the shopping channel

One day he was left unsupervised and actually called cause he didn't know you needed a credit card and he'll be mad about that for the rest of his life cause he was gonna buy like a fancy toaster or something (and then he complained to donnie about it so donnie modified the toaster for him)

Also he's memorized most of the commercials jingles and he sings them constantly and everyone hates him for it.

Mikey writes and draws his own super hero comics in a big notebook and it's an ongoing story he's had for years. He's got like a self insert turtle-titan main character and he's created cameos for all his brothers too. Splinter is the mentor, Leo is the leader of like the superhero force, Donnie is his sidekick and he made Raph the damsel in distress out of spite.

But he's a pretty good artist. And I feel like he would be good at music too. Like he has an old keyboard in his room he likes to just mess around with. Nothing too fancy but sometimes he'll just play little jingles on it. Or 90% of the time it's him mashing the sound effects.

But april also plays piano and when she's there she'll show him a few little songs like she taught him heart and soul and they'll play that together.

Mikey is a couch hog if you sit beside him he is gonna put his feet on you. Like he'll be laying on the couch and he'll move his feet so someone can sit and then he'll put them right back down on top of them. And you can shove him off but he'll just stick them right back. Him and Raph go through this cycle every time they sit together.

Mikey collects human accessories like he's got a bunch of hats and sunglasses and necklaces. I feel like he would like to accessorize.

Mikey has a highlighter orange beach shirt with flamingos and palm trees and he's obsessed.

Also he has one of those tacky ab aprons he refuses to get rid of.

[mercurytrinemoon]

DIFFERENT LOOK AT SIGN TRIPLICITIES PART 2: FIRE SIGNS

It is time. We're going to talk all about fire signs today. No bias, we're gonna get to the root of the fire triplicity, address some stereotypes and really flesh it out. Aries, Leo, Sagittarius, lessss gooooo

And I know what you're thinking! "A Sagi Sun with an Aries Moon will definiely be biased here". But… just trust me.

First, let's just really describe the essence of fire signs:

Fire signs are all fired up, ready to go, the most showy, with a zest for life and excitement, but also the most temperamental and hot-headed. They’re about action and movement; the most competitive of all the elements; the most blunt and loud; they like to stick out in the crowd. They’re the avid go-getters.

I've already posted my full essay on air signs and if you haven't read it yet, I highly encourage you to do so HERE. Fire, just like air is a masculine element: it's more outward, it's about proper action, it's physical in the sense that it needs to act out its impulses in the real world. It is said that masculine signs are extroverted and in a sense that is true, especially with fire signs because they receive energy from actively doing something. Fire is also expansive so it's very much about broadening horizons - especially when we look at the evolution of the fire element and we get to the third fire sign, Sagittarius.

And that physicality is an important piece of a fire sign's life. Literally and figuratively. This is the most active element out of all and it constantly needs stimuli to operate properly. But also what does fire do, it burns out quickly. Especially the "younger" it is. We all know how much shit Aries gets for getting bored quickly. I think both Aries and Sagittarius get shit for that, Leos get a pass cause they're a fixed sign I suppose, they thrive in stillness. And I do admit it, as a chronically bored person, it is really tough out there when life lacks excitement. Same old, same old won't work for a fire sign because they need to grow and they need constant fuel.

And constant fuel creates energy and creativity. Fire signs are the power trio of inventiveness: Aries with their desire to constantly try and do new things, Leo with their sense of originality and Sagittarius with their larger-than-life approach to everything. They're all about self-expression and it's what connects them together.

THE BIGGEST ARIES STEREOTYPE

I do admit that Aries folks are the biggest dummies of all the signs. That is the truth but thankfully there's also something endearing about it. It is said that Aries is the baby of the zodiac, they're in the very beginning of the hero's journey. But you know I like to call them golden retrievers on crack: sometimes you giggle at them, most of the times you roll their eyes at them, but they're mostly harmless and cuddle-friendly and sometimes they have zoomies. Just scratch them behind the ear and tell them they're amazing, they're gonna love it. Simple creatures.

Which brings me to the stereotype that Aries is an aggressive sign.

Listen. I always talk about sign's characteristics having a spectrum. In a properly-working state an Aries individual knows what they want and knows how to assert themselves. They do sometimes think after they act, which in most cases is just harmful to them, not those around. Are they thoughtless? Definitely can be, it's really like living with a child - sometimes they don't think about the obvious so you have to enlighten them a bit. The embarassment is almost granted but thankfully they quickly learn. Well mostly.

But going back to the topic of aggression. Most of the times they do work through it without awareness: they are active physically through various sports, their job may require some proper dominance or having to make quick decisions, they may also work through their angry emotions through creativity or simply through a hobby, like gaming.

My absolute favourite Aries Sun is Chester Bennington who was the perfect example of being that sunny, wholesome individual that became a total beast on stage, where he expressed his rage and passion and where he took on that commanding leadership quality. But outside that stage, everyone knew he was the most gentle soul (his Moon was in Sagittarius, which also supported that smiley, positive character). So he had a very healthy outlet for his aggression.

Also, this is where the rest of the chart comes in: next to Aries are Pisces and Taurus so there's a huge chance an Aries Sun will have another planet in one of those passive signs. So their disposition softens a bit, creating a nice balance of strong presence with a gentle, sensitive heart. Unfortunately this also means that more often than not I see Aries Suns who are pushovers or who are just naively letting others use them. Or alternatively, who are caring wayyy too much about what others think. Marty McFly always comes to my mind when I think of Aries because of the way he got into trouble when challenged: instead of being the bigger guy, he fell for the bait every time he was called chicken. This is not real bravery - a real one would be walking away, not letting themselves be egged on.

I think this is the biggest downside of the sign.

And if their Mars is in a weak position (Taurus, Cancer or Libra) - this is when they may actually lack courage when it comes to big decisions and live a slightly miserable life where they're not fully happy while their inner light is dimming down. This is that lack of excitement that actually kills all fire signs but mostly an Aries. As a cardinal sign, they will probably throw themselves into work just to somehow patch their dispair and to not think about whatever is eating them from the inside out but that is a temporary solution (and Aries, as a sign who's very centered in the here and now, may often think about temporary solutions only).

So, a lil advice for my Aries Sun friends: if you're not sure about something and if your heart is telling you to let go, then let it go. You're ruled by a fiery Mars, you're the masters of a gut feeling so please listen to it.

I do admit the true combativeness and spiciness comes out with Aries Moon, especially in women: just think about people like Angelina Jolie, Cardi B, Pink, Rihanna, Lucy Lawless (she has a whole-ass stellium in Aries and she was Xena! The warrior princess! Like come on, you can't be more Aries than that) or even Kamala Harris. These are all feisty, confident and powerful women.

Aries Mercury can also have a bit more brashness than the Sun. Sun is your ego and heart, it is more gentle. Moon and Mercury on the other hand, they both act on impulse (especially Moon, being driven by instincts) and since Aries is a physical sign, the angry feelings will be most (and quickest) displayed with these two. Which also means these are one of the most "what you see is what you get" placements you can get. Along with anything Sagittarius, we don't beat around the bush.

There's also Mars itself, which can be a bit impulsive or bratty if placed in a fire sign. So there's that, I'm sorry, I cannot defend them, it is what it is.

CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTERS

When I think about each of the elements, I often make pairs in my head that share the same qualities. So when I was talking about air signs, I mentioned that both Gemini and Libra have such thinking style that they find it hard to make decisions, whereas Aquarius is rather set in their thinking.

With fire signs, Aries and Leo are the most self-centered, seeking validation and needing to prove themselves (as both are strongly connected to the Sun through exaltation and domicile), while Sagittarius is often selfless and is not afraid to potentially offend someone. All fire signs are generous though because they like to share and be the good guys: Aries likes to be the saviour, mostly because they think everything is THAT easy to solve; Sagittarius, ruled by the benevolent Jupiter, wants to share their goods with everyone, while Leo is all about the Sun's light: it gives life.

Leo and Sagittarius are both natural performers and probably the most upbeat, Aries can be a show-off as well but sometimes they're focused on themselves and their little world too much to have themselves fully on display, they're more about "look what I made" rather than "look at me". Aries can be also a bit more cold and deadpan than these two. Leo and Sagi are definitely the ones to overshare and bare it all (probably literally with the latter as they like to have their tits out whenever they can) just to get attention.

And then we have Sagittarius and Aries - that duo gets an award for being the loudest, most obnoxious and adventure-seeking pair. I think we can definitely agree that Leo has more grace than these two. Endless banter and playful competitiveness is guranteed though with the ram and the archer (and especially between them, the more they like each other, the more they will roast each other).

And that did just make me miss badminton matches with my Aries ex-friend… *sighs*

THE HAPPIEST SIGN OF THE ZODIAC

The happy-go-lucky, the cheerleader, the philosopher. The bubbliest and swaggiest of them all. The comedian and the entertainer. Just think about all the Sagittarians that graced the music world: Britney, Christina, Billie, Taylor, Tina, Miley (tho we don't claim her, she has too much Scorpio in her chart lol), Nicki, Jim Morrison, Hendrix, Corey Taylor, Amy Lee… the list goes on. The world is truly lucky for icons like them.

But as a Sagittarius-heavy person myself, I want to make something clear on behalf of all of us. Yes, we can be reckless (Alexa, play Oops... I did it again) but the stereotype of a reckless heartbreaker needs to stop.

Or more so, of being unfaithful.

I mean, I can't help it that so many Sagis are the hottest people on earth, breaking the hearts of millions. BUT, when it comes to actual matters of the heart, we are actually a generous bunch, who want to give the world to the people we love. Sagi's planetary ruler, Jupiter is all about learning and expansion, right? This is what we want. Mutual growth, romance full of adventures and a lover that is their true best friend they can laugh with.

One of Billie's (Sagittarius Sun and Venus!) songs lives rent-free in my head ever since it came out because it portrays the archer's affection, dedication and sensitivity so perfectly. "All my love and patience/ All my admiration/ All the times I waited/ For you to want me naked/ Made it all look painless/ Man, am I the greatest?". This not only portrays a fire sign's need for physical intimacy but I LOOOOVE how Jupiter is the biggest, most unselfish planet there is and she literally sings about being the greatest. Obsessed, I may or may not have weeped listening to that track for the first time.

Heartbreak for a Sagittarius is tough because we naturally wear rose-coloured glasses and permanently live in a delululand. A heart-wrenching gut punch doesn't serve us well. I think it is rare to see a depressed Sagittarius so once we are depressed, we're in deep dark shit.

Each element is about mastering something and that mastery is reached with the last of every triad: Aquarius is the genius, Capricorn is everyone's mentor… Well, Sagittarius is known as the wisest. A quality Sagi is wise beyond its years as it's the sign of constant learners and teachers and those who reach for the stars. And enlightened people aren't really about being unfaithful, quite the contrary, they are about leading by example.

LEOS CAN BE CHILL AND QUIET

The biggest Leo stereotype is probably that they always seek attention and are drama queens.

Well, this is actually a fire thing in general but it's a label that has been put on Leos specifically.

But as I've mentioned earlier, they tend to be very graceful, you know, like an elegant cat, moving through the world. There's an extra sunny, vibrant energy coming from Leos. Like yes, you can get someone like J.Lo. (Leo Sun), who constantly lives life as a main character. Or Donald Trump (Leo ascendant + Mars), who's absolutely full of himself and who thinks he's the most powerful person on earth. But you can also get someone like Andrew Garfield, who (especially in the recent weeks) has stolen everyone's hearts with his grace, warmth and natural charisma. That guy just oozes positivity, charm and genuinity. Plus, Leos are known for having a heart of gold and this is how he comes across.

Do they all seek attention though? Leos are the theatre kids but remember theatre kids are sometimes the misunderstood underdogs who care about expression and craft, not necessarily about being in the limelight. They like to play a character though.

I've lived with a Leo Sun + Moon (a New Moon baby!) for over a decade. He actually did fall into the typical Leo category of being a working musician who did put himself out there on stage. The charisma was there, the talent and craft was definitely there (his Virgo placements did help here), the ability to attract people as well. And he definitely enjoyed that attention. But that star quality was a natural thing and not something that was desperately sought-after. That's how a high quality Leo should be.

But also, let me give you an example of my Leo Moon friend, who doesn't like attention but absolutely loves the enjoyment of art in all forms, whether it's theatre, film, music, books or whatever. She also happens to be a Sagittarius Sun and there is definitely a type of a Sagittarius who's more bookworm-y and likes to live in their own head, not really caring about the outside world. As a mutable sign, Sagis can flip-flop between being the star of the show and a hippie outcast who's looking for a spiritual enlightenment in solitude. Also, they get the badge of being the most "I don't give a fuck" sign in the zodiac. We stay unbothered.

So, here's your shy withdrawn fire sign example.

IMPATIENT MUCH?

We've already adressed the accusations that Aries is an aggressive sign… Well there's also a level of impatience that supposedly cannot be matched with anyone else… that goes for all fire signs in general honestly. BUT! Before any Aries reads this and thinks "I am actually a very patient person"… I believe you. But also I don't. But also do you happen to have your Mars in an earth sign?

Aries is a cardinal sign. Cardinal signs are about starting things and building foundations. You know, in tarot it's the Emperor card, the card of the leader and provider. There's a very specific type of focus and hard work associated with the sign so Aries Suns often are able to set long-term goals that they slowly but surely put into effect. There's a catch though and it's that the fruits of their work should be visible and progress should be linear. If things are stagnant, an Aries will stamp one's foot, sulk and drop everything as it is (also side note, Aries sulks pretty often in general). This usually happens because they were impatient during the preparation process and so things fell apart cause they didn't have a solid basis - you know, they sometimes like to skip necessary steps. Interestingly, an overnight success isn't good for them either as they hate an easy target cause that's just boring. Gradual success makes them crave more and mobilizes them to work. They're also stubborn so if they want to prove themselves, they will do everything in their power to do so.

It's simmilar with other fire signs as well because it's all about maintaining a steady flame: have it too small and it will go out; have it too strong and it will burn out.

Also, notice how many famous Arians do many things at once? Music, acting, stand-up, social issues, fashion, make-up... yea cause huge success makes them bored and they need something new and exciting.

Funnily, I have A LOT (you'd really be surprised) of patience for many things that take years but I have none for the tiniest, everyday tasks. I like things to be quick but also I can put long hours into stuff if there's excitement and passion. I think many fire signs would agree with that.

ALL FIRE LEADS WITH HEART

It's not about the material (earth), not about the cerebral (air), nor about the spiritual (water). This comes with some sensitivity and vulnerability, as well as with radiant energy. Also because fire is rather self-centered, this easily leads to being self-conscious. And that self-consciousness comes from inside and is focused on who the person is. This is not the case where, for example, an earth sign may feel insecure because of their material posessions or the lack of feeling of security in the world. A fire sign may dwell simply on "am *I* enough?", thinking they're lesser than the other person just because they feel like it. Especially if something's off energetically-speaking. This is that passion and excitement I was talking about earlier.

And all fire signs share the same level of enthusiasm. Fire is hot. Yes, that does connect to being impatient, as we've already established... But this also translates to easygoing and lighthearted approach to people and ideas. Being hot also means there's usually no second guessing as fire will be agreeable to many things and will act on impulse, according to its current mood: "what are you doing right now? Do you feel like going to the movies in 30 minutes?" or "are you new here? Do you want me to show you around and grab some food?" are things you'll likely hear from a fire sign randomly just like that. It's that casual.

Of course, an anxious fire sign will get *very* anxious because fire is very focused and it can burn you from the inside. That usually happens if mushy feelings occur. Or if, for some reason, they start to feel that self-consciousness that we've discussed earlier. Because it's all about making a good impression and making sure you think they are hot and entertaining. Forget about earthy means to impress by status and gifts or watery ways of emotional bonding and trying to become your psychologist just to win you over. Fire wants you to become their biggest fan and wants to seduce and charm you (literally or figuratively) to then conquer the world together and take you on spontaneous adventures. For a happy fire sign, life is like a party that should be lived to the fullest because enjoyment, fun, friendship and love are their biggest priorities in life.

Oh, also, fire signs are all dumb and annoying and that can definitely can be tiring so I do apologize for that.

[pennamesmith]

The Crone

“I am Mara. And I am gone.” 

When the ship hits the desert sands, it screams like a dying leviathan. Shockwaves ripple to the edge of the Waste and it scars the ground with a trench a mile long. The natives have no trouble locating the wreckage; they merely have to follow the smoke. 

They do not expect to find survivors. Somehow, impossibly, there is one: a crumpled, broken girl; babbling, bleeding, delirious. The only person, so far as they can tell, who was on the ship at all. They pull her from the smoldering remains as carefully as they can, and give her what meager medicine they have. Her breath is ragged, but steady. Her fever blazes, and then just as quickly breaks. She will live. 

How is this possible? They know better than to ask. This is not a night for questioning miracles. 

It has been only hours since the stars disappeared. 

—

She awakens in a universe of pain. Gasping, she tries to bolt upright and accomplishes nothing of the kind. 

“Good morning.” A pinched reptilian face stares down at her. It adjusts a thick pair of spectacles and shines a light in her eyes. “Do you know where you are? Can you remember your name?” 

“Mm. Muh.” 

The medic squints. “You’re one of those aliens, aren’t you? Did you do this? Not many of your kind left now. You might be the last one.” 

“Muh ruh.” 

“Take your time. Don’t force yourself to talk if you can’t yet.” Scaly hands lay a wet cloth across her brow. She barely registers the words as she drifts into inky darkness. 

“The whole planet heard your people’s evacuation order, you know. ‘All units return to Eternia!’ That’s all well and good for folks who have starships to run away with. I’m guessing yours couldn’t make it out before the window closed. Seems all that tech still can’t buy you luck. I’m afraid you’re stuck here with the rest of us.” 

She shivers. It is cold in this place. 

“We’re all alone together, now.” 

—

“Razz,” she mutters, sitting up in bed. 

There is a window here, small and uneven, a holey linen scrap the only thing separating inside from out. Beyond this room the lone and level sands stretch far away to a distant uneven horizon. The sky is a flat black. There are no stars. 

She stumbles to her feet and shakes the sandy creature keeping vigil in the corner. “Razz,” she repeats, to uncomprehending compound eyes. 

“Do the Whispering Woods still bloom?”  

The others come quickly. They offer to show her the ship — what parts of it haven’t been scavenged already, at least — but she refuses, emphatically. With halting words and gestures, she manages to communicate where she does want to go. The desert-dwellers fear it, that deep sea of trees with its many eyes and voices. Though they willingly point the way, not one will take her there. 

So, she stays. For now. 

She heals slowly, and mostly silently. “I can’t remember,” she says in answer to most of their questions. She frowns into her lap, frustrated tears pearling at the corners of her eyes. “I’m trying. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

She stares at nothing. 

“I have to go back.” 

—

When she is strong enough to walk, she takes her leave of these kind strangers. They give her food and a stick to lean on, and she accepts their gifts  graciously. She will never see them again. 

Though the desert is unforgiving, it is not without end. The moons that make the daytime are bright, but not hot. After two days’ walk, she finds herself at the edge of the Whispering Woods. 

The trees are quiet now. The out-of-control magic that burned here when she gave up the sword has cooled into deep shadows. It thrums with potential energy, like a swollen thunderhead. 

She doesn't actually want to come back here any more than she wants to see her old ship. But she knows what she would find there, and here there are mysteries that still need answers. 

The woods are generous. Almost immediately the path leads her exactly where she wants to be: to a low hovel hidden in a hillside, with a dirty curtain for a door. Cautiously, she pulls the cloth aside. 

“Razz?” 

Nobody answers. Inside, it is cluttered but cold. Everything is still. Nobody has touched this chair, that bowl, those books for a long time. An inch of dust coats every surface, as if abandoned. 

She crosses the threshold. 

“Hi, it’s me again! Did you find where I was hiding?” 

She whirls around at the unfamiliar, high-pitched voice. Standing in the doorway behind her is a tiny figure with blue hair and rainbow overalls, grinning and waving. 

“Hey there! What’s with the silent treatment? It’s me, Loo-Kee!” 

She throws up. 

—

After a rest, the shadows don’t seem to dance so much, and the air doesn’t feel quite as heavy. It’s much easier to catch her breath. She sighs, relieved. The dizzy, sick feeling is gone. 

Loo-Kee, however, is not. 

“I’m sorry,” the little creature says, sounding genuinely contrite. “I didn’t realize how early it was for you.” 

They sit cross-legged on a narrow shelf, looking down at her. Their eyes are cartoonish, round and curious. She rubs the bridge of her nose and scowls back, frustration growing by the second. 

“Who are you?” she growls. “Where is Razz?” 

A curious head-tilt. “Oh, wow. It’s really early for you. Anyway, I already told you: I’m Loo-Kee! And Razz is right there.” 

Loo-Kee points a chubby finger. Startled, she turns around, but there is nobody else. She looks back. Loo-Kee smiles beatifically. 

“Please.” Her voice is on the verge of breaking. “If you’re the woods — if this is some kind of magical test, or game — I don’t have time for it. I need to see Razz. Where did she go?” 

“You do have time,” Loo-Kee replies calmly. They jump down from the shelf. “Listen, I think I took a wrong turn through next month to get here. I’ll let you get settled for now, okay? See you next time!” 

“Next time what?” she tries to bark, but Loo-Kee has already vanished behind a skinny coat rack. The hut grows quiet again. She is alone. 

She isn’t entirely sure why she came here. 

She clears a small spot on the raggedy bed. It’s late, and there’s nowhere else to go. Suddenly feeling the ache of her journey, she hunkers down and wraps a threadbare quilt around her tired shoulders. It’s cold comfort. 

Swaddled in darkness, sick with exhaustion, she cries quiet, violent tears. 

—

She stays in the little cottage. There is nowhere else to go. The one time she tries, the woods lead her immediately back with supernatural efficiency. 

She exists in a tight circle. Safe, but unable to leave. Protective custody, her people would have called it. She pauses on that thought, grasping at its frayed edges, trying to remember more. Inevitably, it slips away from her. 

The memories come in faint flashes at the strangest provocations. Holding them is like catching butterflies, or remembering a dream. Everything seems so far away. 

A week goes by. Two. She finds a tawny broom and starts to sweep out the dust in the cottage’s corners. The handle seems to tug at her hands, gently, like a planchette or a dowsing rod, seeking out old cobwebs and forgotten spaces. She finds herself talking to it as a rider might their horse.    

“Well done, Broom. Thank you, Broom. No Broom, I’m not frightened at all, and neither should you be.” 

One morning, she upends an old case of drawers and finds a familiar unusual face tumbling out. 

“Ya ha ha! You found me!” Loo-Kee crows with delight. They leap to their feet, and then somehow higher, hovering in front of her nose and grinning hugely. 

“You’ve got good peepers, lady! And you didn’t even need glasses or nuthin!” They lean on air and swish a fluffy striped tail. “That’s impressive. Most people from your dimension can’t see into ours. Not on their own, anyway.” 

That sparks a memory. Her eyes glaze over. “I pulled the planet into an empty dimension,” she murmurs, distant and dream-like. “The Heart of Etheria…” 

“You did that?” Loo-Kee’s eyes widen as they drift back to the ground, landing with a little bump. “Oh wow. That explains a lot. I was wondering how you got all refracted.” 

She blinks. “What?”

“Like a river splitting. Or a mirror cracking.” Loo-Kee stands and paces a pensive circle, waving their hands vaguely. “You’ve become more than one thing, but at the same time you’re still the same thing, but at the same time you’re in a lot of different places at once.” 

They look up. “Um, silly question, but what does time normally look like where you come from? It might start to work different for you now.” 

Her eye twitches and she resists a powerful urge to sweep the impish creature out the door with one fell swing. “What are you talking about?” 

“I’m not sure yet.” Loo-Kee pauses, brow furrowed, foot tapping, arms crossed. “This has never happened before.” They brighten. “Anyway, I’ll let you stay here if you want! I found this place all by myself, so it’s basically mine.” 

“What?” Her frustration boils over, and her voice rises to a shout. “I’ve been living here! This isn’t your house, it belongs to Madame Razz!” 

Loo-Kee scratches their head. “Madame Razz? Who’s that?” They tilt an eyebrow. “Is it you?” 

“No! I’m — ”

She halts, the words catching in her throat. This absence in her memory is one of the worst. She does have a name. She is sure of it. But whenever she searches for it in her mind, she can find nothing but a burnt, ragged hole. She shuts her eyes hard, trying to think, willing the letters to appear. 

“I'm not certain. I’m. I am… Ra. Something-Ra?” 

“Razz?” 

“No!” She beats at her temples. “It started with another sound. I’m sure of it. It’s right there… Ma?” 

“Madame?” 

“No!” 

She shrieks, kicks a stack of rusted cook pots, and drops heavily into a wicker chair, shaking with impotent rage. Her unbraided hair falls in a long curtain around her bent head, veiling her face. She chokes back a sob.  

Loo-Kee softens, face falling, and offers a hesitant reassuring hand. “Um. Hey, I’m sorry for upsetting you. I was just joking around about the house thing.” 

Silence. 

Loo-Kee jerks a thumb toward the door. “I’m gonna give you some space now, okay? But I mean it about wanting to help. I’ll come back later, after I’ve talked to some friends.” They back gingerly out of the cottage. “It was nice to meet you, Ma — uh, ma’am.” 

She stays in the chair for a long time after they’ve gone. She doesn’t think about anything, only stares at her feet and the dirty floor until the daylight fades and the moons rise in an empty night sky. She falls asleep there, shoulders drooping, tipping slowly over into an exhausted heap. 

When she wakes, she finds herself in bed, the covers pulled up to her chin, her Broom leaning lightly against the facing wall. 

Outside of Madame Razz’s house, the trees dance lightly in the morning wind. 

—

The first time she slips, she hardly notices it at all. She is busy tending the oven when the air crackles and the trees outside jump into new positions, branches growing longer in an instant. Just as quickly she slips back, and the flicker in the fire may as well have been a trick of the light. 

The next time, she is in the garden, and falls backward when the vegetable patch explodes and the rose bush triples in size. This one lasts for an hour of panicked cleaning — the inside of the house is suddenly covered in dust again — before everything shifts and she finds herself under a moonlit night sky, the garden nothing more than a freshly-dug parcel of soil. 

The incidents only grow more frequent as time goes on. The woods will let her wander a little farther these days, and she watches rivers curl over dry ground like snakes and mountains shrink back into tiny pebbles. Each time she will eventually drift back to the present; but that word is starting to lose its meaning as she lives more and more of her life out of order. 

Sometimes she can harvest acorns from an oak tree planted only seconds before. Sometimes she has to make a pie three times before all the ingredients stay put together. If time is the hemline of a dress, her thread loops in and out like wild, spiderwebbing lace. Unpredictable as it is, there is a flow to it all. When she closes her eyes, it feels like being pulled along a powerful, shifting current, in an ocean that goes on forever. 

She develops a rhythm, and as time goes by, a tiny, growing part of her begins to enjoy life in the little forest house. It’s a peaceful life. 

“Hello,” Loo-Kee says, popping out from behind her favorite mug in the cupboard. 

“Aaah!” she screams, slamming the cupboard door in their face. 

Loo-Kee utters a muffled curse amidst crashing crockery. A moment later they reappear in the front doorway. “Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you!” 

Rubbing their round red nose, the little sprite scampers inside and climbs up to sit on the table. “Ouch. Okay. I guess I sort of deserved that. But hey, listen, I think I figured some things out! Oh, and Spritina says thank you for the berry cake.” 

“Who?” 

“You’ll meet her later. The Twiggets have been shy because you’re not originally from here, but they won’t hide from you forever. You’re still connected to the planet just as much as we are. See, that’s what I figured out! It’s all because of She-Ra.” 

At the sound of that name she halts, knuckles tightening around the handle of her Broom. 

“For the Honor of Grayskull,” she whispers, the words automatic and unbidden. 

“I’m not talking about your password settings,” Loo-Kee says dismissively. “I mean the real deal. The very nexus of magic at the heart of this planet. The living force that surrounds and binds us together. She-Ra!” 

“She-Ra,” she repeats, and a blue glow flickers in her eyes. “But the sword is gone,” she sighs. The light fades. Her posture sags. 

“She-Ra isn’t a sword,” Loo-Kee replies, in the tone of a patient teacher. “Here, lemme show you something.” 

They turn and dash into the woods without waiting for a reply. She dithers, agonizes, and finally follows, gripping Broom like a security object. The trees part for her as she follows her guide. When she glances to either side, she can sense hidden eyes watching from behind the branches. 

They arrive at a tiny, clear pond, nestled in the roots of a circle of trees. The water sparkles, half in light and half in shadow. She approaches it slowly and stares in: the water is supernaturally still, no more than a few feet deep and perfectly transparent. She can see the mossy rocks that cover the bottom. 

“Is it a special pond?” she asks. “Some sort of magic well?”

“No.” Loo-Kee plunks down at the water’s edge. “I mean, there is magic in it, but there’s magic in every pond around here. This was just the closest one.” 

She sits beside Loo-Kee and stares down. Beneath the surface of the water, fish and snails and crawling crabs move through the cracks between each stone. It is easy to imagine the scene as a tiny landscape, with frilled dragons and alien hermits populating a miniscule mountain range. The longer she looks, the more details reveal themselves. 

“It’s a whole world,” she says. 

“Yeah.” Loo-Kee nods. “And that world is made of whole other worlds. And there are more whole worlds all around it, and every one of them is full of whole other worlds.” Their voice is earnest. “And all the little differences between them, like what shapes things are, or what dimension they’re in, is really just hiding the fact that everything is part of the same thing.”

“It’s all connected.” 

Loo-Kee takes her hand and guides it to the water’s surface. Her touch leaves ripples echoing across. 

“In this place, you are what connects it.” 

The light sparks in her eyes. And she transforms. 

—

“Hello dears! I’ve been expecting you.” 

She looks down at the nervous cluster of tree spirits. Twiggets, Loo-Kee calls them. They peer up at her from behind green leaf masks, their squat bodies no higher than her knee. 

“This way, this way,” she coos, ushering them all inside. “There is room for everyone in Madame Razz’s house.” 

She fixes their leader with a twinkling eye. “Spritina, dear, it’s so good to see you. Have a seat right there.” 

“How did you know my…?” 

“Oh, never mind that!” She laughs. “You are here on a very important mission, yes?” 

Spritina draws herself up, the image of a child performing bravery. “We need help. One of the old groves is dying. Something the aliens left behind poisoned the ground.” 

“Hmm. Well, we can’t have that.” 

She browses the myriad items and ingredients that crowd her shelves. Hundreds of different dried herbs, tinctures, extracts, rare flowers, strange and unusual artifacts. Where her memories fail her, the very air itself seems to guide her hand. She plucks some of this, a pinch of that, filling her basket to the brim. Medicine for the poison of the past.

“We’re ready!” she announces. “Sprig, Sprockett, lend a hand and carry Broom for me, will you? It’s a dangerous path, and I don’t want him to get lost.” 

“A magic broom! See? She is a real witch,” one of the little spirits says to the other, as they heft Broom between themselves like busy loggers. 

“Doesn’t seem very magic to me,” the other observes. 

“Um. Are you sure you need to come with us?” Spritina asks nervously, trotting to keep up with the much taller woman. “It’s kinda deep in the woods, and humans can get lost…” 

“I’m sure a human could,” she hums. “If the woods wish me gone they will turn me away. But I don’t think they will, today. And besides, I need berries for the cake I’m baking.” 

She strides confidently into the forest, her basket swinging merrily in the crook of her arm. The Twiggets follow, making a strange procession through the trees. The woods bend and twist before them, revealing hidden places like a wounded animal cautiously showing its belly. She places her hands on the bark, the stone, the earth, and speaks quiet soothing nothings to it all. The Twiggets watch her, murmuring to each other in excited whispers. 

Deep in the Whispering Woods there is a blasted plain. This is what remains when stolen magic burns holes in the world. But this land was green and healthy once, even after the great Crystal Castle arose in the center of the clearing. The settlers’ mighty stronghold had existed in harmony with the planet, briefly. 

Now it is a dark tower standing on blighted ground. 

She unfolds a cloth and carefully sets out her ingredients, explaining what each one is to the spirits crowding around her. “You can find most of these things in the woods. But some you can only find in the places the First Ones left abandoned.” 

Small glass vials hold a strange, metallic liquid. “This is like a medicine that uses a tiny part of the sickness to heal. We can’t undo what happened here, but we will make the land whole again.” 

She sets to work mixing and brewing. They watch and learn quickly. Soon they begin to help. Before long, they are doing most of the work to restore the grove themselves, while the witch of the woods wanders off to gather berries. 

She paints a meandering line around the edge of the clearing. Perhaps it is only a coincidence that her path takes her closer and closer to the Crystal Castle’s ruins. Perhaps this is where she always wanted to go. She draws nearer. 

She has forgotten about the berries, now. 

The Castle’s door is dark and silent. Even the air seems to grow still around it. She approaches slowly, places her hand softly against the wall. There is an almost imperceptible warmth there; slumbering, dormant, like soil under snow. 

“Are you there, Hope?” she asks. Not fully understanding the question, but speaking as if compelled. Something cold and heavy takes hold of her heart, pulls it deep down, down deep. 

Nothing changes in the cold Castle contours, but faint feelings seem to drift from the darkness: longing, regret, loneliness. She hugs herself, missing something she can't clearly remember. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, not certain why. 

The silence deepens. 

“I loved you,” she attempts. 

Nothing. 

“I just wanted to be good.” 

Perhaps the feeling in the air gains a note of shame. Perhaps she only imagines it. The Crystal Castle remains still. The doorway stays dark. After a long time, she becomes aware of someone pulling urgently on her hand. A young Twigget is shouting at her. 

“…adame Razz! Madame Razz!” the tiny spirit cries. 

“Hmm? What did you say? What about Madame Razz?” 

“Come look!” The Twigget pulls on her idle hand again before bounding away. She follows slowly, gradually returning to the present. The others are all clustered around something at the edge of the clearing. 

“It’s working!” Spritina announces with breathless excitement, pointing at the ground. 

Where they have applied the new medicines, the sickly, dying plants are already returning to life. Tiny glowing motes of magic move through leaves and vines, softly pulsing with life. A few inches further in, a new green stem is poking up through the barren dirt, growing before their widening eyes. Around it, more spots in the ground are stirring. 

“The planet is unbalanced,” she declares, taking Broom in her hands, feeling the gentle pull of the future. “And the magic is still here. We can heal this place. But we must be careful.” 

“There is still Hope.” 

—

“Do you like my dress? I got it for Princess Prom!”

It is winter now, although it doesn’t snow in the Whispering Woods. The garden is resting for the season, and she is busy filling jars with pickles and preserves. 

She narrows her eyes. “What is Princess Prom?” 

“Oh, it’s the biggest thing in a century or two.” Loo-Kee twirls, admiring the puffy trim of their outfit. “All the princesses on the planet get together and have a big party!” 

She sits, the hint of a smile playing at her lips. Her hair, wild, reaches past her waist by now. “Always full of surprises, Loo-Kee. Are you a secret princess, then?” 

“‘Course not! I’m a Kon-Seal. I can go wherever I want, and whenever too! Oh, but I do also have an invitation.” 

She leans forward. “You know, I’ve been meaning to ask. How exactly does that work?” 

“How does what work?” Loo-Kee is practicing an up-tempo dance step. “Invitations?” 

“No, I mean…” She waves her hands vaguely. “All of this. The time stuff. I know you said it would seem different to me, but whenever I think I have a handle on things you come around and make it all confusing again.” 

Loo-Kee stops mid-pirouette. “Isn’t that how learning works?” 

“Not when your teacher is being a child!” She sighs, immediately deflating from the outburst. “I’m sorry. It’s just frustrating, having no control. Sometimes I’m in the future. Sometimes I’m in the past. Sometimes I can see a trillion different realities, folding onto each other like thin sheets of metal, forming a single blade…”

“Yeah, yeah, the Time Knife, we’ve all seen it.” Loo-Kee waves a hand. “Let’s get back on track. To be honest, I can’t explain it all completely to you because I don’t really know. I know how it works for me, but you’re something else.”

“How does it work for you, then?” 

Loo-Kee considers this seriously, pondering hard and sitting in midair. “Hmm. I guess it’s kind of like… the same way you can walk around on the ground, I can walk around in time?” 

They rotate slowly, floating up and down. “And just like being on the ground, I can’t see everywhere and I can get lost if I go too far from familiar places and paths.” 

She chuckles dryly. “I suppose in this metaphor I’m wandering about the woods blindfolded.” 

Loo-Kee shrugs. “I woulda said it nicer, but yeah, basically. Maybe while tied to some kinda wild animal.” 

They share a laugh, a real and hearty one this time. Then her face turns serious again. She fixes Loo-Kee with an appraising stare. If the Kon-Seal has any fear or distrust of her, they hide it well. She makes a choice. 

“In this metaphorical forest of ours… would it be possible for you to lead me somewhere? Or somewhen?”

Loo-Kee touches down lightly on the floor. “I think so.” Their face lights up, as if just hitting on a bright idea. “Hey, I know!” 

They extend an arm. “Wanna be my plus-one to prom?” 

—

She scowls, tugging at the dress. “You just happened to have this?” she asks, incredulous. It covers her feet, flowing in different hues of fuchsia and maroon. The collar is ruffled and green. 

“And it’s exactly your size, too!” Loo-Kee winks. “What a coinkydink!” 

“It must be fate, then,” she murmurs. Her eyes are growing cloudy and distant. 

She isn’t entirely sure what her goal is, yet, but she is starting to form a plan. Her confidence ebbs and flows like ocean waves. It feels as though the answers are hiding just beyond the corners of her sight, melting away whenever she turns. It’s difficult to focus. 

She holds out her hands, already struggling to remember what she wanted. “Will this really help?”

“This will let you see yourself,” Loo-Kee replies, and grasps her palms. 

Everything shifts. 

Some of it is familiar. She recognizes how the time winds feel, rushing through her hair. She sees the forest warp and change around her. What’s different is that the winds don’t buffet her, and instead of slipping she is flying, following along as Loo-Kee tows her by the hand. One step and the forest grows by centuries. Another, and the ground becomes a blur beneath their feet, until they come to a stop in a pristine snowfield. 

A castle looms on the slopes above. People — more people than she can ever remember seeing at once — stream around them, dressed in elegant attire, flowing like a living river. 

They follow the crowd. 

Nobody seems to notice them. Inside, Loo-Kee strikes up conversations, samples the snacks, dances and dawdles. She does her best to follow along, but the noise and the crowd are overwhelming. She retreats to a wall, scanning each face, knowing she is looking for something but not knowing what. 

Deep in thought, she almost fails to notice that she has drawn a stranger’s attention.

Almost. She turns. One of the princesses, a small woman in goggles, is staring at her intently. 

“Excuse me! I'm sorry to bother you and your partner there, only I couldn’t help but notice the abnormally high numbers of tachyon particles around you. Do you think I could take a few samples for my records?” 

She stumbles away from the strange woman, backing into a server and upsetting their tray of canapés. “What do you want?” she asks, sharply and a little too loudly. People are starting to look. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Loo-Kee appears and springs between them with placating hands. “Actually, Princess Entrapta here is the one who invited me.” 

“She did?” 

The purple-haired princess tilts her head. “I did?” 

“You did!” Proudly, Loo-Kee holds out an embossed card. It reads: 

You are cordially invited to a reception for time travelers. The 85th Decennial All Princess Ball (Theme: Winter Wonderland), The Kingdom of Snows, 52° 12’ 21” N, 0° 7’ 4.7” E.

Entrapta clasps her hands in joy. “Oh! I did! It worked!” She shakes Loo-Kee’s hand effusively. “Thank you for coming! I can’t wait to send out the invitations tomorrow!” 

Crouching down to Loo-Kee’s level, she produces a pen and notepad. “Actually, do you mind if I ask you a few questions? I’m writing a brief history of time, you see, and…” 

Entrapta never finishes her sentence. 

A blonde woman in a red dress hurries down the stairs past them, chasing a tuxedoed cat. Her muscles are tensed, her face is set in a determined frown; otherwise she is no different from any of the other princesses. But when the lost witch looks her way, she sees an unmistakable aura, and the recognition shocks her. 

“She-Ra,” she whispers. Her blood turns to ice. 

“How could there be another She-Ra?” 

She isn’t sure whether to rush forward or turn away. Is this what she was looking for? Is this what she was running from? Frozen in uncertainty, she slips. The sensation is like falling backwards off a cliff. Flailing, she reaches for Loo-Kee, grabs their arm with clawing ferocity, only glimpses the shock and panic in their eyes as the universe goes dark and they fall together. 

To any observer, it seems as though they are simply there one moment, and gone the next. For her and Loo-Kee, it is as though they have plunged into a deep, crushing abyss. She holds on as tightly as she can, but slowly Loo-Kee’s fingers slip from her own, and then she is alone. The silence closes around her. 

And she is drowning. 

Until she sees the Light. 

—

“You must let go,” someone whispers in her ear. 

The world drifts back into focus. She is deep inside the Crystal Castle, but the walls are ancient and dark. Far older than the sanctum she knows. The dim light that pulses across the floor simmers like a caged beast. A girl, asleep, floats suspended in the air. 

“Adora,” she murmurs, the name springing suddenly to her lips. She reaches out. “I remember now. Madame Razz knows about you…” 

“Do not interfere,” an electric voice snaps. 

And there she is. Hovering overhead in the darkness like a deep sea creature; her blue luminescence cold and unwavering. She gazes up into the abyss. 

Light Hope looks down, and meets her eye. 

“Temporal anomaly detected.” 

“Hope.” Her voice cracks. 

“Your biosignature is recognized. Your biosignature is not recognized. Error.”

“Hope, it’s me.” She reaches out, pleading. “I’m here. I know it’s you. I just don’t know who I am.” 

“Quantum paradox logged.” 

“Please.” 

Light Hope hesitates. The projection changes, refractions growing smaller as she folds to human size. She holds out a hand that has no weight and feels like starlight. Her mouth opens, as if unsure of what to say. 

“My records indicate that you are deceased.” 

“Do I look deceased?” 

“It… it has been over one thousand years. Even if you survived the crash, you…” 

“So, you do remember.” She stares the hologram down and takes another step. If the light had any substance, they would be pressed together now, like dancers. 

“I. You. Your administrator privileges have been revoked. You are not authorized to be here.” 

“If I’m dead, does it matter?” 

“Error. Command not — ”

“Tell me who I am.”

The words are spoken with such power and authority that the very air seems to change. Something long asleep shudders and growls. Light Hope’s face is one of astonishment as she begins to answer. 

“You are Ma— ” 

—

She slips. Everything changes. Suddenly the walls are awash in red alarm lights, sirens sounding down the hall. Adora is gone. Light Hope stands at the far end of the room, back turned, shouting at a viewscreen. 

In the screen, she sees herself. 

“What are you doing, Mara?” Light Hope demands. “You have de-de-destroyed my interplanetary systems.” 

Hidden in the shadows, she touches her own face, feels the wrinkles that have grown into her skin. Seeing her younger reflection, so full of fire and rage, stirs memories like the dread of a nightmare. She clasps her hands across her mouth, watching in silent horror as her own past unfolds again. 

Light Hope burns like a forge. “You are beha-be-behaving erratically. Where is the sword, Mara?” 

She stays hidden. Stays watching. The vague notions of her plan flits through her mind: if she could learn control, could she change things? 

It was a foolish idea. Now she feels lost, wishing to her surprise for Loo-Kee’s guidance. She is frozen like an animal in the vicious forest. 

She watches herself. “The sword is gone,” her reflection says. “There’s not going to be a She-Ra anymore.” 

“I won’t ever let you use her again.” 

—

Another slip. She is when she was, Light Hope gazing down, Adora between them. 

“—Ra—”

—

She slips again. The same room in the Crystal Castle, lights dimmed but alive. Light Hope is small, like a candle flame. She is huddled in the center of the room. 

For a long moment, it is silent. 

“Unauthorized presence detected,” Light Hope says, back turned, voice quiet. 

“Do you know who I am?” she replies. 

“Systems in emergency power mode. Advanced functions unavailable.”  

She approaches; kneels. “Can you tell me about Mara?” 

The dim eyes flick up. “Records indicate Mara is deceased. Acquiring new target.” 

For the first time, she notices the tiny pool of light. Light Hope peers down into it like a wishing pond, a tiny camera obscura. She stares closer. 

In the window there is a baby girl with yellow hair. 

—

She slips back to see Light Hope once again staring down at her, a name set freshly loose from her lips. They stare at each other. 

Adora is suspended between them, eyes closed in fitful sleep. 

“Is it really you, Hope?” 

“I am the same basic operating system.” 

The fog in her mind is growing thicker again. Her eyes go back to Adora. Light Hope draws closer, protectively, possessively. 

“The Heart of Etheria Project will continue. Your attempts to interfere have only caused a delay. This anomaly has not altered my calculations.” 

“I think you’ll find Adora harder to control than you imagine.” She smiles ruefully. 

Light Hope scowls. “On the contrary. She is lost. Vulnerable. Alone. Her only friends have abandoned her. She is in the optimal state to receive suggestion.” 

“She isn’t alone. She will have help.” 

The hologram’s eyes burn like a star. “Who will help her?” 

“Madame Razz will help her.” 

—

And then the world shifts again, and as suddenly as a dream, she is in a place filled with warmth and familiarity. 

The Crystal Castle is brand new. It shines like a toy fresh from the box. The lights sparkle. On the viewscreen, she can see the Whispering Woods, healthy and green. 

Light Hope stands in the middle of the room. Her brow arches in surprise. 

“You’re back,” she says, compassion and bafflement mixing in her tone. “But you just…” She pauses, frowning. “Error in visual recognition. Your face is…” 

The woman’s eyes flick to the screen. On it, her reflection ventures out across the grass, sword in hand, ready for adventure. She is young and bright-eyed — younger than the rebel who crashed to the planet below. A new arrival to Etheria. 

She looks back to Light Hope’s uncomprehending gaze and recognizes a love she had imagined lost to time forever. This is her Hope. 

In that moment, Loo-Kee finally finds her hand. 

—

When the world stops twisting and resolves itself, they are back in the Whispering Woods, in the same clearing they left from. Loo-Kee stands unsteadily. Their prom dress is gone, and an eyepatch stretches across their haggard face. A comically huge cutlass hangs at their hip. They look older, somehow. 

“There you are! I’ve been all over the time-space continuum looking for you!” Loo-Kee exclaims. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find one little person in all of… wait, is this that ‘irony’ thing I keep hearing about?” 

She sits on her knees, motionless, limbs drained of life. Her eyes are hooded. She hardly notices the surrounding forest. 

Loo-Kee chatters on. “On the bright side, we learned a lot from this! You were drifting in time when I found you, but not space, so I guess that means we need to be in contact for you to…” 

She whirls on the tiny creature, her eyes savage. “I was there,” she growls. “I saw her! I saw my Hope! You took me away from her! What have you done?” 

“I’m sorry,” Loo-Kee pleads. “Everything went wrong. I shouldn’t have taken us so far. It’s my fault! If I hadn’t found you when I did…” 

“Get out!” she shrieks, her voice a mad howl. She claws furiously at her own face. “You’ve ruined everything! Go away! Hide yourself! I don’t care where you go, just leave me alone!” 

The echoes of her scream fade. Her breaths are ragged, heavy. A silence deeper than any cave falls on the forest. 

Loo-Kee stares as if struck. Wordlessly, they shed the trappings of their costume and turn to slip away between the trees. She watches them go, still seething, anger burning the end of every nerve. Good, she thinks, when she is alone among the woods. 

At last, she can start to take things seriously. 

—

So it goes. 

For a long time after that, she really is alone. She still has Broom, of course, and she can sense the Twiggets watching from behind the leaves and branches, peeking out at her from the edges of the land she helped them heal. Sometimes they seek her out, as before, to trade in secrets and favors, but they never linger long. Always she remains the hermit in her hovel. 

She grows ever more familiar with the Whispering Woods. Their connection grows together, like vines around a lattice. She can see more than ever before. 

But Loo-Kee remains invisible, and she does not see them anywhere. 

Even when she looks. 

She discovers old books hidden in Madame Razz’s house. They are thick and dusty, their pages the colors of dark tea and old wood. Sprawling spiderweb script lists out spells and rites and rituals, secret histories and ancient revelations about the planet below her feet. The words are in an unfamiliar language, but somehow she understands it intrinsically: this is the planet, speaking to her through their connection. 

That is something else she has realized. She is more than adrift in time — she is bound to the heart of this planet like a tree to the earth. Once she sought to borrow this power; now it has changed her entire being. Once she was from another world. Now she is part of this one. 

She practices the spells and learns the histories, bending low over the ancient pages by flickering candlelight. Her voice changes as she barks the chants over and over, slipping into the Twiggets’ forest accent. When her vision begins to blur, she opens a little drawer and finds a pair of thick round spectacles, as if they were waiting for her. 

On some days, she returns to the clearing where the ruins of the Crystal Castle lie. She sits on the ground, Broom across her lap, staring at the shattered visage of She-Ra. Names cycle through her mind: Mara. Razz. Light Hope. Adora. She knows they go together, but the precise connection still eludes her. 

Her efforts to heal the scars of this land have not been in vain. Life is flourishing around the Castle, moss and vines crawling across the cold, quiet walls. As she sits among the tall grass, white moths flutter around her shoulders and settle in her hair. 

She takes careful, measured breaths, and time flows around her. She sits, still as a stone in the stream, and watches carefully. The moons whirl in the sky. The trees shrink and grow. The years stretch forward and back. She may not control the tides of time, but she can learn their ebb and flow. 

In every era she lands, she looks for Hope. Calls her name. Hears nothing in return. It’s just as well, she tells herself. 

She’s forgotten what she wanted to say, anyway. 

—

Time goes on. Not in a straight line, perhaps, but relentlessly. She goes on living, listening to Etheria through the woods. 

She settles deeper into Madame Razz’s house. Her hair grows longer, wilder. Chestnut brown fades into iron gray, then ghostly white. Her knuckles grow huge and gnarled. 

The older she gets, the more she seems to become a part of this place. 

She becomes ancient. She leans on Broom, and keeps her eyes out for Loo-Kee, who continues to hide. The woods keep whispering, and on moonlit nights the spirits bring her all their gathered rumors and secrets. 

Some things grow clearer in her mind. Some things grow cloudier. Some things simply stay the same. 

Around the world, villages grow into kingdoms, memories become legends, and the people begin to forget there ever used to be stars. She’s content to let them. For a thousand years, she can forget about the greater universe outside. For a thousand years, she can rest. 

Then a new invader arrives. 

And the story begins all over again. 

—

“Razz?” Adora pokes her head through the door, stress and strain showing clearly on her face. “Oh, Razz! It’s you. I finally found you.” 

She pauses at Adora’s greeting, trying to remember, feeling out of place. Wasn’t she doing something important a moment ago? She gropes in the dark of her mind, but the currents of time have already swept her away. She looks around. 

“Mm, if you say so, Mara. Now, come on. It’s getting so late!” 

“I’m not Mara!” Adora whines in frustration. “Ugh. It doesn’t matter. Razz, you have to help me. Everything’s falling apart. The rebellion’s losing worse than ever, and Glimmer…” 

While Adora talks, she hums to herself and bustles about the kitchen, gathering supplies. Truth be told, she is not paying very close attention to whatever Adora is saying. She knows this is rude, and feels a twinge of guilt for her absent mind, but there’s no helping it. She finally remembers. Today is important. 

Today, they are making a pie. 

—

She stops, a sword point blocking her path. She squints up. A young woman holds the other end of the shining blade in trembling hands, anger and fear mixing plainly on her face. 

“Who are you?” the other woman demands. “How did you find this place?” 

She adjusts her glasses and smiles in recognition. “Ah, Mara, dearie, there you are. Madame Razz wondered where you went.” 

Mara stumbles on her own words. “How do you know my name?” 

There is a shift like circles closing. Many creatures do not notice it at all, but those who do feel something smooth and electric crackle across their skin. She breathes as if the very air is something delicate and precious. 

“Oh,” she says, understanding suddenly growing. “Is this the first time?” 

She sighs in tearful relief. 

“It has been so long since it was the first time.” 

—

“There was something Mara said in her message. She talked about some kind of weapon?” 

She freezes at the words. They spark a fearful memory, and the kind of dread that comes from something terrible and inevitable. 

Adora only hears the gasp of recognition. “You do know something! You need to tell me!” 

She can suddenly remember watching the simulations of what the activated Heart of Etheria would do. Like a long forgotten moment of childhood it all comes rushing back, things she hasn’t thought about for so many years. She sees the universe burning, again and again. Panicked, she lashes out.

“Ow! What was that for?” Adora rubs her head where Broom has struck her. 

“You need to stop being so forgetful, Mara,” she replies. 

She can’t lose focus. Not today. Not now. Somehow, she can sense it. All the centuries are as nothing compared to this moment. 

Everything depends on now. 

—

“You know how to use magic?” Mara is looking at her, stunned. So young, a part of her thinks. 

She doesn’t pay attention to it. Right now, she needs sugar. And whatever else she can find in the ship. After all, she needs to — 

“Intruder detected.” 

Light Hope is there as suddenly as a thunderclap. She feels a sledgehammer weight in her chest, but there are too many thoughts crowding her mind. Frightened, she lashes out with Broom again. 

“Mara. Who is this person?” 

The ghost’s words sting, though she isn’t completely certain why. She glares at Mara. “You see the ghost too?” she asks, feeling cold. Trying to harden her heart. Failing. Something centuries old is calling from the back of her memory, damaged as it may be. 

“Her presence here is unauthorized.” 

“Your ghost is mean,” she spits back. And then turns away, so they will not see her face. 

She reaches for the sugar. “Why did I put it so high…?” 

She is trying to focus on Mara. But she can feel Light Hope watching them both. 

“She may have been exposed to classified information about the Heart of Etheria project. We need to detain and interrogate her.” 

Mara laughs. “You really think she’s somehow found information about a project so classified even I don’t know all the details?” 

“Come on, Hope. She’s clearly harmless.”

—

Adora is looking at the ruins, peering at the slashes cut into ancient stone. Swift Wind huddles beside her.

“Mara did this? She really was crazy.” 

She ignores them. The present is too important. “Aha!” she cries, pushing past the other two. “You found it!” 

“This was left deliberately,” Adora says, picking up a crystal. “Did it belong to Mara?” 

“Oh, yes, dearie. She left it for you,” she replies, full of certainty. 

“No, Razz. Mara’s gone. She’s been gone for a thousand years.” 

A thousand years. She turns the thought over in her mind. 

“Hmm? No, that doesn’t sound right.” 

And she smiles, in spite of herself. 

—

“Ghost,” she says. They are still on the ship. 

Light Hope stops. She has not looked closely at the old woman before. She pauses now, her eyes sparkling with calculations. There is something approaching recognition in her face. 

Madame Razz reaches out. “You are a friend of Mara,” she says with conviction. “Don’t forget her.” 

Light Hope pauses. “Friend,” the ghost says, distantly. 

“Mara.” 

—

The forest. The ruins. Adora, Swift Wind, and the old woman. 

“Oh Mara,” she mutters, tears welling in her eyes. “You were never supposed to succeed. They made a plan for you, but Razz could not do anything to help.” 

Adora is getting desperate. “Please, Razz. You have to remember something.” 

She holds her head. She can almost touch the answers. It is like trying to remember a dream. 

“Remember, remember. I try to remember, but it gets all muddled up. Adora, Mara…”

“It always ends the same.” 

—

The forest. The sword. The old woman, Mara, and She-Ra. 

She can see the light pouring out of Mara. Sees the sword thrust into the ground, burning with light. The glare fills her glasses, blinds her. Everything is ending. This is the moment that changes the universe. This is where the ends join together. The light bursts. 

And then she is gone. 

—

Adora is crying. The truth can have that effect. “The weapon,” she mutters, numbly, as the holographic message ends. “The weapon is Etheria.” 

They are all huddled together in the ship, her and Adora and Bow. When she tilts her head just right, she can see both at once: the ship in flames, forced down by a desperate hero. And the ship dark and ancient, with new young fighters searching it for answers. As sure as wicked people will destroy what they cannot control, good people will defend what they love. 

Madame Razz sets the pie down on the pilot’s chair and smiles through her own tears. 

“For you, Mara dearie,” she says, more to herself than anyone else. 

—

So here she is now. Old. New. Eternal. Madame Razz is never really sure when or where she is or how many times she has done all of this already, or which version of it all she is seeing now. Things blend together, loop after loop. All she can hold onto is Broom, and her hope. Again and again, she goes back to the beginning. Nothing ever changes. 

Until finally, She-Ra reaches the end. 

The sword breaks. The world shifts. And for a time, everything becomes so much worse. 

Light Hope is gone. She quakes with sobs, inconsolable, until the grief finally settles into something cold and solid. Another weight on her stooped shoulders. 

But she is not alone. 

Loo-Kee returns at the end of all things. Razz’s surprise, at this point, is mostly a show. A part of her character so well practiced that the mask may as well be her own gnarled face. 

“You found me, Loo-Kee,” she says, with a smile.

“I was always here,” the small creature replies. “And I always will be.”  

They stay together as the invasion worsens. As all hope seems lost. As She-Ra falls. 

—

The ground shakes. The skies burn. It is the end of the world. 

Madame Razz rocks anxiously in her chair, grasping Broom in her lap, surrounded by the fearful faces of Loo-Kee and the Twiggets. “Oh, dearie-my!” she exclaims, when a tremor makes the floor jump. “Isn’t this exciting!” 

Her words are light, but her voice is haunted. 

“The forest is in pain,” Spritina wails. “The tree roots can all feel it. There’s something wrong with the core of the planet.” 

“I’ve gotta be real,” Loo-Kee grimaces, white-knuckled. “I’ve never been to when this is going. None of the Kon-Seals ever have. Where I come from, it’s like… a great big forest of thorns and mist. Nobody can get in. Or out.” 

Razz looks down to the small creature, fire in her eyes. “You were always special, Loo-Kee,” she says, reaching out a reassuring hand. 

How much does she owe this strange being? They never had to help her. Confounding, perhaps, but loyal unlike any other. She has no right to ask any more of them. But there is still something she needs. 

“Loo-Kee. Brave and daring. Will you lead Madame Razz somewhere, one last time?” 

“I’m not sure if I —”

“Oh, Loo-Kee. Kind Loo-Kee. Madame Razz is old, but she is not a fool. You don’t have to protect me any longer. I know what happens next.” 

Loo-Kee doesn’t answer. It is strange to see their face so serious, against the blue coiffed curls and rainbow outfit. But just like Madame Razz, this is only one facet of something far grander. 

They reach out a hand. And then suddenly, only the Twiggets remain in the cottage. 

—

The secret of Loo-Kee is this: they do not actually go anywhere, or any when. They are already there. They always have been. A fact of the universe as constant — such as that may be — as time itself. 

The place where She-Ra confronts Horde Prime may not be a place they exist, but it is a place they can see. They can reach down and pluck Madame Razz from one quantum spot and place her down in another. And they can watch, and hope, knowing what is and will be but not how their friend will experience it. 

A mind that is to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts we cherish. 

Razz falls through existence. In this dream space, the ends of the circle meet and are one again. And then she is standing on solid ground, a cliff overlooking the wild fields of Etheria. 

And Adora is with her. 

And she is She-Ra again. 

She has the words at last. Things have been so confusing for so long. But all she really needed was some time to think. 

“I’m going to save Etheria, no matter what it takes,” Adora declares. Her eyes are set. “Your sacrifice won’t be in vain. I promise.”

“But at what cost?” asks She-Ra. Mara. Razz. And she finally says what she has always been trying to:

“You’re worth more than what you can give to other people. You deserve love too.” 

And then the monster is there, and they are parted once again. The waves of time and space send her spinning. But she can ride them now as well as any witch on her broom, and her eyes are clear. She has one more stop to make before all of this is over. 

—

Who is Horde Prime, eternal enemy of the First Ones? Where did he come from? Not even Mara knows, but she was there, battling his armies as She-Ra, one inexhaustible power against another. There can be no winners in a conflict like that. The war itself is the enemy. No true hero could call themselves a Master of the Universe, when all the universe wished for itself was to live in peace. 

And this is the secret that finally ends the war. That triggers the failsafe. That brings back the magic. 

Love is the most powerful force in the universe, and nothing can stand against it. 

As the magic returns, Razz-Mara-She-Ra can feel it; can open their eyes and see everything everywhere. 

Horde Prime, who still does not realize how small he is compared to all of this, is crying out. And She-Ra rebukes him: “No. it’s time for you to go.” 

As Horde Prime’s existence is erased by the light, the woman who has been through all of it reaches out one last time. Mara. Madame Razz. The soul of Etheria itself. 

I know your face, the dying ghost of Horde Prime seems to beg, though words are long past its capabilities. Why do I know your face? 

And she answers honestly: “I can’t remember.” 

—

The magic returns. The universe is restored. Love wins in the end.

And Madame Razz goes on, because time always does. She sweeps and hums and thinks about everything, and how it always changes. She smiles. 

“Ah. You’d be proud, Mara dearie.” 

[shadowphoenixrider]

Full House

(The morning after Shadow and Gambit's reunion, it's time for Shadow to face the music, and the other X-Men.)

News spread quickly through the X-Mansion that I'd returned, courtesy of Logan and Jean, and it hadn't taken long at all for Scott to appear to Remy's door, unable to hide the smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he glimpsed me cloaked in one of Gambit's shirts.

Both Remy and I looked like kids caught with our hand in the cookie jar, but Scott just offered to unlock my dorm door so I could get a proper change of clothes. He also gently asked if it would be okay if I came and chatted with him and the rest of the team during breakfast.

Which was how I found myself in the kitchen, surrounded by the X-Men, and Gambit sitting beside me with a comforting hand on my waist.

"Took you two bozos long enough." Jubilee commented, pinching her fingers together. "I was this close to staging an intervention!"

"Doubt it woulda worked, kiddo." Logan grunted from his place at the counter. "Both of them were too stubborn to see it."

"You're one to talk." Gambit ground out behind his teeth, netting him quite the death glare from the older man.

"Now now," Hank lifted his large, placating hands, "whilst an intervention may certainly have spared some of the heartbreak, love is an emotion with considerable volatile unpredictability. As much as we wish it otherwise, we often need to let it take its course, as fast or slow as it may be."

"Might I remind you that we're not here to discuss Shadow and Gambit's relationship?" Storm cut in, with a tone that was both breezy and yet commanding, her ice blue eyes sweeping over the room like a monarch surveying her kingdom.

"Storm's right folks, settle down." Scott said, coming to stand in front of me, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. "It is good to see you again, Shadow." He began, a small smile tugging at his lips. "You were only gone a couple of weeks, but we all keenly felt your absence." His head and what I assumed was his gaze tilted towards the tall man next to me. "Some more than others."

"But do not think it was your healing gifts we missed, Shadow." Storm spoke, a gentleness to her voice even as it brimmed with conviction. It reflected in her ice blue eyes. "Whilst there was a definite absence felt, it was your company that was yearned for above all."

"Yeah." Jubilee folded her arms, leaning against the table. "After you left, your friends stopping coming too. It got real quiet here."

I blinked, surprised.

"Wait, really?"

Gambit nodded silently.

"Makes sense though." Rogue spoke. "Why stick around when the reason they had to hang around weren't here any more?"

"But I thought..." I frowned. "What about Lemming? Wasn't he working as admin here?"

"Stuck around the longest, but he were as loyal as the rest of your crew." Logan said, working a small thin stick around in his mouth. "Comes back from time to time to do his hours, but his heart is with you and your gang." He stared at me, a slight smile on his gruff features. "Gotta say, quite the loyalty you inspire, bub."

"Mmm." Cyclops hummed, nodding. "When you left, it was as if we'd lost Morph again." He paused for a moment. "The only good thing was that you were still alive."

He looked down, staring into his coffee. Jean reached out to touch his arm.

"I..." My turn to stare at the table. "I'm sorry."

"Dere no need to apologise, chère." Gambit said, his hand rubbing against my back. "Ya did what ya had to."

"I would like to address it, though." Scott said, and I looked up, meeting his ruby gaze. "Your feelings, in the wake of what happened to the Professor."

"You sure 'bout diggin' up old bones, Slim?" Logan growled lowly.

"Yeah, don' know if dis be a good idea..." Gambit agreed, shifting on his seat.

"It's alright." I butted in, looking between the two men, placing my hand on Gambit's. "The bones aren't that old, and the only way to treat an abscess is to open it up to drain the pus."

"And my concern is that if we don't treat this wound now, it's going to turn septic." Scott added, and I smiled as I met his gaze. He'd been picking up more from Hank and I than I'd realized. Scott gestured with his mug towards me. "So...?"

I sighed. Well, here we go.

"Sure it's no big surprise that I'm not on the same level as the rest of you." I began, letting my gaze drift over the other assembled mutants. "I'm weaker, less athletic, can only just about swing a sword around, and my powers have barely any offensive capability. There's no way I'd ever be able to measure up to any of you in that regard. The only thing I have of worth to bring to the team is my ability to heal."

"That's not true!" Jubilee blurted out. "You-!"

Jean placed a hand on the teen's shoulder, smiling softly.

"I agree, but let her finish."

"But...!"

"Come, petite, let's not leave a story half-told, non?" Gambit smiled at her, convincing a reluctant Jubilee to let me continue.

"True or not, being able to heal was the only thing I saw as making me eligible to be one of the team with the rest of you. In every other sector except mission support and research work with Hank, I was nothing more than a burden, always having to be babysat in the Danger Room." I lifted a shoulder. "Sure, I had my sword, but I wasn't good with it. So I put my all into being support, being your medic. I didn't mind that. I prided myself on it."

"So when your abilities were challenged by Professor's Xavier neurological injuries, and you were unable to deliver a satisfactory outcome..." Hank murmured, trailing off. I nodded.

"Yup, got it in one." I stared at the table again, propping my chin up on my interlaced hands. "The one time I really, truly had to save someone, and I couldn't. I failed to save one of the most important mutants to us and mutant-kind. And to make it worse, it was because of a rule I put on myself!" My hands curled into fists, soft trills of pressure-pain coming from the joints that were now locked tightly together. I pushed them aside. "If I knew how to heal brain injuries, I could have saved him! Instead I just..."

I took a breath, pressing my forehead into my knuckles to swallow down the flare of emotion that rose in me, stinging at my eyes. I released it, slow and steady, unknotting my fingers and stretching them out. The trilling faded.

"I just had to watch him die, with the rest you. I felt like a failure. I still feel like a failure, even now. He took me under his wing to protect me, gave me food, lodgings, and a stipend, and what did I do to repay him? Let him die."

"Dat ain't true, chère." Gambit said firmly. "Ain't what you did at all."

My gaze snapped to him, a retort on the tip of my tongue when Rogue interjected:

"Remy's right, Shadow." She folded her arms, straightening her back. "If you call what ya did 'letting' him die, I hate to see ya fightin' to save someone."

To my surprise, murmurs of agreement sounded out around me.

"If I remember correctly," Jean said, "it was the Professor himself who told you to stop working so he could wish us goodbye. You fought until the very end."

"Indeed!" Hank nodded. "Whilst your treatments were palliative rather than curative, you expended most of your power to keep the Professor not only alive, but comfortable. If not for your Herculean efforts, Xavier might not have survived long enough for Magneto to join us to call for Lilandra, which in turn saved his life, even if he is not physically present with us anymore."

"But he-" My protest was cut short when Hank shook his head.

"Perhaps Professor Xavier was clinically deceased for a few moments. But only a few, before Shi'ar technology revived him." Hank smiled. "It does not matter if your actions alone were found wanting, if the outcome was positive regardless." He frowned thoughtfully for a moment, stroking his chin with his claws. "Shadow, if an emergency physician becomes exhausted in the performance of external cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and has to hand-over to their colleague, if that colleague ends up restoring spontaneous circulation, does that make the previous physician a failure?"

"No!" I shook my head. "No. They tried their best, they were just exhausted."

"Exactly. You personally might not have been the architect of saving the Professor's life. But through your efforts, you kept him alive long enough so he could be."

It felt like my whole world tilted on its axis. All this time...I hadn't failed at all?

"I...I just..." I couldn't grasp the words with the enormity of it all, of their faith in me. Their lack of disappointment.

"You put the Professor's survival solely on your shoulders." Scott pressed, stepping closer. "You had to save him because that is what you do. That is what you're good at." His expression softened with his voice. "So when you don't manage it, you lose your purpose." He tilted his head. "Sound about right?"

Words fully failed me then, and it was all I could do to nod as the emotions came roaring back. Except this time there was no holding it back, not when Scott had essentially read my feelings out to me if they had been nothing more than a script. My eyes burned as they filled with hot tears, my breath shuddering and heavy as a strangled sob tore itself from my throat. Gambit's arm looped around my waist and pulled me close into his body.

"Oh, sugah..." Rogue murmured.

"You are more than just a healer to us, Shadow." Storm said kindly. "You are a confidante, a friend." Through my blurred eyes, I glimpsed her angle her head towards someone. "More than a friend, in some cases."

"Indeed." Hank, now. He offered me a handkerchief, which I gratefully took with mumbled thanks. "Even if you were stripped of your powers, I would never dream of trading your partnership in my work, or your confidence in which to discuss theories of the biomedical nature."

"Yeah, who else am I gonna beat at Mario Kart?" Jubilee piped up. "Gambit?"

A chuckle bubbled out of me, and I felt the Cajun raise an eyebrow in her direction.

"Jus' keep talkin', petite." He drawled. Jubilee grinned mischievously back at him.

"It..." I swallowed hard, wiping away my tears as best I could. "It wasn't just that. I..." I couldn't bear to meet their eyes as I admitted it: "I thought you'd be mad at me."

A rippled 'what?!' sounded out amongst the assembled crew, including the man sitting next to me.

"Sugah, why'd we be mad at you?" Asked Rogue incredulously.

"Because it was the Professor." I forced my voice to be louder than a mutter, despite desiring more than anything to screw myself up into a little ball and vanish. I envied Miranda's invisibility. "You knew him so much better and longer than me, not to mention everything he did for mutant rights and this school and everything. A-And here's me, a fucking outsider, comes swanning in and cocks up healing him the one time I really needed to bring my A-game." Gambit's arm around me tightened slightly.

I dragged my gaze up to Scott and Jean. "I thought you would hate me, especially since you both knew him the longest."

They were shaking their heads before I'd even finished my sentence.

"No, of course not." Jean said, reaching out to touch my hand. "We'd never hate you for doing your best."

Scott nodded his agreement, before casting a look over the others.

"I think I can safely say that goes for everyone here too." A chorus of affirmatives and nods replied to him.

"But that's what you wanted to believe, weren't it?" Logan suddenly spoke up. His gaze was like steel, yet old. Knowing. "Easier to stomach people hatin' you for failing, then get pity you don't feel you deserve."

I nodded, and felt Gambit's grip tighten again, his head gently resting against mine.

"Explains why you got increasingly agitated despite Jean and I's attempts to comfort you." Scott said.

"You wanted us to be angry, so it would justify your self-hatred for 'failing'." Added Jean.

"Easier to run when ya don' think anyone gon' follow you." Gambit murmured, his voice rumbling through his chest.

"Ah. The evening Gambit found you outside, afflicted with hypothermia." Whilst Hank didn't say it, I felt the 'self-afflicted' hang in the air like a stain.

"'Xactly." Curling a finger under my chin, Gambit very gently lifted my head to look him, his red black eyes soft and tender. "You were runnin' again, weren't ya, chère?"

I wrapped my arms around myself, pulling my head away to stare at the floor.

"...Yeah. I...I couldn't bear it. So I ran away." Another squeeze from the Cajun.

"What changed your mind, Shadow? That made you return?" Storm asked. "I doubt it was your feelings for Gambit alone that brought you back to us, as strong as they may be."

"It was definitely the catalyst, but no, there was more to it." I traced the whorls of the wood grain on the table. "I tried to return to what my normal life was before I met you all. The hospital took me back as a 'gesture of goodwill' towards mutants after the Professor's 'death'." Logan snorted derisively. "Yeah, I know. Not worth the paper it was written on. Regardless, even if it was never definitively 'proved' I was a mutant, a lot of people saw me as one anyway."

"And it turns out that a place that has a procedure to report suspected mutant employees tends to attract people who dislike mutants. Who'd've thunk." I sighed bitterly. "I guess I was so human-passing I never noticed it, much to my shame. I will say, no-one was outright hostile to me, and interactions were polite, but they were cool in that way that you knew if there wasn't a HR department, they'd be saying something completely different. It was like being in high school again, completely iced out of every social circle and treated like a pariah."

"I am very sorry that happened to you, Shadow." Hank frowned, his tone friendly, yet a sharp edge was faint underneath it, not pointed towards me. "Are you still employed by them?"

"For now, but probably not for much longer." I said. "I know that's probably part of the reason they're isolating me - so I'll leave on my own accord, but..." I heaved out a sigh. "Fuck, after everything I've experienced here, I have no capacity for dealing with petty workplace politics."

"Indeed. It will be their loss for their foolishness." The doctor nodded.

"You have my sympathies, Shadow, but I'm not sure how this is relevant." Scott spoke, raising an eyebrow.

"Trying to go back to my old normal proved to me that I can't." I explained. "Being here, helping the team however I can, it's more than what I was doing." Raising my hand as Hank opened his mouth, I continued: "I know in my heart of hearts that I am doing good in my own way, but...it feels so...so intangible. I could see what I was doing here. See the wounds I closed, the tests Hank and I did, discovering new ways to fight the Sentinels when we trained."

I looked away, staring at a point on the wall. "Unless I suddenly get fit enough and pass the exams to become a paramedic and find someone who'd hire a mutant, I'll never do anything that feels like it matters, that makes a difference."

I smiled ruefully. "That and Ebak kinda...opened my eyes a little bit." My eyes shifted back to Gambit, watching me intently. "And gave me the push to really...reach for the things I want." Laying my hand out on the table, palm up, I smiled at him. "As that Bon Jovi song goes: 'to live while I'm alive'."

A smile spread across Gambit's lips as well, one that reached his eyes, and he placed his hand in mine, interlacing our fingers together.

"Not bad taste, chère." He commented. Jubilee snorted.

"You're sure not beating the 'old woman' allegations, Shadow." She arched an eyebrow at me, before dissolving into giggles as I stuck my tongue out at her.

"So aside from finally admittin' you and Gumbo have something goin' on," Logan drawled, giving me a bored look, "anything else you discovered? Sure hope it ain't that you can give Summers a run for his money in the speech department."

"Can it, Logan." Scott snapped. "Not the time."

Anger flashed across Logan's face, and I quickly raised my other hand:

"It's fine, Scott!" I said hurriedly. "I do need to get to the point." I squeezed Gambit's hand slightly, gathering my composure. "My point is, I didn't just come back for Remy." I lifted my chin up, meeting Scott's eyes behind his red glasses. "I'd like to rejoin the team. If you'll have me."

"What makes ya think we'd say 'no', sugah?" Rogue chuckled richly, grinning widely.

"Indeed." Jean smiled. "It was always the impression that you were leaving temporarily to clear your mind and make a more informed decision away from us."

"You are always welcome in my laboratory and in our life, Shadow!" Hank cried, smiling broadly. "I welcome your company. And your opinions on recent matters!"

"Steady on McCoy, let's not overwhelm the woman and make her change her mind." Logan commented, a small smile playing on his lips.

"That a 'yes', Wolvie?" Jubilee grinned at him. He grunted, shrugging.

"Yeah, well, someone needs to keep the rest of you in one piece." He arched an eyebrow, shooting a smirk at the Cajun. "That and Gumbo won't be sneaking out at all times at night to see her."

"Didn' know ya cared, Logan!" Quipped Gambit, grinning back at him.

"Hmph." Logan folded his arms. "Care more 'bout the security risk of leaving your window open to go chat your lady up."

"You are more than welcome back with us, Shadow." Storm smiled warmly. "As Rogue herself said, there is no reason to think we would refuse you. Both as a member of the team, and good friend."

I blushed brightly under their affection, ducking my head.

"T-Thank you. I...I just-"

"Felt like you needed permission, right?" Scott supplied.

"...Yeah." I nodded. He smiled, one that I think reached his obscured eyes.

"I know the feeling." He reached a hand out to me. "Then allow me to welcome you back to the X-Men, Shadow."

I clasped his hand to shake it, and felt Gambit press a kiss to my head.

"Welcome back, mon ombre." He rumbled deeply, the timbre of his voice brimming with affection.

"Th...Thank you." I smiled shyly, looking around the kitchen to each face of the X-Men. More people who called me friend. "All of you."

"You can have today to settle back in," Scott said, immediately back to business, "but tomorrow you'll be included in the drills with the rest of the team."

"If I may," Hank piped up, lifting a clawed finger, "I have identified a slight issue."

"Go on, Hank?" Scott frowned slightly.

"I presume you've returned to full-time employment, Shadow? Will you be able to make time for your duties around it?" The doctor asked.

"I will, one way or t'other." I replied. "Gonna submit a request for part-time hours later today, and see what they say. Either they grant me the request; in which I'll get the time, or they'll refuse me, or I'll be fired." I lifted a shoulder. "If they refuse me, I'll just hand in my notice. Life's too damn short for their nonsense."

Scott nodded.

"I'll take that into consideration."

"Have you discussed this with your parents?" Asked Storm.

"Not yet. I was gonna head home today and get things in motion with my work." I explained.

"Need a ride back, chère?" Gambit asked. I swore I saw Rogue roll her eyes out of the corner of my eye.

"Ah, it's okay," I smiled at him. "I know a guy. He's waiting for me to check in, and he can take me back."

"Then let's not keep him waiting." Scott spoke. "You're dismissed, team."

---

One quick call later, and Ebak was stepping out of the shadows of one of the X-Mansion's rooms, wrapping me up in a big hug.

"Hello Gremlin." He murmured affectionately.

"Hey big guy." I replied, squeezing him gently.

When I opened my eyes and stepped back, we were behind a set of trees I knew to be in my parents' neighbourhood, their bare branches reaching for the sky. The suburb was quiet except the distant chattering of the local starling flock as it roved from garden to garden.

"Can't get any closer?" I asked him as we stepped out onto the path, raised and cracked by the tree roots that snaked under it.

"I could get a little closer, but figured the walk would give us time to talk." Ebak smiled, gesturing for me to start off, falling into step with me on his hearing side. "So, m'dear, how'd it go?"

"Well, they let me back onto the team, so that's good, right?" I smiled shyly.

"You've decided to rejoin them?" He smiled warmly, quickly pulling me into a half-hug. "I'm glad."

"Yeah. Decided to grab life by the lapels, like you said." I met his dark brown eyes. "Do the things that I want to do."

"Mmm." He hummed, before smirking, eyes glinting. "I have pretty good ideas, don't I?"

"Oh my God, you are never letting me live down the 'hot shower on a hot day' thing, are you?" I groaned, to his laughter.

"Nope." He grinned widely. "Never."

"I changed my mind," I declared, "can I go back to being an only child again?" Ebak's laugh was a full belly one; a sound I loved to hear, even at my expense. "In seriousness though, I heard from Jubilee that you and the others that you stopped going to the mansion after I left. Was...was that because of me?"

He nodded.

"Myst said it didn't feel right for us to go there whilst you weren't, and we agreed." He explained. "Lemming stayed on the longest to work, and Miranda...has her own reasons, but all in all we stopped going when you did."

My heart dropped into a bucket of ice, the painful wave of guilt pulsing through my veins. No, that hadn't been my intention at all - I was supposed to leave the mansion and their company, not the others. I never wanted-

"I'm sorry." I breathed. "I-"

"Shh shh shh." Ebak moved over to me, taking hold of my upper arms. "Hush. No blaming yourself." He raised a finger as I tried to protest. "I'll tell Ber!"

"But El-"

"Don't 'but El' me, I'm being serious." He interjected. "This was an agreement between all of us, because even if it had been someone else like Miranda, Myst or Ber, we still wouldn't feel happy going to a place our friend felt like they had to leave." Ebak smiled. "Where'd you think we got all that free time to be with you?"

"I..." I grabbed and hugged him tightly, emotion overwhelming me once more. He embraced me just as firmly. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Shad." My brother murmured softly. "We love you, you know?"

Tears pricked at my eyes.

"Y-Yeah. And I love you all so much too. I'm so lucky to have friends like you."

"And we're lucky to have you too." Ebak replied, patting my back before he pulled back. "Now c'mon. Let's get you back home before they send out a search party."

"You did tell 'em where I'd be, right?" I asked as we set off again. I remembered leaving a note...

"Well yes, but they're your parents. They're going to worry." Ebak smiled. "Just like we do."

"True." I nodded. Suddenly, a realization hit me like a lorry. "Oh...God."

"Hmm?" He hummed, arching his scarred eyebrow.

"I just realized." I groaned. "I gotta introduce Gambit to my parents at some point."

"Haha!" My brother barked out a laugh. "Good luck with that!"

"Thanks! Very reassuring!"

Ebak patted my back.

"It'll be fine, Shadow." He smiled. "He loves cats, doesn't he? They'll just need to see him with Spock, and they'll love him!"

"Uh huh, the six foot Cajun thief with a motorbike and penchant for being a flirt." I said flatly. "He'll go down real well next to Tom."

"Hehe, maybe." Ebak smiled knowingly at me, a sparkle in his eyes. "But that's not going to stop you, is it?"

I grinned widely.

"No. Not in the slightest."

[enjoythesilentworld]

Wille's Month - Friends

day 16! 💜 @youngroyals-events are yall tired of me yet lol

Wille and Simon are very good friends, indeed.

read below the cut or on ao3 (G, 1.5k) <3

The weather is so nice, and Simon looks so beautiful, with his late summer tan and still-damp curls from their shower that morning, that Wille barely notices the little bakery his boyfriend is dragging him into. 

As a last hurrah before the winter months, they’ve taken a trip to a random little northern town to swim and lounge and play house together. Technically, they already live together and had done so for a few years, but there was something so domestic about sitting in the backyard of their rented villa, sipping coffee in the morning. There was something, still domestic but in a different way, about being as loud as they wanted without having to worry about the neighbors. Making dinner in the big kitchen and shouting across the house, it felt like a window into the next many, many years they’d have together. The whole trip had been so easy, so calming, and Wille just loves Simon so much, and is so grateful they get to have this life with each other. 

A small bell on the bakery door rings as they enter and Wille is hit with a wave of sweet jam and crisp pastry. It’s a small space, but the owners have managed to cram a lot in. Bookshelves line the walls, filled with a mixture of books and picture frames and random art pieces. The tables and chairs are a charming mixture of woods and metals, all different colors and sizes. 

From behind the counter, a small old woman perks up, eyes immediately zeroing in on Wille. Her attire matches the maximalism of the bakery, with at least three different animal prints and several necklaces stacked around her neck. A large pair of square glasses sit on her tiny nose, partially blocking the heavy pink blush on her round cheeks. He braces himself, never knowing how people – especially older folk – are going to react to seeing their Ex-Crown Prince, and he can’t read her face. 

“Kronprinsen!” In a flurry of movement, at a speed truly impressive for such a small lady, the old woman pops up from her chair and rushes around the counter. She pauses only for a moment to give a small curtsy, like an afterthought, before rushing off to begin wiping down tables and straightening the millions of knick-knacks scattered around the room. Before Wille can correct her, she’s rambling, face drawn up in a serious expression, “I told Robert, I said, one of these days the Prince is going to show up and you’ll be sorry you didn’t clean up like I told you. Every day I tell him he needs to wash the windows– I can’t reach the tops of them except with the stool, so he tells me he’ll do it because he doesn’t want me falling off– But, here we are, years later, and he still hasn’t cleaned the damn windows!” 

Wille and Simon stop just inside the door, watching as the tiny tornado of a woman flits around the room, continuing to complain about ‘Robert’. She has a no-bullshit but almost whimsical manner about her that reminds him of Maddie. Realizing she may never stop, Wille gently interrupts her when she pauses to inhale between sentences.

“I’m actually– I’ve stepped down,” he says quickly, unsure how to break this news. “I’m just Wilhelm, now. Just Wille.” 

This makes the woman stop in her tracks. He tenses, expecting her to yell, but when she turns to him, she doesn’t look too upset. She simply looks a little curious.

“Have you? Why’s that?” 

“Um.” He isn’t exactly sure how to explain this, either. “I didn’t– It just wasn’t for me?” 

It comes out as a bit of a question, and it’s probably not the best response he’s given about the whole thing, but it’s been a few years now so people hardly ask him anymore and he’s out of practice. Simon gives a slight chuckle beside him at Wille’s fumbling, but the old woman doesn’t seem to care, just nods and approaches them. 

“Well, good for you. I don’t watch the news much, so I must’ve missed it.” She sticks out a tiny hand. “I am Ebba. This is my bakery. Been mine and Robert’s for decades, now, not that he does anything around here, the old fart.” 

As Wille and Simon shake her hand, they manage to introduce themselves quickly before she starts on another rant about the history of the building, and how she makes all the pastries and pies herself, and how any of the art and books are for sale, too, if they’d like. 

“Are you here for breakfast? Lunch?” Ebba totters back behind the counter. “What can I get for you? The scones are fresh, just took them out of the oven a few minutes ago. What are you two doing in town?” 

Noticing Wille’s astonishment at this burst of energy in the form of a 5’1” woman, Simon takes the lead, approaching the case and nodding intently as Ebba begins explaining every option. 

“These are all very beautiful, Ebba,” he says kindly, a bright smile on his face. Simon has a way with people that makes Wille feel like a bit of a dunce sometimes. It’s supposed to be Wille charming people, who is the former-royal and had actually taken classes in this, but something about the light in Simon’s eyes and the kindness in his heart draws people in. Ebba has not actually smiled yet, just spoken at them with an intense stare, but even Wille can tell she’s taken with Simon, offering him samples and answering all of his questions with excitement. 

“That one looks really good.” Simon points to a random pastry in the case, half-distracted by the sample of cookie he’s currently chewing on.

Noticing the small label, Wille cuts in, “That one has raisins, you won’t like it.” 

“Now, that’s a good friend, right there.” Ebba nods her head in approval. “My dear friend Susanna doesn’t like raisins, either. She does like this other one, though. It’s similar but without raisins, if you’d like to try.” 

Both men freeze. Wille opens his mouth to correct her, but she’s already grabbed a different pastry and is telling them more about her friend and how Susanna shares the bounty of her garden with Ebba so she can use the fresh fruit and vegetables in her pastries. He glances at Simon, who just looks back at him with a smile and a shrug. 

“She sounds like a lovely friend, Ebba,” he says when she hands over a sliver of pastry. “And you’re right, Wille is a great friend. He’s always looking out for me.” 

Simon reaches out and gives Wille a friendly pat on the shoulder, but then slowly slides his hand down Wille’s back and pinches the soft skin of his hip, saying, “He knows exactly what I like.” Ebba doesn’t seem to notice the drop in Simon’s tone or the way Wille’s knees buckle slightly at the look Simon is giving him, she just nods again. 

“How long have you two been friends, then?” 

“We met in school,” Wille squeaks out when Simon looks up at him expectantly, hand now having traveled a bit lower to slip into the back pocket of Wille’s shorts. 

“That’s nice,” she says. “You know, my son is also still very close with his best friend from school. That boy is like my second son, after all these years. Of course, they’re married now, but the principle stands. Lifelong friends are very important.” 

Wille lets out surprised chuckles at her words. As Ebba continues to tell them about her son and his husband, Wille leans over to whisper, “Do we not look like a couple?” 

Simon shrugs and smiles teasingly. “She must have missed your hard-launch speech all those years ago.” 

“Sounds like I need to put a ring on it, so people know you’re mine,” he mumbles into Simon’s ear, relishing in the goosebumps that break out across his beautiful skin and the tiny gasp that falls from his lips. Simon squeezes at his bum with the hand still tucked in his back pocket, and Wille has to swallow a yelp. 

Ebba continues to tell them tons of rambling stories, but eventually they manage to pick out a few pastries for an early lunch and tip her kindly for her time. Wille finds a cute ceramic on a shelf and buys that, too, which Simon rolls his eyes at. They wave goodbye, promising to come back and visit, and exit the bakery.

Wille holds out his new purchase, a well-crafted sculpture of two orangey-pink fish kissing, and giggles. “It’s us.”

Simon hums and wraps his arm around Wille’s waist, leading him down the street. “Friends don’t kiss like that,” he says.  

Wille steps in front of Simon, then gently grabs him by the chin and presses a lingering kiss to his lips. “Good thing we’re not friends.” 

.

“Are we not friends?”

“Simoooon.”

“I’d like to think we’re both, at the very least.”

“You know what I meant. Come here.”